Page 116 of The Fire Went Wild

And I itch.

I itch and I itch.

The fourth time,I finally start to solidify. My body seems to take up space in the darkness. Something deep inside my throat tingles, a kind of faint healing sensation. I drift through the void, considering the outlines of my form, and I wonder how long I’ve been dead.

It lasts longer this time, this awareness. Hours or days. Years? No, I don’t think it’s been that long. But I can feel movement inside my body. A churning that tells me I’m not really dead. And sometimes I can feel the world around me. Softness against my back. Delicate prickling across my skin. Coolness. Warmth. A rough palm.

I float like this, caught between life and death. I don’t know how long it lasts until I drift away again.

The fifth time,I wake up to sensation. I wake up topleasure.

I feel everything. The blankets I’m stretched out on, the rapid hammering of my heart, my short, panting breaths. And a column of fire between my legs, swelling up through my body in an endless way of heat.

My first word is a scream and the first thing I see is webbed light falling across Jaxon’s face, his long dark lashes fluttering as he opens his eyes and then meets my gaze.

He grins.

“Welcome back, cher.”

His words sound strange, muffled and distorted, and I can only moan in response. Actually speaking feels impossible, so I just arch into him, trying to remember what it’s like to have a body. It’s not like this. Not most of the time. I’m pulsing with ecstasy.

“What was it like,” he whispers into my ear, and I barely comprehend what he’s saying. “Coming while you revived?”

I whimper and wind my arms around him, and this all feels familiar, in a way. Me waking up to Jaxon flooding me with pleasure. But the last time I was asleep, not dead.

I roll my hips and lift my legs to wrap them around his back. My body almost seems to act of its own accord, like it remembers what to do more than me. Jaxon grunts and kisses my neck, and I give myself over to the pleasure, focusing my gaze on the crisscross of branches and bones and sunlight overhead.The tomb, I think idly, barely remembering. The tomb Jaxon crafted for me out of gifts from the swamp. It looks different. Leafier. The sunlight has a greenish quality.

And it’s warm now. It was cold before.

“How long has it been?” I gasp out, twisting my fingers in Jaxon’s hair. It hurts to talk, my vocal cords grinding together.

He pumps into me with his cock, and I remember, through a haze, how he asked if he could fuck me while I was dead, shy and nervous, not quite meeting my eye. How the question flushed me with heat and I saidof courseand then thought about it later, when he fucked me in his bed, and the idea made me come.

That agonizing pressure builds in my core again, Jaxon’s big cock a flint against my steel. I scrape my nails into his back and he groans, his breath hot against my skin.

“You’re gonna come for me again,” he growls.

“Yes,” I whisper. “How long has it?—”

“Year and a half.” He kisses me hard, our tongues grappling together. “And I’ve missed you so fucking much, little Hunter.”

I thrust up into him, so close to my orgasm that my body shudders with the need for release. Jaxon braces his arms on either side of my head, his own thrusts turning erratic, and I know he’s not going to last much longer. I squeeze down on him, milking him, and when he comes so do I, our intermingled moans drifting out of my tomb.

Jaxon slumps down on my chest, breathing hard, and I trail my fingers up his spine, trying to remember how to move for real. How to sit up. How to walk. Dragging myself out of this tomb feels like it’s going to be impossible.

“How do you feel?” Jaxon’s voice startles me.

I swallow. “Strange.” Talking still hurts.

“I was trying to time it so you’d wake up while I was—” Jaxon peels himself off me and grins, a little embarrassed. “You were starting to show signs of revival. It looks like I guessed right.”

I take him in. He’s cut his hair, and it skims across the tops of his shoulders. His skin is darker than I remember, like he’s spent time in the sun, and his bare chest is gleaming with sweat

A year and a half, he’d said. It’s summer.

“I know that probably made things even stranger.” He brushes my cheek with a tenderness that makes me want to fuck him again. “But I also thought it’d be kinda fun.”

“It was more than kinda,” I tell him, catching his hand and kissing his palm. “But I—can’t move. Talking hurts.”