Her throaty moan is pained as she tries to trap my hand between her legs.

“You don’t know if you want the pain to go on or stop, it’s such sweet agony. That’s how you make me feel, Halen. Every second with you is lovely agony, and the pain feels so goddamn good—that satisfying, edging bliss that’s right there, balancing between torture and ecstasy.”

The back of her head rolls along my chest, her body shuddering with desperate need for release. I’m so fucking hard that with one well-timed thrust sewn to her sexy movements, I’ll come apart.

The relief would be sublime, but fleeting.

I want to exist in her frenzy.

Despite her whimper of protest, I return my hand to hers on the rail and shamelessly rock against her perfect ass, becoming a madman as I abstain from giving in to her need. The violent, unrelenting urge to sink my cock inside her soaked pussy thrashes inside my chest like a caged animal.

“God, that’s it,” I urge her, my voice a coarse whisper. “You can feel me. I’m always inside you. Clench that sweet, needy cunt tighter and take me deeper. You can feel me as I thrust harder, becoming unhinged as I hit that deep, empty ache.”

Her breathing intensifies, and I swear to whatever divine entity hung the stars, I could get off on the erotic sound of her breath alone. The throaty cadence sends an arousing jolt to my groin, and I lock my jaw against the feral need to spread her ass and spill deep inside her.

“I’m losing my goddamn mind, Halen.” I groan over her ear, rocking harder into her. “I need to feel you come for me, sweetness.”

Her body responds to my demand as she pulls her core tight, her yearning to quench the insatiable hunger provoking the demon within to take her far past the edge.

We are not a dead philosopher’s soul mates. We are not born from divine thoughts. We were forged in the darkest recess by primal fire and base elements, where not even the gods dare to cross.

We could spend eternity locked in each other’s embrace, with me whispering my passion into her ear, feeding off her arousal, bringing her to orgasm again and again, and I could be sustained by her heightened emotions alone.

And I’d still crave more.

“I know why you seek the shadows, little Halen,” I say, my voice guttural. “I know what thoughts stir you awake at night, the panic that invades your mind when the silence gets too loud.”

I taste the full hit of her fear as she pushes back into me, her desire to run a hot lash down my spine. I bracket my body harder around hers and inhale her intoxicating scent of honeysuckle.

“I’ll be there in the dark with you when you wake,” I whisper, “when you’re trembling, terrified at how turned on you are by the thought of taking a life, the taste of revenge so satisfying and arousing it nearly makes you come in your sleep. I’ll be there for you to take it out on, to rake your nails over my flesh and draw blood and punish me as I fuck you senseless, until you’re unable to think about anything at all. You can lose yourself in the rage, and I promise, when you’re spent, I’ll make tender love to you.”

God damn, she’s so close, her entire body trembles with her pending climax.

“That’s my wicked girl,” I say with a deep groan. “All those dark, deviant thoughts you hide away…I sense them, Halen. I see them in the storm of your beautiful eyes, feel them when you pierce your nails into my skin. And I taste them like the sweetest sin in your kiss, the blood stained on your lips.”

“Oh, fucking god…Kallum…” She’s unintelligible as she fastens her eyes closed, her body flushing hot and rioting with the agonizing desire to come as her orgasm fights to grab hold.

I dig my fingers into the backs of her hands, refusing her escape, a monster as I feed off every painful current tearing through her body.

“I’m the only one, Halen. Say it.”

She arches her back, her chest rising to chase each breath. “You’re the only one.”

“I’ve felt your pain, so beautifully broken. I’ve seen you at your darkest, and you never looked more exquisite. You’re a vision bathed in moonlight and blood.” I catch her earlobe between my teeth to earn a soft moan. “I’ll be the one to worship you until the end of time, when those forgotten gods scatter the last of the dying stars from the sky.”

My body is one white-hot strike away from igniting. To regain leverage, I look past the terrace. The marsh is a band of black in the distance, the dark all-consuming. The meteors race and burn up in shimmering trails across the night sky as the cosmos die right along with us.

Breaths ragged, she reclines her head against my chest as she straddles the divide between pain and pleasure. “I need the pain, Kallum. Please.”

A growl rips free. “And I need you thoroughly wrecked.”

Restraint annihilated, I thrust my cock against her, so close to hitting that wet heat as I draw a torn moan from her mouth, hellbent on keeping my word.

Everything that is violent and lovely about my muse is reflected in the chaos of her suffering. She wants me to hurt her, to punish her—to let her experience physical pain in place of the one that haunts the darkest corner of her soul.

I drag the collar of her blouse down her shoulder to expose her silky skin, and the sight of her injured flesh drives a fire-hot brand into my sternum.

I’m all fury and wrath as I run my thumb over the gash along the joint of her neck from where the priestess destroyed my teeth imprint. The very place I marked a sigil on my muse has been defaced, and I’ve never wanted to burn the world to ash the way I want to right now.

Suppressing a furious roar, I give in to the base monster and sink my teeth into the delicate arch of her shoulder.

I breathe her in as I bite down, feasting on her flesh like a ravenous devil, my craving for her renewed as the sigil she scored in my skin flames against the seductive friction her fight offers.

Closing my hand around hers on the rail, my gaze falls to the ring circling my thumb, the weapon which has failed me time and again to banish my muse from my thoughts.

The danger in sigils becoming conscious lies in the madness. Consumed by our desire, psychosis is inevitable.

And I am a fucking maniac for her, my sanity lost when I failed to purge her from my mind. To feed my obsession, I welcomed utter ruination.

No one can ruin me more utterly than Halen St. James.

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6

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PLEASURE PRINCIPLE

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HALEN

I’ve only ever experienced this sensation on the fading edges of sleep, in some lucid dream where I wake right as an orgasm takes hold. Some tantric, elusive pleasure that teases and edges in an infuriating climb, the pressure in my core a painful ache, desperate for release.

I stop breathing.

I stop moving.

As Kallum bites into the soft curve of my shoulder, every muscle locks in agony that the pleasure will never break. I release a small cry before I catch my lip between my teeth to stifle the sound. Moisture gathers in the creases of my shuttered eyes, and finally, the heartache that’s been building into an unbearable pressure surrenders with the piercing of his teeth.

Kallum affectionately kisses the bite, his lips trailing across the tender throb. “Open your eyes,” he breathes over the enflamed skin of my shoulder, his breath heated, arousing. “Breathe.”

My eyes open, my lungs steal crucial air, as the roll of his body along mine plunges me over the edge. The hard feel of his chest is maddening as he grinds into me, forcing my back to arch and my blouse to graze my nipples with satisfying friction.