Tess’s flesh crawled and she pressed herself harder into the mattress, trying like hell to get away from him, even with nowhere to go and no way to escape. Teeth bared she glared up into Chad’s leering face, hating him. Hating him with every fiber of her being. “You can fuck me until the end of eternity, Chad, but you’ll never have me. You never did.”
A hard, damp fingertip pushed into her mouth and she tasted her own musk mingled through the retching slime of decomposing flesh. Chad dropped his head closer to hers, smiling broadly. “‘Having’ you is all there is, blossom.” He gave his hips a quick thrust and his cock pushed harder at her sex, taunting her in the very way he had when he was alive, a sexual power play of the most vile kind, like a feral tomcat playing with a frightened mouse. “Open your heart to me again. Let me be there and eternity will be…” he ground his cock harder into her sex, mashing at the soft flesh of her nether lips, cruel, brutal, and inescapable, “…blissful pleasure.”
A perfidious shot of heat stabbed into Tess’s pussy, tight and wet. The same heat Chad had meted upon her body night after night when he came to her as the silent lover of her dreams.
“Yes, Tess,” Chad purred, worming his cock harder to her entry. “I heard your longing and I came.”
Heard your longing…
The words slid through her mind and Tess’s chest squeezed tight as a cold thought struck her. She’d caused this. If she’d faced the psychological guilt of Chad’s obsession earlier, if she’d let herself heal rather than flee to the forced isolation of Kangaroo Creek, her heart would have purged the hate she had for Chad, for herself, days after her admittance to hospital. But she hadn’t. She’d closed her emotions, denied her sex, and let her heart become an empty, wanting shell Chad’s distorted, perverted love had found all too easy to possess. And he’d fed from it. Continuously.
She’d caused it all.
God help me.
Looking up into his face, she saw naked obsession there. Any second now his teasing game of control would stop. And then her life was over.
She closed her eyes, waiting for his first inhuman penetration.
And saw Jared.
Jared’s crooked grin, his stormy blue-gray eyes, his long, lean body threaded with the strength of the world and yet so soft to the touch under her lips.
Jared’s soul. Held exposed for her to see, in Chad’s cruel grip.
Yet she hadn’t needed to see it to know it was pure. She’d known from the moment his warm hands had curled around her arms—what felt like a lifetime ago but was only this morning—making her feel something apart from self-hate and pain. Had known the moment her head started filling with images of him every time his name came to mind. Images of wild passion that made her heart—that empty, starved organ—soar.
His soul was pure and he’d given it to save her.
An act of sacrifice.
And she loved him for it in a way her bruised heart had never known was possible.
“Say you belong to me, Tessa,” Chad commanded on a hiss, pushing his swollen cock harder at her entry. “Tell me you’re mine.”
Opening her eyes, she stared into his face and saw a pitiful creature.
Driven by lust. Thwarted by love.
A frown pulled at her forehead and she shook her head, pitying him all the more. “No, Chad. I can’t.”
The fire in Chad’s eyes erupted into icy flames of rage and his mouth curled into a venomous snarl. “Tell me you’re mine.”
“Fuck you.”
His expression twisted into furious insanity. His hands on her body grew cruel. His cock ground at her entry, there but not inside her. “Tell me.”
She shook her head, fighting against him and the shackles on her wrists. “No.”
“Please!”
Frustration tore at his scream. Desperation at his face.
A glimmer of hope flared within Tess. Could he not…could he not…do what he wanted…oh God, could he not penetrate her without her permission? Was she—
“Fucking tell me,” he shrieked in her face, his cock hard against her sex. “Please, Tessa, tell me. Tell me.”
She writhed beneath him, hope giving her strength. “Let me go,” she cried. “I’m never going to tell—”
He slapped her, his palm a stinging strike on her cheek. “Tell me you’re mine, you fucking bitch.”
Tess’s head slammed back into the mattress.
He hit her again.
Her face exploded in hideous pain, fresh fear detonated in her soul. He might not be able to rape her, but he could still hurt her.
Would he kill her this way?
Or was she dead already?
“Tell me, bitch,” he wailed, grinding his vile cock at her folds again. “Tell me.”
She shrank from him and did the only thing she could think of, the only thing to keep sane.
She drew every memory of Jared she had, few in number but powerful in strength, into her soul. Every breath, taste, and touch. The way his lips curled into that lazy, lopsided grin whenever he saw her, the way his hands skimmed over her flesh with reverent worship. The way his mouth drank from hers, drawing new life with his kiss when she thought there was no life left in her soul to have.
Chad’s fingers tore at her wrists, his palm struck her face, and all Tess could think of was Jared Pierce.
“No,” Chad screamed into her face, eyes blazing with frenzied ire, flesh suddenly rupturing with fresh, weeping patches of decay. “No, you love me.” His cock rammed at her entry. “Me.”
Looking up into his crazed face, Tess shook her head. “I’m sorry, Chad. I’m truly sorry.”
She closed her eyes again, drew Jared into her heart…
… and let go of all the hate and anger and contempt for Chad poisoning her blood. Let it go, and let him go. Once and for all.
“No.”
Chad’s scream shattered the air.
He reeled off her, skin falling from his body in rotten flaps as he staggered across the floor.
“No,” he shouted, glaring at her, chest heaving, fists bunched at his sides. “You cannot do that, you cannot do—”
A roar filled the shack, as if the ground was being rent apart. Chad’s eyes flung wide open and he looked at his feet, shaking his head wildly. “No, you can’t. She’s mine forever,” he screamed at the floor. “Mine. You can’t take me away from her. You can’t.”
Another roar rocked through the shack and suddenly the air around Chad turned black. Black and boiling and purposeful. It formed into five long fingers of death and wrapped around his rapidly decaying body, holding him firm.
“No,” he screamed one more time, thrashing about in futile effort before—dense black air seeping into his mouth and eyes and nostrils—the floor disappeared under his feet and he was dragged downward.
From the room, the Void.
Existence.
Tess lay on the bed, breath shallow and quick. Her body ached from Chad’s gruesome assault and the cruel shackles still imprisoning her on the bed. The walls warped and bent around her, as if the shack was a living thing suffocating. She stared at them, numb with terror. Why did they still exist? Chad was gone, why weren’t they? Why wasn’t she back in her lounge room?
A cold lump suddenly filled her throat and Tess’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.” Wherever the hell she was, she was stuck, completely alone and chained to a bed.
Heart pounding against her breast, she yanked on the chains attached to her arms. They dug into her palms, cutting her flesh with each frantic, futile jerk.
Another stab of cold dread speared her heart and she swallowed, her mouth feeling as if coated in dust. Whatever fucked-up existence Chad had brought her to, it was as real and solid as her own lounge room. The chains weren’t going to break, no matter how hard she pulled on them.
So, after all this, after everything that’s just happened, you’re going to die of starvation, spread-eagle on a bed that might or might not exist. Great. Just the way you wante
d to go.
The thought was dark and bitter, bringing hot tears to her eyes and she squeezed them shut. She wasn’t going to cry. She might be trapped in some perverted after-life hell, naked and unable to move, but she wasn’t going to cry.
So what are you going to do then?
Grinding her teeth, Tess tightened her grip on the chains. “Get the fuck off this bed.”
“Why?”
Tess’s eyes snapped open, and she looked up into a stormy blue-gray gaze.
“I can think of lots of things to do in a bed when you’re with the right person.”
Tess stared, too afraid to blink in case she was seeing things. “Jared?”
For an answer, Jared Pierce—looking exactly as he did the very morning she met him—reached out his right hand and placed it on the solid shackle locked around her left wrist. There was a moment of soft warmth on her skin, like the sun peeking through heavy clouds on a winter’s day, and then the shackle disappeared. All the shackles disappeared. “C’mon, Tess,” he said, grin turning into a wide smile. “Let’s go.”
He slipped his fingers through hers and a burst of dazzling white light flooded through the shack. No, not the shack. The shack was gone. Luminous white light surrounded them. Just luminous white light. Nothing seemed to be, except diffused, pure light.
And, of course, Jared.
Gazing into his face, Tess let him draw her close, still unable to believe him there. “I saw…” she began, but the words caught in her constricted throat. “I saw Chad take your…”
Jared shook his head as he slid his palms up her back, the tip of one finger tracing her scar with infinite tenderness. His warm, hard body melded to hers and a shiver of sheer joy passed through her. He was there. Really there. Holding her. Touching her.
“It doesn’t matter what you saw, Tess.” He brushed his lips over hers, gentle and reverent. “All that matters is now.” He kissed her again, lips more fervent, tongue flicking into her mouth to touch the edge of her teeth before he lifted his head and gave her another grin. “Just this one moment.”
Tess threaded her fingers into the silken strands of his shaggy blond hair and held him close, feeling the heat of his desire grow harder and longer against her belly. She had no idea where they were, whether she was alive, whether any of what happened was real, but Jared was here. When he shouldn’t be. With her. And that was all that mattered.
With a low groan she pulled his head down to hers, capturing his willing mouth with open lips.
Lightheaded, Tess dragged her hands down Jared’s back, thrilling at the smooth, sculpted curves of his muscles under her palms. A sense of weightlessness came over her, a euphoric giddiness growing stronger with every caress from Jared’s tongue, every nip of his teeth on her lips. She curled her fingers over his ass and pulled his hips harder to hers, anchoring herself to his body through a contact that was both burning and taunting. She could feel his rigid cock through his jeans, pressing against the sensitive curve of her mons, making her pussy damp. She wanted to feel him inside her. She needed to feel him inside her.
She needed to feel something wonderful and incredible and pure after Chad’s assault.
She needed Jared.
With an impatient growl, she pushed his hips away and moved her hands to his fly, flipping the buttons undone. Before her eager fingers could release his cock however, it sprang free, a long, thick shaft that filled her hands completely and burned her flesh with its pulsating heat.
Jared’s flaring nostrils brushed her cheek as he sucked in a swift breath, his tongue plunging deeper into her mouth in appreciation. She slid her hand down the length of his cock, cupping his full, heavy balls in her palm before drawing closed fingers back up to his organ’s swollen head. A bead of pre-cum seeped from the small slit caught by Tess’s thumb and smeared over the glans. Jared sucked in another sharp breath through his nose, stabbing his hips forward. His cock pumped into her hand, harder, longer, an urgent need surging through its taut skin.
Tess moaned, pulling her mouth free of Jared’s as that need joined her own. “Please, Jared,” she whispered, rolling her thumb across the bulbous head above her fingers. “Please.”
“I want to sink into your warmth, Tess,” he stated, his voice low and shaky, as if he fought with a tremendous force. “I want to feel consumed, taken, and owned by you.”
“Then do it,” she commanded on a gasp. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”
Angry-ocean eyes roamed her face and his body grew still. “Tess, you need to know…” He shook his head, the white glow surrounding him shot with shadowy ribbons. “This is not forever.”
Tess opened her mouth, but Jared pressed firm fingers to her lips, stopping her. “Neither of us are where we are meant to be. This is but a stolen moment.”
A tight pressure closed around Tess’s heart and she frowned, staring into his eyes. “What are you telling me, Jared?”
That crooked grin returned and he ran his palm down her torso to squeeze her ass. “That Heaven and Hell are about to get a lesson in true passion. One Time will never erase.” He leaned forward and crushed her lips with his, but not before Tess saw a sorrowful flicker fill his eyes.
What are you hiding, she wanted to ask, but his mouth moved over hers with such wanton need her head grew giddy again and her legs lost all strength.
Without a word, Jared scooped her up, one arm curling under her knees, the other under her arms to hold her close to his lean body. His warm flesh pressed to hers and Tess gasped, a shot of liquid delight flooding into her pussy as she realized he was now as naked as she.
“You’re not the only impatient one here, Tess Darcy.” His murmured words caressed her skin. “I don’t want to waste any time with clothes.”
A kaleidoscope of opalescent colors shimmered through the white as he took possession of her mouth once more. His tongue mated with hers, flicked at her lips, and then he placed her down, resting her on nothing. Her body supported on a bed of air that molded to her like mist.
“I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you, Tess,” he said, standing over her, the white light radiating from his being an almost blinding shroud. “I felt your pain and it made me ache. I sensed your strength and it made me strong.” He pulled in a long, ragged breath, raw emotion shining in his eyes as they roamed her face. “My heart stopped beating thirty years ago, yet when I saw you it became a pounding force I couldn’t ignore.” He took a step, spread legs straddling her thighs, staring down at her with undeniable longing. “And still can’t.”
Knees dropping into the white nothingness that Tess lay on, he kissed her again, mouth ravenous and urgent as his balls rubbed over the flat plane of her belly.
The contact was electric. Bolts of twisting energy scorched a path straight to the dampness between Tess’s thighs. She reached up, wanting to thread her fingers in his hair, but his strong hands stopped her, catching her wrists and planting them beside her head, holding them still as he continued to ravish her lips.
She arched into him, the heat from his swollen balls seeping into her sex. Calling. Teasing. With a roll of her hips she drew her pussy in line with their heavy weight, grinding her mons against them in slow circles that caused Jared to groan low in his chest. His tongue lashed at hers and he pulled her wrists together, holding them with one hand as the other dragged down her arm to one uplifted breast. He cupped it, pinching its erect nipple between two knuckles until Tess writhed beneath him, pushing her pussy to his rigid cock and whimpering in supplication.
A growl rose in his throat and he tore his mouth from hers, scoring it along the line of her jaw, up to her ear. “I’ve died twice and I still yearn for you, Tess. Desire you. I wasn’t meant to, but I do. Nothing will ever change that.” He nipped at her lobe, each gentle nibble adding to the squirming tension in her pussy. “I could die a hundred deaths but that will never change. No matter what happens to Creation.”
She moaned and lifted her hips, his words driving her wild,
his hands wilder. “God, Jared.” Her voice fell from her lips in a husky whisper. “Oh God, I want you inside me so much. Please…”
His mouth moved over her ear, tongue flicking into its shell before he scorched a path down her neck to her collarbone. He rained her flushed skin with soft bites until she cried out, ramming her pussy to his cock, a wordless plea for fulfilment.
But still Jared continued to deny her. His mouth worked down to her free breast, capturing the taut nipple and suckling deeply. Hot barbs of sensation ricocheted through her, buried into the constricting center of her sex. “Christ, that’s so good,” she murmured, rolling her head from side to side against her bed of ethereal light. “So good.”
Jared’s teeth closed around the aching nub, pulling at it in rhythm with his squeezing, fondling hand on her other breast. She arched beneath him, pushing her nipple harder to his mouth, wanting to feel his teeth and tongue raze that sensitive peak more. Her sex contracted, gripping for a cock still so torturously denied her. “I’m aching for you, Jared,” she said, straining against the hand on her wrists. She wanted to touch him, feel his smooth, warm flesh under her palm.
Instead, Jared raised his head, blew a fine stream of cool air on her distended nipple and then met her eyes with his. “Do you trust me, Tess?”
The question was as serious as the fire in his gaze and Tess nodded, incapable of forming the word. Yes. She did.
A whisper of pressure brushed along the length of her body and suddenly Tess found her wrists held in the softest bands of shimmering light, an imprisonment so heavenly, hot liquid gushed into her gripping sex.
Both hands now free to worship her body, Jared continued to stare into her eyes. And worship her body, they did. He palmed her breasts until she whimpered and begged for him to stop, her sex so tight and wet she could feel her pleasure dampening her thighs. Lips curled into a lazy smile, he paused long enough for Tess to drag in breath after ragged breath in an effort to regain control, but not long enough to let the building tension in her body subside.
Shadow Whispers Page 12
