Cora grabs my ass, spearing me with her fingernails, tightening her legs around me while she moans, “Yes…”

Goddamn.

I pull out completely, flipping her around until she’s on her stomach, and reenter her from behind. She cries out, fisting the bedsheets as I slink my arm under her stomach and yank her up, driving into her with zero restraint. I tug her hair back until she’s fully flush against me, back to chest, moaning and mewling. One of my hands roves over her breasts, twisting each nipple, while the other finds her throat and tilts her face towards me. Our mouths collide over her shoulder, and I can taste every beautiful fucking sound I’m ripping out of her, our tongues tangling and hungry as our bodies crash together.

My lips make their way to her ear again as my right hand slides between her legs and finds her clit. “You’re mine, Corabelle,” I breathe out, claiming her, branding her, marking her as my own. Her wetness slicks my fingers as I massage her into a frenzy, feeling her shuddering, spinning, begging for release. “Say it. Tell me you’re mine.”

Cora snakes one arm behind my head, holding my face to the crook of her neck where I pull the tender flesh between my teeth and bite down. She gasps, squeaking out more sounds that drive me fucking mad. “I’m yours,” she says, whispery, laced with lust. “You know I am. You’ve always known it.”

“Fuck…” Does she really believe that? Do I believe that? I’m overcome with the need to look her in the eyes, so I pull back out and spin her around, pushing her down onto the mattress. I climb over her until we’re face to face, my arms resting on either side of her head. My cock grazes her entrance, and Cora jerks her hips up, craving me, needing me to fill her.

“Please,” she tells me, grinding herself against my length, making me crazy.

I love teasing her. I always have. “Please what?”

She whimpers. “Please fuck me. Please make me come.”

Jesus. I curl my hands around her wrists and press my forehead to hers, pushing in slowly, our eyes locked. Desire is the color green, and it floods me, bathing me in emeralds and jades and the waves of the sea. I lean down to kiss her mouth, puffy and pink, and Cora arches up, wrapping her legs around my waist and locking her ankles. I reach down to grab her thighs, palming and squeezing, as she rakes her nails down my back, then back up to tug handfuls of my hair. I pick up the pace, drowning in the madness. Drowning in her.

I never honestly believed we would be in this position again, voluntarily. Not really. I thought about it, of course—fuck, I thought about it a hell of a lot more than I care to admit. And when I pictured this moment, being inside her again, feeling her pulsate around me, I envisioned something softer. Slow, gentle lovemaking that wiped us clean of all that violence. Of all that darkness.