24. Rose

24

Rose

I shakily got down on my knees and clasped my hands above me, resting them on the thin mattress.

“Please,” I murmured. “Please, please, please.”

My prayers had been reduced to that singular word for a while now. I was too weak and tired to come up with anything else. I’d barely slept, and I’d only eaten once, slinking back up to the house in a moment of stomach-gnawing hunger.

Three days had passed by my estimate, each one stretching into an agonizing eternity. The initial fervent excitement of having my prayers answered had worn off, replaced by a heavy, crushing anvil of guilt. I lay alone in the cell, hour after hour, the awful silence pressing on me like a tangible force. Every corner of my mind seemed to echo with regrets, amplifying the pain that chewed at my insides.

My hope had long faded, and now I was filled by a cold certainty that chilled me to the bone. Sebastian was dead, and it was all my fault.

The mental image of him falling into a pit trap and crying out as a stake pierced his heart utterly consumed me, replaying in an endless loop that left me hollow. I could see his face, haunted and pleading as he stared up at the sky, gasping out his last breaths. It was seared into my mind, a constant reminder of my culpability.

The guilt had become a living thing inside me, clawing at my heart and whispering in my ear that the Entity would never forgive me. Though I hadn’t lost my virginity, I’d still lost my purity through the action of sending a man to his death.

It was an age-old story. In trying to defeat a monster, I’d become one myself.

A familiar rustling sound played at the edges of my mind, breaking the oppressive silence, but I knew it wasn’t real. Sebastian wasn’t walking down the stairs, and he wasn’t going to unlock the door and step into my cell. It was all an auditory hallucination, borne out of guilt and—

“Rose.”

I opened my eyes, head swiveling toward the right. I instantly locked eyes with Sebastian. He looked like a ghost, pale with dark circles under his eyes; almost like the skull-faced version of him I’d seen for the first time at the boundary fence all those years ago. Blood seeped through his gray shirt, staining it a dark, ominous red, but he was still here . Still alive.

My heart leapt into my throat, a wild mix of disbelief and joy flooding my senses. I jumped to my feet and rushed over to the door as he flung it open and strode into my cell.

His eyes met mine again, filled with a mixture of exhaustion and pain. There was a flicker of something else, too. Relief. I reached for him, hands trembling, and he took my hands and squeezed them tight.

“You’re okay,” he said gruffly.

I nodded. “Yes.”

Indecipherable emotion flashed in his eyes as they searched mine again. “You tried to kill me.”

“Yes,” I repeated, voice scarcely above a whisper.

The realization that Sebastian was truly alive and standing here was overwhelming me, filling me with desperate heat. Without a second thought, I launched myself into his arms, and he took hold of me, arms wrapping around me with surprising strength despite his condition.

My heart pounded in my chest as his lips crashed down on mine in a fierce, demanding kiss. It was a kiss filled with all the fear, guilt, and longing I’d felt over the last few days; a kiss that took me higher and higher until I was lightheaded, heart beating so hard I thought I might faint.

I pulled back slightly, breathless, and his hands cupped my face as he stared down at me, eyes dark with lust. “I thought I lost you,” he muttered, as if I were the one who’d ended up in a spike pit with death-defying injuries.

“I thought I lost you too,” I whispered.

He shook his head. “I’m here, baby girl,” he replied, his voice hoarse. “I’m here.”

In that moment, nothing else mattered anymore. The three days of torment, the guilt and sorrow, it all faded in the heat of his embrace.

Butterflies soared in my stomach as his lips crushed mine again, making me tingle, and I gasped out two words between rough, desperate kisses. “I’m… yours.”

“I know,” Sebastian growled, hands moving lower to squeeze my ass. My body was instantly flooded with hot urgency, and I inhaled sharply.

“Completely yours,” I gasped out. “In every single way.”

“What are you trying to say, baby girl?”

I took another deep, shaky breath. “I’m saying… I want you. I want you to fuck me. And I mean it this time.”

Sebastian’s eyes shuttered ever so briefly as he exhaled, like he was searching for control. When he opened them again, he wasn’t just looking at me. His eyes were devouring me, ablaze with need and lust.

“You’re sure about this?” he said in a low voice, chest rising and falling in harsh, rapid breaths. “You know there’s no going back after.”

I nodded, knowing he was right. Once I gave him my virginity, there was truly no going back. Every last ounce of my innocence would be gone… and that was exactly what I wanted. Not as some sort of twisted penance for my terrible sins against Sebastian; no, it was for both of us, and I’d never wanted something so badly in my life.

Even the need I experienced the other day—when I’d begged for him until my throat was hoarse as desire dripped down my legs—paled in comparison to the need I felt now. It was alive in me, hot and pulsing and desperate.

“I don’t want to go back,” I said breathlessly. “I’m staying with you.”

I didn’t have time to take another breath before he kissed me again, lips bruising their way from my mouth to my ear, all along my jaw and back down to my chin. The roughness of the kiss and the scratch of his stubble on my soft skin made the warmth pooling in my core burn even hotter, my arousal dripping down my thighs.

Every inch of my body was trembling in anticipation of what Sebastian was going to do to it, and I knew I was ready. I’d wanted this, craved this, for so long, and I couldn’t hold out a second longer.

He reached between my legs, letting out an approving growl. “Fucking soaked,” he gritted out before kissing me again.

There was a rustling sound as his free hand worked at his pants, and then both hands were back on my ass, grabbing handfuls of my flesh as he lifted me in the air. I gasped as he threw me down on the bed and roughly spread my legs, and then I cried out as he forced himself inside me in one violent thrust.

“Mine,” he ground out, pushing in deeper. His hips pulled back for a moment, and then he shoved them forward again, forcing another whimpering cry from my mouth.

I thought it would hurt, but the loud, incoherent sounds escaping me had nothing to do with pain. The stretch of his cock inside me coupled with his fingertips rubbing between my legs already had me teetering on the brink of an orgasm, ready to tumble into ecstasy.

“Fuck…” he panted, quickening his movements. “Look at you, already taking me so well. So tight but so wet.”

“Yes,” I gasped. “For you.”

“You feel so fucking good,” he muttered against my ear. “So. Fucking. Good.”

My lower belly swooped and fluttered, and I felt my muscles clenching around him until I was ready to burst. Just as my climax exploded through me in hot waves, he lifted my legs, holding them up so he could reach an even deeper angle.

“You’re not just coming once, Rose,” he growled. “You’re going to come again and again until I tell you it’s over. Now scream for me, baby girl.”

Every brush of his fingertips against my clit made me cry out, my slick pussy shuddering around his cock as it drove inside me again and again. “Yes!” I screamed. “More!”

He rubbed me hard and fucked me even harder, making me twitch and whimper as my mind melted and spiraled into thoughtless bliss. My clit was so swollen and sensitive that it hurt, but somehow that ache heightened my pleasure, making helpless whimpers spill from my lips with wild abandon.

When I came again, screaming Sebastian’s name, he still wasn’t done with me. He pulled out and flipped me around, roughly maneuvering me onto my hands and knees and pressing on my back until I was arched and ready for him. Then he drove into me from behind, grunting out his pleasure as his hands held onto my hips hard enough to leave bruises.

I exploded around his cock again, screams morphing into strangled, breathless whimpers. He growled and pulled out of me, releasing a hot spray of cum across my back. When he was finished, he leaned down and grabbed me by the jaw, pushing my head to the side so I was forced to look up at him. “You’re really mine now, Rose. All mine.”

I nodded, suddenly overcome with emotion. “Yes,” I whispered to him, feeling a tear slip down my cheek. “I’m yours.”