“Stop torturing me.”
Hand at my pubic bone, he applies pressure, and a flush of heat runs through me.
“I like hearing you beg.”
Eyes half-lidded, I gaze up at him. His violet eye is still violet, watching me intently. With the Neverland Death Shadow, he has much better control of it. There’s no need for violence or blood.
Just raw need.
“Please,” I moan.
“Louder.”
“Please.”
A ghost of a touch on my clit makes my back arch on the table, every nerve and bone trying to meet him closer and closer, more and more.
His fingers follow the inner crease of my thigh, then slip over my wetness, and I shiver, my clit throbbing.
“Vane, I can’t—”
He sinks his mouth to my center.
As soon as his tongue is sliding over me, I can no longer lie still. I wiggle on the table, but he hooks his hands around my thighs, baring me to him. He flicks his tongue against my clit, then flattens it, licking slowly.
“Oh my god,” I breathe out and claw my hand into his hair, guiding him over me.
It hurts how badly I love him, and tears are suddenly burning in my eyes as he brings me closer and closer to the edge.
“You taste so fucking good,” he says against me and kisses slowly and deliberately, his tongue flicking over me.
“I want to come with you.” I pull at his hair, as if I can bring him under my control.
He looks up at me from between the V of my thighs, his hair rumpled and messy from my frenzy for him.
“I don’t need to come,” he says.
“The fuck you don’t.” I sit upright, the shadow swimming just below the surface.
There is a thick ridge where Vane’s cock is still trapped behind his pants. I unbutton him. “You’re fucking me,” I tell him. “Right here and right now and I want you to come with me.”
I slip my hand in beneath the waistline of his underwear, and he exhales in a rush as I grip him in my fist. The tip of his cock is already wet when I drag the pad of my thumb over it.
“Don’t deny me.”
He pushes a length of hair off my shoulder, his hand going to the back of my neck. “There was a time I wanted you to run faster, so you could escape me.”
I stroke him. He growls.
“But I don’t think there was any stretch of land vast enough that would have stopped me.” He kisses me, his tongue meeting mine, sharing my taste.
We start gentle, and slow, and then we’re ravenous, the kiss deepening, frenzied. I yank down his pants and his cock bobs free. He kisses at my jawline, bites at my neck. I wiggle to the edge of the table and hook my legs around him, lining him up as our lips crash together again.
“Fuck me,” I beg against him and nip at his bottom lip. “Now,” I add, more commanding.
He wraps his arm around my waist, lifting me up, yanking me closer, as if there is no such thing as close enough, even when he’s finally sunk inside of me.
I moan loudly. He growls at my ear as his cock throbs against my clenched inner walls, as he pounds into me, the table scraping over the floor.
We are fire and debris from lives lived broken and terrified. We fuck like love is a salve we are terrified of using up.
We fuck like there is only now.
Now.
Now.
Now.
Vane slams into me, and the friction between us lights up my insides, the orgasm crashing through me with the power of a tidal wave.
I cry out, hooking my ankles behind him, driving him deeper.
He thrusts in, spilling inside of me, grunting at the shell of my ear.
I shake in his grip, the pleasure scoring through me like water through rock.
I am forever changed by him.
I love him.
I love him so much it burns, and yet I shiver in his grip, my body trembling as if it doesn’t know what to do with all of this joy and pleasure.
Vane pulls out slowly, then pushes in again, the muscles in his back flexing as he holds me close. “I can feel it,” he says, a soft utterance, a quiet secret.
“Feel what?”
“Your love,” he says. “In my chest.” He kisses my cheek, lingering close. “I can feel your love like a million golden stars in the endless abyss that is me.”
His words hit me in the gut and wings fill my insides.
I clench my teeth, trying not to cry, but it’s too late.
Vane looks down at me, swiping the tear away, and I lean into his hand as the trembling subsides.
“Promise me you will always be there.”
He tilts me up to him and kisses me gently.
“I promise, Win.”
9
PETER PAN
When I come out of my tomb, I hear their voices carrying down the hall. Darling’s soft moan. The rumble of Vane’s growl. It takes everything in me not to push into the library, first to watch, then to join.
The door is shut.
Vane and I have shared women before, but he also likes his solitude and his privacy.
If the door is shut, he meant for it to be shut.
So he can keep Darling all to himself for this brief moment.
I lean against the wall and light a cigarette. Across the hall, snow dances past the windows. It plinks loudly against the glass, turning to ice.
For decades, I was trapped in the dark with only the starlight above me. I thought of it as my gilded prison, but now that the stars are gone, hidden behind the clouds, it’s left me feeling untethered and disconnected.
Nothing is as it should be.
I am trying very hard to keep the panic at bay.
You don’t deserve the shadow.
The words are whispering through my head. Over and over again. Neverland should be lush and verdant, the sky blue, the wind soft and the ocean calm.
We have both shadows now. And clearly the dark shadow has found itself a home it likes.
But mine?
I take a pull on the cigarette and expand my lungs with the smoke.
My shadow is silent, but restless. Is it me? Or is it the shadow? I never had to think about the line between us before.
You don’t deserve the shadow.
I try to shake the words from my head.
Winnie gasps. The table judders against the floor.
I sigh and hang my head back.
The wind picks up.
I don’t want to hear them come together, so I push away and return to the loft and drop into my chair. The leather groans. Elbow on the chair’s arm, I bring the cigarette back to my mouth and stare at the Never Tree through a band of smoke.
The pixie bugs are still glowing amongst its branches, but the parakeets are gone and I can’t help but take it as one more sign that everything is not as it should be.
Even the Lost Boys seem to have vanished. I haven’t seen a single one since I woke.
The cigarette burns and burns.
I want another. I light another.
I sit forward, elbows on knees.
The panic is closer, clawing up my throat.
What was it the spirits of the lagoon said the night they dragged me down into their depths? What were the exact words? Was I too focused on getting back to the surface and Darling and Vane and the twins to listen?
What if I missed something?
There was something about darkness…and light…
Never King.
Never King.
Given light, trapped in the dark.
What the fuck did they mean?
The library door opens. Darling laughs. Vane whispers to her. When they come out of the hallway, they are facing each other, Darling’s back to me as Vane grips her around the hips.