The Saint(134)

He rose up and kissed her. She tasted herself on his mouth and couldn’t get enough of it. Had she imagined anything so erotic before? His hand traced a line down her body from her collared neck to her thighs. He slid his thumb into her and she winced at the strange sensation. The wince turned into a gasp of pure pain as he pressed down hard against her hymen, not hard enough to tear it but hard enough that tears sprang to her eyes. He inhaled sharply as if he registered her pain inside his own body. He experienced her pain as his pleasure. Let him hurt her, then, so he could feel the pleasure of it. Let him destroy her so she could be reborn.

The pain passed and Søren settled in between her thighs, the tip of his length pressing against her clitoris. She pushed her hips hard into his, opening herself to him, offering herself to him.

She looked up and saw Søren’s eyes were closed. His long, unnaturally dark eyelashes lay against his cheeks. The veins in his strong arms and shoulders quivered as he held himself over her. He started to speak but not in English. It was Danish, his first language. She knew some Danish, enough for her and Søren to tell each other “I need you, I want you” without anyone understanding them. But in her fevered state she could recognize nothing he said, not at first. He murmured the words like a prayer. She raised her head and pressed a kiss against his throat, her most favorite part of his body, the part hidden by his collar. The final words of his prayer she understood.

Jeg elsker dig.

I love you.

“I love you,” he said, in his first language, and the words rose like a banner over the bed.

With her eyes half-closed, she felt the world falling asleep around her. She heard music somewhere in the distance, a haunting solo voice almost inhuman in its beauty. Did she hear this? See this? Or did it all come from within herself like a dream half remembered only hours after waking? She buried her head in the hollow between Søren’s chin and shoulder. She breathed in and inhaled the scent of snow, new snow, clean and cold. And then she knew the truth.

Søren didn’t smell like winter. Winter smelled like Søren.

Jeg elsker dig.

She heard Søren’s voice through the mist.

With one thrust, he pushed inside her.

Pain like she’d never imagined rent her in half. Rent her in half, split her in two, burned her like fire, tore her like paper.

Beneath Søren she struggled and cried, her face buried against his chest. He cradled the back of her head as she wept tears of agony and surrender. He didn’t pull out of her, didn’t apologize. He held himself still, but inside her he pulsed as her vagina stretched and strained to take all of him into her. This was the price she had to pay for the kiss that couldn’t be unkissed, for the apple that couldn’t be unbitten, for the road she had taken. They had gone too far now. They could no longer go back.

She never wanted to go back.

The pain suffused her entire body. It burned like the hottest fire and if she had the use of her arms she would have tried to push him off her. One word could stop her suffering. She said nothing.

Slowly she emerged from the haze of pain and heard Søren’s ragged breathing in her ear, the slightest catch of his breath, the subtlest moan in the back of his throat. Had there ever been a more beautiful sound than this—the sound of the pleasure he took inside her?

Instinct told her to shrink from him, to pull away. But she fought that urge and instead raised her hips again into his. He penetrated her until it seemed as if his entire body filled hers to the breaking point. Each slow, controlled thrust stretched her open wide, tearing the gate that would keep him out of her. She wanted it gone, wanted everything between them gone forever. His hand found her hand and he locked their fingers together as he rose up and pushed in again. She braced for pain but instead felt a deep stab of pleasure. Her eyes flew open at the shock of it, so carnal, so animal. With a cry she pushed her hips into his again and again. A rush of fluid between her thighs eased his passage even more. Blood, perhaps? Her own wetness? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he impaled her, invaded her, took ownership of her with every controlled yet merciless thrust.

She focused on his face, on the long dark eyelashes resting on his cheeks, on his partly open lips, on his blond hair that she ached to run her fingers through, on the sheen of sweat that covered his forehead, his shoulders and the vein that pulsed visibly in his neck. It must have taken all his strength to hold back and not lose himself inside her. Sixteen years since he’d last done this. His self-control could shatter at any moment. She wanted it to shatter.

Raising her head off the sheets, she kissed his shoulder. She whispered, “You own me.”