“You kept them alive,” she says. “You’re keeping them alive now.”
“Just words.” I shove my hand in my pocket and pull out the wolf keychain. Something flip-flops in my stomach. The little wolf looks so much like Red.
I tighten my fist around it, like it’s my last link to my old friend. But it’s just plastic. Not real. I throw it into the grass.
“Hey!” She starts after it, but I grab her arm. I don’t want her to leave me.
She stays half standing, searching my eyes. “They’re not gone, Kiro. They still live inside you.”
Words. I hold her arm, feeling so alone. I need to not be alone.
I know what I am to her—I’m her captor, her enemy. Still she feels like life to me, and I hold on to her.
She gives me a strange look. Gazes into my eyes. She kneels on the grass and pushes me back, coaxing me to lie back on the rough warm grass. “Just lie there. Stay like that.”
I allow it, keeping hold of her.
She climbs on top of me, sits on top of me. Her peanut butter-colored hair hangs down on either side of her head. The brilliant blue sky behind her is dotted with cotton-ball clouds.
But nothing’s so beautiful as Ann.
She places her hands on the grass on either side of my head. I let her go, unsure what she’s up to. Then she lowers herself down and she kisses me.
Her kiss is tender. Her tenderness breaks something in me.
She sits upright and moves backward down my legs so that she’s sitting on my thighs. I watch with amazement as she presses a hand over my cock, making it harder. She leans over and kisses it through my pants.
I shove my hands into her soft hair. I’m her captor, her enemy. Her actions make no sense. “You want me to fuck you?” I ask incredulously.
“No.” She stands over me and takes off her shirt, unbuttons her pants, and pulls them down. I watch in wonder as she steps out of them, out of her boots. Naked. She looks like a goddess.
She kneels back down and frees my cock, bares my groin, eyes holding mine.
I can barely breathe.
She crawls back up over me. She takes hold of my cock and guides me to her hole.
“What are you doing?” I ask. It’s obvious, but I don’t mean it that way, and she knows it.
“You’re mine,” she says.
I clutch onto her and still her. I don’t want her like this if she doesn’t mean it. I don’t mind words that are lies, but I can’t take this if it’s a lie.
She grabs my hands and threads her fingers into mine, holding my hands and my eyes as she lowers herself down over me, guiding me into her. It seems like a dream. Another reality. She’s fucking me, fucking all of me. I hiss out a breath as she takes me into her, warm and tight.
Ann is with me. I grab her hips and begin to move, needing her like I’ve never needed anything.
I look into her eyes as she fucks me. Because she wants me. Because I’m hers.
She says something I don’t get. I don’t care. This is everything—her coming to me.
I’m lost inside her. The whole world is spinning wrong. But she’s right. She’s the still point at the center.
“I’m here,” she says.
And I know that she is. I fuck her and watch myself inside her, watch the way her eyes change as we move.
I get enough of her on top. I roll us over, roll on top of her. I push into her, fucking her, kissing her sun-warmed face.