“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“I don’t want your sorry.” I release my cock and stroke it with my free hand. I want her riding me. For a moment, I am dizzy with the thought.
“You are the only monster I’ve…I’ve fucked.” The last word is a whisper.
“I figured that.” If we move too much, we will tumble off the ledge. It is a place I have come to sit many times. From here, I can watch and pretend that I am safe. Once I used to come here and close my eyes and pretend that I was home, but that memory feels like it belongs to someone else. Did I hide up here when I first arrived? I have no idea, and it doesn’t matter anymore. “Do you like it?”
I press my fingers into her cunt. Careful not to scrape her with my claws. She draws in a breath but doesn’t move, as though aware that a flinch will see me impaling her with the wrong appendage.
My thumb sweeps over her clit.
“Mmm.”
“Say it,” I demand.
“I like fucking you.”
That’s all I need. I pull out my fingers and tear away what remains of her underwear. She gasps and I lift her to straddle me, to face me so she can see who she is fucking this time.
Her eyes widen, and her hands grip my shoulders. “We’ll fall.”
“No, we won’t.” And I don’t care if we do.
Her knees are on either side of my thighs, with only a finger width of ledge to spare. I pull up her skirt and grip the cheek of her ass, moving her, so the tip of my cock is nudging at her entrance.
She doesn’t fight or resist as I lower her onto me, but I don’t expect her to. She is too scared of changing. She’ll comply with anything I do. For a moment the power is all consuming, burning through me with a glee I can barely restrain, but there’s a much quieter sensation that slithers beneath.
I don’t want to listen to what it has to say.
With a gasp, she sinks onto me, sliding down my length, enclosing me with her wet heat. Fuck, she feels so good. I want to hear her crying out, calling my name…
The thought is rough and catches in my heart—something I thought long turned to dust. But no, it still beats and can still be wounded.
I snarl and grip her ass cheeks, working her over my cock. “Give me a name. Say it.”
“Horn.” It falls so easily off her tongue I wonder how long she has been calling me that. It seems fitting, given how many horns I’ve grown. Now I have a name and I like how it makes me feel. Like I am something worthy of naming.
She uses my shoulders as leverage as she rides me and I do less of the work, but I don’t release my grip on her ass as I like the way it feels in my hands. Her gaze remains on my face, my eye, and I can guess she is trying to think of me as the man I had been. Some ghost who haunts my memory. Insubstantial and dead. I can never be him again.
But in that moment, I’d give anything to be the man she wants instead of the monster she needs.
Her eyelids flutter closed, and she moans as she comes on my cock. Her hips rock as her cunt squeezes every inch of me. I tip my head back and take over, fucking her fast and seeking my own climax. “Say my name.”
“Horn,” she cries out.
When she comes again, it tips me over the edge. I grip her tight, so she stays fully seated as I come.
I’m breathing hard, trying to hold on to the good feeling for as long as possible. It seems wrong to enjoy anything here. Nothing happens here without some impact on my body. But I can see with my one remaining eye, and nothing hurts like there’s a new growth.
I ease my grip. Maybe there will be no fallout. “We didn’t die.”
“We still have to get down.” Her gaze skims over my face and drifts away like now that it’s over, she can’t bear to look at me.
That little tear in my heart widens. “Are you okay?”
She nods and I don’t know if she’s lying. I shouldn’t care even if she is. I don’t know why I do. This was the arrangement. One that will soon have to change.
Now we are sitting face to face, it takes me a moment to figure out how I’m going to climb down with her. “Stand up.”