That Sik Luv

by Jescie Hall

According to the Westwoods, a woman’s place was not to be a leader, but to be the ultimate follower. The best sheep in the herd. The quiet one, bound to please and obey the shepherd according to Christ’s word.

*rolls eyes*

“If you want to get out alive,” he whispers against my skin, the warmth of his breath tickling my skin, “run for your life.”

“Just another lamb to the slaughter, love,” I whisper, reaching up and wiping one of the tears from her face with my thumb, eyeing it in disgust. “Don’t cry for him. Those tears look fucking hideous on you.”

This guy really thought he could fuck what’s mine. Guess I don’t like the idea after all.

Right and wrong dance together to the music of my own pitiful and weakened excuses, as I find myself locked in a slow dance with the devil himself.

“I can get rid of that ache for you, doll,” he whispers, running his ring-covered hand along the edge of my skirt, pushing the finger just beneath the hem. “If you allow yourself to fall into flames of eternal hell with me.”

“Recognize Briony, that I’m the air to your fire. All you need to do is fan the flame.”

“You’re a woman without a voice, Briony,” he whispers against my lips. “Let me be the throat through which you scream.”

His words are sinful all on their own, but in combination with the sensations? I’m falling headfirst into a swirling pit of flames and loving the burn of his fire against my skin.

“No,” I growl, tightening my grip. “I need to hear the angels leave your body through your throat.”

“I’ve never thought you were anything less than what I know you to be,” he declares, short of breath, a passion in his direct stare that has me holding my breath. “You are the fire that burns stagnant, the coals and ash yearning for the chance to ignite, ready to burn cities to the ground in your fierceness. A force more powerful than any man that came before you. You are my fucking existence, Briony. I live and breathe for you alone. I am yours eternally, entirely at your mercy.”

“I’d bleed out for you, Briony. I’d fucking kill anyone so you could live. I’d kill you if I needed to, just to follow you to your grave so you can know the depths to which I’d fall to show I couldn’t fucking survive without you.

It was always going to be a man before me. In a world where male domination is a prerequisite for control, equality was never a forethought.

“I love you with every echoed beat of my dark and hollowed heart, the hole in which contains my shattered ghost of a soul. I love you with all the fractured tears inside my tortured mind. With every agonizing breath I breathe.”