Scorpion (The Exodus)

by Avina St. Graves

How long has it been since human touch hasn’t hurt?

There’s this one other disturbing thought circling my head: I want him to fuck me.

I need to forget how to spell my own name. I need him to make me go nonverbal with how thoroughly he’s fucking me. His fingers aren’t enough. There are too many layers between us and it’s becoming harder to stay put than it is to start moaning out his name.

I need to feel him more than I need air. I can’t remember what it’s like to have Mathijs take me like there’s no other person on this Earth for him, and I think I’ll die if I don’t get the reminder. Soon.

We’ll go on pretending like nothing ever happened, and I’ll live the rest of my life regretting that I didn’t say something or do something—anything—to show him how much I care about him. That I appreciate him. That I never stopped loving him.

I feel so fucking stupid for letting him in when he never intended on staying.

His eyes darken when they land on mine, then he roves over the rest of me. The look of pure adoration and need that paints his features has my hairs standing on end. It’s the type of stare that tells me tonight is full of promises.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you not my date? You came here with me. And you made yourself absolutely…” My heart stutters as he trails a single finger along my jaw and leans closer to my ear. “Delectable. Just for me.”

“Is something wrong?” he asks, brows furrowing. Taking a less than healthy gulp of wine to clear my throat, I steel my spine to face him. “We’re moving quickly.” “My come was dripping out of your pussy two days ago. I’d call this catching up.” Lord, give me strength.

“Am I your guard or your date?” “You’re murderous, and stunning. You could be neither of those things and still kill a man with your bare hands. So take your pick. Either way, you’re coming home with me tonight.”

“Perhaps I’ll explain this a different way—and you’ll have to excuse my language,” he says with an air of professionalism I’m unused to. “I am about to eat a four-hundred-dollar, world-renowned meal, when I’d rather have you splayed out on the table with my head between your thighs because I am utterly ravished. We were never done. We were always meant to come back to each other. So you can decide whether you’re here for work or pleasure; just know that the latter will be on the table tonight.” He nods to my plate. “So, Lieverd, eat. I have no intention of ordering dessert.”

“I assure you, I understand the word no in twenty-three different languages. You want honesty, I’ll give you honesty. We have both come too far to speak in riddles. You’re mine. I’m yours. That’s how it was before, and how it is tonight, tomorrow, and every day after that.

The last thing he needs is more baggage, and the last thing I need is to risk falling again when I don’t feel solid yet.

“Make sure there are no bullets in there, darling. I’m going to fuck you with it.” My lips part. That’s… No, he didn’t mean that, right?

Oh golly......here we go again :')

My eyelids grow heavy, and I grip the tablecloth to stop myself from pushing my hips closer to him when he leans down and places a kiss to the inside of my knee. He doesn’t need to know how desperate I am for him.

Soft moans mix with the string music, and my desire warms the air around while he consumes me so completely, it’s hard to believe I haven’t become a corpse.

“I’m a respectable man, darling,” he says, voice hoarse like he’s barely holding on. “And you make me want to do things to you that will make me lose that title.”

I avert my bleary gaze up to his ungodly expression, which is an unholy mixture of languish, desperation, frustration, and lust. Seeing him out of sorts because of me has my toes curling with self-satisfaction. He’s just as helpless to this pull as I am.

He murmurs words in Dutch that I don’t understand, and I capture his bottom lip between my teeth. A noise that doesn’t sound human rumbles at the back of his throat and his thrusts turn punishing. Blinding. Completely soul-destroying.

His own climax hits right after mine, and he seals it with a kiss that could stop time itself. Everything about it feels like utter perfection; the way his come drips into me, our thundering heartbeats, the desperate touches.

“Let me make you another promise. One day, you will finally be my wife.”

His wife. I thought about it all the time when we were younger—including the two kids we’d have, the low-key wedding, and the summer home in a cottage on the mountains that we’d escape to when the city got too loud.

I’m a mess who’s better off dead. No one but Mathijs is going to mourn my passing.

“I can’t lose you,” he rasps. Can anyone really keep a ghost?

I actually don’t know if I want to go. I’m just so tired of living like I’m not meant to be alive.

“I’m never going to let you go. I told myself that I wouldn’t attend another funeral this decade. Please don’t make me break that promise.”

“None of those things are your fault.” A tormented look flashes behind his eyes when he takes in the open wounds along my knuckles and palms. “I kept thinking you’d come back. And you did. But you never came to me. Not a single call. Not a text. Every single morning when I wake up, I feel sick to my stomach while I check my phone to see if you’ve died. And every night, I torture myself thinking that the next time I see you will be when you’re in a casket.”

“I want you to myself, in any shape you come in, because I’ll love you regardless of it. Jagged edges and all.”

THIS!!!!

“You don’t need to be alone to find yourself. Loving someone is being there to help them if they get lost along the way. It’s about growing together and becoming two different puzzles that create a similar picture.”

“If you go, there would be nothing left inside me. So stay, Zalak. Fight me. Hate me. Do whatever you need to do to make yourself feel better. But don’t leave.”

Every night, the last thing I see before I fall asleep is how she looked on the bathroom floor. Broken, battered, and bloody. If I had lost her, I would be done for.

:'( </3

The fire she relit inside of me would’ve been permanently snuffed out. I’d continue to breathe, but I’d know the answer if she asked me the same questions—I would be soulless.

Plus, she might get to shoot someone. That sometimes puts her in a good mood.

She enters the kitchen a couple minutes later and heads straight for the stereo to turn on the music.

Me

“The way you grip that knife does things to a man, Lieverd.” “I will cut you with it,” she says with a deadly smile. Romance.

I told her I’d have her however she’d come. I’ve told her I’d wait a lifetime for her. I’d be patient, giving her everything she might need. But I want her more than anything else in this tedious world.

It kills me to just be friends with her. I want her in my bed every single night so the nights are less cold, then I want to wake up beside her so I know she’s still with me. One day, I’ll get to kiss her whenever I see her. Touch her every chance I get. I want it all, but I need her to want it too.

This woman couldn’t get any more perfect even if she tried.

Mathijs rakes his gaze over me with enough heat that I might as well be naked.

He’s the most stunning man I’ve ever met, inside and out.

Every time I’m around him, I feel seen in a way that I struggle to describe. He’s stuck around despite seeing all my bad parts, and I’ve come to realize that it’s not something I ever want to lose. Wherever he goes, I’m going to follow. There’s no doubt about...

He holds out his hand, and I take it without a hesitation. The mindless gesture has him smiling from ear to ear as if we aren’t about to walk into hell, and he’s just a kid getting to hold his crush’s hand.

He’s gradually becoming bolder with his touches, and it drives me absolutely wild because I just want him to hold me and smother me with affection, but I can’t find it in me to ask.

Blissful ignorance sounds more like a dream right now.

I’m going to kill a man tonight. I might even smile while I do it. I’ll break bones and spill my own blood. Still, only one of us is walking out alive.

My mother wanted a son, but she got something far worse. Me.

When the underdog comes out on top, one of two things happens: people either get really happy or come searching for blood.

“I’m not the type of person someone falls irrevocably in love with,” I say, more to give him a chance to change his mind.

“I could be six feet under, and I’d still walk the afterlife every day by your side. There’s nothing about you that I would change. You’re it for me, Lieverd.”

He’s seen every broken piece, and still looks at me like I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.