Merry Me

by C.R. Jane

“You’re a badass bitch, Natalie,” I whispered to myself. “You don’t cry in alleys over boys. You cry in bathrooms like a lady.”

“You realize,” he murmured, his voice dark and wrecked, “next time I get you alone, I’m going to have you spread out and trembling—so deep, so slow, so fucking thorough—you’ll forget everything but my name.”

The look in his eyes wasn’t playful, or teasing, or flirty like it usually was. It was reverent. Like he was seeing me for the very first time and still somehow recognizing everything he already knew. Like I was a prayer he hadn’t realized he’d been whispering all his life. Like I was a hymn he didn’t know he still believed in.

He looked at me like I was the vow. The prayer. The last page in a book he’d been reading in secret for years.