He Took Her Body. Something Took Her Back.

The sound echoed—wet, soft, obscene—through the charged silence between them.

A tease. A threat. A promise.

It thickened the air like fog before a storm, made every breath a negotiation between need and control. Neither moved to break the tension. They hovered inside it, locked in a moment too heavy for words, too sacred for mercy.

"Come here…"

Desmond's voice was a whisper dipped in fire, coaxing and dangerous. He lowered himself until his lips hovered at her skin, and slid his hand slowly between her thighs. There—he found it. A heat, a pulse. A slickness that clung like honey, thick and sacred.

Drip… drip…

The moisture trembled on his fingers, hesitant, almost sentient. Like the body remembered something before the mind could. He eased her down—her spine meeting the cold floor with a soft, breathless thud. She didn't resist. Didn't flinch.

She surrendered.

But not to him.

To something else.

His fingers moved deliberately. Coiling. Testing. Worshipping. Her hips lifted to meet the rhythm he laid like an incantation, her skin twitching under his touch, like something ancient responding to ritual.

Then—he was pulled in.

One finger disappeared inside her with a gasp from her lips, soft but sharp, like a lock finally snapping open. Her moans followed—staggered and breathless. But not aimless. They guided him, shaped the tempo.

Then two fingers.

Her body seized and bloomed around him, undulating with something that felt both sacred and profane.

The air pulsed.

Her thighs slammed the floor in rhythm, a soft percussion under their dance. His chest heaved. His teeth clenched. Her cries grew louder—not because she wanted to be heard, but because she couldn't contain it.

And then she overflowed.

The flood surged out of her with a force that made her body convulse. It splattered across his wrist, soaked the floor, and still she trembled—her waist bucking like it was possessed by something electric and unrelenting.

He mounted her before the tremor stopped.

There was no pause, no transition—only instinct. Desmond surged forward like a beast unchained, yanking her leg up, pinning the other down. His grip was brutal, reverent, desperate.

He looked at her like a starving man eyeing his last meal. Tongue wetting his lips. Breath shallow. Eyes dark.

He entered her.

Her body arched in protest—or pleasure—it was impossible to say. His rhythm was sharp, relentless. But her eyes… her eyes didn't match.

They were distant.

Almost disappointed.

Inside, Joan felt… unfinished. Stretched wide but not filled. Pinned down but not claimed. His effort was fierce. But it was small. His size, his strength, even his presence—none of it quite touched the part of her that needed.

Still, she let him take her.

Her moans rose to meet him—encouragement layered in pity. The kind of sound women give men to keep them believing.

But her mind was drifting.

'This… this is all there is?'

The thought sliced through her as his thrusts grew sloppy, desperate.

Then it ended.

A single final plunge.

A hot spill across her thighs.

"Bam!"

His weight hit the floor beside her with a gasp. Not triumphant. Not tender.

Spent.

He closed his eyes, falling fast into sleep, like a man who believed the battle had been won. The room held still, except for the slight quiver of picture frames on the wall.

But Joan stayed frozen.

Alone.

Wet.

Unfinished.

She looked down at the mess—glistening across her thighs like something both holy and humiliating. Her fingers moved instinctively, gathering the liquid, cool and strange. She smeared it between her fingers and brought them to her chest, brushing over the roundness of her breast, over the black dot that marked her like a secret.

Her touch was gentler now. Searching. As if she might find something in herself that he hadn't reached.

Her heart beat faster.

Much faster than it had when he was inside her.

A new hunger bloomed. Darker. Older.

Her hand moved lower, slowly. Not for pleasure, not at first—but for truth.

And when her fingers slid inside herself again, it wasn't desire she chased. It was completion.

She moaned—not softly, not out of joy.

Out of absence.

The rhythm became erratic. Fierce. Her body twisted with the intensity. She saw faces—not his. Hands, mouths, shadows. Men from her past. Lovers. Ghosts. A flood of them. A reel of motion and heat and memory unspooling in her head.

And in that maelstrom—

She missed the subtle shift.

Desmond's body, once slack beside her, twitched.

Not in sleep.

In awareness.

His eyelids fluttered—not waking, exactly.

Watching.

His breath slowed unnaturally.

Joan didn't see.

Not yet.

She was too lost in the rhythm. Too close to something dark and alive rising inside her.

But behind her…

Desmond's mouth moved—barely, silently. Lips forming shapes that had no sound.

His eyes opened.

Wide.

Empty.

The first hand dragged downward. Then a second emerged — he hadn't noticed its arrival, but now both palms moved along his torso in mirrored paths. Their nails scratched faintly, like fabric brushing dead leaves. Together, their movements crossed in an X over his abdomen. Soft. Purposeful. Possessive.

Desmond tensed. His muscles braced in resistance, but the grip pressing into him wasn't strong. It was urgent. He felt the quiet struggle in the touch — not violent, but loaded with unspoken intent.

He grabbed both hands. They were cool — too cool. Like river stones forgotten in moonlight. He kissed them, urgently, compulsively. His lips devoured the skin as if starving, as if this contact might erase something gnawing inside him. And for a moment, it did. Pressure melted from his chest. His limbs lightened.

But something was wrong.

It was too perfect. Too choreographed. Not intimacy — bait.

Then she stepped into view.

First, a shoulder, gleaming faintly with moisture. Then a silhouette that moved like vapor revealing form. Her skin shone in the dim light. Not glowing — glamoured. Her nakedness wasn't exposed so much as offered.

Desmond's lips still pressed to her hands, each kiss making a soft, wet pop — like droplets in a cave.

Pop... pop... pop...

The sound was hypnotic. The room thickened. Vapor clung to their skin. The windows fogged. Time slowed.

He hadn't looked at her face.

Not until now.

Then he did.

And saw her.

Joan.

His wife.

His mocker. His defier. His traitor.

His world froze.

She said nothing. Just watched him — eyes full of some dark knowing. No warmth. No fury. Just that maddening calm.