When we reach the open road, I take her hand as we watch the town, full of our ghosts, fade into nothing behind us.
Epilogue I
ME
Norway, a year later . . .
When I put my baby girl in her cot — my little Princess Viola — I toss Amy over my shoulder, step past my baby’s room, and carry her to the bedroom. As I go, I flick off the light switch, throwing everything into darkness. I know she wants me to turn on a lamp, still a little afraid of the dark, but there’s no time to ask once I put her on the bed.
In the darkness, I’m still your monster.
I look down at her, drink her all in.
‘What?’ she says.
‘What?’ I say back.
‘What?’
You’re so fucking cute, baby.
‘What?’ she says, and giggles.
‘Stop laughing at me, Amy.’
‘Stop laughing at me,’ she mimes. She hides her gorgeous little tits and that fuckable honey pussy. ‘It’s most intimidating.’
‘I’m not laughing at you,’ I grunt. ‘I’d never laugh at you.’
‘Me neither.’
‘What then, baby?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And move your goddamn hands.’
She stretches her arms away, exposes her sexy body.
‘You’re fucking beautiful, Amy. The way your breasts frame your face, and your sunshine hair frames your tits, and your arms frame your hair.’
‘Always with the framing devices,’ she says, and giggles again.
I lean down and tongue her, like her mouth is the rarest flavour of candy.
Fucking heroine.
Fucking addictive.
I pull back. ‘What?’ I say.
‘Well, look at you, all hard.’
I kiss her, and she kisses me hungrily back, presses her pubic bone into mine.
‘Please,’ she tries to say, but I swallow her whole.
‘Don’t think I’ve ever seen you more beautiful, Amy.’
I bring my head level with the tops of her thighs.
‘Please . . . ’ she says.
‘Baby, I’m starving.’
For a while, I trace slow circles round her clit. My tongue’s very tip. This way. That way. This way again. For a while, she lies still. The lightest of touches, barely there.
Time passes. The tension in her body builds. Time stops.
I hold her on the brink of orgasm for as long as I can. When she tilts her hips up to meet me, I draw away and wait, kissing the tops of her thighs, resting my cheek against the springy softness of those tiny fair hairs. When the tension in her body subsides, I start again.
‘This isn’t fair, Shepherd,’ she says.
Never leave me, Amy. I can’t fucking live without you.
As she lies gasping and undone, I’m left wanting her soul. She looks a little scared, but it excites her. My cock stands out like a weapon.
She draws her legs closed and scoots away from me, her little game she likes to play. I grip her calves, halting her escape, and drag her towards me.
‘No, Amy. My turn.’
I start off slow and tender, my face against her tits. Only then I’m on her, in her, bruising her, biting her, rattling her teeth with the force of my hard wet drives, until she’s got her hands around my throat.
Fuck me, but that's a new turn-on. My cock straight-up salutes that crazy shit.
She stops and looks ashamed. I tell her to do it again.
Under her hands, I swallow and say, ‘You do that and I'll fuck you any way you want.’
I close my eyes for a moment, begin to stroke into her slowly. I can’t maintain this control, and she can’t keep her hands tight enough on my neck. Going faster, grinding at her, it keeps bringing my hand up to try to tighten her grip.
‘Harder,’ I say, guttural.
‘I can't.’
I growl and roll over, swinging her on top of me. Amy looks down at me in shock, her hands going to my chest to keep her balance.
‘Choke me,’ I tell her. I take her hands and bring them to my throat, guiding them to my jugular. ‘Do it, baby. It gets me so fucking hard.’
We’ve never been in this position. Her on top. Always under me, Amy, always mine to power over. It feels awkward but promising.
Once I’m in her, she starts to pump against me. Rocking forward against my thick, aching cock, she rolls her hips between slow strokes. Slower than I’ve ever done. It’s fucking euphoria.
‘Squeeze harder,’ I moan, stroking my hands up her legs.
‘I can't, Shepherd.’
‘Harder, baby. Hard as you can.’ I press my hands over hers, squeezing.
‘But what if — what if I do it too hard?’
‘You won't do it too hard. You're worried you're gonna hurt me with those soft little hands?’
I bring her hands to my mouth, kiss the palms, and return them to my neck, saying, ‘Look, I'll stop you if it's too hard. I figure one of two things will happen. You manage to choke me out and I'll be out for a while. No harm. Or the option I'm hoping for — you choke me as hard as you can and I'm gonna come like a fucking bomb going off.’
She does what I say, leaning forward on my throat, gives herself up to the pleasure of having control of my cock in her. She moves against me, mindless in the pursuit of fucking ecstasy.
The pleasure is the way I’d describe a detonation. Heat and pressure and piercing shrapnel. I feel her pant and strain, clutch me deep in her, where she aches. Under her, I grasp at the bars of the headboard, drive up hard against her, my whole body a goddamn earthquake.
When she releases my throat, I cough and groan, ‘Holy fuck, Amy.’
She lies on top of me,
