The stag hunt with the scarlet heart

Chapter 36 "Terror has a name"

I have the feeling that we are the ones who call certain demons to visit us. We invent the appellative with which to name those ghosts or monsters that lay upon our pillows at night, preventing us from sleeping, from enjoying more of what we have, or simply from being happy.

The problems came to me so often that I called them out in my anguish. Worrying before it happened was not a premonition, it was cowardice because I was afraid of not knowing how to get out or just assuming the consequences, I fell asleep trying to deflate myself with fear.

I couldn't, it was attached to me, in huge amounts.

What was the problem? You may ask.

The problem was me, who tried so hard to hate Atlas, and even though I succeeded, I was partly lying to myself.

The problem was him, who wouldn't stay where the hell he came from and went back to blowing up my world.

The problem was the other him, who proved to be more than I expected, and that frightened me.

An idiot anchored to her past, a wanderer with a desire to fly, and a dead man rising from the dead to bring destruction.

I didn't tell anyone that I believed flat out that there would be something in the end that would break me down completely... because that would make it more real. I didn't tell anyone that I felt like I was losing my mind, it took me a world to fill the line with static tension that burdened my voice when I brought up events that involved a past love that was attached to my chest leaving something that was taking root in me. And I was just starting with the part that hurts the most, the part that eats you from the inside out.

The beginning of the end was approaching, and we were both so blinded that we didn't see it.

I opened my eyes with a heaviness running through my body, let's call that heaviness hate. Because that was all my body could feel until my eyes met bluish eyes that made me move my head closer to his hand that was playing with the strands of my hair like he used to do.

I reach out to wrap my arms around his neck and pull him to me, causing him to abandon his half-side position and climb on top of me, wrapping my legs around his hips. He lowers his face for the kiss I was looking for.

Our lips met halfway and if he was disgusted by my morning breath he didn't show it, but I didn't let the kiss deepen despite his struggle where he made his intentions clear with growls. He let out the last one to go down my neck and bite so hard it made me arch and pull at his hair where I had buried my fingers a while ago, caressing it from the root.

Our bodies became maps that we already knew how to decipher. We already knew where to touch each other. Each of us knew the valley that made us shiver, the groove that made us moan, and the movement that made us excited. We knew just by looking at each other what the other needed, so when he went down between my legs, it was an unspoken agreement he made with my body, as he licked and bit me, he made me come screaming his name. I did the same with him because even though I know he didn't care, I needed to feel him like that. I needed to tell myself that maybe it was just sex between us, even though his eyes told me otherwise when he looked up at me and growled "Albertine" as he came.

When he recovered, he slipped his hands under my arms and lifted me up, dropping me onto his stomach with my legs on either side of his waist. Our eyes met and for a few seconds, I shifted uncomfortably even though we were both partially clothed. I'm only wearing my nightgown, and he's using a pair of flannel pants under his pelvic bone, with his member pressed out against the elastic of the pants. He always wears them when he goes downstairs for coffee, so Ryan doesn't look at him like a pervert.