Chapter 14: Ravenous
He showed her exactly where they were.
His hands slid from her face to her hips, fingers digging in through the soft fabric of her shirt as he kissed her back. This wasn't the gentle exploration of their first time. This was a claiming, a direct answer to the poison Lucas had tried to drip in her ear. His tongue pushed past her lips, tasting of hops and a deeper, darker heat. She moaned into his mouth, her fingers tunneling into his hair, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them.
He broke the kiss, his breath ragged against her cheek. “Tell me what you need.” His voice was gravel.
“You.” The word was a plea and a command. “Just you. Now.”
A low growl rumbled in his chest. In one fluid, powerful motion, he flipped their positions, pressing her back into the deep cushions of the couch. His body was a heavy, welcome weight, pinning her in reality. Her head swam. The shadows from the single lamp carved the hard planes of his face into something primal.
He gripped the hem of her oversized t-shirt and pulled it up and over her head in a single, rough movement. The cool air pebbled her skin. His gaze raked over her, from her face, down her throat, over the lace of her bra. There was no polite appreciation in his look. It was hunger, pure and simple.
“Fuck, Kat,” he breathed, bending his head to her breast. He didn’t bother with the front clasp. He mouthed her through the lace, the wet heat of his tongue a shock against her nipple. The fabric grew damp, abrasive, perfect. She arched off the couch, a broken sound escaping her as he sucked, hard, his teeth grazing the peak.
Her hands were everywhere—clawing at the tight cotton of his henley, fumbling with his belt. He sat back on his haunches, kneeling between her legs, and ripped the shirt over his head himself. The tattoos on his chest and arms were a tapestry of ink and old scars in the low light. She reached for him, tracing a line of script over his collarbone, but he caught her wrist, pressing it back into the cushion above her head.
“My turn,” he muttered, his voice thick.
He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her leggings and the flimsy cotton of her panties beneath. He didn’t slide them down. He dragged them down her thighs in one brutal, efficient pull. The elastic caught at her knees, then her ankles. He tossed the tangled bundle aside, his eyes fixed on what he’d uncovered.
She felt utterly exposed, spread open before him on her own couch. A flush of self-consciousness warred with the raw need coiling in her gut. He just stared, his grey eyes black in the dim light, drinking her in. The ragged sound of his breathing was the loudest thing in the room.
“Look at you,” he said, more to himself than to her. “So fucking perfect.”
Then he dropped his head.
His mouth was on her inner thigh, a hot, open-mouthed kiss that made her jolt. He worked his way upward, licking, nipping, a slow and torturous path. His stubble scraped her sensitive skin, a delicious friction. She was panting, her hips rolling helplessly, seeking pressure where she needed it most.
He finally reached the soaked apex of her thighs, but he didn’t go straight for her clit. He nuzzled the pink tender flesh, breathing her in. The intimacy of it was more devastating than any touch.
“Ghost, please…”
“Please what?” His words were a vibration against her aching flesh.
“Please, just—“
He didn’t make her finish. With a ragged groan, he closed his mouth over her.
The first flat stroke of his tongue from her entrance to her clit was a white-hot shock. She cried out, her back bowing off the couch. He didn’t ease her into it. He ate her like he was starved, like he’d been dreaming of her taste. His tongue delved inside her, fucking her with short, relentless thrusts before swirling up to circle her throbbing clit. He alternated patterns, never settling into a predictable rhythm, keeping her teetering on the brink.
She was dissolving. The room, the lingering ghost of Lucas, her own name—everything blurred into the sensation of his mouth, the scratch of his stubble, the solid grip of his hands on her thighs holding her open. She fisted her hands in his hair, not guiding, just anchoring herself to the storm.
“Right there,” she sobbed, her hips grinding against his face. “Don’t stop, don’t you dare stop.”
He growled against her, the sound reverberating through her entire body. He doubled his efforts, sucking her clit into his mouth, applying a steady, rhythmic pressure that burned through every nerve ending. Her climax crashed into her without warning, a brutal, shuddering wave that ripped a scream from her throat. He held her through it, his tongue gentling to soft, lapping strokes as she pulsed around nothing, shaking apart beneath him.
Before the last tremor had even faded, he was moving. He reared back, fumbling with his belt and the button of his jeans. His hands were unsteady. He shoved the denim and his briefs down just enough to free himself.
He was huge, thick and heavy, the head flushed and leaking. He stroked himself once, his eyes glued to her wrecked form beneath him. “Need to be in you,” he gritted out, the words strained. “Now.”
She was still liquid and boneless, but the sight of him, the raw need on his face, reignited a deep, hungry ache. She reached for him, wrapping her hand around his where he held himself. “Then do it.”
He didn’t need more invitation. He notched the head of his cock at her entrance, which was still slick from his mouth and her climax. He pushed in.
The stretch was exquisite, a full, burning pressure that made her gasp. He was too big, and he didn’t try to be gentle. He sank into her with one long, devastating thrust, burying himself to the hilt. Her inner muscles fluttered wildly around the sudden, complete invasion. He dropped his forehead against hers, a choked curse gusting from his lips.
“Christ,” he panted. “You’re so fucking tight. Gonna kill me.”
He gave her no time to adjust. He pulled back and drove into her again, setting a deep, punishing pace from the start. The couch creaked in protest. Each thrust jolted through her, hitting a spot inside that made her see stars. This wasn’t making love. This was fucking. Pure, unvarnished, cathartic.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back, urging him on. “Harder,” she demanded, her voice a stranger’s.
A dark, approving sound escaped him. He shifted, hooking one of her legs over his shoulder, bending her almost in half. The new angle was deeper, impossibly more intense. He pistoned into her, his hips a relentless machine. The slap of skin on skin, their mingled grunts and moans, filled the quiet apartment.
She could feel the tension coiling in him, the iron-hard muscles of his back trembling under her hands. His control was fraying. His thrusts became erratic, harder, deeper. He was chasing his own end, driving them both toward the edge.
“Look at me,” he growled.
Her eyes, which had been squeezed shut, flew open. His gaze held hers, fierce and unblinking. In that moment, he was completely there, with her. No past, no leash, no ex-husbands. Just this. Raw and real.
“Come with me,” he commanded, his voice breaking.
It was all she needed. The knot inside her snapped. Her second orgasm tore through her, a sharper, more violent cousin to the first. She screamed, her body clamping down on his in rhythmic, milking pulses.
With a final, ragged shout, he followed her over. He thrust once, twice more, then buried himself deep and stilled. Heat flooded her core as he came, his whole body shaking with the force of his release. He collapsed on top of her, his weight crushing the air from her lungs, but she welcomed it. She was pinned, claimed, utterly spent.
For long minutes, the only sounds were their ragged breaths and the dull thump of her own heartbeat in her ears. The smell of sex and sweat hung heavy in the air. Slowly, he softened inside her and slipped out. He rolled to the side, taking her with him, tucking her against his heaving chest. His skin was slick, his heart hammering against her ear.
He pressed a kiss, surprisingly soft, to the top of her head. His fingers traced a mindless pattern on her bare shoulder.
They lay in the sticky, silent aftermath. The blue glow of the TV’s standby light was the only illumination. Her mind, blessedly, was empty. No anxiety, no echoes. Just a profound, physical saturation.
His phone buzzed again on the coffee table.
This time, it was a text. The screen lit up, casting a brief, cold light.
They both watched it. Ghost made no move to get it.
“It’s Dez again,” he said, his voice rough from use.
“Are you going to answer?”
“Not yet.” He pulled her closer, his arm a steel band around her. “He can wait a little longer.”
But the spell was fractured. The real world, with its leashes and its obligations, had buzzed its way back into the room. She could feel the shift in him, a subtle tightening of his muscles, a return of a distance behind his eyes even as he held her.
She knew, with a cold certainty, that the ‘little longer’ was almost up.
Kate smiled softly, reaching up to cup his cheek. "You should answer... before he hates me even more for keeping you."
He didn’t smile back. His grey eyes scanned her face, as if memorizing the lines of her expression in the dim light. His thumb brushed over her lower lip, a gesture that felt more like a regret than a caress. “He doesn’t get to hate you,” he said, but the words lacked conviction.
The phone went dark, then buzzed again, an angry insect on the wood.
“Persistent fucker,” Ghost sighed, the sound deflating him. He shifted, the loss of his body heat against her skin immediate and profound. He sat up, the tattoos on his back a shifting landscape of muscle as he reached for the device.
Kate pulled her discarded shirt over her head, covering herself. The intimacy was evaporating, replaced by the cold seep of reality. She watched him read the screen, his jaw tightening. The lamp light caught the silver in his stubble, making him look older, wearier.
“Gotta go, Kat.” He stood, his movements efficient now, all business. He tugged his jeans up, fastened them. The moment of unvarnished vulnerability was gone, locked away behind a mask of practical haste.
“Is it the club?” The question was out before she could stop it, naive and childish even to her own ears.
He paused, halfway into pulling his henley back on. He looked at her over his shoulder. “It’s always the club.” He said it not as a threat, but as a simple, grim fact. “There’s a thing. Tonight. I’m already late.”
“A thing.” She echoed the word, wrapping her arms around her knees. The fabric of her shirt smelled like him now, like sweat and leather and sex.
He finished dressing, then came back to the couch. He crouched in front of her, his hands on her bare thighs, his touch still electric. “Don’t do that. Don’t let your head go there.” He searched her eyes. “This wasn’t a goodbye. This was a ‘see you later.’ Okay?”
She wanted to believe him. The raw animal need from minutes ago had softened into a deeper, more terrifying ache. She nodded, because speech felt too difficult.
He leaned in, kissing her. It was different now—softer, but with a finality that made her chest hurt. “Lock the door behind me,” he murmured against her mouth.
And then he was gone. The apartment door clicked shut. The silence he left behind was absolute, and heavy.
Kate sat in the wreckage of her couch for a long time. The cushions were damp, the air thick with the scent of their coupling. Her body thrummed with a spent, pleasant soreness. Her mind was a static buzz. She finally stood, her legs unsteady, and walked to the window, peeling back the blind just a centimeter.
Below, in the parking lot, the powerful engine of his Kawasaki growled to life. A single headlight cut through the darkness. He didn’t look up. The bike tore out of the lot with a vicious snarl, the sound fading into the night until it was swallowed completely.
She let the blind fall back.
Alone, the questions rushed in. What was the ‘thing’? How late was ‘already late’? Who was Dez, really, to him? The club. The words Lucas had spat in the thrift store lot echoed now. Property. Leash. She shook her head, physically trying to dislodge them. Ghost’s hands on her, his mouth, his voice telling her to look at him—that had been real. That had been hers.
Her own phone chimed from the floor. She flinched.
It was Meg. A string of text bubbles popped up.
You alive?
Helloooo. You didn’t answer my seven thousand questions about Mr. Tall, Dark, and Mysterious.
Spill. Or I’m coming over with tequila and a pry bar.
A weak laugh hiccupped out of her. She typed back, her fingers clumsy.
Alive. Can’t talk. Later. Promise.
Meg’s reply was instant.
That is the most suspicious fucking response ever. You’re fucking him right now, aren’t you. Use protection, you maniac. xx
Kate didn’t reply. She walked to her bedroom, her body moving on autopilot. She needed a shower. She needed to wash the smell of him off, if only to prove to herself she could. The hot water stung her skin, turning it pink. She leaned her forehead against the cool tile.
Her mind replayed the night in shattered fragments. The crushing weight of Lucas’s presence at the thrift store. The panicked flight through racks of musty clothes. Meg’s worried eyes. Then Ghost, appearing in her doorway like a summoned storm, his anger on her behalf a tangible force.
And what came after. The frantic, almost desperate way they’d come together. It hadn’t just been sex. It had been an exorcism. He was trying to fuck the ghost of her ex-husband right out of her. And maybe he had.
For now.
She stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a towel. The apartment was too quiet. She padded to the living room and turned on the TV, just for the noise. An old horror movie was playing, something about a mask. She didn’t watch it. She curled into the corner of the couch, in the one spot that didn’t smell directly of him, and pulled a blanket over her legs.
She must have dozed. A jarring, metallic crash from the parking lot below jerked her awake. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Ghost? The thought was instinctive, hopeful. She was at the window again, peering down.
It was just a dumpster lid. Some kid, probably. The lot was empty.
She looked at the clock. It was past two in the morning. ‘See you later’ had no definition. Later tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? The not-knowing was a hollow space inside her, filling slowly with a cold, familiar dread.
Her phone remained dark. No calls. No texts.
She thought about the blind seer tattooed on her thigh, the gypsy on the other. Ironic, for someone who couldn’t see past the end of her own anxiety. She thought of Ghost’s ink, the stories etched into his skin he hadn’t told her. They were both covered in prophecies they couldn’t read.
The movie on the TV ended, rolling credits. The room was illuminated only by the flickering blue light. She knew she should go to bed. But her bed felt like a separate country, vast and empty.
So she stayed on the couch, in the nest of their earlier chaos, and waited for the sun. Each set of headlights that passed on the street outside made her breath catch. None of them turned into the lot. None of them growled with the particular thunder of a 650cc engine.
The ‘see you later’ stretched thin, becoming a taut, silent wire strung across the hours. Dawn began to bleed a dull grey into the sky, washing out the shadows in her apartment. It revealed the empty space on the floor where his boots had been, the indent on the cushion where he’d knelt.
It revealed, with brutal clarity, that he wasn’t coming back tonight.
She finally uncurled her stiff body. The momentum of the night was gone, dissipated into the flat, empty morning. She had her answer, even if it wasn't the one she wanted. The chapter was closed. For now.
She walked to the door, turned the deadbolt with a solid, final click, and went to face the day alone. The next move, she understood with a sinking certainty, was not hers to make.
The next move, she understood with a sinking certainty, was not hers to make. She stood in the center of her silent apartment as the grey dawn solidified into morning, the phantom ache between her thighs the only proof he’d been real at all. The quiet was a physical pressure against her eardrums.
She picked up her phone. No new messages. Her thumb hovered over his name, a contact now saved simply as ‘Ghost’. She didn’t type a word. Demanding answers felt too much like the needy, anxious woman Lucas had always accused her of being. She threw the phone onto the couch where it sank into the indentation his body had left.
A restless, scrabbling energy took hold of her. She couldn’t stay here, marinating in the smell of sex and uncertainty. She needed to mark something, to claim some piece of territory that was entirely and irrevocably hers. The idea, sudden and absolute, clicked into place. She dialed Meg.
“I’m coming over,” Kate said, her voice raspy from disuse. “We’re going out.”
“It’s seven-thirty on a Tuesday,” Meg croaked, clearly still in bed. “What hell-dimension has possessed you?”
“The one where I get a tattoo. A big one. Today.” Kate was already pulling on clean jeans, a black tank top. “I need you to come with me.”
The line was quiet for a beat. “Where?” Meg asked, her voice now alert and serious.
“Skin Deep. In an hour.” Kate hung up.
An hour and ten minutes later, Meg was sipping drive-thru coffee outside the tattoo parlor, her purple hair piled in a messy bun. She took in Kate’s determined face, the sharp set of her jaw. “Okay, spill the pre-ink nerves. What are we getting and what fresh madness prompted it?”
Kate looked at her phone, her hands steady. “Chest piece. Peonies. A split pomegranate.” She glanced at her. “Hades and Persephone.”
Meg’s eyes widened. She whistled low. “The whole chest? Kat, that’s a… that’s a statement. You hate pain.”
“I’m acclimated.” Kate’s smile was thin. She thought of the scrape of stubble, the brutal, perfect fullness of him inside her. This would be a cleaner hurt.
“This is about him. The ex or the biker?” Meg asked, never one to dance around.
“It’s about me.” Kate crushed an old discarded cigarette butt under her boot. “Lucas said I was just pretty, passive set-dressing. Ghost… I don’t know what I am to him. But this?” She gestured to her own chest. “This is for me. A reclaiming. I’m the goddamn queen of the underworld in this story, Meg. Time to look the part.”
The interior of Skin Deep smelled of antiseptic and green soap. Kate showed the artist, a woman named Jess with intricate sleeve tattoos, the reference art she’d saved for years. Lush, bleeding peonies in pink and red, a pomegranate torn open to reveal its jewel-like seeds, dripping.
“Right here,” Kate said, her finger tracing a line from the center of her collarbone down to her sternum, fanning out over the swell of her breasts. “Full coverage.”
Jess nodded, assessing. “This is a three, maybe four session piece. We’ll start with the outline and black shading today. It’s a spicy area. You ready?”
Kate laid back on the chair. The buzz of the tattoo machine was a high, hungry whine. She closed her eyes as the needle touched her skin. The initial bite was a bright, shocking sting. She breathed through it, focusing on the sensation as it traveled, outlining the first bold petal.
It was a burning scrape, a concentrated pain that demanded her full attention. Each pass of the needle felt like it was etching away the lingering feeling of Lucas’s condescending stare, the vague panic of Ghost’s silence. This pain was productive. It was making something.
“You’re a statue,” Jess muttered, impressed, as she worked near Kate’s sternum.
Kate didn’t flinch. She thought of pomegranate seeds, like rubies, like hardened drops of blood. A choice made in the underworld. A choice that bound. Persephone wasn’t just a victim; she became a queen. She split the year in two. Kate held onto that image as the needle carved its permanent story into her flesh.
Two and a half hours later, she sat up. Her skin was on fire, swollen and weeping clear plasma. Jess applied a thick layer of ointment and sealed it with a transparent adhesive bandage. In the mirror, the black outlines were stark and dramatic against her flushed skin. The potential of the color was already evident. It was brutal and beautiful.
“Fuck, Kat,” Meg whispered, staring at the nascent masterpiece. “It’s… it’s fucking powerful.”
The adrenaline was draining, leaving a hollow, shaky feeling. The focused pain was receding, and the other, more complicated aches were rushing back in to fill the void. Kate patted her shirt gingerly. “I need a drink.”
They went to The Anchor, a dive bar that smelled of stale beer and pine-scented cleaner. It was dark and mostly empty at two in the afternoon. Kate slid into a cracked vinyl booth, the tender skin of her chest protesting against the seatback.
Meg ordered a pitcher of beer. Kate shook her head. “Tequila. Don Julio. A line of shots.”
“Kat…”
“Don’t.” Kate’s voice held a finality that silenced her friend. The bartender brought over four shot glasses, lining them up on the damp wood. Kate salted her hand, licked it, and knocked the first shot back without a chaser. The burn was a clean fire down her throat, a welcome distraction from the throbbing on her chest.
She immediately picked up the second. The alcohol hit her empty stomach like a struck match. The sharp edges of the day began to blur. The third shot followed. The silence from her phone felt less like a judgement and more like a fact.
“He hasn’t called, has he?” Meg asked softly, nursing her beer.
Kate took the fourth shot. The room took on a soft, fuzzy focus. “Nope.”
“Are you going to call him?”
“What would I say?” Kate laughed, a short, harsh sound. “‘Hey, thanks for the revolutionary fuck, sorry your club leash yanked you away’?” She signaled the bartender for another round. “He’s a grown man. He knows where I live.”
“You’re pissed.”
“I’m a lot of things.” The new shots arrived. Kate’s movements were deliberate, slower. The tequila was a warm, numing blanket. “Mostly I’m tired of being the one who waits. I waited for Lucas to become someone he wasn’t. Now I’m just… waiting again. On a goddamn biker’s schedule.” She drank. “This tattoo? It’s so I have to look at myself in the mirror every morning and remember I can handle the sting. Of anything.”
Meg reached across, stilling Kate’s hand before she could take the next shot. “Hey. You’ve had five. That’s enough momentum for one day.”
Kate looked at her friend’s worried face, the concern in her eyes. The defiance bled out of her, leaving exhaustion. The throbbing in her chest was a persistent drumbeat. The bar was too bright, the music too tinny. She nodded, slumping back in the booth.
“I just wanted him to be the one thing that wasn’t complicated,” Kate murmured, her words slightly slurred. “Stupid, right?”
“The interesting ones are always complicated,” Meg said. “Come on. Let’s get you home. You need to rest that ink.”
Kate let Meg guide her out into the blinding afternoon light. Her body felt loose and heavy, her mind pleasantly dulled. But beneath the tequila haze and the pain of fresh ink, the empty space where an answer should be remained, solid and unchanging. She had made a permanent mark on herself, a declaration of sovereignty etched in pain and beauty.
The waiting, it seemed, was still part of the story.