Life Among the Dead

Part Three

June 30, 2008

Claudia realizes sleeping with Nikolas is a very bad idea just as her body shudders and an orgasm rocks through her. He wants too much. More than she has...more than she wants to give...he's trying to take her very sanity from her.

She's pressed with her breast rubbing against the door of her bedroom, trapped between hard wood and Nikolas. He nibbles on her earlobe, dragging it between his teeth over and over, biting just a little harder at certain times, till the pleasure and pain blend and she can't be sure which he is trying to inflict on her. She doesn't care. It feels too good to ask questions. His fingers move over the wet heat between her thighs, his rhythm insistent...you're mine, you're mine, you're mine...it seems to say...just accept this...you are not in charge anymore.

She loves her control, except in the bedroom, there she wants the man to push her down, take her on, make her scream. She's always liked it best a little rough. And Nikolas was that way...till one minute before she came...and then he starts to lightly drop kisses over her collarbone, suddenly so much gentler, and whispers into her ear "Succumb...its far to late to resist," and though he could just be talking about right now...his words create a small spring running right through the bitterest part of her soul...its far to late not to fall in love with me... to not see where this all leads us...its far to late to run, is what she hears in his words.

Nikolas keeps his fingers moving inside of her as she shivers to a stunning release. Claudia softly moans the creator's name over and over and over, sinfully praying in vain. "God...God...God...oh, God."

(Wake me up!
Bid my blood to run.


I can't wake up!
Before I come undone.

Save me,

save me

from the nothing I've become.)

Before she can even recover from her high, Nikolas scoops her right off her feet and carries her to the bed, setting her down in the middle of the silk sheets. His hands rip down her thong and tosses away her bra.

His eyes slowly lower to appraise her body, lingering on her pink tipped nipples. She leans back on her elbows, watching him slowly undress. Tie, belt, shirt, hit the floor. His chest is muscle ripped, his tattoo the sexiest single thing she's ever laid eyes on.

Claudia is flushed from head to toe, her body hums with a pulsating desire for more of him, but her head is rapidly becoming a cacophony of noises. Her own voice warns her not to let this be anything more than a night of sensual bliss. Anything more...anything more at all...and she will end up just as insane as her parents ever were...as Nikolas' parents ever were...they are both born of madness, they both could slide into it without a very hard push.

Still Claudia will not stop this.

For the seconds he is away from her, she aches to have his hands back on her once more, caressing her, sliding into her, over her, his mouth marking her, leaving bruises she will cherish later. Nikolas could destroy her...by loving her...and yet she can't quite raise the words on her tongue to tell him not to.

Love is nothing but a lie...nothing but a minefield...nothing but the surest path to living hell, she thinks as he walks back to the bed, nothing but ... his mouth joins with hers again as he pushes her backward so she lays on the bed....a trap.

Trapped. Yes, that's what she is. Willingly. She's way too hungry for him to put up even a token resistance. Claudia feels like a fly, and Nikolas is the spider that has her caught in his web. The only question is now...will she break out by morning?

(Now that I know what I'm without,
you can't just

leave me.


Breathe into me and make me real.
Bring me to life.)

XXXXXXXXXX

She is the sustenance that sustains his existence. Claudia is more than just his air now...she's water, she's food, she's shelter, she's clothing...she's everything he needs to survive this night. Every moan is proof of life.

His hand slides over her stomach, his fingers splayed wide, brushing upward he skims her ribs, firm hands caress her breast- their heavy, hot smoothness something he could easily became addicted to. Claudia arches into him, wrapping her leg around him, rubbing herself against the length of him. Nikolas chokes back a moan. His mouth never leaves hers, as his other hand wraps itself up in her hair, feeling the silky strands enclose around it.

Nikolas started this night knowing he should honor Emily somehow, but Emily...she's not even a consideration for him in this moment. Claudia has the power to beat back every ghost in his head. I'll feel guilty tomorrow, he thinks, as his will breaks completely and he moans into her mouth, The price for feeling alive tonight.

His thumb rubs over her nipple. She's deliciously hard beneath his fingertip. His hand squeezes the round, full, creamy mound of her breast. Nikolas can not get enough of touching her...she's just what he needs

to smooth the jagged edges of his grief.

(Bring me to life.


I've been living

a lie.


There's nothing inside.
Bring me to life)

Jerking his mouth away from hers, Nikolas looks right into her eyes, finding them hazy with lust and confusion. "We've been heading here all along...tell me you believe that."

From the first second they met they have been collision course with each other. The only question had been: When would the crash come? He could see that clearly now. Trying to stay away from her had been futile.

She doesn't answer him. Her eyes fill with a fiery, desperate resistance.

Nikolas hisses out "Tell me, Claudia. Say you know this was...meant to be."

"Shut up and kiss me some more," she orders, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she gulps in air.

Nikolas slides over her, the tip of himself nearly entering her. His words are throaty when he says "You'll scream out the truth soon enough."

Whiskey fuels his tongue, making him much harsher than he might be any other night. But it can't make him crazy enough to be cruel to her or to not know that this isn't just a coupling of bodies...their souls are getting all tangled up in these sheets ...their hearts are breaking open and letting each other in...or is that just his?

One quick thrust and he buries himself inside her warm tightness. She bites hard on his shoulder at the same moment her nails scratch down his back. He lets out a loud scream, much more pleasure than pain.

"Who..." Claudia pants out the word "screamed...first,...prince?"

He looks down to see her smirking as he starts to move inside of her. She's the most beautiful, sad, crazy person he has ever let have this much control over him. And Claudia does control him...there was no way he could have stayed away from her forever...she's been luring him here for weeks now...just by being herself...just by being so dark...so tempting...so much like all he fears about himself...so much like all he tries to hide in his own soul.

With every stroke, all thoughts of being able to rid his mind of her forever, slip further and further away...till he can still clearly remember why she's all wrong for him...but he doesn't much care anymore.

Its not just how right it feels to have her closed around him, its that Nikolas is sure only Claudia can relate to being alive, but not really alive. To walking through life stoically waiting on death, not dreading it, because life only meant more pain, and death meant black nothingness...a preferable fate. She understands being empty. He doesn't have to explain a thing to her, he just pumps in and out of her and it is understood...death can wait. This is something worth living for.

(Frozen inside

without your touch,

without your love.

Darling,
only you are the life among the dead)

XXXXXXXXXX

Sex...the word stumbles through her, looking for something to latch onto, its just bone achingly good sex... those words try to take root in her heart but they can't. Claudia knows a lie when she hears one.

(All this time

I can't believe

I couldn't see


Kept in the dark

but you were there

in front of me)

She's screwed men for every reason, but love, all her life. And maybe this blissful, sweat slicked, body rocking time with Nikolas is not full blown love yet...but its somewhere in the vicinity...close enough to hear the warning sirens blaring in the darkness of her mind.

The pain of loving, the pain of losing, the misery and mental illness to follow...haunt her...but she pushes all that down deep, as Nikolas kisses her again, sucking her lips and tongue. She'll be consumed by terror later...maybe...right now she only will allow joy.

Joy, she thinks, That's new.

(I've been sleeping a thousand years it seems.


Got to open

my eyes

to everything.


Without a thought,

without a voice,

without a soul.


Don't let me die here.
There must be

something more.

Bring me to life) (Evanescence)