I took a second to answer because I wasn’t used to this kind of interrogation. Boys wanted to know what you’d done, not what had made you. Samiel watched me with that never-blinking stare, and I felt the urge to perform, to cut my family down to bite-size sitcom anecdotes, but for some reason I wanted to give him the whole thing.
“My family’s boring,” I started, but he made a face and I had to recalibrate. “Okay, not boring. Normal. But, like, Florida normal, which is not actually normal.”
“Three of us kids. I’m the youngest, so my personality is half attention-seeker, half diplomat. My oldest brother, Tyler, does HVAC; he’s built like a walk-in freezer and has the emotional range of a Roomba. My sister, Keri, lives in Orlando and has three kids. If the world ended, she’d still find a way to get to soccer practice. Our parents are still together, and still living in the same double-wide in Tampa where the air is permanently blue with cigarette smoke, no matter how many pamphlets on lung cancer I've left on their coffee table. Dad's always got a Marlboro dangling from his lip while he tinkers with his conspiracy boards, and Mom's Virginia Slims leave lipstick rings on everything she touches."
Samiel’s face contorted in delight. “So you’re saying a demon would fit right in?”
I laughed because honestly, yes. “My dad’s the kind of guy who cornered Jehovah’s Witnesses on the porch and tried to teach them about cryptids. There’s a solid chance he’d see you, horns and all, and just want to know if he could smoke in your kitchen. Mom would try to feed you the minute you walked in?—”
“Perfect,” Samiel said with a wicked grin. “I love food, and people who feed me. You ever bring a demon home for Thanksgiving?”
I tried to picture it: Samiel ducking under the fake cobwebs strung across the porch light, Fluoxetine inevitably smuggled in under my arm, my mom squinting at him across a folding card table crowded with Pillsbury biscuits and three kinds of Jell-O salad. The visual was almost too much. I laughed so hard I snorted my drink.
“I’d pay good money to see you try to smoke out back with my dad,” I said. “He’d ask if your horns got TV reception.”
Samiel looked so genuinely delighted I wanted to drag him home right then, just to watch my parents’ heads explode. The strange part was how little I felt I had to hide. Some gnarled shame-knot down in my spine started to loosen; the idea that he’d fit, or at least want to fit, into my version of “home” was so outrageously comforting that I had to take a second to let it register.
We let the silence settle as we both recalibrated, now knowing where each of us came from. Samiel’s hand stayed warm on my thigh.
Finally, he reached for the check and paid in cash, not even glancing at the total, then slid out of the booth and offered me his hand. The gesture was old-fashioned, but I liked the way his palm fit around mine, careful but inexorable. We walked outthrough the lobby, past the mirrors and the sequined demoness, and into the sharp chill of the desert night.
In the parking lot, he pinned me against the hood of the GTO, wings spread to block the wind, and kissed me hard enough to leave me gasping. I bit his lip, because I could, and he smiled into the kiss, fangs sharp and perfect on my tongue. When my hands tangled in his hair, he groaned—an actual, honest-to-god groan—pressing his hardened cock into my stomach, and I wondered if he would tear my dress off then and there.
“Get in the car,” he said, voice shredded, and I did, legs shaking. We drove home in a silence that wasn’t really silence at all—just the sound of want, burning so loud it filled the whole car. His hand never left my thigh, thumb tracing circles until I thought I might combust.When we finally pulled into the driveway, he killed the engine but didn’t move, just sat there with his forehead pressed to the steering wheel.
“I’ve wanted to do this since the second I saw you,” he said, and the words were stripped of every flirtation or pretense. “Not the Chase. This. Bringing you home.”
We stumbled through the front door, and I didn’t wait. The moment the lock clicked, I twisted in his arms—sudden, hard, a pivot that shoved him against the wall and put my face less than an inch from his. He blinked, surprised, and I felt the dark, deep satisfaction of catching him off guard for once.
“You’re not the only one with claws, Sam,” I said, and hooked both hands in the collar of his shirt, dragging him down so I could bite his jaw. Not a nibble, not a tease—a real, hard bite that left a line of teeth in the skin just under his ear. He shivered, a full-body tremor, and I knew I had him.
I pressed him deeper into the wall, a hand splayed flat on his chest, pinning him. My heart was hammering, blood so hot it felt like I could have burned him from the inside out. “You said I’myours,” I said, kissing a line down to his throat, “but you’re mine, too. You get that, right? I want all of you.”
He nodded, but it wasn’t enough. I scraped my teeth along the tendon of his neck, trailing down to the rip of his shirt where his skin burned under my nails.
“I want to ruin you the way you ruin me,” I whispered, hungry for the moment he finally shattered.
I sank to my knees in the narrow foyer, my velvet dress pooling around my thighs. With the precision of a bomb squad technician, I undid his belt. He tried to speak—probably my name—but I pressed a hand hard into his stomach and the sound died.
His cock sprang free, flushed and slick. Heat blazed through my palm. I licked from root to crown, tasting salt and the echo of our earlier want, then took him as deep as I could on the first try.
A broken moan ripped from him, and I felt triumphant. I started slow, then turned deliberately mean, letting my teeth graze that sensitive ridge. His hand tangled in my hair, holding tight, every muscle in his body coiled like piano wire.
I met his gaze when he teetered on the edge. “Do you want to cum in my mouth?” I asked, humming his name around the thick of him so he felt every vibration.
My knees went numb on the tile, but I didn’t care. Palm and tongue worked together to pull him apart—pulsing knot swelling at the base. I paused to spit once—just to be filthy—then sank lower, fighting my own gag reflex as his length filled my throat. His claws bit into the drywall, paint splintering, but he stayed perfectly still beneath me.
“Annie—” he warned, breathless.
I popped off, lips slick, jaw throbbing. “Don’t hold back,” I challenged, wrapping one hand around his shaft, the other cupping his balls. My grip tightened, twisting just enough. He bucked, the shaft flaring with that dark knot.
He grabbed my hair and pushed me down, not cruel but demanding. I opened for him, spit pooling at my chin, as he stretched me wide. His cock thickened further; I welcomed the burn. Tears slipped down my cheeks when he drove deeper, the tip battering my palate until I couldn’t even breathe. I choked on purpose, then pulled off, coughing, mascara running, grinning through the mess.
“You like ruining me, don’t you?” I rasped.
He leaned over, wings unfurling, dragging his thumb across my lips. “I want you ruined for everyone but me,” he murmured, then claimed me again—steady, forceful. I squeezed his balls, tugged the knot until he yelped, and sucked him into my mouth as he burst.
His flood filled me, warm and unstoppable. I swallowed it all greedily until the last pulse faded. When he finally stilled, I lingered—lips ghosting over him—then wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, spent and utterly his.
