I leaned in, tracing the border of her jaw with the two prongs, a line of sensation that made her eyelids flutter. I let the tips of my tongue tease her earlobe, then flick downward, tasting the line of her pulse. She moaned again, and the sound was so honest, so alive, that I had to brace both arms on the counter to keep from shaking. If there was a power dynamic here, it was torn to shreds and set on fire with every new touch.
I tasted Annie’s last moan in my mouth, hot as a live coal. She pressed her hips into me, hard, like she wanted to grind bones as well as skin. I let her, every nerve in my body tuning to the way she fitted against me, the way she gripped my shirt as if she might tear me open and crawl inside. I held nothing back. My hands found her waist, then up, under the edge of her shirt, to the soft, exposed band of her body. My claws were blunt, careful, but they still left little red trails in their wake.
She arched like she wanted it rougher, and I gave her what she asked for: a full palm splayed across her ribs, then higher, cupping her breasts, the delicate weight of them making my whole body ring like a tuning fork. She gasped. I rolled her nipple between thumb and forefinger, not gentle, not cruel, but deliberate—an experiment and an announcement.
“Yeah?” I asked, voice gone ragged around the edges, face buried against her neck, hair spilling over her shoulder.
She bit my earlobe, hard enough to send a fresh spike of need through me. “Yeah. Do it again.”
I did, and the shudder that ran through her nearly unmade me. I couldn’t resist the urge to taste her, so I bent, nosed the collar of her shirt aside, and dragged my tongue (both tips, slow and forked) over the soft skin above her bra. The flavor wassweat and sunblock and a chemistry I’d never once encountered in Hell, and I wanted it on the roof of my mouth, in my blood.
"I want to suck you," I said, not bothering with euphemism, my voice a growl against her chest. "Taste all of you, every inch. Can I?"
She nodded, pupils blown wide, blue almost vanished. "You’d better."
Her shirt was gone before I knew what to do with the scraps of fabric. Her bra was black and lacy. I used my teeth, snapping the front clasp and letting the cups fall free. Her nipples were perfect, pink and already pulled tight. I caught one between my lips and licked, not rushing it, letting my tongue fork around it, tips circling in opposite directions, then sucked, slow and deep. Annie made a sound I’d never heard from a human before—part whimper, part satisfaction, as if she’d won a bet with the universe—and fisted both hands in my hair, yanking hard enough to make my eyes roll back.
“Fuck, Sam,” she hissed, squirming against me, her thighs bracing around my hips. I could feel the heat of her, even through the layered fabric, and it drove me half-crazy. I didn’t stop. I wanted her to know what she’d signed up for, wanted to leave her marked and shivering.
I moved to her other nipple, grazing it with my canine and then soothing it with a broad swipe of tongue.
She tilted her head back, exposing her throat, and her hands—small, precise—traced up my chest and past my shoulders, mapping me with the greedy, scientific curiosity of someone who'd been promised wonders and refused to be disappointed. I felt her palm on the base of my left horn, tentative at first, then a little firmer as she gauged my reaction.
It was the most intimate thing I'd ever felt—more than a kiss, more than sex. My horns were incredibly sensitive, and no one had ever bothered touching them. My knees actuallybuckled, a full system crash, the blood draining from my brain and slamming into a part of me that hadn’t known touch in forty years. It was as though every nerve in my body was tuned to a single, shrieking violin string, and Annie’s fingers—cool, clever—plucked it with the expertise of a concertmaster. My tail went rigid, my wings snapped open, and I made a sound in my chest that was closer to a growl than anything human.
Annie jerked her hand back, startled, but I caught her wrist before she could retreat. My pupils had gone full reptile; I could see it reflected in the steel of the espresso machine. I forced a breath, then another, but the craving flattened me. I buried my face in the curve of her neck, inhaling a hit of her scent, and said, “Careful. That’s—” I choked on the word, tongue thick and useless. “Sensitive.”
She was grinning; I could feel the upturn of her cheek against my brow. “Yeah, well, that’s the idea.” She reached for my horns again, and this time there was no hesitation—she cupped the base of the right one and dragged her nails up the ridged spiral, slow and devilish, and my vision went white around the edges. I groaned, a real, guttural thing, and gripped the counter to keep from collapsing around her.
Annie watched me, fascinated, as though she wanted to see how far it would go before something broke. She locked eyes with me, her tongue dragging slow across her own lip as she tested first one horn, then the other—twisting, kneading, squeezing with calculated cruelty. I shuddered, a full-body convulsion, and the ridge of my cock throbbed so hard it was almost painful. I’d had dreams like this, early in the exile, but never let myself imagine a human would actually touch me like she meant it. Never expected to feel the sweet, humiliating ache of being so—needy.
She leaned in, voice velvet over broken glass. “You like that?” Her fingers never let up, and if it was a game, she was already leagues ahead.
I gripped the counter until my claws scored white lines in the laminate, then hissed out, “If you keep that up, I am going to fuck you on this counter and apologize to the mayor later.”
Her eyes glittered, undaunted. “Promise?”
She pressed against me, the press of her hips a direct, kinetic rebuke to the forty years of slow-play I’d been feeding myself. I wanted to savor it, but her hands on my horns made me reckless. I wanted all of it right now, wanted to rip through the pretense and get to the animal of it, the part that was just hunger and heat and the reality of someone else’s skin. I picked her up with one hand—her legs looping my waist before I could even show off about it—and set her on the edge of the counter. She went for my belt, zero hesitation, nails black and perfect and clicking against the buckle.
I caught her wrists before she could undo it. “Annie?—”
She looked up, eyes wide and unafraid. “What, you’re going to try for a tender moment now?”
“I don’t want to bruise you,” I said, and I meant it. Her hands were small, her bones so breakable I could hear the delicate grind of tendon and cartilage under my grip. Human bodies were weak, and I had broken too many things to forget it.
She twisted her wrists in my hands, not to escape, but to tangle her fingers with mine. “I’m not made of glass, Sam,” she said, breathless. “And if I was, I’d want you to break me anyway.” She yanked my head down and kissed me hard enough that our teeth clacked. At that point, whatever shreds of restraint I’d been clinging to—habits, oaths, the memory of every HR orientation video I had ever been forced to watch—went up in flames.
Her thighs caged my hips, locking us together. She ground herself against me, skirt rucked up, black mesh underwearalready damp and hot as a fever through the fabric. I wanted to rip them with my teeth, leave marks, but I forced myself to slow down, and let Annie keep control. She wrestled with my belt, tongue between her teeth in concentration, and for a dizzy moment I wondered if she’d just tear it off me with sheer force of will. Her nails scored the leather, then found the button beneath—and the look she gave me, up through her lashes, turned me inside out.
“Industrial zipper, huh?” she muttered, voice turned hoarse with want.
“Told you,” I managed, though my lips were pressed against her neck, my hands braced around her hips, thumbs pressing into the tender line between thigh and ass. She popped the button, jerked the zipper down, and the sound—it was so loud in the kitchen, it was obscene. She dipped her hand inside my underwear and pulled my cock free.
She hooked her thumbs under the band of my briefs and yanked, determined, and I helped her—because if I didn’t, I might explode through my own skin. She peeled them down, and I watched as her eyes widened at the sight of me: thick and veined black on red, with a knotted ridge at the base and the head shaped not quite like a human’s, but certainly like nothing she’d ever seen before. There was a moment—an honest, gorgeous pause—where her whole brain clicked over, nowhere to file what she was looking at, and I almost laughed before her hand closed around me.
She stroked once, and it was bliss and agony, every nerve in me singing. The friction was electrifying, her palm hot and a little rough, and the way her fingers struggled to wrap around the full circumference made something animal in me roar for more. I leaned forward, one arm caging her against the cabinets and the other diving up under her skirt to palm the heat of her through the mesh. She gasped, not with fear but with delight,and her nails dug crescents into my bicep. I thought she might draw blood, and honestly, I would have let her. Annie’s wrist moved with a confidence I recognized from my own kind—she pumped me slow, then fast, then slow again, studying the way my eyes shut and my breath snagged in my throat.
“You’re so fucking wet,” I said, and immediately realized I’d said it out loud. Not as a line, not even as dirty talk, just a pure, involuntary observation, and it made her laugh—a sharp, delighted sound that shot straight to my cock. She leaned in and bit my jaw, just hard enough to mark, and whispered, “You started it.” Then she dragged my palm under her skirt, pressing my fingers to the soaked, sticky silk of her underwear.
