"Say it," he growled, voice thick with hunger. "Say you want it."
I gasped, the world narrowing to a single, desperate point of need. "I want it," I cried, the words spilling out with abandon. "I want you, I want—"
He cut me off by slamming up into me, the sudden brutal force of it knocking the breath from my lungs. I shattered around him, pleasure crashing through my body in a violent crescendo that left me sobbing with release. My inner walls convulsed, milking him, drawing him deeper. I felt him swell inside me, felt the pulsing heat as he came, the sensation so overwhelming it triggered another, smaller aftershock of pleasure.
He held me through it, arms locked tight around my torso as I convulsed and trembled in his lap. The aftershocks faded slowly, leaving me limp and spent, my head tucked beneath his chin as I gulped air like a drowning woman. For a while, all I could do was cling to him, breath coming in ragged gasps as I tried to process what had just happened. I was aware of his heartbeat, wildly fast at first, then gradually slowing to a steady thump against my back. I was aware of the mess between my thighs, of the way his cock still pulsed inside me, of the new constellation of marks he'd left on my body.
But most of all, I was aware of the quiet. The peace that had settled around us like a warm blanket, the utter silence of a world that, for once, required nothing from me but simple existence. My breathing gradually slowed, my head lolling back against Krampus's shoulder in the quiet aftermath. He remained inside me, his cock still thick and pulsing occasionally, his arms wrapped securely around my waist. The café had fallen completely silent except for our mingled breathing, the only movement coming from the gentle twitch of holiday lights casting a dreamlike glow over our intertwined forms. I felt drunk on sensation. His claws traced idle patterns across my stomach.
"Tell me what’s on your mind," he murmured, his breath stirring the curls at my temple. "I can practically hear the gears turning."
A small laugh escaped me. "Sorry. Occupational hazard. My brain doesn't have an off switch."
"Mmm." The sound rumbled from his chest. "And what is it spinning about now?"
I considered deflecting with humor or changing the subject, my usual tactics when conversations veered too close to vulnerability. But the collar around my throat felt like permission to be honest, the weight of it a constant reminder that I'd already crossed the line from pretense into truth.
"This," I said simply. "Us. How... safe I feel right now." The admission was harder than I expected, the word "safe" catching slightly in my throat.
His arms tightened fractionally around me. "Safe isn't usually what people feel after encountering a demon with a penchant for punishment."
"I know." I let my hands rest on his forearms, feeling the silver veins that ran beneath his red skin. "That's what makes it so strange. I spend all day making everyone else feel comfortable, welcome, cared for. But right now, for the first time in... I don't even know how long... I don't feel like I need to be useful."
One of his hands moved up to trace the edge of the collar at my throat, the touch sending fresh shivers down my spine. "And that feels like safety to you?"
"It does." I closed my eyes, leaning more fully into him. "Not having to be perfect. Not having to hold everything together. Just being allowed to exist as I am, messy parts and all."
He shifted slightly beneath me, adjusting our position without separating our bodies. The movement sent a pleasant aftershock through my core, making me gasp softly.
His silence encouraged me to continue, his steady breathing and warm hands grounding me in the present moment.
"Most people," I continued, "when they see the broken cracks in someone, they either pretend not to notice or they immediately try to patch them up. They get uncomfortable with someone else's pain or uncertainty. They want to make it better, or make it go away, so they don't have to witness it."
"There is nothing broken about you that needs fixing," he said, each word delivered with quiet certainty. "There is only truth that needs acknowledging."
I settled back against him, feeling the steady thump of his heart against my spine, the heat of him warming me inside and out. The collar at my throat felt like an anchor, keeping metethered to this moment of perfect honesty. For once, I didn't need to worry about tomorrow. the café, the holiday party or my uncertain future. I existed purely in the present, held securely in arms strong enough to catch me if I fell.
Chapter ten
Simone
The collar marks tingled with every step I took toward the café, a phantom pressure against my throat that made breathing feel like a guilty pleasure. Snow crunched beneath my boots, each footfall sending little sparks of delicious soreness up my thighs. I'd put on my cheeriest pink dress, the one with the sweetheart neckline and extra flounce, as if the brightness could somehow disguise the fact that I'd been thoroughly, gloriously fucked last night by the very creature who owned this building.Who, if the burning imprints of his claws on my hips meant anything, might now own me.
I fumbled with the keys at the café door, dropping them twice into the fresh snow before managing to slide the right one into the lock. The little bells overhead jingled as I pushed inside, the sound somehow vulgar now, too similar to the delicate chime of the chain that had hung from my collar last night, swinging between my breasts as Krampus had taken me apart piece by piece.
"Focus, Simone," I muttered, shrugging off my coat and hanging it beside the door. My hair ribbon slipped sideways as I moved, another small betrayal of my disheveled state. I shook my head violently, trying to dislodge the memories like pesky flies. The café. I had to open the café. Normal tasks. Normal day. Just a normal, not-sexually-devastated café manager doing normal café manager things.
"I am not thinking about his claws," I told the empty café firmly, my voice sounding too loud in the quiet morning space. "Or cock. Or the noises I made. I am thinking about coffee."
The lie tasted bitter on my tongue. Lies always did, lately, like he'd somehow attuned me to the taste of them, made me allergic to my own deceptions. I reached for a stack of coffee filters, fumbling them so badly they scattered across the counter like oversized confetti. My hands wouldn't stop trembling. I bent to retrieve a filter that had floated to the floor, hissing as the motion sent a twinge of delicious pain through my thighs and deeper, where I was still tender. Heat flooded my cheeks as my body remembered with crystal clarity how it had felt to be filled so completely, stretched to my limit.
"Coffee," I reminded myself sharply, crumpling the filter in my fist, tossing it in the trash. "You're thinking about coffee."
I caught a glimpse of myself in the polished surface of the espresso machine, eyes too bright, hair ribbon hanging at anangle that somehow screamed "thoroughly fucked." I adjusted it quickly, wincing as my fingers brushed against the marks his fangs had left just below my ear. I'd never be able to get through the day like this. I tried arranging cups in their usual neat rows, but my hands refused to cooperate. One tumbled from my grasp, and I caught it just before it shattered against the counter.
"Get it together," I whispered, pressing my hands flat against the counter to stop their shaking. "You've had sex before. It wasn't your first time. Pull yourself together."
But that was the problem, wasn't it? I had had sex before. Perfectly pleasant, human sex with perfectly pleasant, human men. What had happened last night wasn't just sex. I'd given something to Krampus that I hadn't known was mine to give, and now I didn't know how to function without it. Without him.
