I turn and look at him, and he clearly sees through me. I curl my arms around myself.
“And...there’s really no point in me being here, at these big retreats. I don’t know why they bother bringing me along,” I finish weakly. I don’t really know how to explain it.
He extends a clawed hand to me, and I stand, taking it. He leads me closer to the edge but encircles his arms around me. The wind up here is fiercer than on the ground, but with a big gargoyle protecting me, I’m not afraid of the height, or falling.
His voice is a low rumble in my ear that cuts through the wind and the noise of the city below.
“In the Peaks, it’s easy to feel like a failure when you let society set the standards for you. It makes you forget what you wanted in the first place, when all you desire is to watch over what is yours.”
I don’t have the heart to look at him, to see the old scars in his features that I can hear in his voice. I just keep looking at the horizon.
“What is yours,” I repeat, but the uncertainty I say it with makes it sound like a question.
He hums but doesn’t answer. I’m not sure if he didn’t hear me, or if he doesn’t want to elaborate.
I don’t press him for an answer. He’s shared so much of himself with me, I almost feel it’s greedy to want to know more. I’m starting to fully connect the things he’s told me about himself over email and the person in front of me.
I turn in his grip, facing him. The soft, buttery smoothness of his suit under my hands contrasts with the breathing stone chest just beneath the fabric, and the muted heartbeat within.
Part of me aches to tell him that he knows what I am, he shouldn’t be getting tangled up with me like this, revealing things that belong whispered in emails. But he knows so much of the rest of me, that I can’t.
He draws the back of one granite claw along my cheek, before cupping my face and tilting my head up.
This kiss is different from our others, which were fueled by frenzied need. And while I feel it now, there is something decidedly less desperate about the ache in my core. Maybe the fluttering, cooing pigeons in my stomach know that there’s something safe about Vlad. It doesn’t have to be quick and artless, to get it done and get out before the wrong thing can be said.
I moan against his mouth, an indulgent sound. I want him to take his time with me. His hands slide down to cup my ass, lifting me up into his embrace. My hands find his shoulders, his horns, to pull myself further into his kiss.
During one of the breaths I come up for, I’m a little surprised to find that his leathery wings have curled around us, like a cocoon. I reach out and graze his wings, unable to restrain myself from the question of what they feel like any longer. His wings feel more like leather than stone, though each ridge of bone gradually feels cool and hard. His body shudders beneath mine, and I make a mental note of that for later.
He tastes like intangible things, and it’s a shame scented candles can’t invoke the thought of rainy mornings and crocuses in the early, dark spring, the air crackling with distant thunder. I would buy out the shelf of that candle.
I like him. I really, really like him. It feels kind of terrible that I’m going to feed on him for some vitamin jizz. (I forget what the scientific name for it is).
I stiffen at the thought and pull back from the kiss. Oh, fuck.
Here it is. The conversation. The part that means a hookup can't just be a hookup, because people think I'm using them as a meal.
I stare down Vlad, my lower teeth gnawing on the inside of my lip as I steel myself for what I'm about to say.
“When you fuck me,” I start, because even if we weren’t just talking about that, I have a feeling it’s been on both our minds. Speaking clearly and firmly, holding his gaze, I say, “I am going to scream, ‘Cum in me, now, please.’ ”
He doesn't blink, doesn't flinch.
I lift an eyebrow. “And I want you to actually cum in me. You can come in my mouth, or in my pussy, but not on me—”
His grip tightens around my wrist, cutting me off. I'd been looking at his face too much to realize the fucking brick in his pants now, the hard outline of his cock straining against the quality of his suit.
“If you keep saying that I'm going to teach you what you’re asking for,” he growls low in my ear.
Heat blooms across my skin at the thought. I lean in a little closer, holding his gaze. “When. You. Fuck. Me. I want you to leave me broken and crying for more.”
13
My heart thuds in my chest as the door to Vlad’s room closes behind us. His touch is impossibly gentle, every little graze building and adding to something in my chest that makes me want to cry out.
I’m burning to be touched; all I can think about is the need of every nerve in my skin. I hold still and try not to focus on how he removes my clothes so tenderly it hurts my chest.
“Wouldn’t want them to wrinkle,” he says of my blouse and skirt, folding them neatly to place aside.
