He was hungry for lust, but at the moment, I had none. His body was beautiful, and of course I found him desirable,but my focus was on his face. Stunning with his sharp nose, high cheekbones, and puffy lips, but stricken with dread. I’d removed him from the club, but his concerns clung on. Like the incubus had his own demons perched on his shoulders, whispering worry in his ears.
“Zephyr,” I began quietly, “I may owe you another apology. I don’t mean to cause trouble between you and Maslow. It’s not my place. When we go back in, I’m more than happy to discuss matters with him.”
In fact, I wanted to. I had no intention of being patient or polite about it. Colette might’ve been onto something with her demand to speak to the manager. I had my own questions about how the Dollhouse was being run, and none of them involved the vintage of their champagne.
Zephyr shifted, eyes drifting over the bottles and glassware behind the bar. But I got the sense he wasn’t seeing any of it, just looking for something that wasn’t me or his own reflection.
“As long as you give him the money, and I give…” He stopped again when I wanted him to keep going. Explain, please, because I… cared. I genuinely, inexplicably, cared.
“I’ll be fine,” he concluded. “But not if we don’t…” His brow furrowed, and he glanced over, eyes curtained by loose locks of scarlet hair. “Will you still? I-I need it.”
It was far from a come-on, more of a plea. The first time we’d talked, I remembered thinking his pickup game was unpracticed at best, nonexistent at worst. But he was honest, and that was admirable. Not particularly arousing, but admirable.
I moved down the bench until we were nearly hip to hip. Sitting so close, it was hard not to drag my fingers down his thigh or tuck his hair behind his ear. I remembered the girl in the club kissing him and wondered if she felt thesame nagging temptation I did now. She succumbed, but I needed to resist. If I did one thing right tonight, let it be that. This man, this creature, already had his hooks in me. I didn’t need his venom in me too.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked. “Maybe we should sit for a while. You look ready to pass out.”
Then I did reach out to feather my fingers through his hair. It was longer than I’d realized, hanging loose around his neck and curling under the collar of my suit coat.
He was still pale and visibly weak, but he brightened at my touch.
“We can sit,” he agreed. “Or I could… lay down…”
Without waiting for my approval, he drew his bare legs up onto the bench seat and lowered his torso until he was below me looking up. His eyes flashed with dim light as his tongue flicked across his lips.
“Will you let me taste you this time?” he asked. “I promise I won’t… No teeth.”
Because he was honest, I believed him. And I had to admit, this was harder to resist than his previous efforts. I wasn’t above a pity fuck, but it was certainly more enticing to think he was into it. Into me.
“Baby,” I began, and both of us stopped. He liked it when I called him Beauty, and I could tell from the catch in his breath that he liked this just as much.
Fuck, I barely knew him. But I wanted to. And he was practically in my lap, so easily gathered up. I wanted that too.
“Do you want to suck my cock?” I asked, then grimaced. It sounded crude.
Zephyr made a needy sound and looked up at me. “Please,” he whispered, too ready to beg, and the notion rubbed me wrong.
He was starved and desperate and afraid, and was I solving a problem or ignoring it?
A moment of indecision passed before he reached for my belt and button, and I didn’t stop him. Pants undone and erection freed, I leaned back, making myself accessible to his advance.
Zephyr hummed and threaded his arms around me. One tucked behind my lower back, and the other draped across my thighs. Then he laid his head down, taking my dick into his mouth as he did so.
I almost stopped him—he couldn’t talk with his mouth full, and I still had questions—but the second my cock grazed the back of his throat, he let out a quiet whine and fisted the fabric of my shirt like he needed something to hold on to.
His body grew heavy as he sank against me, and I couldn’t help but touch him. His hair, his face, the graceful slope of his neck… I stroked his skin with velvet fingertips until his eyelids began to droop. He swallowed, throat pulsing against my tip and causing me to groan.
His soft, wet tongue pillowed my shaft as he suckled at my head, then drew down and swallowed once more. The motion became repetitive, but no less placid. Soft pulls against my crown chased the slide of his tongue, as if he could consume me from this contact alone.
Intermittent sparks of pleasure left me alight. It was all I could do not to let my head roll back and just feel. It was simultaneously excruciating—wanting to take when he’d asked me to give—and exquisite because damn, his face. His amethyst eyes gazed up at me through his lashes. Guileless. Gorgeous.
I carded my fingers through his hair again, testing the feel of it the same way I’d sampled his name. He looked likemine tucked up in my clothes, and I relished the idea that he would smell like me too.
It was complicated: wanting to claim him and plotting ways I could take him away because he wasn’t safe here. The thought of Maslow counting stacks of cash while a line of men passed through that room, taking turns fuckingmyincubus, made me burn with rage.
Zephyr’s sleepy breaths puffed against my groin as I gazed down at him.
“You’re all right,” I murmured, trailing my thumb along his hairline down to his smooth jaw. “You don’t have to be scared. Whatever’s wrong, I’ll fix it.”
