So then,how?
Noah brushed his teeth and shampooed his head, trying to figure the mystery out, to put the pieces together of how Reign knew about his secret. He turned their conversation over in his head once, twice…
A chill speared through Noah despite the warmth of the water sluicing his body. Therewasone way Reign would know. One way to make the impossible possible however crazy that way might sound. It became a plausible explanation if Noah opened his mind to it and put aside what he knew and believed to be true about the world. As soon as he let that thought in, as soon as he accepted that suspicion as more than just another made-up nonsense his wishful brain imposed on him, everything clicked.
Made sense even if it didn’t make sense.
Noah rushed through the rest of his shower, tossed the bathrobe on and dashed out of the room with his heart hammering even faster. He rummaged through his luggage until his fingers felt the nylon case of the drawings, the black wrapping just as untouched as it had been whenhe’d piled his clothes around it.Proof that it hadn’t been touched, just like Reign had said.
Noah felt the world close in on him, whispering the truth to him. He tore open the case and grabbed the first painting, rushing back into the dark corridor with his heart in his throat. Panting, he stopped in front of Reign’s door, took a shaky breath and knocked.
“Come in.”
Noah did, bursting in, rather than stepping in like a normal person. Reign was lying on his bed with his back propped against the headboard, covers draping over his waist and legs. Two bed lamps on either side of him were the only source of light in the room, their hues warm but dimmed, and he was reading an old-looking leather-bound book. Gently, he closed it and looked up at Noah through his thick-framed glasses, his irises glowing that same garnet red like the ones in the painting Noah was still clutching in his hand.
16
“So, you figured it out?” Reign drawled, his voice like silk against Noah’s skin.
Noah glanced at the portrait, then at Reign, his mind and heart both racing. There was no question about it; the diplomat Noah had been obsessing over and the demon he fantasized about were one and the same. Reign Lennox, a man Noah had wanted since long before they’d even met.
A wave of anticipation rushed through Noah, making his stomach clench and his cock harden. Welcoming the sensation, reveling in it, Noah closed his eyes and stepped further into the room, untying his bathrobe. The fluffy fabric slid off his shoulders easily, giving his sides and back a final caress as it fell to the floor and revealed his naked body to Reign. Cool air kissed Noah’s skin, and he opened his eyes slowly as he inhaled, finding Reign now perched on the edge of the bed.
“Is this your answer?” he asked cryptically and stood up.
His pale skin changed first, turning darker and richer in color until it became that faded crimson red hue with the onyx markings Noah knew so intimately. Reign’s hair remained the same, the length already just right,and so did his intense gem-like eyes and the beauty mark to the left of his mouth, the ridges of his face, the prominence of his collarbones and the lean muscles of his body. He closed the distance between them slowly, deliberately, the nails of his fingers and toes elongating into claws. When they stood face to face just a few inches away from touching, Reign was still the same height, slightly shorter than Noah and a little narrower in the shoulders, the elegance of his movements and angles also translating into this otherworldly version of him.
Noah reached out first, couldn’t stop himself, not when he could touch Reign. Touch the demon. Should he be afraid? Fleeing? Praying for salvation? Probably, yet that was not at all what he wanted to do, not the kind of sensation coursing through him. He didn’t want to run, but to get even closer to the demonic being that Reign was.
Noah placed his hand flat against Reign’s sternum, the contact unleashing a surge of electricity that coursed through his fingers and rode up his arm, pulsating through his chest and toward his groin. It lit up every cell of Noah’s body with desire, with need, with yearning.
“Who are you?” Noah muttered, following with his fingers the left of the onyx markings swirling up the side of Reign’s neck and ceasing just behind his ear.
It was indescribable how it felt tofinallytouch Reign after so long, to experience the fantasy in the physical realm.In the flesh.
“You know who I am, Noah,” Reign replied in his lilting tenor, mimicking Noah’s caress not with his hand but with his tail instead. It was black and with protruding peaks like those Noah was sure characterized Reign’s spine.
Shaking his head, Noah moved to Reign’s jaw, following its shape as it transitioned into the cheekbone. “But I…” He blinked to separate imagination from fantasy, but the resulting man was no different. “I made you up in my mind.”
Reign let out a dark chuckle, the sound making Noah’s cock even harder. “You didn’t make me up,” he said, turning around as he gathered his lush mahogany hair in both hands. He exposed the back of his neck and there Noah saw his onyx-black sigil. “You sought me out.”
Tracking the outlines of the intricate design, Noah realized it wasn’t painted or tattooed, but burned into Reign’s skin like a brand. It depicted what seemed to be the bottom half of Lucifer’s chalice, with an abstract crown atop instead of the inverted triangle. A straight line intersected the tip of the V and one side of its ends was a cross while the other was a crescent.
Goosebumps rose along Reign’s smooth skin from the touch, but it was Noah who shivered, his brain not yet able to rationalize what was happening.
“Are you afraid, Noah?” Reign purred, turning back to face Noah again. He grazed the tips of his claws down Noah’s chest, his lips curving up in a seductive, knowing smile.
Fear wasn’t causing Noah to tremble, not now and not when he’d entered Reign’s room. It was need. Thirst. It was all the desire he’d kept repressed and locked inside him. His body was responding to Reign’s proximity. Maybe Noah should have been afraid, terrified that the man he’d lusted after for so long was a demon, that he’d not been a figment of Noah’s imagination but an actual visitor, but… he wasn’t. He couldn’t find it in him to be scared orcautious, not when he could have both the man and the demon without giving up either.
Noah inhaled deeply. The scent of pine and charred earth enveloped him, making him no longer able to resist or fight the cravings within.
“Reign,” he said in a voice so low and inviting, it sounded foreign even to his own ears. “I want you.”
Reign’s smile was slow and controlled, a contrast to the unhinged hunger in his gaze. “Then have me,” he compelled, walking backwards.
He sat down on the edge of the bed as Noah followed, then shuffled up its length until he had his back against the pillows and his legs spread open in invitation. Noah took a moment to appreciate Reign’s flushed cock before he crawled up the bed, positioning himself between Reign’s thighs with his back plastered to Reign’s front. A shudder racked through him the moment he felt Reign’s skin against his, the need to be touched mounting.
“Touch me,” Noah demanded when Reign didn’t do so immediately, inhibitions no longer applicable.
