Nicolas moaned, opening his mouth wide and tilting his head to slant their lips together better. This was it. This was exactly what he wanted. The sin eater kissed like he wanted to crawl inside him, and Nicolas wanted to let him. There was a hook in his heart, pulling him toward the demon, and only when they were together did the ache finally stop. In the sin eater’s grasp, his wounds stopped hurting, the constant fear went blessedly silent, and all that mattered was the push and pull of their bodies together.
And now, he was fresh from a shower, completely naked,and the demon’s hands roamed like it couldn’t get enough of the sensation of his skin. Rough palms explored his bare arms, his sides, his hips. Claws pricked the globes of his ass, and Nicolas tore his mouth from the demon’s, panting.
“How did you—get in?” he asked. “I have wards on the door.”
“Weak wards,” the demon said, sharp teeth grazing his neck.
At the first pricks of pain, fear returned hard and fast. Nicolas jerked back so quickly he banged his head on the wall, and the demon growled, cupping the back of his head like he was pissed Nicolas had hurt himself.
“You can’t leave marks on my neck. You can’t leave a mark anywhere that my clothes wouldn’t cover.”
He growled again, this time petulantly.
Fear made him tremble. “No one can know. If the guild finds out?—”
“Kill you.”
Nicolas sagged. “Yeah.”
The demon tugged him away from the cool wall, wrapping him in a secure hug that warmed him immediately. It was like the demon wanted to shelter him from the guild.
“Then why stay?”
It was the same thing Daniel had asked. Nicolas’s face twisted. “It’s not good now, but it used to be. I grew up hearing tales of glory from my father, who was a paladin, too. My mother was a teacher there, and so was her mother before her. Being a paladin like our dad was all my brother and I ever wanted.” That wasn’t an excuse anymore, not after the things the guild had done, but he didn’t have anything else. Being a paladin had been his only purpose for his entire life. If he didn’t have that, he would be lost.
Soft claws tickled his cheek. The demon’s glowing eyes gazed at him with a softness that didn’t make sense.
“Pain.”
Nicolas’s heart squeezed. He didn’t mean a physical pain. “Yeah, it hurts. Losing them hurt. Losing that connection to them through the guild would hurt, too.”
The demon’s grip tightened. “Protect.”
“Why?”
The demon didn’t respond, his eyes roaming Nicolas’s face like it might hold the answers. And then he leaned in, slipping his tongue into Nicolas’s mouth again. He didn’t kiss like a normal human, his tongue roaming and licking in ways no other partner ever had, and Nicolas wondered if he’d ever done this with a human before—or at all. And if not, why now? Why Nicolas?
Clawed hands fell to his rear, hooking under his thighs and lifting. Nicolas clung to his sturdy shoulders. He was rock hard, his cock leaving a trail of precum on the demon’s cloak. There was no answering bulge beneath the fabric yet. The demon turned and deposited him on the bed.
“Beautiful,” the demon said, crawling over him. “Beautiful human.”
He swallowed hard. “Nicolas.”
“Mm?”
“My name. It’s Nicolas.”
Claws touched his face again, reverently. “BeautifulNiclasss.” He ducked his head and licked a stripe up Nicolas’s chest.
Nicolas chuckled, arching into the touch and shivering as the trail of saliva cooled on his skin. “Nic-o-las,” he enunciated.
“Light,” the demon countered, cradling his head in both hands. “Bright light.Mylight.”
Nicolas’s breath shuddered out of him. “Do you have a name?”
The demon’s tongue flicked against Nicolas’s lips. “Ashmedai.”
It sounded appropriately ethereal. “Ashmedai,” he whispered.
