Ashmedai’s spine straightened, and long fingers wrapped around Nicolas’s wrist. “What?”
“Yeah,” Nicolas whispered. No one could compare. There was literally no one on Earth like Ashmedai. He could scarcely believe that he trusted Nicolas enough to be this vulnerable around him, but he wouldn’t take it for granted.
Everything he’d felt, all the worries about whether he could have a future with a sin eater and if they had anything in common besides sex, they all fell away. He couldn’t doubt Ashmedai’s feelings for him when he was baring himself for Nicolas like this. Yes, their relationship would be more complicated than some, but very few things worth doing were easy. Ashmedai was taking a leap for him, and his heart swelled to twice its normal size in response. It felt as though his whole body was rearranging itself to make room for Ashmedai in his heart.
Wrapping his arms around Ashmedai’s neck, he kissed him as their bodies lined up from chest to knee. The sensation of that hot skin against his own sent a shudder of anticipation down Nicolas’s spine. Ashmedai’s rangy arms curled around him, squeezing him tight, and Nicolas let his hands explore. One palm smoothed down Ashmedai’s spine, where he found more of those armored segments, bigger and thicker. Ashmedai’s body was like a furnace, hotenough that Nicolas would call him feverish if he were human.
He tore his mouth away, wanting to speak before he got lost in the desire building between them. “Thank you for letting me see you, Ash. I’m so glad you trust me this much.”
“I shouldn’t have worried,” Ashmedai said.
“I feel like it’s my fault,” Nicolas said. “I was worried abouteverythingin the beginning. I made things harder than they needed to be?—”
“Ours was always going to be an unusual union,” Ashmedai interrupted softly. “Human and demon.”
“The others have made it work just fine,” Nicolas argued.
Ashmedai shook his head. “Those demons pass for human. They can go out in public. They can be seen with their humans.”
“That doesn’t matter.” He was surprised by the venom in his own voice, because it wasn’t so long ago that he had similar thoughts. He hadn’t been able to see past their differences at first. He couldn’t pinpoint when his feelings had changed.
“Doesn’t it?” Ashmedai tilted his head, studying him.
Nicolas cradled his face. It was becoming his new favorite thing to do. He liked the way his fingers looked on Ashmedai’s cheeks and jaw, the contrast between his deep black skin and Nicolas’s warm brown.
“Maybe at first,” he allowed. “Maybe when we first met, I cared about being able to go out on public dates or take a trip to IKEA together. But you know what? My parents could do those things, and their relationship was a sham. He walked all over her. She let him, because the church teaches a woman to stand behind her man. It’s all bullshit. They never looked forward to seeing each other the way I lookforward to the sun going down so I can see you. They never wanted to talk about their day with each other, never fell asleep in each other’s arms, never made plans for the future. You’re all I can think about, Ash. You’re all I can see in my future. So what if we can’t go out in public together? Everybody who matters already knows you’re mine. Daniel, Julian, the rest of the Sentinels. I don’t have to keep you a secret from anyone who matters to me. And just you wait until Halloween. I’ll take you walking down the boardwalk. You’ll have the coolest costume in the city.”
Ashmedai chuffed out a laugh, his eyes crinkling. His mouth stretched so wide it almost touched his ears, setting his rows of sharp teeth on display.
“We can have whatever future we want,” Nicolas said. “And—apparently—it could be quite a long one.” Because if he drank Ashmedai’s blood, he could be immortal.
Claws tickled the side of his face, Ashmedai’s gaze soft and earnest. “Would you want that? It would mean outliving Daniel.”
A distant pain lurched through him at the notion. “I-I don’t know. I like the idea of living forever with you. But I don’t like thinking about existing without my brother—or him going on without me. That’s why I asked you to watch out for him if something happens to me.”
Ashmedai nodded in understanding.
“Watching him grow old might not be so bad. Especially if he got to live a long, full life. He deserves that. God, what if he had kids? And grandkids? I could just keep going, watch his family line go on. That wouldn’t be so bad.” His distant gaze refocused on Ashmedai, and he smiled. “And I’d get to be with you, of course.”
“There’s no need for a decision yet,” Ashmedai said,bodily turning them and backing Nicolas toward the bed. “I can wait.”
He spun Nicolas around and shoved him face-first onto the bed. His moan got trapped in his throat when Ashmedai gripped the fabric of his underwear andripped. He gasped, twisting around to look behind him.
“Did you just rip a hole in my boxers?” The question was unnecessary. He could feel air on his exposed ass. It wasn’t a big rip, really, just strategically placed.
Ashmedai loomed over him like a predator about to pounce, hands planted on either side of him and his wide, grinning mouth full of dark promise.
“Yes. For this.” Claws pricked his bottom as Ashmedai pried his cheeks apart and leaned in, licking a stripe up Nicolas’s crack.
He shuddered, hands twisting in the blanket. Claws scraped up and down his back as Ashmedai ate him, sucking and licking and kneading until he could press that long tongue inside. By the time it was moving in and out of him, he was panting, the blanket shoved in his mouth so his neighbors wouldn’t hear him beg. Ashmedai knew his body better than he knew it himself, knew how to stroke his insides to make sparks explode under his skin and how to hold him down until he gave up all hope of control. He was nothing but sensation, carried away by gentle claws and mind-numbing pleasures.
He barely moved when Ashmedai finally released him. Hovering on the brink of orgasm, he gulped down greedy lungfuls of air as Ashmedai climbed over him.
And flipped him. One minute he was staring at the wall, and then he was looking straight up at Ashmedai. Awareness returned to him as he gazed into those burning orange eyes.His legs settled comfortably around Ashmedai’s waist, ankles linking together at the small of his back.
“I like this,” Ashmedai remarked, slinging his hips low and notching his cock at Nicolas’s softened hole. “See you. Touch you.” He rolled one of Nicolas’s nipples between his fingers, and Nicolas keened. “Yes, like this a lot.”
Ashmedai’s cock filled Nicolas slowly, inching inside like an afterthought as Ashmedai’s mouth and fingers explored Nicolas’s chest. His wicked tongue swirled around one nipple as he plucked and teased the other with his fingers. Nicolas’s body strung tight, his thighs quaking as he rocked up to meet Ashmedai’s lazy thrusts. He couldn’t hide his moans in this position, releasing them into the air as Ashmedai played his body like a fiddle. His blunt nails raked across blackened skin, catching on the armored segments over Ashmedai’s spine. He didn’t seem to notice.
