A rough snap of my hips and his spine bowed, his body obeying my command. His cock jerked, smearing the small amount of fluid he still had in reserve across my stomach. My inner succubus purred in satisfaction at the glassy look in Rans’ eyes when he finally opened them. It felt as though the knowledge of how to use this sexual power he’d granted me had finally started to settle into my bones, as I watched his barriers dropping one by one. I let instinct guide me, sliding my hand down and using a touch on his jaw to lift his gaze to mine.
“I love you,” I repeated for the third time. My hips rolled against his, not giving him a chance to recover. “And it’s not your job to have all of the answers... all of the solutions. If we die tomorrow, or a decade from now, or five minutes from now, I’ll still love you just as much.”
He shuddered under me, his eyes dilating until black nearly swallowed the blue. I fucked into him harder, and his chest convulsed in a gasp, drawing air he didn’t need. Another gasp followed, and another. The ring of iris around his blown pupils glowed with unearthly inner light.
“If we die in the next heartbeat,” I told him, “I’ll still thank my lucky stars for the day I stumbled across you bleeding from a shotgun blast inside my garden shed.”
He arched and came again—helplessly. Artlessly. A broken noise ripped free from his throat, his chest still rising and falling on jagged breaths full of oxygen he couldn’t use. I wrapped him up as much as my smaller frame would allow, holding him, still fucking him with slow and gentle undulations of my hips. His arms came around my shoulders in a grip that screamed desperation, muscles quivering as he held me in place, my head resting on his chest, tucked beneath his chin.
Contentment flooded my heart. With a slow sigh, I wormed an arm free just long enough to fumble for the little remote control and turn it on. The pleasant buzz warmed my body, a decadent counterpoint to the warmth already soaking into my soul. In my arms, Rans’ shuddering calmed by slow degrees. He came one final time beneath my gentle movements, his entire body going boneless. I followed him into orgasm immediately afterward, bone-deep pleasure and a rush of happy endorphins flooding my limbs.
As soon as my muscles were back under my control, I carefully slipped the dildo out of him and wriggled free of the harness, kicking it away from the bed. Rans was completely out of it; lying on the wreck of the bedclothes like the fallen angel I’d once compared him to—either asleep or unconscious. Fortunately, the huge mattress meant an equally huge bedspread, so I was able to flip one edge over both of us rather than face the daunting task of getting us under the covers properly.
All at once, the exhaustion of having been awake for well over a day hit me like a freight train. I barely managed to curl against Rans’ side with an arm and a leg thrown over him before sleep claimed me in its muffling embrace.
FOURTEEN
WHEN I WOKE UP, Rans was holding me tightly against him. Not painfully tight, but with the sort of single-mindedness that one holds onto something of great value when one is convinced that it’s about to be taken away.
It was light outside. I had no idea what time of day it was, but my body exhibited the heavy feeling indicative of hours of deep sleep after a long time spent awake. For a few moments, I just lay there, soaking up the grounding sensation of strong arms wrapped around me. Those arms, however, belonged to a vampire—meaning he’d probably been able to tell the instant I’d woken up by the changes in my pulse and breathing.
“I’m also thankful to the powers-that-be for the day I met you, you know,” he said without preamble, as though we were continuing a conversation that hadn’t been interrupted by multiple orgasms and a solid night’s sleep. “And then, in the very next moment, I’m hit with terror at the thought of losing you.”
I clung to him a bit closer, limpet-like.
“Look at it this way,” I said. “If you do end up losing me, at least you won’t have long to worry about it.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if that was a kind thing to say or a terrible one. Either way, though, it was the truth. Thanks to the life-bond, whenever I died, Rans would be hot on my heels in the race to the afterlife... assuming there was one.
“It’ll be the longest damned moment of my miserable existence,” he muttered.
“Made considerably longer than it needs to be by the fact that you’re obsessing over it while I’m still happily alive and in bed with you,” I pointed out mildly.
His chest expanded and contracted in a huff.
“I’m right.” I insisted. “Admit it.”
He grumbled something under his breath before addressing me in a more normal tone. “Right? Probably. Smug? Definitely.”
“Well... maybe some fresh new ideas on how to deal with this mess will present themselves, now that everyone’s had a decent night’s sleep,” I suggested, untangling my limbs from Rans’ enough to stretch. “Assuming Guthrie slept okay, anyway. Which reminds me, what time is it?”
Rans eyed the sun slanting through the glass doors leading to the suite’s private deck. “Late enough that he probably won’t shout at us for checking in on him.”
I frowned. “I hope it wasn’t a mistake leaving him alone for so long.”
Rans loosened his grip on me with obvious reluctance. “With easy access to blood bags and no distractions of the warm-blooded variety, he’s fine. And he probably would have made an attempt to eviscerate me if we’d stayed longer—verbally if not physically.”
I couldn’t help my small noise of amusement. “True, that.”
“So... shower, then?”
In my case, at least, showering probably should have happened last
