Dignity, baby.
“Mmph,” I said into the comforter. “Fuck.”
“Give me a minute or two, love,” he replied, a bit hoarsely. “I’m working up to it.”
“You’re insatiable,” I told him, mostly to cover the way my belly tightened again at his words.
In the past couple of months, I’d more or less come to terms with the fact that being a succubus hybrid also meant being an unashamed cock-slut. This enlightening journey of self-discovery had been eased somewhat by the fact that Rans was also an unashamed man-whore. It was part of the reason the two of us worked together, and as far as I was concerned, anyone who wanted to get judgey about it could go take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut.
All of which meant that when Rans recovered himself enough to untangle me from the headboard and roll me over on my back in the center of the bed, my only reaction was to let my legs fall open with a pleased hum of anticipation. He loomed over me, and I took a moment to appreciate the view. I’d at least managed to tousle him during our first two rounds of sex—and that had always been a good look on him.
His hand cupped my cheek as his hips settled in the cradle of my thighs, the contact bringing a flush of warmth to my chest that had nothing to do with body heat. “Hell’s teeth, you look amazing like this,” he said.
My eyes slid away from his at the words, even though they were a mirror image of my own thoughts about him. His hand kept me from turning my face to hide my expression, though.
“No,” he told me softly. “Look at me. Don’t hide from me while I’m telling you how much I love you.”
I swallowed noisily and wrenched my gaze back to his. His blue eyes were clear, and suddenly seemed very, very deep. My lips parted as he entered me, but no words came out.
“See what you do to me, Zorah,” he said. “Don’t look away.”
He couldn’t mesmerize me anymore now that I was a vampire, too—not that his powers had ever worked on me fully. Nevertheless, I stared up at him, trapped by his gaze.
“Rans, I—”
But his hips rolled against mine, the words cutting off in a gasp. In a moment of trepidation, I realized that I wasn’t ready for this kind of sex right now. Until recently, I hadn’t known this kind of sex existed. Which... probably sounded stupid. But all my post-pubescent life, I’d been a starved succubus hybrid, unaware that I was sucking energy from every sensual encounter with another person.
I didn’t understand why they always ran away afterward. They probably didn’t understand either. But to my demonic nature, sex equaled nourishment, and there was never enough of either. I mean... I read books. I watched movies. I knew in a broad sense that there was supposed to be something more to intimacy, and that I was apparently a screw-up of the highest order when it came to relationships.
Until Rans, though, I hadn’t been prepared for... this. I still wasn’t. Maybe I was making strides—but they had mostly been strides taken on the other side of the power balance equation. On the cruise ship, I’d successfully fucked Rans into acknowledging his fears and doubts about his ability to protect us from our enemies. Which... actually sounded pretty messed up, even in the privacy of my own thoughts.
But the idea of being the one showing vulnerability rather than the one eliciting it was—
Terrifying?
Mortifying?
Existentially threatening?
All of the above?
“I don’t know how to do this part,” I said, a bit desperately.
His hand, still at my cheek, stroked over the skin of my temple. “I’m well aware,” he said. “And that fact doesn’t change or diminish my feelings for you in the least.”
My eyelids fluttered as another perfect stroke filled me up. I struggled to keep my eyes open and fixed on him.
“Why?” I couldn’t help asking. “Why, though?”
I’d wondered since the first moment I’d realized he wasn’t going to dump me like hot garbage the first chance he got. I’d had theories along the way, none of which truly explained the situation to my satisfaction, and most of which had subsequently been debunked. I’d even asked him outright, but the answers he gave never quite seemed to compute inside my brain.
The look he shot me now was helplessly, hopelessly fond. “Because I need you as much as you need me, Zorah. Haven’t you realized that yet?”
His hips rolled against mine again... and again... and again. How was I supposed to think about serious relationship things when he was making me feel so perfect? My throat tightened, any words I might have wanted to say dammed up inside.
Maybe he just means the life-bond, whispered the evil little bitch-voice that lived inside my head, ever so helpfully. He needs you, all right. He’d literally die without you, after all.
My throat grew tighter.
No, I thought angrily. I was so done with that ugly little voice of self-doubt and self-loathing. No, goddamn it. I’m allowed to have this. I’m allowed to have it mean something. If I’m about to get killed in a supernatural war, I’m allowed to be loved first!
“I love you!” I gasped, holding that blue gaze even though my own vision was blurring. “I love you... I love you!”
Rans lowered himself until I was sheltered close against his body, his lips brushing my ear. “Oh, my dearest heart. I know that. Just as you ought to know that I love you beyond all reason... beyond the bounds of life and death. Forever and eternally.”
A hitching sob wrenched free of my chest. I was still crying when the feeling of him moving inside me tipped me into free-fall, the last of my emotional control shaking free as my pleasure crested. He held me through it, shielding me from the outside world until I could think again.
“I don’t want to die,”
