But today...today was different.

He gave you a soft smile—still affectionate, still gentle—but then, to your absolute horror, he shook his head.

"Mmm...I think not today, kitten. Next time," he said, voice calm and maddeningly firm.

Your arms froze around him. Your expression dropped in real-time, eyes wide, mouth parting in disbelief. Did he just—did he actually—say no? He had quite literally never said no before. Not once. Not even when you asked for that ultra-rare imported skincare fridge that cost more than a mortgage. This had to be some kind of joke. Right?

You pulled back just enough to look up at him fully, lips wobbling, ready to protest again. You were already cycling through your arsenal of cute tricks—maybe a dramatic sigh? Teary eyes?—because surely this wasn’t how this ended. Not with a "no."

"But Sy..." you gently whined, faceplanting into his chest with an exaggerated pout. The nickname was your secret weapon, sweet and playful, something you knew always made his heart melt just a little. "It’s limited edition stuff! You know how fast those go. And I’ve been good too…" you added with a soft, teasing tone, slowly trailing your finger along the curve of his neck, the gesture feather-light and flirtatious.

You were confident this would do the trick. It always did. Your go-to routine of sweet pleading paired with just the right amount of clingy affection had never failed before. He’d usually cave within seconds, either sighing contently before handing over his card or laughing under his breath about you being spoiled while simultaneously transferring money to your account. But this time…

This time, all you got in return was that infuriating smirk of his.

"You look adorable with that expression, sweetie" he said casually, chuckling as he ruffled your hair in a way that felt more teasing than affectionate. "Perhaps I’ll let you keep it for today. For my amusement."

You froze in disbelief, blinking rapidly. That wasn’t a yes. That wasn’t even a maybe. That was—was he seriously refusing you right now? Your glare sharpened instantly as your lips jutted out into a full-blown pout. You thumped his chest—not hard, but pointedly—and let out a long, frustrated huff.

Oh. So he wanted to play games today? Fine. Game on.

You stepped back dramatically, throwing your arms up with an exaggerated sigh. “Whatever. Have it your way,” you huffed, spinning on your heel and stomping toward the car like an offended princess denied her crown. You made sure he saw the little toss of your hair, the extra sway in your hips—because if he wanted to be difficult, you were going to be impossible.

The date wrapped up without much drama—well, if you didn’t count the dramatic pout glued to your face all evening, or the way you stubbornly gave Sylus the cold shoulder from the moment he refused you. You sat across from him at the candlelit table, arms crossed tight beneath the linen napkin on your lap, chewing your steak with slow, deliberate bites like the food had personally offended you. You barely looked in his direction, except to shoot the occasional glare or let out a sigh so loud the table next to you probably heard. A whine here, a sharp huff there—just enough to make it painfully clear you weren’t going to let this go.

And Sylus? That cocky menace? He didn’t budge. He just sipped his wine with maddening calm, eyes twinkling like this was all an elaborate joke for his amusement. At one point, he leaned his elbow on the table, resting his chin in his palm, and smiled. "You know," he said, voice smooth and low, "kittens always make the same little noises when they’re upset."

You nearly dropped your fork.

Ooooh. This jerk. You wanted to launch a breadstick at his head. You wanted to crawl across the table and wipe that smug grin off his stupidly perfect face. But how? That was the problem. Sylus didn’t rattle. He didn’t flinch, didn’t fumble, didn’t even raise his voice at you. No matter what bratty storm you stirred up, he was always maddeningly patient, always one step ahead.

You sulked all the way to the car, all the way through the quiet drive home, arms folded like a fortress across your chest. Your mind raced the entire ride, cycling through schemes and petty revenges like flashcards. Maybe you’d text one of your admirers, just to provoke a reaction. Maybe you’d steal and attempt to max out his black card on purpose. Something—anything—to make him crack.

When the car finally pulled up to the mansion, you didn’t even wait for him to open your door. You climbed out with exaggerated grace, tossed your hair, and strutted up the stairs like an offended queen returning to her palace. But then, just as you stepped inside, fate handed you the perfect opening.

His phone rang.

He glanced at the screen, sighed, and gave you an apologetic smile. "Business. I’ll have to leave for a bit" He pressed a soft kiss to your lips—infuriatingly gentle—and disappeared out the door, already speaking in that cool, professional tone of his.

And just like that, you were alone. Whatever, not like you weren't used to his sudden disappearances by now.

Alone in his sprawling, high-ceilinged foyer, surrounded by leather furniture, dim lighting, and that faint scent of cologne that always lingered in the air. Unsupervised. Unchecked.

Your lips slowly curled into a smile.

Oh, Sylus. If he thought your tantrum was over…

You made your way upstairs to the bedroom, each step slow and deliberate, the cool floor a quiet contrast to the heat bubbling under your skin. The air was still, heavy with that faint scent of cologne and luxury that always clung to Sylus’s space, and it only fueled the spark of rebellion in your chest. If he thought he could brush you off with a smile and a kiss on the lips, he had another thing coming.

The second you entered the room, your eyes were locked on your shared closet. You didn’t hesitate. Determination hardened your gaze as you swung the doors open and began to dig. Silks, lace, structured jackets, soft cotton tees—none of it was what you needed. Your fingers moved quickly, flicking through hangers, rummaging through drawers, pausing only to toss aside a piece or two that got in your way.

Then, your fingertips brushed over something thin and impossibly soft. You froze. Pulled it out. And there it was.

Tucked neatly toward the back, untouched and still wrapped in soft tissue from the boutique: a white slip dress. Almost sheer, impossibly delicate. Not see-through enough to be scandalous, but sheer enough to spark the imagination. You held it up, letting it sway gently in your hands as a grin tugged at the corners of your lips. Oh yes—this would do nicely.

It was the kind of dress that was made to be seen by someone who wouldn’t be allowed to touch. Innocent in color, wicked in fit.

You stripped out of your clothes with little ceremony, letting your discarded outfit fall to the floor. Then you stepped into the slip dress, carefully pulling it over your shoulders and smoothing it down over your figure. The fabric was featherlight, almost like a second skin, clinging in all the right places and catching on the subtle curves of your body. The hem kissed the top of your thighs, the neckline dipping just low enough to draw the eye.

You adjusted the straps, letting one slip slightly off your shoulder before nudging it back into place. The mirror reflected back something soft, sultry, and calculated. You tilted your head, gave your reflection a slow once-over, and lifted the hem slightly to re-adjust where it clung a little too high at the hip.

It was a look that said, "Oops, did I wear this by mistake?" when every stitch was picked out with intent.

You even applied a light layer of gloss to your lips and tousled your hair a little, just enough to give it that messy, just-out-of-bed sheen. Not too perfect—no, that would ruin the effect. You wanted to look like a dream and a challenge all at once.

You stepped back, admiring the effect with a smirk that tugged at your lips.

Yeah. This would more than do.

You pulled out your phone and made your way to Sylus's bed, crawling onto the plush comforter with a wicked little smirk playing on your lips. The soft fabric of the dress slid over your skin as you moved, clinging tighter with every shift of your hips. It was like the dress had been made for this—barely-there, teasing just enough to be dangerous. You positioned yourself carefully, angling your body this way and that, letting the hem ride up a little higher each time, letting the neckline dip lower than it should. You knew your angles, and you weren’t afraid to use them.

Your hair spilled around your shoulders as you arched your back just enough to accentuate your figure, your lips parted slightly in a deliberately breathless expression. You cycled through poses—knees bent, laying on your side, half-turns that showed just enough. Each snap of the camera was a calculated strike, crafted to toe that perfect line between seductive and untouchable. Every glance at the lens carried a silent message: look, but don’t you dare touch.

You finally landed on the winning shot.

You were laying flat on your stomach, feet kicked up in the air behind you in an almost playful pose, your body stretched across the bed like a perfectly unwrapped gift. The camera angle was just right—your butt peeked into the edge of the frame, subtle but impossible to miss. The front of your chest was also faintly visible, pressed softly against the sheets, hinted at through the thin slip of fabric that caught the light in all the right places. The image was an illusion of innocence, cloaked in silk and suggestion. It whispered secrets without saying a word.

You giggled to yourself, the kind of giggle that came from knowing you’d just lit a match. Scrolling through filters, you picked one that added a warm, golden glow to your skin, bringing out the soft shadows and romantic lighting of the bedroom. Your cheeks looked naturally flushed, your eyes dreamy and a little wild.

Then came the real fun. You opened your social media app and navigated to your public Moments feed, fingers tapping away with ease. A single, sweetly cheeky caption. Nothing too obvious. Just the right amount of flirt. And then the hashtags—oh, you chose them carefully. Trending ones, flirty ones, ones that practically begged people to stop and stare. Ones that would ensure this photo didn’t just go unnoticed. It would explode.

Post.

You hit the button and watched as the image loaded, crisp and glowing on the screen. Your heart fluttered with anticipation, not nerves—but a thrill. You placed your phone down on the bed beside you, letting your body melt into the mattress, stretching out lazily like a cat in sunlight. You felt deliciously smug.

Now it was just a matter of time.

How long until Sylus saw it? How long before someone else did? How long before his phone started buzzing with the growing flood of likes and comments from strangers who had no business seeing you like this—but were absolutely going to anyway?

You tucked your chin into the pillow, smiling to yourself.

It did not take long at all for the post to get some traction.

Within the hour or so, your phone was buzzing nonstop, lighting up with a steady stream of likes, comments, shares, and those little heart notifications that came in quicker than you could keep track of. People were noticing. People were reacting. And you were lounging there on Sylus’s bed, basking in the slow-burning chaos you’d started.

The comments came in waves. Some were sweet, complimenting your beauty, your glow, the elegance of the dress—words like "ethereal" and "goddess" paired with heart-eye emojis and rose-colored filters. Others were...not so polite. Thirsty replies from strangers you didn’t know, saying things that made you cringe, made your brow furrow. A few were outright creepy. You deleted those on sight, blocking users without hesitation, but the damage was already done. The post was out there, and it was spreading fast.

You rolled onto your back with a sigh, your phone raised above your head as you continued scrolling. It was almost funny—how predictable it all was. You knew the moment you posted it what kind of reaction you’d get. You knew the hashtags would push it to the explore pages. You knew someone would tag a friend, then another, then another. But even so, seeing it all unfold made your chest buzz with adrenaline.

You giggled to yourself as you tapped through DMs—some from followers you recognized, others from complete strangers trying their luck. You deleted the worst of them, but not before archiving a few particularly flattering ones. Not because you were interested, of course, but because you knew Sylus might see them.

And that was the real game, wasn’t it?

The ultimate goal.

Then, right in the middle of clearing out a flood of unsolicited messages, a new notification popped up—distinct. Crisp. Your thumb hovered for half a second.

Sylus: I saw it. You can delete it now.

Seven words. No punctuation. No emojis. Nothing but cool, clean finality.

And yet, it hit like a sucker punch to the stomach. You stared at the message, pulse picking up. The smirk returned to your lips, slow and sly. He saw it. He saw it. You could practically feel the shift in the air, the subtle tension winding through the silence of the room like a live wire.

You reread the message. Once. Twice.

And then you did not delete the post.

Instead, you stretched your arms over your head, arching your back into the mattress like a content little cat, your smile widening as you tapped back into the moments app. Notifications were still flooding in. More likes. More reposts. More attention.

If Sylus thought that single message was enough to reel you back in, he clearly underestimated your mood tonight.

Now the real fun could begin.

"Mmmm. Not today. Maybe another time," you texted back, pausing just long enough for a flicker of doubt to creep in before you hit send.

Yeah, get a taste of your own medicine asshole.

The moment your message whooshed off into cyberspace, your heart skipped. Your face grew warm, the flush spreading all the way to your ears. A nervous little flutter worked its way through your chest as you set your phone down on the comforter, then immediately snatched it back up.

Had you gone too far?

You had teased Sylus plenty before—playfully, brattily, dramatically—but this was different. You had never really pushed him. Not like this. He had always let you be a little dramatic, indulging every pout, every sigh, every fake tear with maddening patience. But this? This was... direct defiance. And it made your stomach flip in a way that was equal parts thrilling and terrifying.

The screen lit up.

Three dots. He was typing.

Your pulse surged. You sat up straighter, fingers gripping the edge of your phone just a bit too tightly. Your eyes were locked on those three little dots like they were a countdown. Here it comes. The reaction. The reprimand. Maybe a taunt, maybe something sharper.

And then—

Nothing.

The dots vanished.

You stared at the screen in disbelief. Wait—what? That’s it? No reply? Not even a period? Just a seen at timestamp to cling to?

Your brows furrowed, confusion giving way to an irritated twist of your lips. No smug comeback? No passive-aggressive sarcasm? No "oh really, kitten?" Just...silence?

Bastard.

You let out a frustrated sound that was somewhere between a growl and a sigh, flopping back dramatically onto the pillows. Your hair spread out over the fabric like a halo as you stared at the ceiling, phone clutched against your chest like it might suddenly buzz with an explanation. But nothing came. Just silence, and your own thoughts chasing themselves in circles.

Was he actually mad this time? That didn’t sound like him. But what if he was? Or worse—what if he was ignoring you on purpose? Letting you stew? Was this part of his plan? Was this some next-level psychological warfare meant to make you squirm?

Well, it was working.

You sat up again with a sharp exhale, glaring at your screen as if you could will a response into existence. The nerve of him. Leaving you hanging like that? No reaction? No witty jab? He was definitely doing this on purpose. And maybe—just maybe—it was kind of hot.

Your teeth sank into your bottom lip, frustration tangling with something dangerously close to anticipation.

You don’t realize you had fallen asleep until the quiet creak of the bedroom door jolts you from your haze. Your body stiffens instinctively, your heart skipping a beat as your eyes flutter open to the soft golden hue of the bedroom lights. The sheets are still warm beneath you, and for a split second, everything feels still. Peaceful.

Until you see him.

Sylus steps into the room, his movements as smooth and controlled as ever. His face is unreadable—no trace of amusement, no hint of irritation. Just that usual calm, detached composure he always carried. It sends a ripple of nervous energy racing through your chest.

He looks...too calm.

You sit up quickly, heart beginning to race as you reach up to smooth your tousled hair. The silk dress clings to your body, creased slightly from where you’d fallen asleep in it, and your brain scrambles to remember how revealing your last pose had been. You grab your phone, pretending to check it, then think better of it and reach for the sheet instead, pulling it up and over yourself in a feeble attempt to look casual.

“Welcome back…” you murmur, voice soft and slightly hoarse. You force a smile—one that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. It feels crooked and strained, too tight at the corners.

Sylus doesn’t answer at first. He walks over to the bed with that same quiet, deliberate ease and leans down toward you. One hand sinks into the mattress beside your hip as he lowers himself, and his lips press gently against yours.

Not rough. Not rushed. Just a slow, deliberate kiss.

You blink at him, lips parted slightly as he pulls back. Caught off guard. Completely disarmed.

"Were you sleeping?" he asks, adjusting his tie with one hand, his tone neutral. Almost bored.

It throws you off. He wasn’t going to mention the post?

“Huh?” you blink again, trying to play along. “Uh...yeah. I think today was pretty long for me.” You stretch your arms up in an exaggerated yawn, glancing away like you’re just now waking up. Inside, your thoughts are spinning.

He hums in acknowledgment, his crimson eyes drifting lazily across your figure before returning to the device in his pocket. He pulls it out and unlocks it, gaze cool as his thumb scrolls slowly along the screen.

Still no mention. Not even a look.

Your stomach does a slow, uneasy flip.

You watch him from the corner of your eye, trying to read him, trying to sense something—anything—but he’s a blank slate. Calm. Casual. Like he didn’t just leave you hanging for hours after you posted one of the most daring photos of your life. Like he hadn’t sent that short, pointed message. Like none of it had happened.

Your pulse ticks louder in your ears.

Was this his move now? Leaving you in suspense?

He stands there for a moment longer, thumb tapping occasionally, face unreadable as he scrolls. The silence stretches just a little too long, the air too thick with the tension you’re pretending not to feel.

Why wasn’t he saying anything?

Was this his way of letting you stew? Of reminding you he didn’t have to respond to your games? Or worse...was he unbothered?

Did he really not care?

You swallow hard, trying to keep your cool. But the pressure builds in your chest.

You hear the familiar ding of your phone and glance toward it cautiously. That tone—you knew it. Your heart skips as you reach over and grab the device, already feeling the anticipation coil in your chest. You unlock the screen, and sure enough, your eyes widen.

Bright and bold, the notification glows at you like some kind of digital miracle.

$1,000 deposited to your account from Sylus.

Holy shit. Your plan worked?

You press your lips together, trying—failing—to hide the smug little smile threatening to spill across your face. You glance at him out of the corner of your eye.

“Why so shocked?” Sylus says, tone light, but there’s something unreadable in his gaze. He watches you closely, head slightly tilted. “You still want to go shopping, don’t you?”

He doesn’t sound mad. He doesn’t look upset. But there’s something strange in the air—something you can’t quite name. Calm, but not idle. Soft, but edged.

“Yeah, of course, Sy…thank you!” you say, quickly standing up and throwing your arms around him in a hug. He smells like cologne and leather and something darker, something distinctly him.

He hugs you back just as easily, strong arms wrapping around your waist. But then he leans in, lips brushing the shell of your ear.

“Delete it, sweetie.”

It’s not a threat. Not a growl. Not even cold. But the words settle on your skin like steel. Gentle and final.

Your breath catches.

“Oh! Y-yeah…sorry,” you say quickly, stepping back, fingers already fumbling to grab your phone again. The moment’s playfulness sours ever so slightly as the weight of those words lingers.

He gently smiles at you like nothing happened.

But you know better.

You delete the post without another word.

After deleting the post quickly, you giddily log into your account on the store to start adding the items you so desperately wanted. Your heart is still fluttering from the thrill, and a wide smile plays on your lips as you eagerly pull up your wishlist. A tiny, delighted squeal slips out when you see everything still sitting there—limited edition shoes, accessories, that one impossible-to-find designer dress you’d bookmarked and obsessed over for weeks.

Your fingers move with dizzy excitement, tapping away as you add each item to your cart like it’s a race against time. The numbers keep rising, the total bill ticking higher, but you don’t care. You’re floating in the afterglow of your victory. A thousand dollars, just like that—gifted, deposited, yours.

Maybe you should push his buttons more often, you think with a smug little grin, biting your lower lip. Clearly, a little rebellion went a long way. You imagine how many more little indulgences he might cave to if you kept playing this game right. You can't help but bask in the moment, riding the rush of control you think you have.

That is…until a sound cuts through the quiet air, sharp and deliberate.

Click.

Your ears perk, body instinctively tensing.

The unmistakable sound of a belt coming undone.

You freeze, thumb hovering mid-tap over your phone screen. Your head slowly turns, curiosity getting the better of you despite the knot now forming in your stomach.

Sylus stands by the dresser, hands working with unhurried ease as he slips the leather strap free from the buckle. The soft clink of metal follows. His sleeves are rolled back just slightly, revealing the veins along his forearms as he finishes the motion with a practiced calm. There’s no rush. No warning.

He catches your stare and tilts his head ever so slightly, his expression unreadable.

Then, a slow, deliberate smile spreads across his lips.

"Don’t look back here," he says, his voice deceptively gentle—laced with something darker, heavier, undeniable. "Keep shopping."

Your breath catches in your throat.

Your eyes widen, pulse skipping a beat. There’s no edge to his tone, no visible anger, and yet the command feels like a velvet-gloved grip around your neck. Not harsh. Just final.

You don’t dare speak. You nod quickly and turn your gaze back to your phone, trying to focus, trying to act like nothing’s changed.

But everything has.

Your fingers are shaking slightly now as you tap your screen. The glowing images of handbags and shoes blur together. Your heartbeat thumps in your ears, and your thoughts scatter like marbles across a slick floor.

The room feels smaller now, quieter except for the occasional rustle of fabric as he moves behind you. You don't look back—you wouldn't dare—but every sense is straining to track his movements. Your phone suddenly feels slippery in your grip, and the shopping cart you were so excitedly filling moments ago now seems trivial, even foolish.

You force yourself to scroll through another page of items, pretending to be absorbed in your task. The $1,000 balance that had felt like such a victory now hangs like a weight in your conscience. What had seemed like a clever manipulation has transformed into something else entirely.

The floorboards creak softly behind you. He's moving slowly, deliberately. Your thumb hovers over a pair of shoes you'd been coveting, but you can't bring yourself to tap "add to cart." The game has changed, and you're no longer certain of the rules.

"Finding everything you want?" His voice comes from closer than you expected, making you flinch slightly. The question sounds innocent enough, but the undertone makes your skin prickle with awareness.

"Y-yes," you manage, hating the slight tremor in your voice. You clear your throat and try to project confidence. "Just finishing up."

You feel him approach, his presence like a gathering storm at your back. The air feels charged, electric. He stops just behind you, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from him, but not touching. Not yet.

His hand comes into view as he reaches around you, gently taking the phone from your grasp. You release it without resistance, your fingers suddenly useless. He studies the screen for a moment, scrolling through your selections with casual interest.

"Quite the haul," he observes mildly, as if commenting on the weather. "You must be very pleased with yourself, sweetie."

There's a pause, heavy with expectation. You're not sure if you're meant to answer, if you should apologize, defend yourself, or remain silent. The uncertainty is maddening.

He hands your phone back to you, the screen still glowing with your abandoned shopping cart. Then his fingers brush against your shoulder, tracing a path up to the nape of your neck. The touch is feather-light, but it sends a shiver cascading down your spine.

"I must ask," he says conversationally, his breath warm against your ear, "Was it thrilling to take pictures for other men while in another mans bed? In clothes he bought you?"

His fingers tangle gently in your hair, not pulling, just establishing control. You don't answer him. You know better not to answer such a question. Your breath catches in your throat as he continues, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"For every...lets say $100, that's one hit with this belt."

His words hang in the air, precise and measured. Your breath catches, mind racing to calculate the total in your cart. You swear your heart just fell into your stomach. A belt??? The simple arithmetic becomes suddenly, terribly important.

"S-sylus, I'm really-"

"That's the exchange rate," he continues, calm as if discussing the weather. "Seems only fair, doesn't it? You wanted to play games...so let's play."

You feel his presence shift as he moves slightly, the leather of the belt sliding against itself with a soft, threatening whisper. Your mouth has gone dry, and the excitement of your shopping spree feels like it happened to someone else, in another lifetime.

"How much is in your cart right now?" he asks, though his tone suggests he already knows the answer. "Why don't you check for me. sweetie? Speak up."

Your fingers tremble as you reach for the phone, the screen now seeming to mock you with its bright display of luxury items. The total stares back at you, a number that had brought such satisfaction minutes ago now transformed into a countdown to something else entirely.

You had added way too much to your cart. Plus with the added shipping...it came up to a little past 2,000 dollars. You must've gotten carried away.

He waits patiently behind you, giving you time to absorb the full weight of your actions. The belt dangles from his hand, not threatening, simply present—a promise waiting to be kept.

"Well?" His voice is soft but expectant, leaving no room for evasion.

You shivered, tears welling up in your eyes as the intensity of the sensation overwhelmed you. "Its $2000. I...I accidentally added too much...let me just-" you started to explain, but your words were cut short as you felt the leather of the belt against the back of your leg, its roughness sending shivers through your body.

"Oh, but my sweet kitten, there's no need to take anything away," Sylus purred, his voice laced with amusement. "I'll happily pay for it all. What my kitten wants, she gets, right? You wanted this stuff so badly you were willing to flaunt yourself to get my attention. How adorable."

With a slow, deliberate motion, he lifted the back of your dress, exposing the smooth skin of your butt, the cool air contrasting with the heat of the room. Your body trembled, a mix of pleasure and apprehension, as you felt the leather glide across your sensitive skin, the roughness a stark contrast to the soft caresses you had experienced thus far.

"Now...you're gonna start counting after the first hit" he whispered, his breath hot against your ear. "Squirm or move away and I'll make you add more stuff."

Your brain began to swim. More stuff...more spankings. You already have twenty. Shit. He's actually serious??

"Sylus...please, I'm really sorry," you whined, the words tumbling out as a tear slipped down your cheek. Yet, beneath the anxiety, a forbidden excitement simmered, igniting something deep within you. "Please, just let me give the money back..."

He shushes you, grabbing your chin and forcing you to look back at your phone. You feel grabbing the hem of your underwear and pulling them down. You flinch in anticipation and you hear a chuckle behind you.

"Don't laugh at me-!"

You turned your head, words of protest leaving your lips, but they were abruptly stolen away by the sharp, searing kiss of the belt against your skin. A cry tore from your throat, raw and instinctive, as tears sprang forth, soaking into the pillow beneath you. He wasn't playing around; that strike was anything but gentle.

"Still trying to act like a brat hm? I don't want to hear anything but counting, kitten. Starting over."

The sound of leather slicing through the air made your skin prickle, a sharp whistle that seemed to echo through the room before it ever made contact.

The second lash hit with a quick, stinging snap across your thighs. Your breath caught in your throat as the shock bloomed into heat. It wasn’t just the pain itself that made you tremble—it was the anticipation, the weight of each second dragging between every strike. Your hands curled into the sheets as you forced your voice out.

"O-one," you stammered, your tone breathless and shaking.

Another followed. Lower. Sharper. The belt bit into the tender part of your ass and pulled a yelp from your lips.

"T-two," you gasped, teeth clenched.

The third landed with more force, sending a pulse of heat through your core that made you arch slightly, only to flinch from the tension in your spine.

"Three," you whispered, more air than sound.

The fourth came before you could fully prepare, and your voice cracked when you counted, "F-four."

The sting lingered, throbbing beneath the sheer fabric of your dress, heat spreading in slow, dizzy waves. The cool air did nothing to soothe the ache on your bare ass, if anything it made each lash feel more intimate, more deliberate. You bit your lip, body squirming on instinct as the fifth snapped down with a little more force, and your hips twisted to one side.

"Five—!"

But before you could adjust or reposition, Sylus shifted.

His knee came down over the back of your thigh, pinning your leg to the bed with unwavering pressure.

You froze, your entire body tensing beneath him.

"Start adding more things if you're gonna keep moving," he said, his voice a smooth, unbothered murmur. Not cruel. Not angry. But absolute.

The tone left no room for protest. Not from you.

"N-no, I won't move anymore, I promise..."

You swallowed hard, breath shuddering as you nodded without turning to look at him.

"S-six," you whispered, barely able to get the word out before the next hit made your legs twitch under the restraint of his knee.

The seventh landed with precision, and your voice cracked again. "Seven."

By the eighth, your body was trembling. Sweat dotted your lower back and your lips parted with a soft, desperate sound before you remembered to count. "Eight..."

The ninth and tenth came one after the other, timed and even, and you were almost too breathless to speak. Your chest heaved beneath you, and you had to close your eyes just to stay focused.

"Nine. Ten."

You were shaking all over now, a cocktail of pain, adrenaline, and something else you didn’t want to name twisting deep in your stomach. Your thoughts were a blur, your hands clenched around the sheets, your throat dry from trying to keep your voice steady.

But you were still counting.

Still obeying.

By the twelfth hit, you couldn’t take it anymore. The pain had gone from a sharp sting to a deep, burning ache that pulsed with every heartbeat. You buried your face into the pillow, sobbing openly now, the kind of messy, desperate crying that came from somewhere deeper than just your skin. Every part of you was trembling—your arms, your legs, your breath hitching violently as you tried to force your voice to keep counting.

Each strike felt heavier than the last, like Sylus knew just how close you were to breaking. And maybe he did. Maybe that was the point.

But you didn’t stop.

You couldn’t.

"Fourteen..." you choked, your voice hoarse, muffled by the pillow soaked with your tears.

You curled your fingers into the sheets, gripping them like they were the only thing anchoring you to reality. Your thighs burned, your back ached, and your skin felt hot everywhere he’d touched.

"Fifteen..." you whimpered, your whole body jolting at the next hit.

You tried to shift, to escape, just slightly—but the weight of his knee still pinned you down, reminding you that you weren’t going anywhere.

You gasped, eyes squeezed shut, the tears blurring everything.

"Seventeen..."

The numbers were slipping from your lips in broken sobs now, each one harder to say than the last. You didn’t know if he noticed how your breath was catching or how your voice kept cracking—but even if he did, he said nothing.

The silence was maddening.

And then finally, after what felt like an eternity—longer than you thought you could bear—the last strike landed.

"Twenty," you whispered, so faint you weren’t even sure it counted. Your voice was shredded, raw from crying, from counting, from enduring.

But it was done.

You clung to the pillow like a lifeline, tears still trailing down your cheeks as your lungs struggled to draw in a steady breath. Everything buzzed—your skin, your mind, the space between your thoughts.

And somewhere in the center of all that pain and exhaustion, a quiet pride stirred.

You had taken it all.

Every single one.

You held your breath, every muscle tense, waiting—until finally, the sound came.

Thud.

The belt hit the floor.

You let out a broken, shaky sob as relief rushed through you. It was over. The sharp sting, the counting, the pressure—done. The moment that sound registered, your body sagged into the mattress, the tension melting into a full-bodied, uncontrollable release. Tears spilled freely again, this time not from pain, but from the emotional flood that followed. You clutched the pillow beneath you even harder, burying your face into it as your shoulders trembled.

Sylus was gentle now, a complete contrast to the measured harshness he had displayed just moments before. He didn’t rush. His movements were calm, controlled, like he was shifting into a different role entirely. Slowly, carefully, he reached out to you, his fingers brushing your arm first as if to check if you could handle touch again. When you didn’t flinch, he slipped his arms around you and helped guide you onto your side.

Every shift of your sore backside made you wince, but there was no sharpness in his handling. Only softness. You whimpered softly at the movement, your skin raw and burning beneath the thin fabric of your slip. Still, when he pulled you against his chest, you didn’t resist. You melted into him like he was the only steady thing left in the room.

He began to rub slow, soothing circles into your thighs and butt, his fingers featherlight as they traced the reddened skin. He was so careful—almost reverent. The heat of his palms chased the sting from each mark he’d left, easing the tension in your muscles. Your sobs came slower now, quieter, as his touch steadied you.

He held you close, his breath warm and steady against your ear as he leaned in, his voice low and soft.

"Shh, shh…I know it hurts," he murmured, the tenderness in his tone wrapping around you like a blanket. His lips pressed soft kisses across your damp cheeks, your temple, your jaw. "You did such a good job, sweetie. I’m so proud of you."

You blinked through the blur of tears, your lashes sticky and your throat sore from crying. But his words—his praise—poured warmth into your chest. You felt it curl deep inside you, soothing something raw and aching. It didn’t erase the pain, but it dulled the edge of it, made it feel worth enduring.

You turned your face into his chest, inhaling his familiar scent. Leather. Clean linen. A trace of cologne. It grounded you. You clung to him, needing his presence, his calm. And when his hand continued to stroke your hair and rub gentle circles on your back, your breathing began to slow.

And slowly—finally—you allowed yourself to relax.

The worst had passed. The storm of sensation had come and gone, and you had weathered it.

The mattress shifted softly as Sylus adjusted beside you, his hands still warm against your skin. His touch was gentle, almost reverent, as he moved closer, his breath tickling the shell of your ear. You held your breath for a moment, your pulse quickening at the way his fingers brushed the soft fabric of your slip, teasing the edge of it without hurry.

Then, ever so slowly, he began to trace the outline of your body, his fingers dipping lower, circling the curve of your hips before edging closer to the juncture of your thighs. His touch was featherlight, almost teasing, as he explored the outer edges of your most intimate flesh. You whimpered softly, the sound muffled against his chest, as his fingers danced just beyond the line of your core, deliberately staying on the outside of your pussy.

As his fingers continued their slow, deliberate exploration, he leaned in close, his voice low and soothing as he whispered against your ear.

“You want to feel good now?” His words were a soft, inviting question, a gentle coax that sent a shiver down your spine. “You must've enjoyed that a little too much. You're soaked, kitten.”

Your eyelids fluttered, and you tilted your head slightly, subconsciously seeking more of his touch. His fingers slowed their motion, almost as though he were savoring the moment, before finally pressing just a little closer, brushing the swollen flesh of your clit with the lightest of pressures. You sucked in a breath, your hips instinctively shifting slightly beneath him, a soft moan escaping your lips.

Still, he held back, his fingers circling just around the edges of your core, coaxing a low, needy sound from you before slowly dipping lower, teasing the entrance to your pussy with a gentle pressure. “Oh,” you whispered, your voice tinged with both longing and relief,

“Please.”

He gave a gentle squeeze to your hip before slowly deepening his touch, his fingers finally brushing against the slick, sensitive folds of your cunt. You twitched slightly against him, your hands instinctively clutching at the sheets as the waves of pleasure began to build within you. But he moved with care, his touch both tender and deliberate, as though he were discovering every inch of you for the first time.

As his fingers worked their way deeper into your wet walls, your moans grew louder, more uninhibited, the sound of your pleasure filling the room. He hummed softly in response, his voice a low vibration against your ear as he praised you with quiet endearments, coaxing you further into the pleasure he was building within you.

You lay there, your body bathed in a wave of sensations as Sylus’s fingers moved inside you, each thrust echoing with a precision that left you gasping for air. At first, it was gentle, a slow, teasing rhythm that coaxed a moan from your lips. Then, as the pressure increased, his fingers curved just right, hitting the sweet spot inside you that made your entire body shiver with pleasure. Your hips bucked involuntarily, your nails digging into the sheets as you fought to hold onto control.

“You’re about to cum already?” he whispered, his voice low and triumphant. You could feel his smirk against your skin as he pressed harder, his thumb rubbing circles over your clit with skillful precision. “You want it, don’t you?”

“Yes,” you gasped, your voice trembling. “Please, I’m about to—”

He pulled back just enough to make you whimper in frustration, his fingers hovering just at the edge of withdrawal before thrusting back in with renewed force. “Tell me how sorry you are,” he demanded, his voice a mixture of dominance and affection that made your heart race. “Beg me, sweetie.”

At first you froze, feeling heat rise to your cheeks out of embarrassment, but when he fully began to pull his fingers away all reason flew out of your mind.

You were so close.

The words tumbled out of you before you could stop them, a desperate, breathless plea that echoed the raw emotion in your chest. “I’m sorry! Please, I’m sorry!”

He chuckled, the sound a low, gravelly vibration that sent shivers down your spine. “Good girl,” he murmured, his fingers finding that spot again, the pressure building to a point where you could barely think straight.

“Yes,” you whispered, your eyes squeezing shut as the aching burn in your core was tipping to its breaking point. “Please—just let me—”

But before you could finish the sentence, he pulled his fingers out entirely, leaving you trembling and unsatisfied, gasping for air as though you’d been deprived of oxygen. The abrupt withdrawal was almost as intense as the climax you’d been on the brink of, a cruel twist that left you feeling both frustrated and conflicted.

You turned to face him, your voice shaking with a mix of shock and disbelief. “W-what? I was right there! I did what you asked!”

He met your gaze steadily, his expression soft but unyielding. His eyes didn’t carry malice—there was no fire, no wrath—just a firm, patient certainty that made your skin prickle and your breath catch in your throat. The kind of quiet control that left no room for bargaining.

“I never said I'd let you even if you begged,” he said, the words rolling from his tongue in a tone so calm it only made the weight of them settle heavier in your chest. It was gentle, yes, but it carried the undeniable finality of someone who’d already made up their mind. "Did you honestly think I’d let you finish after a stunt like that?”

The way he said it, like he was almost surprised by your audacity, twisted your stomach. Not furious. Just disappointed. And that somehow hurt worse.

His tone didn’t rise. It never did. But that only made it worse—the fact that he could cut through your resistance with something as simple as stillness. The gravity in his voice hit harder than any belt, any reprimand. It made your throat tighten, your thoughts spin.

You were in shock.

Your body was still trembling, the aftershocks of denied ecstasy crashing through your nerves like static. You felt strung out, your limbs heavy, your skin flushed and oversensitive. Your muscles still twitched with that last wave of almost-release that had been ripped from you too soon.

It had been there. Right there. You had been on the edge—dangling. And he had pulled you back with terrifying precision.

No release.

No relief.

Just silence. And now, this still, crushing reminder of who held the reins.

Tears gathered in your lashes, fat and hot. You blinked rapidly, your lips trembling as you lifted your gaze to him. Your voice cracked as you spoke, brittle and hoarse from all the cries that had come before.

“P-please…” you whispered, reaching for him with fingers that barely had the strength to curl. “I said I was sorry. Sylus, please...”

Your voice broke halfway through his name, and the desperation behind it made your chest ache.

"Shh. Don’t whine," he murmured, his voice low and even, the kind of calm that wrapped around you like a heavy blanket—firm, enveloping, unshakable.

You hiccupped softly, your body still twitching with the lingering aftershocks, shivering from unsatisfaction, exhaustion, and the quiet vulnerability that always came after something so intense. Your limbs felt heavy and loose, barely responding as you shifted weakly against the sheets. Tears clung to your lashes, your cheeks damp and flushed. You let out a small, broken protest, the sound almost childish in its fragility.

But Sylus didn’t pause. He moved with deliberate care, like he’d done this a hundred times, like every movement was etched into him. Without saying another word, he crossed the room, retrieved a warm cloth, and returned to your side. You barely registered the soft sound of water dripping onto the towel or the way the mattress dipped as he sat beside you again.

The first touch made you flinch despite yourself. The cloth dragged over your sensitive, slightly bruised skin with a heat that was both soothing and startling. You whimpered, your hips twitching away on instinct, but he didn’t scold you. He simply placed a hand gently on your back, the silent reminder enough to still you.

"Starting today, until all your packages arrive," he continued, his tone calm yet authoritative, "I'm still going to kiss you, touch you, make you feel good. But you can't cum." His fingers paused for a moment, the weight of his words settling between you. "If you do cum before you have my permission, this whole process starts over, including the belt. No masturbating either. I'll know. Understood?"

The simple act of him speaking while wiping between your legs sent a shiver down your spine, your breath catching as you nodded, the gravity of his words sinking in. You felt the tension in your body, the way your muscles clenched involuntarily at the mere thought of being so close to climax only to have it taken away.

"Yes, Sy..." you whispered, voice cracking as it escaped your lips. You wanted to be mad. You wanted to scream, to shove at his chest, to demand why he was always one step ahead—but you couldn’t. The exhaustion in your limbs, the ache deep in your chest, and the rawness still lingering on your skin left you too hollow, too wrung out to fight. All that fire had dissolved into a pitiful, quiet ache, leaking from your eyes in soft, steady tears.

All you could do was cry. You had brought this on yourself.

Sylus didn’t say anything. He didn’t gloat or taunt. He just kept tending to you with that same deliberate, practiced care. His movements were slow, methodical, gentle in ways that made your chest ache even more. When he was done, he discarded the damp cloth and reached for you again, easing the rumpled slip dress over your head. The fabric peeled away from your flushed skin, clinging slightly before sliding off, leaving you cold, exposed, and vulnerable.

You whimpered, the sound soft and unsure, but he was already moving with purpose. He retrieved one of his shirts—oversized, warm, smelling of him—and a fresh pair of underwear. With all the patience in the world, he dressed you like you were something fragile, helping you into the shirt and smoothing it down, adjusting the sleeves and gently guiding your legs into the underwear. The motions were intimate, familiar, but not rushed. As though this was part of the ritual. As though he’d already known this was how the night would end.

Then he slipped away into the bathroom for a moment, and you lay there quietly, the bedsheets cool beneath you, your limbs too heavy to move. The room felt softer now, dim and hushed, like the storm had passed. Your eyes fluttered closed, though sleep didn’t come. Just more tears.

When Sylus returned, the mattress dipped beside you. He settled in close, his warmth immediately surrounding you, and without a word, he reached over and began wiping the fresh tears from your face. His thumb brushed slowly under each eye, lingering at your cheekbones, soft and unrelenting. You blinked up at him, your vision still blurry, your body aching in more ways than one.

He didn’t need to say anything. His touch said it for him: I still love you. I’m still here.

Then he picked up your phone from the nightstand, unlocking it like it was second nature. You peeked at him from the crook of your arm, face still pressed into his chest, and listened to the familiar taps as he scrolled.

Probably checking the damage, you thought bitterly.

Then came the chuckle. Soft. Low. Amused.

"Oh, sucks for you. One of these is on preorder," he said, tone light, like he wasn’t the reason you were too emotionally wrecked to argue. "Won’t get here for a few weeks. What a shame."

You groaned into his chest, letting your body sag against him like you were boneless. You didn’t need to look up to see the smug grin on his face—you could feel it in the rumble of his chest, the way his fingers casually stroked your back like you were some satisfied little cat.

He had won. Again.

There was no fighting it. No regaining the upper hand. Not now. Not when he’d read you like a book and written the ending before you even knew the chapter had started.

And now, one of the pieces you were most excited for was going to take weeks to arrive.

What does it mean, to drown in something?

To watch the surface break above you, disrupted by the last bubbles of oxygen leaving your lungs, like a lover’s final kiss. To feel the vicious urge to fight, to struggle, to scream even as you feel your final dregs of strength escape, leaving you cold and gnawing and alone. To not feel fear, because even as your vision goes dark the melody is still there, the voice still singing, cradling you gently as you draw blood. To know, perhaps, that drowning was the only way this story could have ended. 

What does it mean, when I kiss you and finally feel like I can breathe again, even if you were the reason I sank in the first place?

Rafayel has been nothing if not the perfect boyfriend. Clingy, annoying, hopelessly devoted, but perfect for you nonetheless. 

Three months into your relationship, and you’ve begun to notice things that are only just slightly… Off.

For one, Rafayel runs terrifyingly cold, and the baths he gives himself twice a day are even colder than he is, and when he teasingly splashes you with it you scream, complaining he’s soaking in the arctic or the depths of the ocean’s abyss.

But the approach of summer means more baths, more moisturizers, and more of poor Rafayel always complaining about how it’s too hot, too dry. His skin gets bumpy, rough, textured patches growing on the sides of his neck, his arms, down his ribs too. Like something coming to the surface, something cracking through the flesh. 

The list of anomalies goes on.

His joints bend just a little too much, his fingers curving at unnatural angles when he moves quickly or reaches for something. His spine rolls more like an eel or a shark than a human’s, like a creature still adjusting to having bones, something he brushes off as old habits from dance or ice skating. Whenever you take flash photos his eyes come out hollow, even the faintest glimmer makes them shimmer like something not meant for the surface. 

It’s becoming more common to catch Rafayel slipping now, uncanny moments where he fumbles and slows down, repeating certain movements or habits, as though remembering them. Reminding himself of them. 

You’re lounging on the couch in his studio, your legs kicked up onto his lap as Rafayel holds a book in one hand, the other caressing your ankle with the gentle rub of his thumb. Something prickles against the back of your neck and you look up over your phone, expecting to see Rafayel still engrossed in his reading. Instead, he’s staring down at you. Watching you, unblinking, for so long that your skin begins to crawl. 

At first, you don’t really mind— willingly lost in the warmth of his gaze, the way it seems to hold so much unspoken devotion, the way his pupils dilate viciously when you finally meet his gaze. But then minutes pass. He doesn’t shift, doesn’t fidget, doesn’t break eye contact.

"Raf," you say, laughing a little, trying to shake the unease creeping up your spine. "You're staring."

His lips quirk, just slightly. "Am I? Can’t help it, cutie."

You hum, expecting him to look away. He doesn’t. Instead, he tilts his head, something you’ve always considered adorable, the way his full lips pout and innocent doe eyes seem to plead up into yours, studying you with an intensity that makes your chest tighten.

Then you realize what’s wrong.

"Blink," you whisper, suddenly uncertain if he's forgotten how.

He does, slow and deliberate, like he’s remembering only because you told him. And when his eyes open again, they shine, hollow and flat, reflecting the dim light of the room like something that doesn’t belong in the light.

“Shit!” 

This is the last time you cut steak with a dull knife. 

It’s nothing severe, but you must have nicked a vein in your thumb, because the damn countertop is splattered with blood, a thick stream of it nearly at your wrist as you run for a paper towel. 

Rafayel was supposed to be by the stove, tending to the vegetables busy sauteing, but when you move to rip a sheet from the dowel, you find yourself bumping into him headfirst. How did he manage to cross the kitchen so fast?

His gaze flicks to your hand, brows furrowed. You follow it, noticing the vibrant red already soaking through all the layers of makeshift gauze. Maybe you cut yourself deeper than you though.

"It’s nothing, Rafayel," you say, knowing how worked-up he can get when you injure yourself, fully expecting a dramatic lecture later. 

Turning, you step to throw away the bloody napkins when his fingers close around your wrist too fast. Too tight. Rafayel’s pupils dilate, nearly turning his entire eye black as his body physically follows the trail of blood down your wrist, lips parting just slightly as if—

As if he’s tasting the scent of your blood on his tongue.

"Rafayel," you call to him again, voice shaking. Why is your voice shaking?

He blinks, slow, as if waking from something deep. His grip loosens, but his fingers linger, his thumb dragging just barely across your pulse against the inside of your wrist before he exhales a quiet, low sound from deep in his chest. Something between a sigh and a growl.

“You really should be more careful, miss hunter. You could get hurt next time.”

Neither of you notice the slight acrid smell of something burning in the background. 

The next time it happens late at night. 

After spending the weekend lazing in each other's company, the two of you decided to end the day with a movie, drifting from various positions on the couch to curling up against Rafayel’s chest, the soft glow of the TV flickering across the room. The credits are rolling, low music humming beneath the sound of his steady, rhythmic breathing. He’s cold, almost unnaturally so, compared to the sticky, sweltering summer night air, but you can only be thankful for that fact as his chill and the gentle rise and fall of his chest lull you into something hazy, that liminal space where thoughts slip too easily from your grasp.

When suddenly, it just stops. Rafayel’s body goes still beneath your touch. 

No breath. No movement.

Just complete and utter stillness.

It doesn’t register at first, not fully. Still feigning sleep, you fight to keep your own exhales even, purposefully holding your breath to get your heart to calm from its erratic skip, the hairs on your arms prickling, some primal part of you sensing it before your mind catches up. Wrong.

You shift slightly, pretending to be lost in a dream, just enough to press closer to his chest, to feel the gentle rhythm of where his lungs should be. Wrong.

But nothing comes. Rafayel’s chest does not rise, his heartbeat does not echo against your cheek. The only movement is the gentle circling of his fingers against the tender flesh of your ribs, tracing the curve of bone. Other than that, he is completely, utterly motionless beneath you, the kind of eerie stillness that isn’t possible for a human. A stillness reserved for hunters, for predators. Wrong. 

Something is wrong.

Your pulse kicks, a sharp, violent thud-thud-thud against your ribs, under the tips of Rafayel’s fingers, and in that instant—

Rafayel breathes again.

A slow, deep inhale as if rousing from sleep. His arm tightens around your waist, fingers slipping under your shirt as he shifts beneath you, stretching out his long limbs with an exaggerated yawn like nothing happened at all.

“You still awake?” His voice is drowsy, laced with warmth, so natural you almost believe it.

You nod, pressing closer, trying to shake the creeping chill settling in your bones. Maybe you imagined it. Maybe you were too tired, caught somewhere between dreaming and waking, your mind playing tricks on you. You were simply tired from the long week. Simply haunted by nightmares that no longer exist. 

But you feel it. The way Rafayel’s fingers idly stroke over your side, slow and soothing, almost seeking out your own heartbeat as close as he could get to it. The way he breathes too deliberately now, a flawless imitation of what he thinks you expect to hear. A rhythm that’s just a little too shallow, a little too perfect. 

Then, there’s something prodding and coaxing into your brain, and instantly, the feeling of calm returns. But your pulse does not slow, because the thought has already settled in the back of your mind, something cold and certain.

He didn’t start breathing again for his sake.

He did it for yours.

Rafayel must have been sculpted by divine hands. A Greek statue given breath, something carved from impossibly white marble and polished by time itself. 

His is a kind of beauty that isn’t soft or gentle, but arresting, almost violently so. One that makes your breath hitch every time he turns to face you, all sharp cheekbones and full lips, somewhere devastatingly between beautiful and handsome, possessing every muscled curve of a swimmer’s body honed by centuries in the depths. It isn’t just his face, his form, his effortless strength. It’s the way he moves. Angelic and otherworldly— graceful, powerful, always with the effortless magnificence of the ocean itself.

And, of course, his voice.

He hums under his breath sometimes, a habit he seems to be letting slip the longer the two of you are together, barely audible in the quiet hours when you’re cooking or painting or lounging together. At first you mistook it for an old record or the echoing sound of the ocean from the open balcony doors, and when you ask him about if Rafayel simply laughs it off, the sound addicting enough that soon you’re laughing too.

But on late nights after sex you hear him humming again, something absentminded and indulgent, like the sound exists only for his own amusement. And for yours. 

Oh, but when Rafayel sings, it’s something else entirely. It’s after an opera the first time you heard it, and any memory of the show prior is dissolved into a monotonous drivel at the music Rafayel makes. You swear you felt it in your ribs, melody settling beneath your skin, an ancient song that spoke to your soul in ways that left you dizzy and aching and yearning for something you couldn’t name. 

It left you hungry.

And still, Rafayel’s paintings hurt the most.

Each one nearly brought to life with each brushstroke, enough that you swear you can hear the crash of waves or the sharp sting of sea-salt, each one that brings a deep, unknowable sorrow and guilt to your core. Each one hurts to look at a little more than the last. 

There’s one painting in particular that hangs in his studio, larger than the rest. A towering, floor-to-ceiling masterpiece of muted blues and violent reds, brushstrokes slashing across the canvas with all the power of a storm at sea.

At first, you think it’s simply a shipwreck.

Then you’re lured in closer.

Bodies tangled in the waves, limbs limp and reaching. Some still clutching weapons, some are already swallowed by the dark. But every single figure seems perfectly content, relaxed, embracing death as they are lulled—just like you just like you—to the sirens below.

They are not the innocent beauties of fairy tales. They are terrible, glorious, vicious beings. Something between human and god, their bodies half-submerged, lips parted in a song you cannot hear but can still feel, something clawing at your heart, begging you to listen. Begging you to come closer. 

And Rafayel is among them.

It takes you a moment to recognize him, but once you do, you cannot unsee it. The slant of his jaw, the sharp curve of his cheekbone, his lips curled not in hunger, not in rage, but in something unreadable. Something almost mournful.

"Do you like it, cutie?" His voice startles you.

You turn, pulse jumping, but Rafayel’s only watching you with that same lopsided smile, arms crossed loosely over his chest. He looks like part of a masterpiece himself, bare shoulders kissed by the low light, the soft glow catching on his collarbones, his throat, his hands. 

"They were hunted." Not a question.

A laugh. Short, humorless. "Of course they were, don’t you know Lemurians cry pearls?"

Your fingers tighten at your sides, but nothing you could think of saying seemed appropriate. After all, what did you possibly have to offer a mourning god? 

You look back at the painting. "And worshipped?"

Rafayel’s gaze lingers on the canvas for a long moment before sliding back to you, eyes failing to reflect the light of the sun as he tucks himself into your embrace, pulling you close. You swallow hard, body naturally yielding to relax into his embrace. You’re not prey, and yet, something in you screams at you to run.

"Is there a difference?"

You don’t answer. 

You think of the way he moves, the way he sings, the way your breath catches every time he looks at you, the way you could drown in the depths of his eyes, the cloudless blue like the ocean at dawn, stained with a red more vibrant than blood. Like a shipwreck. Like a massacre. 

“Would you worship me, cutie?” Rafayel purrs against the shell of your ear, nipping the tender flesh. Your knees buckle, and you’re already kneeling before him, looking up at those same eyes as he smiles at your answer. 

You already do.

You’ve been noticing gaps in your memory.

Not big ones. Nothing you can really say for certain, just little things, things you used to chalk up to your goldfish memory. Forgetting why you stood up. Losing track of time mid-conversation. Finding yourself already doing something before you even register why.

And it always—always—happens when Rafayel is speaking to you.

It’s never forceful. Never obvious. But there’s always a soft hum in his voice, a subtle pull in the melody beneath his words.

You don’t even remember when he began doing it, and that might be what frightens you most. 

You’ve always been weak for Rafayel, giving in as soon as he pouts and complains about how he might die of neglect, how he just needs you so badly, and how, oh, won’t you do this for him? There’s no command. No sharp pull at your mind, no unnatural force prying into your thoughts. Just his voice, smooth and honeyed, curling around your resolve like the tide creeping onto the shore. Gentle. Patient. And before you even notice, you're waist-deep, sinking into something you can’t quite name.

"Let’s go to the beach," Rafayel suggests, fingers lazily tracing patterns against your thigh.

You frown down at him, in the midst of filling out a hunter’s report when he snatches your computer away, replacing it with his own head plopping down in your lap. 

You glance at the clock, it’s already six pm. Late, not to mention the drive is an hour away. And you have a mission early in the morning.

"I can’t," you say.

He hums, thoughtful. "Mm. No, of course not." He turns his head, pulling your sleep shirt up just enough to kiss your stomach, lips cool against your skin, grazing your hip as he speaks. "But," a pause. A slow, indulgent breath. "Wouldn’t it be nice? Just us. Moonlight on the waves. I could take you out past the shallows, show you things no other human has ever seen."

You close your eyes. You can picture it too easily. The salt in the air, the sound of the tide pulling you both forward. His hands on you, weightless in the water, his voice a hum against your throat. A melody entering your brain. 

"It’s a Tuesday," you murmur, weaker now.

Rafayel begins sitting up, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. "So what?" Another to your jaw, "Work is so boring, you don’t need it anymore. Not when you’re with me." You feel him smile, sucking a mark right against your pulse. "It’ll be worth it, promise."

You should say no.

You should.

You should shut out the idea of indulging him, of the welcoming feel of sand beneath your toes and the gentle curl of the tide. And how nice the fading sunlight feels on your skin. Because you’re already standing at the shoreline, waves licking at your ankles, the city far, far behind you. Rafayel’s fingers laced with yours, his smile easy, teasing as he pulls you forward. 

You don’t remember driving here.

Your pulse stutters. "Rafayel."

He turns to you, eyes dark, unreadable, his mouth curving into a wide smile, a sweet gummy one that has too many teeth. Rows upon rows, like a shark’s, gone by the time you blink. "Yes, my muse?"

You swallow hard. The words tangle on your tongue, and you forget, just for a moment, why you were about to say them.

But the worst is when he begs.

Because it doesn’t feel unnatural, it doesn’t feel wrong.

Because it feels good.

You don’t realize how much you’re giving him until your body won't stop trembling, until you’re wrecked and obedient, until he’s cooing praise against your skin like you’re something precious. 

“Can’t–” you sob, barely getting the word out. “Can’t cum again. Please, Raf, Raf, please don’t.”

Your hands scramble for his head, still buried between your thighs, tugging violently against those sweat-slick strands of hair as you all but scream as he whines into your cunt in protest.

You’ve lost track of how many times he’s made you come, lost track of how long you’ve been beneath him, beneath his touch, beneath the spell of his voice. Time means nothing, just a rhythm of sensation and need.

All that you can feel is the hot layer of sweat making the sheets stick to the sharp arch in your back, the painful overstimulation of your clit as Rafayel moves to suckle against it once more, lapping greedily as you kick and push at his shoulders with a cry. You can’t take it, not again, not when you’re already raw and aching and falling apart.

"Just one more time, cutie," he begs, relenting just long enough to kiss your marked-up thigh. "Please? Look s’cute like this, taste even sweeter."

Rafayel’s pale skin glows faintly where his lips brush yours, a ripple of bioluminescence that pulses in time with your heartbeat. The dull blue light blooming along his veins, casting soft, eerie shadows across the sheets, a reminder of the alien beauty woven into his flesh and blood.

You’re sobbing, shaking your head as the entire room spins around you even without the extra stimulation. But Rafayel simply unlaces your poor trembling hands from his hair, unfurling your fists and kissing your palm before intertwining your fingers together, pinning them to the bed as he leans in closer. His hands are cold, an icy restraint to your feverish skin, and you shiver, goosebumps prickling along your arms.

"Last time, promise."

You don’t believe him. You shouldn’t.

But Rafayel’s voice is addictive, liquid gold, sinking into your skin, forcing you to relax against him just enough for his mouth to reacquaint itself with your swollen clit, immediately making you scream again as your hips mindlessly buck, writhing to get away, to find mercy from his touch as you fight to hold onto the last scraps of your fraying resolve.

“Don’t.” His voice is a purr, a low warning against your flesh as his hand tightens, pressing your wrists together, bruising. “Don’t run from me. Don’t make me chase you.”

Your body stills, responding to his command before you can even process what he's said. Surrendering as he hooks your ankles around his neck, forcing you up onto your shoulders as his tongue delves back into your cunt, curling inside you, savoring every spasm, every quiver. It’s a slow, indulgent kiss, his tongue is colder than his lips, drooling and messy as he brings you closer and closer to the edge for the nth time. 

"You’d never leave me right?" His voice once again sings like a promise against your skin. "You can’t. You wouldn’t, she’s too sweet for that—" His nose grinds against your clit and you moan, seizing. "Always so needy, always taking me so well. Practically made to worship me."

You're babbling nonsense now, incoherent. Rafayel coos, kissing you through it, one hand never letting go of yours as the other greedily gropes up the plush of your ass, your breasts, and he watches with rapt fascination as you arch for him. He rolls your nipple between his fingers, and wonders absentmindedly how it is you humans produce milk. How he could get you to do that for him.

A deep trill vibrates through him at the thought, more felt than heard, a sound that curls around your ribs and settles there. 

“You know that you’re mine, don’t you?” he breathes, voice dipping lower, “Mine. Made for me. Nothing else in this world could satisfy you like I do. You’ll never need another god.”

Rafayel’s words slip into you, twisting through your mind, settling like truth in your core. And just like that you shudder, body tensing, and you’re cumming again, hard.

Squirting across Rafayel’s awaiting mouth and jaw as you scream his name like a prayer, cum dripping down his heaving chest. Rafayel moans, lapping at the mess, and you feel his devotion in the way his entire body trembles as he consumes you, as he claims you, his offering, his sacrifice. His beloved bride.

His fingers subconsciously trace your empty ring finger. Worshiping it, memorizing it.

You don’t even realize you’re still nodding as his fingers loosen their grip on your thighs, finally setting you back down on the bed as a pleased little sound spills from his lips. His tongue drags up your limp body, lazy and lingering, kissing every inch of you, bringing your hand up to kiss your ring finger as well.

Nuzzling his face between your breasts, Rafayel looks up at you, eyes glowing, too bright, too colorful, too gorgeously inhuman.

When sensation finally returns to your legs, the haze of pleasure fading and your breath evening out, you’re revolted by the feeling of something releasing its hold on your mind. Shuddering, you press a hand to your temple, trying to shake off the eerie feeling of something slipping out of your head.

Rafayel watches you, tilting his head, his fingers brushing lightly down your arm as he pushes himself up on his elbows. Grabbing your chin, he swallows any questions you might have asked, kissing you with the same reverence he did your clit and every inch of your body before, the taste of you still on his tongue. When he pulls away, his expression is soft, almost tender, even as his hand curls back around your ankle, a possessive shackle.

“You’ll never need another god,” he repeats, the words sinking into your bones, echoing in your mind. His fingers tighten, just enough to make your breath hitch. “Because you’re mine.”

And yet, you’re the one who can’t seem to breathe without him.

You suppose it should scare you, knowing Rafayel isn’t human. Even if you have yet to understand what a Lemurian really is or wants, what Rafayel’s true form really looks like, what or who truly resides in him. 

You suppose it should scare you that despite not knowing any of this, you listen to his every whim regardless. 

The ocean is calm tonight, with the full moon hanging directly overhead and her silver providing the only light over rolling waves. You’re floating on your back, eyes closed, weightless in the gentle pull of the tide, safe knowing Rafayel couldn’t be far away. He never is. 

At least, you can only assume that’s still the case. Since the ocean itself is dark enough that it blends in with the horizon, dark enough that you wouldn’t be able to see your own toes should you stop floating, the only sounds are the gentle crashing of waves on the distant shore. 

Rafayel was untraceable in the water, his powerful twenty-foot-something Lemurian form outpacing yours as soon as he hit the water, cutting through the black waves with a grace that should be impossible for a creature of that size. That was nearly an hour ago, and only an occasional singing that seemed to both surround you and come from deep within the ocean served as reminders that your lover was never far away.

There it is again, that distant sorrowful song, and you try and hum along, not realizing how far from shore you’ve drifted. 

Something brushes your ankle.

Jolting upright, you spit out a bit of salt water from your scare, scanning the horizon as you tread water. Rafayel is nowhere in sight.

Of course you don't even realize he's been circling you, tail cutting above the waves before twisting around your kicking legs. Laughter echoes into the night, sweet and addicting, enough to have your body relax involuntarily into the cold rock of the waves. Enough to send every other sea creature swimming away in terror.

Then, warmth. Hands, familiar and steady, slide up your bare ribs. There wasn’t even so much as a splash as Rafayel swims closer, arms pulling you in tight, nuzzling deep into the crook of your neck as you feel the entire length of his tail tighten like a coil around your body. He could drown you before you'd even remember to scream.

Rafayel kisses up your neck, savoring the taste of sea salt, arousal, and fear against the broad, cold length of his tongue. It feels rougher than usual. 

“Need you, cutie.” A trill, something deep and low, vibrating in his chest as his entire body tightens its grip around you. Grinding up against you. “Need you s’bad.”

His voice is a low, syrupy murmur, words dripping into your ear with the same fluid grace as his body winding around yours. You shudder, pulse thrumming as the coil of his tail tightens, the powerful muscle shifting against your skin, keeping you perfectly in place. The realization should terrify you. Perhaps it should terrify you more that it doesn’t. 

But Rafayel’s still nipping at the delicate skin of your neck and jaw as that soft, mournful hum resonates from his chest. The sound vibrates through your bones, familiar and soothing, seeping into your mind as easily as seawater through the crevices of a sinking ship.

You shiver, the sensation of his touch and the water deliciously cold against the heat pooling in your belly.

“Missed you,” he murmurs, turning you so you straddle only a fraction of his enormous tail, clinging to his shoulders and the scales that now rest there. “Hate that you can’t swim with me, can’t see my home.” There’s a teasing lilt to his voice, the same playful lightness you’ve heard a thousand times. But beneath it lies a deep, aching hunger that has his clawed fingers pressing into your ribs, hard enough to draw blood.

“I-It’s not exactly possible,” you stammer, voice shaking, breathless, the world narrowing to the feel of his enormous body wrapped around yours, the prodding of something slimy and thick between your legs, the soft vibration of his hum still echoing inside your head. “I can’t breathe underwater like you, Rafayel.”

He pouts at that, tail flexing, shifting, and you feel two other appendages begin to caress your thighs, gently snaking around them. Not that you could see what exactly they were, not with how impossibly dark the ocean is, left completely to his mercy. 

“Poor little human,” Rafayel coos, feigning sympathy as his hands begin to wander, cupping and squeezing roughly at your breasts. A constant fascination he excuses for the fact that fish don’t produce milk and thus have no need for such… interesting appendages. “Your silly human body isn’t much fun. Too fragile. I can fix that.”

His words send a chill through you, something prickling at your spine—but then his lips are on yours, firm and insistent, stealing the breath from your lungs as his fingers tangle in your hair. His inhumanly long tongue invades your mouth, rough and tasting of salt and sea, and you melt, hands clawing into his shoulders as he swallows your moan, fucking his tongue down your throat. 

His tail shifts again, something sharp nicking your inner thigh as you gasp into the kiss, only allowing Rafayel to press in closer, deeper, grinding against your core.

Your body reacts on instinct, earning another low trill, hips rolling to meet the pressure, Rafayel’s hands still busy pleasuring your chest as something else forces your legs wider, guiding his cock to grind against you once, twice, fighting the tense ring of muscle as you quiver. 

“Please, cutie. Please let me in, my sweet darling. Please, please,” he’s rambling, begging so sweetly into your lips as you feel the jagged cut of his teeth trace down your neck, collarbone, grazing your nipple, licking up the drops of blood as your flesh splits as easily as rotten fruit on the edge of a knife. “So good to me. Always so good to me.”

You barely recognize the moan that leaves your throat—something needy, desperate. And at that sound Rafayel shudders, something else writhing against your pussy as it suddenly pushes in, thrusting and sucking gently at your entrance before following a rhythm he knows will make you fall apart. 

“Rafayel, wait, cold. It’s cold—” 

“Shh, you’ll warm it up.”

You can only moan in response, clinging onto Rafayel like a lifeline as the ocean surges around the both of you, your limbs trembling and useless as one of Rafayel’s hands goes to circle your clit, matching the tempo of his thrusts as you come undone with a silent scream.

“Say it again for me,” he whispers, reverence dripping from every syllable. His eyes—too blue, too bright—burn into yours, possessive, adoring, hungry. And when he looks at you like that, how could you ever refuse? “You’re mine, aren’t you?”

Your heart stutters. There’s a pull, something deep and heavy, sinking into your chest. The hum returns, curling around your thoughts, coaxing you to say the words, to give him what he wants. What you both want.

“Yes,” you whisper, the word slipping past your lips before you even realize it. “Yours.”

Rafayel’s pupils narrow into slits, and his mouth crashes against yours, hungry and savage. His tail tightens, grinding against you with purpose now, every slow roll of his hips sending another shockwave of pleasure through you, something else beginning to press up against you as well as the first intrusion begins to retreat from your poor overstimulated pussy. 

“Do you trust me?” he asks, teeth scraping against your pulse, marking delicate skin of your throat. Something under the water coils tighter, pulling you closer, keeping you where you belong.

No. 

“Yes.”

His laughter is the last thing you hear, soft and sweet, washing away every other thought before the roar of the ocean swallows you whole.

The cold is instant, biting, sinking into your bones as the saltwater tears into your nose and mouth. Panic claws up your throat as your chest seizes, lungs heaving uselessly, instinctively, drawing in nothing but seawater.

Instinct demands you thrash, but Rafayel is there, hugging around you like a devoted lover, like a predator with his kill. He drags you down deeper, enraptured, scales scraping against your skin as his body locks you against him, pressing you against the seafloor as the two of you hit the bottom, soft sand floating under your back. 

How easy would it be, to leave you full of his brood and writhing, before dragging you to some island far, far away. 

He’s dazed at the thought, still inside you, still thrusting, still playing with your body as if you aren’t suffocating, as if the way you kick and claw at his back, nails tearing into flesh and fins, is only a sign of pleasure. You feel him shudder, and it isn’t just from the tight, helpless way you squeeze around him.

It’s your eyes that Rafayel can’t seem to look away from. They’re wide, wild, locked on his face with desperate, pleading terror. Adoration. Fear. Love.

So human, so fragile, and all you can focus on is him, the rest of the ocean blurring into a black abyss.

Rafayel adores it, finally being the epicenter of your attention. 

A low, pleased rumble vibrates through his chest, pupils blown wide, swallowing the blue of his eyes until they’re black and endless, reflecting your horrified face right back at you.

All the screaming has left you dizzy, and Rafayel moans, pushing deeper, grinding his enormous tail against your overstimulated clit as your throat convulses around a silent moan as you watch the bubbles leave your throat. 

Smiling, Rafayel’s lips curl, exposing sharp, jagged teeth, feeling each shudder, each pitiful, heaving spasm as your lungs beg for oxygen. He wonders how they must feel, those delicate sacks of air tightening, twisting inside you.

Pressing his palm against your chest, right over your heart, Rafayel feels the stuttering beat as it races then begins to falter, slowing to a delicate pulse under his touch. 

He could watch you like this forever.

Your nails rake down his arms, leaving raw, bloody scratches as the world begins to go dark. He shudders, his cock twitching inside you at the sting, the way you keep fighting even as your movements grow sluggish, your limbs growing heavy. Your chest heaves one last time, and then your eyes leave Rafayel’s, rolling back as your lips part in a silent prayer. 

No. No, don't look away from him.

It makes Rafayel frown, wanting your gaze focused on him alone, wanting your attention back. He wants it forever. His tail coils, possessive, hugging you tight with all the devotion of a human lover as he finally, finally leans in, pressing his mouth to yours.

His hands come down to caress your jaw, fangs nicking your lips as he forces them apart, kissing air back into your lungs. 

And you breathe in again, sobbing into the kiss, body trembling, clinging to Rafayel like he’s your lifeline. You do what he knew you would. You kiss him back. Desperate, dazed, pushing closer as though you don't realize there's no where else you could go, the deep, endless dark of the ocean yawning hungrily above you both. 

He's close, so close now. Body nearly aglow with that eerie, deep-sea light, casting shadows onto your body as you welcome him even now, desperate for warmth, for safety, for him.

“Mine,” Rafayel sings against your lips in a language you cannot understand. Savoring the way you still arch up to kiss him again and again, desperate for his air and his touch despite it all. Despite knowing what he is. Despite knowing what he wants. “My mate.”

When he finally cums he feels it breach your womb, he feels you swell with it, feels it stick with how eagerly your body welcomes him, his perfect little human.

“Raf, ffffuck!” you crooned, breathless and undulating on the mattress beneath him. your back arched up from the surface to push your chest flush to his face, your right hand buried in his mauve tendrils so deep that you could feel the beads of sweat as they drench his scalp, and the heat of his fever transferring deep into your palm. you were gripping those sticky locks, holding on to them for some semblance of control as he rutted into you with wild abandon, his head dipped low to suck on your swell, whilst his hand fondled with other, his thumb mimicking the way his tongue flicked at your pebbled nipple, swiping over the taut flesh and nudging the little bud from every angle.

it was this lavishing of affection, paired with the rapid-fire, shallow pumping into your core, that had your eyes crossing with unadulterated pleasure, and your body trembling as you drifted closer and closer to a release. “I’m getting close, baby…” you half-plea, rocking your hips up to meet him in a sloppy, slick joining. if Rafayel was anything, he was a skilled lover. he knew that you didn’t need to be stuffed full on every occasion, and so he experimented with how many inches to fuck into you each time you laid together. tonight, though his thrusts were quick and greedy, he was only giving you half of his length at a time, letting the swollen, leaking tip of his cock head bully the spongy cluster of nerves that made up your g-spot until you were shaking and sputtering, instead of fucking you deep and steady.

“Yeah?” he asked upon prying his mouth away with a wet pop. his voice husky and low, and saliva glistening against the pink lower tier of his kiss-swollen couplet. his own complexion, though typically porcelain, had taken on a dusky, rosé glow, especially against the apples of his cheeks, the tips of his ears, and the expanse of his chiseled chest. his mouth, though still parted and panting out puffs of hot breath against your hardened nipple, curved into a strained smile as his eyes searched your countenance, equally lovedrunk. “Wanna cum with me, pretty girl?” he asked, his eyes darkened as he buries his face between the valley of your tits, breathing in the scent of the sweat oozing from your pores. his eyelids fluttered as he drank it in, like a man intoxicated, and you felt the warm, bumpy surface of his tongue flat against your flesh to lap at that essence. “Oh, fuck, tell me,” he murmured, muffled, as the lower quarter of his face disappears into your cleavage, but his eyes gaze up at you, the purple hues within them dim and stormy. “Tell me that you want me to make you finish while I cum in your warm, little pussy.”

you nod, eagerly, your voice breaking out of desperation as you tug on his hair, unsure of whether to pull him up to kiss his lips or smother him between your tits. “Y—yes, Rafayel! Please, make me cum with you!”

you’d hardly gotten the beg out before Rafayel was responding. sitting back on his haunches, he allowed almost every inch to slip from your clutching heat— until only his the bulbous head remained notched just beyond the threshold. you mewled at the lack of fullness in your depths, but your disappointment was soon replaced with pleasure. Rafayel allowed his hands, soft yet strong, to slip under your hips and drag your body close, until your bottom rested on the slope of his legs, keeping your lower half elevated on his lap. “C’mere, baby…” he breathed out, one hand splaying out against your lower belly, fingers stroking beneath your navel, allowing his thumb the reach he needed to paw at your clit in tight, concise circles. your own hands, that had initially reached out for him when he shifted positions, now fell back against the pillow your head rested on, fisting handfuls of it, unneeded, while Rafayel tended to your body. you moaned his name, your head tilting up so you were staring at the ceiling, brows furrowed, focusing wholly on his perfect ministrations.

“You look so cute like this,” Rafayel murmured, more to himself than to you, his free hand gripping the girth of his cock tight. he was still slick with your juices, and he used that to his advantage, pumping the exposed inches instead of plunging into you, to the rhythm same rhythm he assaulted your clit. the treatment elicits of moan from his parted lips, that bubbles up from deep within his throat. “— squirming and needy, chasing your high for me. Come on, pretty girl, cum on my cock for me.”

a few more encouraging words and Rafayel’s thumb running laps over your button is all that you need before you catch that orgasm you were so desperately chasing. you hear his voice, as soon as he saw you were about to be engulfed, whisper harshly, “Look at me,” and you were barely able to obey, your eyes flitting to his face just in time to glaze over. you maintained the unfocused eye contact, stars forming in your peripherals, and Rafayel doesn’t let up, coaxing you with furious strumming on your swollen clit to ride out the orgasm he’s giving you. “That feels good, doesn’t it?” he asked, knowing damn well the only response you could give him was a strangled yip and a half nod, his breathless smile widening, “Yeah? I know, baby, I know. I feel it, too. I’m cumming,” he growled, pumping himself erratically a few more times before he spilled himself inside you. warmth seeps in, spreads through your shallow core, and dribbles out in thick, streamers when Rafayel pulls his sated, softening cock from you. your cunt clenches, one last stitch effort to keep him anchored inside you, which ultimately pushes another rope of his creamy release out of your freshly-fucked body.

Rafayel sat back on his haunches for several moments, panting, with his twitching cock now draped, flaccid, over his sweat-sheened thigh, as he gazed down at his handiwork— his hands finding your trembling shape. he felt along the flare of your hips, up over your waist, his thumbs gently massaging the flesh there as he eased you out of your aftershocks with gentle fondling. “Come back to me, pretty girl, you’re so cute when you’re cumdrunk.” he murmured, drawing shapes over your heated flesh as he coaxed you back from the brink. his palms pressed against your sides, before careening downward, over your lower belly. “I left this pretty pussy all messy again, didn’t I?” he teased, applying enough pressure on your lower belly to force more of his cum to spill out of you and on to the sheets. you whimper at the sensation, your toes curled, and you nod. Rafayel only chuckles, angling his hand so his pointer and middle finger, slender and deft in their movements, can spread open your puffy netherlips. his breath, which had mostly recovered, left him in a soft, awed gasp as he admired the way his cum painted your folds, leaving them sticky and claimed. his cock twitches on his thigh. though hypersensitive, it jumped, as if waking up to the sight.

Rafayel sighs, rolling his eyes, acting as though the mere re-hardening of his cock was burdensome. “Can’t ever just go one time, can we?” he asked, sarcastically, quirking a brow as he stares up at you.

“You make it sound like it’s my fault,” you counter breathlessly, your hands finally unlatching from the pillow. your muscles are sore, but you run your fingers along the shape of his shoulders as he positions himself to take you again.

Rafayel flicking off your genuine concern like it was a bug on the surface tension of his fish tank was the first red flag you should have paid more attention to. In your defense, since he’d been there before and was confident enough to initiate banter, it was easy to give in and trust he knew what he was doing as he batted his lashes at you with those pretty dual-colored, sparkly wide eyes that left you starstruck in the face and said, “As long as I’m with you, I’ll be fine.”

Well. He was with you now and he wasn’t fine.

Because for once in his life, Rafayel didn’t have enough energy to run laps around you. Just a few minutes outside the hotel, lingering near the grand fountain square framed by towering palm trees that offered scant shade, and he began to deflate pitifully like a garish balloon leaking its vigor into the sweltering air. His usual dynamism, the kind that pulled attention to him as effortlessly as a river carved its path, had dimmed to a sluggish ebb, so much so you found yourself glancing over your shoulder every ten seconds, vigilance heightened by the unsettling absence of his ever-present current. The languid pace like he was moving through molasses made him look like an entirely different person than the one tugging you through the airport with even the luggage excitedly rolling behind him.

And it had been just a single day since you’d set foot in Aridum.

That wasn’t to say the trip had been a disaster or he was in terrible shape — you two were still on day one. Back in Linkon, he was, on paper, enthusiastic about pointing out local landmarks for you to go together like he knew the city personally, but he had quickly lost that energy when it actually came to the execution. You chalked it up to him not being able to get any sleep the previous night because of a mix of jetlag and the discomfort of a new bed, but regardless, it was still concerning to watch him only interested in stopping by street stands where he could buy himself cold water bottles and stand in a shaded corner in order to drink them slowly under shelter, while also dragging you with him, so there wouldn't be even a split-second distance between you two.

You were thankful you didn't have many plans in mind. Rafayel always packed enough enthusiasm for the both of you, but now, as you watched with wide-eyed worry how his spark had suddenly wilted, the drastic shift in his personality left him finding everything he suggested doing utterly unnecessary for the day. On top of that, after only managing to sit still for five minutes or so, it'd become obvious to see that the environment of this city, complete with a sun beating down hot enough to cook you alive, had taken a toll on Rafayel's temperament far more drastically than expected — rendering his eagerness completely sour.

But still, you wanted to cheer him up, you did. It broke your heart seeing someone who brought so much life into every room shrivel down to such a defeated shell. Maybe that's why you couldn't help yourself when you caught him pouting at something on the phone screen as if it'd done him a great offense.

So, you began teasing. “Rafayel, we haven’t even been out for thirty minutes, you're sweating already?"

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” you countered, only to squint at his face more closely. “Wait. You’re not?”

He threw his arms out like he was expecting a grander reaction. “Do you know what that means?”

“That you’re a human raisin in the making?”

He groaned, a sound that was more theatrical than pained, but you still caught the edge of frustration in it. “It means I’m seconds away from crumbling into sand. You’ll have to gather me up and carry me home in a jar.”

You started walking towards one of the fountains near some empty seats where shade was available, while he dragged himself behind you like a zombie. "Let's sit you down before you begin to form cracks."

The fountain’s spray misted faintly in the air, enough to make the stone bench beneath feel less like a skillet. Rafayel took extra care positioning himself on one of the seats before collapsing backward, draping one arm over his flushed face.

He took the bottle of yet another ice cold water you fished out from your bag without protest, but his free hand found your wrist and lingered there — light at first, then tighter, like he needed to anchor himself. The unexpected heat radiating from his skin sent a little jolt up your arm. You were about to comment on it, but then he tipped the bottle back and drank, and you swore you could feel the tension in his throat as if it was your own.

When he finished, he let out a breath — not a sigh, just an exhale that sounded heavy, deliberate, sprawling beside you, one leg stretched out, the other bouncing restlessly as he tilted his head back and squinted at the cloudless sky.

“I think I’m dying,” he announced, as if that wasn’t thr fourth time he’d said it today.

After your attention was made aware that he indeed wasn’t sweating by the dry hairline of his, though, the mood to banter had dissipated like a mirage. You began fussing. Was it normal that he didn’t sweat? If a normal person was like this, they needed to be taken to the hospital. However, Rafayel had done nothing but up the ante in complaining, that had to indicate nothing was seriously wrong, right? He’d know his body the best. Right?

“I told you to put on sunscreen this morning. Did you?”

He scoffed, “I don’t need it,” — and you heard the imaginary Lemurian in his tone rolling his eyes at your human expectations.

“Not with that attitude,” you shut him down, already skimming through your bag at an increasingly faster pace. “Now, keep still.”

Finding what you were looking for, you uncapped the bottle, reaching out with one hand to tilt Rafayel’s head left and right to gauge where to start. His skin under the pads of your fingertips felt almost brittle and paper-thin — unnatural on Rafayel, making you unconsciously rub like it was a stain you could get rid of. Without meaning to, you frowned, and he made a soft, lukewarm grumble, nudging your leg with his foot, reminding you what you were doing. Which was fussing over a grown man who should have been responsible from the start and able to take care of himself.

“Show me your forehead,” you said, wanting to get it out the way first.

He obediently carded his bangs back, silent, half-hooded eyes flicking everywhere on your face going ignored as you rubbed sunscreen in and felt what alarmingly was similar to a fever. It was a relief to hear him humming at the feeling, you hoped it would help as you quickly moved to spread the white lotion over his cheeks and smeared a stripe right across the bridge of his nose as he fixed his hair, squinting at your ministrations.

Though, somehow, he looked contented enough that you had to stop him from nuzzling into your hand. “Rafayel, I’m working here.”

All you got was a breathy, “Mmm,” as if he was speaking through the pleasant haze of sleep.

How contradictory of him, as always. For someone constantly grumbling about the unbearable heat, he leaned into every touch with a docility that defied reason — and worse, he initiated them, either molding against you like water taking the shape of the container it was poured into, or his fingers ghosting over your skin as though drawn by instinct. You couldn’t make sense of it. The mere thought of physical contact when the air was this heavy and oppressive made your skin crawl, but he seemed to revel in it. No, thrived on it.

It wasn’t just the way he didn’t flinch — he leaned in harder, his breaths hitching faintly, brow furrowed like he was wrestling with a need he barely understood. You’d swear the heat radiating from your skin would only make it worse, yet he tilted his face into your touch as though your thumbs brushing his cheekbones offered a balm, a strange, cooling relief.

Maybe, he perceived your skin to be indeed cooler than his.

It had to be something unique to his Lemurian physiology. His reactions didn’t make sense otherwise. What human would ever enjoy the sensation of warmth pressed against warmth in such sweltering conditions? And yet here he was, biting back what suspiciously sounded like a placid sigh, while you struggled to reconcile the peculiar contradiction.

“C’mon, don’t let me do all the work,” you muttered, quieter than you intended, the heat and the moment distracting you entirely.

You must have sounded a tad bit worried, because Rafayel didn’t react with his usual playful defiance or the melodramatic sulking he resorted to when things didn’t go his way. Instead, he fell silent, sinking more fully against your side as though he belonged there, and successfully narrowed the angle you were working with. His head tilted slightly, guiding your hand to the sharp line of his jaw with an unspoken invitation, eyelashes fluttering as he blinked, the haze of his voice turning soft and almost vulnerable. You couldn’t even see his face properly from looking at the top of the purple mop of hair blocking you.

"Do my neck too?"

Before you could decide, his hand encircled your wrist. Not tightly — not forcefully — but with a loose, guiding pressure that was maddeningly deliberate. He led your lotion-slicked hand to curve around his throat, the smooth, simmering heat of his skin pressing against your palm.

You hesitated, the instinct to pull away warring with the strange tension settling between you both, but his thumb found the delicate underside of your wrist and began tracing slow, thoughtful patterns that seemed designed to leave you paralyzed. You knew damn well how tenderly and skillfully he handled paintbrushes, and it was evident by the practiced precision of each touch that he was using the same sensibility on you, whether he was fully aware of it or not, which sent a warm burst of blood rising to your cheeks.

Seeming restless, Rafayel sat up straight and finally allowed you a clear view of him. His head tipped further back, exposing more of his neck to your hand, eyes darkened into to a shade of purple that seemed otherworldly in the harsh light of day. They glittered like faceted amethysts film-burned blue around the edges, soaking in every sunlit fleck of your features with a focus that made your chest tighten, like you were being studied with the assessment of the artist Rafayel before another’s painting, his focus unbroken save for the low hum he let slip, soft and unguarded.

You swallowed hard, aware of how exposed you were. The bustling world of Aridum hadn’t stopped turning just because the two of you had stumbled into whatever this was. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of your neck, but it wasn’t just the desert heat making you feel like you were suffocating.

This shouldn’t have been happening. Not here, not now.

Your breath shuddered as you finally regained enough sense to break the silence. "Do it yourself," you murmured, voice uneven as you pressed the bottle of sunscreen into his chest. You looked away, clumsily rubbing your hands on your arms to mask the way they trembled, pretending to rid yourself of excess lotion while wishing desperately to erase the heat radiating off your skin.

Rafayel sighed, a low sound of reluctant acceptance, as he pulled himself upright. His fingers glided over his neck, spreading the sunscreen where you hadn’t, his movements smooth and unaffected as he worked the lotion over his collarbones and along the nape of his neck. The sight was annoyingly graceful, as though he wasn’t feeling the same unbearable tension you were. If you’d have thought of bringing a small electric fan along today, it would have been inches from your face already.

"Maybe we should’ve gone out at night," you said abruptly, grasping for any lifeline to shift the moment’s focus. Your gaze darted to him as he worked, your cheeks burning hotter than the sunlight that baked the streets. "Now I feel bad."

"What for?"

"Making you come along. This must not be very inspiring.”

Rafayel let out an honest-to-goodness laugh. It rolled from his throat so easily and naturally that it seemed even he wasn’t aware of it until the sound tapered off into a quiet chuckle. Shaking his head, he leaned toward you until his temple rested lightly on your shoulder, his gaze unfocused as he stared absently at the fountain ahead. "I’m not giving up time with you just because the sun here wants me dead."

He completely bypassed the part about inspiration, but the sincerity in his words hit you like a splash of cool water on overheated skin. Your shoulders relaxed as you melted into a sigh, letting your head fall atop his, but the sticky warmth made the closeness unbearable almost instantly.

You promptly peeled yourself away with an, "Ugh.” He had already filled his making-you-feel-hot quota for the day, in every sense of the word.

Rafayel straightened just enough to meet your gaze, "That’s how you answer my heroic declaration?" he asked dryly, one brow arched in faux offense.

He didn’t budge, though, even though the heat seemed to bother him more than it did you. The stubborn set of his jaw spoke volumes, and it took a gentle nudge of your elbow to get him to finally sit upright. Even then, he let out a dramatic whine from deep in his chest as if being forced to separate was a personal betrayal.

"You’re lucky I’m rewarding it with mercy," you shot back, brushing a hand through your hair to vent your own rising frustration with the heat. "Come on, let’s head back. I need to get my fishie in the water before he dries up completely."

"But you wanted to see—"

"There’ll be plenty of opportunities in the future," you interrupted with a wave of your hand. "If anything, this was a good lesson about choosing the time we go out more carefully."

To your relief, Rafayel didn’t push back. He rose to his feet with you, though his sluggish movements and the slight downward pull of his lips suggested reluctance. As much as his leaning on you had been irritating in the heat, the sight of his faint frown made your chest tighten, and without thinking, you looped your arm through his and pulled him closer, even though the contact made your already overheated skin feel unbearable. His shoulders straightened slightly at the gesture, but the small crease between his brows didn’t disappear.

"I hear it’s seafood night at the hotel restaurant," you offered, attempting to lift his mood. He was obviously bummed out, but his stubbornness refused to show why outright. It was cute to a degree — childish almost, so endearing you couldn't find it in yourself to grow impatient with him. But you hated seeing him down. "If we head back now, we might snag a rooftop table.”

"Snag? Puh-lease. Worst case scenario, one glimpse of me and I could get us prime seating any time, anywhere," Rafayel scoffed. Still, the corner of his lip twitched upward as if tempted to smile, and you found yourself mirroring the reaction immediately. “And that whole thing would still be less bothersome than you assuming I haven’t secured us a reservation already.”

Later that evening, after dinner on the rooftop, the mix-up with the room service attendant delivering Rafayel’s envelope to your room turned out to be a convenient excuse to check on him. It had been hours since you insisted he take time to rest, and while he promised to settle in and let you know how he felt after freshening up, you hadn’t heard from him since.

You were greeted by the humidity hitting you in the face like a solid wall of rain when the door got opened though, instead of your boyfriend. Thick as fog like it had its own gravity.

Rafayel stood in the doorway, his hair dripping and clinging to his flushed skin in lazy dark purple rivulets, robe loose, the soft fabric blotched dark with water where droplets had slid from his neck and shoulders.

The room behind him radiated a different kind of heat — not the oppressive dryness of the desert, but the heavy, steamy warmth of someone trying to crawl their way back to comfort in the only way they knew how.

He looked better, at least.

The brittle edge that had been clinging to him seemed softened, as if he’d soaked away some of the tension in the beath he’d clearly stepped out of upon you knocking on his door.

Still, the sight of him — damp like a wet cat instead of a fish in his natural environment, robe-clad, the faint sheen of exhaustion still lingering in the way he leaned against the door frame left an odd twist in your chest.

He didn't look any worse for wear than he had earlier in the day when he’d claimed he wanted to spend the rest of his night marinating in ice cold water, and while seeing him not suffering was a relief, you clearly weren't expecting for him to actually mean what he said, even though the water obviously wasn’t ice cold.

The envelope, as it turned out, held a ticket to the memorial hall and an invitation to an art salon gathering hosted by one of his friends. Neither looked to be sparking any interest in Rafayel, however, despite him having come here for as much stimulation as possible for his inspiration.

You understood. It just wasn’t possible when he wasn’t feeling well.

The room itself was telling the entire story, in fact, chaotic in its stillness against the beauty of the floor-to ceiling windows framing the desert skyline in soft, shimmering lights of the city crowned by the full moon hanging proudly above. Papers were scattered across the floor in uneven piles, some curling slightly at the edges where they’d caught the artificial moisture in the air, blank and untouched, and some haphazardly sketched in a way you couldn't even begin to guess what they would become later. A few uncapped pens sat nearby, ink untouched, next to a can of soda that had long since gone warm. It wasn’t hard to guess what he’d been doing — or trying to do — in the hours since you’d left him.

So, you told him to stop forcing himself. Come enjoy the scenery with you.

It was your first instinct, but the words didn’t feel enough. You weren’t an artist, you didn’t know what would be good for the block he was going through. Even though your concern was genuine, you were clumsy at best at consolation.

But, he did lower himself onto the floor beside you anyway, his hands brushing against the scattered papers as he sat and leaned back on his palms. Like this, it was easy to imagine him search for his vision to come to him among the mess as he was attempting to draw, and end up with his gaze drifting out the window instead.

And then, as if he were a tide and the moonlight was pulling him inexorably to shore, he began to open up. Pushed by your mention of watching the view together, he spoke of sceneries. Of what traveling to discover secret corners of nature meant to him before everything changed — before he started creating. About how he used to just look at the world and feel it. Admire it. He didn’t need to do anything with it back then. A sunset was just a sunset, the sea was simply the sea, and neither asked anything of him but to exist alongside them.

Once he began to create, however...

Those discoveries done from a place of pure enjoyment became material, their beauty and pain turned into fuel. The act of looking became an act of taking. Of extracting. He started to see the world not as it was, but as something that could be stripped bare and transformed. A beautiful, bleeding wound. Every sunrise painted became a slice taken from the sun. Every ocean wave he put down on canvas was a handful of ocean lost. He couldn't experience sceneries for themselves anymore without having to to capture and translate them into a demand.

He didn’t look at you while he spoke, but the portrait of his honesty could be interpreted by even the most art-blind.

It was then that he dropped the bomb on you: “If one day, I become someone who only takes from you… If I were like that, would you leave me?”

That question dropped into the space between you like a stone in still water, sending ripples through everything you thought you understood about this moment.

But Rafayel was watching you in a way that made your pulse trip over itself, dissecting every flicker of your expression, like you were sitting in the middle of a high-stakes exam you hadn’t studied for. His fingers splayed on the ground besides yours were mere inches away, but even in that minimal distance, you sensed him drawing further back — a subconscious, reflexive reaction to fear, as if he needed to protect himself by retreating into some remote part of his mind, distant and closed off from the rest of him.

"Oh you silly fishie..." was your immediate response despite the whiplash he'd inflicted upon you, fondness rolling off your tongue easily, folding over itself into a dull ache for the struggle he was going through. "I won't leave you."

Your hand slid towards him, pinky finger crossing over until it brushed against his — gently, giving him ample chance to pull away before you covered his entire hand with your palm.

He was feverish again, despite all attempts made to soothe him, and the urge to smooth the pads of your fingers over his flushed skin, mapping each ridge and freckle that dotted his knuckles, surged forward within you. And you gave in, trying to make up for what you knew words would never be able to express, as you lightly rubbed lines onto the back of his hand.

It seemed to melt something in him, and he eased into your touch. It was an involuntary response to you reaching out for him — he tilted into you like he always did. It only lasted a second or two, however, before you felt him falter; like he noticed the instinctual motion midway, then consciously pushed down the reaction by gripping his thighs in an effort to sit back and avoid leaning in. Your heart dropped a little, confused, and you stole a peek at his face through the corner of your lashes to try to guess what he was thinking about.

What you saw only amplified how wrong everything felt. His features, which normally softened whenever you reached out for him, tightened, pensive. He frowned, holding back — hesitant about something, unreadable except for a subtle unease creeping in around the edges.

Even before he broke the silence, you had the awful premonition that his next words weren't going to be what you hoped to hear.

"Are you sure?" he asked, measured and quiet, and you knew you were right. This was trouble.

You squeezed his hand lightly despite wanting to do the very opposite, reassuringly, "Do you really think I’d stay even a second longer with someone I know is bad for me?"

He remained unresponsive.

“Rafayel?”

You made it about yourself, idiot, you realized.

Instead of acknowledging him and his cue for more reassurance and affirmation, you'd shifted the attention from him to trust in your decision making. You hadn't meant to, you hadn't done it deliberately — but...

Gosh, you were absolutely terrible at this.

So much so that Rafayel being the more emotionally in-tune of the two of you even in his vulnerable state was setting a humiliating new standard for how low you could go.

It was pathetic, really, how utterly you failed to pick up on what should have been an obvious cue. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in your mind that he’d taken your clumsy words as a glaring sign you found his struggles trivial, insignificant compared to your own convenience. All you’d managed to do was shove him deeper into the spiral of insecurities he was already battling.

This was supposed to help him clear his head. All it had achieved so far was adding onto his concerns.

Despite your determination to pour everything you had into assuaging the gnarled knot of his self-doubt, you were woefully unqualified for the task. Unmoored, you floundered blindly through half-finished thoughts, grasping for ways to communicate your feelings — gracelessly, imprecisely — all in hopes of soothing whatever ugly thoughts tangled around your boyfriend's brain like weeds choking the life from fertile soil.

Your stammering words stuck to the roof of your mouth like taffy, thick, unwilling to yield, and suddenly useless, coming out slow as you spoke. “What I mean by that is… My life has been consumed by you. In the best way possible. You made it ito a beautiful, chaotic mess bursting with life. I couldn’t possibly leave you.”

And he heard it — you felt it in the faint shuddering breath he drew as a silent response.

His thumb swiped over your pinky in absent response, stroking soothingly over the thin bones as he stared at your joined hands. His shoulders hadn't relaxed even marginally, but there was still an immeasurable kindness in the gesture.

“Besides, you’re not someone who takes. That’s not true at all. You’re just…”

He looked up then, turning his head to you, a doe-eyed, half-dazed blink breaking past the glassy stare he'd fixed on the empty space in front of him. His hand twitched underneath yours, flexing as he made a questioning noise, wordlessly urging you to elaborate as he invited comfort from your explanation. The way he tilted his head, the corners of his furrowed brows slightly angled upwards — the effect was childlike, innocent almost.

Receptive.

Breaking through your hesitation to touch him lest he shrink away again, you lifted both hands to cradle his cheeks gently, smoothing your thumbs across the high sweep of his cheekbones until his eyelids slid shut.

A soft sigh fell from his parted lips, his body pliant in your grasp as he melted under your fingertips, as if the gesture were more potent than any reassurance you might offer. The climbing tension within your ribcage dissolved with a single exhalation at the sight — helplessly endeared by his sheer willingless to submit to your awkward, inexpressive attempt at consoling. Subtle adoration burned quietly beneath each featherlight caress you placed along the slope of his nose or the soft patches underneath his eyes.

"You're just feeling a little anxious," you continued carefully, brushing a stray piece of damp hair away from his temple. It stuck stubbornly, refusing to let itself be tucked behind his ear before you tried again, gentler this time, hoping to soothe any lingering reservations you hadn't managed to wash away. “That’s probably why you’re overthinking things.”

In the brief silence that followed, anxiety bubbled low in your stomach once more, especially when he seemed to be focusing somewhere on your neck and ignoring looking you in the eye directly. It came as yet another whiplash and a sinking feeling simultaneously when he covered one of your hands with his, tilting his chin to plant a kiss into the centre of your palm as if making up for the withdrawal from earlier.

"What, were you playing tricks on me?" you murmured.

Shaking his head, "A token of my gratitude," he clarified. A gentle huff of laughter slipped past his lips, so faintly that you would've missed it had you not been staring at him with rapt attention in your bewilderment. "For you. Who accepted someone like me."

You frowned, eyebrows immediately drawing close. “Rafayel—”

He leaned in all of a sudden, one of his arms slid behind your back, while the other stretched across in front of you, caging you in with an unnerving ease. Both his hands rested flat against the floor now, framing you on either side like a living barricade. Your own left arm shot down to slap a palm down so you wouldn't topple over on your side. The droplets falling from his damp hair onto your neck was a sharp, sudden cold in comparison to the alarming heat radiating from his body, making you jolt in place as he loomed close enough for his breath to fan across your face.

"You're burning up again," you said weakly, trying and failing spectacularly to disguise your nervousness with indignance as his lips brushed softly against the apple of your cheek before ghosting lower, pausing just beneath your ear, testing for a reaction.

Meanwhile, him taking your hand that was balled up in a fist on the ground to slowly bring it towards his mouth left you frozen and dizzy from the contradictory sensations prickling under your skin.

Rafayel hummed against your wrist in response, dropping light kisses along the ridge of bone connecting your thumb to the rest of your fingers in the interim. It was impossible to ignore how every one of his touches ignited something different within you — the sensation of him painting the length of each finger with tender brushes of his lips and heated exhales sent pulses of liquid warmth flowing through your bloodstream.

The abrupt shift had left you uncertain about many things, chief among which being whether your previous efforts actually sank in at all or not.

Apparently they had.

The combined assault was distracting, but even amidst the whirlwind of thoughts vying for attention, you struggled to fully comprehend just how drastically the moment had veered off course — how your own worry-stricken attempt at appeasing him ended here instead, with your pulse hammering in your ears as he pressed even closer, draping his arm around your waist to turn you sideways until you were nearly sitting on his lap, faces inches apart.

A glimpse hope of maintaining control over the situation arrived in the form of a can toppling over during his handling of you, clattering on the hardwood flooring and startling you enough to snap free of the strange trance Rafayel had ensnared you in during his momentary lapse in focus.

Being so close gave you a good look at the change in him that manifested suddenly; his features visibly hardened as he turned his head at the disturbance, seemingly irritated to have been interrupted midway — a dark glint shone through his lashes before shifting over to you, misty, hazy, indescribable in its raw complexity.

His bathrobe hung loose, the neckline slouched further down one shoulder from having moved so much earlier, displaying more skin than was appropriate, and you weren’t sure if you were imagining the faintest hint of familiar coloration mottling his chest.

Which was dry.

Not only had his skin absorbed all the moisture that clung to it like a sponge after stepping out of the bathroom, there was no hint of perspiration whatsoever — not a bead of sweat lining the ridges of his collarbone or dampening the strands of hair stuck to his forehead.

As if responding to your inner thoughts, he lamented, "As you said, I'm anxious... Well, more like... Restless," before leaning in further to bury his face in the crook of your shoulder. "Ever since I arrived here, I feel..."

His arms encircled your waist, pulling you flush against the expanse of his chest and filling your nose with the scent of bodywash. It was no less than holding a solid block of heat capable of radiating more than enough warmth to replace an actual human furnace. The sheer amount of radiated temperature seemed ridiculous in such conditions, but the way he tried the loosen the already disheveled robe covering his other shoulder despite coiling around you, which had to be the source of the biggest discomfort concerning heat, was even more ridiculous. Shouldn’t he have let go of you before complaining?

"The air feels like it's burning, like there's not enough moisture anywhere. My heart's racing and I feel so miserable," he admitted quietly, muffled in the material of your shirt.

Yeah, you were taking him to a hospital.

This wasn't normal by any means, especially since you were now a hundred percent sure Rafayel couldn't sweat in order to regulate his internal body heat.

How could you let this go on for so long? He had been suffering these symptoms for a whole day now, hiding it all under layers of petulant frustration and overdramatic complaining to escape having to ask for help.

He was always like this. So secretive and reserved about his struggles underneath all the goofiness, especially those directly related to him being a Lemurian.

You put a hand on his burning chest and pushed yourself away to put some distance between the two of you and this moment, ignoring his quiet gasp and the way he clutched your waist. "I'm taking you to a—”

Suddenly, the world spun off its axis, a dizzying blur of motion that ended with your back colliding against the floorboards.

The impact sent a ripple through the room — drawing pens clattering and rolling away, half-sketched papers crumpling beneath you, while others scattered into the air like startled birds, carried by the gust of displaced air.

As you blinked up, trying to shake the daze from your mind, the world sharpened into focus.

The light cascaded over Rafayel like liquid mercury, accentuating every sharp edge and soft curve of his form. His bare legs straddled your hips, knees pressed firmly into the ground on either side of you, pinning you in place with an effortless authority. His hands had found yours in the chaos, and now your wrists were restrained above your head, his long fingers encircling them with a grip that was firm yet somehow shaky.

The bathrobe he wore hung precariously, one shoulder already exposed to the moonlight’s caress while the other threatened to follow suit, the fabric dipping low to reveal a tantalizing V that stretched from his clavicle down to his navel. Tendrils of lilac hair curled lightly downwards with gravity, catching the light from outside, glittering like morning dew against a canvas of violet satin and plopping down onto your face, each impact making you blink. And his face, suffused with a flush so intense that it seemed to glow under the pale lighting, as if all the blood in his body had rushed to stain his fair skin with an undeniable rosy bloom.

The cool floorboards beneath your skin were contrasting harshly with the heat of his touch, and the helpless position left your pulse racing in a way you couldn’t entirely blame on adrenaline.

Rafayel lowered himself until his nose brushed lightly against yours, his breaths shallow and uneven, eyes caught halfway between hazy drowsiness and burning intensity — a vivid shade of sunless plum made darker not by the shadows cast across his features, but a deeply buried and masterfully concealed emotion on the verge of making itself known to you.

To call it desire wouldn't do it justice.

It was something far stronger than fleeting arousal or casual infatuation — you hadn’t been looked at this way before. Weren’t even sure if a man could look at someone like this. There was nothing superficial or mundane about this particular weight. It sought to consume you. To burn you alive, leaving you to crumble into ashes like incense offered up to a deity. And the worst part? You had no idea what exactly you were being consumed by, or why.

All of this, because you had merely wanted to—

“No. I’m not going anywhere,” he hissed as if sensing your plan, breath dragging along the edge of your ear. "I'm just... restless.”

But—

“In every sense of the word.”

Oh?

Your mind reeled, dizzy from the intoxicating cocktail flooding your senses — from his breaths washing over the side of your neck, to the overwhelming sensation of Rafayel on the verge of draping over you like a living brand, hot and firm, trapping you in place.

"Especially when you're by my side," he purred.

Oh.

He pulled back to stare you down, heavy-lidded and glinting like knives honed razor sharp, yet somehow tender in his approach. If anything, it served only to accentuate the danger of whatever it was simmering below the surface. This was different than his Ebb Day state, but similar enough in its intent to be instantly recognizable — especially since it bore all the marks of the manic rush he fell victim to when succumbing to the lure of his instincts.

It was something primal in you that scattered your thought process into oblivion and made you look away instinctively, averting your attention toward the window off to your left — but the sparkling view of night time in Aridum was soon curtained by a flash of Rafayel's hand as he cupped the side of your face in one smooth motion.

The slight roughness of the pad of his thumb brushed along your cheekbone until his fingers sank into your hair, fanned along the outer edge of your ear, and turned you back to face him. The gesture felt proprietary, like he wanted to make certain he'd captured every last scrap of your undivided attention, like it physically hurt to allow even the smallest opportunity for you to withdraw and escape his grasp.

“Rafayel,” you forced your common sense to come out of its hiding place. “I don’t think—”

"But even so, I can't let you go. I don't want to," he breathed against your lips, punctuating his command with an achingly slow drag of his nose tracing yours. The contact made something molten unfurl in your belly, warm and sticky-slick and pooling in the hollow space below your navel, curling its tendrils through your veins like sweet, syrupy nectar. "What should I do?"

It would be easier than breathing to surrender and give him whatever he was asking for, but... but...

It felt wrong when he was so distressingly hot to the touch, not to mention you couldn't shake off the feeling he was doing his best to distract you from your worry by acting more brazenly suggestive than you'd ever seen him be before.

"You should rest, I don't think you'll enjoy getting worked up in your current condition—"

Your efforts were derailed with the subtle scrape of chapped lips running up the slope of your neck and a bite into the fleshy part below your ear as punishment for daring to answer his plea with platitude.

A shudder shook your frame, nerves firing off confused messages in quick succession throughout your brain, half demanding the sudden pressure recede and half urging more from the tingling heat. Your hand flew to grip his bare shoulder, fingers digging in until the tight bunch of muscle strained beneath his fevered skin — not enough to stop his ministrations, but enough to serve as a weak deterrent.

"Such lovely lips, spinning such pretty excuses," Rafayel huffed, drawing back and sweeping his thumb across your chin with gentle disapproval. "When we both know you don't want me to let you go either."

The words trailed off into something softer, tender, almost wistful, and were followed by the pad of his finger slipping past your parted lips, stroking along the underside of your tongue before drawing back and skimming across the wet patch he'd left glistening upon your bottom lip. As if magnetized, his smoldering stare followed, entranced by the minute trembling of your mouth, darting occasionally upward to capture your own hooded eyes at the sudden boldness of his gesture. He licked his own lips slowly as if thirsty, mirroring the same lazy stroke he'd used against your mouth, allowing you to take your fill of the sight.

No.

Before you could fall into his enticing trap again, your palm pressed firmly against Rafayel's chest until he eased back obediently, giving you space to rise, every single sensation previously pink at the edges quickly melting into clarity about taking care of him properly.

"This isn't the right time," you insisted breathlessly once you managed to catch your breath and speak, steadfast with the strain of iron will alone — pushing forward when your mind threatened to wander where his moistened lips had been just seconds before.

The mood was quickly dispelling, much to Rafayel's clear irritation, judging by the petulant slouch of his shoulders. You emphasized your point by putting your hands on his forehead, cheeks, neck, every patch of skin you could reach, the clear intent of medical examination being communicated silently until he relented with a dramatic sigh, turning his face upwards to expose more of his throat as if giving permission.

"It's fine," he groused reluctantly, although his grumbling somewhat relenting in volume under your gentle inspection. "I'm not dying."

"That's the opposite of what you said earlier today. Are you sure you don't want—"

His hands closed firmly around your wrists, tugging you off gently before you could finish speaking. "It's really not that bad.”

You’d be more convinced if he'd just told you about how miserable he was feeling.

"Is it a Lemurian condition?" You frowned up at him, taking note of how carefully he cradled your hands in his palms, stroking the insides of your wrists. "If it's making you feel awful, shouldn't we see someone about it?"

Rafayel tilted his head at you with a peculiar sort of fondness written across his features. It was difficult to identify what precisely made his smile curve upward into something distinctly knowing, yet warm — something infinitely affectionate yet impossible to quantify.

"Already doing that," he answered cryptically, tilting forward until he met your forehead with his own, nuzzling into the creased spot directly between your brows, eyelashes fluttering shut.

Ugh, this man.

"Do you know for a fact if you'll be okay?" you asked as delicately as possible without sounding too overbearing. That would definitely push Rafayel closer to defensive territory again and have him brush off any attempt at assistance, or even conversation, so you needed to walk the tightrope of concern while still keeping it mild enough for him not to clam up. "This trip still has a few more days left. What if you don't get better?"

The corner of his mouth twitched faintly with a ghost of a smile, perhaps pleased by your attentiveness —— "I enjoy this kind of concern."

—— which was starting to irritate you a little. "Well, I don't. Seeing you suffer and not doing anything isn't enjoyable."

He had the audacity to grin at that, broad enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes as he ducked his head coyly before turning it sharply to brush the tip of his nose against the shell of your ear and murmuring, "Not enjoying seeing me suffering does imply some enjoyment in seeing me otherwise."

"Rafayel!" You snapped finally, jerking out of his embrace with exasperated incredulity, only to meet an unrepentant smile waiting for you beyond your escape. He wasn't deterred whatsoever, which was a little unnerving.

Or rather, the rapid shift to your own pent-up restlessness was about to become in the next two days.

The limbo between then and the memorial hall day unfolded in a whirlwind of contradictions, each more puzzling than the last — starting from the abrupt ending to your interlude in front of the window, where he suddenly pulled back without any warning at all, leaving you cold and stunned with the excuse that he wanted to go to sleep, subsequently kicking you out of his hotel room as if possessed by a demonic force capable of inducing selective amnesia.

Like he wasn’t asking to fold you in half like a laptop mere moments ago.

The result was you forcing mandatory house rest until the day of the memorial hall visit came, settling awkwardly between coddling and hovering — a weird blend of fussing over his health like a mother hen and trying desperately not to make him feel infantilized as a result of said fussing.

All of that only ended with him either clinging close or deliberately distancing himself in confusing waves that seemed to occur at random intervals with little rhyme or reason.

It was simultaneously bewildering and heartbreaking. You had no idea how to react when he gave you zero insight into his thoughts and behaviors unless coaxed open, and even then, his answers were cryptic.

(So much for enjoying your concern.)

Really, this was your fault.

Maybe you shouldn't have pushed. But you worried.

Especially when he was dismissive like that despite being openly going through something other than a fever and a creative block, made worse by his inability to leave the hotel due to the hostile environment. Both of which you could do nothing to help with.

He would sit at the edge of the bed, his sketchbook propped open but untouched, pencil hovering above the page as though waiting for some divine spark that refused to come. At times, he’d stand by the window, reminding you of a cat sitting by its food dish for its owner to fill it with dinner, paw swiping irritatingly at its empty confines. Then, just as abruptly, he’d abandon his spot to sprawl across your lap instead while you were busy with paperwork online, one arm draped loosely over his stomach as he stared blankly at the ceiling in defeat, and demanding you play with his hair.

Then, some time later, it was back to deciding being near you was unbearable, pulling away entirely whenever you reached out for reassurance, no matter how casual or friendly your intentions, retreating back into his personal bubble to focus on attempting to get something on paper mindlessly, pages fluttering with restless action, crumpling here and there under the rough treatment before being smoothed out hastily.

The cycle continued nonstop. Restlessness, fatigue, clinginess, building you up while you didn't let it show because time and place, solitude, then back again — you never knew what Rafayel's whimsies were going to bring, and the uncertainty of it wore you thin, fraying your already wan nerves.

The humidifier was a desperate, last-ditch effort, the kind born out of sheer frustration and the kind of exhaustion that makes rationality optional.

You’d bought it from a small local shop at the crack of dawn, spurred on by the memory of walking into Rafayel’s suite only hours before, where he’d bullied the hotel staff into delivering two oversized sacks of ice — each roughly the size of a small child — and ordered them to be dumped unceremoniously into his bathtub.

At 3 AM. In the dead of night.

By the time you returned and set it up, the machine had barely begun spitting out its first gentle stream of cool mist before Rafayel sat down beside it, legs folded beneath him like a solemn monk meditating in front of some sacred relic. His quiet intensity as he stared at the thing made you wonder if he was grateful, resentful, or some combination of both — because with Rafayel, it was never as simple as one emotion at a time.

Still, the day turned out to be noticeably easier on him, and for the first time in what felt like forever, you allowed yourself to believe that maybe, just maybe, the worst had passed.

He still looked like death warmed over, often pink on the face and worn, but at least he wasn’t on the brink of staging another late-night ice-bag heist.

He even tolerated your awkward attempts to distract him, accepting your offerings of snacks, endless glasses of ice water, iced tea, whatever cold beverages you could scrounge up, and a marathon of that one TV show the two of you had been meaning to watch together.

And, of course, there was the doting.

So much doting.

Which was rare for you.

You were not, by any stretch of the imagination, the kind of person who showered people with attention. You weren’t the mom friend. You didn’t hover. But something about Rafayel in this state, rightfully whiny, subdued, far too fragile for your liking, made you want to roll him over in bubble wrap and shove him in your pocket to keep him safe from everything.

In some ways, you were more anxious than he was.

The helplessness swung at you like you were a tree and it was an axe, the inability to snap your fingers and fix him, to just make it better was torture. Worrying felt inevitable, but useless. And the not knowing what to do with yourself in between bouts of fretting? That was worse. Still, he wasn’t showing any signs of further deterioration, which felt like a victory you didn’t want to jinx.

You were so relieved you briefly considered leaving all your savings to the shop clerk who’d sold you the overpriced humidifier. She had probably thought you’d lost your mind, judging by the way you thanked her like she’d just handed you a ticket to salvation, practically singing her praises as she rang up your purchase. And honestly, if you could go back in time, you would’ve thanked her even more profusely.

Because it worked. Rafayel was better — well, better-ish. Better enough that you decided it was safe to move forward with the plan to visit the memorial hall.

Which, eventually, became a visit to the ocean.

An ocean.

In the middle of a desert.

The sheer impossibility of it left you breathless, like you were standing at the edge of a fever dream made real. The water stretched out endlessly, shimmering beneath the brutal sun, and you couldn’t stop marveling at the sheer absurdity of it — a body of water so vast, so alive, nestled in a place it had no right to be. It felt like a miracle.

It was a miracle.

And just when you thought the desert couldn’t surprise you further, the skies proved you wrong soon enough later, crowning the experience with snowfall at the end of the trip. Snow, delicate and silent, drifting from the sky like a benediction.

You couldn’t help but marvel at it all — at how the world had managed to gift you two impossibilities in the span of a single day. It felt like the desert itself was defying logic, bending over backward to offer something beautiful, something extraordinary, as though it wanted to prove it wasn’t all hardship and sunburnt misery.

But Rafayel stood by the edge of the ocean with a look that made your chest ache — a look that spoke not of wonder, but of mourning. To you, it was a miracle, but to him, it was a tragedy: a dying ocean trapped in a place it could no longer thrive, its very existence a reminder of something slipping away. An everlasting eulogy engraved into reality.

He didn’t look away from the canvas of pain he had set up and started painting for himself until you voiced all of what you thought out loud for him to see.

And this time, you truly felt like you had broken through — like you’d reached him in a way that mattered.

It was there, in that rare, fragile moment, that Rafayel dove straight through your hesitation, sidestepping the awkward pauses you were fumbling with, and pulled you into an embrace before you even had the courage to ask if you could. It was as though he had heard the unspoken thought aloud, plucking it out of the air with startling precision.

And then he’d confessed — softly, almost too softly — that at the time, he had wanted to come here before, with the most important person in his life.

Those words lodged themselves in your chest, a bittersweet ache blooming alongside the unmistakable joy bubbling up within you. You hugged him back as tightly as you could, pouring all the gratitude you didn’t know how to put into words into that one simple gesture. Gratitude for trusting you enough to share that. Gratitude for showing you yet another new side of himself, something unguarded and rare. A treat, indeed, one you hadn’t expected but cherished all the same.

Relief flooded through you, so potent it felt like a physical weight lifting from your shoulders. You hadn’t even realized how tense you’d been until that moment. Your body relaxed, and with that relaxation came fatigue, the kind that crept up on you and left no room for resistance. Before you knew it, you had fallen asleep during the entire way back, lulled into a rare sense of peace you hadn’t felt in days.

And yet.

Like clockwork, he withdrew the instant you arrived back at the hotel.

Rafayel never thought he’d truly understand what it meant to drown.

As a creature of the sea, he wasn't meant to in the first place.

Not until you.

The realization had hit him like a storm breaking over still waters — not all at once, but in slow, rumbling waves that built. He didn’t even feel himself breaking; it was more like a slow erosion, the kind that wears stone into sand. Quiet, but irreversible. Your optimism. Your touches. Your encouragement. Inching in and in and in one step at a time.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

He had been holding himself together in the driver's seat, hands knotted around the steering wheel and knuckles bloodless with how tightly he gripped. Every inch of him vibrated with anxiety, away from where you lay fast asleep beside him, breathing shallow and uneven like he was afraid of exhaling too loudly. But there you were, oblivious, asleep, your head leaning softly against the window as if his world hadn’t collapsed in on itself.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

It wasn’t the desert heat that was killing him, though it might as well have been. (Everything about this place grated against him — the air, the dry scrape of his skin, the silence of the fading ocean that was too vast to be comforting. Too big. Too empty. Fading. Fading. A warning from cities away that this land was no place for a creature like him.) He wasn’t meant for this — for the cracked earth and the relentless sun and the suffocating absence of water. His body ached for moisture, for the cool, familiar embrace of the sea, but it ached even more for you. (He didn’t even realize how long he had been watching you from the corner of his peripheral vision — how long he had been unraveling, thread by thread.)

You’d tilted his world off its axis, turned everything he thought he knew into something unrecognizable. Once, pain had been his anchor. It was always there—constant, unyielding, something he could hold on to when nothing else made sense. It had driven him, fueled him, given him purpose when nothing else could. He had sought it out like a man dying of thirst seeks a mirage, and it had never failed him. Pain was constant. Pain was reliable. Pain was everything. Inside. Outside. It was all he had ever known, and it had kept him alive — fed the anger that gnashed his insides with teeth and claws, soothed the beast that prowled just under his skin, tempered the instinct that drove him relentlessly onward. Toward destruction. Towards home.

He had used it as a shield, as armor, as the whip he wielded against those who dared to clip the tails of his people. A weapon. A tool. A brush.

And then there was you (who he'd willingly sought out, angry and grieving and resentful and hurt.)

You, who didn’t fit into his carefully crafted world of suffering and art and revenge. You, who had made him forget (as easily as you forgot him) what it felt like to hurt, to ache, to yearn for something greater than himself. To hate. To see others bleed while his fingers flew across canvas after canvas, leaving only beauty in their wake — only soaring wings, only gleaming scales, only flowing water, only living fire, only reaching skies, only rushing wind, only rising floods...

Only you.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

Except now, he did yearn. He yearned in a way that was foreign and unbearable, in a way that felt like drowning — not in water, but in light, in warmth, in the overwhelming weight of wanting something too much. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he wanted you this much — needed you this much — when he didn’t even know who he was without all the hurt and hatred inside. It wasn’t fair that he felt something hot and ugly churning under his skin whenever you smiled up at him in admiration, filling his stomach with lead until he thought he might collapse beneath its heaviness. It wasn't fair that there were times when he thought it might actually be better not to have met you again at all.

(That thought filled him with dread so immense it threatened to crush the breath from his lungs; the possibility of having spent his entire life stumbling aimlessly through darkness towards a destination he was no longer sure even existed — )

He watched you sleep, the rhythm of your breathing steady and unbothered.

His gaze lingered on your hands, resting loosely in your lap, fingers twitching faintly as if even in sleep, you were reaching for something. (Reaching for him?) He wanted to take them in his own, to press them to his lips, to hold on so tightly he’d never have to let go. But he couldn’t. (He wouldn’t.)

Because the moment he did, he knew he’d lose whatever fragile standing he had left.

(“Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?”)

His thoughts spiraled, looping back on themselves in a tangle of contradictions that refused to resolve; questions without answers, fears without resolutions. What had he become, to need you like this? To depend on you like this? To depend on you so completely that even the idea of your absence felt like the loss of something vital — something essential — an emptiness he wasn't prepared to face.

(What must you think of him? Did you even know what you did to him? What would you think of him?)

He had told himself he could manage it, that he could stay close enough to feel your warmth but far enough not to burn. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? He was already burning. He had been burning since the moment he met you. An addictive pain — the kind that made him ache for more even as it seared him from the inside out.

And before he knew it, the car was parked beside the hotel entrance around the far corner of the garden, and Rafayel didn’t remember driving there at all.

He blinked, confused for a moment as to how exactly he had managed to pilot the vehicle, when you stirred quietly in the passenger seat, drawing his attention like a moth to flame.

You groaned softly, eyelids fluttering, but remained firmly locked within slumber's grip as he unbuckled your seatbelt for you, as gently as if he were handling fine china. Your head leaned sideways against the headrest and faced him, slack and soft with sleep. His fingers twitched around the plastic buckle, curling into a fist until he thought they might cramp under the strain.

He leaned forward, forehead coming to contact with the cool leather surface of the steering wheel, squeezing his eyes shut tight enough to blot out your presence entirely.

There was too much to process — too many feelings, thoughts, sensations threatening to overwhelm him if he looked directly at them, instead swirling through his head like debris caught in a vortex, invisible yet disorienting nonetheless.

But they all blipped out of existence the moment he turned his head around, following the impulse to look.

(“Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?”)

The urge struck Rafayel with all the force of a lightning bolt — bright, sudden, unavoidable — and suddenly the knuckles of his fingers were sliding across your cheek, feather-light in gentle arcs along the arch of your cheek, savoring every inch of satin flesh as it shifted beneath his caress.

The sensation of touch buzzed pleasantly underneath his skin previously starved, reveling in the sweetness of contact after so many days of withdrawal.

The artificial light coming from outside bathed your sleeping form in a glow that cascaded like a gentle waterfall, chiaroscuro shadows casting angles upon your features, emphasizing every line and curve, and for a long time, all he could do was stare. He could feel your breath against the tips of his nails, warm puffs of moist exhales against his calloused flesh, and found himself fixating on the gentle undulation of your chest as you breathed — unconsciously, mindlessly unaware of what such a simple act did to him.

The memory of your voice echoed in his mind, soft and certain, cutting through the chaos like a beam of light.

"Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?"

You had a way of reframing everything, of taking the pieces of his broken world and rearranging them into something that almost looked like hope. (He hated it. He loved it. He hated that he loved it.) It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

You hadn’t asked to become such an integral part of his existence — so intrinsic and fundamental and irreplaceable. Yet somehow, here you were. Here he was. The absence of water, the grief of it. The grief of what it meant to lose something so essential, so intrinsic, that one didn’t know how to live without it. And that grief had found a new home in you. You, who had become his ocean, his escape, the source of every ache in his chest and joy in his heart.

(Isn't it a surprise that there's an ocean in the desert? Isn't it a surprise you're the muse calling to him and not the muffled, fading cries of the dying ocean in pain, not the skeletal remains of an era he'd never get back?)

He gazed, and gazed, and gazed, drinking you in like a thirsty man lost in a sea of golden sands, watching the subtle play of lights over the curves of your face — the delicate angle of your chin, the arch of your nose, the graceful slope of your neck as it curved into collarbone and shoulder — memorizing every detail he could, without the pressure of having to wrench himself back before he drowned in your wake, without the need to pretend to your face he was anything less than desperate to be with you all day, every day, in every way possible. And that the sound of your voice in his ears was enough to get the paintbrush running across paper from the sheer momentum of his imagination.

But he couldn't keep going like this.

Somehow, somewhen, between the start of your journey and now, this thing had begun shifting irrevocably past his ability to contain it any longer. Had grown exponentially until it seemed to dwarf his capacity to handle it. All it would take was being away from you for a mere few hours to bring him to a level of misery that was honestly embarrassing.

And you had no idea.

No idea that orbiting around him in these past few days like a second moon had only served to exacerbate the foul joy of watching you fawn over him.

It made him sick to his stomach to admit it, but soaking in the knowledge (in his soul, through the bond) that you cared so deeply for him went straight to his head like some drug he hadn't realized he needed.

It felt so despairingly good that he would wrap himself around you like a vine climbing towards sunlight if he could for the rest of his days, absorbing your rays of affection like photosynthesis... or a parasite.

(Was he being punished by the sea that this love was eclipsing his fury and vengeance? Or rewarded that he held both equally in his grasp despite how terribly wrong it felt at times? Regardless, his inspiration was the punchline, once only capable of singing into the canvas elegies of lament and sorrow, now composed ballads and odes that poured out effortlessly.)

You would hate him if you ever found out just how perversely his emotions swung in every direction; so high one moment that the ecstasy of relief nearly shattered his reserve of control, and so low the next that he feared he'd choke to death from the guilt that clawed up the back of his throat like a strangled animal's cry for mercy.

This entire ordeal had flipped the script completely — instead of keeping you at arm's length as he normally did (regarding… everything), Rafayel now clung onto you desperately like Tantalus to a branch of fruit he’d finally gotten a grasp of, and what if he was exposed? The question rose like bile in his mouth whenever he began slipping.

“I won't leave you.”

Liar, his grudge wanted to answer.

It remembered. It never forgot. It told him you'd flee and never look back if he let a sliver of this dependency that bound him tighter to you with each passing day slip out from his fingertips — if he allowed you even the tiniest insight into the strange workings of his head and his heart.

Because you didn’t understand. You couldn’t. You had no idea what you were talking about when you told him you wouldn’t leave. How could you, when you didn’t know the depths of what you were promising to stay for? You didn’t know the true nature of Lemurian love, its ferocity, its weight, its cost. The all-consuming, all-encompassing reality of it — how they loved as if it was the only thing tethering them to existence itself. How they lived for it, how they died for it. How he had been dying for it.

If you saw it — if you saw him — you would run. He knew you would. Because if he laid bare just how much he depended on you, how much of his breath, his will, his very being hinged on you, you’d be overwhelmed. You’d leave.

Why else would he be tearing himself apart like this? Miserably trying to wean himself off you, forcing himself to let go only to grasp harder each time he felt you’d finally come to hate him and slip away?

He didn't know how long he sat there in silence.

Just a bit longer, he would keep watching you with these feelings out in the open. Just a little bit longer. He couldn’t bear to wake you up.

By the time you stirred, groggy and disoriented but blissfully unsuspecting, it felt as though several eternities had passed in the span of minutes, and he had to struggle with all the strength of a raging current to force himself back into this skin of his that felt too tight and suffocating around him.

But, still resting his temple against the steering wheel with an arm slung on top of it and another hanging lazily at his side, feigning ease, nothing betrayed his inner turmoil.

He watched quietly as you slowly regained your bearings, resisting the temptation to reach out and brush aside that one piece of hair out of place on your head, letting you find the words first.

(So adorable. So endearing.)

(It was not only snowing in his desert. There was also an ocean in there.)

"Rafayel..?"

"Yeah?"

"How long was I asleep?" You blinked at him blearily, one hand lifting to rub the lingering tiredness from your eyelids as you peer into the darkness of night beyond his silhouette. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

Everything he'd been thinking about vaporized and left behind nothing but softness, so tender it scared him; it seeped into the spaces in his heart left vacant and curled inside them, filling every corner, until it made the next smile he offered you come free of burden. "You were sleeping so well, cutie. I didn't want to disturb you."

The unconscious put of your lips and the way that strand of hair bounced around when you slid down your seat a little had him leaning in before he knew what he was doing, smoothing the unruly thing, fingertips betraying him by skating across the outer edge of your ear while he watched you tilt your cheek instinctively.

His body warmed immediately, gravitating towards you in a half-hug that kept you cradled close to the side of his frame as he nuzzled into your hair above your temple with a hum, dipping his nose deeper into the crown of your head near where your neck curved gracefully upwards before inhaling deep — greedy, thirsty, like he’d die if he couldn’t seep up all the scent of you.

Your breathing hitched a bit, and that’s what halted him right at the corner of your mouth with a sharp exhale — he couldn’t be doing this, he was just thinking about how he needed to pull back and —

Art salon.

Yeah, the art salon gathering.

He was supposed to be on his way to there like yesterday.

If only his body didn’t move like a most willing pupped tethered by strings to yours and refused to walk away whenever he tried.

“…Rafayel?”

It suddenly hotter in this car like a tide pool at noon. So stiflingly hot he was breathing fire even with the snowy weather outside. So unbearable the deepest V-cut known to mankind that had his whole chest out for the world to ogle did nothing to help.

He could… He could skip.

Yeah, he needed this. It had been literal days of non-stop withdrawal and a push-and-pull of his frustration that you wouldn’t touch him (because oh noo, he was sick — which, he wasn’t!) and stubbornness to not let you touch him. He’d gotten to a point that he was drunk off your scent alone and he couldn’t keep doing this forever, and why should he? Why did it matter about this event at all? Who cared — who cared about some stupid gathering? He wasn’t functioning anyways until he—

Stop. He had to stop. He was already so late.

He imagined catching himself by the scruff of his neck and yanking himself back to the driver's seat, within safe borders. Far away from your mesmerizing lips and wandering eyes and cute squirming in your seat under the thin cover of innocence.

And pulling away and practically fusing with the car door was exactly what he did.

He needed to prove to himself, just this once, that he could function without the constant reassurance of your presence — that he wasn’t helplessly anchored to you, no matter how much the pull of your moon whispered otherwise.

He had to dilute himself. This — and his inspiration problem, involving you or not, was his to figure out. And he had to figure it out if he wanted you to stay by his side.

"...Do you wanna go back to your room first?" he heard himself ask you quietly.

"You're not coming with me?" The tiny furrow of worry between your brows spoke volumes about your confusion, and despite wanting to reach out and smooth it away, to wipe every ounce of uncertainty from your face with a tender kiss, Rafayel clenched his fingers around the door handle of the vehicle until they cramped, his heart aching strangely inside his chest as you stared quizzically at him.

He brought out the invitation that came with the memorial hall ticket, waving it a little with little to no enthusiasm, "I still have to attend my friend's art salon thing."

The way your shoulders deflated and face dropped at the mention made him waver in — not enough to follow through with ditching the whole thing, but certainly making his resolve weak enough to crack like glass under pressure. "But you don't look well. You need to rest."

How could someone manage to resist getting spoiled like this, he thought miserably as he closed his eyes while you continued fussing, peering worriedly up into his face with the cutest scrunch to your forehead, palms searching along his cheeks heat before trailing down the length of his arms, and he wanted nothing more than to give in to that impulse of being coddled to bits by your hands alone.

He was a weak man.

You nearly lifted off the passenger seat and fell into his lap the way he embraced you, his arms coiling around you like kelp around a rock, holding fast as though you might slip away with the wind. His face buried into the crook of your neck, breath warm and uneven against your skin, his grip snug yet teetering on the edge of too much — like he didn’t trust himself to let go. There was a desperation in the way his hands trembled slightly, his fingers pressing into your sides, not hard enough to hurt but enough to leave the faintest impression of how badly he needed this. When your pained whine broke through, it was like snapping a thread, he instantly loosened his hold, guilt washing over his features as he pulled back just enough to make room for you to breathe. But he stayed close, his forehead dipping to rest against your shoulder as a heavy sigh rumbled deep from his chest, raw and apologetic. You leaned heavily into him, your fingers threading into his hair in a gesture that should have comforted him, but instead left him drowning deeper in the tangled sea of his emotions.

"See? You're burning up again," you mumbled as your cool lips grazed his temple in a comforting kiss. He was no better than a child. He knew it. And he hated how much he basked in your coddling, reveled in the unspoken message behind your words: Don't hide it. Tell me when you hurt. I care. "Maybe we can go together? Will you feel okay if I'm there?"

He would. He would feel more than okay, because that's what made him function.

But he couldn't keep being like this.

"Do you wanna turn me into a sea creature beached on the sand after the ocean recedes," he whispered, mostly kidding except not really, hiding in the dip of your neck just below your ear, hand tracing absent shapes into the small of your back above your tailbone. "Unable to breathe on my own, waiting helplessly for your tide's return?"

Your fingers stroking through his hair slowed, then stilled entirely at the edge of his nape. You pulled back only far enough to meet his lowered stare, confusion dancing within your own, bright and clear and genuine. You had no inkling of what was going on with him, and he didn’t want you to find out either. He would be fine. He was going to handle it.

"Don't you trust me?" Rafayel said. "How about we make a promise? I promise... I'll be okay without you tonight."

It hurt to lie to you so directly, but seeing your doubt dissolve to appease him helped soothe that sting considerably. (Even if it felt a little too convenient to rely on such flimsy methods.) You nodded, seeming convinced in spite of yourself, and his stance firmed — strengthened with your faith and affirmation alike, like he'd just taken a double shot of espresso. He would be okay. He wasn't going to keep imposing his feelings upon you even if a part of him desperately yearned to, no matter how difficult the prospect seemed.

(Say no, a small part of him whispered traitorously, selfishly, insistently. Ask me to stay. You know I can't say no to you, he wanted to plead. Needed to be affirmed once more, reassured that he was welcome to indulge, to remain, to lean into the comfort you offered freely.)

"Okay..." you echoed uncertainly, but gave him another soft smile — tentative yet warm, gentle encouragement. He watched quietly as your expressions shifted in quick succession, cycling through shades of hesitation and worry before settling on resignation. You nodded again, firmer this time, seemingly steeling yourself against whatever doubts you harbored. He wanted to kiss it all away.

But instead, he gently pushed you back, sinking further into his seat, looking out the view beyond the windshield to gather his wits against the force that was your presence beside him.

"You can head back," he repeated, not turning to meet your searching stare. "I can handle it."

The art salon had an air of cultivated elegance, grandiosity reflecting into soaring ceilings and walls adorned with curated artworks, with conversations floating in fragmented pieces, the occasional laughter punctuating the steady hum of "cultured" discourse — all the while Rafayel stood at the periphery, his posture consciously maintained with the kind of deliberate nonchalance that masked a profound discomfort, one hand buried in his pant pockets and the other holding a flute glass of champagne, ghosting the suffocating room with an expression of aloof disdain, attention drifting from painting to painting without ever settling. Humans circled him like murmuring specters, their faces a study in muted curiosity and empty civility. He loathed their presence. (Yet, here he was.)

The room's overwhelming sensory overload grated against his composure — cloying mingling of varnish and wine, sharply polished sheen of curated lighting, artifice of smiles that never reached their eyes...

He should leave. (No, he had to stay.)

The dichotomy was a pendulum swinging between contempt and an unspoken compulsion to endure. He’d insisted he didn’t need you here, insisted on proving — to himself as much as to you — that he could function without your constant presence. But the more he replayed his own words in his mind, the more it was obvious the joke was on him.

He rolled his eyes as an overly enthusiastic laugh erupted nearby, a sound sharp enough to pinprick through his already thinning out patience. His hand twitched in his pocket, the movement a reflexive manifestation of his barely-contained frustration.

(Focus.)

The art, exquisite as it was, did little to distract him as the chatter blurred into a meaningless drone, the edges of the room constricting him under the weight of pretense.

And then. The tug.

At first, it was delicate — an unsuspecting tremor sifting through his awareness, like the faintest ripple across an otherwise still surface that he thought he was imagining and hoping this was you. But it swelled rapidly, a deluge of sensations sweeping him off his feet towards your pull with a force that left his breath stuttering and the floor wavering beneath, erupting into vivid, agonizing clarity.

His lips tingled, a ghostly imprint of a kiss not yet given.

Heat bloomed under his skin, first at the base of his throat, spreading like a slow, insidious current. The faintest pressure, then, at his collarbone, radiating outward, like silk dragging over sensitive skin, a tingling warmth that prickled and spread, until it seemed to rewrite the very contours of his form, leaving him trembling with phantom caresses that lingered far too long to ignore.

He could feel the press of your palms against his chest, the drag of your nails over the planes of his stomach, each sensation so precise it made his breath catch, and the ache in his hands mirrored the way you gripped at yourself. Every brush of your hand — every hurried, seeking stroke — burned through him like smoldering embers, and he swore he could hear the faintest hitch of your breath, feel the tremor in your thighs.

A siren song of need that echoed his own, calling him under, drowning him in you.

Come to me, come to me, stay with me.

His breath hitched with the oxygen turning into lava-hot needle prickling in his lungs, his legs going limp as noodles and giving way. He collapsed into the nearest chair with a jarring lack of control, the motion abrupt, almost violent.

One hand clamped onto the edge of the table as he hastily discarded the champagne glass to cover where the bond was glowing, fingers digging into the wood as if it were the only thing keeping him from being swept away.

A single candle at the table’s center responded instead of Rafayel, its once languid, uninterested flame quivering violently, and then erupting into an erratic flare, a burst of light so sharp and sudden it cut through the room like a gasp. The activity drew murmurs from those nearby, heads turning, eyes widening as the flame seemed to writhe with a life of its own as wax spilled over the edges of its holder, dripping down in frantic rivulets, glistening like molten gold beneath the trembling glow.

"Hey, Rafayel, man, you good?"

A hand on his shoulder made him flinch violently and slap it away, the contact snapping him partway out of his spiraling thoughts. "Don't."

He was already rising, the chair scraping noisily against the floor as he pushed himself upright with a force that bordered on frenetic. The friend stood as well, confusion clear, but Rafayel didn’t wait to explain — with a curt shake of his head, he turned on his heel and strode toward the exit, leaving the other man standing there with his hand half-raised, a bewildered, "Hey, where are you going, come back!" hanging unanswered in the air.

The murmurs of those left behind — curious stares, the faint scrape of chairs and clothes ruffling — faded into irrelevance, they barely even registered. The bond burned like a tether, yanking him back to you, and he had neither the strength nor the desire to disobey.

By the time he reached the cool air of the night outside, he was seething. He had heard you loud and clear.

You merciless, cruel, horrible witch of a woman, punishing him with your sweet truth in an act so loving yet selfish, selfless yet entirely possessive, driving him completely to his wit's end until the only remaining thought was yours — to worship you wholly, thoroughly, obsessively, as deeply as he wanted.

He was in love.

You were in Rafayel’s room.

Because for his sanity to be tested like you intended it would be, of course you had to be in there of all places.

He was able to crash in the way he wanted like a dam bursting without knocking holding him back. In fact, he didn’t even bother calling out at all.

And honestly, he wasn’t even lucid enough for coherent thoughts such as those the moment his vision tunneled on your frame in the middle of his space, your back turned to him, an unaware and unintentional siren in a fluffy white robe loosely tied at your hips.

His robe.

Rafayel was moving before he registered the full picture — prowling the distance between you within seconds, hand snatching up yours and spinning you around. Just being this close and touching you uninhibited got the synapses firing faster than bullets in his head. He pushed forward into your space with no preamble, crowding you against the floor-to-ceiling window. He spared another two or three precious seconds taking in your startled expression with vindication (“Rafayel, what are you doing here?” before putting a stop to all the unnecessary talking with a kiss.

How could he expected himself to stay away from this?

One knee pushed between your thighs, a subtle but undeniable acknowledgment of what he’d felt, and you faltered, clutching the sides of his shirt so abruptly the lily decorations peppered through out clinked. A quiet noise escaped past your lips, muffled by his own and intensifying the building pressure simmering in his gut as he played with the collar of your robe — his robe — and drank greedily from you.

He felt a push at his chest.

The separation between you that couldn’t be more than a tight space to breathe each other’s air brought the world rushing back into focus — Aridum’s quiet, serene snowfall materialized behind your head like a mockery of their frenzied tangle of limbs, the ambient sounds of the city bustling in the distance dampened.

Your eyes searched his, glazed and hazy with steadily-building arousal, yet waiting nonetheless for an answer, shiny lips parted in wordless wonder.

Rafayel could say nothing. The words were there, soda fizz under the surface threatening to erupt into something incomprehensible at best if he opened his mouth.

His palm engulfed your cheek and drew you right back in, continuing the kiss with more urgency to prevent you from tumbling out from his grasp again — let the action speak for him.

The need that thrummed deep beneath rendered him mute, save for strained sighs and grunts of effort louder than the rustle of fabric and the thuds of feet shuffling around on the floor as he plundered your mouth, tongue chasing yours. It tasted like toothpaste and chapstick, like fresh mint leaves, like nurturing warmth cooling his into something calmer.

Rafayel’s hand left your face and slid down your back to seize your waist, dragging you closer, flushing your hips against his firmer and pushing his thigh more brashly. Not even a second later, his other hand bracing your wrist against the window pulled your arm into him to spin you around like in a dance, switching positions without breaking away.

And you bit him.

He recoiled with an “Ah,” that was more surprised than pained, drawing away just enough to swipe his thumb over the curve of his bottom lip where your teeth had punctured him.

“Why are you here?”

Something rotten and vicious was about to bare his fangs at you through a smile he barely stopped from telling on himself by holding back, ‘You called,’ from slipping.

The other, more acceptable answer came in a quick and effortless sweep of your legs off the floor, draping them over either side of his waist, one palm supporting you underneath like the cradle of a hammock as he pivoted towards the bed. “This is my room,” he said — low, simple, keeping eye contact to witness your frustration. “You’re the one who walked in here.”

He saw in the curl of your mouth that you would’ve continued arguing semantics if not for Rafayel bending to deposit you gently atop the bed for you to settle safely beneath him. The mattress creaked under his shifting as he eased further and started descending to resume getting lost in your kisses until a finger landed upon his lips.

“What I meant was,” you started, and Rafayel exhaled against your touch and nuzzled into it like an obedient pet coming to heel with a lowered tail before his master. “Shouldn’t you be at that art salon?”

He stared, blood about to keel over the boiling point.

His beloved was pouting. So adorable that he wanted to bite down.

You’d been so patient with him, hadn’t you? The little divot between your brows called out to Rafayel, begging to be kissed.

“I regret going in the first place,” he said, getting closer to breathe those words directly against the curve of your ear, savoring its delicate shell and the heat emanating from it against his lower lip — basking in the short tremble he could pull out of you that told him all he needed to know. “Stay here with me—”

His arm dipped around your waist and tugged you insistently closer, shakily eager, while your hands scrambled at his biceps, the side of your neck stretching upward to meet his halfway and melting further into him like candle wax molding against Rafayel and pooling liquid sweetness inside him like a basin filled.

Ring — ring — ring — ring — ring — ring — ring!

What the hell? Now?

A surge of irrational anger flared inside Rafayel, sharp and sudden, as if the hotel room phone had personally wronged him so bone-deep that his ancestors themselves had been insulted by its shrill, untimely ring. He clicked his tongue sharply against the roof of his mouth, a frustrated noise brimming with disdain as he reached out with the intention of silencing the nuisance immediately.

But before his hand could reach the red button, your fingers curled gently around his wrist, halting him mid-motion. The touch was soft, warm, and unassuming, yet it cut through his irritation more effectively than words ever could. His breath hitched as he glanced down at your hand, stilling under the quiet weight of what you were going to say next.

“Wait,” your dulcet murmur came. “What if it’s something important?”

More than this?

The irritation got you a side eye for that — but he quickly caught onto where this was heading from the way you gave him a pointed, sultry glance under your lashes and the faintest devilish curl at the corners at your lips. The grip around his wrist turned into your fingers interlacing with his as you guided him to accept the call, holding his gaze so intensely throughout that the beginning of the reception’s announcement went unheard in his ears.

“The guest of this room is unable to answer. Please leave a message."

Rafayel hadn’t even found a chance to breathe, let alone process what was even happening when you pushed him off and knocked him flat onto his back, straddling his hips with surprising speed which elicited an involuntary jolt from him.

He froze, breath caught somewhere between his lungs and the thick, burning, moistureless air that was overheating him. A thousand words tumbled in a rush into his mouth at once, all died under his breath in a sigh as his senses swam and short-circuited in response to your boldness, the sheer power radiating off your figure captivating him. For a single, stretched heartbeat, all he could do was look up — look at you.

The light from the ceiling framed your form in a way that bordered on divine, spilling past the loose strands of hair that fell around your face and catching on the curves of your silhouette like a lover's caress. Shadows slithered around you, dipping into the soft folds and valleys of the bathrobe that clung to you in all the places his gaze couldn’t help but follow.

And then the vision struck, slicing through his mind like a blade dragged cleanly through water.

No, you brought it to him, conjuring it as surely as though you had whispered it directly into his mind.

The blues wouldn’t just be blues — shadowy cobalt would bleed into the depths below, heavy and still, fading into fractured glacier blue as the water grew lighter near the surface, where the sun struggled to break through. The greens would soften into glassy jade, shimmering faintly, caught in the shifting light as if the water itself pulsed with life. Shadows would stretch in drenched charcoal, not oppressive but endless, framing the brightness above almost like curtains opening.

And there, close to the surface, you would hover like the sun underwater, light spilling from you in ripples and shards. Your form would glow with submerged gold, warm and radiant, a halo of sunlit pearl surrounding you where the sunlight hit the water and scattered around your silhouette. You wouldn’t simply stand still — you would drift, your movements impossibly fluid, arms outstretched in a gesture that could be comfort or inevitability, a quiet invitation to a homecoming. Shadows would gather around your curves in bruised honey, soft and subtle, fading into the glow that surrounded you, the kind of light that looked almost too warm to belong in the cold ocean.

The person who the painting was drawn from the perspective of would see you not as a person, but as something greater. His arms would float above him, slack and surrendered, the only movement from his fingers angled upwards, glowing faintly with washed ash gold, the last vestiges of warmth clinging to his skin, while the rest of his form darkened in the embrace of storm-drift gray. Faraway air bubbles would be glacier silver-blue catching the warm light as they ascended toward the unreachable surface, reflections flickering like distant stars against the background of salt-shadow teal.

This was a homecoming.

The bursting of colors landing on his imaginary canvas came to a head when the branding heat of your mouth found his ear, screeching into stuttered motion and scattering like seagulls afterwards. His head lolled sideways under the zapping pressure, inviting more of the world-halting caress that left him all limp.

Then it was gone — only a cool tingling remained where yout moist breaths once ghosted him —

"Hey bro, why'dya leave? Get back here—"

Shocked as if he had short time memory about it being a voice message, he squirmed for a beat, eyes flitting in panic between the call display and you with the mortification of every single drop of blood in his body rushing southwards.

His friend’s voice fractured into static buzzing under the pounding of his ears when you bowed forward once more, towards the red mark on top of his mark that was practically vibrating under his skin, trailing kisses across its glow. Every skin contact point with you burned even with the layers of clothing in-between, melting into an acute throb as you reached the base of his throat and dipped into the hollow between his collarbones — fingers dancing along the strip of his neckpiece before delving underneath, dragging down and delicately, deliciously tugging.

That was all it took for Rafayel to flip your positing and roll you beneath his body, propping himself up with one forarm and holding your wrist to just — stop you for a minute, expression tight as he asked, “Are you sure?”

Your intentions were crystal clear, but it was necessary to check in before continuing any further even though he needed this like air right now, and the prospect of hearing it straight from your lips that he was wanted —

Looking somewhere off to the side, you replied, “Otherwise you’ll actually go back,” thoughtfully, but there was something resentful in there, the statement almost bitter sounding in its delivery.

The overjoyed press of his lips to hide the smile he just knew would annoy you betrayed what he was thinking on the spot.

“So cute,” breached containment however, full of affection as he moved aside your hair behind your ear tenderly, fore and middle fingers taking your love’s sensitive edge between them and caressing, causing you to turn your face further away from him. “You must have missed me quite a lot.”

That sentence was accompanied by the press of his knee into the junction between your inner thighs, innocent enough unless you factored in that one certain revelation of earlier that entirely changed the context in intent. Especially when your pupils dilated visibly before him as you choked out a tiny gasp of surprise, revealing your guilt in glaring clarity.

“What, not pleased you got caught?”

A wicked impulse seized him — one daring him to keep playing this card to unlock so many possibilities as to how he could have you tonight.

He could have you show him what you’d done while he watched until you begged to be touched — on your back with legs wide open for his viewing pleasure, or hovering right above his face in 4K Ultra HD quality that he could just lay down and enjoy and perhaps contribute with his breath if he felt generous enough. You were having fun all on your own, yeah? He just wanted in on it. Not knowing wasn’t a sin, but not learning was.

If you didn’t think you were ready to bear the consequences of this decision of yours, you should have rethought before choosing the room he frequented, shouldn’t have turned him into a fish out of water in public by calling out to him like that, should have known better that Rafayel could be the vilest when he was provoked.

“Or, are you?”

His words were a double-edged knife. Pick the surface-level meaning and you ended up with him teasing you about missing him quite literally, nothing more, nothing less. Take him for what lay beneath, however...

Unfortunately, or, fortunately, you were one slippery fish.

"Why should I be ashamed?" The confidence that dripped from your reply rang genuine. You were so unbothered by his instigation that he realized this was going to be harder than expected, perhaps more rewarding as well. A delightful prospect. "Do you wish I wouldn't miss you?"

Oh, your pride, your grudge was truly an impressive sight —

gleaming razor-sharp even under scrutiny, glittering steel reflecting his image in fragments, and yet tempered by enough warmth to invite him closer instead of warding him off.

"Not at all." His heart sang. "But it couldn't compare to how much I missed you."

"And you still left," came a mumble, sounding more dejected than anything, carrying the weight of his deeds for the past two days.

It was that easy to change his mood.

Rafayel cooed instinctively, rubbing soothing circles into the skin above your knuckles as he pressed a string of quick kisses into the curve of your wrist — lips brushing tender apologies along its path until he reached the palm of your hand cupping his face, where he lingered to feel you stroke delicately over his lower lashes.

"I'm here now," was his gentle promise, one spoken nuzzled against the backs of your fingers. "I'm not going anywhere."

"What are you going to say to your friend? You didn't even pick up his call," you admonished softly, drawing his attention towards where the voicemail was still being displayed on the hologram screen hovering from the nightstand, accepting a prompt about how to proceed.

Rafayel made a show of leaning back to sit back on his heels, staring down at you as he slipped his fingers underneath the tightly-belted thick, sash-like band to pop the clasp to the side apart, the metal closure disengaging with a small clack as the ends slid free and exposed the zipper underneath.

He drank in your every reaction — every detail of you sprawled out before him: your robe coming undone ever so gradually, tantalizing glimpses of skin peeking between its parted folds, a little bit of collarbone here, the curve of your breast there, teasingly hinting at the shape of a nipple underneath the white fabric, then another flash of thigh, an exposed inch of inner leg from your feet shifting restlessly alongside his shins.

He pulled the whole belt free in one smooth yank — the sudden momentum making it snap with a harsh crack. It curled like a ribbon in his palm as he surveyed you, gauging your reaction; watching your widened stare catch onto cloth held loosely in his fist as he flung it haphazardly to the side.

Then, he started tugging at your ankle to raise it higher — dragging his knuckles along your heel, the sole of your foot, caressing into the arch of your instep, traveling along the softness of your calf all the way down to your knee, a single fingertip trailing underneath, slinking gradually but surely toward the inner side, tracing hypnotic spirals into the silky flesh that made your breathing hitch unevenly.

The ends of your robe were riding further up past your thigh along with the slow march, your naked skin revealed in gradual increments the higher his palm slid — revealing more and more until his hand stopped at the underside of your thigh, entirely disappeared from view because of the bunched up cloth, and pulled your leg up gently to drape it over the curve of waist.

Falling right back in on instinct, he leaned down, propped above your splayed form on his forearm beside your shoulder and bent to drag his nose upwards along the line of your cheekbone, saying, "I'm busy."

Your answering snicker was endearing and familiar, drawing forth a swell of warmth inside him like the sun rising over a tranquil ocean's horizon. "Still trying to run away?"

“Just returning to the original plan.”

There would be no running away now — not anymore, not ever, at least not from you and what you made him feel. He'd tried; failed, obviously, as evident in his return here, where the answer awaited him with open arms.

"Who says I'm going to agree? I still haven't forgiven you.”

Rafayel adored that one pout of yours, the one that curved at its edges like the swoop of a bird's wing, delicate and lovingly rounded in its downturned shape. It drew his mouth upward to meet its match, slotting perfectly against its twin seamlessly in the union of a kiss, lingering as if they belonged together like puzzle pieces. You melted sweetly under the fondness contained within the gesture, sighing quietly in surrender; every angle of his mouth was drawn to yours inexorably, it was gravity pulling falling stars back to their courses.

"Not yet," he amended dutifully once he could manage words again, and felt your smile widen before sealing his mouth over it. "Let me."

"If you beg," you shot right back, the curve of your mouth pronounced against his chin, smug satisfaction dripped from every word and its delivery as you pulled away again just enough to meet his half-hooded stare evenly — daring him to refuse you. "Properly."

You kissed the little groan that was about to spill past his lips, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Neither was it intended to.

"How would you like me to repent?" He dragged the question into an offer, a honey trap ripe for plundering. "On my knees? On my back?"

He let his arousal to show on his fact at those mental images, conjured by practiced ease, crafted to seduce. The soft puff of your exhale danced across his chin, sending his nerves tingling. A sign he was on the right track? Or did it merely betray surprise at whatyou had in mind? Either possibility stirred his blood.

"You know what someone in your position shouldn’t do?" you whispered, low and hushed, conspiratorial yet laced with a dangerous authority that quickened his pulse. His brows rose involuntarily, the shift in your tone sending anticipation skittering down his spine. Your lashes swept low, casting faint shadows on your cheeks as your pointed stare locked onto him, sharp enough to pierce. "Ask me what to do when you’re supposed to be coming up with ideas on your own. That’s weaponized incompetence."

His head snapped back so fast that something audibly clicked in his neck.

Mouth wide open.

"Weaponized in—" The sensual, submissive haze he’d been wrapped in evaporated like morning dew under the brutal heat of the desert sun, vanishing so quickly it left him sputtering. The words faltered on his tongue as insult overtook every carefully cultivated mood, his composure fracturing into clumsy indignation. Propped up on his elbows above you, his face twisted into a comically muddied mix of offense and disbelief, his tone taking on an incredulous sharpness as he glared down at you.

"Say that again and I’ll spit bubbles at you!" he snapped, his threat hanging in the air like a gauntlet thrown by a petulant prince.

"Pffft!"

The insolent brat you were being in that moment, daring to laugh straight in his face, was both impossibly cute and maddeningly infuriating. He stared down at you, eyes narrowing with mock offense, the knowledge that your laughter was entirely at his expense gnawing at his frayed patience. He was torn between kissing you senseless or flipping you over and finding some other way to wipe that smug, adorable smirk off your face.

"What do you mean weaponized incompetence?" Rafayel shot back, the words almost trembling with disbelief. "You think I can't please you properly without you guiding me through it step-by-step? Is that what you're saying?!" His irritation swelled, a balloon of indignation puffing up and threatening to burst as he fought, tooth and nail, to keep the whine rising in his throat from escaping. "I like you telling me what to do because I enjoy indulging in your desires! Not because I’m incapable of being creative in bed!"

A frustrated huff crowned his ranting, "Stop laughing!" he barked, though his rising pitch only seemed to add fuel to your uncontrollable amusement.

You shook your head firmly, slapping your hands over your face to muffle the sounds of your laughter, but it was no use. Your entire body curled inward instinctively, knees drawing up as you rolled to your side, burying yourself deeper into the cocoon of your mirth. It only made it worse for his pride — your stifled giggles shaking through you like tremors, every failed attempt to contain yourself sending them bubbling up again.

Rafayel let out a growl of frustration, throwing his body off yours with an exaggerated thud, landing face-first into the pillow beside you in utter defeat. The mattress jolted slightly from the force, but the muffled yell he buried into the pillow caused a chain reaction that only made your laughter harder to suppress. The giggles came fast and bright, and he swore they sounded far too gratifying for his current temperament, his scowl deepening with every shake of your shoulders and every wheezing gasp for air that he felt in the bed, he didn’t even need to look.

The fact that you were utterly immune to his wrath, impervious to every “Stop,” he threw your way, made it all the more maddening. How was he supposed to maintain the upper hand, to reestablish even a shred of dignity, when he couldn’t even intimidate you?

"I'm sorry," you gasped finally, though the apology was weakened by the cracks of laughter still slipping through. You managed to sit upright, though it took visible effort, your hands brushing away tears from the corners of your crinkled, joy-stricken eyes. A few lingering giggles escaped as you cleared your throat, attempting to sound sincere but failing miserably. "I didn’t think you’d have such strong feelings about this topic."

Rafayel lifted his head from the pillow, his hair disheveled, his glare shooting daggers your way, though the deep flush blooming across his cheeks betrayed his struggle to keep his composure. He opened his mouth to retort, to say something, but instead all that escaped was a muffled, irritated groan as he flopped back down into the pillow.

“Rafayel.”

He rolled onto his back with dramatic flair, hands folded primly over his stomach and ankles crossed, the picture of theatrical innocence. The pout he wore, however, was pure spite, lips pushed forward just enough to make his point. “If you think I’m sooo weaponizing my incompetence, maybe I should actually start doing that. Let you handle everything yourself. Clearly, you’ve got it all figured out.”

“Rafayel…”

“No, no, go ahead,” he cut in, stubbornly resolute, almost belligerent in its exaggerated persistence. “I’m useless, right? I don’t know what I’m doing. Teach me. I won’t even lay a single finger on you.” He puffed his cheeks, a childish act of defiance paired with the way he turned his head away, sulking with the finesse of spoiled royalty.

The exaggerated display drew a sigh from you, long and exasperated, but tinged with a quiet amusement that he didn’t miss. He wasn’t fooling you — not for a second—but he relished the moment all the same.

“Well,” you began, feigning hesitation, with false reluctance. “Since you’re already laid out, I guess…” You trailed off as you shifted to straddle him, slow enough to test the limits of his so-called resolution, the soft white robe you wore parting ever so slightly as you moved, revealing tantalizing glimpses of skin before your knees closed firmly around his hips, framing him like twin prison bars.

His eyes darkened as he watched you, taking in the sight hungrily, every detail sinking into him like a drug he couldn’t resist. His hands betrayed him almost immediately, fingertips skimming the hem of the robe where it hung loosely, their touch feather-light as they ghosted over the tops of your thighs. It was instinctive, reflexive — completely unrepentant.

“I thought you weren’t touching me,” you teased with a playful lilt that interrupted the heat thickening the air between you like an unwanted knock on the door.

His hum was deliberately innocent, his head tilting as though to feign ignorance. But the dark gleam in his eyes and the smirk curling at the corners of his lips told a different story entirely. “I really like this robe,” he murmured with a calculated drawl. “What, I can’t touch my own clothes now?”

The claim was absurd — blatantly so — but it made you pause, his fingers grazing the fabric in question as though testing its texture, when in reality, it was clear he was savoring the warmth of your skin beneath it.

(Truthfully, it was also you who looked lovely draped in what was his — but that went without saying.)

Your mouth opened, the gleam of a retort on the tip of your tongue, but the words dissolved into nothingness as his hands shifted, palms hot against your sides, skirting along your ribs in an intentional, testing motion. He knew the heat of his touch stole the breath from your lungs, burning through the fabric like a spark setting fire to paper.

“You go on,” he said, infuriatingly smug as he leaned back into the pillows, his hands never straying far from your sides. “Help yourself. Take as long as you need. I’ll just… be appreciating this fabric in the meantime.”

His fingers traced the lines of your ribs, the motion slow, languid, before sliding downward to hover just above the curve of your stomach. They lingered there, resting near the knot of the belt holding your robe together. The edge of his thumb dipped just slightly beneath the fabric, brushing over its folded loops, a movement so subtle it was barely there, as though he wanted to test how much he could push you. He toyed with the fabric, rolling it between his fingers like he was unraveling a puzzle.

The pause in his pent-up desire — the break that had proven to be a blessing — was wearing thin. The front he was putting on, all casual indifference and smug bravado, was crumbling, betrayed by the way his gaze kept flickering back to you, and, of course, the growing press of his impatience beneath you, hard and neglected, made it abundantly clear that he was more than ready to pick up where you’d last left off.

You broke first.

With nary a warning, your hand shot out, snatching the ends of the thin, ribbon-like scarf draped loosely around his neck. You wound the fabric around your fist once, twice, tightening it just enough to make your intentions clear…

Then you yanked.

The pull wasn’t violent — no, it was far too calculated for that. Enough pressure to catch him off guard, to tip him forward slightly, but not enough to hurt. It was a demand, plain and simple, one he found himself surrendering to before he even had the chance to consider resistance. His wide-eyed surprise melted almost instantly like cotton candy in water into something darker, something sharper, as his lips curled into a grin that spoke volumes about just how much he was enjoying this game.

"First, you ask to beg for my forgiveness," you continued, pulling him a little closer, and his chest tightened as though the leash around his neck extended all the way to his lungs.

Your gaze pinned him down like a blade, your lips curving into something that wasn’t quite a smirk, wasn’t quite a smile — something far more addictive.

"And then," you murmured, sweet but laced with unmistakable bite, "you start ordering me around like a brat."

A jolt of concentrated heat shot through him, not from embarrassment but from the sharp edge of thrill that ran through his veins. He let the tension in his body slacken just slightly, a calculated move that allowed him to lift from the bed a little, meeting your challenge with his own. The faint tug of the scarf against his neck only heightened the electric energy between you, and he found himself biting back a grin.

“Well," he said at last, letting his weight sink into the bed with a noncommittal shrug, the barest shift of his shoulders enough to convey his defiance. "I’m just playing my part." He tilted his head just enough to make the scarf strain, wanted to see what you’d do with the provocation. “The sleazy husband.”

“You want a reward for that?”

“Acknowledgment of how committed to the role I am would be nice.”

“Oh yes, the most infuriating actor—”

“Aaand you goofed it—”

“—impossibly—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—”

“—handsome," you went on, and his smirk faltered ever so slightly. “Disarmingly clever, annoyingly witty," you added, the sharp edge softening with each word, though the grip you kept on the scarf didn’t loosen. If anything, you pulled him closer, closing the space between you inch by inch. "—and worst of all," you finished, dropping into something softer, something so intimate, "Completely, devastatingly, undeniably competent."

“Well, aren’t you good at apologizing…” he said into himself, embarrassingly beet-red at having fallen for your trick.

“I’m still waiting for yours, you know,” you pointed out distractedly, playing with the crystal flame lilies scattered on his wine berry shirt, tracing the petals of a bloom while seemingly entranced, following the silvery droplets dangling in a chain. “But I’ll be graceful this time and keep going with mine...”

Before he had a chance to blink or register the motion — your free palm slipped underneath the thin fabric covering his heart, caressing right alongside the pulsing red mark — and squeezed with a vengeance (such a fierce boob grab!), applying enough pressure that the pads of your fingers sunk into flesh, then widened the buttonless V-cut of his shirt by yanking, no, downright ripping it open by the lapels with both hands, and Rafayel damn near felt like a virgin at how scandalous that single action was that he almost covered himself up.

But then again, he could hardly claim innocence right now, could he? He was practically a champagne bottle about to pop down there. Just from that. Who was he, the main female character getting her corset ripped in a bodice-ripper novel?

“Ohmyg—hi? What happened to hello? How are y—”

“Shut up or no head.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kisses were rained along his collarbone, the length of his neck, and nipping gently at the spot behind his ear that got the hairs on his nape rise to attention. It would’ve been funny what a child’s play it was to tease him until his ears matched the scarlet blossoms on his shirt, except nothing about this particular situation bore humor — least of all, his response to it.

Which was practically none at all. Because he simply lay there, stiff as a plank from how turned on he was, and you worked him diligently as if he was an instrument and you were the virtuoso.

It was also because he was zeroed in on the cleavage peeking out from the gap in your robe as you made your way further downwards, tongue flickering along the dips and bumps of his upper abdomen — surely able to feel more than hear each inhale and exhale getting closer to moaning territory the longer you kept teasing. He even caught a nip slip here and there, getting impossibly harder in response, culminating in him twitching and tightening beneath you whenever you — purposefully! — brushed against his erection.

“Rafayel,” you sighed dreamily, and he moaned for real this time at how his name fell softly past your parted lips, pouring into a pleased hum against his navel where a trail of wetness gleamed — followed by fingertips curling gently around the hem of his pants’ band. “You’re so quiet. Not leaving it up to chance, huh?”

And the only response he gave was an impatient roll of his hips toward your head, granting you permission — eager acquiescence, even — while a loud, unabashed gasp slipped into his lungs as your hands found the zipper of his pants. With a practiced tug, you freed it from its track, and his pants slid low on his hips, just enough to reveal the waistband of his underwear. Your fingers followed immediately, hooking under both fabric barriers to ease them down until they rested tautly just below his hips. The motion tugged on his shirt as well, once secured by the overlap tucked into his waistband, and with nothing anchoring it anymore, the luxurious fabric parted effortlessly, exposing the sculpted expanse of his chest and abs in one sweeping reveal. His stiffening length, freed from its confines, ached visibly — leaping subtly toward contact, as though craving the touch it had been denied for far too long.

"See? You're being so good... why do you keep wanting to provoke me?" came your lilting reproach, spoken against the soft skin of his pelvis, lips fluttering teasingly across its planes in playful grazes of their silky plush. "

“Permission to talk?”

A sharp, in-drawn breath escaped him the moment a single finger traced along the underside of his shaft, lingering over a wildly pulsing vein — evidence of the frenetic race of his heart currently pumping pure liquid lightning straight through his veins — but he recovered quickly, allowing it to dissolve into an exhale long and drawn-out instead.

“Go ahead, handsome.”

His hips lurched instinctively in search of something tangible, of a sensation besides the torturous tickle of warm breaths dancing lightly along his arousal, "Give me my reward, then. I've waited so long for this, it's been torture."

“Doesn’t sound like you minded the wait. You left me, didn’t you?”

Ah, yes. The grudge. You were becoming like Rafayel the longer you stayed by his side.

"You know I hate waiting. Let alone like this," he said, all whiny and punctuated with a shudder — one that was met with an accompanying jolt that surged straight from the base of his erection when your lips brushed teasingly alongside it. "I didn't think you'd be this cruel..."

"Are you really asking?"

"Can you give it to me instead of wasting time talking?" came his blunt retort, brows drawn together in an impatient furrow that radiated ‘I’m being wronged,’ energy.

"Not wasting time at all, just wanted to spend more time with you. Feels nice, right? You deserve this,” you murmured comfortingly against the swell of his abs rising and falling with each heavy breath — and oh, he almost melted into a puddle at that, visibly deflating with his chest cavity just filling up all warm and fuzzy with love.

It did feel nice but — just — just — fuck — he needed to be touched or he actually was going to disintegrate into sea foam. Not joking.

A brief kiss landed on on the left side of his Apollo belt in consolation before a drag of your tongue along its path followed, transitioning into you breathing more warmth directly into his base, then placing a loving peck to his tip — eyes twinking at the tremble that surged through him. “I really love seeing you so reactive. Does it feel that good? Just breathing on you like this?”

His hips pushed upward in tiny nudges, bumping insistently against your cheek, practically begging to be held properly inside your mouth. "It doesn't feel good at all — just, come on, hurry... I keep my lube in the top drawer on the left... It's edible, you know..."

Thankfully, you didn't smirk at him. Didn't stop to tease him about his eagerness, either, wordlessly going about reaching over to rummage for a bottle in his nightstand — an act that forced you to draw away from his straining member completely, your warmth vanishing suddenly in one agonizing instant, causing him to nearly whine from the loss.

You popped open the lid to squirt some lubrication into your palm and recapped it while staring down at him with a curious gleam. "You had something like this with you the whole time—"

Your words got cut off upon him grabbing your dripping hand and directing it straight where his impatience stood angry at the delay, shuddering out a moan at how incredibly silky the glide was.

"Finally... yesss," he hissed, thrusting upwards to feel more friction — the delicious slickness spreading across your enclosed grip driving him absolutely wild. "Ahh—kkhfff... Keep going, you have to keep going, don't let go... Please. Please?”

Something in your face twisted weirdly at his breathy begging, making his heart flip at the unflinching lust in your widened gaze trained firmly onto his jerking hips.

He had your fist trapped around his swollen cock, urging you into pumping it once you settled into a steady rhythm stroking its turgid crown, twisting and curling into each new swipe upwards along his pulsing flesh; encouraging you by squeezing tighter every few strokes until you took over completely. Then, he threw his arm over his forehead haphazardly, basking in the blissful waves flowing through his veins at long last, watching you watch yourself pleasure him through fluttering lashes, breathing hard through half-parted lips.

"That's it," he sighed huskily, rocking his body into the hand rubbing and grinding against his dick's ridge with expert motions; thumb circling its glistening head and caressing alongside its slit where precome beaded out generously, smoothing over the entirety of its surface and working into the underside, swirling tantalizingly over the bulging vein there until all his thoughts melted into a haze of pure sensation, mind wiped clean of everything except the singular, simple fact that he desperately needed to come. "Like that — nnhhh, yes! That feels amazing — feels perfect — love those sweet little fingers... So close already, I can't, I can't—"

At his muttered groans, your pace stuttered noticeably before resuming its previous speed, which wasn't fast enough according to the stretching throb inside his core, his blood rushing loudly through his ears like boiling rapids. "No, faster..." he urged you, rutting into your palm even harder in a frantic effort to increase the pressure and bring him to the precipice quicker. "I can't hold on much longer — need more, I need more. Tighter. Tighter."

The corners of his vision pulsed white and Rafayel whimpered as he jumped inside your curled fist when the unexpected sensation of having your forefinger slide through his sticky fluids gathered at its tip, swirling clockwise before ascending back up in an unhurried stroke that carried a slippery coating alongside it to smooth out the glide to put pressure right into the slit — a sensation that lingered for seconds afterward with ghostly echoes, drawing a sudden choked gasp from his lips at how intensely good that single touch felt.

“Thaaaaat’s it, yeah, I love that, you have such a beautiful voice.” Your free palm swept up alongside his ribs to rub gently against their curve as though to soothe the ragged sounds ripping past his throat; traveling upward to cradle his head against yours where your cheek brushed alongside his temple, holding him still with tender care and easing some of the tremble wracking through him. "Can you feel how much I'm enjoying us being together like this — how badly I've missed you? Please let me hear those pretty sounds, I wanna hear them loud and clear. Will you be generous for me and share it all?"

His reply died in his throat in favor of a low keening sound — something raw and broken — when you squeezed tighter.

The way your nails dug ever so delicately into the sides of his cock, applying pressure just shy of pain was truly exquisite torture, making his head swim and rise up from the bed so he could crush his lips against yours, biting hungrily into your plush mouth and delving deep into its depths until oxygen became nothing but an afterthought. Every neuron of him burned alive in chain reaction as your tongue wound and slid alongside his, curling along the underside before retreating for him to suckle on your lower lip eagerly until it swelled red.

"Mmnghhfuck! Hhhaaa—keep—" Words spilled past his slackened lips like ribbons unfurling, senseless as he struggled to convey how excruciating it was to contain his euphoria within, desperate for any sort of outlet to relieve the pressure rising inside him rapidly —

— and then broke off suddenly on a low moan when he caught a flash of your unoccupied hand that was just cradling his neck having found its way between your thighs, the view out of sight because of the robe —

Then, Rafayel saw the pearly gates.

His orgasm slammed straight into him, so unexpected and yet wholly expected all the same that he gasped around it like he was in a headlock, utterly disoriented by the sudden assault on his senses, soaring impossibly higher with each jerk of his hips into your fingers' grasp and shooting thick white streaks across his stomach; leaving behind faint smears wherever it hit its mark — warm, sticky ropes landing atop his defined abs and even reaching as far as his sternum.

He knew something was wrong when it didn't stop.

Far from it, really: each pulsing contraction seemed to force more of its fluid past his cock's narrow slit, painting your pumping digits liberally with his release — even staining the lapels of your robe in messy spots. It lasted so long that Rafayel started seeing stars sparkling around the edges of his blurring vision; making everything appear fuzzy like static. "Nggh—too much—ah! Aaa—hhh! Nnhhfff... Khhffffcking hell... Can't believe—still going—"

"Don't hold back now, just ride it out, nothing wrong with it," you murmured fervently, brushing some hair back from his sweat-soaked temple and — then — kisses, so many kisses. "I know you wanted this so badly, it's okay... You deserve this. Let go for me, yeah? Can't you let go for me? All this stress will go away. Isn't that nice?"

What came out instead was an embarrassingly high moan, hoarse with overuse, entirely at odds with the self-assuredness he'd wanted to project with each thrust of his hips, spurred onwards by instinct alone in a mad dash for euphoria.

Just how pent-up was he?

He couldn't recall the last time he'd felt pleasure this acute, sharp as shrapnel beneath the layers of desire, making him so out of it that he wasn't even aware of the embarrassing mess he made like he’d just wet himself being cleaned up with a tissue by you.

And it still wasn't nearly enough.

He surged forward, wound his arm around your waist and tossed you to the side gently so your back lay flush against the sheets before following suit in a tangle of limbs that ended with you under him — where he belonged: cradled between your thighs, seated fully inside their heated clasp as he hovered above you — one elbow propped beside your shoulder while the other wandered aimlessly downwards and undid the trusty knot holding your robe together in one go.

"Rafa—"

“Sorry, I'm sorry, I can't, I'm so thirsty," he said, as he raised the lube-and-come-sodden hand of yours up to his mouth to lap at the trails trickling over your wrist; sucking on your fingertips in apology — no trace of shame coloring his cheeks as he did, far too focused on the task of cleaning them thoroughly to be distracted by something as trivial as embarrassment. He didn’t even taste himself. Just the blueberry.

So engrossed in it that he didn’t even notice you burning holes with your gaze at his lips sealing around your thumb while he ran his tongue underneath it in short, quick flicks until it was glistening once more, except this time with spit instead of lubricant.

All the while, he traced the clean strip of skin revealed by the parted folds of your robe with a searing hand, starting from the valley of your cleavage between your breasts all the way down the slight convex curve of your torso leading towards the V that marked the point where your thighs began, drawing delicate circles into your navel, slipping downward inch by tantalizing inch in search for hidden oasis.

Taking notice of how wrecked you looked through the curtains of your fingers splayed over his eyes and forehead, Rafayel rewarded you an equally debauched looked as his lips curled into a smirk against your palm.

A loud, viscous pop of your wetness echoed in the room when his fingers tenderly made contact — positively dripping for him. Your mouth flew open upon feeling him draw his forefinger's pad gently against your entrance, lingering teasingly at the seams in an excruciating crawl, tracing lightly around it as you pulsed hungrily against his fingertip.

"So thirsty," he mumbled absentmindedly to himself — mouth watering.

Rafayel pushed open your legs by the backs of your thighs to allow his head better access. If he was on a normal day, he would plant feverish kisses on the insides of your quaking knees and thighs and mark you everywhere, made it more sensual, more teasing, but he was borderline parched — not to mention more impatient than a driver stuck behind a cyclist in a one -lane road.

You yelped at his mouth diving between your legs in reckless abandon. His tongue lapped up your slick in deep, obscene flicks, then plunged inside into the warm haven awaiting him inside, devouring your sweet nectar in loud slurps, uncaring of how sloppy and unrestrained he was currently acting; far too hungry to concern himself over anything save for indulging greedily in your flavor.

"Rafayel, shit, that feels—oh my god..." He had to push your hips down by splaying his hand along the plane of your stomach as you arched helplessly, otherwise you would have simply lifted right off from his greed ravaging you without mercy or restraint. "That's so—you're so—fuck! What—what’s gotten into you? Ahh...!"

Any hope of responding to that died the second your hand tangled itself tightly into his hair and tugged to bring him impossibly closer against you, his head blanking. It felt so good when your heel planted itself onto his shoulder blade and pressed insistently there in a silent plea for more, sending ripples of heat fanning out across his nerve endings in their wake.

Without hesitation, he latched his lips around the swollen bud peaking proudly from beneath a layer of velveteen flesh and flicked upwards, suckling hard before closing around it fully — then rolled his tongue in circles around its rim with the intent to render your world spinning madly with each passing stroke. The fingers locked around your trembling thighs kneaded deeply into their skin, coaxing the delicious, involuntary spasms coursing throughout you until the only thing you knew was the blissful torment his hot mouth wrought.

"You're so delectable on my tongue, did you know? The prettiest moans come pouring out from your lovely lips when I'm between your legs like this," he said, the sentences pieced together like beads on a pearl necklace fragment by fragment between licks and sucks, sounding just short of reverence. "Your taste drives me wild, I swear it's addictive... Am I making it up to you yet? Please say yes. Tell me it's working."

"Yesyesyesyesss—" A sharp inhale cut off anything else you tried to babble further as Rafayel rewarded you with another generous helping of his enthusiasm by diving back in and running his tongue in earnest up through your center. "You feel amazing, you — feel — so — g-good—"

"—don't think that's enough, though. Didn't you call me incompetent earlier?"

"What," you choked out angrily when a puff of warm breaths skated dangerously close to where you were most sensitive. "Oh my god—"

"I hold grudges, cutie. You taught me that," he said in a sing-song reply, lighthearted in tone, nearly drowned out by the thready groans bleeding through.

"I apologized already — what more do you want? Stop teasing, Rafayel!"

A pregnant pause followed as he stared up at you from between your legs, and saw your eyes widen with realization at just what you'd requested.

"As you wish," he relented, a dark edge to his mischievous grin when he rose back up and braced his knees against the mattress better, pulling your hips tight into the cradle of his thighs until one of your legs was thrown over his shoulder. "Have it your way — and don't forget you asked for this."

The slow sink inside your wet heat was traitorously misleading: a gentle, sweet meeting at first that masked what was brewing underneath.

A dragged out whine fanned his flames as you threw your head back. “You asshole—”

"I could have made you come once, twice..." he said, in a smooth purr that dripped sinfully past his lips.

Your mouth fell open on a silent gasp; the first wave of pleasure rolling through you upon being filled suddenly in one deep plunge. Your torso twisted to allow you to hide your face into the curve of his forearm draped next to your shoulder.

"You know I love taking my time with you," he continued, pausing to bury his face into your hair to breathe you in deeply, adjusting your leg to fall from his shoulder straight onto his hip. You took advantage of Rafayel getting close, grabbing onto his back so quickly that you missed the first time and yanked his shirt down to bunch halfway down his midsection and get stuck at his elbows. "And you just had to take that from me. I don't know which one of us is greedier... "

An apology was voiced, muffled by the crook of his elbow, almost incoherent by your gasps.

He cupped your chin and made you look at him. “Are you comfortable? Not hurting you, am I?”

Your throat clicked audibly. Then you shook your head rapidly in answer to both inquiries: yes — no — everything was okay — and Rafayel breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

And then, out of nowhere your fingers started moving around the expanse of his upper back, and before he could question the non-sexual way it came across when he was literally inside you, you said, "You're sweating."

"Yeah...?" Confusion muddled his hazy mind clouded with dull pleasure begging for him to start moving again, but you looked at him with wide, eager expectation dancing behind your expectant eyes — as if you couldn't quite believe what you'd seen.

"No — your temperature. It's still high but you're sweating now," you told him excitedly. "Rafayel — that's huge! This means your body is cooling itself down!"

He huffed.

"Of course it is, I've got the hottest woman in the world under me," he said with a roll of his hips, earning an enthusiastic moan from you in the process. Your arms snaked themselves around the back of his neck tighter until both forearms crossed at their crease, palms moving upwards in an intoxicating drag through the back of his skull. "You the cure to all of this..."

His forehead dropped unceremoniously yours where it stayed, and he sucked in an uneven, shaky groan that tapered into something resembling a whine as he started rutting steadily against you, driving into that spot where you liked it the best with growing desperation with the occasional staccato grunt at the fluttering squeeze and murmured encouragement.

At some point, his mouth wandered towards your pulse, scraped his teeth against it gingerly before latching on it in an open-mouthed kiss that was hard enough to bruise.

You tilted your chin skywards with a sigh to give him better access and tangled your fingers encouragingly deeper into his hair, and something inside him sparked awake in response, a fiery need demanding him to paint every inch of your skin violet, rose and mauve so that it may glow evermore brightly for everyone to see —

"Way too beautiful for your own good... Driving me crazy... Every single day... Couldn't keep my hands off you the moment I got in here..." he hissed furiously as though he were possessed, snapping his hips harder upon finding the angle he desired, searching relentlessly for something within you both to satisfy the frenzied race to the peak taking control of him completely; searing kisses littering everywhere he could reach along the underside of your chin and neck whilst spewing senseless litanies into your skin in between them. "Can't believe I could have this forever... Right? Say I can have this forever. It'll drive me insane if you don't, I swear—"

"Forever," you echoed hoarsely, your nails digging tightly into his scalp as his pace increased once more. "Y-you can have me forever—anytime, wherever—"

Your assurances came with a startled cry of ecstasy as he sank his teeth into the juncture connecting your shoulder and collarbone in a bite that bordered on a savage instinct to ensure he was there, he'd been there, and would always be there. "You're not leaving, are you? Aren't gonna leave me anytime soon, right?

Every syllable was marked with a measured grind into you as if determined to force every word inside your head by burying it deep in your core — imprint it permanently into your brain; until the only thing filling your thoughts was him and him alone. "Not letting you — I'm not letting you. I can’t let you go, it’s too late — too late. Say it. Say it.”

"As — many times as I ne-ed to," you panted underneath him, arching upwards so beautifully for him as his grip loosened marginally to let you find that perfect angle that caused your back to bow like a perfectly tuned instrument in his hands; singing nothing but divine music. "'S not changing, ever. Won't change... Agh!"

His hips bucked in answer to your nails sinking deep into the skin of his shoulders as though clawing for dear life. "Yeah? Yeah? Promise—?"

All you could do was sob into his mouth hungrily swallowing yours — a mess of moans falling endlessly past your lips swallowed whole, accompanied with plaps and slaps of wet thrusting. There'd never be a time when he wasn't craving the taste of your flesh burning scorching white hot against his own, craving more and more until everything blurred into a haze of delirium.

"Tell me... Tell me—hah, tell me, princess. Let me hear it..." His chest rumbled deep within where yours rubbed deliciously against his bare flesh with each fervent roll of his body. Even then, it wasn't nearly enough; couldn't possibly be, not with how ravenously thirsty he was for anything and everything having to do with you: your sounds, your expressions, those intoxicating stares filled with nothing but need for him and only him. Not while his stomach twisted itself in knots tight enough to tie sails and yet remained impossibly empty at the same time, yearning for the sweet relief of gratification flowing freely and quenching his deepest thirst. "Wanna hear you, gotta hear you say it—"

"I'm right here, m'here, not going anywhere, not leaving... I'myours, just don't let go, don't let go of me—"

He heard it as though you were underwater; faint, muffled underneath the thick fog clouding his senses, so indistinct yet simultaneously loud enough to drown out anything else within reach.

Every coherent thought vanished from his mind, melting into thin ribbons streaming across an ocean of red flames, then bursting forth anew into embers scattering throughout his vision in a dizzying display, igniting behind his eyelids with blinding light every time he blinked them closed. When he opened them, new constellations blossomed instantaneously; bright orange ones with maroon tinges shining bright among the black canvas.

"M'not gonna—! Can't let go—couldn't even if I tried. They wouldn't even be able to pry you away from my cold, dead hands."

More vivid blotches appeared before him at random intervals, painting his desert landscape in abstract patterns shifting so erratically they threatened to form fractals at any moment, jagged shapes overlapping and warping themselves until they resembled colorful stains splattered across walls in chaotic messes; or perhaps simply the shadows of clouds skirting the edges of his sight drifting past without a care — all blending together and merging seamlessly as though water droplets bleeding into fine lines until none could tell where one ended and the others began.

"Gonna be... gonna be stuck with me for life," Rafayel said, sounding entirely half out of his mind with the way he was babbling endearments (something about a bride) in-between little laps that trailed upwards along your quivering sternum toward your heaving chest; kissing you so fervently as though possessed, driven wholly by base instincts demanding he give in to whatever compulsion overtook him. "Always been mine. Always. Always—can't ever leave, yeah? I won't forgive you—won't forgive you this time—"

"Rafayel, I'm gonna come, please..." you whispered hoarsely against the crown of his head nestled between your breasts, your hands grasping onto his shoulders helplessly in an attempt at anchoring yourself. "I can't keep going, I'll fall apart. Please, don’t stop, don’t stop—"

One of his fingers slid down to repeatedly flick through your swollen folds, teasing and circling around your clit while his tongue swirled around a nipple; pulling and sucking hungrily with fervent desire, giving a pointed twist once he'd latched on.

"Come for me, then, do it, c'mon, cream all around me, let me have it, let me have this — you can do it, I’ll help you along.” His lower body lifted suddenly, pulling back until only his cockhead remained caught inside; followed by a quiet pop indicating his lips breaking contact from where they were buried in your chest. "I need you so bad I can hardly stand it anymore... Wanna feel you — feel all of you — need all of you..."

All it took was one sudden shift after a steady build-up of rhythm of shallow, quick thrusts: the smallest rotation of his pelvis and thrust straightwards, hips knocking against yours in a violent shove of flesh meeting slick flesh for you to fly apart spectacularly when he buried himself into that specific area right below your cervix.

With a shuddering breath that dissolved instantly into a shrill cry tearing through your throat, your thighs locked tight around his waist — holding him prisoner while your nails sank fiercely into his scratched back as your entire body trembled uncontrollably through the aftermath.

“Yeah, there you go, cutie.” A comforting, grounding caress landed on your forehead, tracing the arc of its curve towards the back of your ear; then repeating itself multiple times in slow, unhurried strokes — to remind you he wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon. “There you are, that was beautiful. You got me seeing stars.”

"It's... It's snowing outside... In the desert," you said faintly, eyelids slow in their blinking, and Rafayel thought how utterly gorgeous you looked, all worn down and exhausted and so drunk in your post-orgasmic euphoria to talk nonsensically about what was happening outside.

"Yeah," he agreed, equally hushed as he peppered a trail of soft kisses across the bridge of your nose. You closed your teary lashes instinctively against the ticklish sensation. "It's so soft... and beautiful..."

You were the snow in his desert. Though, too blissed out to pick up on what he was implying.

Too busy stiffening up when you felt his cock jump inside you.

"You... you're still hard?"

“I didn’t come in the first place, whoops. Busy being too competent, I guess,” he said breezily, tilting his hips so that he pressed deep inside, directly into the tender spot inside you where pleasure flared to life unbidden.

"Let me... Let me rest, fuck, give me a minute..." Your hands scrambled for purchase against his scarred back; anchoring yourself by clawing surface level trenches down along its expanse and dragging red tracks as he continued his grinding in torturously slow and shallow rolls. "Need — I need to catch my breath, you're gonna make me pass out, shit, hold on — !"

Rafayel had you for three more times after that.

The first was the short prologue to what was coming, picked up from where he’d left off in the same position — head buried in your neck, making you tightly embrace him like he’d fly off the earth if he wasn’t held. No sooner did his hips start bucking roughly against yours before he spent himself inside in long pulses that coated you inside in heated spurts, sending sparks rippling out into your limbs from where you clenched weakly around him through your own release that hadn’t yet run its full course.

The prettiest sounds in the whole entire world spilled from him as he pulled out with a schlick, dripping his neglect-thickened seed onto the sheets, and you were naive as to think this was it. You both had indulged yourselves enough for the night, fucked through the absence-abstaining makes the heart fonder phenomenon, it had been fantastic to witness him get so serious. Surely now would be a good time to cool off and step into the bath together now that you’d been able to make him sweat and the sex-heavy humidity clinging thickly to your body was getting more comfortable the more you became aware of it. The room was absolutely boiling, stuffier than a sauna like he’d projected all the heat trapped inside his body everywhere. Perhaps opening up a window wouldn’t hurt…

“That was one,” he said then, staring down at his flushed erection straining proudly between his legs like a compass needle pointed north — the faint strand of semen connecting his tip and stomach swaying and snapping apart. “This isn’t anywhere near enough.”

To your shock, Rafayel got off the bed, hauled you in by your legs until your bottom half was dangling from the bed, and folded you completely in half with no warning. Your legs were pushed against your chest and were hooked over his shoulders, and the speed of with which all of it happened punched out a wheeze from you.

"Can I? Are you okay?" he asked urgently, patting your thigh rapidly twice, pausing — then adding another firm slap there before you nodded hurriedly in confirmation rather than a verbal response, because fuck, his weight holding you down felt absolutely incredible like this.

Your ankles started bobbing in sync with his hip thrusts as he drove deep inside your heat, the sink easy, smooth and soft and the mess you both made between your legs pouring out and splattering everywhere as he kept mumbling, “I can’t stop, I’m sorry, I can’t stop, can’t stop—”

This round lasted longer, though it was the worst frenzy you’d seen Rafayel in. Nothing was slow about it, he was mercilessly pistoning himself into you and unpredictably switching between shallow and deep that had your clit being scraped against and A-spot drilled into. You couldn’t even keep your eyes open from how intense pleasure was kneading you violently like a dough. If it wasn’t for his mouth gluing itself onto yours, the entire floor and the poor downstairs guests probably would have heard what was happening with how loud his moaning became — because he was downright voluntarily overstimulating himself.

With one particularly desperate sob, Rafayel finally buried himself to the hilt within you — throbbing — in harsh jets of liquid fire with jerking, abrupt twitches of his hips, milking himself into your body as he found yet another release that was as intense and concentrated as the previous. You cried brokenly, shuddering as that final thrust abused your clit over the edge of orgasm number two, involuntarily flinching and trying to get away when he pushed all the accumulated, positively flowing stringy mess right back into your puffy cunt with a strange, entranced look on his face. You had to slap his hand away and kick his weight off you, powerless and exhausted and fully feeling like your vagina was gaping and would never close back up.

A soft kiss on your cheek brought you back to earth.

“Still alive?” he croaked, gently maneuvering you higher up the bed and laying you back comfortably. You had to avoid the giant, wet and shining spot that had to be dripping down on the floor at the edge of the bed, face burning as Rafayel’s sweat-drenched forehead leaned against yours. “I’m not going easy on you… I have to say I’m impressed how good you’re taking it.”

You realized, once more with feeling, that he was rock-hard against your hip despite having already come three separate times — two of which had filled you to the point of pouring out of you — and had no sign of calming down any time soon.

He was beyond insatiable.

Though the third and final time was far sweeter, the pace much slower and drawn out as though he’d suddenly regained some sense and clarity. By that time, you were growing deliriously tired, the earlier carnal fucking accommodated itself to you by morphing into tender lovemaking. Rafayel had you on your side, comfortably able to hug pillows and anchor yourself, while straddling your thigh and hooking your other calf over his waist and held it there firmly, out from your space to let you breathe with his back straight. Just looking down at you with obvious, sensual longing to lean down for kisses the entire time and looking so fucked out had been enough to rekindle your desire.

He was driving himself languidly into you, either eyes closed and head thrown back, or focused dead-on at the spot between where he was slipping in and out of you — watching your cunt eagerly swallow his white-coated cock and attempt to suck him right back in each time he pulled out until only his tip remained buried. Over and over.

And eventually, his shaky breaths and sweet sighs started turning into fast-paced, restrained moans. You saw him hanging on the precipice of wanting to go fast again, the tension his body pulled taut like a bowstring about to snap.

At one point, your robe and his shirt had found themselves slingshotted into the far, opposite corners of the room at some point but he still had his pants and was positively drenched in sweat like he’d just taken a bath and shining under the dim lighting.

"Drained all of my stamina, I'm empty, completely dry... I’m gonna need an IV drip. I can’t believe it. This is crazy, you know... I could die happy like this... But I wanna come. I wan—nnah come inside you so bad again, wanna fill you up—make you full with me—"

He went completely motionless and stayed burrowed in you when your palms cupped his face gently, forcing him to look down at you with his shiny eyes. "You've got to calm down first."

“I don’t think I can,” he murmured, panting, “I really can’t. You feel so—”

Your thumbs stroked the outer corners of his eyes with aching tenderness. “We’ll stop and try to calm you down a bit continuing then, okay? Try for me. No need to rush when we have time to ourselves. No one’s going anywhere.”

He stumbled and nearly fell to his elbows on top of you. “Tell me to,” he said, in a begging voice. “You can just tell me to calm down. Anything you want, anything. You know I’ll listen.”

All these months of living with the revelation about the bond and it still came as a shock to you, but you figured if it was for his own good...

So you ordered him: "Calm down and relax, Rafayel. Everything’s fine, you’re okay."

And god, did he listen well.

You were shocked, as you always were each time, to see just how willingly compliant he was. Seeing his body literally change its chemistry to conform itself to your desires and let go of all tension was unbelievable. You immediately felt bad that you’d forced it on him somehow like some admitted, invasive tranquilizer, because you could have made him relax naturally, with your own labor, a glass of water and massage, maybe, gradually work him through it—

“There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t think about it too much. Just focus on me, yeah?” A quiet command that lacked any real intent to order accompanied an equally soft kiss planted softly against the corner of your mouth, and all thoughts went flying out of the window when you saw how mellowly at peace he was, gazing dreamily at you without the slightest care in the world.

After that, everything became a blur once again. But a pleasant one. Slow, like molasses trickling lazily throughout your bloodstream at room temperature — soothing all aches into pleasure-flavored coziness at being joined, no rampant race towards a climax involved. There was no concept of time whatsoever: just the two of you together.

After your pillow talk about what he believed inspired him — what he wanted would, you internally filled in the blanks — and how he was running out of reserves exclusively saved up for the purposes of his art, you had to make it clear to him that there would be no pain involved in your relationship.

You didn’t know if he expected to be hurt by you in the future or implied he had no problem with that happening, but you couldn’t even tolerate him saying those things for the sake of love, or whatever it was. Him being intimately familiar and nonchalant with the concept bothered you down to the bones.

Not only were you trying to work around the huge rock he’d just dropped on top of your heart with the revelation that Aridum had to represent pure suffering to him as a Lemurian, you were also slightly upset he’d wanted to subject himself to it because he was lost more beautiful things in life had made their way into his life to inspire him as well. His paintings, all of them, had taken a new context and an additional layer of tragedy with that revelation, despite the fact that he’d basically said you made him draw from a different fountain and clogged up the other one.

It was a bittersweet happiness to hear Rafayel wanting to explore brighter, happier sides of life together when the sketch he showed you he was working on while you were sleeping depicted a man drowning in the sea and a figure beckoning him from above, close to the surface. Something still very painful.

“That’s one bleak drawing.”

“Depends on what you see.”

“I see a dying man hallucinating. Maybe that’s someone close to him and his brain is comforting him with a vision. I don’t know.”

“Interesting take. Maybe it’s not just a man at all. Maybe it’s a reunion. It looks peaceful, doesn’t it?”

Now you looked again, it did look peaceful. Just like Rafayel was right now, next to you on the bed with his forehead almost touching yours.

"I'd like to think he isn't drowning, then."

You whimper, your body collapsing on top of his. He quickly scoops you up, one hand holding the back of your head, the other resting on your lower back, ensuring you're properly seated on his thighs.

“I... I feel weird,” you pant, clutching the front of his shirt. “I'm dizzy, and my body is hot all over. My...” you swallow down your embarrassment, “my pussy feels empty... Caleb, can't you help me? Please?”

Almost imperceptibly, his grip on you tightens by a fraction. He sighs, angling your head to make you look at him in the eye. Perhaps it's the trick of the light, but Caleb's face is a flustered pink. “I can't do that. You're going to regret it when you turn back to normal and get all weird about it.” He glances at the chocolates you ate on the table, brows furrowed. “Aphrodisiac chocolate... I should've known. Then you wouldn't have become like this...”

Your mind is in a daze. Your body feels unusually heavy, but your head feels like it's floating. Most of what he said is lost on you, and at this moment, the only thing you can focus on is that Caleb is looking at something else. You grab both of his cheeks, forcibly turning his attention to you. “Please help me, Caleb...” Clumsily, you lift up your hips, pressing your cunt against the tent in his pants. It glistens with your wetness, and Caleb can't help but groan when you rub the tip with your thumb. “It hurts... I need this inside me...”

Caleb has always adhered to your whims, but even he has his limits. He pinches your cheek, “I can't put it inside, idiot, I don't have a condom. I just have to make you cum, right?” He gestures for you to pick up the hem of your skirt, sucking in a breath when he sees how soaked you are. “Fuck....”

The entire crotch area is damp, and if he looks carefully, he can even see the faint shape of your clit. Curiously, he draws circles on it, breathing heavily when a fresh glob of slick stains your underwear. “That's hot...”

He pulls down his zipper, releasing his cock from his boxers. You gasp softly at the sight. He's long and thick, arching to a beautiful curve, colored almost red from the strain of holding back. He gives himself a few experimental pumps, moans coming from his mouth as he masturbates at the sight of you, holding up your own skirt to give him a perfect view of your wet panties, an innocent, frilly pair he can't wait to ruin.

He positions his cock to your folds, aiming at the spot your hole should be if not covered by your underwear. You both groan at the first slide, his pre-cum further soaking the fabric of your ruined panties. He wraps himself in his fist, teasing your clit as he pumps into his hand. More pearls of white spurt out of his tip. “Ah, fuck, that's good... so good...”

“Ah, ah, Caleb!”

You move your hips, moaning while he rubs himself against your cunt. The warmth of his cock is driving you crazy, and the added friction of Caleb rubbing your nipple through your clothes makes you even wetter than you already are. He's biting his lip, dazed eyes staring at your body appreciatively. “I'm taking this off, baby.”

He impatiently runs his hand through the buttons of your clothes, some of them popping off to clatter on the floor. “H-hey, I liked this shirt— haa...!”

“I'll buy you a new one,” he grunts, mouthing at one of your tits, sucking as if anything would come out. He unclasps your bra one-handed, throwing it over your shoulder. “These things are fucking annoying...”

Finally, he gets tired of rubbing you over your clothes. He lifts the side of your panties, sliding his cock inside to directly grind against your pussy. “Shit, that's more like it,” he moans loudly, your wetness gliding down his balls. “You feel so good.”

“Caleb, put it inside already,” you whine, scrunching up the fabric of your skirt in your fists. “This isn't enough for you either, hnn, right...? Give me your cock, please...”

Caleb grits his teeth, holding your hips to stop you from dropping on his dick. “Didn't I tell you I don't have a condom?”

“I don't care!” you struggle in his hold. “Fuck me, c'mon... it hurts...! If you don't...”

You pant against his ear, knowing exactly what you're getting into, drugged or not, “...I'll ask Zayne to fuck me instead.”

The effect is instantaneous. He pulls out, replacing his cock with two fingers plunging inside you at once, hitting deep all the way inside. You choke, gasping out for breath as his hand doesn't stop, slick jetting out of your cunt with every push of his fingers. His clothes are getting soaked, but Caleb doesn't care about them at all, coldly glaring at your face twisted in pleasure.

“So you're telling me you'd be fine with just anyone?” He's chuckling, but he doesn't sound like he's happy. “Fuck. I should've just done this from the start, then.”

He grabs two of the chocolates, popping one in his mouth. When he finishes swallowing, he places the other one in his mouth again, but then he suddenly grabs your jaw. “Open your mouth, slut.”

He pulls you in for a kiss, mouths locking together. The chocolate melts from the heat, his tongue licking at yours as he's forcing you to swallow. He doesn't let you go until he's sure you've eaten all of it, drool dripping from the corner of your lips.

“We're not stopping until you learn I'm the only one who gets to see you like this,” he grunts, taking out his fingers and slathering your slick on his cock to make it wet. “I'm the only one who gets to call you mine.”

“Haa... haa...”

Clothes are strewn messily on Caleb's bedroom floor, the mattress squeaking with each thrust of his hips. You're on your back, one leg hooked over Caleb's shoulder, staring into space as you're fucked absolutely stupid.

“Fuck, I can't stop my hips....” Caleb's still fucking into you, hasn't stopped for the past hour. The effects of the aphrodisiac have probably passed after the first two rounds, but his cock shows no signs of softening after release. He cums another load into you, overflowing from your pussy to spread into his sheets. “Ah, hng, shit... Hey, I told you not to waste it.”

He pulls out, pressing his fingers inside your loose hole to fuck his cum back in. You make a sound of protest, already feeling full.

“Are you starting to regret what you said now?” He grabs the back of your thighs, pressing your legs next to your ears. “Too late for that, though.”

Caleb groans, sloshing his cum inside your cunt with his dick. You helplessly grab at the sheets, moaning brokenly. His pelvis rubs against your engorged clit on every snap of his hips, driving you to squirt on his abs again, his torso glistening with your mess.

“You're squirting again? How many times have you cum?” Caleb laughs meanly, sucking another possessive mark among the smattering of hickeys he's already left along your collarbones. “Nasty girl...”

He leans back, getting a better view of your body. There are traces of him everywhere, from the hickeys on your neck, his cum on your chest because you couldn't swallow everything he poured in your mouth, and the faint bite marks on your inner thighs when he paid the favor and ate you out.

He presses a kiss on your chest, staring at you with dark eyes. “If you didn't say that, I would've been patient with you. Fingered you loose before putting my cock inside, making sure you're comfortable... I would've helped you ride out the effects of the aphrodisiac and never speak of it again. After all, to you, I'm just family.” He nuzzles against your cheek, his voice taking on a darker tone. “But you just had to call out another guy's name, didn't you... Would've fucked him if it was him here, not me...”

Caleb thrusts back inside you roughly, fucking your cervix. “You can't do that, you know? You've always belonged to me. Every part of you is mine, so no one else can touch you.” He cups your cheek, devouring your cries of pleasure with his mouth. “Just me... it's only me, right? I'm the person most important to you, right? You said so... So why are you bringing up another guy?”

He's asking questions, but he doesn't let you answer any of them, kissing you so much you almost can't breathe.

“Even though I'm in front of you...” Kiss. “Even when I'm the only one who loves you this much...” Kiss, kiss. “You're still thinking of another person...” Kiss, kiss, kiss. “That's hardly fair when you're all I think about everyday.” Another sloppy kiss.

You weakly push his chest, breaking away from the kiss. “Wait, Caleb—”

He pins your wrist to the bed. “I'm not stopping.”

“I'm not telling you to stop, I'm telling you to liste— ahh, haa, hnn!” The cock still ramming up your walls makes it much more difficult to speak, hammering against the sweet spot that makes your toes curl. “Fuck, ah— Caleb, listen to me!”

He hums as he sucks another hickey on your skin. “I am.”

You don't have it in you to argue even when he clearly isn't, trembling at the pleasure. The hand holding your wrist travels upwards to intertwine your fingers together, grounding you back to reality.

“Caleb, I was just— I didn't mean what I said...” you stammer, trying your best to speak without getting distracted. “I, mmh....! W-wouldn't do this with anyone else... haa... I just said that so you'd fuck me— ah, ah!”

He scoffs, slowing his pace when he sees you being overwhelmed. “You're just making excuses to get me to stop.”

“I'm not, you dummy! I...” your brows pinch together, embarrassed to say it but you continue anyway, “Caleb, you're the one I think of when I touch myself... nn... And I know it's wrong, and you only think of me as someone you should take care of, but, I, haah, I like it when you kiss me, or when you hug me, and I— gh! I like it when you fuck me hard, too, just like this...”

You move your hand to cup Caleb's jaw, admiring his awestruck expression. He looks at you like he's seeing you for the first time.

“I'm not telling you to stop,” you repeat yourself firmly. “I just wanted to say I didn't mean that thing I said earlier, and if it's you, you can do whatever you want to me. Because I love you just like how you love me, Caleb.”

His hips come to a complete stop. “Say that again.”

“I love you, Caleb.”

“Again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“Okay, you're really pushing it, it's embarrassing to sa— aah!”

He grabs your hip, pulling you back to his cock. He fucks you frantically, harsh groans leaving his lips, your name like a prayer. “Fuck... you love me? You love... me?” The words seem unfamiliar on his tongue, heartbreakingly quiet. You squeeze your connected hands.

“I love you, Caleb. I really, really love you, I've loved you a long time ago...” you tilt his chin, making him meet your gaze. “Now say it back.”

“I love you,” he says with certainty, as if it's a fact of the universe. “I love you so much.” He buries his head into your neck, sucking new marks. “I love you... fuck... I love you so badly, it hurts...”

His cock drives deeper, the wet slaps of skin deafening in the room. Cum dribbles out of your hole with his thrusts, and he swipes it up to smear it on your engorged clit. Rub, rub. Rub, rub.

“Shit, Caleb!” You wail, rutting to his finger. “Everything feels so good, ah, ah!”

“You feel so good, too, aw, fuuuck...” he's melting inside you, your warm walls clenching around him so tight, sucking him back in every time he pulls out. “Your pussy keeps sucking me back in...!” 

“Ah, hnahh, ngh, yes, like that, ah! I'm cumming, cumming!”

His balls draw tight, his cock about to burst. “Fuck, shit!” he fucks in, in, in, until he's filled every space in your cunt, thumb frantically rubbing at your clit. Clear liquid soaks his cock, wetting his pelvis, and he follows you in your release, shooting ropes of milky cum deep inside your pussy. “Fuck, ah, take my cock, take my fucking cum all the way in, ohh— take it deep in your womb—”

He keeps cumming, and cumming, and cumming. “It won't stop,” he moans against your ear, watching your hole overflowing with his semen. “Your pussy feels too good, it's sucking me dry...”

“Caleb, shit, how are you still— ohh, fuuck...” you whine as the last spurts of semen hit your torso, Caleb having pulled out and pumping his dick to cover you in his cum.

Finally emptied, Caleb collapses on the spot beside you, running a hand through his hair. “I need a shower,” he mutters, feeling the stickiness on his body.

“We need a shower,” you correct him. “I probably won't be able to walk for the next few days, all thanks to you, so you better take responsibility and carry me everywhere.”

The rhythmic drumming of the shower fills the opulent, cloud-kissed apartment. Skyhaven, a marvel of suspended architecture and technological prowess, hums with a quiet energy, a stark contrast to the sudden flutter in your chest. You're here, a visitor in Caleb's extraordinary world, drawn by a longing that has quietly bloomed over years of shared history. A mischievous impulse takes hold – a desire to catch him off guard, to inject a spark of playful surprise into his meticulously ordered life.

Your mind drifts back to the Chronorift Catastrophe of '34, a dark mark on the timeline that had unexpectedly woven your lives together. Orphaned in its wake, you and Caleb found solace and a surrogate family in Gran's warm, welcoming embrace. 

The bond forged in those turbulent years was unlike any other, a tapestry woven with threads of shared sorrow, unwavering loyalty, and a silent understanding that transcended words. Caleb, always the stoic protector, and you, the fiery, independent spirit, found a strange equilibrium within Gran's chaotic, loving home. He was your brother in all but blood, your confidante, your rock.

That was fourteen years ago. Now, standing outside his bathroom door in Skyhaven, in his own domain, the air thick with steam and anticipation, you feel a subtle shift in the familiar dynamic. The playful surprise you intend feels laced with something else, a tremor of nervous excitement that you can't quite explain.

Drawn by an irresistible curiosity, you move closer. The door is slightly ajar, a teasing invitation that your impulsive nature can't resist. A frown furrows your brow. It's unusual for Caleb to leave anything to chance, especially a door. The scent of his sandalwood soap mingles with the humid air, further fueling your burgeoning anticipation.

Against your better judgment, against the silent warnings echoing in your head, you push the door open. The hinges sigh in protest, a sound that seems deafening in the otherwise silent apartment.

The scene that unfolds before you steals the breath from your lungs. Time seems to slow, each detail etching itself onto your memory with vivid clarity.

There he is. Caleb.

Towering and undeniably male, he stands bathed in the diffused light of the futuristic bathroom. Water droplets cling to his skin, catching the light like scattered diamonds, tracing the sculpted lines of his back. The muscles ripple with restrained power, a testament to years of rigorous training and the demanding life he leads as a Fleetspace Colonel. His dark hair, usually impeccably styled, is damp and tousled, falling across his forehead in a manner that is both boyish and utterly captivating.

A simple white towel is slung low around his hips, offering a tantalizing glimpse of the lean, powerful physique beneath. But it's not the near-nudity that truly stops you in your tracks.

Around his neck, nestled against the tanned skin of his throat, gleams a familiar piece of silver. Your silver Chan dog tag. The one you gave him the day he left for DAA, a small token of your affection and unwavering belief in him. He’s always worn it, a constant reminder of your shared past, a silent promise of enduring connection. The sight of it there, against his skin, sends a jolt of unexpected warmth through your veins.

Caleb is standing in front of a large, impeccably clean mirror, his reflection staring back at him with an intensity that sends shivers down your spine. He's doing something with his hands, something that makes your heart pound in your chest.

Your gaze drops to his hands, and your breath hitches in your throat. He’s holding a gun. A large, black, undeniably lethal weapon. He is wiping it meticulously with a white towel, his movements precise and practiced.

As a hunter yourself, you’re no stranger to firearms. They are tools, instruments of protecting the city from wanderers, as familiar to you as your own gun you wield with deadly accuracy. You've seen Caleb handle weapons countless times, witnessed firsthand his skill and expertise. But seeing him here, in the sterile intimacy of his bathroom, polishing a gun with such focused intensity, feels… different. Disturbing, even. This isn’t the Caleb you know. Or perhaps it is, just a side of him you haven't been privy to before.

Your eyes travel back up, drawn to his reflection in the mirror. And then, they lock with his.

His eyes, that arresting shade of violet that has always held a strange power over you, are fixed on yours. There's a flicker of surprise, a fleeting shadow of something unreadable, before they settle into an unnervingly calm, assessing gaze.

Shit.

The silence stretches, thick and heavy with unspoken questions and burgeoning awareness. You feel like a deer caught in headlights, paralyzed by the intensity of his stare. Your mind races, desperately trying to formulate an explanation, a plausible excuse for your blatant intrusion.

He lowers the gun, placing it carefully on the pristine countertop. The sound is almost deafening in the otherwise silent room. He doesn't break eye contact.

“Were you planning on joining me?” His voice is low, a rumble that vibrates through the air, sending a fresh wave of heat washing over your skin. 

There's a teasing lilt to his words, a hint of amusement that barely masks the underlying tension.

You swallow hard, your throat suddenly dry. "I... I just wanted to surprise you." The words sound weak, unconvincing even to your own ears.

A slow smile spreads across his face, transforming his features, softening the harsh lines of his jaw. "You succeeded." He takes a step closer, closing the distance between you, his eyes never leaving yours. "Though I must admit, I prefer your surprises to be a little less… intrusive."

You flush, your cheeks burning under his scrutiny. "I didn't mean to… to intrude. I just heard the shower, and..." You trail off, unable to articulate the jumble of thoughts and emotions swirling within you.

"And?" he prompts, his voice a husky whisper.

You take a deep breath, trying to regain your composure. "And I thought I'd catch you off guard."

He chuckles, a low, throaty sound that sends a shiver down your spine. "You always were a noisy person, weren't you?" 

He takes another step, and now you're close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body, to smell the lingering scent of sandalwood and something else, something uniquely Caleb.

"Only when necessary," you retort, your voice regaining a touch of its usual fire. "Besides, you leave the door open. What did you expect?"

"Perhaps," he says, his gaze dropping to your lips, "I wanted to be caught."

Your heart leaps into your throat. "Caught doing what, exactly?"

The air crackles with a strange energy, a mixture of tension and something undeniably… charged. Before you can fully process the situation, he uses his gravity manipulation – a casual display of power that still sends shivers down your spine – to slam the door shut behind you with his mind alone. The click of the lock echoes in the suddenly confined space, a definitive sound that seals you both inside.

You jump, startled by the abruptness of it all. The sound reverberates through the apartment, amplifying the awareness of your isolation. Your heart pounds a little faster in your chest, a mixture of apprehension and a thrill you can’t quite explain.

“Just making sure no one else gets any ‘surprising’ ideas.” His eyes twinkle mischievously, the light glinting off the moisture in his now-drying hair. But beneath the playful glint, there’s an unmistakable intensity, a smoldering ember that catches your breath. 

He runs a hand through his damp hair, that simple gesture somehow drawing attention to the sculpted lines of his shoulders and arms, unconsciously giving you a full view of his muscular physique. The water droplets cling to his skin, emphasizing the lean strength that's usually hidden beneath his uniform. 

"You know," he begins, his voice a low drawl that seems to caress the air.

You frown, pulling yourself back from the brink of distraction. "In your apartment? Really?" You scoff, trying to inject a note of normalcy into the increasingly unusual situation. "You're a colonel, you know better than to leave your own home vulnerable. You wouldn’t let just anyone in like that… And besides," you shrug, gesturing vaguely, "you added my fingerprint to your automatic door lock, remember?"

He raises an eyebrow, a slow, deliberate movement that accentuates the sharp angles of his face. A smirk, knowing and undeniably attractive, plays on his lips. 

"True," he concedes, his voice laced with amusement. "But you never know when someone might try to pull a fast one, even with biometric security." He backs away from you, moving with the effortless grace you’ve come to expect, and leans against the counter, his arms crossed casually over his chest. The posture is relaxed, almost nonchalant, but you sense the underlying alertness, the coiled energy that’s always present. "Besides," he adds, his gaze locking with yours, "I didn't expect you to be the one sneaking up on me."

You scowl, your carefully constructed composure starting to fray at the edges. "I didn't… I just wanted to give you a surprise visit. I didn't know you'd be polishing your toys," you nod pointedly at his gun, lying disassembled on the nearby counter. The metal gleams under the lamplight, a stark reminder of the dangerous world he now inhabits since you got together again.

He chuckles, the sound a warm rumble in his chest, and uncrossing his arms to pick up his gun again. He examines a piece with careful precision. "You should see your face when you make that scowl," he teases, his smirk widening. "It's quite... endearing." He polishes the gun absentmindedly, his movements fluid and practiced. "So, no sneaking around to steal my food or snoop through my stuff this time?"

“Excuse you?” You exclaim, indignation flooding your voice. “I’m not… I just…”

He cuts you off, still chuckling. "Relax, I'm just messing with you," he says, his voice softening slightly. He sets the gun down with a soft clink and walks over to you, his movements fluid and predatory, like a panther stalking its prey. The space between you shrinks, the air growing thick with unspoken desires. "You're the only one I let get away with stealing my food, remember? It’s practically a tradition at this point."

“It’s not my fault that you always give me snacks…” you mumble, trying to deflect the intensity of his gaze. It's true, of course. He always has a stash of your favorite treats, and he never seems to mind when you help yourself.

"Because you always end up rummaging through my pantry anyway," he retorts, ruffling your hair playfully, his fingers lingering a moment longer than necessary. He steps back, creating a sliver of distance, and resumes polishing his gun, his expression turning thoughtful. "Speaking of snooping..."

You clear your throat, a nervous tic that betrays your guilt. Your eyes dart around the room, avoiding his piercing stare. “I didn’t do it again. I swear.”

He pauses in his task, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. The playful glint is gone, replaced by a sharp, assessing look. "You promise?" he asks, his tone laced with skepticism. He sets the gun down with a sigh and turns to face you fully, his arms crossed again, his body a wall between you and the door. "You swear on your favorite chocolate bar that you haven't been going through my stuff lately?"

You look at the bathroom ceiling, as if searching for answers in the mundane. "Oh, would you look at that? There’s some dust." You point vaguely upwards, hoping to distract and deflect. 

The attempt is weak, even you know it. The dust is barely visible, and the pathetic maneuver only serves to confirm his suspicions. You’re caught, and you know it. You can feel the heat rising in your cheeks, the telltale sign of your guilt.

He follows your gaze, his expression unreadable. "You're not distracting me that easily," he says, his voice low and even, a subtle rumble that vibrates through the humid air of the bathroom. It’s a statement, but also a dare. A challenge laid bare in the space between you. 

He moves with a quiet grace that belies his muscular build, each step deliberate and measured. The tiles are cool beneath his bare feet as he closes the distance between you. “Look at me,” he commands, the request laced with an intensity that makes your pulse quicken.

You back away, a primal instinct taking over as you try to create distance, a buffer between his raw masculinity and the sudden vulnerability you feel. The cool, smooth surface of the door presses against your spine, the only barrier between you and escape. But escape from what, exactly? The question hangs in the air, thick and unspoken.

He stops in his tracks, respecting the boundary you've unconsciously set. A hint of amusement dances in his eyes, a flicker of knowing that sends a shiver down your spine. "Afraid I'll catch you in a lie?" he asks, his voice a soft challenge, a velvet-wrapped threat. 

The air crackles with unspoken tension. He takes another step, closing the gap, his body almost pressing against yours. You’re trapped, caught between the solid, unyielding door and the magnetic pull of his presence.

Your throat tightens, and you swallow hard, the sound amplified in the confined space. Your gaze involuntarily drops, snagged by the sight of his damp chest, the water droplets clinging to the sculpted planes of his abs like tiny, glittering jewels. He’s fresh from the shower, his skin gleaming, radiating a heat that seems to seep into your own. 

You try to look away, but it’s like staring at the sun – blinding, yet impossible to resist.

He notices your wandering gaze, the subtle widening of your eyes, the almost imperceptible intake of breath. A slow, knowing smirk curls his lips, a predator recognizing its prey. His voice drops to a low purr, a sound that resonates deep within you. "See something you like?" he asks, the words laced with playful arrogance. 

His hand comes up, not to touch, but to stake his claim on the space around you, resting on the door beside your head, caging you in with the casual ease of someone who knows his power. His other hand reaches out, his touch feather-light as he tilts your chin up, forcing you to meet his gaze, to acknowledge the desire that’s simmering beneath the surface.

“Caleb…” you warn, the word a breathless whisper, a plea for him to stop, even though a part of you doesn’t want him to.

"Mhm?" He hums, a sound of pure amusement that vibrates against your skin. His finger remains tilted on your chin, holding you captive, his lips only inches away from yours. The air between you crackles with unspoken promises. His voice drops to a whisper, a seductive murmur that sends shivers down your spine. "You're the one who showed up unannounced in my shower..." He intentionally leans forward just a tiny bit more, testing your boundaries, pushing you to the edge. 

You can feel the warmth of his breath on your skin, smell the clean, fresh scent of soap mingled with his intoxicating natural musk.

Panic flares, a desperate need to break free from the intoxicating spell he’s weaving. You turn your head, the movement abrupt and jerky, right as his lips brush your cheek. It’s a near miss, a tantalizing tease that leaves you breathless and yearning.

He pulls back slightly, a playful smirk tugging at his lips as he notices your abrupt movement. "Missed by inches," he murmurs, his breath tickling your cheek, sending a fresh wave of goosebumps across your skin. 

He leans away from the door, giving you some space, a sliver of freedom, but keeping his proximity close enough that his damp skin still radiates warmth, a constant reminder of the intimacy you just shared.

You turn to look at him, your heart pounding against your ribs, trying to regain some semblance of control. 

“What are you doing?” you ask, the question barely audible, lost in the chaotic rhythm of your own breathing.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" He counters, his eyes searching yours with a mix of curiosity and something else, something that makes your stomach flip. He raises his hand again, this time tracing the curve of your jaw with his thumb, a slow, deliberate caress that ignites a fire within you. "I'm just making sure you're not going to keep avoiding eye contact with me." The statement is a challenge, an invitation to engage, to stop hiding behind your carefully constructed walls.

You blush, the heat rising in your cheeks, betraying your carefully constructed composure. “I’m not…avoiding you…and…can you unlock the door so I can get out?” you stammer, the words tumbling out in a rush, a desperate attempt to regain control of the situation.

He raises an eyebrow, a smirk still playing on his lips, enjoying your flustered state. 

"Afraid of being alone with me?" he asks, the question laced with teasing mockery. But then, he relents, stepping aside and unlocking the door. "Here you go." He gestures towards the open door, a clear path to freedom, but he doesn't move away from it completely, keeping his body angled towards you, a silent promise of more.

You raise an eyebrow, mirroring his earlier expression, a spark of defiance flickering in your eyes. “That easy? I thought I will have to borrow your gun to shoot the lock.” The words are meant to be flippant, a way to deflect the intensity of the moment, but there’s also a grain of truth in them.

A laugh escapes him as he hears your joke, a deep, genuine sound that washes over you, easing the tension in your muscles. A real smile spreads across his face, transforming his features, making him look younger, more approachable. "You'd have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands," he says, still chuckling softly, the sound warm and intimate in the small space. 

His gaze flickers to your lips briefly, a fleeting moment of undeniable desire, before returning to your eyes, his smile lingering, a silent invitation.

This time you smirk, a slow, confident curve of your lips. “In love with it too much?” you challenge, pushing his buttons, daring him to reveal more.

"Damn right," he grins, his shoulders relaxing, the tension finally easing from his body. He unconsciously adjusts the towel lower on his hips, unknowingly giving you a better view of his sculpted abs, the movement casual, yet undeniably provocative. "You almost had me there with the shooting the lock thing." He chuckles again, the sound warm and inviting. If you were desperate enough to, you would probably do it but he knew you were bluffing this time.

Before he can predict your move, you lunge forward, a reckless impulse taking over. You run to take his gun, a daring act of defiance.

But before you can even grasp the gun, Caleb swiftly lunges forward with surprising speed, his wet feet slipping slightly on the bathroom mat. He regains his balance with effortless grace, using his evol to steady himself. 

He grabs your wrist just as your fingers brush against the cool metal of the gun, his grip firm but not painful. "Uh-uh," he chastises playfully, his voice a low rumble, a warning and an invitation all in one.

“I touched it,” you smirk, a triumphant glint in your eyes.

"You barely grazed it," He retorts, pulling his hand back slowly, his eyes never leaving yours. He watches your smirk, your unknowingly tempting body language, the way your chest rises and falls with each breath. 

God, you’re killing him. He swallows hard, struggling to maintain control. "You know stealing's wrong, right?" He adds teasingly, the words a lighthearted attempt to break the tension, to mask the desire that's raging within him.

You glance at his gun on the counter beneath the white towel, the cold steel a stark contrast to the domesticity of the setting. Your fingers twitch, yearning to close around the familiar weight, to reclaim a sense of control in this tense dance you've been locked in. You try to reach it again, stretching but he anticipates your move with a speed that borders on preternatural. He shifts his weight, a subtle adjustment that places his body squarely between you and the gun. 

"Nice try," he chuckles, the sound a low rumble that vibrates through the air. His eyes, usually guarded and watchful, are sparkling with amusement, a playful glint dancing in their depths. But beneath the surface, you catch a glimpse of something more intense, a smoldering heat that sends a shiver down your spine.

He keeps your wrist gently but firmly in his grasp, his fingers warm against your skin, preventing any further attempts. His touch is light, almost teasing, but the underlying strength is palpable. "You really want that thing?" he asks, his voice a husky whisper that seems to wrap around you.

You shrug, feigning indifference, though your heart is hammering against your ribs. "You're so protective of it. Might as well be your girlfriend." The words are laced with sarcasm, a desperate attempt to mask the turmoil swirling within you.

His lips twitch with suppressed laughter, the corners of his mouth lifting in a tantalizing curve. "Jealous?" he teases softly, his thumb unconsciously rubbing a slow circle against your wrist. The simple gesture sends a jolt of electricity through your veins, making it difficult to breathe. "Here," he says, surprising you by releasing your wrist and placing the gun within your easy reach. 

"See if you can steal it." He challenges, his eyes dropping to your lips briefly, a fleeting moment that feels like a brand against your skin.

Your eyes glint with challenge, a spark igniting within you. It's not just about the gun; it's about the game, the chase, the intoxicating pull that exists between the two of you. "No cheating," you say, your voice low and husky, mirroring his own. "We can't use our evols."

"Deal," he whispers, a competitive edge creeping into his voice. He purposefully places the gun just slightly out of immediate reach, as if daring you to try. Then, he steps back, giving you space, ready for your move. His posture is relaxed, almost nonchalant, but his eyes are laser-focused on you, tracking every movement, every breath. They spark with excitement, the thrill of competition mixed with something else, something far more dangerous, that's becoming harder and harder to ignore.

With a swiftness that belies your earlier feigned indifference, you sidestep him, your body a blur of motion. You feint to the left, drawing his attention, then pivot sharply to the right, using the momentum to deliver a swift and precise kick with your elbow, sending the gun spinning into the air. You lunge forward, reaching out, your fingers closing around the cold, hard steel just as it begins to fall.

"-Shit," he curses under his breath, impressed despite himself. He moves to block your escape route, reacting purely on instinct, but in his haste, he ends up accidentally catching your waist in his arms. 

The air rushes from your lungs as his hands wrap around you, pulling you against him. For a moment, time seems to stand still. 

You're practically chest to chest, his rough breathing audible in your ear, mingling with your own ragged gasps. His heat radiates through your clothes, a tangible force that threatens to melt away your resolve. "You fucking cheated," he accuses, his voice a low growl against your skin.

“How? I said, no evols. Just our hands.” You fight to keep your voice steady, to project an air of nonchalance that you certainly don't feel.

"...Your foot," he mutters, his gaze flicking down to your feet before returning to your eyes, his expression a mixture of frustration and grudging admiration. His hands remain wrapped around your waist, his thumbs brushing against the curve of your hips. The contact is innocent enough, but the sensation is anything but. 

He swallows hard, his mind suddenly filled with inappropriate images, a dangerous dream landscape of him kissing you like he always wanted to and cross that line for once. "Give it back," he demands, his voice strained, barely a whisper.

You smirk, a slow, deliberate curve of your lips that you know drives him crazy with annoyance and amusement. You reach behind you, intending to stash the gun out of reach, but of course, he anticipates your move. He uses his gravity evol, the familiar force field shimmering almost invisibly around you both.

As you try to place the gun behind you, Caleb's gravity evol kicks in, the subtle pressure intensifying, making it impossible for you to move the gun away from his reach. You're caught in his invisible web, your movements restricted, your will subtly bent to his. He leans in slightly, his breath warm against your temple, his voice a low rumble that vibrates through your very core. 

"Not so fast," he murmurs, the words a promise and a threat all rolled into one. His hands tighten around your waist, pulling you a fraction closer, eliminating the already minuscule space between you.

“Uh…not fair,” you grit your teeth, the words forced out as you struggle against his evol, your muscles straining against the invisible force. You can feel the heat radiating from his body, the tension coiled tight within him, mirroring the tension that's gripping you.

"All's fair in love and war," he murmurs, his face inches from yours. His eyes, dark and intense, flick down to your lips again, lingering there for a moment too long. The air crackles with unspoken desires, with the weight of years of suppressed longing. He reaches around you slowly, deliberately, his chest pressing against your back as he plucks the gun effortlessly from your hand with his other. 

The contact sends a jolt of electricity through your body, igniting a fire that threatens to consume you both.

He chuckles, the sound a low, throaty rumble that sends shivers down your spine, the gun now back in his possession, safely out of your reach. "You touched it because you cheated with your foot," he argues, his arms still wrapped possessively around your waist, effectively trapping you against him. 

He pulls you a little closer, as if testing the limits, his gravity evol making it increasingly difficult for you to step away, to create any semblance of distance.

“Caleb…stop it,” you hiss, desperately trying to regain control of the situation, of yourself. The proximity is intoxicating, too close, too dangerous.

"Stop what?" he asks innocently, even though his grip on your waist tightens slightly and his breath is warm against your ear, sending a fresh wave of goosebumps across your skin. He knows exactly what he's doing, and the smirk playing on his lips gives him away. "I'm just holding you so you don't try to steal my gun again." The lie hangs in the air between you, a fragile shield against the storm of emotions threatening to erupt.

You glare, fighting to maintain eye contact, but your gaze is drawn, almost against your will, to the silver dog tag chain nestled between his pecs, rising and falling with each breath. Your gift for him. A silent promise of safe return.

He feels your stare silver necklace glinting under the light, a tangible reminder of your connection. His mind wanders back to the day you gave it to him when he left for DAA, engraved with a little red apple and the words "When you come back". A lump forms in his throat, a wave of tenderness washing over him. His hands on your waist flex unconsciously, pulling you closer, as if wanting to erase the distance that has always separated you.

His eyes soften as he glances down at the dog tags, remembering the care and emotion behind your gift. The playful smirk fades from his lips as he realizes how close you are, your bodies almost melding together in the confined space. 

He clears his throat nervously, the sound amplified by the sudden shift in atmosphere. "You giving me that glare because you lost, or..."

"I will get that gun," you hiss, your voice a low, determined rumble. The air crackles with your competitive spirit, a challenge laid bare.

A low laugh escapes him, his chest vibrating against your back, sending shivers down your spine. "Is that so?" He challenges softly, his grip on your waist loosening slightly, but not enough for you to escape easily. His eyes spark with a mix of amusement and something more intense, a hunger that makes your breath hitch in your throat. "You want it that bad? Come and get it."

"Caleb…I swear…" you start, a warning laced with a hint of exasperation. You can feel the heat radiating from his body, a dangerous warmth that threatens to melt your resolve.

"You swear what?" His lips quirk up in a teasing smirk as he senses your growing frustration. With deliberate slowness, he slips the gun behind his back, keeping it just out of your reach, a silent promise of the game to come. "You're welcome to try," he murmurs, his voice dropping an octave, sending another wave of shivers through you.

You close your eyes, taking a deep breath and trying to resonate with his own evol, the unique energy that surrounds him, a key to unlocking his defenses. The air hums with anticipation.

"Smart," he whispers approvingly, feeling your evol activate, a tangible connection forming between you. Normally, this would be a fair competition, a test of skill and power. But with his arms still wrapped around your waist, trapping you against him, he's enjoying this too much to let you win easily. Instead of resisting your gravity pull, he uses it to his advantage, subtly shifting his weight, drawing you even closer. "You feel that?"

"Just a bit," you grit your teeth, focusing on the task at hand. "I will have it." The heat of his body is a distraction, a tantalizing temptation that wars with your determination.

He chuckles softly, his breath warm against your neck, making the hairs stand on end. 

"Is that a promise?" he teases, his grip on you tightening just enough to make it clear he's not going to let you have the gun easily. 

He shifts slightly, using his own evol against you, pulling you even closer until you can feel the hard planes of his chest against your back.

"Caleb!" you exclaim, a mixture of annoyance and something akin to pleasure coloring your tone. You can feel your resolve crumbling under the weight of his nearness.

"Too slow," He laughs, feeling your gravity push against him half-heartedly. He realizes you're trying not to push too hard, afraid of hurting him. His smirk widens, a predatory gleam entering his eyes. "You're not trying hard enough," He taunts, "Here, I'll make it easier."

You bite back a retort, your mind racing, searching for a way to break free from his intoxicating hold.

He shifts his body slightly, giving you a small opening, a sliver of hope in your current predicament. But instead of making it easy for you to grab the gun, he uses the opportunity to lean in even closer, his lips almost brushing against your ear, his breath ghosting over your skin. "Come on," he whispers, his voice low and challenging, husky with desire. "Show me what you've got."

You shiver, despite yourself, and swallow hard. The nearness of him is intoxicating, a potent cocktail of danger and desire. You decide to move, channeling all your energy into a sudden burst of momentum.

"There," He whispers softly as you move, finally putting some real effort into your evol. His smirk widens, a glint of admiration in his eyes. You're fast, he'll give you that. 

He sees an opening at your sudden move and takes it, his reflexes honed from years of training. He whirls around, mirroring your resonance pull, creating a vortex of energy between you.

"Hey!" The gun gets floated in the air above your head, spinning gently in the space between you. Since you were short, you couldn’t get it, your fingers grasping at empty air.

"Gotcha," he laughs triumphantly, watching the gun float effortlessly towards his hand from above. He catches it with ease, his eyes twinkling with amusement. He looks down at you, still floating about a foot off the ground, your arms stretching up to try and reach the gun, your brow furrowed in frustration.

"Caleb! It will not kill you if you give it to me," you plead, your voice tinged with a playful desperation.

He laughs heartily, his chest shaking with mirth. "And miss out on this?" He asks, gesturing to your futile struggle, his eyes sparkling with delight. "No way." He holds the gun just out of your reach, his arm extended high above you, a tantalizing prize. "Say please."

You pull a deep breath, steeling your resolve. You decide to use your other card, the one that always works, the one that exploits his soft spot. He always falls for that. Your eyes get sad, a well-practiced expression of vulnerability, and you pout, your lower lip trembling slightly. "You don't love me anymore," you say, your voice barely a whisper, laced with mock sorrow.

"Damn it," He mutters softly, his expression instantaneously softening, the playful gleam replaced with a flicker of guilt. He lowers the gun slightly, his eyes searching your face, his thumb caressing the cool metal. "You know that's not true," He says softly, his voice losing its competitive edge, replaced with a tender warmth. "Here," He lifts his chin towards the gun, floating it gently within your reach, surrendering to your carefully constructed emotional trap.

You lunge at it, your fingers wrapping tightly around the cool steel.

"Too easy," He laughs, a hint of exasperation in his voice, as you snatch the gun out of the air. He watches your serious expression, your pout gone, replaced with determined eyes, a triumphant glint shining in their depths. 

He swallows tightly, mesmerized by your transformation. "You cheated," He accuses softly, his competitive nature re-igniting slightly. "Using those puppy eyes."

You smirk, a mischievous glint in your eyes, as you look at the big black weapon in your hand, savoring your victory.

He shakes his head in amused disbelief, a rueful smile tugging at his lips. "I fall for that every time," he murmurs, watching you proudly display your prize, his gaze lingering on your face, admiring your cunning and determination. Caleb spreads his hands in mock surrender, his eyes gleaming mischievously. "Congrats, you win this round."

You grin, feeling a surge of satisfaction course through you. "Yes."

The playful glint in Caleb's eyes is disarming, even as he playfully mocks, "Don't get too cocky," his voice a low rumble that vibrates against your skin. He takes a step back, a gentlemanly concession of space, yet the air crackles with unresolved tension. "You know I won't go easy on you next time." A pause hangs in the air, the silence amplifying the intimacy of the moment. His expression softens, a flicker of something deeper replacing the teasing. "You know what?"

"Mmm?" you hum, the sound a question and an invitation.

"You've gotten really good," Caleb says, the admiration in his voice a stark contrast to his earlier jesting. It’s an honest, unguarded compliment, a moment of genuine respect that makes your heart flutter. "I swear, in a few years, you'll probably be better than me." He chuckles softly, shaking his head as if marveling at the impossible. "Lucky for me, I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve."

A genuine smile blossoms across your face, warming your cheeks. "Do you think so?" you ask, the words barely a whisper, laced with a mixture of disbelief and hope. You know you were pretty good hunter but be better than him who is taller and stronger than you? That was a big compliment.

"Duh," he grins widely, that competitive spark reigniting in his eyes. He loves that you're humble, your lack of ego only fueling his desire to push you, to see how far you can go. "You're like a sponge. You learn something once, you got it. I swear, you're scary good." He laughs softly, a sound that always manages to send shivers down your spine. "Here," he says suddenly, reaching into a nearby basket. 

Without warning, he throws a small dagger in your direction.

Years of training kick in, instinct taking over. You react without thinking, your hand shooting out, effortlessly catching the dagger mid-air. Simultaneously, you set the gun you had been holding down on the counter.

He whistles appreciatively, his brows raised in genuine surprise. "Damn, you're fast today." The playful teasing returns, but there's an undercurrent of something more, a respect for your skill that he can't quite hide. He moves closer, closing the distance between you in a heartbeat. His voice drops lower, becoming a husky murmur that sends a shiver snaking down your spine. "And you caught it perfectly." He reaches out to take the dagger, his fingers purposefully brushing against yours in the handoff, a deliberate act of provocation.

A wave of awareness washes over you. You instinctively hide the dagger behind your back, the cool metal a reassuring weight in your hand. It's then that you realize you're backed against the bathroom counter, the cool tile a stark contrast to the heat radiating from Caleb. 

He notices your realization, the triumphant smirk that spreads across his face a clear indication that he's exactly where he wants to be. 

He takes another step closer, effectively trapping you. His voice drops to a teasing whisper, a low rumble that seems to vibrate through your very bones. "Cornered already?" He leans in slightly, his eyes never leaving yours, a captivating gaze that holds you captive. "You know, for someone who just won a gun off me, you seem pretty vulnerable right now."

"You always do this," you scoff, the word laced with a mixture of annoyance and amusement. "Play and tease me."

"And you always fall for it," he retorts, his face just inches from yours. You can feel his warm breath on your skin, the scent of him filling your senses. "It's cute." He reaches behind you, his body pressing against yours, a blatant act of intimacy designed to fluster you. His fingers brush against your back as he reaches for the knife you're holding, the deliberate contact sending a jolt of electricity through you.

You tighten your grip on the dagger, a stubborn refusal to relinquish control. The game is on, and you're not about to back down.

He feels you tightening your grip, a smug smile tugging at his lips. He loves this, the push and pull, the battle of wills that always seems to erupt between you. "Let go of the knife," he whispers, his eyes locked in the knife reflected in the mirror behind you. He can feel your knuckles turning white as you refuse to loosen your grip. "Last chance."

"And if I say no?" you breathe, the words barely audible, laced with a mixture of defiance and apprehension. You can't stop this cat and mouse play, this dangerous dance that always leaves you breathless and wanting more.

He chuckles darkly, a low, predatory sound that sends shivers down your spine. His breath is hot against your ear as he whispers, "Then I'll have to take it from you." His free hand comes up to rest on the counter beside your hips, caging you in, making it impossible to escape. "And trust me, you won't like how I do it."

You shiver involuntarily, a reaction to his words and the heat radiating from his body. Leaning back, his bare chest presses against yours, the solid muscle almost crushing you.

He feels your shiver, his smile widening mischievously. He straightens his arms, locking them beside your hips and pushing you further against the counter, intensifying the feeling of being trapped. "Last warning," he whispers, his voice low and commanding, sending a thrill of fear and excitement through you. "Open your hand."

"No…" you whisper, the single word a testament to your stubbornness.

He hears the defiance in your whisper, a surge of frustration and determination rising within him. Without another word, he uses his arm to press your hand against the counter, the knife still gripped tightly in your fist. With his other hand, he grabs your wrist, applying firm pressure. "Open. Your. Hand."

"You could easily cheat you know? Why are you adamant to take it directly from my hand?" you ask, your voice laced with a mixture of curiosity and defiance.

"Because I want to see how far you'll push me," he admits, his voice gruff, the honesty unexpected. He applies more pressure to your wrist, his other arm still pressing your hand flat against the counter. "Now open your damn hand before I break your wrist to get the knife out."

You gasp, the threat surprisingly intense.

Seeing your gasp, Caleb pauses, realizing the intensity in his words. He is a colonel in the military, used to commanding, never meaning to threaten you. His grip loosens slightly, but he doesn't release you entirely from the cage of his arms. A smirk tugs at his lips as he leans in closer, his voice lowering to a teasing murmur. "Gotcha."

"Did you just fucking threaten me?" you hiss, the anger bubbling to the surface.

He hears the anger in your hiss and feels a strange mix of amusement and unease. He leans in even closer, his lips barely an inch from yours. "Maybe," he whispers back, a challenge clear in his voice. "What are you gonna do about it?"

You glare, trying to mask the effect he has on you.

He holds your glare, his eyes crinkling slightly at the corners as he tries to suppress a smile. He can feel the tension radiating off you, making him enjoy this power dynamic a little too much. He flexes his arm, pressing your hand flatter against the counter. "Last chance,"

"Don't use your Colonel voice on me!" you snap, the outburst a testament to his control over you.

He feels a jolt at your snap, the Colonel voice slipping out automatically. He blinks, breaking eye contact for a moment, the memory of his past life a sharp reminder of the man he used to be. When he looks back at you, his expression is softer, almost apologetic. "Fuck, I'm sorry," he murmurs, his grip on your wrist loosening completely, his regret palpable.

You breathe heavily, trying to regain your composure.

He sees the heavy breathing, taking it as a sign that he's getting to you, that the game is still in play. He decides to push his luck, leaning in closer until his forehead rests against yours. "Open your hand," he commands, his voice dropping lower, taking on that authoritative tone again. "Or I'll…"

"What? Restrain me?" you challenge, your voice laced with a mixture of fear and excitement.

"Mm, something like that," he murmurs, his eyes locked with yours. He can feel his hands itching to grab your arm and pin it behind your back, to take control completely. "You leave me no choice but to use force," he whispers, his fingers slowly inching back towards your wrist, as if testing the waters.

"Caleb…" you breathe, the word a warning and a plea.

"Too late," he whispers, his hands moving quickly. He wraps his arm around your wrist and pulls it behind your back, trapping it between your shoulder blades. He steps closer, caging you against the counter with his body, making escape impossible. "Open your hand," he orders, his voice firm, leaving no room for argument.

"You goober!" you exclaim, the childish insult a desperate attempt to break the tension.

He chuckles at your insult, his breath warm against your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. "Keep talking back and see what happens," he murmurs, his free hand coming up to rest on the counter beside your other arm, effectively trapping you. "One more chance to open your hand before things get... interesting."

“Interesting?” you breathe, the word catching in your throat, a strange heat blooming in your chest. It's a question, but also a confession. Suddenly, this confrontation, this tense standoff, feels…different. You don’t know why you're feeling this way. The adrenaline, maybe? Or the way his eyes are locked on yours, intense and unwavering. Whatever it is, it's undeniably a turn-on.

He notices the subtle shift in your breathing, the almost imperceptible tremor in your hands. He sees the way your eyes dilate, dark pools reflecting the fire that's beginning to flicker within you. He realizes that you’re not just angry or defiant anymore. 

A slow, knowing smile spreads across his face, a predatory curve that sends a shiver down your spine. He leans in even closer, the heat of his body radiating against yours, his lips almost brushing against your ear. 

"Are you enjoying this?" he murmurs, the question a low, seductive rumble.

“No…” you hiss, the denial weak, unconvincing even to your own ears. The fight seems to have drained from you, replaced by a strange, unsettling vulnerability.

He can hear the tremor in your voice, the subtle waver that betrays your true feelings. He feels the way your body is pressing against the cool countertop, trapped between his unyielding arms. He takes advantage of this newfound weakness, his body shifting slightly, a calculated maneuver that tightens his hold. 

His arm around your wrist pulls your arm up higher between your shoulder blades, forcing you to arch your back, accentuating the curve of your breasts against your shirt. The position is undeniably compromising, leaving you exposed and vulnerable. "Last chance," he breathes, the words a promise and a threat.

“Last chance…” you mock, mimicking his deep voice with a forced bravado that doesn't quite reach your eyes. You glare at him, attempting to recapture the anger that fueled you just moments ago. But the heat in his gaze melts your resolve, leaving you feeling exposed and strangely thrilled.

He smirks at your mimicry, enjoying the playful banter, the dangerous game you’re both playing. "You're playing a dangerous game," he murmurs, his voice a silken caress that belies the steel beneath. His hand on the counter, the one not holding your wrist captive, slides closer to yours, inching its way toward your trembling fingers. His thumb brushes against the back of your hand, a light, fleeting touch that’s almost teasing, sending sparks of electricity through your veins. "I could make you open it," he says, the words hanging in the air, heavy with unspoken implications.

“Guess what? With your evol?” you retort, trying to sound confident, but your voice cracks slightly, betraying your inner turmoil.It was a desperate attempt to regain control, to steer the conversation back to safer territory.

"Exactly," he whispers back, his breath warm against your skin. His thumb traces a small circle on the back of your hand, a deliberate, hypnotic motion that draws your attention, stealing your focus. Your hand twitches slightly at the sudden sensation, giving away your vulnerability, the way his touch affects you. He watches your reaction closely, savoring the moment, drawing power from your response. "Then again, I might use something other than my evol..." he adds, the words laced with a suggestive promise that makes your heart leap in your chest.

You gasp, the sound escaping your lips before you can stop it, and your eyes widen in surprise, searching his. Fear and anticipation war within you, a confusing mix of emotions that threatens to overwhelm you. 

"What do you mean?" you ask, the question a breathless whisper, barely audible above the pounding of your heart.

His expression turns intense, a dark, smoldering gaze that holds you captive. It’s dangerous, predatory, and utterly thrilling. 

He leans in closer, invading your personal space, until his lips are nearly touching yours, the heat of his breath a tangible presence against your skin. His voice drops to a husky whisper, a seductive murmur that sends shivers down your spine. "You really want to know?" he asks, intentionally blowing a small, warm breath across your lips, teasing you, testing your limits. "I could just..."

Your breath hitches in your throat, your lungs seizing as your body betrays you. The world around you seems to fade away, the sounds of the bathroom blurring into a distant hum. All that exists is him, the intoxicating scent of his skin, the heat of his gaze, the promise of something forbidden. 

Your eyelashes flutter shut, surrendering to the moment, inviting him in.

He waits for a moment, relishing in the effect he's having on you, the power he holds over you. He feels the tremor that runs through your body, the rapid pulse at your throat. He knows he's won. 

Then, without warning, he closes the distance between you, his lips claiming yours in a searing, electrifying kiss. His hand, the one that was tormenting your hand only moments ago, moves to tangle in your hair, gripping the strands possessively, holding you in place as he deepens the kiss, demanding a response.

A whimper escapes your lips, a small, involuntary sound of surrender, as your fingers loosen their grip on the knife. The metal clatters against the tile floor, the sound echoing in the sudden silence, a symbol of your defeat.

He hears the knife fall, the sound like a starting gun, and a satisfied growl rumbles in his chest, a primal sound of victory. The kiss intensifies, his tongue sliding against yours, tasting, exploring, staking his claim. 

He breaks the kiss only to trail his lips down your neck, sucking and nipping at the sensitive skin, igniting a firestorm of sensation. His arm around your wrist tightens possessively, a steel band that keeps you trapped, at his mercy.

“Caleb…” you gasp, your voice breathy and weak, barely a whisper. The sound of his name on your lips feels like a betrayal, a confession of your desire.

"Shh," he murmurs against your neck, his teeth gently sinking into the flesh, a playful bite that sends shivers down your spine. His other hand slides down from the counter, around your hip, and grips your bottom possessively, pulling you closer, molding your body against his. "No more talking," he commands softly, the words a velvet promise laced with steel, before starting to lift you onto the counter, claiming you.

Your heart pounds in your chest, a frantic drumbeat that threatens to drown out all other sounds. You can feel his strength as he lifts you, the way his muscles flex beneath his skin. You wrap your legs around his waist instinctively, clinging to him for support, surrendering to the moment.

He can feel your heart racing against his chest, mirroring his own frantic rhythm, as he lifts you onto the counter, stepping between your legs to keep you trapped, a willing prisoner in his embrace. His hands roam your body, touching and exploring in a way he's never allowed himself to before, igniting a fire within you that threatens to consume you both. He presses close, his growing erection evident against your core through the thin barrier of the towel, a tangible reminder of his desire.

“Caleb…” you whisper again, his name a plea, a prayer, a promise of what's to come.

He silences you with another kiss, this one more demanding and dominant than the last, a raw expression of his hunger. His tongue pushes into your mouth, claiming you completely, possessing you with every touch. His hands continue to roam, exploring the curves of your body, igniting a fire with every caress. 

One hand slides up to cup your breast, squeezing gently through your shirt, teasing the sensitive nipple, while the other grips your thigh, pulling you even closer, erasing the remaining space between you, preparing you for the storm that's about to break.

You allow yourself to moan, the sweet, vulnerable sound catapulting straight to his core. You feel the immediate result of your surrender as his erection presses harder against your thigh. Instinct takes over, and you find yourself pulling him closer by the nape of his neck, your fingers tangling in the short hairs at his hairline. He's so tall, you have to lift your hips off the counter, practically bending him in half to maintain the fervent connection of your lips.

He groans into the kiss, a deep, guttural sound that vibrates against your own mouth as you pull him closer, bending him down to accommodate your smaller stature. The altered angle presses his hardness even more firmly against your center, igniting a fresh wave of heat that makes you moan again, a low, primal sound escaping your lips. 

His hand, which had been tentatively resting on your waist, slides upwards, seeking the bare skin beneath your shirt. He pushes the fabric upwards, urgency lacing his touch, as his other hand squeezes your thigh, almost desperately.

You pant, your breath coming in ragged gasps, too overwhelmed by this sudden and dramatic turn of events to form a coherent thought. The world has narrowed down to the feel of his mouth on yours, the hard press of his body against yours, and the frantic rhythm of your accelerated heartbeats.

He breaks the kiss briefly, reluctantly, to trail his lips down the sensitive curve of your neck. He nuzzles his face between your breasts, his breath hot and damp against your skin, as he tries to push your shirt up further. 

"Lift your arms," he growls, the command rough and edged with a desperate, unsatisfied desire. He needs to see you, touch you more, now. The burning need is consuming him.

You gulp, your throat suddenly dry, and obediently lift your arms, your movements slightly jerky and uncoordinated.

In one swift, decisive motion, he pulls your shirt over your head, casting it carelessly to the side. You stand exposed in just your bra, the cool air raising goosebumps on your skin, but the chill is quickly replaced by a searing heat as his eyes darken with undisguised desire as he looks you over. His gaze lingers on the curve of your breasts, the swell of your hips, before finally returning to meet your eyes. His hands, as if drawn by an invisible force, immediately go to your waist, his thumbs tracing the delicate line of your hip bones. 

"Fuck," he mutters, the word a raw, reverent sound, as he leans down to place open-mouthed kisses between your breasts, his tongue flicking out to taste your skin.

You moan again, a longer, more drawn-out sound this time, as you arch your back instinctively, offering him more. Your fingers dig into his shoulders, clinging to him as if he's the only thing anchoring you to reality. 

"What's happening?" you manage to gasp out, the question barely audible.

"Shut up," he snaps, but there's no real heat or anger behind the words. He's too far gone, too lost in the feeling of your body against his lips, the taste of your skin, the intoxicating scent of you filling his senses. 

His fingers, emboldened by his growing passion, hook into the bottom of your bra, and with surprising ease, he unhooks it. He pushes the material aside, revealing your bare breasts to his hungry gaze. He pauses for a moment, just to admire the sight, before his hands cup your breasts, his thumbs teasing your nipples.

“Caleb…please…” you say, your voice thick with a mixture of arousal and confusion. You reach up, your hands trembling slightly, and cup his face, your thumbs tracing the sharp angles of his cheekbones.

Caleb pauses, his intense gaze softening as you cup his face. He leans into your touch, a visible shudder running through him as he closes his eyes for a brief moment, savoring the feeling of your skin against his. "Please what?" he asks, his voice low and rough, the question laced with a raw vulnerability. 

One hand comes up to cover yours on his cheek, his fingers interlacing with yours as he holds your hand against his skin, while the other gently squeezes your bare breast, thumbing the nipple in a slow, deliberate rhythm.

“Why are we…” you trail off, unable to articulate the jumble of thoughts and feelings swirling within you.

"Because," he answers simply, his voice husky with desire, leaning down to take one of your breasts into his mouth. He suckles gently at first, teasing and tantalizing, before his grip tightens and he begins to suckle more firmly, drawing a sharp intake of breath from you. His hand, the one not holding yours, slides down your side to your waistband, his fingers fumbling with the button of your jeans. "We're always supposed to," he murmurs around your breast, the words muffled but clear, his fingers finally succeeding in unbuttoning your jeans.

“Why?” you ask again, the question a desperate plea for understanding.

He looks up at you, his eyes intense and unwavering, as he unbuttons your jeans, his fingers hooking into the waistband. 

"Because we're always supposed to be more than friends," he explains, his voice muffled against your breast. "Because every time I see you laughing with someone else, I get jealous. Because every time someone looks at you for too long, I want to punch them."

You swallow hard, your throat tightening with emotion. “That's why…you said you will never get a girlfriend?”

He nods against your chest, the movement small and hesitant, before standing up straight and pulling the rest of your clothes off, leaving you sitting bare before him. "I never wanted a girlfriend," he admits, his voice raw and honest, his eyes fixed on yours. "I never wanted anyone but you."

Your heart skips a beat, a wild, erratic rhythm taking over your chest. “Since when…? When we met or…”

He swallows hard, his eyes flickering down your body, lingering on the curve of your breasts and the swell of your hips, before meeting your gaze again. "Since we were kids," he says softly, the words barely audible above the frantic pounding of your heart. 

He steps closer, closing the remaining distance between you, until he's standing between your legs. "Remember when we used to play hide and seek?" he asks, his fingers hooking around your thighs, his touch sending shivers up your spine.

You nod, a small, involuntary movement. “You always somehow found me.”

"Because I always looked for you," he explains, his thumbs rubbing the inside of your thighs, his gaze unwavering. 

"Remember when you scraped your knee on that field trip, and I carried you home?" he asks softly, his eyes searching yours, as if looking for confirmation, or perhaps forgiveness. When you nod again, remembering the incident vividly, he continues, "Remember I told I will always be by your side?”

You nod again, feeling a lump forming in your throat. The memory is sharp and clear, the feeling of his arms around you, the concern etched on his face, as real now as it was then.

Caleb leans in closer, his voice dropping to almost a whisper as he continues, "That wasn't just something friends say. I meant it. Every promise, every joke shared, every bump and bruise I tended to - it was all me saying 'I'm in love with you' without actually saying it."

Your heart actually swells, filling your chest until it feels like it might burst. You struggle to breathe, the air caught in your throat, as the weight of his words settles upon you. This is it. This is the culmination of years of unspoken feelings, of hidden glances and secret longings.

He watched, his gaze intense and unwavering, as a kaleidoscope of emotions played across your face – surprise, disbelief, a hesitant joy that threatened to bloom into something more. He saw the question in your eyes, the silent plea for reassurance, and it fueled the courage that had been simmering within him for what felt like an eternity.

His own heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat echoing the years of longing he had so carefully concealed. Each stolen glance, each casual touch, each shared laugh had been etched onto his soul, fueling a secret fire that now threatened to consume him. He had built walls around his heart, fortifying it against the vulnerability of love, but you, with your infectious laughter and unwavering spirit, had chipped away at those defenses, brick by agonizing brick.

Slowly, deliberately, he reached for you, his hands trembling slightly as they spanned your waist. The touch was electric, a jolt that sent shivers down your spine and stole the breath from your lungs. With a strength born of years of suppressed desire, he lifted you, your legs instinctively wrapping around his waist. The heat of your body pressed against him was intoxicating, a promise of connection that he could no longer deny himself.

"I'm in love with you," he said, the words finally free after years of restraint. There was no fanfare, no grand pronouncements, just a simple, honest declaration that resonated with the weight of his unspoken feelings. He watched, his breath suspended, as the words settled between you, waiting for your reaction, for the answer that would either shatter him or set him free.

Your fingers traced the line of his jaw, tilting his chin up so you could meet his gaze. The question hung in the air, unspoken but palpable. "That's why you wrote my name on that graffiti wall by the basketball court? As a wish, when we wrote our wishes?"

He continued to walk you further into the shower's embrace, feeling the slick tile beneath his bare feet. Without breaking eye contact, he used his evol to release the knot of the towel cinched around his hips. It fell to the wet floor, discarded like the pretense he had carried for so long.

The warm water pulsed against your skin, a comforting weight that seemed to ground you as the world tilted on its axis. Caleb cupped your face with his hands, his thumbs gently stroking your cheekbones. 

He looked at you, really looked at you, his eyes filled with a depth of emotion that left you breathless. Unspoken words swirled within those depths, echoes of old wishes and long-held dreams.

"Yes," he murmured, his voice a low rumble that vibrated against your skin. "I wished for you every time."

He gently lowered you to the shower floor, the cool tile a startling contrast to the heat that radiated from his body. Kneeling before you, he took your hand in his, his touch reverent and tender. He brought your knuckles to his lips, pressing a soft, lingering kiss against them.

"You don't have to say anything right now," he said quietly, his eyes never leaving yours, searching for a flicker of understanding, a sign of reciprocation. "Just…just let me love you for now, okay?"

You could only nod, the gesture small and uncertain, but enough.

His lips curved into a gentle smile, a smile that reached his eyes and banished the shadows that had haunted them for so long. He knew how rare it was for you to grant silence, how you usually filled every space with your vibrant energy and quick wit. Your quiet acquiescence was a gift, a fragile offering that he would cherish.

"Always wanted to know what your lips tasted like under the shower," he said softly, his voice laced with a playful desire that eased the tension in the air. He slid closer, his hips brushing against yours, tilting your chin with his fingers, his gaze dropping to your mouth. "Mind if I find out?"

A spark of your old self flickered in your eyes, a hint of the playful banter that defined your friendship. "Oh…now are you asking permission after you manhandled me?" You raised an eyebrow, a challenging glint in your gaze.

He laughed, a deep, husky sound that resonated through you. "Too late for that," he pointed out, his eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement. His hands slid down to your behind, his fingers gently kneading the curves of your flesh. "Answer the question, smartass." He nuzzled your neck, the warm breath against your skin sending shivers dancing down your spine. "Can I kiss you under the shower?"

Another nod, this one more decisive, more eager. The anticipation was a tangible thing, a vibrating energy that hummed between you.

And then his lips were on yours, gentle at first, a tentative exploration of familiar territory. But the gentleness quickly gave way to a deeper hunger, a raw need that had been simmering beneath the surface for too long. His lips became demanding, coaxing your mouth open, inviting his tongue to slide in and taste you. 

The warm water rained down on you both, a sensuous curtain that veiled you from the world, mixing with the heat of his kiss. He sighed into your mouth, a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure, his hands squeezing your backside possessively, drawing you closer, closer, until there was no space left between you. "Finally," he breathed against your lips.

In that single word, you heard the depth of his longing, the flicker of fear, the sting of jealousy, all woven together with the raw, undeniable thread of love. It was a kiss that spoke volumes, a testament to the years of suppressed desire and unspoken emotions.

He finally broke the kiss, resting his forehead against yours as he caught his breath, his chest heaving. "I've imagined this so many times," he admitted, his voice rough with emotion, raw and vulnerable. "You, me, under the shower, finally together." He kissed you again, deeper this time, pouring all his pent-up feelings into the kiss, a desperate plea for reciprocation, a silent vow of devotion.

You smiled into the kiss, a genuine, heartfelt smile that radiated through every cell of your being. It was a smile born of relief, of joy, of the burgeoning realization that your own secret feelings were finally being mirrored back at you.

He smiled back, his eyes shining with a happiness that banished the shadows and revealed the man you had always known was hidden beneath the surface. He stood up, pulling you up with him, his hands roaming possessively over your wet body, lingering on the curve of your waist, the swell of your hips.

"Let me wash you," he said, his voice husky with desire, picking up the bottle of body wash and squeezing a generous amount onto a waiting loofah. "All over."

You giggled, the sound light and carefree, a stark contrast to the intensity of the moment. "So now you’re my sweet Caleb and not Colonel Caleb?"

He chuckled, the sound warm and genuine, filling the small space with a comforting intimacy. "Only you get to see this side of me," he said softly, running the loofah gently over your shoulders, his touch careful and tender. "Colonel Caleb is for everyone else." 

He leaned down to kiss your shoulder, his lips lingering against your skin, his hands tracing slow, deliberate circles as he began to wash you.

You sighed and leaned against him, letting the warmth of his body and the gentle caress of the loofah soothe your senses. 

The water continued to pulse around you, washing away the doubts and fears, leaving only the raw, undeniable connection that bound you together.

"You know you're making it really hard for me to just wash you instead of-" He paused, clearing his throat, his voice suddenly thick with desire. "You're killing me here," he murmured, nipping gently at your earlobe, his breath hot against your skin. His hands trailed down your sides, lingering just under your breasts, his fingers tracing the delicate curve. "Should I continue washing?"

"You already stripped me naked and dragged me into the shower," you pointed out, a playful challenge in your voice, a subtle invitation in your eyes.

He laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that vibrated through you. "Touché," he said, his hands finally moving to cup your breasts, his thumbs circling your hardening nipples, sending jolts of pleasure through your body. "I guess I can skip the washing part." He pressed his hips against your backside, letting you feel his growing arousal, a tangible expression of the desire that consumed him.

You moaned, the sound muffled against his shoulder, feeling the hard length of him pressed against your ass.

"Fuck," he groaned, his hands tightening on your breasts as you wiggled against him, your movements only fueling the fire that burned between you. "You're driving me crazy." He spun you around, pinning you against the shower wall, his eyes blazing with a raw, primal need. "I need to taste you," he said hoarsely, dropping to his knees.

You swallowed hard, your throat suddenly dry, as you looked down at him. He was tall enough that his face was eye level with your tummy, his gaze intense and unwavering.

Caleb pressed a quick kiss to your belly button before trailing his lips lower, his hands gripping your hips, holding you in place. "I've thought about this moment even more than kissing you," he confessed, his breath hot against your core, sending shivers of anticipation through your body. "Want to eat you out until you're screaming my name."

You whimpered, your breath coming in short, ragged gasps. The anticipation was almost unbearable, the promise of pleasure a tantalizing lure that threatened to shatter your carefully constructed composure.

He smirks up at you, loving the effect he's having. "Brace yourself, sweetheart," he warns playfully before diving in, his mouth covering your clit as his tongue flicks rapidly over the sensitive bud. He moans at your taste, the vibrations sending shockwaves through you.

“Caleb!”

He hums in satisfaction, the sound vibrating against your most sensitive spot. "Mmm, just like I imagined," he murmurs against you, not breaking his rhythm. He slides one hand up to your breast, teasing your nipple while the other grips your thigh, pulling it over his shoulder for better access.

You almost come from the sight. This sweet powerful man who was always with you through the years was actually kneeling in front of you and eating your pussy. It was a fantasy you'd nurtured in secret, a forbidden bloom in the garden of your mind. 

You never tried to imagine it, respecting your friendship and bond with him but you always wondered what if….

Now, here it was, a vibrant, tangible reality. The contrast between the gruff exterior he often projected and the exquisite tenderness of his current ministrations was almost too much to bear.

He looks up at you, his eyes dark with lust and something more profound. "You have no idea how many nights I've jerked off thinking about this," he admits, his voice muffled against your thigh. The raw honesty in his confession both shocks and thrills you. 

To know you've occupied his thoughts in such a primal way, to realize the depth of his desire… it ignites a fire within you, hotter than anything you've ever known. He dives back in, his tongue working faster, more insistently.

You moan as you grab his hair. The feel of his thick, dark hair between your fingers is intoxicating. You tug gently, urging him closer, desperate for more. The sensations are building, swirling, threatening to consume you.

He growls possessively, the sound rumbling against your clit, pushing you closer to the edge. He stands up abruptly, lifting you so that your legs wrap around his waist. "Need to be inside you," he declares, his voice firm with need. "Now." The urgency in his tone is electrifying. You feel your own desire mirroring his, a desperate hunger that can only be sated by the joining of your bodies.

You bite your lip. The anticipation is almost unbearable. You've waited so long for this moment, dreamed of it countless times even if it’s wrong. To finally be here, on the precipice of intimacy with Caleb, is both terrifying and exhilarating.

He takes your silence as agreement. 

"Damn," he mutters, positioning himself at your entrance. He looks at you, making sure this is okay. He's big - almost too big - and he doesn't want to hurt you. The genuine concern on his face softens his rugged smooth features, making him look vulnerable and utterly irresistible. He captures your mouth again, pushing just the tip inside you. The sensation is foreign, intense, and undeniably arousing. You gasp softly against his lips.

“Wait…” you push his muscular chest to stop him. The small barrier of your hands against his powerful frame feels almost comical. 

The heat radiating from his body is overwhelming, and the throbbing pressure where he's joined you is making it difficult to think.

He pauses, holding his breath as he waits for you to speak. "What's wrong?" He asks softly, his arms tightening around you. He can feel how tight you are around just the tip, and he's worried it's going to hurt too much. His concern is palpable, a wave of tenderness washing over you.

You swallow and decide to be honest, "It's gonna bleed." The words hang in the air, heavy with the unspoken truth. You watch his expression carefully, bracing yourself for his reaction.

He freezes, his eyes widening slightly as he processes what you've said. "Are you—?" He starts, then stops, his voice barely a whisper. "Are you a virgin?" He asks gently, his brow furrowing with concern and something else—tenderness. The realization washes over him, transforming his gaze from one of pure lust to one of profound respect and awe.

“Yes..” you whisper. The admission feels strangely liberating. It's a vulnerability you've kept hidden for so long, a secret you're now entrusting to him.

Caleb's breath catches as he realizes the enormity of the moment. He leans his forehead against yours, his eyes soft with emotion. "Hey," he murmurs, "we don't have to do this right now. As much as I want you, I don't want it to hurt you." The sincerity in his voice is disarming. He's willing to sacrifice his own desire for your comfort, a testament to the depth of his feelings.

You shake your head. “No. I want you too. We can’t just…stop..” The words tumble out, fueled by a mixture of nerves and longing. 

You don't want to back down now. You've come too far, waited too long. The fear is still there, but it's overshadowed by the overwhelming desire to experience this with him.

He can see the determination in your eyes, mirroring his own desire. He kisses you gently, trying to prepare himself for the pain he knows you might feel. "Alright," he whispers against your lips, "but if it hurts too much, we stop, okay?" The promise is both reassuring and arousing. He's putting your needs first, but his own yearning is still evident in the intensity of his gaze.

You nod. The agreement seals the pact. You're ready.

With extreme care, he slowly pushes in further, feeling you tense around him. "Jesus," he hisses, "you're so tight. Relax, sweetheart." He keeps kissing you, trying to distract you from the invasion of his size. 

The pressure is building, a burning sensation that makes you want to both pull away and lean in closer. "Here comes the part that might sting..."

You tense. Every muscle in your body is coiled tight, bracing for the inevitable pain.

He pauses, giving you a moment to breathe. 

“Just a bit more," he murmurs, pressing a tender kiss to your forehead. With infinite gentleness, he pushes forward, feeling the barrier give way. You inhale sharply, and he freezes, holding himself still inside you. "You okay?" His voice is laced with concern.

“It’s worse than my period,” you wheeze. 

The comparison is clumsy, but it's the closest analogy you can come up with in the moment.

His heart clenches at your words, knowing he's the cause of your pain. He stays perfectly still, letting you get used to his size and the discomfort. "Shh, baby," he whispers, peppering your face with soft kisses. "Just breathe through it." He's a fortress of strength and tenderness, holding you close and offering silent support.

You nod and breathe deeply. You focus on the rhythm of your breath, trying to find a center of calm amidst the storm of sensations.

After what feels like an eternity, he feels your body start to relax slightly. He takes this as his cue to begin moving slowly, careful not to cause you too much discomfort. "Tell me if it's too much," he pants, his forehead dripping with sweat from the effort of holding back. The vulnerability he shows in this moment, the raw emotion etched on his face, is more intoxicating than any physical sensation.

The sight of him struggling, fighting against the raw desire that threatened to consume him, ignited a spark within you. A mischievous glint entered your eyes, a silent dare. You wouldn't cower, wouldn't appear weak or intimidated. Instead, you dug your heels into his, a subtle yet deliberate act, pulling him closer, inch by tantalizing inch. The whisper that escaped your lips was a single word, a plea, a demand: "More."

That single syllable, laced with innocent longing and burgeoning desire, seemed to shatter the last vestiges of his restraint. His grip on your hips tightened, fingers digging possessively into the soft flesh. The controlled movements he had so painstakingly maintained became less precise, more urgent, fueled by a primal need. 

"Fuck," he growled, the sound raw and guttural, a stark contrast to the playful banter you usually shared. "You feel so good... better than I imagined." He paused, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face. "But baby, I'm really deep like this... too deep?"

A moan escaped your lips, your body humming with a newfound awareness. The sensation was overwhelming, a delicious ache that spread from your core to the tips of your fingers. In that moment, words seemed inadequate, clumsy tools to express the intensity of what you were feeling. All you could manage was a simple, almost childlike description: "Like stick."

The unexpected crudeness, delivered with your characteristic naiveté, drew a smile from him, a genuine curve of his lips that momentarily softened the intensity in his eyes. Even as he fought to control his own spiraling pleasure, he understood. He knew you wanted him buried deep inside you, wanted to feel the fullness of his presence. 

"Too stuck, you mean?" he asked, his voice a low rumble that vibrated against your skin. He began to move, slowly at first, thrusting his hips in a circular motion, deliberately pressing against your sensitive walls, eliciting a gasp of pleasure from you.

"No…" you choked out, a nervous laugh bubbling up from your chest. "You're so hard that it feels like I have a stick in my pussy." The words were clumsy, unrefined, yet perfectly captured the unfamiliar sensation that had taken hold of you.

His head snapped back, and a deep, unrestrained laugh erupted from his chest, a sound you had never heard before. It was a sexy, guttural sound that resonated through your body, sending shivers down your spine. 

Despite your innocence, your blunt phrasing had only served to harden him even more inside you. "Only you," he said, his voice thick with amusement and desire, "could make me laugh while I'm fucking you senseless..." He leaned down, pressing a series of slow, deliberate kisses along the sensitive curve of your neck, each touch sending sparks of pleasure through you.

A smile bloomed on your face, and a soft moan escaped your lips, a testament to the exquisite sensations flooding your senses.

He continued to move, his body finding a rhythm that seemed to please you both. His thrusts grew deeper, more assured, each one pushing you closer to the edge. "God, you're amazing," he murmured, his voice strained with effort. "Your pussy is so tight and wet... it's like a perfect glove." He leaned in, capturing your lips in a deep, passionate kiss, his tongue mimicking the motion of his hips, driving you wild.

"Mmm," you hummed, lost in the intoxicating sensation of his mouth on yours, his body pressed against yours.

Seeing you so consumed by pleasure emboldened him, and he quickened his pace slightly, his movements becoming more insistent. He could feel your body beginning to relax, opening up to him, surrendering to the raw, untamed desire that coursed through you both. "You like how I fill you up, don't you?" he whispered, his breath hot against your ear, sending shivers down your spine. "Is my big cock hitting that sweet spot?"

Your eyes rolled back in your head, caught off guard by the sudden shift in his voice. It was a voice you had never heard before, seductive and possessive. You had known him for years, talked to him countless times, but this voice, this side of him, was completely new.

He could see the surprise in your eyes, the flicker of recognition as his deep, husky voice washed over you. He knew this voice was reserved only for the intimacy of this moment, a secret language spoken only between lovers. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you even closer as he thrust deeper, pushing you closer to the edge of oblivion. "Look at me," he commanded, his voice laced with a hint of possessiveness.

You slowly obeyed, your eyelids fluttering open, revealing the hazy depths of your desire. You met his gaze, your breath coming in ragged gasps.

He held your gaze, his eyes burning with an intensity that made your heart pound in your chest. "That's it," he whispered, his voice thick with lust. "I love seeing you like this—flushed, breathless, and taking my cock so beautifully." He shifted his angle slightly, finding that elusive spot that made you gasp aloud, a strangled sound of pure pleasure.

"Caleb…" you moaned, his name a breathless plea on your lips. "Please!"

Hearing his name spoken with such raw desire seemed to snap something inside him. In that moment, you were no longer his innocent best friend, the girl he had protected and cherished for years. You were a woman, a sexy, wanton creature beneath him, begging for more. 

"Please what, baby?" he ground out, his hips bucking against yours, hitting that sweet spot again and again. "Do you want it harder?"

You bit your lip, a nervous habit that had always plagued you. Seeing that small, vulnerable gesture seemed to ignite a fire within him.

"...Fuck, don't bite that lip like that. Never hurt yourself," he growled, his voice laced with a protective ferocity. He caught your plump bottom lip between his own teeth, gently tugging before capturing your mouth in a deep, consuming kiss. Without warning, he abandoned all pretense of control and began pounding into you harder, each thrust precise and powerful, driving you closer to the brink. "That what you wanted?" he asked, his voice a low rumble against your lips, knowing full well that it was.

You whimpered, your head lolling down against his shoulder. "Like that. Yes…"

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, his control finally slipping away as your whimpers drove him wild. "You feel so damn good I could come already..." He pinned your hands above your head, changing the angle completely, granting him deeper access. His eyes darkened with unrestrained desire as he slammed into you, finding that perfect spot that sent shockwaves of pleasure through your body.

"Oh fuck, Caleb!" You screamed his name as you came, your body arching off the wall, exposing the delicate curve of your throat.

Seeing your neck bared and hearing his name spill from your lips in a scream of pure ecstasy made his body taut with anticipation. He plunged into you even harder, chasing your orgasm with his own. 

"Damn," he muttered, watching your body writhe beneath him, your muscles clenching and releasing in a symphony of pleasure. 

Your neck was arched back, your breasts thrust out, a vision of pure, unadulterated beauty.

Releasing your wrists, he used the advantage of your exposed neck, curling his hand around your throat, holding his fingers against your jaw.

"Fuck…."

He used his other hand to pull one of your legs over his shoulder, opening you up completely, granting him deeper access. He wrapped his fingers around your throat, his touch surprisingly gentle as he tilted your head back further, exposing you to his intense gaze. 

He continued to thrust into you brutally, each stroke a testament to his raw, untamed desire. "Look at me," he commanded, his voice hoarse with passion.

You sobbed as you looked at him, another orgasm building within you, threatening to overwhelm you completely.

Seeing the tears in your eyes, the raw vulnerability etched on your face, pushed him over the edge. He buried his face in your neck, inhaling your scent as he came with a guttural groan, his body convulsing with the force of his release. 

His hot, thick seed filled you up, throbbing inside you as his hips jerked erratically. 

"Fuck...fuck…fuck," he chanted, his fingers tightening slightly around your throat, a primal expression of possession.

As his breathing slowly returned to normal, he inhaled the familiar scent of apples, a fragrance he had come to associate with you, now mixed with the intoxicating aroma of sweat and mingled pleasure. It was a scent that suddenly felt incredibly intimate, comforting, and achingly familiar. 

He nuzzled his face into your neck, gently kissing away the beads of perspiration. 

"Baby... you're crying," he murmured, his voice laced with concern.

You choked out a teary laugh. "Yes."

He wiped the tears away with his thumb, his fingers loosening their hold on your throat. 

"Was it too much?" he asked softly, his purple eyes searching your tear-streaked face, seeking reassurance. He could feel you still trembling beneath him, your body wracked with aftershocks and lingering sobs.

You swallowed, trying to find the words to articulate the complex emotions swirling within you. "You're so intense…."

"Too intense?" he asked carefully, pulling back slightly, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. His gaze dropped to your neck, and he saw the faint marks left by his fingers. He realized his handprint was slightly visible, a stark reminder of the intensity of their encounter. He also remembered your throaty screams, the way your legs had been wrapped tightly around his waist. 

"Answer me," he said hoarsely. "Truthfully."

"I mean…it surprised me…"

He nodded slowly, understanding your shock. "I know I got a bit... carried away," he admitted, his thumb gently rubbing the faint mark on your neck. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" 

His voice was laced with genuine concern, the intense lust from earlier replaced with a tenderness that made your heart flutter.

You shook your head, your eyes meeting his. "I loved it."

He lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "You did?" he asks, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Because fuck, baby, you looked so beautiful like that... tears and all." He leans down and kisses you gently, his hand cupping your face. 

The shower roars around you, a steamy cocoon isolating you both from the world. The water sluices over your skin, washing away the remnants of your earlier despair, replaced now by a heady mix of fear and exhilaration.

“So you admit that you’re a sadist?” you laugh, the sound a little breathless, a little shaky. You try to inject some lightness into the moment, to diffuse the raw tension that crackles between you. But the words hang in the humid air, heavy with unspoken desires.

He chuckles, a deep, rumbling sound that vibrates through your chest, his fingers tightening around your face possessively. 

"Guilty as charged," he murmurs against your lips, his breath hot and moist against your skin. "You bring out the worst in me, you know that?" He pulls back slightly, his purple eyes glinting mischievously, reflecting the overhead light. “You like being manhandled?”

You blush, the heat rising in your cheeks, prickling your skin. "What kind of question is that?" you stammer, your mind struggling to keep up with the rapid-fire intensity of his words and actions. The way he looks at you, like you're the only thing in the universe, is both terrifying and intoxicating.

He smirks, clearly enjoying your reaction, the curve of his lips predatory and enticing. 

"It's a simple question, baby. Do you like it when I get rough with you?" He shifts slightly, making sure you can feel him, still hard and throbbing, deep inside you. 

"Because I can do it again if you want." The air crackles with unspoken promises, with the threat of exquisite pain and pleasure intertwined.

“Round two?” Your eyes widen, mirroring a mixture of disbelief and undeniable anticipation. The thought of surrendering to his dominance, of relinquishing control, both scares and excites you in equal measure.

"Or three," he says with a smirk, lifting his hips slightly to remind you of his persistent presence within you. "I can keep going all night, you know. And judging by how your pussy just tightened around me..." He runs his nose along yours teasingly, the scent of soap and arousal filling your senses. "You want more." He knows you. He sees through your carefully constructed facade of defiance straight to the yearning core of your desire.

“Shit…you little-“ you start to retort, but the words die in your throat, overwhelmed by the sheer force of his presence.

"Fucking genius?" He offers, interrupting you, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "Yeah, I know." He captures your lips again, swallowing your curses as he starts moving his hips again, slowly, deliberately, drawing out the exquisite torment. "Now shut up and let me manhandle you some more," he growls against your lips, the possessive command igniting a fire deep within you.

You growl in his mouth, a primal sound of frustrated desire. You want to fight him, to resist, but your body betrays you, arching instinctively into his touch.

He grins, his teeth grazing your bottom lip, a delicious threat. "Like that?" he asks, his voice low and husky, vibrating with barely suppressed passion. "You're so fucking adorable when you're trying to be aggressive." He uses his gravity evol to lift you even higher up against the tiled wall, your legs wrapping around his waist, affording him even deeper access. 

By this point, you're both completely drenched under the relentless shower spray, the water plastering your hair to your face and tracing rivulets down your heated skin.

“Hey!” you exclaim, a weak protest.

He laughs, a deep rumbling sound that echoes in the small space. "You're adorable and you know it." He starts thrusting harder, his hips slapping against yours loudly, the rhythm primal and insistent. "Now be a good girl and hold on," he commands, his hands gripping your ass tightly as he fucks you hard against the wall, claiming you with every powerful stroke.

“Shit…shit…shit,” you curse and moan, the words a litany of surrender. You try to bite back the sounds escaping your lips, but the pleasure is too intense, the sensation of him filling you too overwhelming.

He swallows your cries with his mouth, one hand sliding up to cover your breast possessively, his thumb teasing your nipple. 

"Damn right," he hisses, watching your body bounce between the wall and his hips, his eyes dark and intense with lust. "Take my dick like a good girl," he growls out, his purple eyes darkening with desire.

You gasp, your muscles clenching involuntarily around him, a desperate plea for release.

He tosses his head back with a groan, feeling your walls tighten around his cock, the sensation almost unbearable. "Fuck, just like that," he praises breathlessly, squeezing your breast harder, eliciting another gasp from you. The steam from the shower fogs up the air around you, creating a hazy, sensual atmosphere, droplets of water mingling with your sweat, clinging to your skin like tiny jewels.

He leans in your ear, breathing heavily, his hot breath sending shivers down your spine. “You know what I would love to see?”

“What?” you manage to whisper, your voice hoarse with passion.

"My gun down your throat. The one you so desperately wanted to take," he whispers, the words a shocking contrast to the sensual intensity that had been building between you.

You choke, your muscles clenching again, this time not from pleasure, but from a sudden, sharp wave of fear and confusion. 

What the fuck? The abrupt shift in tone leaves you reeling, your mind struggling to reconcile the brutal image he paints with the raw intimacy you've been sharing.

He smiles at your reaction, a cruel, knowing curve of his lips, his hips slowing down as he continues speaking into your ear, his voice low and dangerous. "You tried to steal from me and now I want to see your mouth stuffed full of something I own." He bites your earlobe, his tongue piercing digging into your skin, a small stab of pain that sends a jolt through you.

“You wouldn’t…” you hiss, the words a mix of disbelief and challenge.

"Try me," he laughs darkly, the sound sending a shiver of apprehension down your spine. "I might actually enjoy watching you choke on my gun." He pulls back slightly to look at your face, his purple eyes serious, devoid of any trace of the playful amusement from before. "You have such a smart mouth. I bet it'd look perfect wrapped around my gun." He tightens his hips again slowly, deliberately, the movement both a punishment and a promise.

“You’re serious?” You are speechless, the air knocked out of your lungs.

As a hunter, you held a gun everyday but use it for pleasure like this? Was he insane? 

The thought is jarring, disturbing, completely at odds with your understanding of the world.

"Deadly serious," he states firmly, his gaze unwavering. "I own you now, remember? Your mouth is mine to use however I want." 

He leans back and uses his evol to grab the gun from the counter as it floated in his waiting hand, holding it up so you can see it. The metal glints menacingly under the shower spray, reflecting the sharp angles of his face. "Open up."

“Caleb…” you gasp, shocked, the name a plea, a desperate attempt to reach the man you thought you knew.

"Now," he orders, his voice firm and commanding, brooking no argument. He presses the cold metal against your bottom lip, silently urging you to open your mouth, the contact sending a shiver of revulsion and a strange, twisted kind of excitement through you. 

His eyes blaze with possessiveness and triumph as he looks at your shocked expression, the power he wields over you palpable. "Be a good girl and open your mouth for me," he demands softly, the words laced with a dangerous undertone.

You swallow hard, the lump in your throat making it difficult to breathe. Slowly, hesitantly, you open your mouth, a silent act of surrender.

He slides the gun into your mouth slowly, deliberately, his eyes never leaving yours, watching your reaction with an almost clinical detachment. "Good girl," he praises, his voice low and dangerous, sending a shiver down your spine. "Now suck it like you would my cock." He watches as you tentatively wrap your lips around the metal, your eyes wide with shock and arousal, the conflicting emotions warring within you.

You taste the cold metal, the lingering smell of gun powder filling your nostrils as you suck the barrel, a strange, forbidden pleasure tingling on your tongue.

He can feel your warm breath on the gun as you suck on it, his fingers tightening around the handle possessively, the weight of the weapon heavy in his hand. "Deeper," he growls, pushing the gun further into your mouth until it hits the back of your throat, making you gag slightly, the metallic taste intensifying.

You whimper, a small, involuntary sound of distress and submission.

The cool metal of the gun barrel presses against your lips, a stark contrast to the heat that’s been building between you and Caleb for what feels like an eternity. 

He pulls it out slowly, deliberately, the silver glinting in the dim bathroom light. A thin string of saliva stretches from your parted lips to the cold steel, a fragile connection in this moment of raw, untamed desire.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, his voice a low, husky rumble that sends shivers down your spine. His eyes, usually a vibrant, playful purple, are now dark pools of lust, focused solely on you, on the way your body reacts to his every move. He slides the gun back in, a slow, agonizing tease that makes your breath catch in your throat. Each inch is a deliberate act, mimicking the possessive thrusts of his hips from just moments before, etching the memory of his forceful claim onto your very being.

The sensation is shocking, forbidden, and undeniably arousing. You try to fight it, to pull away, but his grip is firm, his control absolute. He dictates the pace, the depth, the intensity of this bizarre, sensual dance. 

Your head spins, the world tilting on its axis as the pleasure and the danger intertwine, creating a potent cocktail that threatens to overwhelm your senses.

Soon, your eyes roll back in your head, the fight draining out of you as you surrender to the intoxicating wave of sensation. You’re lost in the moment, the boundaries between right and wrong blurring beyond recognition.

“Mmh,” he hums, watching your body go lax, your mouth open and accepting around the gun. A possessive triumph flickers in his eyes, a primal satisfaction at your complete submission. “You like getting mouth-fucked by my gun?” he growls softly, his voice rough with barely contained desire. 

He pushes it deeper again, hitting your throat harder this time, a deliberate act that makes you gag slightly, but the discomfort only adds to the intensity of the experience. The sound of wet, sloppy sucking fills the small bathroom, amplifying the intimacy, the transgression.

You can’t help it. You moan, a low, guttural sound that escapes from the back of your throat, a testament to the pleasure he’s inflicting, to the control he wields.

He feels your moan vibrate around the gun, the sound resonating through his body, igniting a fire that threatens to consume him. 

“Fuck,” he groans, the sound ripped from his chest, raw and desperate. He pulls the gun out and sets it aside on the shower bench, the sound of metal against tile echoing in the sudden silence. 

His other hand, calloused and strong, grips your throat tightly, not painfully, but firmly, possessively, reminding you who’s in charge. He slams his mouth against yours, kissing you roughly, desperately, his tongue invading your mouth in a blatant act of ownership. “You’re mine,” he hisses against your lips, his breath hot and ragged against your skin.

You sob, a small, involuntary sound of surrender, as the overwhelming rush of sensation finally breaks you. You come, hard and fast, the orgasm tearing through you with a force that leaves you shaking, gasping for breath. Harder than before, more intense, more complete.

He swallows your cries, muffling the sounds of your climax, claiming them as his own. 

Your body convulses, your nails digging into his back as you cling to him, the only anchor in this sea of overwhelming sensation. He feels your release cover his thighs again, hot and slick against his skin, his eyes darkening with a mixture of possessiveness and raw, primal hunger. 

He lifts you up suddenly, wrapping your legs around his waist again, your bodies molding together as one. He pulls out and enters you roughly, a forceful invasion that makes you scream loudly, the sound echoing off the tiled walls.

His fingers dig into your bottom, gripping you tightly as he lifts you up and down on his length, fucking you hard and fast against the shower wall. The sound of slapping skin mingles with your screams, creating a cacophony of pleasure and pain, of dominance and surrender. His eyes, burning with possessiveness and hunger, seem to pierce through you, stripping you bare, exposing your innermost desires. “Who owns this pussy?”

You sob, the words torn from your throat, a desperate plea for release, for validation. “You, Caleb. You.”

He slams into you harder, deeper, rewarding your submission with a low groan that vibrates against your skin. “Goddamn right I do,” he growls, biting your neck possessively, leaving a trail of burning kisses in his wake. 

His hips piston relentlessly, driving you closer and closer to the edge. The shower wall steams up around you both, droplets of water mingling with your sweat and his saliva, marking your skin with the evidence of his claim.

You can’t hold out, the next orgasm building inside you, a tidal wave of sensation threatening to engulf you.

As if sensing your approaching climax, he reaches down and presses his thumb against your clit, circling it mercilessly, increasing the pressure, pushing you closer to the breaking point. “Come for me again, princess,” he demands harshly, his voice rough and possessive. “Show me who this pussy belongs to.”

The sweet pet name, spoken in this moment of intense passion, is a final surrender, a complete and utter relinquishing of control. It makes you come again, almost absurdly, the force of the orgasm even more intense than before.

He groans deeply as he feels your pussy clench around him, milking his cock with each pulse of your orgasm. “Fucking hell,” he growls, his hips moving faster and more erratically, his control slipping as he teeters on the edge of his own release. “That’s it, princess. Come all over my cock.”

“Caleb!”

He hilts himself inside you with a final, brutal thrust, biting down on your shoulder to stifle his own cries as his orgasm crashes through him, a cataclysmic explosion of sensation. 

“Mine,” he snarls possessively, flooding your pussy with his hot, thick release. His cock twitches inside you, prolonging your shared climax, holding you captive in this moment of pure, unadulterated bliss.

“Holy shit!” You wheeze, gasping for breath as the last tremors of your orgasm subside.

Panting heavily, Caleb leans his forehead against yours, a satisfied smirk playing on his lips. “Holy shit is right,” he chuckles weakly, his cock still buried deep inside you, a tangible reminder of the connection you share. He squeezes your ass playfully, his earlier intensity melting into post-coital affection. “You alright there, princess?”

You are left panting, your mind still reeling from the intensity of what just happened, struggling to process the sheer force of his dominance, the depths of your own surrender.

He can see the dazed expression in your eyes, a testament to the power of the encounter. He nuzzles his face against yours, inhaling your scent deeply, savoring the taste of your skin. “Baby, you okay?” he asks softly, his fingers splaying out on your backside possessively, assuring himself that you’re still there, still his.

You nod weakly, your body still trembling from the aftershocks of your orgasms. “I think I broke my sweet Caleb.”

He lets out a low, satisfied laugh, his body still entwined with yours, his cock throbbing inside you. “You didn’t break me, princess. But damn, you wore me out.” He gently kisses your lips, his hands moving to support your weight as he slowly lowers you down, his cock finally slipping out of you, leaving you feeling vulnerable and exposed.

“Oh god…” you gasp and wobble, feeling his cum leaking out of you, a visible reminder of his possession.

Seeing the look on your face, a mixture of shock and arousal, he grins mischievously. 

He reaches down and scoops some of his semen off your inner thighs, bringing his fingers up to your mouth. “Open up, princess,” he commands softly, his eyes locked with yours, daring you to resist. “Taste what you do to me.”

You don’t glare this time, the fight gone out of you, replaced by a strange mixture of exhaustion and a lingering desire. You melt and open your mouth, too weak to fight or argue, surrendering once again to his will.

He gently pushes his fingers between your lips, letting you taste his salty, musky release. “Good girl,” he murmurs, his thumb tracing your bottom lip as he pulls his fingers out, leaving a glistening sheen on your skin. He helps you steady yourself against the shower wall, his hands roaming possessively over your curves, claiming you as his own.

“I can’t believe you fucked my mouth with your gun.”

He chuckles darkly, turning off the shower and wrapping you in a plush towel, his movements gentle despite the raw intensity of the encounter you just shared. “I can’t believe you let me,” he retorts, his voice still laced with amusement and satisfaction. He picks you up bridal style, carrying you out of the bathroom and into his bedroom, his eyes never leaving yours.

“You were forcing me, you know?” You hiss, trying to regain some semblance of control, to remind him that there are boundaries, even between you.

He lays you down on the bed, a smirk tugging at his lips as he towels you off more aggressively than necessary, his eyes burning with a possessive fire. “Forcing you? Baby, you sucked that gun like it was your favorite fucking lollipop.” He leans in close, his voice low and teasing, his breath ghosting against your skin.

You swallow, not knowing what to say, caught between outrage and a shameful surge of arousal.

He notices your reaction, the flicker of desire in your eyes, and his smirk grows wider. “Did you like it that much?” he asks, his eyes shining with curiosity and something darker, something that both excites and terrifies you. Before you can respond, he gently spreads your legs and crawls between them, his face hovering just above your pussy, his breath hot against your most sensitive flesh. “Let’s find out.”

“How?” You breathe.

He inhales deeply, his eyes fluttering closed as he savors your scent. When he opens them, they lock onto yours with an intent gaze. Slowly, deliberately, he leans down and presses his mouth to your pussy, parting your lips with his tongue and dragging it through your folds.

“Oh shit!” The words are a ragged expulsion of air, a surrender to the intense sensations that are already threatening to overwhelm you.

He grins against you, the vibrations sending a shock of pleasure through you. “That good, huh?” He does it again, this time flicking his tongue over your clit, watching your face contort with pleasure. His hands grip your thighs, holding you open and exposing you fully to his mouth.

“Caleb…” Your voice is a dazed whisper, barely audible above the roaring in your ears. Your eyes, wide and unfocused, lock on his. You search for something, anything, in his gaze – a hint of mercy, perhaps, or maybe just a sign that he’s feeling this as intensely as you are.

"What baby? Want me to stop?" His voice is a rough whisper against your wetness, knowing full well that you don't want him to stop. He circles your clit with his tongue again, maintaining eye contact as he does so. "Does my tongue feel good right here?"

You moan, a low, guttural sound that comes from the depths of your soul. Your hands, trembling, reach up to grip his hair, your fingers tangling in the dark strands, pulling him closer. “Caleb…fuck…”

He chuckles darkly, the vibrations against your sensitive nub making your hips buck up. He sucks your clit into his mouth, applying gentle pressure as he flicks his tongue back and forth. His fingers dig into your thighs, spreading you even wider as he devours you hungrily.

Your eyes roll back in your head, your vision blurring at the edges. You feel yourself losing control, spiraling down into a vortex of pure sensation.

"Fucking hell, you taste amazing," Caleb growls, releasing your clit momentarily. He dives back in, this time plunging his tongue deep inside your pussy, mimicking the motion of a cock. He curls it upwards, seeking that special spot to make you see stars.

You come without warning, a sudden, overwhelming surge of pleasure that shatters your control completely.

You scream out loud as a intense orgasm rips through your body, making your legs shake uncontrollably. Caleb holds onto your hips, keeping you place as he continues to lick and suck on your pussy, prolonging your climax. Your eyes flutter open, finding his intense gaze locked onto yours.

"I love watching you fall apart on my tongue," Caleb says roughly, giving your clit one last lick before standing up and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His pupils are dilated with desire, his breathing heavy.

You lick your lips, still tasting him on them, and your gaze lowers to his body. He is very much naked after the shower you just had, his skin flushed and damp, his muscles tense with barely suppressed energy.

Caleb follows your gaze and smirks, his hand reaching down to wrap around his thick, hard cock. He gives it a slow, languid stroke, his thumb swirling over the sensitive head. "You want this, don't you?" he asks, his voice a deep, seductive rumble.

You whimper, a small, involuntary sound of need that betrays your every thought. You lay in the bed, still with your legs spread and boneless, completely at his mercy.

He watches you, his eyes darkening. The way your legs are spread, the way your body is boneless and sated - it makes his blood boil, fuels the possessive hunger that claws at his insides. He wraps his hand tighter around his length, pumping slowly. "You look like you've been properly fucked," he comments softly, almost to himself, voice laced with dark satisfaction.

You choke a laugh, a weak, breathless sound that still manages to convey a hint of playful defiance. “And who was the one who did that?”

He groans, his eyes fluttering closed briefly as he continues to slow jerk himself off. You’re teasing him, laughing softly even though you’re clearly wrecked from their fucking. "Shut up," he mutters, his voice strained.

You find yourself watching. Each stroke is deliberate, a slow, sensual dance of hand against flesh. You see the flexing of his muscles, the tightening of his jaw, and the way his breath hitches with each movement. It's a raw, uninhibited display, and you find yourself captivated by the sheer intensity of it.

He opens his eyes, finding you watching him with heavy-lidded eyes. The way you're looking at him, like you're enjoying the show - fuck, it's hot. He picks up the pace, his hand moving faster over his length. "You like watching me touch myself?" he asks roughly.

You swallow, the word catching in your throat. "Yes," you whisper, the admission a release, a surrender to the moment.

A low groan escapes his lips as he hears your admission. He strokes himself faster, his grip tightening. "Do you want to watch me come?" he asks, his voice strained with desire. "Or do you want something else?" He looks at you, his eyes filled with lust and a hint of challenge.

"More..." you breathe, the word a plea, a promise.

His breathing grows heavier as he continues to stroke himself, his free hand balling into a fist at his side. "More what?" he growls, his eyes locked onto yours. "You want me to do something else?" He swirls his thumb over the sensitive head, his hand pausing briefly.

A moan escapes your lips, involuntary, a testament to the power he holds over you. You nod, unable to speak, your body trembling with need.

A smirk plays at the corners of his mouth, a predatory curve that sends a thrill of excitement through you. He releases his length, leaving it throbbing, glistening, a beacon of raw desire. He comes closer to the bed, stopping at the edge,” Come here, baby.”

You obey, your body moving without conscious thought. You close your legs, knees digging into the mattress, and crawl towards him, drawn by an irresistible force.

As you crawl closer, Caleb reaches out, his large hands grasping your wrists gently. He pulls you the last bit, until you're kneeling right before him. His cock juts out, a pulsing testament to his desire, inches from your face. “I think you want a taste," he murmurs, stroking his shaft slowly.

You lick your lips, the anticipation building to a fever pitch. You nod, looking up at him with a mixture of lust and adoration. He's offering you a gift, a privilege, and you're ready to receive it.

Caleb's breath hitches as he watches you lick your lips. He guides his thick head to your mouth, painting your lips with his pre-cum. "Open up for me, sweetheart," he orders softly, his voice thick with desire. He wants to feel your warm, wet mouth enveloping him, to lose himself in the sensation of your touch.

You open your lips, a silent invitation, and he doesn't hesitate.

"Fuck," he whispers, the word an expletive and a prayer as you take him in. He pushes himself deeper inch by inch until he hits the back of your throat. Your gag reflex tries to kick in, but he keeps a firm but gentle grasp on the back of your head, holding you steady. "You're such a good girl," he murmurs, his voice laced with praise, the words a reward for your devotion.

Your eyes roll back in your head, lost in the sensation, the praise igniting a fire within you. You want to please him, to give him everything he desires.

Seeing your reaction, Caleb groans deeply, his hips beginning to move slowly. "That's it, baby. Take my cock so well," he praises, his voice husky with lust. He gently thrusts deeper, giving you time to adjust to his size, to the overwhelming sensation of his presence.

You moan, a muffled sound against his flesh, and almost choke, tears welling up in your eyes. You struggle to breathe, forcing air through your nose, trying to maintain control, to continue pleasing him.

Caleb's grip on your head tightens slightly, but he remains gentle, feeling your struggle. "Shh, baby, take a breath," he coos softly, slowly pulling back to give you a moment of respite. He watches as you gasp for air, tears streaming down your cheeks, your face flushed and contorted with effort,” Look at me.” he whispers.

You look up at him, your eyes pleading, vulnerable.

His heart melts at the sight of you looking up at him with those tear-stained cheeks. His pace remains slow and rhythmic, careful not to hurt you. Not this time. "You look so fucking beautiful with my cock in your mouth," he whispers, wiping away a tear with his thumb.

You whimper, a small, involuntary sound of pleasure, loving that he's so tender with you, so aware of your limits.

"My sweet girl..." he breathes out, continuing those careful thrusts. One hand stays on your head while the other gently strokes your cheek, offering comfort and reassurance. “You're doing so good, taking me so deep..." He watches you struggle, feeling both guilt and intense pleasure knowing it's him causing those sweet tears, that look of blissful torment on your face.

You try to open your mouth wider for him, a silent offering, a desperate attempt to give him everything he wants.

"God, yes... just like that," he encourages, his voice growing thicker as he feels himself nearing his limit. "Your mouth is heaven, sweetheart. So warm, so tight... I'm so fucking close." He bites his lip, trying to hold back, wanting to prolong this moment.

You moan around him, a garbled sound of pleasure and desperation, reaching up to cup his balls, your fingers gently stroking, teasing, adding fuel to the fire.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he curses under his breath, a tremor running through his powerful thighs, the muscles bunching and releasing under your touch. "Stop, stop," he warns you gently, the words a breathy plea, yet his hands, those strong hands that could crush bone stay firmly on your head, contradictory to his words. "You'll make me come if you keep doing that..." His breathing grows raspier.

You ignored him, or perhaps, he knew you would. The thrill of control, of pushing him closer and closer to the brink, was a heady aphrodisiac. Deeper, faster, you swallowed, your hand a firm, possessive grip on his heavy sac, the weight of his impending release heavy in your palm.

"Holy shit," he mutters, hips jerking forward slightly. He's trying hard not to face-fuck you, his self-control surprisingly good. "Your mouth..." He swallows hard, watching you take him deep. "Your hand..." He tenses again as you gently massage his balls.

You broke the rhythm, just for a moment, lifting your head, your gaze locking with his. The moan that escaped your lips was a primal sound, born of pure, unadulterated lust.

His face contorts with pleasure when you look up at him, your usual innocent eyes were filled with desire and hunger, and he finally loses control. "Fuck, I'm coming," he grits out, hands gripping your head tightly as he begins to pump his hips, face screwed up in ecstasy.

Your eyes roll back, the world fading away as the first taste of his release flooded your mouth. He was fire, molten and consuming, and you welcomed the burn.

He lets out a guttural groan as he releases into your mouth, his hot seed spilling out as you swallow around him. He holds you there, not allowing you to pull back as he continues to shudder and come, his body trembling above you. "Damn..." The word was a ragged whisper, a testament to the intensity of what had just transpired.

Seeing him undone, vulnerable, weak in the aftermath of his climax, fueled a deep, primal satisfaction within you. He was a god brought to his knees, and you were the force that had felled him.

Caleb's knees nearly buckle as the last waves of his orgasm course through him. Slowly, he pulls back, his cock slipping from your lips with a soft pop. He stares down at you, chest heaving, a look of stunned awe on his flushed face. "Holy shit," he repeated, the words a hushed prayer.

You swallowed, relishing the lingering taste of him, and licked the last remnants from your lips. The act was deliberately provocative, a silent dare. Your voice was hoarse, raw from the intensity of the moment. "How was that? Better than when you made me choke on your gun?" You grinned, a flash of teeth in the dim light, the question laced with a playful defiance.

A low chuckle rumbles in Caleb's chest as he listens to your hoarse voice and teasing words. His eyes light up with amusement and something darker, more primal. He reaches down, gently lifting your chin with his thumb and index finger. "Mmm, definitely better." He murmured, his voice thick with satisfaction.

Your grin widened, emboldened by his response.

Caleb's gaze drops to your lips, still glistening with his release. Without a word, he leans down, capturing your mouth in a searing kiss. His tongue delves in, tasting himself on your lips and tongue. He pulls back after a moment, breathing heavily.

The words, the ones you had choked back in the shower, the ones that had been burning in your throat, finally escaped. "I love you..." The declaration hung in the air, fragile and vulnerable.

His heart skips a beat, emotions playing across his features - surprise, fear, love. "Fuck... don't you dare say things like that," he whispers, but there's no venom in his tone. Instead, he pulls you closer, forehead resting against yours, the contact grounding him.

You giggled, the sound light and airy in the otherwise heavy atmosphere. "Well... you told me to take my time."

A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips, crinkling the skin around his eyes. "You did take your time," he admitted, his voice softer now. He sat back against the headboard, pulling you into his lap, his arms wrapping tightly around you, holding you close. "Too much time." He paused, his heart pounding in his chest, a frantic drumbeat against your back.

You snuggled into his neck, inhaling his scent, the familiar aroma a comfort and a challenge. "You love me, so it's only right to love you back."

Caleb's arms tighten around you, his breath hitching slightly at your words. He presses a soft kiss to your temple, his voice barely above a whisper. "You know I do. More than anything." He pauses, his fingers gently tracing patterns on your back, a silent language of affection.

"Mmm," you murmured, content in his embrace.

Caleb tilts his head, watching your smiling face intently. A playful smirk tugs at his lips as he squeezes you gently in his lap. "Was that an'mmm' of agreement or an'mmm' of trouble?" His eyebrow arches teasingly, clear amusement sparkling in his eyes.

You rested your forehead against his, peering up at him through your lashes. "Definitely agreement."

A warmth spreads across his face at your answer, his eyes softening as they lock onto yours. His hand moves to gently rest on your cheek, thumb stroking across your skin. "Smartass," he whispers, but the word comes out fondly.

You nuzzled his hand, pressing a kiss into his palm. You had missed this, these quiet, tender moments, the feeling of being safe and cherished in his arms.

He watches you nuzzle into his palm, his expression unguarded. His other hand comes up to cup your jaw possessively. "God, you're like a damn cat," he murmurs, his voice lower, almost tender again. He missed these small, unguarded moments with you too, the feeling of your warmth against him, the trust that flowed between you.

You giggled, the sound fading into silence as you settled back into his embrace. "What now?" The question hung in the air, a hesitant inquiry about the future, about where this fragile connection would lead.

Caleb's thumb continues to stroke your cheek, his eyes searching yours. "What do you want to do now?" he asks softly, giving you a small smile. He shifts slightly, making sure you're comfortable in his lap. "We could just stay like this for a while, or... we could talk."

"Or...you can bring me some snacks?" You countered, the playful request a deliberate attempt to lighten the mood, to avoid the weight of serious conversation.

Chuckles softly, the vibrations rumbling against your back. "Always so demanding, aren't you?" He kisses your shoulder gently before setting you back on the bed. "Fine, I'll get you some snacks. But only if you promise to stay right there and look pretty for me."

“How pretty?” You teased, batting your eyelashes as you watched him pull his boxers on.

Rolling his eyes playfully, Caleb ran a deliberately slow, appreciative gaze over you, from head to toe, lingering on the curve of your breasts, the swell of your hips.

"Prettier than a sunrise, dummy. Now sit tight before you ruin my carpet with your gorgeous self sprawled out naked."

You laughed, a genuine, uninhibited sound that filled the room. "You think I would lay on the carpet?"

"With your lazy ass?" He teases, shaking his head as he turns towards the kitchen. "Knowing you, you'd probably decide the carpet is more comfortable than this king-sized bed." His voice carries a warm, affectionate tone that betrays his playful joking.

"Bring my favorite! Apple flavored!" You called out after him, the request laced with a sweet anticipation.

His low chuckle was the only response, a soft rumble that faded as he disappeared into the kitchen, leaving you alone with the lingering scent of sex and the quiet hum of contentment.

The air is warm and heavy, still carrying a trace of the rain from the past few days. Streetlamps cast their golden glow, their light turning streets of cobblestones into scattered amber. A soft hum of cicadas fills the quiet, mingling with the voices of people who are passing by, and still sitting in cafes.

You walk side by side with Thomas, carrying a small paper bag with dessert, a token of the dinner you’ve just shared—a simple meal in a quiet restaurant, filled with laughter and memories of childhood.

“I’m glad you could make time tonight,” Thomas says, his voice warm and genuine. “It’s been ages since I’ve had a night like this.”

“You’re the one who always says he’s too busy to visit.” you tease, nudging him lightly with your elbow.

He chuckles. “True. And I’m here more for work than leisure.” he admits, glancing down the street. “On top of the exhibition preparation, I somehow need to find time to visit the beach house.”

“Oh right.” You glance at him. “Your grandmother…”

He nods. “It’s a beautiful place, but I haven’t had the time to do much with it.”

“Do you need help?” you offer instinctively. “I could—”

He gives you a faint smile. “I’ll let you know when I make some room in my schedule.” His gaze shifts back to the street ahead, his fingers brushing thoughtfully over his chin. “Maybe one day I’ll turn it into a proper getaway spot.”

His idea stirs something in you—a thought, half-formed and fleeting. You tuck it away for now. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

Thomas hums in agreement. “I think so. I don’t know why my grandmother held on to it all these years, even after she stopped going. There must be something special about it, you know?”

You nod, wondering the same thing.

Slowly you reach a familiar turn, and you glance up instinctively. Above, the night sky is adorned with glittering stars and a bright full moon. For a moment, its beauty takes your breath away—but then a memory seeps in.

Rafayel had mentioned this week would bring a full moon, his tone serious. “Don’t come,” he had said, his hand brushing your arm tenderly. “I - ... Full moon… strong.” But that night had felt so far away then, the days stretching endlessly. Now, you’ve endured three nights of relentless thunderstorms since that intimate night by the cove. Three long nights without seeing him. The ache of missing him pricks in your chest, and you make your decision.

“Thomas,” you say, glancing at him. “I’ll be fine from here.”

“Are you sure?” Thomas’s brow furrows slightly with concern. “It’s late.”

You nod with a reassuring smile.

He lets out a sigh of resignation. “Alright. But promise to text me when you get home.”

“I promise.” you say.

Thomas watches you for a moment longer. “Goodnight, then.” he says finally, stepping closer, his arms pulling you into a familiar, warm hug.

“Goodnight.” you reply, stepping back and watching as he continues down the street. When he disappears around the corner, you take a deep breath and, with a determined turn, you leave the main road behind. The air grows cooler as your feet take you down the hidden path toward the sea, each step quickening your heart.

₊‧.°.⋆🫧•˚₊‧⋆.

The cove is illuminated under the full moon’s silver glow. The air smells fresh, tinged with salt and the faint remnants of rain, and as you step onto the sand, you brace yourself for chaos. You expect the aftermath of the storms to greet you—branches tangled with seaweed, leaves and litter scattered haphazardly. But instead, the sight makes you pause. The debris has been moved, branches and leaves piled to the side, leaving the shore surprisingly pristine.

Your heart stirs as you glance around. Was it him?

You take a few more steps, scanning the water, the shadows, and the rocks along the shore. Your purse slips from your shoulder, and you place it carefully on the sand along with the bag of dessert, but your eyes are fixed elsewhere. You squint at the surface of the sea, searching for a hint of movement, for the unmistakable glimmer of dusky purple hair catching the moonlight. Minutes pass, and your excitement begins to fade into disappointment. Maybe he isn’t here after all. You sigh, reaching for your belongings with reluctance. You glance one last time toward the horizon, feeling the ache of the past few nights without him.

But then—movement. A subtle shimmer far in the distance, not the moon’s light on the water but something else - two glowing specks, faint but unmistakable. Your breath catches, and your heart leaps. Those aren’t reflections—they’re eyes. His eyes.

A smile pulls at your lips, and you straighten instinctively, the heaviness in your chest fading away. You take a step closer to the edge of the water, unable to keep from whispering his name softly into the night, the sweet sound of your voice carried by the gentle breeze. Those glowing specks blink once, twice, and then, they begin to move closer.

He closes the distance so quickly, it steals your breath. Though you know Rafayel is a faster swimmer than any human, you’re still taken aback by the sheer speed with which he moves. In mere seconds, the water ripples against your legs, and before you can fully process it, he’s sitting by the shore. You sink to your knees in front of him - no words are exchanged. His arms are around you almost before you’ve settled, pulling you into a tight embrace. You bury your face against his shoulder, breathing in the scent of the sea that clings to him.

You’re the first to pull back, but only just enough to lift your face to his. Without hesitation, you lean in, brushing your lips against his in a kiss that’s gentle at first but deepens as his eagerness matches yours. His hands linger on your back, firm yet tender, drawing you closer even as your lips meet again and again.

When you finally pull back, your breath mingles with his, and you truly meet his gaze. The sight makes you pause. His eyes are sparkling blue and pink sapphires — brighter than you’ve seen them before. For a moment, you think it must be the reflection of the moon tricking your eyes, shining his already unique features with an otherworldly light. His hands linger at your waist, his touch soothing you even as his mesmerizing gaze makes your heart race.

Then his hand trails up and brushes your cheek, leaving wet trail on your skin. “I tell – I told you, to not come.” His voice is soft, but there’s a note of discontent in it.

You hesitate for a moment. The truth—that you missed him so much it ached, even after just a few days—sits on the tip of your tongue, but saying it feels almost too vulnerable. So you put on a teasing smile. “Well… you came too.”

He searches your eyes for a moment, before he exhales and a chuckle leaves his lips. “I know… you will come.” he says, his voice laced with that familiar teasing warmth.

Your cheeks flush, and you drop your gaze for a second before lifting it again. “What’s the big deal, anyway? Look at the moon.” You nod towards the sky. “Wouldn’t it be a pity not to gaze at it together?”

Though you pointed at the moon, your eyes catch the moonlight reflected on the iridescent scales of his tail, on the ethereal features of his face. Tonight he seems to be glowing brighter. His skin feels warmer beneath your touch, a subtle heat radiating through the arm still wrapped around you. Your curiosity stirs, but before you can ask, he leans in. His breath tickles the side of your neck, and then you feel him take a deep inhale as he takes in your scent.

He pauses, his head tilting slightly. “Smell… different.” he murmurs.

His closeness sends a shiver down your spine. “Different?” you ask.

He doesn’t respond immediately, his fingers tightening slightly at your waist. His nose brushes lightly against your shoulder, then slides along the curve of your neck, before nuzzling his neck against yours, scales and gills grazing your skin.

“Better now.” he murmurs, his voice low. His cheek presses against your neck for a moment longer before he finally pulls back, his eyes meeting yours.

You laugh softly, his nuzzling leaving a warm, lingering sensation on your neck, and a little confusion on the reason behind the gesture. Then your eyes land on the bag you brought, and an idea strikes you.

“I brought something for myself,” you say, reaching for the bag beside you. “But maybe you’d like to try it?”

Rafayel tilts his head, his gaze following your movements. “Try?” he echoes.

You pull out the takeout box, opening it to reveal the neatly arranged fruit dessert. The scent of ripe grapes, sweet peaches and sugar fills the air. “It’s mostly fruit,” you explain. “I know you probably don’t eat human food, but this is light. Maybe just one bite?”

He studies the dessert with an unreadable expression, his gaze flickering between it and your face. “Safe?” he asks.

You nod. “No harm in trying, right?” Your tone is gentle, almost coaxing, as you scoop a small portion with the wooden fork, holding it out toward him.

For a moment, he hesitates, his eyes narrowing slightly, but then, slowly, he leans forward and takes the bite.

You watch him closely, waiting for his reaction, as he processes the unfamiliar texture and taste. His brows lift slightly, and you can’t help but laugh at the faint look of surprise on his face.

“Sweet.” He pauses, considering, before he nods towards the dessert, “More… please?” he asks with a hint of eagerness that makes you smile.

You scoop another small bite, holding it toward him again. “Only if you say it’s good this time,” you say with a teasing smile.

He blinks, considering, before a giving you a playful smile. “Good.” he says simply, leaning forward for another taste. You chuckle softly, watching him savor the unfamiliar flavor.

“This is the first time we’ve eaten together.” you realize out loud, the thought slipping out as you lower the fork. The two of you exist in such different worlds—what seems small and every day for you, feels significant here, under the moon’s glow, with him. But the thought doesn’t linger, not with the way he’s looking at you now—like you’re the only thing anchoring him to this moment, to this world.

As you feed him the last bite of the fruit dessert, grateful that he can stomach it, you start talking about your past few days. You tell him how the storms rattled your windows at night, about the way the streets smelled fresh after the rain finally stopped. Then, with an absentminded smile, you mention how Thomas had been in town, how he invited you to dinner, how you spent the evening catching up over warm food and old stories.

Rafayel doesn’t say anything – but his jaw tightens, his lips parting slightly as if to speak, but no words come. You don’t notice. Or, rather, you assume his silence is just his usual way of listening. You continue talking, oblivious to the way his tail flicks against the water just a little harder than before, or how he glances toward the sea for a fleeting second, his expression unreadable.

The gentle rhythm of the waves lulls you into the moment, their sound blending with Rafayel’s soft breaths as he watches you. But suddenly, a wave rolls in further than expected, sweeping over the shore and drenching the bottom half of your dress. You gasp, startled at the chill.

“Oh no…” you mutter, standing up and bunching up the soaked fabric. Normally, you’d shrug it off—every night you’d have come prepared, a swimsuit beneath your dress ready for the sea. But tonight, you hadn’t planned to come here. The realization that your underwear is wet as well makes your cheeks flush.

Rafayel tilts his head, watching your movements with that familiar curiosity, “Cold?” he asks, his brows furrowing slightly as his gaze flickers to your dress. His concern is genuine, but his observation only makes your cheeks burn hotter.

“It’s fine,” you say quickly. “I just wasn’t… prepared for this tonight.”

You tug at the hem of your dress again, the wet fabric sticking stubbornly to your thighs. Rafayel watches you closely, his bright eyes tracking every movement.

“Wet dress bad?” he asks.

You glance at him, scrambling your brain on how to explain the sensation he has probably never felt before. “Not bad,” you say, still fidgeting with the clinging fabric. “Just uncomfortable.”

Rafayel moves closer to you, his eyes taking in the wet dress clinging to your figure, the fabric outlining the curves of your body. His brows furrows slightly, and then, with a simplicity that catches you completely off guard, he says, “Take it off.”

You blink at him, torn between laughter and disbelief. Then the realization washes over you - you’ve never been completely bare in front of Rafayel. Even the night you were most vulnerable, you still had your dress on.

Rafayel shifts closer, his eyes never leaving yours as he reaches out, his fingers grazing the hem of your dress. He doesn’t speak, but the silent encouragement is clear in his gentle yet insistent tug. You exhale a shaky breath, your hands trembling slightly as you reach for the zipper at your side. The fabric slides down your body, pooling briefly at your feet before you place it onto the dry sand.

Rafayel’s eyes soak in the sight of you in just your underwear, taking in every dip and curve of your figure. “Beautiful.” he murmurs. His hands reach out, slowly sliding over your calves, stopping just below your knees, the touch sending goosebumps up your legs. Then his lips meet your skin, placing feather-light kisses along your knees and up toward your thighs. His fingers glide over your hips, until they reach the lace edge of your damp underwear. He pauses, his eyes meeting yours again, as if searching for permission.

You nod, heart racing in your chest under his unwavering attention. He hooks his fingers under the lace and slides them down slowly, the fabric clinging slightly to your damp skin before pooling at your ankles. You step out of them, the cool night air brushing against your newly bare skin.

When you glance down at him, the sight catches you off guard. His face is flushed, a bright pink brushing across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He looks at you like he’s seeing you for the first time all over again, and in some ways, he is. The sight between your thighs is one he discovered only a few nights ago, yet it feels like a lifetime to him, one he’s missed painfully in the days apart.

His gaze lifts to meet yours again, and the pure longing in his expression makes you tremble. Slowly, he takes your hand and guides you down, leading you to straddle him, his tail curling slightly beneath you to support you both.

“Beautiful.” he murmurs again, the word barely audible. His hands settle on your hips, holding you there.

A gasp catches in your throat as your bare skin presses against his scales. The sensation is entirely new—cool, smooth, almost impossibly slick against the heat pooling between your thighs. You feel the distinct ridge of his sheath beneath you, the faint bulge growing against your most sensitive parts. Before you can process the new sensations, he leans in, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. His hands trail upward, gliding over your sides, while your fingers clutch his shoulders at first, steadying yourself against the strength of his grip. But soon, they drift upward, tangling in the damp, wavy strands of his hair, and you find yourself pulling him closer, needing more of him.

Your hips begin to move instinctively, rolling against him slowly. The slick scales rub against your sensitive folds, the ridge of his sheath pressing in a way that sends jolts of pleasure up your spine. A soft moan escapes you, muffled against his mouth, and the sound seems to spur him on. Rafayel’s hands move again, sliding up to your shoulders and then to the thin straps of your bra. He tugs them down until they slip off your shoulder. His lips part briefly as he pulls back, his glowing eyes fixed on the fabric still covering your chest. His fingers toy with it, and then he tries to pull it up, but the clasp holds firm.

You realize what’s happening immediately, a soft smile curling on your lips. He doesn’t understand how it works. It’s endearing, the way he fumbles slightly, his expression focused yet confused.

“Here.” you murmur softly, reaching behind you. With ease you unhook your bra, and slip it off, tossing it beside your dress on the sand.

Rafayel freezes for a moment, his eyes drinking in the sight of your bare chest. His lips part slightly, as if he’s about to speak but has forgotten the words. His fingers skim along the line of your collarbone before trailing downward. Rafayel’s glowing eyes lock onto yours, his pupils dilated with arousal, watching you as his hand moves to cup your breast. His thumb brushes over your nipple, the touch light and hesitant at first.

A soft moan escapes your lips, and you arch into his touch. “Like this.” you whisper. You take his hand, pressing it slightly firmer against your skin, showing him the right pressure. His lips part, and he nods faintly, his hand following your lead. Then, his head dips, his lips brushing against the soft skin around your nipple. The kisses are almost cautions at first, but they grow bolder as he gains confidence. His tongue flicks out, wet and warm, tracing delicate circles before his lips wrap around the sensitive bud.

You gasp softly as you feel it—the firm, heated length of him slipping free from its sheath. It presses against your folds, gliding against your sensitive skin.  Your hips roll against him, earning a muffled groan from Rafayel. It’s warm and firm, sliding with ease against your slickness as you grind against him, each movement drawing quiet, breathy sounds from your lips.

Rafayel’s lips remain relentless, his mouth moving from one breast to the other, sucking, licking, and nipping at the sensitive peaks while his hands knead and tease. Each movement of his lips and fingers draws soft gasps from you, your body trembling as the pleasure builds rapidly.

The sensation of the tip catching your clit with each grind of your hips sends jolts of ecstasy through you, your moans mixing with his, his tail flicking restlessly behind you as his own need grows.

“I—I’m -” You can barely form the words, your breath hitching as your orgasm rips through you. His hands steady your hips, guiding your movements to prolong the bliss coursing through you, his eyes watching you fall apart. The sensation of your climax against his cock pushes him to the edge. A moan escapes his lips as he latches onto your mouth in a hungry kiss, drinking in your whines, his chest heaving against yours. His body tenses beneath you, his tail curling slightly as his release spills between your bellies. For a moment, both of you are caught in a haze of your shared release, your breaths mingling as the sound of soothing waves fills the silence.

As your breathing slows, you begin to stir. You expect him to soften and your mind shifts to cleaning up, checking on your dress, and resuming the lighthearted conversation you had earlier. But he is still hard, still insistent between your folds. A faint shiver runs through you as Rafayel’s grip on your hips tightens.

“More.” he murmurs against your lips.

Before you can process his request, his hands move your hips, lifting you slightly, aligning the tip with your slick entrance. He moves slowly, his glowing eyes watching your face, and with a nod you encourage him to continue. As he begins to lower you, his body trembles beneath yours, a low groan slipping from his lips as your warmth begins to envelop him. The stretch is slow at first, as he wants to give you time to adjust to his size, but then his control falters—his hips buck involuntarily, thrusting his length deeper into you.

A gasp escapes your lips, and his hand cups your cheek as he whispers a small sorry with a shaky breath. You can feel the restraint in his voice, the tremor of his hand and in his heavy-lidded eyes, which only makes you crave more of him. You lower yourself fully, your clit pressing against his pelvis as he fills you completely.  Rafayel’s eyes flutter closed, his head tipping back slightly, exposing the smooth line of his throat. The sound he makes is guttural, raw, the kind of noise that sends heat coursing through your veins.

You press your palms against his chest for balance as you start to move. Rafayel’s hypnotizing gaze locks onto yours again, his hands griping your hips as he guides you, his hips moving to meet yours. The rhythm between you builds quickly, the slick friction of his member against your walls drawing breathy moans from your lips.

Then, just as you feel another wave of pleasure approaching, Rafayel stills.

The sudden stop catches you off guard, your hips pausing as you look down at him. He tilts his head slightly, frowning as if he’s straining to hear something just beyond your perception.

“Rafayel?” you whisper.

He doesn’t answer immediately, his focus locked on something in the distance, while his arms move to wrap around your waist, holding you firmly in place.

“People.” he murmurs finally.

You glance over his shoulder, your heart racing, though you can’t hear anything beyond the soft crash of the waves. “Are you sure?” you ask, your voice barely above whisper.

He nods, his expression more alert. His tail shifts again, and in one fluid motion, he flips you on top of your dress, his body covering yours completely. His arms and tail curl protectively around you, shielding you from sight even though it’s him who is truly at risk. His body remains still, tense above yours, yet the sensation of him buried so deeply inside you is impossible to ignore.

Your heart races beneath him, a strange mix of confusion and arousal coursing through you. You part your lips to whisper his name, to ask what’s happening, but before you can do so, his hand gently covers your mouth. “Sorry.” he whispers. His gaze doesn’t leave the horizon, his head tilting slightly as if straining to catch a sound only he can hear.

Then, slowly, his hips move. It’s subtle at first, but then his length slips out and sinks in further with every roll which has you gasping against his hand. His breath catches, a soft groan rumbling in his throat as his hips find a steady rhythm. Even as his attention remains on the distant sound, his body betrays him. Your muffled moans spill against his palm, your back arching to meet his thrusts.

After a few more strokes, Rafayel exhales sharply, his hand slipping away from your mouth, and you only have a second to breathe in before his lips crash against yours. His hand grabs your cheeks as his teeth graze and nip your lips, before his tongue slips between them, tangling with yours. His smooth pelvis smacks against your clit as he picks up the pace, sending electric jolts of pleasure through you.

Just as you begin to lose yourself in the rhythm of Rafayel’s body moving against yours, he stills again. His eyes narrow slightly, focusing somewhere above you.

“What is it?” you whisper, wondering if he heard people in the distance again.

Before he can answer, your phone starts ringing, the sound jarring against the intimacy of the moment. You glance toward the bag where the screen is faintly lighting the inside. “It’s probably Thomas,” you mutter, brushing it off. “I’ll call him back later.” You shift slightly, but Rafayel’s hand tightens on your waist, holding you in place.

“Thomas.” he repeats, his gaze now on you. Then, after a moment, he nods toward the bag. “Answer.” he murmurs, his voice low and firm, though his gaze is far from neutral.

You blink, your body still buzzing. “Really? It’s not important—”

“Go,” he says softly now. “Answer.”

He slips out of you as he speaks, the sudden emptiness almost making you whine. His hands leave your waist just long enough for you to roll onto your front, reaching toward the bag and fishing out the phone. The screen flashes Thomas’ name, and with a resigned sigh, you accept the call.

“Hey, Thomas.” you say, doing your best to keep your voice steady.

Rafayel doesn’t wait though. The moment you’re distracted his hands begin their gentle exploration of your hips and thighs, his fingers tracing over your skin with maddening leisure. You press your face against your arm, trying to steady your breathing.

“Just wanted to check,” Thomas says, his voice warm and friendly, completely unaware of the situation you’re in. “You didn’t message me like you promised. Are you home safe?”

“Y-yeah,” you stammer, your voice wavering as Rafayel shifts slightly behind you. His hands slide towards the curve of your buttocks, kneading and cupping the soft flesh, his touch lingering as though committing the sensation to memory. “I’m fine. Just… uh, got distracted.”

Thomas chuckles softly, his tone light. “Glad to hear it. Actually, I was wondering—my schedule just changed, and I’ve got some free time tomorrow morning. I thought it might be a good chance to visit the beach house. Do you still want to come with me?”

Rafayel leans forward, his lips brushing over the base of your spine, the light kiss sending shivers through you. Then he settles between your legs, aligning himself with your entrance, the tip pressing teasingly against you before he pushes back inside in one fluid motion. You squeeze your eyes shut, struggling to focus on Thomas’ words as Rafayel begins to move.

“I - I’m not sure,” you manage, your voice catching as Rafayel’s thrusts grow more greedy. “I’ll have to check.”

“That’s fine,” Thomas replies. “The place is pretty secluded, though, and I’m not too familiar with the area. But I’m sure you’ll know how to get us there.”

Rafayel’s hips snap forward suddenly, his cock grazing all the right spots inside of you. Your lips part in a soft gasp, but you quickly bite it back, hoping the sound doesn’t carry through the phone. His hands grip your waist firmly, guiding you to meet his rhythm. The wet slap of his hips against your butt grows louder, and you can only pray Thomas can’t hear it over the call.

“I—uh—probably.” you stammer. Your fingers clutch at the phone desperately, while you bite the back of your free hand. Rafayel leans forward, his breath warm against your back.

“Is everything okay?” Thomas asks, concern clear in his voice. “You sound distracted.”

“I’m fine!” you blurt out, your voice higher than intended. Rafayel chuckles softly against your ear, the sound low and teasing, before his hips roll forward again, the force of his movements pulling another muffled moan from your lips.

“I’ll text you later!” you hang up before he can respond, the phone slipping from your hand as a soft moan escapes your lips.

“Everything okay?” Rafayel repeats Thomas’ question, his voice laced with amusement. The faint smirk on his lips doesn’t escape you as you look over your shoulder, his eyes glinting with self-satisfaction as he watches your flushed face.

“You’re sneaky.” you say, your voice half-accusing. You know it’s impossible for you to be annoyed at him.

Rafayel tilts his head, his expression feigning innocence. “Sneaky?” he echoes. “Don’t understand.”

You roll your eyes, but the small laugh that escapes you betrays your exasperation. “Oh, I think you do,” you reply, your voice softening.

Rafayel’s hands trail upward, brushing over your waist as his body leans closer, his weight pressing against your back. His lips hover near your ear, his breath warm as he murmurs, “You feel… good?”

There’s a flicker of something vulnerable in his tone, as though he’s searching for reassurance.

You nod quickly, the words tumbling from your lips without hesitation. “Yes. So good, Rafayel.”

The smile that spreads across his lips is subtle but genuine. He leans further over you, his chest pressing against your back as his hand slips lower, his fingers seeking out the bundle of nerves he’s learned to coax so well. Your breath hitches as he begins to circle your clit, your hips instinctively pushing back against him. He presses more insistently, finding a rhythm that draws sweet moans from your lips.

“Good?” he asks again, his movements unwavering as his fingers draw you closer to the edge.

“Yes,” you gasp, your hand gripping his arm that rests next to you. “You feel so good inside me, Rafayel. Don't stop.” you manage between shaky breaths, the praise slipping out without thought. The words seem to spur him on, his fingers quickening just slightly, enough to push you over the edge.

The orgasm hits you in a rush, your body shaking beneath his as you cry out, muffling the sound against his bicep. Rafayel murmurs something soothing in your ear, his hand slowing but not stopping as he guides you through the aftershocks, letting you feel every last pulse of pleasure.

He waits for you to catch your breath before he moves, his hands slipping under you to lift your body with ease and turn you onto your back. Rafayel hovers above you, his elbows supporting his weight on either side of you, his chest pressed lightly against yours, his warmth enveloping you as his gaze locks onto yours.

For a moment, the world seems to narrow to just the two of you—the glow of his eyes, the warmth of his breath, the weight of his body. His hand moves to cup your cheek, his thumb brushing lightly over your skin as his lips part.

“I missed you,” he murmurs. His hips shift slightly, his length filling you again. “Always… want to be close. Always.”

His words send a shiver through you, the vulnerability in them tugging at your heart. You reach up, your hands sliding into his curls, pulling him closer until your foreheads touch. “I missed you too,” you whisper. “So much.”

Rafayel’s lips find yours again. The kiss is slow, tender, relishing in the quiet moment you have together. His hips move in rhythm with the kiss, each thrust slow and deep, as though he’s savoring every second, every inch of you.

As your lips part, the intensity of his gaze never wavers, his eyes searching yours as his movements grow more urgent, what little restraint he had quickly vanishing . His cock throbs inside you, the sensation intensifying as his hips drive deeper, the wet slide of his thrusts accompanied by the soft, breathy sounds spilling from his lips.

“Rafayel.” you whisper against his lips.

At the sound of his name, his body shudders, his rhythm faltering for a moment before his hips snap forward again, harder this time. “Close,” he rasps, his voice breaking. “So… close.”

You hold onto him tighter, your arms wrapping around his back, while your legs lock around his waist, pulling him flush against you.

And then, with a low, strangled moan, he buries himself deep inside you, his release spilling into you in hot, pulsing waves. His entire body tenses, his arms trembling as he holds himself above you, his forehead resting against yours.

Rafayel’s lips brush against your temple as the tremors in his body begin to subside. His arms tighten around you, pulling you impossibly close until you feel every flex of his muscles, every erratic beat of his heart. You close your eyes, letting yourself melt into his touch, his warmth, his presence—completely enveloped.

The moment his breathing evens, he lowers himself beside you. His arm rests on your waist, pulling you close, his body curving slightly to shield yours as though the world outside your bubble still holds threats. You rest your head against his shoulder, your fingers trailing lazily over the smooth scales of his tail. After a while, you glance up at him. His eyes have softened, the primal need subsided, but the faint blush on his cheeks remains.

“Are you okay?” you murmur, your voice soft.

He nods slowly. “Good… now,” he says. His fingers trail lightly down your arm, as though reassuring himself that you’re still there, still with him.

You smile, your fingers tracing idle patterns over his chest. But the memory of his earlier warning lingers. “You know,” you say, your tone turning playful, “I think I’ve figured out why you told me to stay away tonight.”

His eyes widen slightly, and the faint blush on his cheeks deepens. “Why?” he asks cautiously.

“Well,” you begin, propping yourself up on your elbow. “You’ve been so… sensitive tonight. Fidgety. Like you couldn’t sit still. And, I mean…” Your lips curl into a teasing smile. “I think you’ve been very affected by the moon.”

Rafayel’s cheeks flush a deeper shade, and he averts his gaze, his lips pressing into a pout. “Not… fidgety.” he mutters, his voice defensive but lacking conviction.

You laugh softly, leaning in to nuzzle his neck. “Oh, you definitely were. You didn’t want me to see you like this, huh?”

His arms tighten around you, pulling you closer. “You… tease.” he grumbles.

“Maybe a little,” you admit, kissing his jaw. “But only because it’s so obvious now. You’re adorable when you blush, you know.”

He lets out an almost exasperated sigh. Then, his lips curve into a faint smirk, and he tilts his head to meet your gaze. “Tease… dangerous.”

You laugh softly, tilting your head to look at him. “Dangerous? How so?”

His eyes narrow playfully, “I can… do this all night.” He leans in closer, brushing his nose against your cheek as he adds, “Cutie.”

The word catches you off guard, heat blooming in your face. “C-cutie?” you stammer, meeting his gaze.

He tilts his head, savoring your reaction. “Yes,” he says simply, his smirk widening. “You… blush more. I like it.”

You bury your face in his chest, your laugh muffled against his skin. “You’re impossible.” you murmur, though the warmth spreading through your chest betrays your words.

“Cutie.” he repeats, teasing lilt fading into affection. His fingers trace lazy circles along your back as he presses a kiss to your temple.

The world beyond this moment doesn’t matter—not the sea stretching endlessly behind him, nor the land you call home. Your hearts are bound by something neither of you fully understands, something that defies logic and fate. Maybe the future is uncertain. Maybe there will always be questions without answers, problems without solutions. But here, in his arms, wrapped in his warmth, everything seems possible.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The air is warm and heavy, still carrying a trace of the rain from the past few days. Streetlamps cast their golden glow, their light turning streets of cobblestones into scattered amber. A soft hum of cicadas fills the quiet, mingling with the voices of people who are passing by, and still sitting in cafes.

You walk side by side with Thomas, carrying a small paper bag with dessert, a token of the dinner you’ve just shared—a simple meal in a quiet restaurant, filled with laughter and memories of childhood.

“I’m glad you could make time tonight,” Thomas says, his voice warm and genuine. “It’s been ages since I’ve had a night like this.”

“You’re the one who always says he’s too busy to visit.” you tease, nudging him lightly with your elbow.

He chuckles. “True. And I’m here more for work than leisure.” he admits, glancing down the street. “On top of the exhibition preparation, I somehow need to find time to visit the beach house.”

“Oh right.” You glance at him. “Your grandmother…”

He nods. “It’s a beautiful place, but I haven’t had the time to do much with it.”

“Do you need help?” you offer instinctively. “I could—”

He gives you a faint smile. “I’ll let you know when I make some room in my schedule.” His gaze shifts back to the street ahead, his fingers brushing thoughtfully over his chin. “Maybe one day I’ll turn it into a proper getaway spot.”

His idea stirs something in you—a thought, half-formed and fleeting. You tuck it away for now. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

Thomas hums in agreement. “I think so. I don’t know why my grandmother held on to it all these years, even after she stopped going. There must be something special about it, you know?”

You nod, wondering the same thing.

Slowly you reach a familiar turn, and you glance up instinctively. Above, the night sky is adorned with glittering stars and a bright full moon. For a moment, its beauty takes your breath away—but then a memory seeps in.

Rafayel had mentioned this week would bring a full moon, his tone serious. “Don’t come,” he had said, his hand brushing your arm tenderly. “I - ... Full moon… strong.” But that night had felt so far away then, the days stretching endlessly. Now, you’ve endured three nights of relentless thunderstorms since that intimate night by the cove. Three long nights without seeing him. The ache of missing him pricks in your chest, and you make your decision.

“Thomas,” you say, glancing at him. “I’ll be fine from here.”

“Are you sure?” Thomas’s brow furrows slightly with concern. “It’s late.”

You nod with a reassuring smile.

He lets out a sigh of resignation. “Alright. But promise to text me when you get home.”

“I promise.” you say.

Thomas watches you for a moment longer. “Goodnight, then.” he says finally, stepping closer, his arms pulling you into a familiar, warm hug.

“Goodnight.” you reply, stepping back and watching as he continues down the street. When he disappears around the corner, you take a deep breath and, with a determined turn, you leave the main road behind. The air grows cooler as your feet take you down the hidden path toward the sea, each step quickening your heart.

₊‧.°.⋆🫧•˚₊‧⋆.

The cove is illuminated under the full moon’s silver glow. The air smells fresh, tinged with salt and the faint remnants of rain, and as you step onto the sand, you brace yourself for chaos. You expect the aftermath of the storms to greet you—branches tangled with seaweed, leaves and litter scattered haphazardly. But instead, the sight makes you pause. The debris has been moved, branches and leaves piled to the side, leaving the shore surprisingly pristine.

Your heart stirs as you glance around. Was it him?

You take a few more steps, scanning the water, the shadows, and the rocks along the shore. Your purse slips from your shoulder, and you place it carefully on the sand along with the bag of dessert, but your eyes are fixed elsewhere. You squint at the surface of the sea, searching for a hint of movement, for the unmistakable glimmer of dusky purple hair catching the moonlight. Minutes pass, and your excitement begins to fade into disappointment. Maybe he isn’t here after all. You sigh, reaching for your belongings with reluctance. You glance one last time toward the horizon, feeling the ache of the past few nights without him.

But then—movement. A subtle shimmer far in the distance, not the moon’s light on the water but something else - two glowing specks, faint but unmistakable. Your breath catches, and your heart leaps. Those aren’t reflections—they’re eyes. His eyes.

A smile pulls at your lips, and you straighten instinctively, the heaviness in your chest fading away. You take a step closer to the edge of the water, unable to keep from whispering his name softly into the night, the sweet sound of your voice carried by the gentle breeze. Those glowing specks blink once, twice, and then, they begin to move closer.

He closes the distance so quickly, it steals your breath. Though you know Rafayel is a faster swimmer than any human, you’re still taken aback by the sheer speed with which he moves. In mere seconds, the water ripples against your legs, and before you can fully process it, he’s sitting by the shore. You sink to your knees in front of him - no words are exchanged. His arms are around you almost before you’ve settled, pulling you into a tight embrace. You bury your face against his shoulder, breathing in the scent of the sea that clings to him.

You’re the first to pull back, but only just enough to lift your face to his. Without hesitation, you lean in, brushing your lips against his in a kiss that’s gentle at first but deepens as his eagerness matches yours. His hands linger on your back, firm yet tender, drawing you closer even as your lips meet again and again.

When you finally pull back, your breath mingles with his, and you truly meet his gaze. The sight makes you pause. His eyes are sparkling blue and pink sapphires — brighter than you’ve seen them before. For a moment, you think it must be the reflection of the moon tricking your eyes, shining his already unique features with an otherworldly light. His hands linger at your waist, his touch soothing you even as his mesmerizing gaze makes your heart race.

Then his hand trails up and brushes your cheek, leaving wet trail on your skin. “I tell – I told you, to not come.” His voice is soft, but there’s a note of discontent in it.

You hesitate for a moment. The truth—that you missed him so much it ached, even after just a few days—sits on the tip of your tongue, but saying it feels almost too vulnerable. So you put on a teasing smile. “Well… you came too.”

He searches your eyes for a moment, before he exhales and a chuckle leaves his lips. “I know… you will come.” he says, his voice laced with that familiar teasing warmth.

Your cheeks flush, and you drop your gaze for a second before lifting it again. “What’s the big deal, anyway? Look at the moon.” You nod towards the sky. “Wouldn’t it be a pity not to gaze at it together?”

Though you pointed at the moon, your eyes catch the moonlight reflected on the iridescent scales of his tail, on the ethereal features of his face. Tonight he seems to be glowing brighter. His skin feels warmer beneath your touch, a subtle heat radiating through the arm still wrapped around you. Your curiosity stirs, but before you can ask, he leans in. His breath tickles the side of your neck, and then you feel him take a deep inhale as he takes in your scent.

He pauses, his head tilting slightly. “Smell… different.” he murmurs.

His closeness sends a shiver down your spine. “Different?” you ask.

He doesn’t respond immediately, his fingers tightening slightly at your waist. His nose brushes lightly against your shoulder, then slides along the curve of your neck, before nuzzling his neck against yours, scales and gills grazing your skin.

“Better now.” he murmurs, his voice low. His cheek presses against your neck for a moment longer before he finally pulls back, his eyes meeting yours.

You laugh softly, his nuzzling leaving a warm, lingering sensation on your neck, and a little confusion on the reason behind the gesture. Then your eyes land on the bag you brought, and an idea strikes you.

“I brought something for myself,” you say, reaching for the bag beside you. “But maybe you’d like to try it?”

Rafayel tilts his head, his gaze following your movements. “Try?” he echoes.

You pull out the takeout box, opening it to reveal the neatly arranged fruit dessert. The scent of ripe grapes, sweet peaches and sugar fills the air. “It’s mostly fruit,” you explain. “I know you probably don’t eat human food, but this is light. Maybe just one bite?”

He studies the dessert with an unreadable expression, his gaze flickering between it and your face. “Safe?” he asks.

You nod. “No harm in trying, right?” Your tone is gentle, almost coaxing, as you scoop a small portion with the wooden fork, holding it out toward him.

For a moment, he hesitates, his eyes narrowing slightly, but then, slowly, he leans forward and takes the bite.

You watch him closely, waiting for his reaction, as he processes the unfamiliar texture and taste. His brows lift slightly, and you can’t help but laugh at the faint look of surprise on his face.

“Sweet.” He pauses, considering, before he nods towards the dessert, “More… please?” he asks with a hint of eagerness that makes you smile.

You scoop another small bite, holding it toward him again. “Only if you say it’s good this time,” you say with a teasing smile.

He blinks, considering, before a giving you a playful smile. “Good.” he says simply, leaning forward for another taste. You chuckle softly, watching him savor the unfamiliar flavor.

“This is the first time we’ve eaten together.” you realize out loud, the thought slipping out as you lower the fork. The two of you exist in such different worlds—what seems small and every day for you, feels significant here, under the moon’s glow, with him. But the thought doesn’t linger, not with the way he’s looking at you now—like you’re the only thing anchoring him to this moment, to this world.

As you feed him the last bite of the fruit dessert, grateful that he can stomach it, you start talking about your past few days. You tell him how the storms rattled your windows at night, about the way the streets smelled fresh after the rain finally stopped. Then, with an absentminded smile, you mention how Thomas had been in town, how he invited you to dinner, how you spent the evening catching up over warm food and old stories.

Rafayel doesn’t say anything – but his jaw tightens, his lips parting slightly as if to speak, but no words come. You don’t notice. Or, rather, you assume his silence is just his usual way of listening. You continue talking, oblivious to the way his tail flicks against the water just a little harder than before, or how he glances toward the sea for a fleeting second, his expression unreadable.

The gentle rhythm of the waves lulls you into the moment, their sound blending with Rafayel’s soft breaths as he watches you. But suddenly, a wave rolls in further than expected, sweeping over the shore and drenching the bottom half of your dress. You gasp, startled at the chill.

“Oh no…” you mutter, standing up and bunching up the soaked fabric. Normally, you’d shrug it off—every night you’d have come prepared, a swimsuit beneath your dress ready for the sea. But tonight, you hadn’t planned to come here. The realization that your underwear is wet as well makes your cheeks flush.

Rafayel tilts his head, watching your movements with that familiar curiosity, “Cold?” he asks, his brows furrowing slightly as his gaze flickers to your dress. His concern is genuine, but his observation only makes your cheeks burn hotter.

“It’s fine,” you say quickly. “I just wasn’t… prepared for this tonight.”

You tug at the hem of your dress again, the wet fabric sticking stubbornly to your thighs. Rafayel watches you closely, his bright eyes tracking every movement.

“Wet dress bad?” he asks.

You glance at him, scrambling your brain on how to explain the sensation he has probably never felt before. “Not bad,” you say, still fidgeting with the clinging fabric. “Just uncomfortable.”

Rafayel moves closer to you, his eyes taking in the wet dress clinging to your figure, the fabric outlining the curves of your body. His brows furrows slightly, and then, with a simplicity that catches you completely off guard, he says, “Take it off.”

You blink at him, torn between laughter and disbelief. Then the realization washes over you - you’ve never been completely bare in front of Rafayel. Even the night you were most vulnerable, you still had your dress on.

Rafayel shifts closer, his eyes never leaving yours as he reaches out, his fingers grazing the hem of your dress. He doesn’t speak, but the silent encouragement is clear in his gentle yet insistent tug. You exhale a shaky breath, your hands trembling slightly as you reach for the zipper at your side. The fabric slides down your body, pooling briefly at your feet before you place it onto the dry sand.

Rafayel’s eyes soak in the sight of you in just your underwear, taking in every dip and curve of your figure. “Beautiful.” he murmurs. His hands reach out, slowly sliding over your calves, stopping just below your knees, the touch sending goosebumps up your legs. Then his lips meet your skin, placing feather-light kisses along your knees and up toward your thighs. His fingers glide over your hips, until they reach the lace edge of your damp underwear. He pauses, his eyes meeting yours again, as if searching for permission.

You nod, heart racing in your chest under his unwavering attention. He hooks his fingers under the lace and slides them down slowly, the fabric clinging slightly to your damp skin before pooling at your ankles. You step out of them, the cool night air brushing against your newly bare skin.

When you glance down at him, the sight catches you off guard. His face is flushed, a bright pink brushing across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He looks at you like he’s seeing you for the first time all over again, and in some ways, he is. The sight between your thighs is one he discovered only a few nights ago, yet it feels like a lifetime to him, one he’s missed painfully in the days apart.

His gaze lifts to meet yours again, and the pure longing in his expression makes you tremble. Slowly, he takes your hand and guides you down, leading you to straddle him, his tail curling slightly beneath you to support you both.

“Beautiful.” he murmurs again, the word barely audible. His hands settle on your hips, holding you there.

A gasp catches in your throat as your bare skin presses against his scales. The sensation is entirely new—cool, smooth, almost impossibly slick against the heat pooling between your thighs. You feel the distinct ridge of his sheath beneath you, the faint bulge growing against your most sensitive parts. Before you can process the new sensations, he leans in, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. His hands trail upward, gliding over your sides, while your fingers clutch his shoulders at first, steadying yourself against the strength of his grip. But soon, they drift upward, tangling in the damp, wavy strands of his hair, and you find yourself pulling him closer, needing more of him.

Your hips begin to move instinctively, rolling against him slowly. The slick scales rub against your sensitive folds, the ridge of his sheath pressing in a way that sends jolts of pleasure up your spine. A soft moan escapes you, muffled against his mouth, and the sound seems to spur him on. Rafayel’s hands move again, sliding up to your shoulders and then to the thin straps of your bra. He tugs them down until they slip off your shoulder. His lips part briefly as he pulls back, his glowing eyes fixed on the fabric still covering your chest. His fingers toy with it, and then he tries to pull it up, but the clasp holds firm.

You realize what’s happening immediately, a soft smile curling on your lips. He doesn’t understand how it works. It’s endearing, the way he fumbles slightly, his expression focused yet confused.

“Here.” you murmur softly, reaching behind you. With ease you unhook your bra, and slip it off, tossing it beside your dress on the sand.

Rafayel freezes for a moment, his eyes drinking in the sight of your bare chest. His lips part slightly, as if he’s about to speak but has forgotten the words. His fingers skim along the line of your collarbone before trailing downward. Rafayel’s glowing eyes lock onto yours, his pupils dilated with arousal, watching you as his hand moves to cup your breast. His thumb brushes over your nipple, the touch light and hesitant at first.

A soft moan escapes your lips, and you arch into his touch. “Like this.” you whisper. You take his hand, pressing it slightly firmer against your skin, showing him the right pressure. His lips part, and he nods faintly, his hand following your lead. Then, his head dips, his lips brushing against the soft skin around your nipple. The kisses are almost cautions at first, but they grow bolder as he gains confidence. His tongue flicks out, wet and warm, tracing delicate circles before his lips wrap around the sensitive bud.

You gasp softly as you feel it—the firm, heated length of him slipping free from its sheath. It presses against your folds, gliding against your sensitive skin.  Your hips roll against him, earning a muffled groan from Rafayel. It’s warm and firm, sliding with ease against your slickness as you grind against him, each movement drawing quiet, breathy sounds from your lips.

Rafayel’s lips remain relentless, his mouth moving from one breast to the other, sucking, licking, and nipping at the sensitive peaks while his hands knead and tease. Each movement of his lips and fingers draws soft gasps from you, your body trembling as the pleasure builds rapidly.

The sensation of the tip catching your clit with each grind of your hips sends jolts of ecstasy through you, your moans mixing with his, his tail flicking restlessly behind you as his own need grows.

“I—I’m -” You can barely form the words, your breath hitching as your orgasm rips through you. His hands steady your hips, guiding your movements to prolong the bliss coursing through you, his eyes watching you fall apart. The sensation of your climax against his cock pushes him to the edge. A moan escapes his lips as he latches onto your mouth in a hungry kiss, drinking in your whines, his chest heaving against yours. His body tenses beneath you, his tail curling slightly as his release spills between your bellies. For a moment, both of you are caught in a haze of your shared release, your breaths mingling as the sound of soothing waves fills the silence.

As your breathing slows, you begin to stir. You expect him to soften and your mind shifts to cleaning up, checking on your dress, and resuming the lighthearted conversation you had earlier. But he is still hard, still insistent between your folds. A faint shiver runs through you as Rafayel’s grip on your hips tightens.

“More.” he murmurs against your lips.

Before you can process his request, his hands move your hips, lifting you slightly, aligning the tip with your slick entrance. He moves slowly, his glowing eyes watching your face, and with a nod you encourage him to continue. As he begins to lower you, his body trembles beneath yours, a low groan slipping from his lips as your warmth begins to envelop him. The stretch is slow at first, as he wants to give you time to adjust to his size, but then his control falters—his hips buck involuntarily, thrusting his length deeper into you.

A gasp escapes your lips, and his hand cups your cheek as he whispers a small sorry with a shaky breath. You can feel the restraint in his voice, the tremor of his hand and in his heavy-lidded eyes, which only makes you crave more of him. You lower yourself fully, your clit pressing against his pelvis as he fills you completely.  Rafayel’s eyes flutter closed, his head tipping back slightly, exposing the smooth line of his throat. The sound he makes is guttural, raw, the kind of noise that sends heat coursing through your veins.

You press your palms against his chest for balance as you start to move. Rafayel’s hypnotizing gaze locks onto yours again, his hands griping your hips as he guides you, his hips moving to meet yours. The rhythm between you builds quickly, the slick friction of his member against your walls drawing breathy moans from your lips.

Then, just as you feel another wave of pleasure approaching, Rafayel stills.

The sudden stop catches you off guard, your hips pausing as you look down at him. He tilts his head slightly, frowning as if he’s straining to hear something just beyond your perception.

“Rafayel?” you whisper.

He doesn’t answer immediately, his focus locked on something in the distance, while his arms move to wrap around your waist, holding you firmly in place.

“People.” he murmurs finally.

You glance over his shoulder, your heart racing, though you can’t hear anything beyond the soft crash of the waves. “Are you sure?” you ask, your voice barely above whisper.

He nods, his expression more alert. His tail shifts again, and in one fluid motion, he flips you on top of your dress, his body covering yours completely. His arms and tail curl protectively around you, shielding you from sight even though it’s him who is truly at risk. His body remains still, tense above yours, yet the sensation of him buried so deeply inside you is impossible to ignore.

Your heart races beneath him, a strange mix of confusion and arousal coursing through you. You part your lips to whisper his name, to ask what’s happening, but before you can do so, his hand gently covers your mouth. “Sorry.” he whispers. His gaze doesn’t leave the horizon, his head tilting slightly as if straining to catch a sound only he can hear.

Then, slowly, his hips move. It’s subtle at first, but then his length slips out and sinks in further with every roll which has you gasping against his hand. His breath catches, a soft groan rumbling in his throat as his hips find a steady rhythm. Even as his attention remains on the distant sound, his body betrays him. Your muffled moans spill against his palm, your back arching to meet his thrusts.

After a few more strokes, Rafayel exhales sharply, his hand slipping away from your mouth, and you only have a second to breathe in before his lips crash against yours. His hand grabs your cheeks as his teeth graze and nip your lips, before his tongue slips between them, tangling with yours. His smooth pelvis smacks against your clit as he picks up the pace, sending electric jolts of pleasure through you.

Just as you begin to lose yourself in the rhythm of Rafayel’s body moving against yours, he stills again. His eyes narrow slightly, focusing somewhere above you.

“What is it?” you whisper, wondering if he heard people in the distance again.

Before he can answer, your phone starts ringing, the sound jarring against the intimacy of the moment. You glance toward the bag where the screen is faintly lighting the inside. “It’s probably Thomas,” you mutter, brushing it off. “I’ll call him back later.” You shift slightly, but Rafayel’s hand tightens on your waist, holding you in place.

“Thomas.” he repeats, his gaze now on you. Then, after a moment, he nods toward the bag. “Answer.” he murmurs, his voice low and firm, though his gaze is far from neutral.

You blink, your body still buzzing. “Really? It’s not important—”

“Go,” he says softly now. “Answer.”

He slips out of you as he speaks, the sudden emptiness almost making you whine. His hands leave your waist just long enough for you to roll onto your front, reaching toward the bag and fishing out the phone. The screen flashes Thomas’ name, and with a resigned sigh, you accept the call.

“Hey, Thomas.” you say, doing your best to keep your voice steady.

Rafayel doesn’t wait though. The moment you’re distracted his hands begin their gentle exploration of your hips and thighs, his fingers tracing over your skin with maddening leisure. You press your face against your arm, trying to steady your breathing.

“Just wanted to check,” Thomas says, his voice warm and friendly, completely unaware of the situation you’re in. “You didn’t message me like you promised. Are you home safe?”

“Y-yeah,” you stammer, your voice wavering as Rafayel shifts slightly behind you. His hands slide towards the curve of your buttocks, kneading and cupping the soft flesh, his touch lingering as though committing the sensation to memory. “I’m fine. Just… uh, got distracted.”

Thomas chuckles softly, his tone light. “Glad to hear it. Actually, I was wondering—my schedule just changed, and I’ve got some free time tomorrow morning. I thought it might be a good chance to visit the beach house. Do you still want to come with me?”

Rafayel leans forward, his lips brushing over the base of your spine, the light kiss sending shivers through you. Then he settles between your legs, aligning himself with your entrance, the tip pressing teasingly against you before he pushes back inside in one fluid motion. You squeeze your eyes shut, struggling to focus on Thomas’ words as Rafayel begins to move.

“I - I’m not sure,” you manage, your voice catching as Rafayel’s thrusts grow more greedy. “I’ll have to check.”

“That’s fine,” Thomas replies. “The place is pretty secluded, though, and I’m not too familiar with the area. But I’m sure you’ll know how to get us there.”

Rafayel’s hips snap forward suddenly, his cock grazing all the right spots inside of you. Your lips part in a soft gasp, but you quickly bite it back, hoping the sound doesn’t carry through the phone. His hands grip your waist firmly, guiding you to meet his rhythm. The wet slap of his hips against your butt grows louder, and you can only pray Thomas can’t hear it over the call.

“I—uh—probably.” you stammer. Your fingers clutch at the phone desperately, while you bite the back of your free hand. Rafayel leans forward, his breath warm against your back.

“Is everything okay?” Thomas asks, concern clear in his voice. “You sound distracted.”

“I’m fine!” you blurt out, your voice higher than intended. Rafayel chuckles softly against your ear, the sound low and teasing, before his hips roll forward again, the force of his movements pulling another muffled moan from your lips.

“I’ll text you later!” you hang up before he can respond, the phone slipping from your hand as a soft moan escapes your lips.

“Everything okay?” Rafayel repeats Thomas’ question, his voice laced with amusement. The faint smirk on his lips doesn’t escape you as you look over your shoulder, his eyes glinting with self-satisfaction as he watches your flushed face.

“You’re sneaky.” you say, your voice half-accusing. You know it’s impossible for you to be annoyed at him.

Rafayel tilts his head, his expression feigning innocence. “Sneaky?” he echoes. “Don’t understand.”

You roll your eyes, but the small laugh that escapes you betrays your exasperation. “Oh, I think you do,” you reply, your voice softening.

Rafayel’s hands trail upward, brushing over your waist as his body leans closer, his weight pressing against your back. His lips hover near your ear, his breath warm as he murmurs, “You feel… good?”

There’s a flicker of something vulnerable in his tone, as though he’s searching for reassurance.

You nod quickly, the words tumbling from your lips without hesitation. “Yes. So good, Rafayel.”

The smile that spreads across his lips is subtle but genuine. He leans further over you, his chest pressing against your back as his hand slips lower, his fingers seeking out the bundle of nerves he’s learned to coax so well. Your breath hitches as he begins to circle your clit, your hips instinctively pushing back against him. He presses more insistently, finding a rhythm that draws sweet moans from your lips.

“Good?” he asks again, his movements unwavering as his fingers draw you closer to the edge.

“Yes,” you gasp, your hand gripping his arm that rests next to you. “You feel so good inside me, Rafayel. Don't stop.” you manage between shaky breaths, the praise slipping out without thought. The words seem to spur him on, his fingers quickening just slightly, enough to push you over the edge.

The orgasm hits you in a rush, your body shaking beneath his as you cry out, muffling the sound against his bicep. Rafayel murmurs something soothing in your ear, his hand slowing but not stopping as he guides you through the aftershocks, letting you feel every last pulse of pleasure.

He waits for you to catch your breath before he moves, his hands slipping under you to lift your body with ease and turn you onto your back. Rafayel hovers above you, his elbows supporting his weight on either side of you, his chest pressed lightly against yours, his warmth enveloping you as his gaze locks onto yours.

For a moment, the world seems to narrow to just the two of you—the glow of his eyes, the warmth of his breath, the weight of his body. His hand moves to cup your cheek, his thumb brushing lightly over your skin as his lips part.

“I missed you,” he murmurs. His hips shift slightly, his length filling you again. “Always… want to be close. Always.”

His words send a shiver through you, the vulnerability in them tugging at your heart. You reach up, your hands sliding into his curls, pulling him closer until your foreheads touch. “I missed you too,” you whisper. “So much.”

Rafayel’s lips find yours again. The kiss is slow, tender, relishing in the quiet moment you have together. His hips move in rhythm with the kiss, each thrust slow and deep, as though he’s savoring every second, every inch of you.

As your lips part, the intensity of his gaze never wavers, his eyes searching yours as his movements grow more urgent, what little restraint he had quickly vanishing . His cock throbs inside you, the sensation intensifying as his hips drive deeper, the wet slide of his thrusts accompanied by the soft, breathy sounds spilling from his lips.

“Rafayel.” you whisper against his lips.

At the sound of his name, his body shudders, his rhythm faltering for a moment before his hips snap forward again, harder this time. “Close,” he rasps, his voice breaking. “So… close.”

You hold onto him tighter, your arms wrapping around his back, while your legs lock around his waist, pulling him flush against you.

And then, with a low, strangled moan, he buries himself deep inside you, his release spilling into you in hot, pulsing waves. His entire body tenses, his arms trembling as he holds himself above you, his forehead resting against yours.

Rafayel’s lips brush against your temple as the tremors in his body begin to subside. His arms tighten around you, pulling you impossibly close until you feel every flex of his muscles, every erratic beat of his heart. You close your eyes, letting yourself melt into his touch, his warmth, his presence—completely enveloped.

The moment his breathing evens, he lowers himself beside you. His arm rests on your waist, pulling you close, his body curving slightly to shield yours as though the world outside your bubble still holds threats. You rest your head against his shoulder, your fingers trailing lazily over the smooth scales of his tail. After a while, you glance up at him. His eyes have softened, the primal need subsided, but the faint blush on his cheeks remains.

“Are you okay?” you murmur, your voice soft.

He nods slowly. “Good… now,” he says. His fingers trail lightly down your arm, as though reassuring himself that you’re still there, still with him.

You smile, your fingers tracing idle patterns over his chest. But the memory of his earlier warning lingers. “You know,” you say, your tone turning playful, “I think I’ve figured out why you told me to stay away tonight.”

His eyes widen slightly, and the faint blush on his cheeks deepens. “Why?” he asks cautiously.

“Well,” you begin, propping yourself up on your elbow. “You’ve been so… sensitive tonight. Fidgety. Like you couldn’t sit still. And, I mean…” Your lips curl into a teasing smile. “I think you’ve been very affected by the moon.”

Rafayel’s cheeks flush a deeper shade, and he averts his gaze, his lips pressing into a pout. “Not… fidgety.” he mutters, his voice defensive but lacking conviction.

You laugh softly, leaning in to nuzzle his neck. “Oh, you definitely were. You didn’t want me to see you like this, huh?”

His arms tighten around you, pulling you closer. “You… tease.” he grumbles.

“Maybe a little,” you admit, kissing his jaw. “But only because it’s so obvious now. You’re adorable when you blush, you know.”

He lets out an almost exasperated sigh. Then, his lips curve into a faint smirk, and he tilts his head to meet your gaze. “Tease… dangerous.”

You laugh softly, tilting your head to look at him. “Dangerous? How so?”

His eyes narrow playfully, “I can… do this all night.” He leans in closer, brushing his nose against your cheek as he adds, “Cutie.”

The word catches you off guard, heat blooming in your face. “C-cutie?” you stammer, meeting his gaze.

He tilts his head, savoring your reaction. “Yes,” he says simply, his smirk widening. “You… blush more. I like it.”

You bury your face in his chest, your laugh muffled against his skin. “You’re impossible.” you murmur, though the warmth spreading through your chest betrays your words.

“Cutie.” he repeats, teasing lilt fading into affection. His fingers trace lazy circles along your back as he presses a kiss to your temple.

The world beyond this moment doesn’t matter—not the sea stretching endlessly behind him, nor the land you call home. Your hearts are bound by something neither of you fully understands, something that defies logic and fate. Maybe the future is uncertain. Maybe there will always be questions without answers, problems without solutions. But here, in his arms, wrapped in his warmth, everything seems possible.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹