🔪gentle🔪biters🔪club🔪

Destruction is human nature. For all the beauty mankind has created, all the beauty it was bestowed with nature, man will destroy it all for reasons they do not understand. It’s not always anger or pride or power. Sometimes, it’s nearly time. Or the fear of it. The pressure to leave our mark scorched upon the earth or each other so that we don’t fade away when our time comes. That pressure was as large as the atmosphere above our heads and as vast as the soil beneath our feet slowly rotting and withering away from our destruction. Or as small as a piece of paper crumpling and wilting in our grip when we hold onto it for too long. Destruction is in our touch, naturally.

And somehow, Louis’s touch was tender and measured. As if he couldn’t possibly hurt a thing that trusted him to hold it in his hands. But this was simply not the case. Louis’s touch was tender, yes, but it could destroy in seconds what would have taken man’s lifetime build. It wasn’t just the speed of it, no, but also the finality. He could crush substances harder than a man's bone in his fist into dust, vapor, nothingness. Not even using his grip. Just…holding it there. Maybe Louis’s tenderness was not simply measured but a quiet choice. A daily choice to be tender. A choice that went against his nature.

Louis wasn’t human. Or, at least, he hadn’t been for a long time. The last time you asked was maybe four or five years ago. He was two hundred and thirteen then. Frozen at thirty-six. Old enough to witness the destruction of human nature in many forms. Some he contributed to when he was a younger, reckless man, he’d confessed to you. But he also said he made a choice some time ago to no longer participate.

“This stretch of time I’ve been…afflicted with. At one point, I found it fair to rage against everyone and everything because what did it matter t’me? None of it could touch me…none of the consequences. But I think it was that same realization that made me rethink how to use my time.” 

He was sitting on the sofa, your loveseat. The only furniture that could fit in your old, one bedroom apartment before you moved in together a year or so later. The only other piece was a lamp that sat on the tiny end table beside the sofa’s arm on his left side. Casted a warm glow over his lithe shoulders in his black turtle neck and through his hair, the dark coils tight and kind of turning hazel and glistening in the light. You had been sitting close enough that your knees in your comfy leggings were touching as you sat criss-crossed and he sat with his knee crossed over his leg, his sleek, leather loafers still on and unveiling his ankle at the end of the hem of his black slacks. You suggested he remove his shoes and coat to get comfy when he came in and he insisted he was as is, but did remove his coat at least. It was draped over the back of the couch between you. Smelled like the cologne he wore, or maybe it was the detergent he washed it with. It was clean and pleasant...although it made you smile in your mind to imagine a man like him washing his own clothes.

He was looking at you as intently as you were looking at him as you studied him. Maybe he found your brown eyes as curious and fascinating as you found his. Something deeper than brown, something more bright and colorful and revealing years on earth you’d never, ever see except through his gaze.

You were locked in, sort of speaking. You’d been talking for at least three hours. He hadn’t removed his knuckles from beneath his chin as he rested his arm over the back of your sofa and you hadn’t moved your fists clutched together and shoved down on your lap. The night appeared quite young before it started to slip through the slits of your blinds from the lone window in your living room where you sat. Two more hours of conversation wouldn’t hurt. You wanted him to keep sharing. And he wanted to share.

“Did I really want to lie, manipulate, steal, kill, and destroy? Just ’cause I could?” he continued. “Or did I want to give the sweet, ol’ fruit stand lady a tip that amounted to more than she’d make that weekend just to see her smile? ’Cause I could do that, too. And that felt a whole lot better.”

“She must’a had some very delicious fruit. What did she sell?” He’d grinned at that, glancing down for a second as he breathed out a slight laugh through his nose.

“Peaches, tangerines, honeydew, and kiwis.”

“Did you actually eat any of it?”

“I tried a bite or two. Just to see if I could still appreciate the flavor.” You couldn’t help but grin back as his half-lidded gaze trailed up to meet your eyes. There was a warmth to them that faintly bordered on heat and you wanted it to confuse you. You sat in front of him feeling quite homely in your comfortable clothes, hair piled on your head and half-tucked away in your scarf, but you were indeed at home and today was Sunday. Your rest day. No need to put on appearances for him when you never did before. He blinked at you slowly with his long lashes, his eyes leaving yours for a half second to touch your lips. The confusion simmered into a slight covetousness you felt making your fingers twitch. You wished that confused you more. He couldn’t see it with them hidden between your thighs in the dim room. Right? However, his eyebrow raised at you before he said casually, “I gave it all to Iglesia Bautista Bereana. A small church that doubled as a food bank in the barrio there.”

“That was very generous of you,” your voice was hushed but not weak. The air between you was, however, still simmering very gently. You took in a deep breath through your nose and out to hopefully cool yourself, clear your head. He was a client and, in a very, very small, blossoming way, maybe your friend. 

“You’re quite generous yourself.” 

Louis’s tone didn’t help. It was subdued, tender even in his speech, but not fragile, either. There was a depth to his voice that came with either bass or time, a Louisian drawl that rolled on his tongue and pleased your ears. Pleased you a bit more than that. Made your cheeks warm with a blush that wouldn’t show on your brown skin.

“You’ve let me take up most of your evening with my reminiscing. And yet you never answered my question from before,” he reminded you, his voice slipping down an octave.

“Maybe that’s ’cause I didn’t want to.” 

Your voice was flat with a hint of playfulness. You didn’t mind being blunt with him. Yes, you’d only met each other two weeks or so ago at that time, but in your line of work, honesty was the only policy. Lying didn’t make the hours go faster or the work go down any smoother. It was best to say aloud what you would and would not tolerate. And you knew that’s what had likely endeared Louis to you in the first place. He could be just as honest with you and there he was, spilling his guts to you like he’d known you for much longer than fortnight. 

Maybe it was because you were just that fascinating to him. Or maybe he was just lonely. And hungry. Desperation didn’t seem to be in his makeup, though. Pleasantries, yes. Louis was beyond pleasant. A perfect gentleman when he approached you at the hotel lounge’s bar where you were waiting for him. You remembered wearing something black yet form-fitting and a bit short because most men would tip handsomely to ravish you with their eyes before they got to unwrap the prize they paid for. And even though they’d paid, they wreaked desperation. Rich and powerful men but sweaty and nervous or overconfident and uncoordinated as they gulped down their drinks and hurried you upstairs. Louis was none of those things. Tender and measured. He smelled like green apples, ocean breeze, and amber. You remembered his eyes hardly left yours as you conversed at the bar and the conversation, like tonight, was unhurried. 

And while you enjoyed it…it was none of his business why you chose this profession. That was his question from earlier. It made you money and you were able to save some of it to hopefully move on from this place one day. But your lips stayed pursed in a smirk as you watched and listened to him hum.

“That’s fair. I guess I’m sick’a hearin’ myself talk now…I would like for it to be your turn.” The soft grin on his lips hadn’t faltered even with your stubbornness and neither had yours. 

“I’m not usually this chatty with clients as it is…besides. I like hearing you talk.”

“Oh? My voice can’t be that interesting. Yours, however…may I ask where you’re from?”

“Here. I’ve lived in Georgia all of my life.”

“You sound like you’ve traveled…yet you’ve never lived anywhere else?”

“Nope.”

“Now that is interesting. Perhaps you are an old soul.”

“Not as old as you, I imagine.”

“Mm. You’d be surprised by how many lives one can live.”

It was like you both were talking in a code only the other could decipher, but as far as you knew then, Louis was just a man who enjoyed your company. And you were a woman who enjoyed his company, too. And the financial perks that came with it.

“Okay…new question. Indulge me, please.” He changed the topic with a gleam forming in his already shiny eyes. It made you sit up straighter. “Can I know your favorite fruit?”

The seemingly randomness of that question made a small giggle escape you. “I have two. Pineapples and strawberries.”

You remembered he nodded once at that with a quiet, “Ah,” before he finally removed his fist from beneath his chin to tap a couple of fingers over his parted lips and raise his eyebrow as if he were in thought. You felt yourself mirror him in a way as you finally unclasped your fists from your lap and smoothed your palms over your thighs as you raised your eyebrows, too.

“What’s ‘ah?’”

“I’m wondering…I’m curious if I’ll be able to taste the pineapple and the strawberry. Would it be just a hint of the flavor or robust like I’d taken a bite of the fruit myself.”

“What do I usually taste like?”

“Hmm…like a salted, mulled wine? Fragrant, a bit sweet, healthy. You’ve been taking your iron supplements.”

“As you requested.”

“And I thank you.”

You smiled at that and paused in thought. “To taste like fruit…I would have to eat a lot of it, I imagine. Or maybe it’d have to be all I eat for a few days.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t want you to go to that extreme. Not for a silly idea of mine.”

“Louis, if you keep payin’ me what you are now, I’ll happily live on a diet of fruit for the next few weeks. Hell, maybe I’m wondering if it’ll work, too.”

That was when Louis thawed a little more, his shoulders rolling back and his nostrils flaring a bit. His pupils had widened, too, the black of them making you want to stare off into them more so than you already had been that night. Made you wonder for a second if he was doing that special trick of his that he mentioned the first night you met. One he promised he wouldn’t use on you because “I want your consent for the activities we engage in. I want it every time.”

It wasn’t like you weren’t already kind of mesmerized by him, anyway. The intensity that lingered in your gazes was shared, you could feel it. Almost like a breath whispering over your skin, soft and inviting, and you started to lean towards him when he started to lean towards you. This part of the memory always stuck to you, even five or so years later, because it was the first time he kissed you. Not on the lips, however. You recalled closing your eyes once he was close enough to nudge the tip of his nose to your neck, just below your jaw, after he’d swept his fingers around your throat and to the back of it. He’d held them in place at your nape with his hand cupped there so tenderly you barely felt the weight of his palm and his fingertips on your scarf. 

And maybe that was because your attention and senses were more heightened to his lips on your skin, right on your jugular. That wasn’t a new sensation in itself. He had to press his lips to align his fangs with your vein that was still learning not to pulse so quickly when he did this. A mix of anticipation and fear and a secret third thing that you didn’t have the word to name at the moment. But you didn’t feel the prick and then pierce of his sharp teeth sinking into your skin, but instead, his slightly cool breath as he mumbled on your skin, “May I?”

“Yes,” you mumbled back before the seam of his smooth, full, slightly cool lips laid a light kiss on your pulse. Then a breath later, a hiss escaped you when he followed it with the bite into your neck. Your fingers curled into fists on your thighs before you pinched your leggings before you bit the inside of your lips as you pulled them between your teeth. The anticipation and the fear…this part was still odd. You could feel his teeth in you, stuck and still, not even his tongue moving to touch you. Only your blood moved as it flowed into his mouth. 

Then the secret third thing reminded you to unclench and settle before he did with his free hand collecting your hands in his and holding them steady on your lap. His thumb brushed the top of your wrist. His other thumb caressed the back of your head. Those gestures alone would have soothed you but you were already getting there just from the little wave of warmth that trickled through your body, starting beneath his fangs and settling between your thighs for a second. You had never made a sound beyond a gasp or a hiss when he bit you before this moment. He had never kissed you before this moment. So, perhaps, when you thought about it, it was out of your control when you hiccuped a whimper. 

When you thought about it then, and even now, you felt like maybe, in some way, he had unlocked a desire in you that you didn’t want to have unlocked. Pain, as you knew it then, was meant to be a motivator. To help you push through a challenge or curse and earn the pleasure on the other side of it. But this pain…was becoming the pleasure. You noticed it the third time he bit you. You knew now you weren’t alone in it…his kiss from before tingled on your skin and remained etched there with his lips still on you.

You thought that maybe the kiss was blessing his food so to speak. Blessing the pain because it yielded something so much more delicious. He’d fed from you before. Every three days with the money upfront that would pay for three month’s rent. That was the arrangement. But he’d never, ever touched you until it was time to do exactly that. Not a caress, not a hug, not a thing besides his teeth in your neck. Maybe it was because you’d talked enough that night that a new level of “intimacy” had been unlocked for him. He’d told you before that he hadn’t done much talking with anyone else in a long while. A lonely, hungry man…it was dawning on you that his hunger was perhaps layered. You didn’t mind letting him spend a good bit of that wealth on you for your blood and conversation. Oddly, it was a nice change from your usual business and clientele. 

But if Louis sought the usual in addition to your blood…something in you whispered not to charge him extra. Your hand slipped from his grasp to reach up and rest a palm on the side of his face. He began to pull away from then, you felt his fangs unlodge from your neck, the cool air of the room licking at your wound before the tip of his tongue did to seal it like it was never there. You dropped your hand from his face but he caught your wrist before you could retreat from him. His touch was as tender as his eyes on you, your faces close enough that your noses almost brushed together as you looked back at him.

Your breathing filled the silence, you were trying so hard not to pant. Louis let out a breath through his lips that he didn’t retrieve from his lungs, you knew as much. You didn’t know at the time, however, if it was a sigh of disappointment in your reaction or a hushed hum of craving that he shared. Not until he brought your hand back up to his face before he quietly asked again, “May I?” and you nodded, watching him lay a kiss on each of your knuckles as he watched you back, observing your eyelids fell low as your skin tingled again. You didn’t know a kiss to feel as good on a spot like that.

“Are you glamouring me?” you mouthed the intrusive thought. He shook his head once while holding the back of your hand to his slender cheek.

“No. And I won’t. I know you remember my promise.”

“You also promised you’d never elicit services from me beyond my blood.”

This reminder made him hum but he didn’t let go of your hand. In fact, you remembered his hand that was on your nape skimmed a path along your skin to find your chin that he held between his pointer and thumb. His thumb was long enough to caress just beneath your bottom lip as it parted from your top from the slight pull of his touch. 

“I intend t’keep that promise, too.”

“Why?” More honesty. It was what you stood on. Yet while you wanted to believe he wouldn’t plant suggestions in your mind, you suspected he could hear what was on it, anyway, because his eyes somehow grew blacker with that gleam that felt knowing. And you wanted to know if all he truly yearned for was your blood.

“Do you want me to go back on my word?”

He didn’t smile even though his tone sounded nearly teasing. Instead, you watched him begin to kiss your knuckles again and then the inside of your wrist. Just one, lingering kiss. Right along your veins.

“Why did you make such a stupid promise in the first place?”

Your question lost its rigor when he kissed a bit higher along your arm and you sighed. You swore he glamoured you. You remembered you felt almost dizzy…your little sounds when he reached the inside of your elbow, marking your full veins there with another touch of his soft lips made him sigh through his nose on your skin, too.

Louis kept going, taking his time as he kissed up and over your shoulder and past the spaghetti strap of your tank top. It felt like it took him minutes to reach your chin that he still held as his lips ghosted a kiss at the corner of your mouth. Your eyes had fallen shut a while ago as you let yourself get lost in the sensation of his mouth on you…there was a sweetness to it that you realized you hadn’t felt in a very long time. Some men tried to be sweet and soft like this with you but it flowed from Louis like it was his nature. His lips and his voice washed over you like milk and honey and settled deep and warm within you. You heard his tone match the softness of his touch, felt it brush your cheek, as he repeated his question firmer then, “Do you want me to go back on my word?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He parroted your question and in the same airy tone that left you as he kissed your cheek. 

“Because I want you to touch me more.”

“Where?” He left a kiss on your jaw.

“Everywhere.”

“Aren’t you tired of being touched? I thought our arrangement allowed you a reprieve from that?” He pressed a kiss to your earlobe. His voice sinking into it at a low hum of concern and longing that seeped very low in you, too, down between your thighs again. Surely, he had to be glamouring you to make you go back on your words.

“This is an exception. You broke the rules first…” Your head tilted to the right when Louis’s lips trailed to your neck. The side he hadn’t bitten. You wanted to tense up at the thought of his fangs in you again, but it was that same thought that made a whimper leave you when he kissed at your pulse.

“Fair…but this is why. Look at you. Respondin’ with pleasure when you’re usually silent. What’s changed?” Louis whispered on your pulse before his nose traced it.

“I think you already know.” You were starting to feel lightheaded.“You can hear it in my head, can’t you?”

“I can smell you.” His tone slipped into a sultriness that weighed the bass in it. Your body reacted like it was guilty and it was. You throbbed where you now knew he could smell your arousal and you realized then how wet you were when you felt your panties cling to your tiny movement. “This is the third time your body has given you away…”

“And you kept me waiting until now because…?” Your head swiveled back now, your closed eyes facing the ceiling as Louis trailed his kiss to the center of your throat. When his hand enclosed there, too, and held your neck like it was made of glass as his thumb caressed your pulse that was erratic, you whimpered deep, like a purr. Your hands sought him then, you were tired of his teasing, but your fingertips grazed the soft fabric of his shirt long enough to feel just a hint of the soft yet firm abs beneath it. He’d taken your wrists again to pin them carefully on his thigh.

“Because I wasn’t sure I could be…gentle enough for you.”

“You’re always gentle…even when it hurts,” you encouraged him. You wanted to scoot yourself onto his lap and encourage him more by straddling him. Your thighs were already spread and facing him in this position…but he leaned into you, instead. His hand on yours moved to sink into the cushion at your side as his fingers around your throat carefully guided you onto your back. He didn’t lay on you fully but rather hovered as you opened your eyes to see him watching you with blackened eyes as it had grown full and hungry. The tableside lamp illuminated his frame in back shadow above you like he was some sort of fallen angel. You didn’t find his appearance alarming…quite the opposite. Your hands reached for him again to rest on his chest. You balled them up into fists with the fabric of his turtleneck to ease him down onto you until his lips landed on yours.

You liked the sound he made. That hum but fuller, closer to a groan you tasted and swallowed. You let him fit his mouth against yours as he followed your lead, suckling at your bottom lip as you felt his top lip between yours. Plump and silken and warm but you realized it was your own heat melting into him. You were starting to melt, too, that heat between your thighs where Louis pressed his hips to you...you were more soaked than before. A rumbling gasp left you when he nudged his hips against you like he could read your mind. You wanted to feel how thick he was, if he was thick, if he was hard for you. He was...

That hum again, ached and breathy as he pulled back an inch to observe you.“You like the pain.” He stated. His hand was just beneath your jaw pressed with the tiniest amount of pressure. It didn’t block your airtake as you sucked in a breath to moan it out to him. The pressure felt good. You wanted more. “Do you want me to hurt you?”

“Yeah…yes.”

“Yeah?” he repeated in that melodic tone, in tune with his hips moving to fit snug where you sought to tilt up against him. Louis steered your gaze back to him when your eyelids went slack from his grip on your neck, his slacks not leaving any room for the imagination to run because you felt him. You dipped your chin in a hazy nod as he gave you the more you silently craved as his fingers fastened about your throat but still left you room to breathe as he ground against you. A raspy moan broke out of you and you knew before you knew that you were going to fall into pleasure you couldn't control...but then he loosened his grip and went still. You were fit to pout before he kissed your cheek once more to soothe you. A murmur on your skin that sounded only a hair strained, but honest. Always honest. “Do you understand...my tenderness is a skill I reserve for you?”

“I d-do,” you pleated. You had certainly tried to be tender at that moment. Nothing could hurt him but it felt barbarish to tug at his shirt like you wanted it off, even though you did. Nothing about this felt natural but Louis was supernatural…what did he care to feel your desire find its strength to be closer to him? You knew he wanted to be closer to you, too…you’d felt the same desire in him in then with over a hundred years of grace to refine it for...you. A hand at your neck and his lips at your ear with tender words that you made ready to feel them simmer against your skin with his tongue.

The words left you and breezed through his coils above his ear that you kissed when you felt a delicate kiss at your temple. Honest and hungry. Like him. “I want to feel you. All of you...I...trust you.”

Divider by @chrisssiren!