SHE KNOWS. HUSK FUCKS.

“Hush, you,” you admonish lightly, cupping his cheeks in your hands and tilting his face up to better meet your eye. Husk’s expression is soft, amused and affectionate in a way that might just be reserved for you when no one else can see. You smooth your thumbs over his cheeks gently. “Keep talking crap about my favourite bartender and I will have to kick your ass.”

“Shudder the thought,” Husk smirks, letting you bring his face up to meet yours in a kiss. One paw squeezes your waist, the other finding your thigh beneath the robe you have wrapped securely around yourself, and a contented little trill sounds against your lips as he lets the kiss linger. You brush your lips again in a few more brief, gentle kisses before you pull away again.

“Speaking of shuddering…” you feel a shiver wrack through you as the cold winds of outside seem to find a new crack in the walls to slip through. The chill of it seems to wrap itself around your very bones, and you huddle closer to the cat petulantly. In response, Husk smiles sympathetically, leaning up to nuzzle his face into the curve of your neck. He bumps his forehead against the underside of your jaw and rubs it there in a very catlike gesture you know he’d deny if you mentioned it. You hum as the cold touch of his nose skims across your collarbone. “Since when can Hell even get cold?”

Husk sighs. “Rarely happens. This is the… third time? Since I’ve been down here. Blows over in a few days, and we’re back to roastin’ all nice and crispy the way the Big Man intended.”

When a shudder runs through you again you groan in annoyance, and Husk smirks, opening his arms and wings up to you. “C’mere, you big baby.”

“Not a baby,” you pout childishly, but lean into all the same. Husk chuckles as you wrap your arms around his middle and bury your frozen fingers in the warm fur of his back, jerking away from your touch when you find his skin beneath it. You giggle, nuzzling your face into his collarbone and inhaling the warm-spice and whiskey scent of him.

“Not a baby,” he agrees, kissing the top of your head. “Jus’ a bit of a bellyacher.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Husk laughs, the sound rich and soft in your ear, and he curls his wings more tightly around you to better envelop you in his own warmth.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

You lose track of time, wrapped up in Husk’s arms, lulled into near sleep by the softness of his fur, the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest. A quiet purr is rolling through him, and when your legs begin to cramp from kneeling over his lap for so long, Husk gently rearranges the two of you so you’re laying side by side under the blankets, your face once more buried in his chest so you can feel the purr against your cheek.

Husk strokes careful claws slowly through your hair and down your back, his muzzle tucked against the crown of your head. He still struggles to understand what exactly you see in an old, washed-up addict like him, but it’s moments like this when he can swear, he almost feels as though the weight of that infernal, invisible chain around his throat isn’t quite there anymore.

The bartender trails his paw lower, smoothing over your hip and down to where your robe has ridden up over your thigh. His claws tickle at the sensitive skin there, and you hum a groan sleepily into his chest. Husk smiles to himself, the expression catching when he feels your own hand trail down his stomach to hook your fingers in the waistband of his pants.

“Careful, sweetness.” he rumbles into your hair, inhaling the sweet scent of your shampoo. “You know what you’re doin’ there?”

“Think I remember how it goes,” you mumble into his fur, fumbling briefly with the button fastening his slacks closed. “’Sides… you started it.”

“Did I now?” Husk’s eyes flutter closed and you feel him exhale heavily against your hair as you slip your hand into his pants and cup your palm against his cock. He’d be almost ashamed to admit that he’s half-hard already, if you weren’t apparently so eager despite the cold. His paw tightens reflexively on your thigh at your touch. “Oh, doll… thank fuck your hands are warm.”

You giggle into his chest, squeezing him teasingly and thrilling at the way his shudders in response. You feel his cock twitch, and you wrap your fingers around it, letting your fingertips trail teasingly over the head of it. Husk groans, low in the back of his throat. “Suddenly all this fur isn’t such a bad thing, is it?”

“Wouldn’t push it that fa—ah…” Husk breaks off with a light moan as you begin to stroke him, squeezing at the base of his cock. He exhales a smile against your hair, nosing at your hairline until you tilt your head back and let him brush his lips against your forehead. “Cheeky thing you are…”

“Husk…” you murmur, tilting your head back further, stretching up to dust kisses over the underside of his chin. “Touch me.”

Husk smiles, bumping his nose against yours. “Finally someone in this fuckin’ place gives me somethin’ I wanna do.”

You laugh as he brings his lips to yours, his kiss sweet and his lips deliciously warm as he echoes you with a muffled laugh of his own. His claws glide up your thigh to caress the curve of your ass, squeezing the muscle appreciatively. You smile into his kiss, quickening your hand slightly, teasing your thumb over the head of his cock. Husk’s teeth catch your bottom lip, and the brief flare of pain thrills you.

“Go slow, baby,” he whispers, kissing your cheek, the bridge of your nose. “I wanna savour it.”

Cheeks pink with the cold and with his words, you nod, eager in a way that Husk almost finds innocent. It charms him, and when you hook your thigh up over his hip he wraps a possessive paw around it. When you push the underwear you wear under your robe aside and guide his cock to slide up against you, Husk kisses you again, groaning into your mouth as he flicks just warm, how wet you are for him already. You whimper as you feel the length of him slide against your clit, the barbs of his cock rising as he reaches full arousal. They tickle at the nerves there; a texture that makes your eyes roll back behind their lids as your excitement grows.

Husk cups your cheek, brushing his lips over yours again before pulling back. He watches your face intently as he presses the head of his cock into you, pupils blown wide as he watches your lips part in a soundless gasp at the feel of him slowly, slowly filling you. You hand finds purchase on his shoulder as though you’re anchoring yourself to him, to the way he feels moving into you, and Husk moves to kiss your forehead again, murmuring so quietly with his lips pressed to your skin that you can’t make out all the words.

“That’s it… feels… fuck…” his claws ghost against the side of your throat. “…good girl for me… that’s it, baby…”

Husk fucks you so, so slowly, each press of his hips into your accompanied by a soft sigh that fans across the top of your face and makes your lashes flutter. You run your fingers through the fur of his chest, reach up to carefully unwind the scarf that’s still wrapped around his neck. Husk lets you toss it aside, smiles as you replace where it rested against the side of his neck with your palm. You rub your fingers through the fur there, down to the massage the nape of his neck and between his shoulders. Husk kisses you again and you let the touch linger, your other hand – the one of the arm trapped beneath you – finds his paw and wraps your fingers around it. The bartender squeezes your hand back, kissing the spot between your brows tenderly.

“Husk…” you breathe his name into his neck, voice catching as he adjusts the angle of his hips. “Fuck…”

Every slide of his cock stretches you wonderfully, every drag of those barbs against your flesh sending sparks up through your spine to curl inside your belly. Husk keeps growling low, chanting your name like some kind of benediction as you squeeze around him. You hook your leg higher on his hip, pressing yourself closer, and you let out a curse, high-pitched and breathy, as it brings him deeper into you.

The heat of Husk’s body, his breath, his cock inside you, is such a contrast to the chill still clinging to your cheeks, and you nuzzle further into his chest as Husk fucks you, nice and slow and agonizingly deep, bottoming out inside you with every thrust. His claws tighten where they clutch at your waist, sliding around to squeeze at your ass, and you gasp into his fur as the move encourages you to stretch wider for him.

“Fuck, baby…” Husk groans into your hairline, voice muted as though he doesn’t want to break the space between you. “Fuck, you feel so good… feel so fuckin’… Christ, you’re gorgeous…”

That tone of voice, those words, they never fail to make you flush, and you tilt your head back and press a kiss to his chin. Husk meets your eye, ghosting a paw up over your side to brush hair away from your face, and he kisses you again.

This kiss lingers all the way through until your orgasm rocks through you, your breath catching in a quiet, shaky moan. Husk watches your face with an almost enraptured look on his, the softest of smiles pulling at the edge of his lips as you shudder in his embrace. He dusts kisses over your face, ghosting his lips over your cheeks, your brow, your nose and always back to your lips as he chases his own release. And when you tease your nails through the fur over his hip he lets out a moan of his own and spill himself into you with one more long, deep thrust.

“So good for me…” he croons, nosing at your temple until you meet his lips again breathlessly. When he breaks the kiss, he doesn’t pull away, speaking softly against your lips. “Love you, sweetness.”

You smile, squeezing the hand he still has wrapped in yours. Husk returns the expression, catching your other hand and lifting it to his face, pressing a kiss to the back of your fingers. Your voice catches a little when you whisper back: