#intertidal zone

You swear Rafayel is doing this on purpose. 

The first time it happens is right after your flight, the two of you only just managing to check into your hotel and change for dinner.

It's a fancy restaurant overlooking the vast desert, and the outdoor patio offered a clear view to gorgeous sunset. Furious spirals of orange and vermillion cast their light across the sand, making it appear to glow as winds kick up waves of golden dust along the horizon.

It’s beautiful, almost as much so as the man across you, who is still staring longingly into the distance as though committing every color to memory. As if repainting it entirely in his mind. 

Not hues of warmth, but those of the deep sea. Blues and purples and colors so dark they’d only come to life in the night. 

“How’s your drawing?” 

Rafayel sighs at your voice, tossing his pen across the dinner table with a huff before leaning back against the sofa. A stack of crumpled sketches litter your table among half-finished plates of food. He insisted on traveling here to relax, and yet he seems to be doing everything but. 

“If a few lines count as a drawing, then wonderfully.” Sassy as ever.

He sighs again, but this one sounds more pained, and you notice the red tinge highlighting his ears and neck as he leans against your shoulder. 

“You still don’t feel good?” You ask, voice hushed as you place a kiss against his temple, the skin burning beneath your lips. Raising a hand, Rafayel immediately nuzzles into your palm as you pull his chin up towards you, feeling the rising temperature along his cheek and forehead. “We can head back if you’d like. Take a bath, or shower?” 

You hoped the together was implicit by now.

But Rafayel only nods, placing a chaste kiss against your exposed shoulder. “What about the sunset? I saw you admiring it, and squandering a beautiful view is unacceptable for an artist. It’s one of the greatest offenses.”

Rafayel’s breath is minty and dry against your ear, and when you turn to look at him, his face is doused in the fiery hues of the sunset, each one casting deep purple shadows that only make his features all the sharper, half his face veiled in darkness. 

Some days you wish you were an artist as well, if only to capture moments like this—to show Rafayel just how gorgeous he was. 

Perhaps it’s only natural for a god. After all, no mortal could ever need beauty so violently arresting, so worthy of worship. 

You’re leaning in despite yourself. 

Rafayel meets you halfway, one hand on your waist as the other traces your jaw and bottom lip. But as soon as you feel the brush of his lips across yours, he pulls away. 

You open your eyes in confusion. Rafayel’s never denied you before. 

When you look at him in question, he only gives you a tired smile and pulls you to your feet with a chaste kiss on your cheek. “Sorry. I’ll feel better as long as I’m close to you like this.”

The second time it happens is when the hotel reception mixes up your and Rafayel’s rooms, leaving you to deliver some sort of formal invitation to him. 

But the letter is soon forgotten; you can’t be bothered thinking about it, not when Rafayel still looks so absent.

He’s right next to you, knees brushing yours as you sit side by side on the couch, and yet he seems to be miles away, gazing out the window as the dunes shift and rise like waves under the moonlight.  

"I used to really enjoy scenic spots before," Rafayel says, voice barely rising above the hum of the heater. "Catching sights of subtle things that might be easily overlooked used to feel like enough. More satisfying than finishing a painting, even."

A laugh. Dry, humorless. 

His fingers grazed the edge of his glass, tracing the condensation absentmindedly. A droplet trails down his wrist. "But now, sometimes, I forget why I even decided to travel in the first place.” 

You watch him, waiting. He doesn’t meet your gaze.

"I think," Rafayel continues, "somewhere along the way, I stopped just... noticing things. And I started needing them. Like the world wasn’t worth looking at unless I could turn it into something. Capture it, hold it in my hands, and call it mine." He shakes his head, a shadow of a smile crossing his lips. "It’s not a very generous way to live, is it?"

"You don’t need to be generous with everything," you say carefully. "Some things are just... for you to enjoy."

"Enjoy," he repeats, like the word doesn’t quite fit in his mouth. A pout. "It doesn’t feel like enjoyment anymore. It feels more like... hunger.” 

Like he’s always fucking starving.

Rafayel finally turns to look at you, eyes eclipsed in the dark. Nearly dilated black. 

“Sometimes I’m afraid that if I feed it, it’ll only grow worse.”

You turn to face him on the couch, sliding your leg between his thighs before perching yourself on Rafayel’s lap. It’s not lost on you how his heartbeat picks up, chest rising and falling rapidly as each shallow breath hits your lips. Perhaps it’s cruel, but you can’t help but touch him again, fingers tracing his full lips, up his jaw, fluttering against his eyelashes and into his hair.

“You think hunger gets worse when you feed it?" You finally ask, voice quiet, slow, daring to push back. "Doesn't it stop when you're full?"

Rafayel’s mouth quirks, a sharp, fleeting twist of a smile. "Not always. Sometimes it makes you realize just how much more you want. Or how much more you could take."

You frown. “You’re not demanding anything. Not from the world, not from me."

"Maybe not yet. But, if one day, I become someone who only takes… If I were like that, would you leave me?"

The confession hangs for a moment, the truth of it hidden. Something about the way his shoulders tense under your touch— like he's bracing for something, but it hasn’t yet arrived. A phantom pain from centuries ago, and a pain to come for a thousand years more. 

“Silly fishie, I’d never leave you.” 

Rafayel smiles in a way you know all too well, lopsided and teasing and empty.

“Thank you…” he hums, finally pulling you closer as his lips skim alongside the curve of your neck. “for accepting me the way I am.”

His breaths come out in desperate huffs against your skin, and he inhales sharply, freezing, before finally placing a kiss against the crook of your neck. And then another, and another. 

“You’re just anxious,” you whisper, sucking a mark into Rafayel’s neck as he moans so sweetly against your ear. “I can help you relax.”

You wiggle your hips to better balance yourself on his lap and Rafayel looks almost near tears, one hand forcing you still while the other grabs your wrist, trailing kisses from your fingertips back up to your neck.

More. You need more. Rushing, your hands fly up into his hair, about to tug Rafayel to lay down on the couch when a crack echoes behind you. 

The glass lays shattered against the floor. 

Panting, Rafayel stares at the spilled water for a long moment before pulling away. You feel his erection digging into your thigh, the warmth of his fever spiking yet again as his skin burns against yours, yet he still refuses. 

“As you said, I’m anxious…” Still panting, Rafayel picks you up, gently lifting you up as he stands from the couch. “Or, more like restless. In every sense of the word.” 

The need in his eyes almost makes your knees buckle. He looks at you like you’re the only thing he could ever crave, like a bite would both be salvation and leave him hungry forever. 

“But see, now I can’t stand the idea of letting you go again, and you don’t want me to either.” He sets you down just a little farther than necessary, but his hands don’t leave your waist, trembling, waiting. “What should we do?”

“Rafayel…” You want him. You want him so badly it hurts. 

“Fuck.” 

You nearly jump at that. Rafayel curses again, his head falling onto your shoulder as his breath hitches. “I can feel your concern. That and…” another convulsion, his body burning up. “Fuck. You have to leave.”

You don’t even have time to retort before you’re pushed out of his hotel room, and the door slams shut behind you. 

By the third time, you know something is wrong. 

It’s not that you and Rafayel haven’t kissed yet. Hell, you’ve had sex before. The last time was quite literally on the night before you were supposed to leave for this trip. Obviously, Rafayel suggested that you stay at his place for the night—insisting he was closer to the airport and getting an Uber would be quicker this way—and one thing led to another, as is what happens nearly every time Rafayel and you are left alone for too long. 

But now it’s been nearly a week and Rafayel has barely touched you, let alone picked up on your not-so-subtle clues. 

So yes, it's safe to say you’ve become rather pent up. 

You’ve fallen asleep in the off-roader the two of you rented out for the day, bobbing up and down the dunes like waves flecked white not with seafoam but snow. There’s a chill as you drift off, but your dreams are anything but, plagued with memories of Rafayel. 

His hands, deft and talented with a brush, are even more so when teasing your skin, knowing exactly how to trace delicate circles against your thighs before roughly curling into your cunt. His tongue, every smartass comment and teasing grin now silenced as he licks and sucks against your clit. His body, the warmth of it, bearing down on you with every thrust, or perhaps writhing beneath you as you take him again and again and again— 

It’s the cold that wakes you up. 

Your eyes flutter open, first noticing the dim light of the hotel parking lot, and second, the burning desire still aching between your legs. 

“Rafayel?”

A shuffle makes you turn, and you find said man still seated in the driver’s seat, unbuckled as he sits with his head resting on his hand. 

“Yes, cutie?” Rafayel’s tone is teasing, but the way he stares down at you feels like anything but. The hunger is back. 

Sitting up, you clear your throat. “How long have I been asleep? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“You seemed like you were having such a nice dream, I didn’t want to disturb you.” 

You inhale sharply. Glaring, you try and see if he’s teasing again or being serious, but Rafayel doesn’t let you read him for long, already leaning over the middle console. 

He places his lips gently on your temple, brushing over the skin, and then moves down to your cheek, his breath warm against your neck. He whispers your name, so softly you almost think it was a trick of your imagination.

Your mind goes blank when he kisses your jaw, a small noise escaping the back of your throat as you feel his hair tickle your skin.

"Raf," you mumble under your breath, but you know he hears it because he exhales sharply against you.

Rafayel trails a series of kisses up your neck, "I know, I know. I'm sorry, cutie." His body temperature is rising again, and the air in the van feels dangerously thin as he sways in your grasp. "I'm trying."

The hunger is back, all-consuming and hot as you genuinely fear you might burn up. A wave of dizziness washes over you, and you finally cup Rafayel's jaw, leading him towards your lips.

Yet again, he stops you halfway.

“Do you want to go back to your room first?”

At first you think he’s suggesting moving there before continuing, but you know better at this point. 

“You’re not coming with me?” 

Rafayel pulls out the invitation from before, waving it between the two of you as if all this was the letter’s fault. “I still have to attend my friend’s salon thing.”

“But you’re still burning up! Forget this, I can’t let you go out to who knows where when you’re still acting strange. Maybe we can see a doctor—”

“Cutie…”

“—No, no. Or maybe I can come with you.”

Rafayel says your name this time. Firmer. Cutting off your rambling as he places his forehead against yours. 

“Do you want me to turn into a sea creature that’s beached on the sand after the ocean recedes? Leaving me to suffocate when I come out of the water?” 

You don’t quite know how to respond to that, feeling his desperation in every word even as you struggle to make sense of it.

Rafayel continues, pulling away from you again. “Don’t you trust me? How about we make a promise?”

“What kind of promise?”

A smile. “I promise… I’ll be okay without you tonight.”

There’s no joke, no hidden meaning, just Rafayel who so violently hopes that this promise will hold true. 

So you relent. “Okay, just take care of yourself.”

Finally, Rafayel opens the car door, letting the desert night winds sweep in with a biting chill as he leans back against the driver’s seat. He lets out an almost inaudible sigh. “You can head back. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Rafayel promised he’d be okay without you tonight, but you don’t think the opposite could hold true. 

Not when the dizziness Rafayel caused remained. Not when you still feel the phantom touch of his lips and hands all over your body, burning you up, leaving you cold and empty and aching. 

You’ve been burning for the better part of a week now.  

Something stuck between a laugh and a cry of pure frustration leaves you as you fall onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “This is pathetic.”

Even the damned sheets smell like Rafayel, pillows deeply laced with his shampoo and the smell of his cologne—amber, yuzu, and something salty like the ocean—surrounding you as though this were his hotel room and not yours.

Desert nights were cold, but even the room's chill could do nothing to quell your desire, arms shaking with it as you quickly stripped yourself of your shirt and bra. The room spins as you stumble around, leaving your clothes on the floor, another delirious whimper seizing you as you sprawl against the silk sheets. 

You need him. 

Fuck, you need him, and you hate him for leaving you while the growing ache between your thighs threatens to swallow you whole.

The sheets are deliciously cool against your flushed skin, and you turn your head to rest your cheek in the cool embrace of the pillow. But it only needs a second to heat from your desire. 

And then the room is all too hot once again. 

Kicking off your pants, your hand snakes down your bare torso, leaving half-hearted squeezes to your breasts and hips, failing to replicate the touch Rafayel already has you addicted to. The memory only makes you more frustrated. 

A hand slips beneath your soaked underwear, and fuck, you’re dripping enough to ease your fingers in already. You force yourself to slow down, rubbing slow circles around your entrance, the mere friction enough to have your hips bucking up against nothing. 

Inhaling sharply, you slide a finger into your weeping cunt, a moan pushing from your lungs as you do. Not enough. It’s not enough.

You force yourself to draw each movement out, the curl of your wrist accompanied by your muffled cries and the slick, obscene sounds echoing alongside your ragged breath. Withdrawing your finger nearly to the fingertip, two plunge back in this time, and your back arches off the bed with violent tremors as you imagine it was Rafayel's hand instead.

How he’d tease you in the early mornings to wake you up, how he’d take special care of every sensitive spot on your body, how he’d draw his fingers along your clit just the way that will make you come undone.

And as your fingers find that sensitive bundle of nerves, the way you cry his name into the empty room is no different.

Your head is spinning, falling, your thighs shake, and it's not long before you're gasping out, "Rafayel, please.”

Still not enough. Every rough thrust of your fingers brings you higher and higher, but without the pressure of Rafayel's chest pressed to yours, or his hot breath ghosting across your ear, his voice, his lips, his touch—

Without him.

A sob rips from your throat, your hips bucking uselessly against the air as you fuck yourself harder, deeper. But your fingers are only so long, and your free hand, fisting the sheets, is unable to make up the difference. "No, no please," a whine, and your free hand rushes to circle your clit, the other picking up pace.

You're close, so close, sobbing his name when the dizziness from the car returns tenfold, overtaking your body in waves as your eyes roll back. "Please, ah! Rafayel, m’cumming-"

The world goes silent as pleasure surges through you, muscles convulsing, a choked, garbled sound escaping as you come. Collapsing back against the sheets, you struggle to catch your breath, the stickiness of both the heat and your orgasm coating your thighs. 

There’s another tug, a violent pull against your chest, but the dizziness remains. 

You know you should change the sheets or at least move them aside, but you can’t manage to do either as you rush to shower before Rafayel returns from his friend’s exhibition. 

It’s only when you stumble into the bathroom that you notice it. 

Shit. This is Rafayel’s room. 

You must be trying to kill him.

Surely, this is the gods' cruelest trial—a final test of his resolve—to see if he’d bow once more, forsaking divinity and succumbing to the temptation of you.

Because it’s been barely an hour, and Rafayel has already resigned himself from the party, passing blank smiles and empty compliments as he quietly counts down the minutes until he can return to the hotel, when suddenly he feels it.

The tug of your bond flashes through his body as his dick aches.

Rafayel freezes mid-sentence, the polite smile he'd been wearing slipping from his face. The conversation at the bar around him, something about chiaroscuro in the artist’s latest piece, become muffled static as the chains tighten, digging into his heart. 

It’s unmistakable now. The rhythm, the rising intensity, the waves of pleasure that don’t belong to him but still manage to spark delirious heat up his veins.

Rafayel’s breaths quicken, body temperature rising as his Evol flickers out of his control. He glances around the room, feigning interest in the conversation, the glittering glasses of champagne, the faint hum of the crowd. It doesn’t work. The only thing he can focus on is you.

He should leave. Go outside, breathe in the night air, and let the tether between you both loosen, just to regain control. Just to prove to himself it’s not too late.

But the bond tightens, as invasive as it is intoxicating, demanding Rafayel’s attention like a leash coiled around his neck. It’s not gentle. It’s not kind. It’s primal, every nerve in his body pulled taut like you’re screaming his name over and over into the depths of his soul. 

It’s not fair.

No god can deny the prayer of a worshipper.

Your pleasure becomes his, and when Rafayel closes his eyes, he swears he can feel your phantom hands on him, dick already heavy and throbbing, leaking through his expensive trousers.

Are you in bed, thighs trembling as you grind against your own palm? Or maybe the shower, steam curling around you as you chase release? Or worse—are you riding something of his? His shirt? His pillow? Is this vengeance a cruel punishment meant to shatter what little resolve he has left? 

Shit. He’s hard.

“Hey man, what’s wrong? You good?” 

The slam of a glass brings him back. Gods, he hates these rich socialites. 

The champagne glass Rafayel was holding is now covered in cracks, blood trickling down his ring finger. He’s unraveling, composure fracturing with every pulse of your pleasure surging in and out as violently as a full moon’s tide. 

Rafayel looks up, smiling. “Stress. And apparently a very needy pet.”

The man laughs at what he assumed was a joke, but Rafayel sees his hesitation, the type animals give when they pick up rustling in the bush. Fear. 

Rafayel’s grin only widens, all teeth. “I should probably go check on her. Wonderful party,” he adds, lifting his glass in a half-hearted toast before setting it down with a sharp clink.

As he steps outside, the desert air does nothing to soothe him. If anything, the dryness makes it worse as the pull becomes sharper, like you’re reaching for him, your need coiling tighter around his chest.

A growl, almost feral, rumbles low in his throat as he staggers down the cobblestone streets. He doesn’t need directions. He doesn’t even need to think. His body moves instinctively, guided by the bond, by you. 

Rafayel swears he can feel you all across his body, your heartbeat picking up as you get closer, the smell of your skin and arousal, the cries of his name that only become more and more desperate as you fail to bring yourself over the edge without him. 

You’re begging for him in a way his bond mistakes for worship, because Rafayel’s body feels like it’s burning. Like blood spilled on his altar, an offering of yourself to your god, your husband.

The thought that you might be doing so unintentionally only drives him further into madness.

But, beneath the frustration, there’s something else. A glimmer of something Rafayel hates to name but knows all too well: relief.

Because as much as he might deny it, Rafayel could never leave you. And now that you’ve reciprocated, now that you’ve begged for him oh so sweetly, he would gladly submit to his bond and become chained to you once again, forever at your mercy, unable to escape the inevitability of his fate.

He doesn’t even knock when he reaches the hotel room door. It swings open under the force of his hand, and the sight of you standing there—wide-eyed, startled, only in a bath towel—hits him like a blow to the chest.

There's a soft click as Rafayel locks the door. A hurried shuffle of shoes as he all but stumbles toward you, closing the distance between you in one hurried, unstoppable motion. A startled gasp as he grabs your face in his hands.

It's the last breath you take.

An arm wraps around your waist, blocked by only a flimsy hotel towel as Rafayel violently spins you around. Your surprise is swallowed by his lips as you’re pinned against the window, the chill of the desert snow, frosted against the glass, a harsh contrast to the burn of his touch. His hand pins yours at the wrist as he stares down at your fingers.

“Rafayel? What are you doing here?” 

The question barely gets out, not before he rushes forward to claim you in a kiss, if it was even that. A desperate, consuming need overtakes him, Rafayel pushing you back so insistently that your head hits the window with a thud, pain immediately distracted as his clothed knee grinds up between your bare thighs. 

Holy fuck, just a towel. Right.

You try to push him back, one hand pressing against his chest as the other flies back to tighten the towel. “Wait–”

Rafayel kisses you again. And again. And again. 

You can feel the cloth slipping.

But Rafayel makes it very hard to care. His hand traces your throat, your heartbeat, then drags you closer by your hips as he thrusts forward in time, still caging you against the window. He’s relentless, every kiss only broken with a ragged breath or gasp as though he’s given up on breathing entirely, content to consume you instead, his tongue sweeping against your lip before it coaxes yours to meet it halfway, licking and sucking into your mouth.

It’s obscene, animalistic, and you swear that there has to be something wrong with you because the dizziness is back, and this time it’s enough to make your knees buckle, the two of you blindly stumbling across the hotel room.

So you bite him. 

“Why–” Breathe. Remember how to breathe. “Why are you here?”

Rafayel almost looks offended, thumbing his bitten lip before licking away the smudge of blood with a lopsided smile. 

Fuck, he’s hard. You feel the heat of his cock jolt against your thigh, pressing into you as he surges forward again, kissing you as his hands squeeze and cup your waist, lifting you up.

"Why?" Rafayel laughs, roughly grinding up against you, your legs wrapping instinctively around his hips. "This is my room, remember? You’re the one who decided to come in here." He growls the last part, licking, biting, sucking at your throat. 

“Or was that intentional?”

The look in his eyes is feral. 

There’s no hesitation left, no half-riddled questions, no sweet praises, no semblance of your devoted lover. Just hunger. He’s rushing, pushing forward even with nowhere to go, almost in revenge. In punishment. Your teeth click together, foreheads bumping, unable to talk because when you try to open your mouth his tongue only slides in deeper. 

The wet sounds echo against your ears alongside your racing heartbeat, only causing you to grind harder, rougher, before Rafayel ungracefully drops you onto the bed. 

Your body bounces on the mattress, but it gives you a moment, and you scramble to cover Rafayel’s lips with your palm before he can begin devouring you again. 

“What I meant was, shouldn’t you still be at that art salon?”

He all but collapses into your touch. Lips parted, he grabs your wrist, tongue darting out as he licks up your middle and ring fingers, moaning against your skin. 

“I tried. I tried going, leaving.” He's panting, breathing in your scent before biting your palm. “But you called me back, you cruel, selfish human. And now I’ll never leave again.”

Your words come out between moans, unable to look away. “I called? I didn’t do—” You’re cut off as Rafayel licks up your skin, sucking lightly at your fingertips as his eyes, half-lidded and blown out stare down into yours. 

Oh.

A hot flush of embarrassment seizes you and Rafayel must sense it because his eyes flutter closed. His hips snap forward, grinding his erection into the side of the bed, and he lets out a low whine.

Gods, the taste of your cum lingers in Rafayel’s mouth. Every dry swallow, every inhale, every damn breath tastes like you, and it makes him want to submit to every horrid urge and simply consume until—

“You don't think I know? Don't think I can’t tell?” Rafayel goes back to kissing your wrist, needing something more, something stronger. His hand ventures to the edge of your towel. ”Can feel everything you do, no matter how far away I go. Gods, I feel it, feel everything, and it drives me insane. Need you so bad, need to hear you, feel you, taste you..."

A shudder runs up Rafayel’s spine at the mere thought, and he can't stop himself anymore, leaning down to suck your fingers into his mouth, tongue curling around the digits, saliva coating your fingertips. He rips the towel from your body.

"Say you need me too," He’s begging, sinking down to your knees. "Say you need me just as badly. I–ah fuck—I can smell how much you want me."

Throwing the towel to the floor, Rafayel runs his hands down your chest, rougher, long fingers cupping and massaging your breasts as his mouth trails wet kisses down your stomach, his tongue dragging against the smooth skin, a clear goal in mind as he settles between your thighs, looking up at you as though you were a thing worthy of worship. His Goddess. 

He’d offer himself to your alter time and time again. So long as he was the only one who got to bleed for you. 

“Yes.” You’re already soaked, the sight of Rafayel panting between your thighs enough to have you babbling, ”Yes, Rafayel. I needed you so, so badly all week. Couldn’t help m’self, please.”

He freezes at that, pouting. “Right, you already came, didn’t you. So mean, cutie. Leaving me out.”

Before you can argue, Rafayel dips his head, dragging his tongue up your cunt before sucking roughly at your clit. 

Your legs thrash above his shoulders. “Ah– wait, not so!” It’s too much too soon. Still sensitive from your prior orgasm, your back arches violently off the mattress, but Rafayel pays it no heed, deaf to your cries as he sloppily makes out with your pussy, drool and slick connecting his lips to you in sticky strands even as he pulls away just far enough to talk. 

“She’s already so sensitive, s’not fair,” he pouts, mouthing against your thigh as he flicks your throbbing bundle of nerves. You jolt, gasping at the sharp jolt of pain. At the same time, Rafayel fucks his tongue into your cunt, just barely dipping in before he moves back to rub nonsensical patterns on your clit. “But this is mine. I don’t want you touching it without permission anymore.”

Fuck, if you had any semblance of a coherent thought you would have argued, maybe even laughed at the sheer audacity of the man.

Instead, all you can manage is a pathetic whine of his name, because the strange swirls and harsh lines he’s licking into your clit aren’t patterns at all but letters, spelling something over and over and over again. 

R-A-F-A-Y-E-L-R-A-F-A-Y-E-L-R-A-F-A-Y—

The ring of the hotel phone buzzes from the nightstand. It’s the artist whose party Rafayel left only minutes ago.

“Tch,” Rafayel scoffs in annoyance, whiping his chin as he goes to decline the call.

But this gives you a moment to breathe, and all you can think of is getting revenge. Especially on the bastard who tried to take Rafayel from you tonight. 

“Wait,” you grab his wrist. “You’re just going to hang up? What if it was something important?”

Rafayel turns to you with narrowed eyes, knowing there’s no good intent behind your wicked smile. It turns you on more than you can admit, the sight of his glare, mad at both the call and you interrupting his feast. But Rafayel can't deny you anything and does as he’s told, pressing accept. 

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

Instantly, you have Rafayel on his back. 

His neck looks far too bare, and you climb onto his lap, enjoying the way his pulse kicks up under your palm.

Ripping his shirt’s buttons off, you begin biting dark spots down the pale expanse of his chest and neck. You’re about to aim right for the glowing mark on his chest when the phone beeps again, playing a voice recording of a clearly very drunk man. 

“Why did you leave, bro? Come back here r’now. One more round of drinks a—” Incoherent laughter and sounds of clinking glasses. 

No. No, Rafayel’s not allowed to leave you, not again. 

You don’t know where the fear comes from, but you force yourself closer on top of him, breasts pressing into his abs as Rafayel shivers beneath you. Leaning down, you kiss the glowing mark atop his heart, admiring the way it flickers and glows when Rafayel bucks into your touch, moaning as you begin to nip and suck in earnest. 

And then you’re flipped onto the mattress once more. 

Rafayel’s heaving, arms trembling to keep himself up. Away. “...Are you sure?”

“If I don’t, then you might actually leave. What will you say if you’re asked why you didn’t go back?”

Rafayel smirks, and you catch a glimpse of fangs as he sits back on his knees. There’s a click, the rough sound of metal on metal as he undoes his belt, unzipping his trousers with one hand as the other cups the inside of your thigh, yanking it over his shoulder as he drags you down the bed. “I’m busy.”

And then he’s kissing you. 

You’re lost, so hopelessly lost in each other that you fail to notice the phone beep once again, the monotone voice of the machine saying, “Please leave a message at the tone,” before flashing twice, still running. 

Again, Rafayel seems to forget the concept of breathing, gasping into your lips as he ruts his hips into yours. “You’re not leaving me, right?” Fuck, he’s leaking all over his stomach, pre-cum splattering across your thighs.

“Never. I’ll never leave you, Rafayel.”

“Then tell me you’re mine. Tell me, please, please—hah—tell me and I’ll do anything, promise cutie, promise.” He’s all but gasping between kisses, cock trapped between his body and yours as he grinds forward, voice a pitch or so higher than it usually would be. “Say it, say you're mine, tell me, I need to hear it again."

He's talking in circles, rambling, the desperation in his voice palpable. Grasping the base of his cock, he sloppily fisting himself once, twice, before thumping against your entrance.

“I’m yours, Rafayel.” You writhe, grinding yourself up against him in hopes that he’s just hurry the fuck up.

“Again.”

“I’m yours, yours Rafayel.”

“Again, ah—again,” he’s nuzzling into your neck, lifting your leg higher and higher, pinning it to your head as he folds you into a matting press. Still, he refuses to press in, cock throbbing against your clit as he hugs you tight, every muscle in your body screaming in protest and pleasure. “Again, please, please.”

“I’m-” You’re either gasping or crying, words flooding out, ”Rafayel’s, I’m Rafayel’s.”

At that, Rafayel’s entire body convulses. He sobs, finally thrusting forward, bullying up into you bit by bit, forcing you to count every inch as the entirety of his weight bares down onto you. 

You can feel the way his muscles shift, the way his arms bulge and contract as he holds himself above you, hips flush against yours. The desert air must be infecting him, because Rafayel is dripping sweat, flushed from his ears to his chest as he begins to pull out and slowly grind himself back in. 

His voice is wrecked, breathless as he tries to kiss you, missing slightly as he sucks against your bottom lip, drooling. "I'm yours too, I'm yours." At the same time, his cock jerks in you, burying deeper with every filthy roll of his hips, throbbing against your sweet spots. 

Then something snaps, Rafayel’s lips sealed back on yours, and the rhythm he sets is brutal.

Rafayel's cock drags over your walls, molding you in ways you never thought possible. Each thrust is hard, deep, and leaves you gasping, eyes rolling back into your head as you arch off the mattress, nowhere to go as his body folds yours damn near in half, weight bearing down on you.

It's all you can do to wrap your arms around him, nails scratching into his back, drawing thin lines of blood across his shoulder blades as you try to stay grounded, keep your mind from being swept away as the dizziness returns.

But the pressure building up in the pit of your stomach makes it hard.

Harder still as Rafayel begins mumbling into your lips, the filth pouring from his mouth making you clench, cunt fluttering around his cock as he pounds into you.

He can see and feel everything like this. Unable to look away from your face only inches away, watching every expression with love-drunk eyes, hugging you closer, fucking you harder.

"Can feel you, can feel you getting tighter. You're close right? Say you're close, please, mhm fuck." he's panting, and if you focus hard enough you can hear the sloppy noises of him sliding in and out, wet and obscene, the harsh slap of his balls against the curve of your ass.

But then Rafayel’s pushing himself lower, your legs dangling uselessly in the air as his chest is pressed so tight against yours you can barely take a breath.

"You're mine, only I can touch you like this, feel this. My wife. Say it, say you're mine, wanna hear it, please. Please, ah, I’ll do anything, say it."

He's barely pulling out anymore, resigning to quick, deep grinds as though he can’t bear to part.

Too uncoordinated to kiss you, Rafayel's head falls to your neck, sobbing into your marked-up skin before messily kissing atop the bruises.

"Yours. Yours. I'm yours, your wife," the words spill from your lips before you can even think, and Rafayel nearly passes out trying to stop himself from cumming then and there. 

It’s like you’re trying to milk him, hugging him closer and ankles wrapped around his neck as he’s lifting your hips right off the bed. But now he needs to see it.

Needs to know the way you'll cry out his name, how your eyes will glaze over and roll back into your head, the way your chest will heave, the sweat that will pool at the valley between your breasts, the way the skin will flush from a soft pink to a burning red as you lose yourself in the feeling. To him.

It's the only thing he's able to concentrate on, the only thing he's able to think of. The feeling of your body beneath him, the sound of his name on your lips. 

And that alone is enough.

Rafayel’s orgasm is sudden, a jolt of pleasure that surges up his spine with enough intensity to have him collapse, pinning your body beneath him. You can feel it, the way his cum splatters against the walls of your womb, painting your insides, filling you up until the excess squirts out around his cock and your intertwined thighs. He can't stop his hips, can't stop the way he grinds his pelvis against yours, trying to get deeper and deeper still. 

"Mine, mine, mine," is all he can say, eyes wide and pupils blown out as he watches the way your body twitches, a mixture of sweat and cum painting your body as you nearly pass out in exhaustion. "Gonna- gonna fill you up, fuck, so pretty, my pretty girl, pretty wife, gonna make sure it sticks, so I’ll never leave. So you’ll never leave me again."

You're cumming.

He can feel the way your cunt spasms, the way your walls lure him back in, the way you tremble and shake as you throw your head back with tears. 

Rafayel can't stop himself from leaning down and biting, teeth sinking into the crook of your neck, his hands grabbing at any bit of flesh he can find. All the while he fucks you through your orgasm, the mess of fluids creating the most obscene noises as they squish and bubble out, pooling out from between your bodies. 

As you’re swaying in and out of reality, you think you see it. A field of red flame lilies, a poison so sweet that when you drink it, you lick your lips and thank the gods. 

God. Just one, the one of the sea and the flaming sun. 

The one who's still kneeling before you. 

The one who you love. 

"Maximum voicemail length reached, recording sent."

♱⋅── a/n: Uber now canonically exists in the lnds universe, thanks. Also, I would have included the absolutely gut-wrenching aftercare included in the card with MC asking Rafayel to sing for her, but honestly I would not change that scene in the slightest and am content to believe that is exactly what happened next.