by A. H. Lee
“I had been stupidly sleeping with you in panther form,” continued Azrael. “On the ground, mostly. It was winter. It was cold. I had given you commands, but they weren’t specific enough. I didn’t realize you were just biding your time.” Azrael took a long gulp of water. “When you first arrived, you were curious about the world. You weren’t ready to leave yet. So, you didn’t try very hard to kill me.
“You saved my life more times than I could count. You were funny, smart, good company.” Azrael shut his eyes. “The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. By the time we took Bethsaria, I’d let my guard down.”
He stopped talking for a moment and Mal was both relieved and afraid. “I’m not doing that,” he whispered. “I’m not biding my time—”
Azrael continued as though he hadn’t heard. “That day was such a victory. We were laughing and joking when we went to bed—the first bed we’d slept on in months. I’d never felt so close to anyone.”
Mal didn’t want to hear what came next. He felt sick again.
“I woke up in the middle of the night. You had turned back into a man. You had your mouth on me. You were feeding, and I was…dying.” Azrael screwed his eyes shut. “I never understood until that moment how dangerous you were. Because all I had to do was tell you to stop. That’s all. ‘Stop, Mal’. But I didn’t want to. I’ve always considered myself a survivor, but right then, I couldn’t think of a single reason to tell you to stop. I just wanted to let you finish…and float away. Those two words were the hardest words I’d ever said. I knew if it happened again, I wouldn’t be able to say them.”
Azrael finally turned to look at Mal. He gave a watery smile. “And now you’re not bound. And even ‘stop’ won’t work.”
Mal was crying. He almost never cried, and the sensation was unpleasant, alien. A sob clawed its way out of his chest. “It w-would work! And I wouldn’t do-do that. I wouldn’t!”
Azrael set down his water and stepped into Mal’s arms. Mal was afraid to touch him. He put an arm around Azrael’s back, over his coat, and petted his hair with the other hand. “I’m s-sorry, sorry.”
Azrael put his arms around Mal’s chest and pressed his face against his shoulder. “I have lived with a friend who wanted to kill me for a long time. You were a good friend. And you wanted to kill me.”
“I don’t,” whispered Mal. “I’m not sch-scheming, I’m not, I’m not…”
Azrael continued in a murmur that reminded Mal he was still drunk. “My first time with you was always going to be my last.”
“No.”
“I know it won’t hurt. I know I won’t care.”
“Azrael!” Mal pushed him back to arm’s length. “You said I was human. You told Loudain I was human. Don’t you believe it?”
Azrael stared into his face, and Mal was relieved to see uncertainty instead of this eerie calm. “I am so tired of fighting you, Mal,” he whispered.
“We’re not fighting. This isn’t fighting.”
Azrael curled into his arms again, still whispering, “Every time you touch me, you take me to pieces. Take me to pieces, Mal. Just take me to pieces.”
This is not trust, Mal thought. This is just surrender. He’d never realized those two things were different. “I think we should put you to bed.”
Azrael nodded without releasing his grip. Mal walked him into the sitting room. He started to take Azrael’s coat and realized how cold it was indoors. “We really need to figure out those fireplaces.”
Azrael sat down on the sofa bed and took off his shoes. “It was nice, actually, always having a way out. You were a cliff I could walk over if everything got too hard. Poison in my pocket. A knife I could use to cut my wrists if it all went wrong. And I knew it wouldn’t hurt.”
Mal stared at him. “Oh, hell no.”
“What?”
“I’m not leaving you out here by yourself, talking about cliffs and poison and wrist cutting!”
Azrael gave him a crooked smile. “So you’ll take me to bed with you?”
“I am going to sit up and wait for Jessica,” snapped Mal. “You are going to lie down somewhere I can see you.” He was feeling confused by the rollercoaster of emotions. “You practically slept with us last night and nothing terrible happened!”
Azrael didn’t respond. He got up and went into the bathroom to change clothes and brush his teeth. Mal paced the cottage. He wished Jessica would come back. It was one thirty in the morning. He took off his own clothes and turned into a panther, erasing all the strange club smells. Azrael was taking a long time in the bathroom. Mal turned back into a man to knock on the door. “Boss? You alright?”
No response.
Of course the door was locked. In a burst of frustration, Mal slammed his palm into it hard enough to send the bolt through the flimsy frame. Azrael was sitting on the floor against the sink, dressed in his going-to-bed clothes. He’d curled up with his forehead on his knees. Mal felt terrible. You hid from me behind the only locking door you could find, and I broke it down.
Mal knelt beside Azrael. He thought he needed to say something, but couldn’t think what. You shouldn’t sleep here because it’s cold? Because falling asleep beside an incubus who just tried to eat you is so much better?
Mal gave up. He was about to stand and tiptoe from the bathroom, when Azrael unclenched one arm from around his knees and reached out, blindly. Mal touched his hand, but didn’t take it. Azrael’s fingers closed around his.
Mal sighed. Then he sank to the tiles. He sat there with a good two feet between them, his fingers hooked around Azrael’s, trying to figure out how they’d gone from grinding in the basement of the Electric Octagon to crying on a bathroom floor.
Azrael raised his head and stared at the ceiling. “I am overreacting. I am drunk and overreacting.”
“I’m not actually sure you are,” said Mal.
Azrael turned to squint at him. “You’re not sure I’m drunk? Have you ever actually met me?”
Mal smiled. “I’m not sure you’re overreacting. Maybe…” He took a deep breath. “Maybe we shouldn’t have sex.” Something inside him wailed like a thwarted child, but he forced himself not to qualify the words, not to turn them into a joke or take them back.
Azrael squeezed his fingers. “I do think you’re human,” he said softly. “At least in the ways that matter. I don’t think you will necessarily eat me.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”
Azrael stared at the ceiling. “This all feels very fast to me. I know, to you, it must seem like it’s taken twenty years, but I’m just not used to this.”
Mal looked at their joined fingers—overextended, easily pulled apart. “Jessica says you need to be touched…and that I need to do things a little at a time, and I am trying, Boss—”
“Ren,” interrupted Azrael. “For gods’ sakes, when you’re holding my hand, call me Ren.”
Mal licked his lips. “Ren. I missed you. When we were gone. I kept dreaming about you. About home. You and the palace and those silly horses.”
Azrael smiled—surprised, touched. He cleared his throat. “I missed you so much I thought it would kill me.”
Mal sat up a little straighter. “But you never wrote!”
“Neither did you.”
“I— I’m not good at letters. But you are. Why didn’t you at least answer Jessica’s?”
“Because I thought you needed to get away from me. I thought you might get your own life and not want to come back after all. I didn’t want to make that any more difficult than it had to be.” Azrael turned his head, still leaning against the wall. The silver collar gleamed against his neck. “Mal, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever owned or ever will own, but you’re not mine anymore. You belong to yourself.”
I’m still yours. Mal wanted to say it, but the words stuck in his throat.
“And,” continued Azrael, “you have valid reasons to feel resentful.”
Mal wanted to say, “I don’t fe
el resentful,” but it wasn’t exactly true, not all the time. He settled for something that was true. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Azrael shut his eyes again. “I always thought—when you’d go out and fuck your way through a party, and then come back and fall asleep with your head in my lap listening to me read—I always thought that I got the best of you…the piece no one else got. The best piece.”
You can have all the pieces. “Do you want to read?” Let’s do something familiar, something safe.
“I don’t think I can make my eyes focus. And we can’t read The Pilot and the Dragon without Jessica.” He pulled his hand out of Mal’s and rubbed his face. “Should we be worried about her? Do we need to go back?”
Mal almost laughed at the idea of Azrael going to rescue anyone, let alone Jessica, in his current condition. “We don’t always go home together. Jessica is a succubus. She can handle herself.”
Azrael nodded. “Help me up?”
Mal stood and pulled him to his feet. Azrael walked out of the bathroom. His movements were looking more coordinated. He stood in the center of the bedroom with his hands in his pockets as though he were trying to make a decision. “You and I were very close to figuring something out back there.”
“What?” asked Mal. He melted into the panther, hopped up on the bed, and lay down with his head on his paws.
Azrael didn’t answer. He sat on the bed, scooted all the way into the middle, and flopped down onto his back. Mal was pleased to see him feeling safer. “You should read to me. It doesn’t have to be a novel. Read anything.” I just want to listen to your voice.
Azrael stroked the fur over his shoulders. “I told you; I won’t be able to keep the words straight.”
“I don’t think that’s normal; do you need glasses?”
Azrael laughed. “Probably. Mal, can you be a man for a moment?”
Mal scooted around so that their heads were side-by-side. “Why?”
Azrael smiled at him. “Kiss me?”
Mal started licking his face.
Azrael gave a startled squawk that dissolved into laughter. Mal put a paw across his chest, pushing away his arms and his pitiful attempts to defend himself. Mal licked Azrael’s head and shoulders, even his hair. He paused to employ some nibbly grooming techniques, which, Jessica had assured him, tickled tremendously.
Azrael was gasping for breath. “Stop! Gods, stop it, Mal! Please!”
Mal stopped. He dropped his enormous head onto Azrael’s rapidly rising and falling chest. “See? I stopped.”
Azrael was still laughing. “You ass. I did not expect to tongue kiss a panther this evening.”
“It’s the same spit!”
“Seriously, kiss me.”
Mal started nibbling his stomach. That tickled even more.
“Mal!”
“I kind of like it when you beg.”
“Please!”
Mal turned back into a man, leaning on one elbow beside Azrael, his hand still resting on his stomach. He dipped his head and kissed him on the nose. “I am not going to fuck you this evening. You’re still drunk.” And I scared myself.
Azrael looked up at him, his hair sticking in all directions where Mal had licked it. “You seem very certain of what I want.”
“I am very certain of what you want. I’m an incubus.” He hesitated. “Although it’s been a long time since I got a look inside your head.”
Azrael arched an eyebrow at him.
“But I know one thing for sure,” continued Mal sweetly, “if you call an astral aspect of Lust, and you get me…you’re not a top.”
Azrael rolled his eyes, but he looked like he wanted to laugh. Mal had given himself soft clothes for bed. Azrael reached down and pushed his hand under the hem of the shirt, over the muscles of Mal’s belly and chest. Mal could feel his own heartbeat accelerate. “You’re touching me,” he said stupidly. As a man. As a human.
Azrael was watching his face, running his palm up and down Mal’s chest. Mal’s eyes snapped shut. “Ren…I can’t…can’t think when you’re touching me.”
Azrael stopped touching him long enough to take Mal’s hand that was still lying on his stomach, and slide it under his own shirt. Mal’s breathing sped up. He could feel himself getting hard. Azrael was looking directly into his eyes. “Follow your rules,” he said softly.
Mal wanted to kiss him, but he still felt uncertain. “Are you sure? We don’t have to do this right now.”
Azrael nodded. “Can we get rid of your shirt?”
Mal made his shirt disappear in a puff of black smoke—a little showy, but it was worth Azrael’s snicker, the sudden brightness in his eyes. He was looking at Mal’s body—really looking. You never let yourself, do you?
Mal moved his fingers against Azrael’s stomach, felt him shiver. He pushed Azrael’s shirt up a tiny bit and drew a line back and forth just above his waistband. “You and I were very close to figuring something out back there.”
Mal could see Azrael’s erection pushing against his trousers. If I was allowed to touch you, I could get you off so easily.
Rules.
Mal pressed his hand all the way inside Azrael’s shirt, slid the other arm under his head, and sank down over his mouth. Azrael’s hand moved from Mal’s chest to his back, touching, touching everywhere. It felt delicious to kiss him in bed like this, to press him down into the soft mattress, to feel the weight of his body under Mal’s arms and in his hands.
Mal shifted their hips closer together and gently slid his thigh over Azrael’s crotch. Does this count as touching? You didn’t think so in the club.
Azrael gasped against his mouth. And finally Mal’s human senses told him what he usually knew by magic. “You are so hard,” he purred.
Azrael, flushed and trembling, muttered, “I don’t think I’m the only one.”
“Oh, you’re not.” Mal gave a couple of lazy thrusts against Azrael’s hip to demonstrate.
Azrael gave a nervous laugh and Mal decided that was enough of a demonstration. They kept kissing. Azrael’s breathing grew deeper and faster. Mal ran his hands all over his stomach, his chest, his back. His cock twitched each time Mal brushed over a nipple. “I want to kiss you here,” he mumbled into Azrael’s mouth. “Can I? Please?”
Azrael nodded, breathless, incoherent.
Mal inched down. He had to take his thigh off Azrael’s cock, but it was worth it for the whimpering noise he made when Mal started kissing his belly, pushing his shirt up as he went. He kissed his way to a nipple, rolled it under his tongue, nibbled. Azrael was writhing beneath him, twisting his hands in Mal’s hair, sobbing for breath.
Mal rose up on hands and knees and settled down squarely on top of his partner. Azrael made a choking noise. Mal could feel his own cock pressed against Azrael’s through their clothes. Azrael’s shirt was still pushed up, and they were skin to skin. Mal wanted to move, but he didn’t. He looked down into Azrael’s face, into his eyes that looked wet and dark and huge, and whispered, “Too much?”
Azrael caught his breath. His hands were on either side of Mal’s chest, just under his armpits. Mal was cradling Azrael’s head with his forearms. “No,” breathed Azrael. “I mean yes, but…stay.”
Mal grinned. “You want me to get you off…without touching you with my hands or undressing you or using magic… So picky.”
“Thought you were a fucking sex demon,” panted Azrael.
“Oh, I am.”
The collar had shifted upwards, and it was lying right across the notch of Azrael’s throat. Mal had kissed it several times by accident. Without really letting himself think about what he was doing, Mal slid a hand behind Azrael’s head and curled two fingers through the collar.
Azrael’s expression changed—not quite fear, but something adjacent. “How badly do you want to choke me with that thing?” he whispered.
The thought had crossed Mal’s mind. He felt that strange confusion again, as though he were two people pulling in opposite
directions. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he heard himself say. Tell me not to.
“Take me to pieces, Mal.”
Mal applied just enough tension to pull the collar taut against Azrael’s throat. Azrael’s lips parted. His eyes fluttered shut. You like it? Well, that makes two of us. Usually Mal had a great deal of control over his own orgasm. He could let it happen naturally, but he could also speed it up or stave it off with great precision. Usually. The sight of Azrael underneath him with that collar looped around his throat and the other end in Mal’s fist—that was making it hard to breathe. I am going to come before he does if I’m not careful.
Mal started to move and Azrael jerked against him, fingers digging into his back. “Mal…”
“Mmm…” Mal thrust against him, rubbing their dicks together through the thin fabric of their clothes. He never would have thought this could be satisfying, but right now it felt exquisite.
So close.
Mal kissed him on the mouth. At the same time, he pushed Azrael’s shirt up, ran his thumb around a nipple, and pulled the collar tight.
Azrael groaned. His back arched, and he wrapped his legs around Mal’s waist. This small act of surrender was more than Mal could take. He gave three hard, grinding thrusts as the pleasure spiked from his groin through his belly and thighs. Azrael’s body clenched—arms around Mal’s chest, legs around his waist. They’d both forgotten how to kiss and were just panting into each other’s mouths.
Azrael didn’t make a sound when he came. He seemed jarred right out of his head for a moment. Then he opened his eyes. Mal was smoothing his hair back from his temples with trembling fingers. He’d let go of the collar. “Now you know I’m a sex demon,” he murmured. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to do that at the same time?”
Azrael gave a shaky laugh. His eyes flicked from Mal to the ceiling and around the room. “I’m still alive.”
“Of course you’re still alive! Is that what we were figuring out? That you can have an orgasm without dying?”