Our pelvises met and I whimpered, closing my eyes, the need to rock, to ride, to take almost overriding my sense. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to give my love a moment to adjust, but that moment was torturous.
My eyes snapped open as his thumb began to circle my clit, my control so tight it almost hurt. “Ride me, baby,” he said, lust and love burning in his eyes.
I snapped. My hips rolled, seeking friction. The pressure from his thumb as it circled, the drag of his cock against my inner walls, a maddening stretch from my nipple as he fondled my breast. I couldn't keep track of the sensations. I was so keyed up, I wasn’t surprised when the first orgasm hit, causing him to cry out as my walls pulsed around him. He praised me incoherently as I continued to ride. My muscles did their job keeping him from finding his release as I came over and over again, soaking his cock with my juices until finally I opened my mouth. Gatlin knew—somehow he did—rising up to meet my lips so I could drink, fusing his lips to mine as I pulled in mouthfuls of bliss. I wanted him to have more, to feel more, because I loved him and he loved me and we were complete together. With that need, the lifeforce left my body and flowed into his, our exchange looped, me drinking the lifeforce he offered and pushing my lifeforce back into him.
We came together, the energies heightening our pleasure as my muscles spasmed and jerked, my vision going white before I passed out.
I don't know how long I was unconscious; I woke up in my bed, cradled in Gatlin's arms.
“Baby, are you okay?”
I blinked into the moonlight, feeling odd. “Something’s different,” I whispered, looking up at my lover.
“You were feeding from me,” he said, lightly brushing some hair off of my face, “but then you were feeding me, and now…” He touched his chest. “I can feel you.”
My eyes widened, and still feeling out of it, I shakily touched my own chest. I could feel my contentment, my loopy giddiness from coming down off our spectacular lovemaking, but I could also feel concern—concern that wasn't mine, and a strong foundational love that had tears coming to my eyes.
“We’ve bonded,” I whispered. “I thought it was the ceremony, that we had to be handfasted and then renew it again, because my mother said you had to bond twice. Always with ‘When you bond the second time, you need to make sure you love him.’ I thought it was cautionary advice to prevent divorce or avoid upsetting the magic. She must have meant… this.”
Gatlin chuckled. “My mom didn’t do a very good job with the sex talk either.” His eyes shined with mirth.
“But you didn't get a say.” I pushed at his chest, but instead of letting me get up, he pulled me in tighter.
“Yes, I did. I told you I wanted to bond again, and it must have set off your instincts,” he reasoned.
“That’s not really consent,” I objected, still feeling like I’d tricked him into marrying me.
“Palmer, baby, do I feel like I’m upset?” he asked, kissing my forehead.
I lay in his arms, sorting through the feelings swirling through me, searching for the ones that were separate and yet also now mine, freely shared, and there it was. Elation. Awe. Love.
“Oh,” I said, a bit breathless.
“Oh,” he agreed, kissing me.
We kissed for a while, enjoying the sensations we shared until interrupted by nature’s call.
“It’s so strange that I can tell you have to pee.”
He shook his head, walking to the bathroom. “At least we did a good job with topping you up; I don't know what I’d do if we were both hungry right now.”
He continued to the bathroom, but I stood still in my tracks. I wasn’t hungry. I wouldn’t say I was full, but I wasn’t hungry at all. There were no twinges, no empty hollowness. Just blessed nothingness.
This is what it must have been like at the Old Place. Truly exchanging energies with their partners. Maybe, maybe we were supposed to bond to the people of this world. Maybe my ancestors had done that before, but it was so long ago it was forgotten. But maybe I was also getting ahead of myself. Time would tell. And at the very least, Gatlin and I had time to figure it out, together.
Epilogue
Gatlin
Fifteen Years Later
“Humans are jerks,” Opal said, crossing her little carnelian-colored arms over her beach towel. Her skin was more dappled than her mother’s, shades of rose and scarlet mixing around on my precocious little spitfire. Her silver hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which only accented the pout she was currently sporting.
“All humans? What about me? And Nathan?” I asked, waggling my eyebrows at my miffed seven-year-old as I dropped my towel around my shoulders.
“Well, Pop, it’s not like you’re really a human anymore. Mommy fixed you,” she said with authority, flopping down on a pool chair. “And Nathan is half haint. I think. Cause he’s a boy? I dunno, but Donald! I can’t fix Donald; it would take too much work to do that.”
“I’ll fix Donald,” her ten-year-old brother Nathan said, cracking his summer-tanned knuckles, towel forgotten as he dripped on the concrete.