Page 117 of The Succubi's Choice

His neck is a thing of beauty, all long lines and pale skin and veins barely visible, like he chose this body to possess for its physical attributes. He swallows, and she watches the motion on his throat, before she clenches down and starts to move.

His hands flutter to her hips, starting a pace that’s a hair faster, a hair rougher, than it had been before.

Miri grabs him by the collar of his shirt, yanking him close and nipping at his lower lip, relishing in the low growl deep in his throat. The fabric flexes in her hands, starched and perfect.

He braces his arms on either side of her torso, holding her in place, keeping her pinned atop him, two strong pillars against her. Like she’s there because he wants her there, like she’s worth protection, like letting her be any further away would hurt him.

She tilts her hips against him, and he hisses out a slow breath.

“Miri,” he murmurs, as if her name is a prayer. “Miri.”

She tightens her grip on the tuxedo collar, the fabric rough, just the amount of rough she wants. To forget the danger she might be in, to forget the giant computer working on ending her life as she knows it, to forget anything else but this singular sensation.

A hand winds into her hair, tight, on the border between where pain becomes pleasure, until sparks consume her vision and she can’t see or think or feel anything but him.

* * *

It takes her a bit,after, to remember where her body ends and his begins, but she pillows her head against his chest, hearing the now familiar thump of his heart in time with his breath, when he stirs.

“Hmm?” She asks, not entirely certain she’d be able to talk if the need arises.

They’re still on the couch, his shirt unbuttoned but still on his arms, but she’s still gloriously naked, gloriously touching so much skin, and he trails his hand up her spine in an idle affectation.

“Do you...feel that every time you feed?” He asks, his voice rough, as if he had been yelling her name for hours.

A shiver runs down her back, delicious, and he presses the palm of his hand against her in support.

“No,” she answers, propping up her head on her wrist so she can blink up at him. “It’s...different.”

The word is wholly inaccurate for what she’s feeling, wholly inadequate and wholly wrong, but she’s never been the one to chase down precise wording or wax poetic. There’s a whole lot more to what they just had than different, but it’s the closest word she can grasp when she’s like this.

He resumes the idle touching of her back, like he’s tracing something against her skin.

“I’ve wondered,” he starts, and she watches through her eyelashes as he puzzles out what to say, a vulnerability on his face that she hasn’t seen before. “I’ve wondered, what it would be like, on your end. How it would be different, if you can’t feed from someone, but are still...” He gestures at them, still skin against skin, where her breasts rest against his chest.

He’s open, like this, his face unguarded.

“I don’t...I don’t know how to put it.” she says, and he gives her a shy smile.

With a stroke of her hair, he rests her head back against his shoulder, and it’s the most physical contact after sex she’s ever had, and her eyes flutter shut. Slow, as if it’s the most important thing in the world, he runs his fingers through her curls, meticulous and gentle.

“I don’t want this to stop,” he says, and his voice is a rumble against her ear. “I don’t...I don’t want to ever be without.” The way he says it, it’s like a marvel. Like a personal discovery he’s unearthing in real time, with her on top of him. “It would break me.”

It’s a powerful statement, from a powerful being, but she keeps her eyes closed and listens to the cadence of his breathing. “Sometimes that happens, in things like this.”

She doesn’t even know how to categorize things like this, like the well of contentment inside of her, like she’s been expanded and contains so many more emotions than before. Like one wrong move would collapse her and she’d spill out feelings to everyone around. Like she’s fragile and full and raw all at the same time.

He hmmms against her, and it’s the best thing, against her skin.

“But I don’t want it to end either,” she whispers, like saying it louder would will those words into existence. “This is...”

Across the room, the computer beeps, and the muscles underneath her tense, freezing like something stole his breath away.

Her stomach falls, and instead of looking up and at it she presses her nose against his skin.

“You still don’t have to,” he says, not relaxing but resuming the stroking of her back. “I can figure out a way, I’m sure of it.”

It’s tempting. To ignore the problem, hide away until it’s done, and then never deal with the fallout of her own workplace putting out an arrest warrant for her.

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