Page 39 of Guarded By the Krampus

She inhaled, and held her breath for long enough that I stopped moving entirely. “Or…what if you just hurry up and come inside me?” she suggested instead—and when I was finished being stunned, I pulled myself right the hell back out.

“Sarah—you don’t know what you’re asking.”

She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Who says I don’t?”

That…was a very good question.

“I think you might not understand,” I said, awkwardly kneeling back and checking my phrasing. “Like, satyr sperm will knock up anyone within three weeks on either side of an egg release.” I’d gotten told so in a special monster sex ed class at school, along with all the other monsters, and it’d killed whatever ‘game’ fourteen year old Ace’d possessed, seeing as most girls that age knew they didn’t want babies. “It’s relentlessly potent.”

But Sarah wasn’t in high school—and she wasn’t running away.

And she was also probably the smartest person I knew, barring Nex, who wasn’t really alive, and/or begging to be boned by me.

“Just because I’m me doesn’t mean I never wanted a normal life,” she said, lightly frowning.

And then I realized she’d entirely misread my hesitance. “Oh shit—no—it’s not that—at all—at-all-at-all,” I backpedaled, leaning forward and catching one of her hands, so I could place it on my chest, hoping she could feel my heart. “It’s just that this is maybe the first time I’ve gotten everything I’ve always wanted. I just want to be sure that you want it, too.”

She tilted her head to the side, so her hair could stream out against her sheets. “Ace,” she began, but I interrupted.

“I do love you, Sarah. I really do. I didn’t tell you that just because I thought I might die and I wanted you to hear it. I meant it then, and I mean it now, and I want to keep loving youfor as long as you’ll let me, which is hopefully a very long time. I’m a hundred percent positive that you’re my mate, and—even if you don’t feel the same way—I know that I can show you. If you’ll let me.”

The words came out in a rush, I couldn’t stop them, and the relief I felt after saying them was the same as I got sometimes after really good release.

Maybe, if I got to tell Sarah I loved her every night, I wouldn’t have to jack off to go to sleep.

Or maybe, I could tell her thatandfuck her, every night for forever, and live in the best of both worlds.

She reached up to take my face between her hands. “Did you get a concussion when you landed on the ground?” she asked, and I shook my head rather than answer her. “Did you forget I told you I loved you back?”

I shook my head again. “I think…I just needed to hear it.”

She smiled at me. “I love you, Aceon. Which you’ll just have to trust is wildly out of character for me. But that’s how I know this is right—because I feel it too.” She let go of my face and patted the bed. “C’mere,” she said, and did I was told, laying down beside her, spearing one of her pillows with a horn.

She turned to face me, and leaned in to give my nose a kiss.

“Careful. You don’t know where that’s been,” I warned her, and she laughed, giving my chest a playful shove.

“Don’t be a jerk, Ace,” she teased, then kissed a line from my nose up to my cheek, pressing her lips against my fur.

And for the first time in my life I felt loved, and appreciated, just for who I was—even moreso as she wriggled up to nibble on my ear.

“Oh God,” I whispered, and she laughed quietly.

“What you thought I didn’t notice?” she asked, pulling it’s lightly furred felt between her lips, while rubbing at the base of my ear on the other side.

“No—I just didn’t think you could get anymore perfect,” I said, wrapping my hands around her ribcage, lifting a breast up for me to lick.

“That’s cheating,” she complained.

“What else was I supposed to do? It was right there!” I said with a laugh.

Then she brought her face down, running her temple against mine, then she nuzzled into my neck, before resting her head on my arm, holding onto the fur of my chest with one hand, while the other reached down—not between her legs, but between mine.

She took hold of me and it felt—I don’t know—right? Amazing? Words couldn’t express how I felt anymore, and it wouldn’t have mattered if my favorite book was the dictionary.

Especially as she put one knee over me, and started pulling me into place.

“Yeah?” she whispered.

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