Page 14 of Lake of Sin

I nodded, though I didn’t fully understand. Vassago smiled. “I am perhaps the most honest of all my brethren. I have no interest in trickery. I encourage true natures to emerge.”

“Is that all?” I whispered quite cynically.

Vassago ignored my tone. “No, no. I share the past and future with any who summon me, should they ask. I can locate lost objects, or?—”

“Tell me my future,” I said quickly.

Vassago looked at me, a devious little smile spilling onto his lips. “What would you know?”

“If I’m happy one day. Loved.” I glanced away, ashamed that I was so desperate to hear these words.

But the demon only took my face between its fingers and said, “If you allow me to kiss you, if you let me be slow and gentle with you, if you tell me what you like and dislike, then I can see a future where you have all those things and more.”

I nodded, and he let go of me. I thought he would lean in then and there, but he seemed to know better. After that moment, Vassago spent hours talking to me, touching me. He made me laugh. He showed me his time in Heaven, the way Marchosias had done. The outrage he had felt at his creator subjecting Himself to a mortal life, the lack of understanding he’d had for God’s decision, and his refusal to accept it. It all seemed—well, rather justified. How odd it was to me that these demons had not been as cruel as the ones occupying inferior ranks.

Vassago knew so much of what I had studied because he had lived it.

As we talked and laughed, I felt as I had done around Paul: that affection for another who understands you.

I know it was likely magic. I know itmusthave been, to make any sense at all. I might have been lying draped across Vassago’s bed for days or months, a slow romance blooming in mere seconds of my consciousness; Hell was Hell. It followed no rules. In any case, I felt affection, attraction, and equal parts fear and desire every time I met Vassago’s eye.

This time, when he shuffled closer, I did not flinch away. He smelled as familiar as myself, and all my walls lessened until he had wrapped his arm around my back and pulled me close. Vassago leaned his mouth down, and I surged up to meet him.We breathed each other in, and then I was fighting to tear his doublet free.

And he stopped me.

“I’m meant to be makingloveto you. Not fucking you senseless.”

My gut churned in fear, and I let go of him immediately. He was chiding me, and it felt as terrifying as a lecture from a bishop. Vassago took my hand in his and guided it back to touch him.

“Slow,” was all he said, murmured softly like a reminder. He kissed my cheek and then my neck.

My nerves were shot. I jerked at every touch, terrified and yet wanting. Vassago ignored my mewls of fear, and soon, he was pulling moans from my lips. He moved slowly, tongue lapping up my neck, lips sucking on my earlobe as his fingers trailed down my waist. He tongued at my nipples, entire mouth pressed to the perked bud, and I rolled my hips instinctively, eager for him to remove my pants.

I was growing hard, face flung to the side and eyes closed, when Vassago tilted my chin back towards him and commanded, “Open your eyes, Alessandro.”

I squeezed even tighter before I gained the courage, and then I was staring up into the warm brown eyes of a man I felt some kind of love for. A man I was certain loved me back.

The absurdity of the situation meant nothing to me. I wasn’t thinking about how it was possible or moral. I was thinking: Prince Vassago loves me, and I am terrified of that love. Prince Vassago loves me, and Icravethat love.

He kissed me gently on the lips, and then his kisses became slow and intentional. Tongue licked out against my lips, and I opened my mouth for him with a soft moan. Vassago shifted himself so he was straddling both my hips with his legs. He undressed himself above me, unbuttoning his doublet slowly,peeling it over his head with inefficient motions designed to tease. With the blue fabric removed, my eyes were filled with the pillowed rise of his pectorals and the sea of black hair that curled over his bare skin. He arched slightly; I’d never seen a man so muscular arch in this way. I reached out to touch him. His thighs and ass were warm in the cream hose, and my cock twitched towards their soft centre, the cleft between the two cheeks. Vassago lowered himself onto me with a knowing laugh.

“Do you want to put it in me?” he asked, looking down at me.

And I—laughed. It was a panicked sound. I gripped both his thighs and tried to throw him off me, but the Prince was far stronger, and he stayed fixed in silence, waiting for my panic to subside.

He was being serious. This demon was requesting of me something I had never done.

“I. . .I’ve never. . .”

“Make love to me, Alessandro,” he whispered, bending low for another kiss. He stayed pressed to my mouth, inhaling hard, and when he pulled away, his hands were against my cheeks, eyes searching.

Waiting for my answer, for my acquiescence. I gasped, drawing in all the air in the world for my answer, but I couldn’t even say it. I nodded my head, and a small smile appeared on Vassago’s face.

He moved down my body slowly, the way Furfur had done, fingers dancing in the soft divots of my groin to tease the tender flesh. He put his tongue on my balls and sucked gently at them, the underside of his tongue lapping up the full hot length of my cock, which was aching. He sucked at the head teasingly, slowly, a great wash of saliva coating my cock, and pleasure was a mounting thing. The rough hairs of his moustache tickled against the sensitive skin, a gentle scrape that had me bucking up into the warm embrace of his mouth.

Vassago gagged and spluttered, sounds he followed up with moaning and a firm but encouraging grip on my hips. He worked me with his mouth, up and down, and often would gag himself for my own pleasure; the tip of my cock kissed the back of his throat, and I could feel every time the sphincter of it pulsed around my length.

Seconds turned to minutes, and then I was in a dream-like trance with a wash of pleasure encompassing me every time I rolled my hips. It was easy when he was down there to forget I was meant to be making love; I could fuck the warm, wet vestibule without worry. So when he pulled free with a grunt and brought himself up again to be kissed, I grew anxious once more. He was hard himself, and we turned to lie face to face so we might fondle one another and kiss and stare, a ritual of a kind that slowly unstitched my worry from this growing tapestry of touch.

---