Page 96 of Changeling
Nathan lifted the hand closer to his mouth and kissed Sasha on the wrist at his pulse point. He darted out his tongue and licked his way to Sasha’s palm, then down the length of one long black talon, careful where it was especially sharp. Sasha shuddered beneath him.
Grinning at the effect he was having on his incubus, Nathan leaned down to kiss Sasha and feel his fangs. They pricked his lips but never drew blood. He wondered how Sasha always managed that. Much as the incubus often lost himself amidst Nathan’s caresses and teases, Nathan knew Sasha had far more self-control than he let on.
“I wanna run my tongue over every inch of your markings,” Nathan breathed against Sasha’s lips. His red eyes were fierce with lust.
The shorts had to go.
Nathan tossed his own shorts to the floor first, not surprised to see that he was fully hard, and crawled between Sasha’s legs to better slide the incubus’ underwear down his thighs. Luckily, the fabric was stretchy, so although Nathan had to pull them around the clawed feet, it wasn’t enough to rip them.
Sometimes Nathan forgot the intricacies of Sasha’s tattoos and all the places they coiled. The first tendrils started in the dip of his hip bones and then drew beautiful patterns down and around his skin to the inside of his thighs. The pattern was the finest and smallest between Sasha’s legs, but that was the part Nathan loved most. He wanted to work his way there just as he had promised. Slowly.
Nathan stayed right where he was between Sasha’s thighs. He pushed Sasha’s legs up so they were bent, leaving him more room, then tucked himself between them and leaned down so he could start a wet trail at one side of Sasha’s markings. He surprised Sasha by sucking in the skin and biting gently right where the left side’s markings began, low on his hips. Nathan continued the same way, trailing with his tongue along the black lines, and every so often biting and sucking on the tender skin. Sasha hissed every time, once almost like a whimper.
By the time Nathan was down to Sasha’s inner thigh, the incubus bucked his hips for Nathan to move morecenter. But Nathan had better plans.
“I said over every…bit of them…” Nathan said, and moved to the right side, starting all over again with a firm bite this time at the beginning tip of the markings there. It was torture for him too but he made the trip slower this time, knowing how crazed Sasha was by the way he, too, began to tremble. The redhead’s breaths were short, sharp gasps when Nathan finally finished the other side.
There was definitely a whimper when Nathan stopped, lifted his head, and looked at Sasha’s face and the way his eyeswere glazed. “Nathan…” Sasha whined. Even his wings were twitching.
Nathan wanted it too, so badly, but he couldn’t just pass the opportunity up. He wanted to run his hands everywhere too, and started by trailing the tips of his fingers down Sasha’s thighs. Running his hands all the way down to Sasha’s calves, Nathan reached the spot where normal legs gave way to something more gargoyle or raptor like. The claws on Sasha’s feet were just as sharp as the ones on his hands, so Nathan had to be careful. It was also at that point that the white faded, quicker than on his hands; black already before the calves gave way to ankle.
Then Nathan moved up again, both hands together, all the way until they smoothed up Sasha’s thighs and moved inward. Sasha mewled, pleading with noises of tortured pleasure. His wings rose for a moment and then flapped down, demanding as they pushed a small breeze over Nathan’s skin.
Just a little more, Nathan thought, continuing his perusal of Sasha’s incubus body with his hands, skimming up his hips just far enough away from the prize to be cruel, and further up Sasha’s stomach and chest. At risk of giving in and just grinding himself against Sasha, Nathan managed to pull back. His hands left Sasha completely as his mouth descended.
Sasha’s renewed whimper was small and pitiful for a being that looked so stark and powerful when Nathan’s lips finally took him in at the tip, his tongue swiping over the large gathering of wetness that had formed. Sasha was still trembling, shuddering everywhere, and it only intensified as Nathan’s lips brought him in deeper. Nathan sucked him down, all the way to the back of his throat, only to pull away again.
He might have tried to continue his exquisite torture if not for the long pleading moan that finally left Sasha with another desperate, “Nathan…”
Nathan shivered. He wanted the incubus now and just like this, spread out before him beautifully as he truly was. He climbed up Sasha’s body, kissing a pathway to the redhead’s lips. Their bodies were aligned and Sasha gave an insistent buck that ground their erections together.
Pulling away with a sharp gasp, Nathan’s patience shattered. One guiding finger was all it took before Sasha was begging again.
“Nathan…” he moaned, “…please…”
Everything about Sasha saying that undid Nathan. He positioned himself swiftly, touched his tip to warm skin, and pressed.
As Nathan pushed in, Sasha’s longer red hair tossed back and he threw his head to the pillow for leverage. The red curtain of hair made Sasha look even more beautiful, Nathan thought—radiant. And all of the things that made up that radiance belonged to him. Nathan had been with many people, but he had never possessed anyone before.
He tried to keep his thrusts as slow as everything else had been, deep but languid, drawing every sensation out. Sasha was wound so tight that he couldn’t wait to open the circuit, and Nathan felt it hit him like a strong wave that crashed over his body and made him gasp. God, he had never made Sasha feel like that, had he? It was all so new, so much stronger somehow. The circuit, the connection that tied them together—Nathan didn’t want it to end.
There were times when Nathan was certain he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. He thought Sasha would be better off with someone else, someone who wasn’t going to leave him when Nathan’s bounty was up. But other times Nathan was left only with what he felt right then: the knowledge that everything he needed was just what he had—his brother at his side and his lover beneath him.
“You,” Nathan breathed softly into the crook of Sasha’s neck. “Just you. It was always…going to be you. Someone who can…fight with me. Know me. Know this life. And still joke…and laugh…and fuck all night long when we want to. It had to be…you…to get me to feel this way. And no one,no one, is ever going to tell me that’s wrong.” Nathan leaned forward and kissed just below Sasha’s ear. “I love you.”
“Nathan…I love you too.”
It was in moments like that when everything was clear. Nathan felt it then, the perfect clarity, knowing without an ounce of fear or doubt that Sasha was everything he wanted. He wanted him. He wanted to be with him.
Forever.
And in that perfect moment when everything made sense and Nathan had everything he needed, the world suddenly lurched. Nathan felt something almost like pain, more like pressure, fill his gut. He felt it spread so quickly throughout his body that he didn’t know what to do and couldn’t call out, much as he wanted to. He felt it in his arms and down into his hands and fingers: a tightness, a throbbing,something. And when Nathan pulled his hands from Sasha’s body to look at them and see what was happening, there was nothing that could have prepared him for what lay before his eyes.
They were his hands. His. But instead of the tanned skin that should be there, they were fading and changing shape into long. Black. Talons.
Chapter 38
ThesensationstravelingthroughoutNathan’s limbs were intensifying every second and spreading. He could feel that same tightness everywhere as if he was being stretched in all directions all the way down to his feet and pulsing up into his temples, with a nauseating knot formed in his stomach. But still he could only stare at his hands, gazing horrified at the black taloned fingers that were fine for Sasha but not him. Nothim.
