Page 43 of Nine Inch Nasty
Mark pats my shoulder before leaving us out here alone, and I sink to the ground, wrapping Rush's legs around my hips as I do. My body remembers holding him like this in my lap, even if it wasn't in this exact body last time it happened.
“I've got you. Nobody knows what's going on right now, so you just take what you need, Rush.”
“What if I can't stop needing it though? What happens when you realize how much I actually need from you? Because I'm terrified now that you're back in my life, that I'm too much. That you can't handle all the things I've been dreaming of doing while I was a tree. I should be over there with Delaney. She needs me.”
Rush tries to stand, but I keep my arms firmly locked around his waist. “She's got plenty of other mates over there caring for her.You need to take care of yourself as well. She can't give you this right now, she's dealing with other trauma. So let me take care of you instead. Let me be what you need.”
With a gray tinged face, he tilts his head up so we're looking face to face, inches apart. “Tell me you feel this. Tell me I'm not crazy, that this connection we had before is still there. I've stared at this body for so long, Leo, wanting. Wanting so much. Unable to touch you. I know I'm a demon, so I'm not supposed to be soft, but when you're stuck in one place for as long as I was, you tend to focus on what you can see. And you were the only thing I could see. The only thing Iwantedto see. The only thing thatmattered. It didn't take me very long after the curse took, to realize I'd choose to be cursed all over again if it meant getting what I had with you.
“And you don't even have memories of me; we were so good together. But it wasn't just physical. Every part of me needed you when she took you away from me. I hate that I was so weak that I couldn't save you. I hated myself for being unable to take you off the side of that damn building and bring you somewhere soft and warm. That was torturous, more so than being stuck as a damn tree. Because when I couldn't anymore, all I wanted to do was take care of you. And I know this isn't probably what you want to hear, but I'm sick of tiptoeing around you, wondering if you want any of what I want with you.
“I know Delaney understands this, that she won't have any objections to us also being together, if you even want that. I have spoken with her though, and she loves us both enough I think, to know that we need each other. But I'm kind of getting ahead of myself, aren't I? You haven't even answered me.”
Since being awoken, I thought I had it good. I had my mate, I had this incredible group of people that came attached to her, that I could live with and learn from. But there's been a hollowspot in my chest all along, and I've been trying to convince myself that I had everything I could ever want, and that Delaney was all that I needed. But what if there's something else I need? What if the goddess did what she did, so that Rush and I could be together likethis? Able to be together, as well as bound to the same woman because we need her even more?
He's staring at me, trying to read my mind, and all I can think about is that I want to kiss him.
These lips that are stone, they've only known Delaney’s touch. “I don't want to hurt you.”
He shakes his head. “I've seen how hard you take our beautiful mate, I don't think you need to worry about me. Demon skin is pretty indestructible; but don't do this if this isn't truly what you want.”
He shifts, and it quickly becomes obvious exactly what I want.
His eyebrows rise and he starts choking. “Holy shit.”
I get an uncontrollable urge to brush it off or act embarrassed about how aroused I am, but instead, I decide to be brave. “Perks of being a gargoyle. Don’t worry, it doesn’t need to fit inside of you.” I hold him in silence for a moment or two, letting the sounds of the night float around us and blanket us. “I feel pulled to you. It’s like the memories are there, but just out of reach.”
“And it’s not like there’s been a lot of time for us to explore this,” Rush adds on, trying to ease me. “I’m not scared of trying to see where this monster can fit in, but I’d be lying if I told you that’s all I wanted. I don’t know if you are interested still, but before, we…I used to top you. You took it so good, Leo. I dream about those days so often. As much as a demon can dream. And the potatoes…I get so fucking mad when I think about everything we’ve missed out on and lost because of that witch. Sometimes I’m angry at you for causing it, because if you hadonly remembered a tiny detail…but that’s pointless. Anger like that doesn’t go anywhere. I think we need a fresh start.
“Both of us have changed, and I think maybe I need to stop living in the past, especially because you don’t have the same memories I do. If we can…start here, tonight, and decide to start something together, would you be interested in that?”
In the dark, the blue tint to his skin is hard to decipher, the color bleeding out into all the dark shapes around us. I can just make out the deep color of his eyelashes as they bat against his eyes when something falls from a nearby tree and brushes against them, and I find studying him like this is immensely satisfying.
“What are you looking at?”
I smile, my heart warm. “When you spend an inordinate amount of time forced to observe life going on around you while you stay still, I think it becomes a foundational part of your soul to keep practicing that long after you’re free. I like watching you, like watching Delaney, like watching our misfit family; that’s how I learn about you all. I probably think slower and process slower than you remember, so I beg of you to have patience with me. I greatly like the idea of admitting to myself that I have room in my heart for you next to where Delaney lives, but she is such a big part of my soul that discovering how to balance both of you will take some trial and error.
“But I want that. With you. Want to make mistakes and argue about silly things, just like we feel comfortable doing with Delaney. I’m beginning to grasp that we’re always going to have others demanding our time. Delaney is too well known to fade into obscurity, and there are so many in our family now that are beholden to other people in one way or another, but let’s make this,” I say as I squeeze his hips gently, “a priority. Touch me,assume I’m yours whenever you wish. Because I am. I wish to be.”
The second those words leave my lips, Rush acts even more un-demonly and kisses me. I enjoy it for what it is, what it does for me, and I live in the moment. For right now, there’s no chaos happening around us, there are no warnings for future calamities, there are no family members in dire straits. It’s just me and this demon, and a woman we’re both obsessed with not too far away, and there’re the stars. And the night.
I think we both decide it’s not the time to push further, that connecting like this was all we really needed to figure out where we stood. We’ve been playing a subtle game of chase since we were reunited, and it feels good to step forward together.
“Thank you. For being you,” I tell him. I fold my wings around him one more time, giving us one last moment of quiet. We’ve been gone long enough and I’m starting to feel the itch to check on Delaney and the rest of her mates, but I breathe in Rush one more time, smelling of the coolness of caves and stalactites, an echoing within his soul that I think I understand the origins of better now.
“I’m going to ride this monster dick later,” he promises me as he stands up. “And I hope you’ll let me plow those stone ass cheeks you’ve got. The things I’ve been imagining...”
Blood flows down to my cock at that imagery, and I purposefully press it into him while I stand up and lean down to kiss his head. “Yes, we’ll have fun. We can put on quite the show for Delaney, I bet. Or just us. Whatever feels right.”
“I always say, the more the merrier!” And he runs off after a gentle tug on my tail, encouraging me to chase after him.
Chapter Sixteen
Zac
I donotwant to be here.
I feel terrible for even thinking that, because just earlier this year, I considered every part of my job essential. I didn’t enjoy the meetings any more than I am currently, but after everything, and after feeling my heart’s mate wrapped around me in every sense of the word, spending my time anywhere else feels like a waste.
