Page 9 of Illuminated

“Sure, plenty.”

“Well, those are not why I asked.”

The moment stretched, and because of that stupid thing he’d asked before, about what I would change in my life, I was reminded of what I’d promised myself so long ago: that I wouldn’t live with regrets, not if I could avoid them.

“Yes, you may.”

The humor left him, and he turned serious all of a sudden. He leaned in farther and kissed my jawbone.

“More?” he asked, his lips still fluttering over my skin, his breath warm and tingling.

“Yeah,” I said and turned my head just slightly, just enough so that I wasn’t sure who closed the distance first.

Either way, we kissed. It was a soft kiss, almost innocent and shy, but then -- I don’t know why, but I opened my mouth to him and relaxed, turned just a fraction more toward him.

He took his time, didn’t rush in. He wrapped his arms around me slow and steadily, and when our bodies pressed closer, when I deepened the kiss and he did too, a spike of fear shot through me.

Hadn’t he been this close to the guy in the church? That embrace… it had been death.

Auris pulled back, and with my mouth still slack and my lips flushed, I looked up at him, at those black eyes that I couldn’t read, set in a face that didn’t want to stick in my memory.

“You fear me.”

“I saw what you did. I’d be stupid not to fear you.”

He reached up, caressed the side of my face. “I didn’t want you to see for this exact reason. I’ll swear on anything that I’ll never hurt or harm you, but those are words. I’ll show you through my deeds, if you’ll let me.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to drink my blood?”

He gave me an unreadable look, but I thought it might have been amusement he didn’t really want to show.

“I do want to. But I won’t. Because you don’t want me to.”

“Would it make me… like you? If you bit me?”

He hesitated. “No.”

I took my time taking in his face, and he let me, waited patiently. I was pressed against the sink counter. It was a fantasy, a wicked fantasy, and nothing at all about what was happening felt even remotely real.

I reached out, reached for that annoyingly perfect tie, and pulled.

This time, the kiss was more heated, less restrained. I wanted something that wasn’t -- something I hadn’t had during lockdown and even a while before that. I wanted to write it off as revenge against my ex, but that wasn’t it. I just wanted this, easy, no strings, something wild that wasn’t me, that was just a fantasy. With someone who was just a fantasy.

“More,” I moaned against his mouth, his warm fingers pressing against my back.

“More?”

“Yeah.”

He reached down between my legs. “That much more?”

“Yeah.”

“All right.”

He pulled back slightly when he opened my pants one-handed. I still had a hold of his tie, and I pulled him back toward me and let my eyes fall closed just before he touched my cock.

I’d started to get hard… when he’d walked into the damn bathroom, to be honest. I moaned against his lips when he ran his hand over my damp underwear. He licked my lips, just a flick of the tongue, but it was erotic, at least to me in that exact moment. Every hair on my body stood up, and my skin felt too hot all of a sudden.

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