Chapter 20 #2
I remember the first time it happened like it was yesterday.
It was the second night I stayed here after she first showed me this computer lab.
I can’t remember everything we said that night.
She’d just gotten back from doing something Vlad had sent her to do, and she seemed upset about whatever it was.
Then she disappeared into her room for the night.
Ten minutes later, a scent began wafting out with the shower steam from underneath her door.
The scent was so primal. So uniquely her. Every time it reached the monster in my belly, it made me want to tear down her door and claim her. I never would have acted on it, of course. But the wanting was there, sharp and desperate.
Smelling Phoenix’s arousal then and smelling it now makes it impossible to focus on the computer screen in front of me.
That first time years ago, I barely knew what was happening to my body. My cock hadn’t been hard in hundreds of years at that point. Suddenly, there I was, stiffening uncomfortably in my pants.
That night, I undid the buttons of my pants and pulled out my member.
I stared down in confusion at the foreign, long-forgotten hunger of my flesh even as my hand clenched around it instinctively.
I’d relieved myself occasionally before over the millennia, but it never felt like it did as I grabbed hold of myself and inhaled her scent on the air.
Unwittingly, I do the same thing now as her scent comes to me. I relive that first time my fingers closed around my cock while drowning in the smell of her. The hungry monster in my belly leaps in excitement.
Is she thinking about what happened in the alley tonight? Or does she just need another release after everything?
I never knew why she did this or what she thought about during these private moments. Maybe it was just a habit she had every time she showered, from long before she even knew I existed. Maybe it had nothing to do with me at all.
I just know my mind floods with images of her as my fingers clench tighter on my cock.
It swells in my grip. I pull upward slowly and roll my hand around the sensitive tip.
She was so beautiful tonight as she gave herself to me in that alley.
I always suspected sex with her would be amazing, but it turns out I never could have even imagined how perfect it would feel.
My spine goes tight. My balls clench. My ass lifts off the seat.
I grit my teeth hard. No, I don’t want to lose control yet.
This greedy space of voracious pleasure before release—lost in the fantasy of reliving what we did while her scent fills the air around me—I want to live here as long as possible.
So I drag my hand back down to the base and try to remember what it felt like to be inside her tight body.
Yes, I was out of my mind with lust when I took her like that in the alley.
I assume that was Ammit’s doing, some kind of spell or power.
But it was only giving in to fantasies I’d played out a thousand times in my head over the years.
It was just the restraint of my disciplined brain that finally snapped. Was it the same for Phoenix?
Is she having one of those same fantasies right now in that shower across the hall?
I imagine her imagining me.
I think about her wishing I would stomp into her room and shove open her shower door. I imagine her begging me to come inside with her.
Like she begged me in the alley when I was buried deep inside her.
Fuck me. And when I pushed deeper inside her wet heat. Fuck me harder.
I’d push her against the tile wall of the shower but wouldn’t give her what she wanted right away.
I’d take it slow despite her demands. I drag my hand down my cock with excruciating slowness to match the fantasy.
I’d make her beg me for it properly. I’d tease her sensitive clit with my thumb while I entered her slowly.
Torturously slowly. Then I’d grab her ass and spread her open all the way to me.
She’d lift her leg around my hip to give me better access.
Please. Please, Layden. Make me yours. You’re all I’ve ever wanted in this world.
Then she’d run out of patience like she always does. She’d reach down for my cock herself and drag me inside her welcoming body. She’d squeeze my balls for good measure to punish me for making her wait.
I squeeze them now while imagining her hands on me instead of my own. A groan escapes my throat. Distantly, and only because of my enhanced hearing, I catch the faintest of cries coming from her room.
In the shower, she’s reaching her peak.
I work myself harder with my hand, needing this moment of connection with her. Even if she’ll never know about it. Even if it’s twisted and wrong. My hand is nothing like her pussy or her mouth, but it’s a small meal for a starving man who’s tasted paradise.
I close my eyes and try to remember the feeling of her mouth on me when she was on her knees earlier. Finally, finally abandoning herself to me in every way possible.
Desperately, I grab a napkin from the box on the desk beside the computer. I roughly work myself into it as one last burst of her scent perfumes the air around me.
The release hits me like a freight train.
I’m breathing hard as I crumple the used napkin and toss it in the bin underneath the desk.
The first time this happened years ago, I remember feeling an euphoric sense of momentary satisfaction afterward.
But I was also so confused by what had just happened that I’d shoved myself back in my pants quickly.
I was worried she’d come back into the lab and find me like that.
She’d know immediately what I’d done. Of course she didn’t come back that night.
She went to bed just like she said she would.
The next day, I tried to pretend I hadn’t been imagining her naked and wet and trembling beneath my touch.
Now, after tidying myself and zipping my pants back up, I turn back to the computer screen.
I try to shake off the memories of the past mixing with what happened earlier tonight.
I try to stop wondering if, every time she showered and I was overwhelmed by that telltale scent, she was thinking of me.
Or if it was just her way of de-stressing after difficult days, as mechanical as scratching an itch.
Everyone talked about self-care these days.
I was all for her taking care of herself in whatever way she needed.
Truly, it was none of my business what she did in the privacy of her own shower.
She didn’t need to know I was the monster hovering at the edge of her life, feeding off her scent like a parasite.
I start clicking through camera feeds near the river, but my mind’s not really engaged with the task.
There’s nothing useful on any of the feeds anyway.
Occasionally some homeless folks appear near the river, but there are no blonde women skulking around in the footage.
Ammit might have put on a hoodie to disguise herself if she’s smart.
I try to watch for those possibilities as well.
Maybe she’s holed up somewhere safe for the night? Did she figure out we blocked off all the exits to the city? All the cops will have her description and photo by now.
I jump when Phoenix’s bedroom door slams open against the wall with as much violence as she used when she closed it earlier.
She swings into the computer lab with equal force.
She’s freshly showered now with her hair still wet and only the vaguest trace of what she was doing in there still clinging to her skin.
“What have we got?” she asks while sitting down in the chair beside me. She doesn’t look my way.
I try not to stare at her. I put my attention back on the computer screen in front of me. I swallow before saying, “Nothing yet that’s helpful. I’m watching the river section, but we can’t be sure how far she went up or down the bank. Or if she found somewhere to hole up for the night.”
Phoenix wakes up another console besides the one I’m working at. “Well, we won’t stop until we find her. Vlad has more surveillance on this city than a totalitarian state. She’s got to show up somewhere eventually.”
I nod at her assessment. “Colorful comparison as always.”
She smirks slightly but doesn’t take her eyes away from the screen she’s now scanning.
“I missed you,” I say into the quiet room while keeping my eyes on my own screen. “And this. I’ve missed this.” I don’t elaborate on what “this” means. But I can tell she understands what I’m trying to say when, a long time later, I hear her sigh softly.
She gives me a quiet, “Me, too,” back.
The words settle between us like a peace offering. We work in companionable silence, searching through hours of footage. Just like we used to do years ago. Just like I’ve dreamed about doing again ever since I left.
Maybe it’s not everything I want. But for now, it’s enough.