Love and Luxury #6
We are so much closer now—dangerously close. I am on a perilous ledge, willing to throw myself onto the sharp rocks below for even the slightest chance that Seraphine would catch me before I meet a gory end. “Let me show you more.”
“I’d like that.” Neither of us is talking about condos anymore.
I kiss her, launching myself to my tiptoes to snatch the tiniest distance left, surrendering what little breath I was holding to her hungry answer.
Her lips are inviting—soft, warm, gently fragranced.
I think briefly of settling into a perfect hot bath after a long day before Seraphine’s hands are at my waist, her wings enveloping us in a floral cocoon.
I venture a more demanding kiss, parting my lips slightly.
She answers, hands fisting the back of my blouse, a deep moan bubbling from someplace molten.
Her tongue slips in, exploring my mouth with none of the politeness I expected.
This is a woman unraveling, gripping what anchors she can before she’s left a pile of loose ends.
I don’t bother holding back my gasp of pleasure when she nips my bottom lip with a fang.
Something in Seraphine shifts, and her touch grows firmer, more confident.
She slides a hand up my back, bracing me against her solid form, sliding a leg between mine.
I moan at the friction, embarrassed and thrilled that I’m already so turned on that I’ll have to dry clean these slacks.
I would dry-clean every item in my wardrobe if it meant she kept touching me like this.
I can’t stop myself from chasing the heat between us, grinding against her, and groaning at the slightest shift of her body against mine.
Every nerve is on fire, my skin like a bed of hot coals, every touch stoking me higher and higher.
My hands roam over Seraphine as she angles me for another deep probe of her tongue, tracing all the places my eyes have wandered the last torturous few hours.
Her muscular arms and shoulders, the thrillingly soft stretch of her graceful neck, stopping to cup her brilliant, entrancing face in both hands.
Then, as suddenly as we started, we stop.
One moment, I’m enveloped in Seraphine’s floral scent, the musky heat of her, the soft flutter of her wings, the next I’m standing alone in the middle of the master suite.
I shiver, knocked off balance, as if I’ve had the blankets ripped off the bed on a cold, lonely night.
Seraphine’s breath comes hard and fast from across the room, her back pressed against the floor-to-ceiling windows, one hand stretched out for the sliding door.
“Please,” I gasp, remembering her departure the night before. “Not yet.”
She licks a salacious tongue across her mouth.
I can feel her heated gaze on every part of me.
“There’s no reason to rush, ma belle. Pleasure is best delivered when we don’t race the sun.
” Closing her eyes, Seraphine tilts her head back against the window, placing her free hand to her chest. I watch, transfixed, as she slows her breathing, her wings still trembling.
“You have a hypnotizing effect on me, and I won’t endanger us both by risking the dawn. ”
I let my hands drop to my sides with a churlish smack against my thighs. “What does that mean? Why do magical beings speak in riddles all the time?”
Seraphine laughs. I could drink the sound. “I love your bluntness, Anya. Don’t ever swallow it for my sake.” She finally tilts her head forward, turning those deep eyes back on mine. “I have to go home. I don’t imagine it’ll be easy for you to explain why a stone woman is lounging at your showing.”
“Stone—oh.” From somewhere deep in the back of my mind, an old fairytale rule whispers. Gargoyles turn to stone at dawn, waiting for the sunset to roam their domains safely in the night. That would explain the insane hours we’ve been keeping.
Seraphine smiles knowingly at the realization stretching across my face.
“But the sun won’t rise for another four hours at least.” I’m whining. I can hear it in my voice, and I’m powerless to suppress it.
She arches a brow as she prowls across the room to me. My heart slams in my ribs watching her, every part of me panicking at the approaching predator. But I’d lay down as her next meal if she asked me.
“You think four hours is enough for me, ma belle?” Her voice lowers, rasping with barely restrained want. My stomach flutters as she brushes my cheek with the back of her hand, the barest contact reminding me how empty I am, clenching my legs on nothing.
“Tomorrow?” My voice cracks, and I don’t have time to be embarrassed when Seraphine drops a starving kiss to my lips, wings fluttering again as if they would enclose us on their own.
“Tomorrow,” she says, as if the single word were an unbreakable oath.
I watch, stunned, burning, desperate, as she turns for the patio doors and slips out once more into the night.
Her absence leaves me too horny to move, my first step rubbing my slacks against my engorged clit.
I drop to the bed face-first, slamming three fingers inside my wet and ready cunt.
I ride my own hand, thinking of the way Seraphine’s mouth shaped “tomorrow” over and over again until I come with a muffled scream, face pressed into the expensive duvet.
Then I scream again—at the frustration of having to wait, the confusion seeping in post-release.
I lay there, panting, fingers still hooked inside myself, hot tears stinging but unshed.
I willingly gave up the easy path to my freedom for a creature—a woman. An incredible woman. But not even for her—just for one more night with her.
“What are you doing?” I mumble into the bed. With a sigh, I push myself up, careful to keep my slick hand off any surfaces as I wash up in the bathroom.
The mirror betrays me: red-rimmed eyes, hair mussed from Seraphine’s attention, bottom lip bruised and swollen from her fangs. I touch it gingerly, wondering at the way my life seems to be tipping wildly in a direction I didn’t anticipate.
I thought I didn’t want.
Clicking off the lights behind me, I leave the suite, using the elevator ride down to gather myself and call a car home.
Tomorrow feels simultaneously impossibly far and much too near.
When I slam a bleary hand on my phone the next morning, I barely register it’s not my alarm dragging me from the delicious dream I was having.
It’s ringing. I sit up, rubbing my free hand over my eyes, and trying not to sound like I just woke up.
My curtains are still drawn, grey light winking through the gaps.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry. You must’ve been up with Seraphine again last night.” Meghna’s voice is now almost as familiar as my mother’s.
“S’alright,” I mutter, flopping back onto my pillows. “How can I help you?”
“Well, I know we agreed you’d have showings for me next week, but Seraphine invited me to join you both tonight.”
I sit up straighter, pulse slamming as if I have just run a mile. Her promised tomorrow is here, and I’d been so sure I understood her intention—her hungry gaze, the way she’d nearly devoured me then and there.
“Oh.” It’s all I can say, the only weak noise rattling in my skull.
“Is that alright?” Her reedy voice is thinner than ever, if that were possible.
Of course, it’s not alright. Tonight was supposed to be the night I fuck Seraphine’s brains out, not show her yet another condo with some old friend of a nebulous nature.
But even I can read the tone in Meghna’s voice, the apprehension, the fear of rejection.
“Of course!” I throw as much fake nicety into my tone as I can, startling myself at how loud and cheery it comes out. “It’ll be great to meet you face-to-face before we work together.”
“What a relief! I was so worried I’d be imposing.” As if bolstered with confidence, Meghna now comes clearly through the line. “Seraphine says such lovely things about you. I’m really looking forward to it.”
We agree on a time, and I give Meghna the address of what I’d hoped would be my final grand gesture to Seraphine—an entire top floor with roof access in the heart of downtown overlooking the water and 360-degree views. But I guess if Meghna likes it more, a sale is a sale.
Hauling myself out of bed takes Herculean effort—how does anyone work nights?
I don’t bother changing out of my pajamas before throwing on my puffer jacket.
I pull a beanie over my unbrushed hair, ignoring the smeared makeup under my eyes from the night before.
I’m going to need a triple this morning if I’m going to function.
Around the corner, down the street, into the coffee shop.
It’s the same walk I’ve taken countless times in the last five years, once a smart clip in my step, slowing to a crawl when I realized no amount of attitude or expertise would make the monster roster diminish faster.
They met with me when it pleased them, sometimes not even answering my first three weeks of calls.
I used to think this would never end, that I’d been caught in some fairytale curse that not even Princess Charming could break.
I’d always envisioned this day—the morning of my final showing for my final monster—as one of triumph.
I’d get a blowout, get my nails done, treat myself to a long-awaited new outfit.
I’d strut to the coffee shop, tip outrageously after years of barely a dollar, then waltz off to hand the keys to my hundredth monster.
Instead, I slump into Bilz, unshowered, exhausted, defeated.
All because Seraphine invited another woman to our showing.
A woman whose specific breed of monster I don’t even know—she could be another godforsaken yeti for all I know.
Three dry cleaners and the stench of the last one still lingers on my poor suit.