Chapter 24
Lucifer
Nelly tensed in my arms, my mere touch giving him sweet pleasure he could have asked for at any point since our first meeting. My smile grew, and I looked forward to making him regret his stubbornness, but that anticipation was short-lived.
The sex smell was unmistakable. Glorious. He’d come for me, my necromancer. So responsive. I buried my nose in his hair and breathed him in.
But then he went limp. His energy—everything went right out of him, and before I could unwrap him like a Saturnalia present and have my fill of him, he…passed out?
“Nelly. Nelly, stop pretending.”
I gently shook him. It made his head roll back against my chest, his mouth slack and half-open, drool running down his chin.
“Nelly?”
He didn’t respond. I peeled his right eyelid open, careful of his long lashes, and saw only white.
Never before had a lover passed out in my bedroom this early into an evening’s activities.
I was good—I knew I was good at parceling out pleasure and using it as both reward and punishment—but this?
This was not how my boyfriend should respond to me.
This was humiliating, especially since we hadn’t even got to the point where I showed him my cock.
If this had happened after the big reveal, sure, I could have understood.
My cock was pretty impressive, after all, and it would have made perfect sense for him to keel over at the sight of it, but my Nelly had barely kissed me.
I lifted my chin and carefully adjusted my hold on him, much like they had taught during all those CPR courses.
I remembered all the stuff about protecting your human lover’s spine.
I bent over him just to make sure he was breathing and didn’t need actual CPR, but his chest rose and fell, slowly, as if he was in a deep sleep.
It was a far cry from his vehement shyness about being with me for our first night.
“It’s fine. This could’ve happened to anyone,” I said as I very carefully maneuvered him toward the bed.
I put him down, supporting his neck as if he were an infant, and the sight of him on my sheets, in this room, didn’t help my straining cock at all.
A scratching noise at the door made me turn, and as if she sensed it, Soul gave a low bark.
“There is nothing to see here,” I said, hoping she’d ignore us in favor of one of the very nice toys Trony had gotten her.
But the cursed hellpoodle barked again, louder this time.
Since I wasn’t sure exactly what I was supposed to do with a passed-out boyfriend other than make sure he didn’t choke on his own vomit—something I’d considered outlandish when it had come up in the course, no pun intended—I went back to the door and opened it to let the poodle in.
Soul, an independent little canine, made straight for the bed and Nelly’s prone form.
“He’s fine,” I said, but Soul had already hopped up and was sniffing Nelly. She was sniffing his pants. I beamed. “I did that.”
The poodle growled.
“Do you think it was too good for him? Maybe it’s because…
” I tasted something bitter and unpleasant in my throat.
“Maybe it’s because of whatever other pathetic excuses for lovers he’s allowed near him.
Ugh. Although, maybe he’s still untouched?
Sometimes the virgins pretend, you know.
I read this book about an omega who faked even his bonding bite because he didn’t want to be bonded against his will, and he was still a virgin.
” I looked at Nelly, and Soul sniffing his crotch.
“Maybe he’ll be as impressed when I fill him up as the omega was when he found his real alpha. ”
The thought was enticing, and I blamed the little fantasy that played in my mind’s eye for not noticing I’d left the door slightly open, and that Trony had sensed it with her knack for things just slightly out of place.
“What the fuck is this? I was about to feed the poodle.”
I cleared my throat. “It’s just…”
Trony, one hand on her hip, walked into my bedroom. “Looks like an unconscious necromancer in your bed.”
“It was necessary. To guard his spine.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It’s usually the necromancers who fashion vertebrae into design objects.”
“Not like that. I’m guarding it from injury.”
“But you’re not guarding his cock from getting sniffed at by Soul? Like I said, she hasn’t been fed. Accidents might happen.”
Soul sat and turned to look at us with her black eyes, barking once before she proceeded to drool on my very soft sheets.
“She’s a good dog. She wouldn’t eat his cock.”
Trony snorted. “Do I hear food envy in your voice, Lucy? If you want to stuff your face with cock, the pants need to come off first. That’s physics.”
“It wasn’t like that. It’s like he’s never been touched, like he couldn’t handle my skill, my presence.” I ran a hand through my hair. “There’s good reason for my seducer moniker, Trony.”
“Right.” She crossed her arms. “Looks like you and your seducer moniker aren’t getting any tonight though.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but of course Trony had a point. The evidence was looking adorable in my bed.
“I have to clean him up.” This had not been part of the CPR course, and I hadn’t thought to ask how to take off an unconscious person’s pants. Really, they should include that in their lesson planning. There was no way I was the first person this had happened to.
“I’m not going to watch you, but do you want juice with that? Or I could call someone who charges by the hour.”
It was my turn to cross my arms and glare at her. “None but him will do. He caused this—” I grabbed my erection. “—and no one else will make it go down, not anymore. He’s my boyfriend now.”
Trony looked at me for a long moment. My conviction had to be evident on my face, though the angel was excellent at not showing what she was thinking at any given moment.
“Whatever. Soul, I’ll put food in your bowl, but if you’d rather lick necromancer ass—”
“His ass is mine to lick!”
Trony cocked a brow. “Sure. Whatever. Lick away then.”
She teleported out. It left me with the task of removing Nelly’s clothes without causing traumatic injuries to him. Humans were very frail. Delicate, to be sure, like glassware or robins’ eggs.
It had never bothered or concerned me overly, but with Nelly, I wanted to cherish how breakable he was, wanted to keep him tucked away in safety between our bouts of lovemaking.
He’d grow to like that, I was sure, and I shivered at the prospect of holding him again, of feeling him go tense and then soft in response to me, over and over.
But for now, I had to focus on the task at hand. I wove some magic, carefully calibrating it so it wouldn’t hurt Nelly, and burned his clothes right off him.
The sight of him, naked but streaked with traces of ash, was nearly enough to make me come in my pants as well. Soul stood, sniffing again.
“No, not for you.” I picked her up. “I have to wash him. Hmm, it’ll be like a sponge bath.
” I wondered whether it would be okay to give myself a sponge bath after…
but no. All my CPR teachers had been adamant about not leaving unconscious people unattended.
I’d have to stay by Nelly’s side all through the night, watching him sleep and dream of me, his boyfriend.
In the bathroom at the back of the room, with Soul still under my arm, I grabbed a washcloth from the pile.
“I wonder if it’s the same as with people in a coma.
If I read to him, do you think he can hear?
” I wet the cloth one-handed, squeezed out the excess water, then headed back with Soul growling low.
“Maybe I should read to him.” I sucked in a lungful of air.
“Oh. There is this book I’ve been saving for a special occasion.
One of the characters keeps the other captive in a cage. Yeah, I’ll read that to him.”
I put Soul down on the floor as I sat on the bed next to Nelly, heated the cloth to just above body temperature with my magic, and began cleaning him up.
My mouth watered at the sight. After Trony’s ridiculous accusation about food envy, I wasn’t ever going to admit it, but I would’ve liked to suck my necromancer’s cock.
“Soon,” I told him before reaching over him to cover him with a sheet.
Humans were so susceptible to cold, and Nelly’s clothes were gone. I had to watch over him while he was naked. I grinned at the thought of such a chore and headed to my reading corner to grab the captivity book from my pile.
“You’re going to enjoy this so much, babe,” I told him, flipping to the first page.