Chapter 18
Ulysses
Rue had been quiet since the alley. I mean, he was always pretty quiet, but this was a different kind of quiet.
A thoughtful quiet, but not in a good way.
There was something festering inside him, making his body tight.
His knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel too tight, a muscle ticking in his jaw as he ground his teeth.
The frustration and disappointment coming off him were bitter enough to choke me.
I wanted to ask him what he was thinking about, but I was worried that he was mad at me.
And why wouldn’t he be? Because if I couldn’t track down this Apate, even when we were given directions on where to find her, then what help was I to this case? To him?
A reel began to play in my mind, of every single one of my mistakes.
Every time I’d dared to hope I had a place in this world, a home, only to have it all come crumbling down.
But this time, I’d felt… Dammit, I thought I’d felt real love!
Cameron had said the M-word—mate—but I should’ve seen how quickly Rue raced to change the subject.
He would’ve acknowledged it if it was true.
Dammit, I should’ve known better than to believe when a man told me he loved me.
The first time a man said those words to me, he’d quickly forgotten his vow as soon as he learned what I was.
The second time I’d tried to forge a lasting connection, I’d made sure to reveal my true nature to him, but it turned out he’d believed I might be able to help him cheat death, that I was somehow the key to everlasting life, and in the end, he too left me.
I slouched further into the seat, watching the city pass by. Would he just drive me back to my apartment and let me take the hint? The all-too-familiar feeling of worthlessness crawled through me, my stomach roiling. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been discarded once I was no longer useful.
I’d spent five minutes preparing what I would say in farewell, determined to keep the telltale sting of tears at bay, when the car came to a stop. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize we were in front of his house. “Why are we here?” I blurted without thinking.
Rue frowned. “Sorry, I just assumed. Did you want to go to dinner?”
“I—” It felt like we were on two very different pages. Hell, different books entirely. “I thought you were going to drop me off at home. That you were—that we were…”
“That we were what?” he asked.
“Breaking up?” I whispered, struggling to push the words from my lips. But that wasn’t quite accurate, because whatever we were, I doubt it counted as dating. Just because he stuck his fingers in me and swallowed my cum, that was hardly a marriage proposal.
Rue’s mouth dropped open in shock. “What? No! Never! Wherever did you get that idea, love?”
I shrugged, shame warming my cheeks as I looked down at my lap. “I thought maybe… you were sticking by me because I might help you solve this case, and all I’ve done is make a mess of things. Getting hurt and letting her get away, and now I couldn’t track her—”
“Stop right there,” he commanded sharply, but when he reached across for me, the seatbelt stopped him dead, and he growled in frustration. “No, this just won’t do. Come on, inside.”
He pulled me inside by the hand and sat me down on the couch, taking my face in his hands more easily this time.
“Uly, you are more important to me than any case. When I first came across you, I recognized the touch of fate that had caused our paths to cross. I knew you were important, but I was wrong in assuming it was because of the case. It never had anything to do with the case at all. It was just you! Because you’re mine, Uly, do you understand?
All this time, thousands of years, I’ve been living each day to fulfill my purpose to the gods, to use my gift and earn their favor.
I never thought I might have a life of my own, love, a future, maybe a family… a mate.”
The words seemed too good to be true. I wanted so very much for them to be true.
Since meeting Rue, I’d felt my poor frayed soul stitching itself slowly back together, shoring up all the places where it had worn thin.
I’d tried so hard to stay strong against him, to keep my walls up to guard against heartbreak, but no matter what, he just kept getting through.
A tear slipped down my cheek. “But in the car… if you aren’t mad at me, then what has you all worked up?”
Rue leaned in and kissed my tears away. “What you said about retiring… living out your mortal life. Was I really so close to losing you?”
I shrugged as if the possibility hadn’t been very real. “I mean, theoretically, but I was doing a really bad job of retiring. Turns out it’s pretty boring. What the heck do I know about shuffleboard?”
“And now?” he asked, taking me by the waist and drawing me forward until I straddled his lap. “Still thinking about sticking around with me?”
“If you’ll have me,” I said shyly.
“I should be so lucky,” he said, beaming, before he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me tight against him, face tucked into my neck.
“No more doubting me, okay? I love you, and that’s never going to change.
” We sat like that, entwined, as our bodies seemed to find a rhythm, our chests rising with our shared breath.
It was not just our breaths, however, that seemed to synchronize. Our cocks, too, seemed to have the same idea.
It didn’t take much for the heat to build between us, since it seemed to be at a constant simmer at all times. Pressure too, as my pants tightened. I allowed my lips a slow, lazy roll in Rue’s lap, and his breath caught.
“Not here,” he said. “You deserve more than a quick fuck on the couch. Come on then, sin-eater. Let me show you what you have in store, being mated to me for eternity.” He stood as though I weighed nothing, my legs still locked around his waist, and carried me down the hall to his bedroom.
If we were mates, did that make this our bedroom? It was too soon for that… wasn’t it?
He laid me out on the bed then stood above me, a look of intense worship in his eyes as he gazed down at me, his tongue darting out to wet his lips, seemingly ravenous.
It felt like he saw me all the way down to my soul.
Was that what being mates meant? That he would see what no one else saw, touched a part of me even I didn’t know existed?
When he still hadn’t made a move to touch me, I started undoing my own pants. I would start without him if I had to. “So help me gods, Rue, if you plan on holding back from me again…”
“No, love. I think you give my restraint too much credit.” He peeled his shirt up and off, giving me a full view of his gorgeous body.
The light scattering of hair across his pecs, broken only by the scar he chose to keep to mark the end of his human life, leading in a treasure trail that disappeared under his waistband. “Clothes. Off,” he demanded.
Thankful I’d had a head start, I scrambled to get naked, all without looking away from him as he bared himself fully. At last, I thought with a blissful sigh, taking in his thick length and marveling at how his hair was red all over. He truly was a god, in every meaning of the word.
Right from the beginning, it was obvious things were different.
He didn’t handle me like I was fragile, his fingers digging into the flesh of my thighs as he parted them and dove in.
He took me into his mouth, but there was a new level of desperate need that had him bobbing fast, leaving me sloppy with spit.
And this time when he stretched me with his fingers, he didn’t dawdle.
The foreplay was rushed, clearly nothing more than a step to getting us both where we wanted to be.
“Hurry,” I panted, scrabbling at his shoulders and dragging him off my cock. “I need you inside me.”
“Anything for you, love,” he vowed as he lowered himself over me, anchoring me to the bed as he lined himself up.
He claimed my mouth at the same time as he thrust forward, swallowing my cry. The fit was a stretch, but the painful sting brought nothing but more pleasure. He stilled once he was seated inside me, his forehead on mine. “Fuck, love. You’re perfect.”
Contrary to what he’d claimed about his lack of restraint, I could feel him fighting the urge to fuck me into the mattress. He moved in long, slow glides, letting me get used to his size, all while kissing, licking, sucking down my neck and across my chest, leaving hickeys.
“You know,” I gasped as he sucked my nipple hard. “If you’re going to mark me as your mate, you’ll have to do better than that,” I said, goading him.
My words got the precise reaction I wanted from him. His hips snapped forward in a classic possessive, alpha move, burying himself deep, and he jerked his head back, staring down at me with shock, his eyes greener than I’d ever seen them. “Please don’t joke about that when my cock is inside you.”
“Who says I’m joking?” I bit my lower lip, fighting the urge to take it back, to protect myself in the only way I’d known how for 250 years—keeping my heart under lock and key.
I’d been betrayed time and time again. Maybe it was fair to say that was the reason I’d believed for too long that I didn’t deserve to be loved, but didn’t I owe it to myself to try?
And for the first time, I found myself leaning into this feeling that had been growing inside me since that first night he’d chased me down and forced himself straight into my life.
“I love you too,” I whispered, picking up where he’d left off that night.
“You love me?” he repeated, and when I nodded, he rewarded me with a short, sharp punch of his hips, leaving me groaning. “Say it again.”
“I love you,” I said, and again, he punctuated the words with his hips, like positive reinforcement, so I would forever associate love with pleasure. “Fuck,” I gasped, “I love you.” If this was how he rewarded me, I would just keep saying it!
With my cock trapped between our bodies, slippery with precum, and his girth pegging my prostate on every stroke, it didn’t take long until my climax began to build.
But just as my core tightened, Rue seemed to decide it was a good time to take a break.
He pulled out and flipped us over so I was on top.
“Show me what you’ve got, love,” he growled, reaching up to tweak my sensitive nipples.
I was grateful to be able to set the pace and rode him hard, sweat dripping and my thighs burning with the exertion, but again, as soon as I got close, he gripped me by the hips and changed position, putting me on all fours this time.
Every time I got close, he altered the rhythm, going devastatingly slow or even stopping entirely, letting my climax slip through my fingers.
And each time as he began again, it only ramped me up higher.
Again, I felt my orgasm looming, and I focused on keeping my reactions a secret. Maybe if he didn’t know how close I was, he would finally let me come.
Just as my balls began to clench, the telltale tingling spreading out to my fingers, he stopped again. “Whyyyy?” I groaned in frustration. “You’re driving me crazy! Please, let me come.”
Instead of fucking me, though, which was what a kinder, more obedient lover would do, he propped himself up on his elbows and looked down on me with a placid expression, as if we were having a discussion about what to have for dinner, or maybe what I would like to do on the weekend.
“Tell me, Uly… if you could have me in any body, what shape would you have me?”
I blinked, confused about what exactly he was asking me. “What? I love this body, obviously.”
“Oh, of course, but I know you love my fingers. What if my hands were larger, my fingers thicker? Or perhaps, I could have a larger…” Instead of finishing that sentence, he waggled his eyebrows, and inside me, I felt him thicken, expand, stretching my hole further.
I gasped, trying to writhe under where he had me pinned with his hips. “Fuuuuck,” I groaned, shuddering.
Rue pursed his lips, still thinking. “Or would you rather something more exotic, say… something with tentacles?”
Before I could even offer an opinion on that, I felt a tickling sensation as several unseen tendrils trailed down my legs, wrapping around my ankles and wrists and constraining me, making it impossible to move even an inch.
“Rue…” I drawled in warning, even as another tentacle wrapped itself tenderly around my balls, tugging them gently.
“I can be anything you want me to be,” Rue said, eyes filled with fierce love and devotion. “Anything you need me to be. Just say the word.”
I tugged on my wrists, coaxing the binding to release me so I could take his beautiful, flawed face between my palms. “I just need you,” I told him, leaning up to kiss him softly.
“I need you to stand by my side through this life and the next. I need you to trust in me, in us.” Another soft kiss, before I carded my fingers into his hair and gripped it hard.
“And for the love of gods, I need you to let me come!”
He laughed, but thankfully, he also seemed to realize that I’d hit my limit for edging. This time when my orgasm rushed toward the surface, Rue embraced it, giving me exactly what I wanted—needed—just like he’d promised.
And when that blisteringly hot climax crested higher than I’d ever been before, Rue’s teeth became fangs so he could mark me properly as his mate, with a scar more permanent than any hickey.
He sank them into my shoulder as my cum spilled between us, drinking in my blood and essence.
And as he filled me with his cum, his knot locking our bodies, I bit his neck in return, hard enough to break the skin, locking our souls for eternity.
Any lingering doubt I might’ve had was blown away like dust on the wind when I felt him there, in my chest, my heart. It was light and sunshine chasing away all the shadows I’d been living with this whole time. How could I have doubted for one second that he wasn’t meant for me?
We’d both waited a long time for this happy ever after—lifetimes, in fact. I wasn’t going to wait even one more day to claim the future that was ours.