Altair
As much as I hadn’t wanted to move down by the river, or how I’d grumbled and griped when Leo had cleaned my muddy feet, I didn’t mind being in bed once he’d gotten me there. All day long, I was bundled up in his thick golden blanket, warm and surrounded by the scent of him, even when he was out.
I certainly couldn’t keep him in bed all day, even if I liked the thought of it.
That was the very same impulse that made me want to stop time, though. It wasn’t about facing what came next, but preserving something precious that I didn’t think I’d get to keep.
Could I?
I wanted to. Yes, maybe I’d been locked away for a long time and would benefit from getting to know the world a little better before deciding what I wanted to do with my time in it, but I’d been alive long enough to know it wasn’t that simple and—and some things were worth taking the risk on.
I’d been on my own in the Americas for decades, searching for a better life. I’d never really felt like I’d found anything worth keeping until Leo.
Maybe I didn’t fit here, but if I made him feel even a little bit more like he did for me, that was worth staying.
I spent the day stretched out in the nest of his bed, yes, wishing he were there too but happy that I got to stay. Once evening fell, he knocked on the door—obvious it was him from how soft and considerate he approached it.
“Come in.”
He slipped inside, his lips curled a little higher on the left side. “Sleep okay?”
I stretched, grinning. “Wonderfully, actually. You don’t have to knock, you know. It’s your room.”
He shook his head. “It’s yours while you’re with us or . . . for as long as you want.”
His gaze darted toward the far side of the bed. Was he nervous?
No sense in that.
“Or we could share it. I’d rather be with you if you don’t mind the company.”
His eyes widened and he blinked at me. “You don’t . . . want a space of your own?”
“When the alternative is having you here with me?” I shook my head. “I’d prefer you stayed.”
“Oh . . . ” Leo’s cheeks went a lovely shade of pink and he smiled. “Then I’ll stay.”
Simple as that. I didn’t have to make any promises or offer him anything specific. He wasn’t looking for that. I’d never had to ingratiate myself to him, not really.
He was just there. He accepted me as I was.
He had from the beginning.
I held out my arm, lifting the blanket to let in the cooler air beyond the edge, knowing all the while that if he joined me, he’d share more of his warmth than what I risked by inviting him close.
“Come here,” I said.
His grin widened. He kicked off his shoes and slipped into bed with me.
His broad shoulders formed an enormous wall, protecting me from the outside world. I sighed, stretching up to kiss him.
It started slow and easy, just the movement of our lips against each other. The feeling that settled over me was warmer than any blanket, and it sparked a flickering need I hadn’t meant to ignite.
Only, well . . . I wanted him. I wanted as much of him as I could get, and yes, I was afraid our time together would be too short-lived, but it was hard to imagine ever being fully sated.
I pushed on his shoulder, and he fell easily onto his back, allowing me to roll on top of him. I slid my hands beneath his shirt and kissed his ear until he let out a soft gasp.
“Can I touch you?” Leo asked. The way his thumb arched across the small of my back sent heat dancing across my skin, but it was the way he asked that made me shiver against him. I rolled my hips, gasping raggedly at the sensation of him beneath me.
Desperate, I nodded.
He was so sweet, asking like that. Checking in on what I wanted. I wasn’t used to that, and maybe I should’ve been. Maybe this was how fucking was supposed to go, because it felt so damn good to know he wanted me—and that he wanted me to be happy.
His hand slipped down the back of the stretchy trousers I’d borrowed from him. His long middle finger slipped between my cheeks and circled my hole, setting my nerves aflame. I wanted him again—inside, filling me up, the strain of keeping quiet twisting his pretty lips.
“Take them off,” he begged, so I slung my leg over his hip to pull off the trousers and the shirt besides, while he shed his own clothing and found a bottle of something slick in his bedside table and spread it over his fingers.
This time, he slid his hand between us from the front. The way he watched it disappear between my thighs was pure hunger, so I braced myself on his shins and leaned back, spreading my legs for him to watch.
“Are you going to put that inside me?” I asked as he teased my rim. He was so damnably patient, I didn’t know how he stood it.
He bit his bottom lip, which was too plump and lovely for anyone’s good. “You want me to?”
I sucked in a shaky breath and nodded. “Yeah. Get me ready for your cock. I want to ride it again. Feels so good with you in me, warm everywhere and”—I groaned as he sank the tip of his finger into me—“so full.”
He took his time prepping me, teasing me for what felt like forever with just one finger.
It was like he wanted to map every inch of me, and I didn’t know how he could take just watching while my weeping cock bobbed against my belly.
I rocked my hips, encouraging him deeper, thrilled when he finally added a second finger.
“You’re so beautiful,” Leo whispered when he finally dragged his gaze up from my ass to meet my eyes again. “I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful. Can’t believe I get to touch you like this.”
I couldn’t stand him being so sweet to me, not for long. He was stubborn as ever, but finally, he let me bat his hand away and rock against his rigid cock. The movement spread the lube between us.
Leo’s eyes fluttered shut. He dropped his head back onto the pillow, clutching desperately at my thighs.
It was too much and not enough. I lifted myself, adjusting us both so I could sink down on his cock again. His caught breath came out as a quiet, broken moan and I circled my hips.
He wanted to map every inch of me? Good. I’d give him all I had.
We tried to stay quiet as I rode him, but it was too much—the little hitches of his breath, the way a moan punched out of me when he lifted his hips just right and his cock dragged over my prostate.
“Leo,” I begged, reaching for his hand, dragging it up to my needy cock, flushed a deep red at the tip.
He took cues wonderfully, and he striped his hand across my cock while I bounced faster and faster. The dual pleasure of his hand and his perfect cock drove me over the edge, and I shot across him, marking all up his chest.
He clenched his teeth hard when he came too, and I let out a breathy laugh as I toppled forward. His cock slipped out of me. I was barely able to catch myself before landing in our mess, and licked my spend from his hairy chest.
He shivered, grinning, and his hands ran up my sides. “That feels nice,” he admitted.
Which obviously meant I needed to kiss him more, lick every inch of him I could uncover.
I set my mind to just that, and was dragging my tongue across his collarbone when he shivered and something came over him.
I didn’t know if it was good or bad, so I sat back on my knees and tried to ignore the rocks piling in my gut.
But it was just Leo there, looking up at me hopefully.
“You could bite me,” he murmured. The way he tilted his head showed exactly what he meant—he didn’t offer me his wrist or anywhere else.
He’d let me bite his neck, even after—
“I killed that woman,” I whispered.
He shrugged. “I know you won’t hurt me, and she was attacking us. I’m not scared of you, Altair.”
My brow must’ve puckered, because Leo reached up and smoothed his finger between my eyes, stretching up toward my forehead. With a sigh, I let my eyes flutter shut.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Leo went on quietly, “I didn’t like it.”
I tried not to flinch, to wonder what I’d looked like after draining that witch dry.
But then he laughed, and the sound was soft and sweet, and I couldn’t help looking down at him properly.
He sat up and wrapped his arm around my waist so that when I settled in his lap, we were chest to chest.
“If I had my way,” he rumbled, “you’d always feed from me.”
“What?” I clung to him, waves of misunderstanding threatening to unmoor me. There was no way that he really meant that, no way that he would actually enjoy tomorrow what he teased about today.
But he didn’t look the slightest bit unsteady. Rather, he smiled at me and pulled my bottom lip between his teeth.
“Yeah. It’s sexy. I like having you close like that. I get it’d probably be boring, like if I tried to eat nothing but burgers, but—”
I shook my head fast. “Nothing like burgers,” I whispered, my throat thick. I wasn’t even entirely sure what burgers were, but I needed him to understand that he was nothing like any food. He was so much more than that.
“Hey, hey—” His palm closed over my cheek. That pressure allowed me to feel how my lips trembled, and I pressed them together hard to try and get them to stop. “We’re naked. I’m not supposed to make you sad when we’re naked.”
A weak laugh bubbled out of me. “Not sad,” I promised.
I didn’t know what I was, but I wasn’t sad. Maybe caught somewhere between disbelief and desire, and—and maybe staggered by the sheer overwhelm of thinking that after so long of going without, there was someone who wanted to give himself to me. So much of himself.
“You really want me to?” I croaked.
He nodded. “Really.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You haven’t yet.”
“And you’ll stop me if I do?”
I remembered the first time I’d felt the tear of Ivan’s fangs. I didn’t want to be anything like him. Leo deserved so much better than that. I never wanted to scare him or hurt him. Never.
“I swear,” Leo promised, “if you ever do anything that’s too much for me, I’ll say something.”
“And I’ll stop.”
Leo’s thumb pressed against the corner of my mouth and his smile was guileless. “I know.”
How could he trust me like that? There was something wrong with him.
Or maybe, more terrifyingly, there’d never been all that much wrong with me, and I just hadn’t seen that until Leo.
“You’re sure?”
He nodded, turning his head.
I kept my arms around him, holding him upright because I was afraid to make a mess of his sheets and leave ruby-red evidence of my monstrosity across the bed he’d been kind enough to share with me.
He didn’t even flinch when I leaned toward him, but that was just as well. At first, I only kissed his neck, waiting for the warmth to bloom under my lips. I traced my tongue across his skin and sucked until he moaned. He clutched me closer still, truly as unafraid as he claimed to be.
At the first scrape of my fang, I swear he whimpered.
I let it sink in, breaking the barrier. His blood filled my mouth, hot and pulsing with life. With a groan of my own, I lost myself in its song—the pulse against my lips, the crescendo when I sucked him deeper.
His hand slipped up my back, and his fingers tangled in my hair. Rather than pull me away, he dragged me in.
Then I felt it—his cock rigid and trapped between our bodies, indelible proof that he wasn’t lying to me. He wasn’t naive and romantic—or not only those things.
He liked this, and no, feeding from Leo was nothing like eating any kind of food. The very thought was absurd. No food in this world could make me feel seen and safe the way he did. No food tasted like sunlight and the joy of his laugh and hope.
This? I could do this forever. And happily.
I reached between us. His breath stuttered at the feel of my hand wrapped around him, and he whined when I let go of his neck.
“Altair—” he begged.
“I know,” I promised. “I will, just—”
I needed him inside me again. I needed to know that he was happy too, that he felt the same swell of pleasure he gave me.
I shifted forward, holding him steady under me as his blunt tip spread me wide. I shivered, sinking down and taking him inch by inch. I was already loose, already slick, but the sensation of having all this was overwhelming. It left my thighs trembling on either side of his hips.
He grabbed my legs and dragged me in, a deep, lazy kind of movement. “Altair, please,” Leo whispered, pink-cheeked and needy.
I bit him again, and he cried out. The wolves could hear, but right then, I didn’t care. Didn’t care a bit, because Leo was asking for this and I’d give him anything—anything I had in this world or the next, if he meant everything he said and kept meaning it.
I drank him down greedily, and when I was finished, I pushed him onto his back. He smiled up at me, eyes dazed and glittering, and I rode him until he came and each bounce on his cock sent his spend trickling down the backs of my thighs.
I licked his neck clean of every drop, but my bite was still there, just a little mark, and my heart thrilled to think it’d made him happy, even if it would be gone by morning.