Chapter Seven #3
Chilled, tingling fingers slammed into me, my pants around my knees, my sex flooding around him as I succumbed.
This wasn’t lovemaking. This wasn’t even sex.
“Cal,” I groaned. I wanted him. I needed him. And yet, I couldn’t do it in a church. The vestiges of religious trauma forced me to squirm, to fight, to struggle with whatever dormant parts of me were afraid of depraved, debaucherous sin.
“Listen,” he growled into my ear. “Either we’re going to fuck, or you’re going to get fucked.”
Holy shit. Gods almighty, I never stood a chance. I was so totally and completely his.
With the forced submission of my face against the wood, I missed the swift motion of him unleashing himself and connecting with me.
I may have been surprised, but the entire neighborhood was not.
The belly-deep cry came from a wild, carnal place as he filled me.
His hand unraveled from my hair, both of them gripping my hips as he slammed into me.
I braced myself against the holy relic, using my free hand to cover my mouth.
It was successful for only a few powerful thrusts and poorly stifled moans before the hand was torn away.
“Don’t you dare” came his animal command.
I didn’t care where we were. I didn’t care who was listening. I didn’t care if the prudish King of Heaven himself peered down to cream all over this deconsecrated church.
Maybe if my back weren’t arching, if my eyes weren’t dotted with dopamine, if oxytocin weren’t flooding through me, I’d find it within myself to search for a semblance of repressed, puritanical modesty.
Maybe if I weren’t cum-hungry from the orgasm that had been denied me only hours prior, I would have tried harder to keep quiet, if only to protect my friends from having to listen to the hard sounds of thrusting, of moaning, of my hitching, climbing breaths as I crawled closer and closer to the peak.
“I can’t—”
But I couldn’t spit out the sentence. I had no idea what I needed to say. I can’t take it all? I can’t breathe? I can’t stand? I can’t do this? I can’t cum in a chapel while everyone I love listens to me scream?
“You can, and you will.”
Maybe if it hadn’t felt so fucking good, I’d have wondered what it was about Heaven’s scent that had turned him so deliciously possessive.
Maybe.
I’d heard murmurs of men receiving a gift they poetically referred to as post-nut clarity.
Despite their ape-like command of language, I could relate.
I’d experienced an equivalent time and time again, though mine happened in the cocktail of hormones, in the rush of sensation, in the bath of pain, pleasure, fear, want, and delectable submission.
I was breathless, barely lucid, as I bent at the waist and took his cock again and again and again.
As Caliban fucked the shit out of me, I was anchored in three truths.
The first was he was, on no uncertain terms, from Hell—fire and brimstone, the sadistic, dominating, wicked, wonderful thing I’d been raised to fear.
The second was that, no matter how many pantheons and deities littered the earth and its infinite realms, Caliban was the indisputable god of sex.
And the third was that no matter how angry I was, no matter how betrayed I felt, and no matter how much time I needed, I would always choose my demon.
My hand slipped off the pulpit’s edge, unable to hold myself up.
He slid a hand to my throat, holding me upright while cutting off my air.
Fuck it. It was amazing. He was my air.
I gladly sacrificed breathing as I took him.
Perhaps it was my years of looking at men from beneath my shoe that made it so sensational to meet someone worthy and able to wield power over me.
Or, there was a chance I felt a spike of sugar-sweet control knowing that Silas’s involvement had elicited a degree of jealousy I’d had yet to experience.
But my personal demon took a little too much enjoyment in my cry of pain as he twisted my wrist behind my back, relishing in the cry as he pulled out in the final, precarious moment, emptying himself on the skin of my bare ass.
He slapped a wet, cum-slick, still-hard cock on my cheek.
My jaw was on the floor as I spun toward him, but his aggression had already transitioned into glorious affection.
My face cradled in one hand, the other resting on the small of my waist, he pressed a series of tender, beautiful kisses into me.
He wiped away the sweat from my forehead with the back of his hand.
He rotated me gently to mop me up with the underside of his shirt before pulling me into the cradling aftercare that had made it impossible for me to love anyone else.
He stroked my hair slowly, pressing a gentle kiss into the crown of my head.
I was loved. I was satisfied. I was perfect.
“And now,” I chuckled into the indentation between his pectorals, “let me guess. I smell like Hell?”
“Now,” he corrected, “you smell like mine.”
***
Silas was nowhere to be found upon our return.
Xuan, who had seemingly finished her meetings, had taken the long way from the annex to the atrium, avoiding the sanctuary while it was otherwise occupied.
Nia, still leaning against the atrium wall, was blushingly unable to make eye contact.
Kirby was making far too much eye contact.
Caliban offered them the same parting knuckle-kisses that may have made me jealous if he were anyone else. Instead, I simply felt honored to be the one on his arm, knowing exactly the effect he had on everyone around him.
“It was such a pleasure to meet the people most important to my Love,” he said, brushing a farewell kiss against Nia’s knuckles.
“Any time,” she said, face turned sharply away from him as heat painted her skin.
“And I relish the opportunity to make Love’s family my family,” he said.
I heard the sounds of two suppressed squeals as my friends simply passed away.
Caliban asked Nia and Kirby to keep an eye on me until he could return for a proper dinner party, and they stammered a series of unintelligible words that may or may not have been English.
The feeling of watching my loved ones see him with their eyes was indescribable.
He’d gone from utterly impossible to wholly seen.
Every attempt to deny his existence had been bottled and shelved.
Not only could I no longer duck behind deniability, but my friends wouldn’t be able to support me gaslighting myself out of what Caliban and I had.
“Love, do you remember the cave?” he asked.
The meditative trick he’d taught me in the Phoenician realm, so he and I could communicate without being overheard. Yes, I remembered.
I nodded.
The corner of his mouth turned up in the barest of smiles. “Please call upon me, even when we’re separated by realms. I miss you, and it’s killing me.”
“Come with us,” I begged.
“You’re waging war for us in this realm,” he said. “I’m clearing your path in every other. Nothing worth having comes easily. And you, Love, are worth fighting for.”
My silent gasp was answer enough. I threw my arms around him, and he held me so tightly that for a moment, everything was okay.
I’d been watching him come and go for twenty-six years. I should have been used to the way he stepped backward into nothing, vanishing from my sight.
When he disappeared, I felt his absence like a physical wound.
Ten seconds passed between the group. Then thirty. After a minute, I shuffled a little uncertainly before saying, “So, that’s Caliban.”
Nia cleared her throat. “Kirby, you know how we thought you had the most exciting sex life?”
Normally, I would have expected Kirby to tell Nia to shut the fuck up, but instead, they merely shook their head in slack-jawed awe.
I rubbed the back of my neck, wincing a bit as I came down from my cum-drunk buzz. “That may not have been the best first impression.”
Kirby rediscovered the power of speech as they said, “For what, introducing us to the love of your life, the Prince of Hell? No, I think you both highlighted your point quite effectively.”
My grimace intensified. “I’m sorry for…whatever you heard.”
“I’m not,” Kirby was quick to say.
“Like I said,” Nia grumbled, getting to her feet, “I’m divorcing Darius.”
I’d completely forgotten about the only human in our circle without a sigil. “So, are we just going to leave your husband out of the loop? We have places to be, gorgons to win, gods to woo, worlds to end.”
Her laugh contained genuine affection as she said, “I do love him, and to be honest, sometimes I think his obliviousness is a treat. A spontaneous friends’ trip for us will be an exciting opportunity for him to stare unblinkingly at that alien video game.
He’s a great partner, a feminist, a spectacular lover…
well, for a human.” Her eyes drifted to what I could only assume was a very recently acquired memory of me being plowed by Satan-spawn.
“Is Priscilla ready? Shall we go introduce ourselves to this infernal Duchess and see if she’ll help us recruit Alessia?” I asked.
Kirby stood, clapping their hands together. “You’re in sweats and covered in demon cum. I love that for you. Sure, let’s meet royalty.”