Epilogue
LINDSAY
A month later…
“Wait, can you show me again?” I ask Anton. We’re prepping ingredients in the kitchen, and he’s trying to teach me a cutting technique that I will never be able to replicate. It’s impressive as hell to watch, though.
“You put your cucumbers here, your tomatoes here, your onions here, and your potatoes here,” he says, pointing at the different vegetables on four separate cutting boards.
“Then you get your knives,” he lifts four sharp blades in the air using his tentacles, “and you dice!” His limbs move at lightning speed as the veggies are diced into small, neat shapes.
His eyes stay on me, while his tentacles move independently with expert precision.
“Wow,” I say with an appraising clap. “Incredible.”
He’s become one of my favorite people in town.
We work well together in the kitchen, prepping ingredients, managing different stations, and splitting the tasks evenly for the current dishes on the menu.
We’ve been brainstorming a new spring selection––just a few new dishes that we can easily fold into the rush––and he’s just as eager to try new recipes as I am.
I still only work part time, but since my shift ends at four each day, Anton has everything measured out and organized before the dinner crowd rolls in. That also leaves me enough time to meet Jules when she gets home from science club.
“Lioness?” Nic calls out from the bar.
I find him standing in the middle of the floor with a hand behind his back and a smirk tugging at his lips.
“What are you up to?”
“I’ve got a surprise for you.” Then he nods for me to follow, and like a puppy, I do.
When we get outside, he stands behind me and covers my eyes as we continue to walk deeper into the field behind the bar. We must walk for ten minutes like this before he pulls us to a stop.
“Okay, open your eyes.”
It’s his trailer, but the door is hanging open.
“Step inside.”
I follow his command and find a completely empty space, apart from a stack of old desktop computer monitors and what looks like an old copy machine. On a chair in the corner sits a pair of safety goggles and a sledgehammer. “What exactly––”
“It’s a smash room,” he says with a grin.
“A smash room?”
He grabs the goggles and gently pulls them over my eyes. “Camilla said you need to manage your rage before you can start practicing your telekinesis with the coven, so I figured this could be a way to do that.”
He places the sledgehammer in my hands and backs out of the trailer.
“You want me to obliterate this shit with a hammer?” It’s not my birthday, but it certainly feels like it.
He pops his head through the open window. “Yes, darling. Bash it up good, okay? Remember, it’s for your craft, so don’t hold back.”
I swing the hammer up over my head and try to summon my most rage-filled memories. They come in waves, and I let my body take over. Hard plastics and sheet metal bend and crumple beneath my weapon, and I picture the faces of Billy, Gemma, and my former boss as I continue to swing and smash.
It doesn’t take long for my arms to tire out, and I can already feel the soreness setting in. Clearly, I need to work on my upper body strength if I plan to spend more time in the smash room, which I absolutely do.
I toss my goggles off, drop the hammer, and race into Nic’s arms as he stands outside, pride evident in his expression. Then I launch myself into his arms. He catches me easily and twirls me around.
“You made me a smash room,” I sing-song as calm settles over my body. It’s the same way I felt after bringing the bookcase down onto Gemma––bone-deep serenity.
“You know I did,” he replies, slowing down and setting me on my feet. “Your rage is who you are, lioness. We’re not trying to tame it; we just need to figure out how to help you channel it into something greater.”
I gaze up at Nic’s face and let myself get lost in those light blue eyes for a moment. “Are you sure I’m not too much for you?”
“I’m sure. You’ll never be too much for me, Lindsay, and you’re not going to scare me away.
I see every layer of you––even the ones you try to cover up––and I want them all.
” He kisses me, his tongue swiping into my mouth, playful, but also a promise.
“We should get home,” he says, the sound of his voice rougher and lower than usual. I know what that means.
“Your rut?”
He nods, groaning as he palms my ass. “My rut.”
He told me he shouldn’t drive when he’s in his rut. It’s just not safe. But clearly having me behind the wheel during his rut isn’t safe either, because he’s pressed up against my side, tracing the shell of my ear with his tongue, and it feels so good I can barely focus on the road.
Miraculously, I get us home in one piece. Jules is sleeping over at Rocío’s tonight, so we don’t need to worry about peeping teens as we race into the house ripping our clothes off.
I worried at first about combining his stuff with my stuff when we moved in together, where it would all go and if there’d be enough room, but it turns out, I never had to worry, because Nic doesn’t really have stuff.
His wardrobe is painfully limited, all of his skin, hair, and body needs are met with only three products––lucky bastard––and beyond that, it was a handful of trinkets and books that we pulled from his trailer.
My things remain delightfully spread out and right where I need them.
“Fuck, you’re soaked,” he moans against my neck as he inserts a finger. I wiggle out of my leggings and kick them off with my socks and underwear. His t-shirt follows, then his heart-shaped lips latch onto my nipple, and I feel his teeth graze the tip as he starts fucking me with his hand.
It’s nice. Fucking extraordinary is a better word for it, but it’s not enough.
I reach down and cup his hard cock through his boxer briefs. “Need you to fuck me,” I beg as I suck the skin at the base of his throat.
His boxers go flying behind him, and he lifts me up, slamming my back against the wall as he gives the same attention to my other aching nipple. When I wrap my legs around his hips, it takes one swift motion for him to push inside me and seat himself to the hilt.
“Oh, yes,” I cry out as he drives into my wet heat, my back banging so hard against the wall that all the framed photos around us are rattling. “Harder.” It’s hilarious that he ever worried about being too rough for me to handle. This body of mine is made for his rough side.
The suckler finds my clit, and I forget my own name.
“You feel so fucking good,” he groans against my lips as he thrusts, my hips meeting his with matching intensity. “I’m not gonna last.”
It’s the only warning I get before he pulls out and bends me over our dining room table, my ass in the air as come drips down my inner thighs.
He slaps my ass once, twice, and I yelp in pain and pleasure both.
He responds by gently kissing and rubbing my tender flesh.
I feel him swipe a finger along my folds, then a surprising drop of warm liquid at my back entrance.
“Nic,” I pant, desperate for him to proceed with whatever he as planned. “Please.”
He spreads my come around the tight ring of muscle, and just when I prepare my body to take him there, he thrusts back into my pussy.
“Holy fucking shit!” I cry out as the suckler dips into the wetness Nic pooled there and starts flicking and sucking and teasing my asshole with its tiny inner tongue. Every nerve comes alive as my body starts to tremble and my legs feel like jelly.
Nic reaches around, swiping across my clit with his thumb, and I’m so lost to the sensations of everywhere he’s touching that I feel like I’m floating. To be outside and so very inside one’s body at the same time is a new kind of euphoria, and something I could only experience with him.
“I’m close, baby,” he growls against my back.
His tongue traces the length of my spine, and when his thrusts become erratic, I follow him into the abyss. Sounds leave us that don’t sound like us at all, my nails sink into the tablecloth, and I’m fairly certain I’ve ripped it. I revel in the hot spray of his come as it covers my back.
We end up on the floor in a heap next to each other, our chests heaving as we come back to ourselves. He takes my hand and kisses my palm and along my wrist as I snuggle into his side.
“I think you killed me,” he says with a laugh.
I playfully smack his reaper tattoo. “Psh, you’re already dead.”
“Excuse you, I was dead. Now I’m back.”
He smooths my hair as I drape my thigh over his. “Anything you’d change about our love story?” I ask him.
Lifting his head, his gaze searches mine. “Yeah, after that first kiss, I never should’ve let you go. You?”
I shake my head. “No. Since I didn’t believe a love like this existed, every moment has been a breathtaking surprise.”
“I’m glad I proved you wrong, gorgeous.”
THE END.