24
I was so exhausted by the time we exited that cave, like the weight of the world had come crashing down upon me, I moved into Asher’s arms. “Fly me home, Priest.”
He didn’t object, simply took me into his strong arms and flew through the clouds. It might have been faster to trace, but I really just wanted to be with him a little while longer.
He gave me the silence I craved as his powerful wings glided us home.
Asher was fast, but it still took him a few hours to get to our glade. When he did, the lights were out and the world fast asleep. Dawn approached soon.
Crawling onto our bed, I watched as he stripped down for me. Strong fingers worked his shirt over his head, revealing the pack of muscles that gleamed bronze from a shaft of moonlight kissing them; the V shape of his waist led to strong, powerful thighs. His cock sprang free when he shoved his pants down, and that piercing almost seemed to cry out my name.
My throat went dry and my pulse started hammering. The mattress dipped when he crawled to me, moving with the skill and grace of a stalking panther.
“Priest?” I grabbed his face and inhaled his spicy warmth, letting it saturate my lungs and fill me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
“Hmm?” His brown eyes swallowed me up. I shivered, because when Asher looked at me, he wasn’t just seeing me, he was absorbing me. Sucking me into his soul, opening himself up to me in a way I knew in my heart he’d never done with another and would never do again.
The beat of our hearts moved in tandem.
“I couldn’t possibly sleep.”
I knew he was tired; he hadn’t slept in days now. We might be immortal, but we weren’t immune to the pull of the sandman.
“What do you need from me, little demon?” He tenderly brushed at the curls framing my face.
I smiled because he was always saying things like that, and I didn’t feel like they were just idle words that meant nothing. Asher meant every word he said. “No, it’s what I want to do for you. I want you to know me. Can I play you a song?”
I waited with bated breath. I’d never really done this for anyone else. Only for Kemen, who’d, for whatever reason, seemed soothed by the warble of my voice. I didn’t exactly suck, but I wasn’t going to be playing in Central Park anytime soon either.
“I would like that very much.” He smiled.
I kissed the center of his chest, scooted off the bed, and jogged into the living room, returning a second later with one of the few treasures in this world I truly valued.
Blowing out an anxious breath, I took a seat. “Don’t laugh at me.”
“Can I tell you something?”
I nodded at his serious tone. “Anything.”
“The night you awoke from the coma, I watched you sing. Your voice was so haunted, so full of pain and hurt that it was a physical blow to me not to rush to your side. I’ve always hoped that someday you’d actually know I was around and would sing for me the same way I heard you sing that night.”
Cheeks turning hot, I closed my eyes. “Priest, I...”
But the words wouldn’t come, not as easily as they had with Luc. Because I’d been saying good-bye, and this wasn’t good-bye and I wasn’t sure I could trust my instincts. Not where this emotion was concerned.
He nodded. “Me too.”
Shivering, I couldn’t speak for a second. Because I had to let those unspoken words roll around, to fill every corner of my being, to understand that sometimes you just have to let go and be willing to believe in the impossible.
It took barely any time to tune the strings, and then I played. I didn’t have a thought in my head of what I would play, but eventually my fingers seemed to settle on a song for me.
“Cortez the Killer” by Neil Young, a lyrical recounting of Cortez’s crimes against Montezuma. It wasn’t a terribly romantic song. In fact, it was the opposite of it. But the mood it set was the one I was going for, a somber, spiritual tone that fit my needs right now.
For his part, Asher just seemed pleased that I would trust him with this. Demons share only very rarely with one another and there usually has to be decades of trust built up between them; we never showed ourselves with an outsider. But nothing about Asher had ever felt like it was on the outside.
From the moment I’d met him, I’d known him. Felt him move deep within me, fill the void that’d always existed in me. I’d craved his touch, his fire, and now he was mine and I never wanted to let him go.
And as I sang the words, I held his gaze, and though I wanted to look away because it all seemed so overwhelmingly big, I knew that I had to show Asher all of me, hold nothing back. And when the last note died, I shuddered before gently laying my guitar down.
Emotionally, physically drained.
And then he was just there, and he was pulling me into his arms, and I didn’t fight him because he understood exactly what I needed even when I couldn’t say it. I clung and kissed his nude chest, so grateful that he’d found me. That I wasn’t ever going to be alone again.
And when he began to take my clothes off, I didn’t argue. I watched as his sure fingers unzipped me, as he slowly worked them off my legs. He kissed my naked thigh, nipping and biting in a way that felt like a shot of adrenaline straight through me.
His touch was loving and so tender. My skin prickled from his heat and Lust stirred, purring like a contented cat with a treat.
“Sit up,” he directed.
Smiling, I sat up and lifted my arms straight up. The pads of his thumbs licked at my skin like a trail of fire as he slipped the shirt off. Rolling my head back, I exposed my neck to him.
“Lie back.”
I didn’t know what my priest had planned, but it didn’t matter either. I’d do anything he wanted. Whatever it was he needed, there’d be no shyness from me. It’d been so long since I’d only wanted to please and not necessarily have to be pleased that my belly rolled with excitement like it was my first time all over again.
And for someone as old as me, that’s a minor miracle.
“You own me, little demon. Everything I am is yours.”
He kissed me, and oh the kiss was divine. It was spiritual. A surrendering, and I knew our time had finally come.
Flooded with peace, with the knowledge that this moment had been inevitable from the day he’d walked onto my ride, I smiled up at him.
I know this won’t last, nothing good ever does. But for tonight... it was enough.