Page 94 of Wretched

“Feel so good, my light,” he purred in Nicolas’s ear. “Your body made for me. Made to be mine. Do you feel it? How perfect we are together?”

“Yes, yes,oh God.” Nicolas’s hole tightened like a vise as he came for the third time, spilling his hot seed across Ashmedai’s fingers.

Ashmedai drove inside the tight squeeze of his channel a few more times and stilled, burying his face in Nicolas’s neck as his fluttering hole milked the cum from his cock.

Nicolas’s body loosened, and he blinked his eyes open to cast Ashmedai an exhausted smile. “That was perfect.”

Ashmedai nuzzled him. “Good. Wish we could stay like this. Want to be inside you always.”

“You are—where it counts, at least. You’re in my heart.”

“And your bloodstream,” Ashmedai added with a toothy grin.

Nicolas laughed, his soul flaring bright. “Yeah. That, too.”

Unfortunately, Ashmedai couldn’t stay inside Nicolas forever. With a kiss to his shoulder, he climbed from the bed and fetched a wet washcloth from the bathroom. Nicolas was dozing when he returned, in exactly the same position Ashmedai had left him in. He cleaned the cum and slick from Nicolas’s skin and rolled him away from the wet spot on the sheet. Nicolas chuckled sleepily as he moved, pulling the blankets up over himself as Ashmedai tossed the washcloth in the hamper across the room.

As he curled around his human from behind, Nicolassaid, “I can’t believe you made me comethree times. I feel like a wrung out dishtowel.”

“Is that a good thing?”

Nicolas snorted. “Yeah. I asked you to exhaust me. You definitely did that.”

It was true. His body was warm and pliant, all tension completely drained from his limbs.

“Good. Sleep.”

Nicolas snuggled more firmly against him and went still. Ashmedai thought he was actually going to sleep until he said, “Hey, Ash?”

“Yes, my light?”

Silence extended as Nicolas deliberated. “What do you think is gonna happen?”

Ashmedai considered his answer carefully. What was Nicolas asking about in particular? “In our future?”

“Yeah. Ira said he saw Daniel in the future, but Daniel’s gone. But Ira’s never had a vision that didn’t come true. I keep… getting my hopes up, I think. Hoping that means that somehow he’ll come back, or we’ll see him again. But he’s gone. Valac even said he can’t get into Purgatory right now, because the portals are locked down somehow. So Danny couldn’t possibly come back, even if that was an option.”

Ashmedai tickled his claws up and down the side of Nicolas’s neck while he thought. “I think… anything is possible. Hope is dangerous, because I don’t want you to get hurt again. But here we are, you and I. A sin eater and a paladin. Enemies in nature, yet two halves of a whole brought together by fate. If we can not just coexist but find happiness together, why shouldn’t a good soul be able to find a way back here?”

“So you’re saying Ishouldhave hope?”

“I’m saying… don’t torture yourself by denying it. But don’t let yourself expect it either.”

“One day at a time,” Nicolas guessed.

“That is all we can do. Time marches on.”

“And us with it.”

Ashmedai kissed the back of his head. “We can face it all together.”

Nicolas turned in his arms and kissed him, soft and achingly sweet. “Yeah. As long as I have you, everything will be fine.”

Ashmedai beamed at him, though Nicolas didn’t see it. His eyes slipped shut, and he tucked his head under Ashmedai’s chin, throwing an arm around him.

His precious human had lost a lot. His family, his home. But as long as Ashmedai drew breath, Nicolas would never lose him. They would have eternity together, starting now, and there was nowhere else Ashmedai would rather be.