Part 11 (1/2)

”I don't want to talk.”

She stared down at him, her smile gone, but her expression neither angry nor sad. Curious, maybe. Interested. Her eyes were so beautiful, expressive and changeable, almost every color they could be.

Bending toward him, she brushed her lips over his and murmured, ”What do you want?”

He cupped her face in his hand. ”I want to love you.”

Smiling then, she pressed her lips to his mouth, then his cheek, his jaw, his neck, his shoulder. He took a deep breath and let himself focus on nothing but her loving touch. His c.o.c.k was full and aching, but he stayed calm and tried to simply feel, to let it happen.

Then she worked her way down his arm, pausing at his elbow to kiss the scars there. She knew what that was, and he tensed. But before he could pull away, before even his chaotic head could try to f.u.c.k the moment up, she rolled against him, putting her back against his side as she continued kissing all the way to his hand.

When she began to suck his fingers into her mouth, one at a time, he turned toward her, upsetting Sly, who hissed halfheartedly and then hopped to the floor.

Her nude body was nestled against his as she sucked on his fingers, and he rocked his hips, letting his c.o.c.k slide against her pretty a.s.s. Sweet Christ, how she felt. With Faith it was more than s.e.x, far more than f.u.c.king. It was overwhelmingly physical, and yet that was hardly even the point. Maybe that was what love was, when the physical act was an extension of the connection, not the connection itself. He could have simply lain on this bed in this weird room for his entire life, with Faith in his arms, and done no more than that, and it would have been more erotic and fulfilling than the most athletic s.e.x he'd ever had.

Which wasn't to say that his physical need wasn't riding him hard, as he rocked their bodies together and she sucked his thumb as if it were his c.o.c.k and then moved to his other hand. Looking over her shoulder, he was transfixed by the sight.

She'd never had him in her mouth; he hadn't wanted to abase her in that way. They hadn't even had s.e.x in the position they were nearly in now. She had sucked just now on more fingers than he'd need to count the days or nights they'd been physical together before. It had all been new for her, and he hadn't wanted her to feel like a wh.o.r.e. In those days, with his own weird feelings and beliefs, b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs and s.e.x from behind were degradations.

Experience and distance had tempered those oddities in his perception. He hated to admit it, hated to even think it at this moment, but Kota had helped him in that way, too. She had been wild and entirely uninhibited, and she had demanded things of him that he, trying to be someone who could be a partner, had tried to give her. His aversions had abated.

He shoved that b.i.t.c.h out of his head. He wanted no good memories of her. She had tainted all of them. And he was here now with Faith, who deserved all of him, every atom, every thought in his head.

Then she turned her head to kiss his bicep, and she got every single thought. The movement had s.h.i.+fted her thick hair, baring some of her neck. He lifted his hand and brushed it fully away. Behind her ear, about the size of a quarter, was her only ink.

The kanji for strength.

Immediately, entirely, overcome, he laid his head against her, his forehead on that symbol.

She started to turn her head, but stopped and took a breath. ”Oh,” she said on the exhale. Then she lifted his hand back to her lips and kissed his knuckles. ”I never stopped loving you, Michael. Not for a minute.”

He couldn't answer. He had no words. All he could do was hold her to him, curl his body around hers, and keep her close.

They were quiet like that for a long time. Demon was submerged in an ocean of love and fear. To have her, now to really have her. There was a future he could almost see, one in which he and Faith and Tucker, and Sly, too, and all the kittens Sly could love, all made a family together. In a house like Bibi and Hoosier's, maybe. With a yard and a swing set. And a grill. Faith could have her weird sculptures everywhere. He'd build out a garage for her art and his bikes. They could be happy. They could be real. And strong. Tucker could grow up the way a boy should grow up.

But he was afraid, terrified, to let that picture develop in his head. Even if he were given a chance for all of it, it wouldn't happen. Because he wasn't that man, the man who could be strong and stable for a family. He knew it. He'd scared his boy twice in the past two days, blowing up in front of him. He would never hurt Tucker, he knew it in his bones, like he knew he'd never hurt Faith, and like he knew that the same did not apply to anyone else on the planet who ended up in his way at the wrong time. He'd never lash out at his boy, he'd never lash out at his love, but he could scare them. He could lose their faith. He would. He had.

At that moment, gripped by that certainty, he almost ran. His body tensed, ready, and he started to pull his hand from Faith's hold. But, as if she sensed his turmoil, she took that hand and put it over her breast, and then lifted her arm over her head, making her breast tauten against his palm, the nipple growing hard. She put her hand on his head. ”Michael...just love me. Don't worry so much. Just love me.”

With his eyes closed and his head on her shoulder, he moved his hand, feeling her body respond to his touch. She was so beautiful, sleek and firm. Her a.s.s moved against him, restoring his c.o.c.k to fullness right away.

He s.h.i.+fted so that the arm under her could take possession of her breast, freeing up his other hand to slide down and between her legs and find her wet, ready heat. She was shaved, her skin smooth and velvety. That had thrown him, at first, last night. What he knew of Faith had been etched into his brain a decade before. There was still so much that was the same that it took a moment for him to accept the differences, to reconcile the present with the past, the reality with the memory.

She moaned quietly and lifted her leg up, setting it back on his hip, opening herself wide to him.

”You want it like this?” he asked, keeping his voice low. The years had tempered his reservations, not eradicated them.

Her body already writhing in time with the movements of his hands, she nodded. ”Yes. Oh, yes.”

s.h.i.+fting their bodies, he slid into her. Earlier, as soon as he'd been inside her, the urge to completely give himself over, to take everything he'd wanted for so long, to have her, had been absolutely consuming. He'd been sure, sure, he was going to go too hard, be too much for her. He'd known he hadn't been capable of keeping himself in check. But she'd refused to let him go.

And he had lost control. But she'd gone with him. He hadn't been too much.

This time, he felt calmer, and he even had the luxury to really feel the perfection of their physical connection. He'd been fighting everything so hard before that he'd been locked in his head, resenting his body's demands. Now, he could feel her, the way he still knew her, the way she molded to him like she was meant for him, inside and out.

He realized that this was the first time, in all the time he'd known her, that he was free to just enjoy her, without guilt, without fighting his nature. He shoved his fear of the future aside as hard as he could. In this present, they could be perfect.

He sped up, moving his hand again between her legs, finding her c.l.i.t and listening to her responses to understand what she wanted of him. Though noisy s.e.x, grunting like animals, made him uncomfortable, stirring up skittering thoughts and memories, he liked Faith's quiet, almost shy gasps and whispers. Barely using words, she was telling him what she wanted, that she liked what he was doing. She knew now what she wanted in a way she hadn't known before. He wanted to give her that.

Her hand moved down from his head and slid between her legs, where his hand, and his c.o.c.k, both moved with increasing intent. She touched herself with him, and she touched him, sliding her fingers around his c.o.c.k as he thrust into her.

That felt...holy f.u.c.k, that felt amazing.

”Oh f.u.c.k,” he muttered and then clenched his teeth together to keep his mouth shut.

Looking over her shoulder, she said, ”Michael, I like that. Talk to me.”

He shook his head against her shoulder.

”Okay,” she whispered and then rolled onto her stomach. Demon followed her, putting more of his weight on her as he thrust harder, losing his ability to hold back. With Faith's hand, his hand, and his c.o.c.k between her legs, and her tight, swollen nipple between his fingers, he thought the climax that was coming for him would run him over.

And then her body clenched and spasmed, and she began to bounce her hips as she milked him. She didn't cry out, except for a strangled noise in the back of her throat.

He came before she was finished, hating the rutting-beast noise that was forced out of his mouth as his body tensed and he filled her. He kept up his pace until she could complete, too.

When it was over, he lay down with her, turning her to her side so he could stay off of her but still inside her.

”Faith...”

”Don't apologize,” she sighed, patting his hand where it rested on her belly. ”Don't even try. That was fantastic.”

Lifting onto his elbow, he kissed her cheek. ”I wasn't gonna. I was just gonna say I love you.”

She grinned. ”Okay. You can say that.”

”I love you.”

”Am I an a.s.shole if I ask what this is supposed to be?” Demon stared at the tubular hunk of metal. He could make out all sort of things he recognized in it, but he had no idea what they made together. Not what they had been manufactured to make, that was for sure.

”It's a snake.”

He turned and gave her a look. She was giving him s.h.i.+t. No way that was a snake. ”Seriously.”

”Yeah.” She walked over. ”Well, this is a part of a thing that will be a snake. It's so big, I have to make it in segments. I'll weld the segments together on site.”

It was almost as tall as he was and as wide as his arm span. ”How're you getting it out of here?”