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Cas carefully tends to the wound he made, taking what I strongly suspect is longer than he strictly needs to. He leans over and lights a couple of candles on the bedside table, eyes half-hooded and appreciative as he turns back to look at me in their flickering glow. His gaze is warm, appraising, oh-so-satisfied as he places his hand gently around my neck, thumb brushing over the marks.

“Perfect.”

That single word makes me feel like a puddle of a person, sinking into the luxury of the bed and drawing him down beside me.

I haven’t stayed the night in his house since he kidnapped me out of my van, but tonight it just feels… right. To be here, with him, feels so incredibly natural.

I glance around the room, only half-seeing it in my hazy, fucked-out stupor.

“You brought me back to the guest room.” The words are lazy, inane, distracted, but Cas tenses beneath me the moment I say them. “What?”

He doesn’t answer right away. I prop myself up on an elbow to look at him, and his eyes are fixed upward, staring at the intricately carved panels on the ceiling.

“Cas.” I grab his chin and turn his face toward me. “What is it?”

“This is…” He runs a hand distractedly through the tousle of his hair. “My room.”

“Oh.”

We’re both silent for a few weighted seconds before Cas awkwardly clears his throat.

“I can… stay elsewhere, if this is not what you… if it’s—”

“Don’t you dare,” I say with a laugh, sprawling myself across his chest.

Cas cradles me to him with one arm on my back, his other hand stroking softly through my hair.

“Very well. I’ll stay.”

“Good. I think I like it when you’re this agreeable.”

He huffs a laugh, the sound echoing deep where the side of my face is pressed to his chest. I rise and fall with the steady pattern of his breath, settle into his warmth, and before long, I’m drifting off.

The very last conscious thought I have before falling asleep is how nice it might be if we could always be agreeable like this, right here, together.

28

Casimir

I’m not sure if I’ve ever felt anything quite so satisfying as tending to Ophelia.

She leans against me, relaxed and trusting in the heat of the shower and the morning light streaming in through the bathroom’s high window.

Earlier this morning, I ordered in breakfast for us both, and we enjoyed it in bed after sleeping late.

And now, she lets me wash her hair and run a washcloth over her arms and legs and back, exploring the expanse of her lean muscles and soft skin. It gives me far too many ideas about just where I’d like to mark that skin, but I hold myself back and keep my fangs tucked safely away.

Even when her breath catches and she moans low in her throat. Even when she leans into the press of my lips at her neck when I can’t stop myself from bending down for a kiss. Even when she twines her fingers into my hair and pulls me closer.

If either of us is going to be responsible for setting some limits, it should be me. I’ve had centuries to master my self-control, and I’m more than capable of exercising it now.

However, that control is immediately tested when Ophelia turns to face me, resting her shoulders against the shower’s tiled wall with a slow, provocative smile breaking over her face.

I can do nothing to stop my eyes roving over her in naked admiration.

The long, graceful lines of her arms and legs, the divots of her collarbones flecked with droplets of water, the gentle slope of her stomach.

And the fresh bite mark right above her cunt.