Page 88 of Even Robots Die (Even Ever After #3)

Florentine, Seven years later

“ F urious, they’re here,” Brice says through the frame of the door to my workshop.

It doesn’t look like the one I was secretly renting in the basement of some building next to the home I shared with my sisters and Dad.

This one is bigger—which, according to Brice, might not have been the best idea because bigger means bigger mess—with large windows that span from the floor to the ceiling on the side that faces the river.

The door Brice just leaned against is on the other side, and even on that side there are large windows letting the sun enter my work space.

The only part of this workshop that isn’t bathed by natural light is the little room on the left that’s darkened on purpose, in case I need to work on something that necessitates a different kind of light or no light at all.

Brice crosses his arms, one shoulder against the frame and one leg crossed over the other.

“Should I tell them to leave?” he says with amusement in his voice. “Sophie is going to be very disappointed. You know she’s always talking about the fact that she wants to be you when she grows up …”

Sophie is Léandre and Cassiopé’s first kid, and she’s well on her way to be the eldest daughter of a lot of siblings—like me—with Cassiopé being pregnant with her fourth.

Cassiopé is due in three weeks, and I have a feeling those two aren’t done populating earth.

Sophie will never be like me, though, which is for the best. She has two loving parents who are here for her, even if Marcus and Camille—the twins—are a handful most of the time.

She will never grow up too fast like I did.

I leave the populating of earth to Cassiopé and Léandre, though. After more or less raising the girls, I didn’t really want to have kids, and Brice has been more than accommodating. He has a daughter already, after all, so he doesn’t feel the need to pressure me and I love him for it.

I wish I could say Dad changed and that he finally stopped gambling and started being responsible, but sadly, I don’t think he can change at his age.

He took oddly well the fact that I left the house to go live with Brice—in Notre Dame at first, and then in the house we bought near Orléans—but that’s because he thought it would be easier to get money out of us.

He did try. Multiple times. It took me some time to realize I was just too kind to him and that he knew exactly what he was doing.

I stopped letting him take advantage of me and that might have strained our relationship, because the girls are here—minus Elodie who has yet to stop hating the world—but he is not.

I’d like to say that it doesn’t hurt, but that would be lying and that’s something I don’t do anymore—or not as much—after all the love of my life knowing exactly when I lie from the beat of my heart kills all the entertainment I could gain from it.

“Okay, okay,” I say as I get up and wipe my hands on my overalls. “Give me five minutes so I can shower?”

“I’m perfectly capable of entertaining them for five minutes,” he tells me as I get closer to him and wrap my arms around his waist.

He tips up my chin with his thumb before kissing me softly.

“But if you cling to me like this for another minute, I might let them entertain themselves and decide to take you on that new table we installed in front of the floor-to-ceiling window,” he adds after nipping at my lower lip.

I flush at the image of it in my mind.

“Oh, that beautiful red,” Brice says in a murmur against my ear. “Forget the family. They can wait. I’m getting you out of this.”

He tugs at the straps of my overall, but I bat at his hands.

“And make me miss Elhyor’s chocolate cake? You’d do that to me?” I say in fake outrage.

“You can eat the chocolate cake after I eat you,” he says in a playful manner, and I know he totally means it.

I push him with both of my hands on his chest, and he takes a step back.

“You didn’t let my chicken burn?” I ask, as he holds his hand for me to take.

“Of course not,” he says, outraged—and he’s not faking. He knows how much I love food and find it abhorrent that he could ruin food for me.

“Then we better go, because I won’t eat chicken for a full week just because you decided to shoo everyone out. Or do you think we can eat what we cooked for twelve with just the two of us? I know that you like my curves, but that might be a bit much.”

We head back to the main house—my workshop is at the end of the property because the new printer I got can be noisy and I like having a space that’s solely dedicated to the things I craft—and I jump in the shower alone before Brice gets any ideas of joining me.

It feels good being able to host everyone at our place. We’ve started doing that—inviting everyone—a couple years ago when Brice and I realized that everything with the rebuilding of Paris and politics had made it so we didn’t see our families enough anymore.

With Brice being on the new world council representing the bat-shifters, Elhyor flying all over the world to show Angélique more of it than the city she had grown up in, the girls’ studies, and Cassiopé and Léandre’s ever-growing family, it was rare that we saw each other.

So I started organizing these gatherings, and they’ve been a fixture in our lives ever since.

That’s the only thing I agree to take responsibility for these days.

When they built the council—a two hundred seat heavy machine—to lead the world in a fairer way, I was offered one of the human seats, without knowing Brice had been offered one of the shifter ones.

They wanted to honor my creations and the way they—greatly—helped end the war against the birds, but I refused.

I’ve had enough responsibilities for a lifetime already.

I still have nightmares of that day, about the dead and the blood everywhere, about the fact a decision I made rushed everyone into a bloodbath.

Yes, we won, but in my mind, I still think humanity lost a lot on that day and I didn’t want my days to be built around the worst day of my life.

I’ve found other ways to be useful. It was Marie’s idea to work for her at the hospital, but I’ve fully embraced it—as long as I don’t have to stay during surgery and the only thing that’s asked of me is coding.

For all the lives that got lost on that day because of me, I’m repaying my debt by saving as many as I can, one after the other.

Brice knows I need this.

“Where did your mind go?” Brice asks me, hugging me from behind as we watch everyone leave our property. Today was everything we needed it to be, but it’s always so busy and noisy when everyone is here … I’m enjoying the return to calm once they leave even more, though.

“I’m grateful we get to be free,” I tell him.

“You’re also grateful that everyone is out of our house because you spent the day masking and you need to let loose,” he says with a chuckle.

“That too,” I laugh.

“You know you don’t need to mask with the family,” he says softly. “They’re not going anywhere.”

“I can’t help it,” I answer, and he knows I’ve been trying to unlearn all my coping mechanisms, so he doesn’t press further.

“What if I made you forget for a few hours?”

“A few hours? Is the Big Bad Bat becoming cocky?” I tease him.

“When did I ever let you down?” he asks me with a smirk.

“Mmm,” I say, faking thinking hard.

“You little minx,” he laughs as he grabs my hips and heaves me over his shoulder before running to the couch in our living room.

There, he sits and slaps my ass with his hand.

“Ouch!” I yell, more because it surprised me than because it hurt.

He rubs my ass to soothe any pain I could have felt at the attack. It’s not lost on me that he’s rubbing under my dress, though.

“Will you be a good girl, Furious, and let me make you forget?” he asks as I wiggle on his shoulder so I can see him—and not fall headfirst against the back of the couch.

I take too long to answer, so he slaps my ass again.

“Hey, I didn’t deserve that one,” I grumble.

“Will you?” Brice asks again.

“Make me,” I answer him with sass.

Before I know it, Brice has retrieved me from over his shoulder and for all the fight I had to avoid crashing my face against the back of the couch, I end up headfirst against the couch, ass in the air, knees on either side of Brice and my dress pooling around my waist.

Brice caresses the skin he just slapped, and the softness is delicious after the rough slap.

“I plan to,” Brice says before his hand ends up on my ass again, but this time it stays there and I feel him tear my panties off.

“I loved those,” I grumble against the couch.

“I’ll get you new ones,” he says without missing a beat, and just when I think he’s going to slap my ass again, instead he plunges a finger inside my pussy.

The moan that leaves my lips at the intrusion is decadent.

He pumps his fingers inside of me, and when I begin panting and my body starts to tense at the impending orgasm, he removes his fingers altogether and slaps my ass again.

“Asshole,” I yell at him, and the only answer I get is a chuckle before he plunges his fingers back inside my pussy, adding one in the process.

“You know I like when you get all red,” Brice says as he slaps my ass with his other hand, his fingers still pumping inside of me. “It’s my favorite color on you.”

My pussy contracts around his fingers at the impact of his palm and I can’t help moaning.

“I think you need a different red, though.”

That’s the only warning I have before Brice bites the outer part of my ass cheek. I feel no pain, but the hot and cold sensation I feel each time he bites can’t be missed, and all I can do is scream in pleasure as I come on Brice’s fingers.

“You’re so beautiful when you come for me,” Brice says, and I can hear the awe in his voice. “Now, let’s remove that beautiful dress so I have an unobstructed view when you ride my cock.”

He helps me stand and I don’t question him. I remove the dress and the bra that was under—I won’t let him tear that one.

He’s sprawled on the couch, legs slightly open and with hunger in his eyes.

I step between his legs, and his eyes glide over my naked frame.

“I can’t believe you’re mine,” he says in a whisper.

I try to sit on top of him, dropping my right knee on the couch on his left, but he stops me with his hands on my hips.

“No, no, no,” he says. “I’m enjoying the sight of your reddened ass way too much. You’re riding backward today.”

The wicked smile he gives me when he says that is sinful, and all I can do is comply.

Yes, maybe I’m a bit brainless right now, but who wouldn’t be with a man like Brice?

I don’t need to do anything, though, because with his hands still on my hips, it takes barely a second for Brice to turn me so my knees are on either side of his thighs, and my ass right on top of his hard cock.

“You better get rid of those pants fast,” I tell him. I’m already drenching it in my juices.

“So impatient, Furious,” Brice says with a chuckle before his hand slaps the side of my ass again.

He still complies. His shirt flies above my head and in just a few seconds, his shoes and pants have disappeared to the side of the couch with him barely needing to move me.

When he sits me on his lap again, he spears me with his cock swiftly.

“Oh god, it feels so good,” I say, breathless, my eyes closed in blissful pleasure.

Brice caresses the tattoo on my shoulders while I start moving on his lap, my hands on my thighs.

He’s in no hurry, so he doesn’t try to set the pace. Instead, I feel him lie on the couch, enjoying the view. I turn my head over my shoulder right when he slaps my ass again.

Oh fuck. It feels so fucking good.

Brice doesn’t stay lying for long. Quickly, he slides both arms around my middle and one hand comes to circle my throat, while the other drops to my clit.

“Open your eyes, Furious,” Brice says against my ear. “Look how good we are together. Look how beautiful you are when you ride my cock.”

I open my eyes on command.

“Good girl.”

The words are like an electric shock to my skin. They make me want him even more. But that’s not what makes me accelerate the pace of my hips, the up and down movement on his cock. What does is the mirror in front of the couch.

Brice installed it last week, and now I know why.

I look like a mess, like a hot mess, but the sight of us like this is pure sin and I can’t stop staring at my pussy swallowing Brice’s cock each time I drop down.

Brice peppers kisses against the side of my throat while his fingers twirl around my clit in an insanely fast rhythm that makes my body go taut.

The kisses. The hand on my throat. The fingers at my clit. The slight tip of Brice’s hips, hitting my G spot.

That’s all I need.

My pussy squeezes around him and my vision turns white with the sheer pleasure as I come on top of Brice’s cock.

Brice doesn’t stop, though.

The hand on my clit moves to grab my hip and makes me stand just a few centimeters above Brice’s lap, his cock still inside of me, and Brice thrusts his hips from under me at vampire speed as he finally bites the side of my throat.

And I can’t think anymore as another orgasm, harder than the other two, hits me and makes me see stars.

“Brice,” I moan his name loudly in a desperate plea.

For what? I don’t even know, but he seems to know because he accelerates his thrusts some more and pulls blood from my throat and another orgasm hits me.

I have the distant knowledge that Brice comes right after me when he roars my name to the ceiling, but it doesn’t compute completely as I ride the waves of my pleasure.

It takes me a few minutes for my heart to stop beating like it wants out of my body and when it does, one of Brice’s arms hugs me from behind and his other hand turns my face to the side so he can kiss me in the most passionate way.

I can feel everything in it. The love. The passion. The awe. The need.

And before I know it, Brice is hard again.

Maybe I shouldn’t have taunted him, because this night is just beginning if I know him well—and I do.

Brice’s cock slips out of my pussy, our combined juices dripping on the top of my thighs and he turns me in his arms so I can face him.

He kisses me and takes me on the couch again.

Before he carries me to our room and makes love to me all night.

At first light, I’m tired but utterly satisfied.

“I love you, Furious,” Brice says against my ear as he tugs me against his side.

“I love you too,” I tell him after kissing the skin on top of his heart.

Once upon a time I met a beast who couldn’t feel, but now I know I wasn't dealing with my feelings any better. I might have felt too much, but it was nothing compared to being loved by him.

Once upon a time, I met a beast who needed saving. Instead, he saved me.

The End.