Page 18 of Lessons with the Mothman (Monster Smash Agency)

CHAPTER 18

Victoria

"Are you using incubus powers on him?" I asked, scowling as Lyle nuzzled his nose against the supposedly feral kitten who'd been visiting since the summer.

Lyle snorted, and the kitten batted him once on the nose and then butted his head against Lyle's chin. "Maybe," Lyle said, waggling his eyebrows. "Or maybe he just likes me better."

I huffed, glaring at the leggy little traitor as he squirmed and climbed onto Lyle's shoulder, settling around my friend's neck and starting a steady, motoring purr.

"I guess I own a cat now?" Lyle asked, wearing that familiar stricken expression of having your heart captured by the tiny paws of a feline.

"I guess you do," I said. "You can take him into the apartment with you. Hube and Sera won't care, and I've seen him use the litter box out here since I got him fixed. Thanks again for doing this."

Lyle grinned. "You know I'll be annoying you endlessly with questions when you get back from the fuck fest. Anyway, Frank's got his girlfriend for the weekend and doesn't want to have a threesome, so it's better if I absent myself."

I mustered a smile and tried to think of anything else I could share with Lyle. Had I given enough instructions about connecting to my Wi-Fi? What about the TV remote? Watching cats and apartment-sitting wasn't especially complicated, but maybe there were a few more details I could scrounge up. It was easier than getting onto my feet and heading for Elias's.

"Are you nervous?" Lyle asked, scratching the kitten with one hand and an orange stray I'd named Buster with another.

"I think so," I said, since it was mostly pointless lying to Lyle.

"It's not like you guys weren't already fucking at a rather ambitious level," he pointed out, catching a laugh from me.

"It's just… It feels a little official. Like we went from being casual fucks, to fuck buddies, to?—"

"Lovers," Lyle said simply. "In the most profane sense of the word."

I shot him a glare. He wasn't making this easier. "I've only had one real relationship and one other longer term sexual partner. And those were tangled together in the same fucked-up timeline."

"Do you want to avoid a relationship, sexual or otherwise?" Lyle asked.

No. The answer came easily. A major part of my studies was reconciling myself with what I wanted sexually, searching for a better way of feeling satisfied in my sexual relationships. Before this, it had all been theoretical. Something about what I was doing with Elias felt a little bit like an experiment—could I put into practice what I wanted in a relationship?—and on the other hand, it was becoming…too significant, and personal.

"I'm anticipating too far into the future," I said, and Lyle nodded.

"Aside from, you know, the excessive kinky sex, it sounds like you're dipping your toes in slowly. Just take things one boink at a time," he said, winking. "And stay hydrated."

I sighed and stood, reaching down for my backpack and the half gallon water bottle I'd filled and hoisting them into the air. "I'll do my best."

I hadn't seen or heard from Elias much since the night in his office. He told me he'd take the week leading up to my visit off from work, and I suspected he'd been busy dealing with whatever his mating season required of him. What word I had received had been incendiary texts, promising all kinds of filthy, delicious treatment for our weekend. The last message had been comparatively mild.

If I let you make it through the door, it'll be a miracle.

I hadn't realized how seriously he'd meant it.

"Oh god, Elias!"

He snarled at my back, my body pressed to the wall just inside the front entry, one foot still over the jam. My shorts were caught on my spread knees, and Elias's claws hung to the top of the doorframe as he straightened, cock driving higher into me. I was fairly sure we were out of sight from anyone on the road, considering how far back his house was set, but he wasn't exactly being quiet either.

"Just—just let me close the door," I rasped, bucking back into him, swallowing a whine at the shockingly tight fit.

He huffed, and then one hand grabbed my thigh, pulling my leg in. With an awkward buck of his hips and a tug of his arms around me, he jerked us sideways. The hem of my blouse caught as the door swung shut, dropping me into the dark entry.

"Hands on the wall." Elias nudged my ankles together, making the fit of his cock inside of me unbearably, wonderfully tight. My hands groped up the glossy wallpaper and my eyes slid shut. Elias groaned and thrust, hardly able to move inside of me. "You're just lucky I had enough self-restraint not to track you down at home, Victoria."

I shivered at the change in his voice, all the usual smooth glide and stroke turned to dark growl.

"I thought about hunting you down last night. Claiming what's mine."

His hands settled on my hips, around the underwear I was fairly certain he'd torn in his haste, and he pulled out in an agonizing drag, every inch of him sharply present.

"Do you know what is mine, Victoria?" he whispered, licking around the shell of my ear.

I shook my head, gasping for breath.

He growled again, and I shouted with him as he thrust deep. "This." Another retreat, and another brutal thrust. "Tight." Thrust. "Wet." Thrust. "Pussy."

I moaned, my knees hitting the wall, sinking me deeper onto Elias's length.

"Say it," he groaned, rocking against me.

"Elias!"

"Say it, Victoria." He scooted us closer, until my head fell back against his chest and my breasts were smashed to the wall.

"This pussy is yours," I breathed out.

Elias purred with pleasure, drawing out, giving me a chance to catch a breath, before slamming in once more. I quivered and choked, my head bouncing against his fur, a rich, creamy scent wafting into my nose and making me dizzy. I turned my face, remembering what he'd said about his pheromones, and rubbed my cheek into his mane.

Elias laughed, low and ragged. "Oh yes, she's all mine, and she wants it so bad. Don't you, toy?"

"Yes."

He rumbled. "Then you'll have it."

An arm braced at the nape of my neck, pressing my cheek to the wall, and I shouted as his hips snapped to mine, unapologetically rough and quick.

"Fuck, I needed you," Elias whispered. I panted, my breath fogging over the smooth wallpaper with every beat of his length inside of me. "Every time I came this week, it was to the thought of you. I can't—I don't— Victoria ."

I squeaked as he crowded me close and deep, so tight to the wall I couldn't breathe, hot flashes of release bursting inside of me, wet and shocking. It'd been a long time since I'd had sex without a condom, and I forgot how much I liked it, how it made me clench a little more, like a kind of victory in the other person's surrender.

Elias moaned in my ear, easing back and circling my waist with his arms to keep me close. He staggered away from the wall, yanking my shirt loose from the door, keeping me on his cock. My toes scraped over the floor, legs tangled in shoes and shorts and torn underwear. My water bottle and backpack were abandoned by the door, and I let out a half-hearted mumble of objection.

"Don't move," he grunted, carrying me with uneven steps past the fishing bear, pausing once to bend us both over and give another emptying thrust inside of me, a little of his cum sliding out to drip down my thighs.

We made it to the stairs in starts and stops, where Elias pulled out of me with a groan before collapsing down on a step near the bottom. His fur looked damp from sweat, and his cock was still arching eagerly toward his stomach, dark and swollen and still slick with release.

"You weren't exaggerating," I said, toeing off my shoes, privately thrilled by the mess seeping out of me.

His head was draped back on another stair, arms and wings spread akimbo, and he opened one eye, humming in interest as he looked me over.

"Take off your shorts. I want you to rub that dripping pussy all over my cock and balls," he said.

I swayed in place for a moment, Elias's words keeping the earth moving under me so I wasn't able to find an even keel, and then I did as he ordered.

It took over an hour to make it up the stairs between all of Elias's hungry pawing and demands for me to suck him, ride him, and once to just let him rest and catch a little sleep.

"I haven't gotten any since yesterday morning, I think," he'd rasped, cradling me over his half hard cock, stretching out over the hallway carpet. I'd lost my shirt somewhere on the last flight, but Elias was warm enough to snuggle against.

When he woke, he'd groaned, scooped me up in his arms, and hauled us both to a plain looking door and up a flight of stairs into what I'd assumed might be the attic.

It probably had been an attic at one point. Now it was a loft apartment, complete with a kitchen in one corner, an enormous platformed tub tucked behind a half wall, a brief, small living room area around a standing fireplace and two bookshelves, and finally, a massive bed surrounded by the bay windows that faced the corner of the street.

There was no theme, no staging, and it compromised between modern and vintage styles. This was Elias's home.

He kicked the door shut behind us and carried me as far as the large and comfortable looking couch before putting me face down over the back and into the dense cushions.

"Elias?" I asked, laughing and preparing for him to press back inside of me. He hadn't since the front door, and as rough as he'd been, I wasn't feeling sore yet.

Instead, I heard his knees thump behind me, and soft breath rushed over my ass.

"Wait—" I choked out, stiffening.

"I need this," he growled, and the words had an effect like magic on me, making me go limp once more, hiding my hot face in the soft bouclé of the couch.

I thrashed slightly as he spread me open, and then I buried a moan deep into the cushions as a scorching hot, wet tongue stroked around my labia.

"You're my toy now, Victoria," Elias whispered into me. "I'll take whatever I want from you. Including this."

I hauled air into my lungs in desperate gasps. Elias's tongue explored me with a thoroughness that matched the thoughtful, erudite nature I'd grown to know in him. He mapped me with delicate little laps in small creases, long strokes at a perfect pressure over my lips, and across the back of my thighs.

"I like the way we taste together," he whispered, and I sagged further, giving up and accepting this treatment. My muscles softened, and he groaned in approval, pressing his face embarrassingly deep into my ass and sex, and still I remained unwound.

I'm his toy .

The meaning felt clearer now. I could be an empty vessel for Elias to use, at least until he called to me for action. The sounds I made, the muffled whimpers and heady sighs, were just answers to the way his long tongue burrowed inside of me, his nose nuzzling at my cheeks.

He stroked up my right thigh with his hand, his thumb coming to circle around my clit, and I shook at the small earthquake it sent through me. His tongue retreated, and he nipped at my ass.

"I just want you to drip into my mouth a little more," he explained gently, knowing I usually might object.

I couldn't now. I was his to use.

It was…liberating.

The back of the couch dug into my ribs and my breath was hot and stifled against the cushions, my head growing heavy from the inversion for so long, and none of it mattered. I wasn't anything but Elias's toy. I didn't have to be anything else.

Elias's slow, circular rubbing coiled inside of me, tightening, heating, and I gasped as the warm, tickling pool of arousal gathered inside of me. His groan as it slipped down into his open, waiting mouth vibrated into my core, my legs twitching and a brief spark crackling in my core.

His hand flattened, soothing over my clit and folds and opening as he backed away, and I swallowed my whine, ragdolling over the couch once more.

"Perfect," Elias said, and then he pressed his rigid length back inside of me.

"Rafe made me a casserole. He says I have to reheat it in the oven rather than the microwave, but…"

"Mmm."

Elias straightened slightly, glancing at me over his wings, sadly folding them to his back and hiding the beautiful reveal of his ass once more.

"Microwave is fine," I said. "We probably don't have much time, right?"

Elias grinned, flashing a hint of fang. "Now she's getting it."

Just in case, I clasped the open collar of the silk robe Elias had dressed me in a little tighter around my throat and tried to look as unsexual as possible on the kitchen counter where he'd deposited me.

"Don't worry, I can restrain myself for an hour. Or most of one." He turned back to his fridge and hefted out a glass container of food.

"Is your mating season meant to be for finding a mate?" I asked, thinking of Rafe and Hannah.

Elias set the dish down with a thunk. "No. Fae don't mate in that way, actually. I suppose it's more of a breeding season. Would you like to know a secret I find somewhat funny?"

I relaxed back against the cupboard behind me and nodded. Elias's apartment—in his house, which was still a wild concept for me to wrap my head around—was turning rosy and orange from the setting sun outside. This was the most intimate experience I'd had in years, and in spite of my nerves earlier while talking with Lyle, I found it fairly easy and natural.

But maybe that was partly due to the fact that I'd already been fucked silly several times.

"Fae males have a very low sperm count."

I blinked and shook the cobwebs loose from my brain.

Elias smiled smugly. "It's true, and for some reason, the fae population has decided to take extreme offense to that fact being pointed out or recorded in any academic or medical journal. All of the old fae tradition, like the wild hunt and frolicking about the maypole—obvious phallic reference—were nods to our fertile seasons. But we have those to make up for the somewhat lackluster results."

"Fae are rare because of low male fertility," I summarized, and he nodded.

"There's no female breeding season, either. Before we joined the other species in integration, they just had to put up with us losing our minds once a year. Fae unions are growing thin now that the female population has more prolific options."

"I read a study that said in two generations, there will be dozens of entirely new species," I said, watching Elias arrange slabs of some kind of unidentifiable but no less delicious looking food onto plates.

"Mmm, yes. The old guard who objected to integration are saying it'll be a chimerical mess, but it's not as though half the so-called monster species that exist weren't already born of genetic blends. Humans will be next," he said, punctuating the statement with a press of the button on his microwave.

"Next?"

Elias shrugged. "More and more humans mate with monsters each year. I imagine at some point, there will be some kind of uncomfortable and inappropriate conversation about preserving species as they are. It will fail. We all seem to be irresistible to one another in the end."

I leaned my head back against the cupboard. "How old are you?"

"A lady doesn't confess her age," Elias answered with a coy bat of his thick gold lashes. He was naked head to toe, standing in front of a whirring microwave, and a giggle burst out of me at the picture of him.

"Were both your parents moth fae?" I asked.

He nodded. "It was a wild hunt union. My mother was eager for a child, so she mated with every available male moth fae she could find over the festivities. And here I am," he said with a flourish, then swapped out the plates to heat, setting the steaming one down at my side. "The forks are in the drawer under you."

I shifted, following his directions while my brain processed what he'd just told me. "Did you ever meet your father?"

"I met a few likely candidates over the years. Truth be told, considering it had long been common practice to swap fae children for human babies, my mother's attachment to me was devotion enough by our standards," Elias said with a wry smile. "She passed away before integration, but I think she would've been absolutely livid at the idea."

Considering monsters had been living with humans for a century already, that told me enough about Elias's age to go about eating my casserole in a daze.

"She wouldn't have approved of integration?" I asked.

"She might not have said she disapproved, but she certainly wouldn't have taken part," Elias murmured, his gaze growing distant and a furrow appearing between his brows. "I haven't thought of her in quite some time, you know. She'd be shocked to see me now, to see me in a place like Nightlight."

A place where all the species gathered together. In a city where he was the only one of his kind. I wondered how many moth fae were even left in the world. I opened my mouth to ask more questions about Elias's past, when he changed the subject.

"Did Rafe tell you about his supper club?"

I shook my head. "This food is really good."

"Casseroles aren't on the menu, but I agree. He has a flare for flavor," Elias said.

We ate in silence for a moment, Elias with his hip cocked against the counter, mindlessly shoveling food into his mouth. I realized I was witnessing him more at ease than I ever had before, almost as if I wasn't here to observe him.

"You're a lot more clearheaded than when I arrived," I said, wondering if he'd arranged for me to come at the end, when everything was winding down.

He smirked. "I'm compartmentalizing arousal. You needed a breather, and we both needed fuel to continue. But now I'm thinking about sex again and…" He gestured down to where his cock was starting to swell, then laughed as I blushed. "Eat up, Victoria. And then take off the robe and let me watch you stretch before we begin again."

I tried not to choke on the next bite.