Page 22 of Lessons with the Mothman (Monster Smash Agency)

CHAPTER 22

Victoria

"E-Elias," I gasped, arching and swallowing a whimper as I ground down and then remembered myself and tried to rise up once more.

He snarled, tightening his grip on my hips and pulling me down to sit fully on his face once more.

Holy shit .

My brow furrowed and I whined, rocking, nudging my clit to his nose as his insanely long tongue stroked inside of me. This past week had been…insane. It was almost like Elias was taking out some kind of revenge on me, a punishment of pleasure for all the times we'd hooked up and I hadn't gotten off.

"I c-can't," I stammered out, trying to pull away again, head shaking, my sweaty hands slipping on his headboard.

Except I could. He'd proved that plenty of times.

I'd spent as much time at Elias's apartment—I was calling it that now, even if it was attached to a mansion—as I had at my own this week, squeezing every minute out of every day to juggle my work and the cats and…and whatever this was.

I moaned at the sound of a soft buzzing, and then Elias groaned inside of me as he shoved the little air pulse vibrator against my clit.

He loved using toys on me.

And really, I couldn't be mad about it.

His other hand reached up, alternating soft pinches on my nipples.

And still I resisted, my head filling with a dozen irritating thoughts that pecked and demanded my attention. Stanton had been a prick in emails and at our meeting this week, interrogating my study and acting almost suspicious of every answer I gave. Emma had reached out and asked me to come with her and Mom and Kathy to look at bridal gowns, and I was both delighted at our reconciliation and dreading the actual experience.

Elias had sent me flowers on Monday. My apartment super had left them at my door. A huge bouquet of greenery and late season blooms, like a wildflower meadow had been growing on my doormat. Thank god it hadn't been something cliché, like roses, but the gesture had thrown me for a loop. Maybe it was traditional for the fae to offer some kind of gesture after a mating season fling? I was too afraid to ask.

Suddenly, Elias growled and rose up, grabbing me around the hips and throwing me to my back on his bed.

"I swear I have to fill at least two of your holes to get you out of your head."

I gaped, thrilled by the words and shocked back into the moment, then cried out as he dove back down to feast on my core. His claim wasn't entirely true, although it was an extremely effective method. Mostly, I liked the way he talked, the slightly demeaning teasing he used. He was so… sweet after sex, and the contrast of this version of him short-circuited my brain.

Which, yes, helped me get out of my head enough to?—

" Victoria ."

"I'm sorry!" I cried, my fists striking the mattress.

He purred and kissed around my pubic hair and then up to my belly button, licking in the divot. "Shh, no, darling, it's all right. I'm being selfish, aren't I? You don't need your pussy licked."

I mean, I didn't, but it had felt nice.

He rose up, bracing one hand by my ear. He passed the still throbbing vibrator into one of my hands and pecked my lips gently. "You need it pounded."

I sighed, relaxing, as he fit himself to my entrance and slid smoothly inside.

Elias laughed and grinned down at me. "One of these days, you'll cream all over my face." He kissed my heating cheek. "Tonight, I'll settle for you soaking my cock."

"Elias," I said, nose wrinkling, and then quickly my expression smoothed as he surged slowly out and back in again.

"Am I teasing you too much, darling?" He purred, nuzzling against my ear as I arched beneath him. "I do love to push your buttons," he said, pinching and tugging softly at one of my nipples as he drew out again.

"You-you know what I want," I gasped, one leg hooking over his hips, my knee brushing to the underside of his heavy wing.

"Mmm, I do," he murmured. "Really, of the two of us, you're the selfish one." He reared up, kneeling between my thighs, plunging in and out with far too much patience.

"Elias," I pleaded, my eyes squeezing shut. Was this what I was afraid of? A lover trying to prove that they could get me off? I didn't feel afraid now. I was hot and trembling and trying to throw my body into his, to grind my clit against his fur.

"I'll take my pleasure how I like it, Victoria," Elias growled, punctuating his words with rough thrusts. "With you wet. Gasping. Squeezing on my cock. Just. Like. That."

I clamped my hand over my mouth as I screamed, annoyed and delighted at his mastery over my body, still as shocked by the orgasm as I had been the first time but too busy swirling and drowning in sensation to care. Elias threw himself down onto me, his hands pulling on my hair, body weighing me to the mattress, pinning me for his thrusts as he groaned in relief.

The warm, dark pleasure I took when he came blended with my own heady satisfaction, my body still quaking around his, his jerks and shudders slowing until he lay unapologetically on top of me, my breath tight with his weight, but my body so sweetly relaxed.

"Your dirty talk is so…psychological," I mused, stroking his back, loving the feel of the feather soft velvet of his wings on the backs of my hands.

"Victoria," Elias sighed, and then he hushed me with a licking kiss. I recalled our conversation about aftercare and decided he probably preferred a quiet cuddle to my sexual analysis. I wrapped him tighter in my arms. He pulled from the kiss with a final brush of his lips and then rolled us to the side.

"The more I talk, the tighter you get," Elias said simply. He was quiet for a few moments, and then he gathered my hair in his hand, twisting it and lifting it from my sweaty neck, letting the cooler air of the room soothe my bare back. When did he learn how much I liked that?

"Was Brett really so bad in bed?" Elias asked, and there was something about the words that came out grudgingly.

I shrugged. "I don't know. It was a relationship that should've ended in high school. Except I didn't know how to…even communicate with myself, let alone with him. And he and my parents and his parents all seemed to think we belonged together, so that was what I thought too."

"You speak your mind to me easily enough," Elias said and then stiffened. "Don't you?"

I nodded and kissed the center of his chest. "And you listen." I smiled as he relaxed once more. "He's marrying my younger sister."

Elias almost sat up, but we were too tangled together, so he put me on my back once more and stared down at me. "I beg your pardon?"

I laughed. "I know how it sounds, but I think they make sense." He arched an eyebrow and I flushed. "For real this time. I've talked it out with Emma. They really are happier."

"And you don't mind?"

"No," I said, and then considered his question more carefully. "I don't mind. I don't look forward to what other people in our family circle will think or act or how they'll look at me. But Emma and Brett being happy together makes it feel like I made less of a mistake."

"You didn't make a mistake," Elias said roughly.

"I mean by staying so long." He humphed and I smiled, greedily combing my fingers through his hair and mane. He was so wonderfully soft to the touch. "The fallout was bad at the time. No one thought I'd made the right choice when I broke up with Brett. And even though I knew I had, I couldn't help but feel like it was because there was something wrong with me." I covered his lips before he could object on my behalf. "I've unraveled that in therapy. So we're all better off now. I'm going with Emma to look at wedding dresses next weekend."

Elias relaxed and slid down the bed slightly so that he could leave damp kisses on my throat and shoulders.

"I knew from the start I could make you come," he said, and I snorted at his easy arrogance. "You either need your mind silenced or it needs to be engaged, that's all. Left to wander, and it will distract you from your own pleasure."

"A very logical conclusion. What is your prescription?" I asked, smiling.

Elias lifted up, black eyes possessing my gaze, holding me trapped beneath him. "Why, myself, of course," he said, voice low and dark. He shifted, and my legs parted for him automatically. "I know your body, Victoria, and I am learning your mind. I am your lover now, and I mean to excel at the job."

I shivered, a wary note whistling at the back of my mind, but my body was already yearning in his direction, arching for his touch, trembling as his fur grazed against my breasts and belly. His mouth covered mine and swallowed my moan.

The warning bell grew louder by little increments.

I miss you. Any chance you'll come for a drink tonight?

I stared at the first three words of the text, trying to shake off the unsettled mix of excitement and confusion. I'd just left Elias's this morning. It hadn't even been a full day.

At the library till close and I've got an early morning. Tomorrow night?

I watched the text bubble float for a few moments.

I'll be patient if I must.

I rolled my eyes and fought my smile.

Brave of you.

Rafe's first supper club is coming up next month. 11.15. Make sure to schedule yourself off.

I stiffened. Next month. Two weeks ago, we'd been planning hookups on a sparse schedule, and now Elias wanted me in his bed every night and at his friend's debut supper club event in a month .

At least he hadn't asked a question. I could safely tuck my phone away and leave his demand on read. Just make it through my quiet work hours in the library.

A dinner was harmless. I liked Hannah and Rafe. And perhaps Elias meant this to be an opportunity to network with more people for the study?

He meant it to be a date. Don't be obtuse.

I shuffled my papers in front of me—a collection of studies on different species' biochemistry that Elias had found me—and gave myself a moment to imagine what it would be like to date Elias.

We already knew the sex was great. So there was that. Elias was smart, inquisitive, observant. Our conversations never stalled awkwardly into mutual ambivalence. But our interactions had been limited to a fairly specific area thus far. A spectacularly satisfying area, one that I was pursuing academically and personally, but still. A limited field.

It wouldn't stay that way, though. We'd discussed our backgrounds, and he'd shared his home with me, which was arguably some kind of secret artistic passion project, or an obsession.

Dating Elias would be?—

My brain refused to paint in the rest of the picture, although there was a kind of cool glow in my chest at the thought, comfortable and a little bittersweet.

I'm your lover now .

I smiled and ducked my head, forcing my eyes to focus on the page in front of me, brushing away the whispers of memories from the past few nights every time they rose up.

The findings in the studies were wonderful. For the most part, various monster species had similar markers, although there were a number of species that didn't have prolactin at all, or significantly smaller quantities, like orcs. Species that mated had serotonin overwhelming the dopamine when copulating with their mate. I wondered about fae, but Elias said that it would be pulling teeth to get fae to submit to a study. He offered himself—with a wicked grin—for study, so long as I was his partner in the effort.

If I'd had the resources, I would've taken him up on the offer.

Purely for science, of course.

I made my way through the papers, taking as many notes as I could, not sure whether it added relevance yet but liking to order and organize the clutter of my thoughts.

Every so often, I'd be interrupted to track down a book or check a student out of the library, and my mind would wander back to Elias.

The flowers. The push for more time together. The possessive language in bed. Scheduling dates a month out.

Elias was a fantastic assistant to my study, mainly because he kept himself out of the work itself. It wouldn't really be a conflict to date him, aside from potential ramifications if we broke up. But that was a weak excuse to avoid something that would be…nice.

A throat cleared, and I looked up from my notes, freezing at the sight of Lyle's sly smile and a mass of glorious golden fur turned brassy under the fluorescent lights.

"Look who I found," Lyle said.

"E-Elias. What are you doing here?" I was stiff in the tall chair behind the desk, staring over the moth fae's shoulder into the room as if?—

What? Who would care that he was here?

And Elias certainly seemed unbothered, wandering easily over to the gap that opened to my side of the desk, sliding behind it. I jumped off the chair and held my hands up in front of me to ward him off, but he just stopped against me, his warmth bleeding through the shirt he wore into my palms.

"I said I missed you," he murmured, not so quietly that Lyle couldn't hear.

My face was hot as Elias ducked to kiss the corner of my mouth. "I'm working," I said, my heart beating too fast in my chest.

"I know, I'll go. I just brought you some food and a mocktail," he said, smiling down at me, although his eyes narrowed as he searched my face. His head tipped. "I didn't know you were friends with an incubus."

"Lyle, this is?—"

"We introduced ourselves," Lyle said, smiling, although now he was watching me too closely as well, aware of my spiking nerves.

"I've overstepped," Elias said, so lightly this time, I was sure I was the only one who could hear.

"You surprised me," I said, and my brow tightened. He had overstepped. Why couldn't I say so? I opened my mouth to admit as much, but he cut me off with another quick kiss.

"Just food and a drink. See? I'm on my way out now."

And sure enough, he was backing up once more, rounding the desk, nodding to Lyle and heading for the door. He paused at the far corner of the desk and looked back at me.

"Tomorrow?" he asked, and it was hard to tell with Elias sometimes, but I had the feeling he was nervous now too.

I softened, glancing down at the bag. I'd packed a granola bar and some grapes. Whatever he'd brought was bound to be delicious.

"Tomorrow," I said, forcing myself to add, "Thank you."

I just wasn't sure if I was thanking him for coming or leaving.