Page 61 of Midsummer Phoenixes

They got me this. He was everything. When he looked up at me, a strand of hair falling over his eye, I was ready to weep. He was my joy and reason.

It was too easy to lose myself with him, but I had nothing if not self-control. If I wanted to. And I wanted. I moved my hips, concentrating on the here and now, the naked man under me.

“Good?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

So I went in all the way. He took me, shivering with the sensation. I gave him some time to adjust before I found a pace that lasted for not very much longer than these things do. Still, the sounds and sight, breath and skin, there was an eternity in there, a perfection that wouldn’t ever succumb to the relentless pull of time. Joy eternal.

We came together, he and I. I felt him, heard him, smelled him. Then I held him, felt him go all slack and perfect in my arms.

“You tore my shirt,” he said after not very long, my signal he was done, wanted to get up, wanted to get clean.

“Just two buttons, Amory.”

“But those could be anywhere. And now you have to sow them back on again.”

“I’ll find them. I’m good at picking up the details.”

He turned to kiss me. “You like details.”

“I do. They’re nice.”

“I managed to surprise my detail-oriented assassin lover.”

I mustered a glare. The idiot grinned back at me.

“My heart, I cannot have you talk like this. What would people think? You’ll ruin my reputation.”

My already banged-up reputation. Jules, and as a result the rest of the Star-Garbed, had already figured out all they needed to do was get on Amory’s good side. I really needed something in my very near future that reminded people of what the Black Shuck was capable of, and if I was being honest with myself, scaring some Freak High cafeteria pawn wasn’t the best way to go about that.

But it was what I had, for now.

“Aw, stop,” Amory said. “I couldn’t. You’re the most wonderful man I know, and everyone else should know that too.”

Some of the time, I actually heard what he was saying and wasn’t powerless to his charm.

“My heart, I am the Black Shuck. I will always be the Black Shuck, an omen of death.”

He looked at me for a long while before he said, “What if a black dog with shining red eyes were just an omen, neither good nor bad but what you make of it?”

I sighed. “For you, Amory, I will be that possibility. Not for others. Never for others. Please.”

But he was shaking his head already. “I don’t want to change you, you know. Ben likes you I guess. I think Rae is a fan, actually.” I relaxed slightly. After all, Amory wasn’t as trained as I was on picking up on the tells of others, and so he was bound to get them wrong. “I don’t want to change you. I’m just saying, there are possibilities. More things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I tightened my hold on him. “You just quoted a tragedy at me, my heart.”

He snorted, and as if my tightening hold had made him aware of his physical needs, he pulled free.

“You’re being silly again, you know.”

He stood and looked at me. I didn’t appeal much, probably, with my pants down and my spent cock out. The way I read his face, he thought me quite appealing.

“I’ll make us a silly dinner then. Unless you want some more of this?” I gestured at my less-than-seductive state.

Amory shook his head. “But I could eat.”

“Then I will feed you. My home and hearth are yours, after all.”

He rolled his eyes. “Is it okay if I take a quick shower?”

“Of course.”

While he hurried off to the bathroom, I allowed myself ten more seconds, just ten, to look at the ceiling.

There were no such things as good omens, not really. Things just happened.

“Until now.”

I got up and pulled myself together to cook for him, something silly and delicious, something to let him know wherever I was would be home to him as well, forever.