Page 30 of Nine Inch Nasty (Hemlock Academy #9)

He shakes his head. “I've seen how hard you take our beautiful mate, I don't think you need to worry about me. Demon skin is pretty indestructible; but don't do this if this isn't truly what you want.”

He shifts, and it quickly becomes obvious exactly what I want.

His eyebrows rise and he starts choking. “Holy shit.”

I get an uncontrollable urge to brush it off or act embarrassed about how aroused I am, but instead, I decide to be brave.

“Perks of being a gargoyle. Don’t worry, it doesn’t need to fit inside of you.

” I hold him in silence for a moment or two, letting the sounds of the night float around us and blanket us.

“I feel pulled to you. It’s like the memories are there, but just out of reach. ”

“And it’s not like there’s been a lot of time for us to explore this,” Rush adds on, trying to ease me.

“I’m not scared of trying to see where this monster can fit in, but I’d be lying if I told you that’s all I wanted.

I don’t know if you are interested still, but before, we…

I used to top you. You took it so good, Leo.

I dream about those days so often. As much as a demon can dream.

And the potatoes…I get so fucking mad when I think about everything we’ve missed out on and lost because of that witch.

Sometimes I’m angry at you for causing it, because if you had only remembered a tiny detail…

but that’s pointless. Anger like that doesn’t go anywhere. I think we need a fresh start.

“Both of us have changed, and I think maybe I need to stop living in the past, especially because you don’t have the same memories I do. If we can…start here, tonight, and decide to start something together, would you be interested in that?”

In the dark, the blue tint to his skin is hard to decipher, the color bleeding out into all the dark shapes around us.

I can just make out the deep color of his eyelashes as they bat against his eyes when something falls from a nearby tree and brushes against them, and I find studying him like this is immensely satisfying.

“What are you looking at?”

I smile, my heart warm. “When you spend an inordinate amount of time forced to observe life going on around you while you stay still, I think it becomes a foundational part of your soul to keep practicing that long after you’re free.

I like watching you, like watching Delaney, like watching our misfit family; that’s how I learn about you all.

I probably think slower and process slower than you remember, so I beg of you to have patience with me.

I greatly like the idea of admitting to myself that I have room in my heart for you next to where Delaney lives, but she is such a big part of my soul that discovering how to balance both of you will take some trial and error.

“But I want that. With you. Want to make mistakes and argue about silly things, just like we feel comfortable doing with Delaney. I’m beginning to grasp that we’re always going to have others demanding our time.

Delaney is too well known to fade into obscurity, and there are so many in our family now that are beholden to other people in one way or another, but let’s make this,” I say as I squeeze his hips gently, “a priority. Touch me, assume I’m yours whenever you wish. Because I am. I wish to be.”

The second those words leave my lips, Rush acts even more un-demonly and kisses me.

I enjoy it for what it is, what it does for me, and I live in the moment.

For right now, there’s no chaos happening around us, there are no warnings for future calamities, there are no family members in dire straits.

It’s just me and this demon, and a woman we’re both obsessed with not too far away, and there’re the stars. And the night.

I think we both decide it’s not the time to push further, that connecting like this was all we really needed to figure out where we stood. We’ve been playing a subtle game of chase since we were reunited, and it feels good to step forward together.

“Thank you. For being you,” I tell him. I fold my wings around him one more time, giving us one last moment of quiet.

We’ve been gone long enough and I’m starting to feel the itch to check on Delaney and the rest of her mates, but I breathe in Rush one more time, smelling of the coolness of caves and stalactites, an echoing within his soul that I think I understand the origins of better now.

“I’m going to ride this monster dick later,” he promises me as he stands up. “And I hope you’ll let me plow those stone ass cheeks you’ve got. The things I’ve been imagining...”

Blood flows down to my cock at that imagery, and I purposefully press it into him while I stand up and lean down to kiss his head. “Yes, we’ll have fun. We can put on quite the show for Delaney, I bet. Or just us. Whatever feels right.”

“I always say, the more the merrier!” And he runs off after a gentle tug on my tail, encouraging me to chase after him.