Page 23

Nightmare

P recious. Perfect. Sweet, sweet, sweet.

Nightmare knelt on the floor by the foot of the hotel bed, holding Matteo’s lax thighs open with his hands, watching his spend trickle from Matteo’s open hole.

It had taken longer than Nightmare had imagined for his petals to constrict.

Whether that was due to the power of the bonding or the covetousness that ran through his very bones, he didn’t know.

He’d caressed and scented and ground deep into Matteo’s limp form, his cock pulsing out more and more cum, and then he’d turned Matteo onto his stomach and rocked against him until finally Nightmare’s hunger had abated enough for his cock to unlatch.

Matteo had slept through it all.

The trust he’d shown in Nightmare—in allowing himself to slumber while Nightmare surrounded him in every way possible—was a heady drug indeed.

Nightmare had gotten immense pleasure from stroking his mate’s cock just to watch him sigh and shift in his sleep, his eyelids fluttering but never opening entirely.

Nightmare hadn’t needed to siphon any fear from Matteo at all.

His mate had slept peacefully, his lemon scent rich with arousal.

Perhaps his lack of dark dreams was due to his new link with Nightmare’s soul, or perhaps it was due to the fact that he’d had Nightmare’s body wrapped so firmly around him. Inside him.

Nightmare regretted the loss of that closeness already, even as he experienced immense pleasure watching his release drip from Matteo’s sleeping form.

He’d sensed it would be this way. Sensed that once he got a taste of burrowing inside his mate, he’d never want to leave.

He’d been cautious for this very reason.

He placated himself by massaging the firm, supple muscle of Matteo’s thighs. For once, Nightmare’s shadows were resting in Matteo’s presence, tucked deep within Nightmare, exhausted from the bonding.

Nightmare had his summoner to himself.

He ran his nose along the tender flesh under his hands. He opened his mouth and gently—carefully—bit down, tonguing the salty skin. Matteo was soaked with sweat from being wrapped up with Nightmare’s inhuman warmth for so long. Nightmare had the strange urge to lick every drop from his body.

Perhaps he would.

He slid his hand up Matteo’s inner thigh and thumbed at his mate’s hole.

More spend trickled out, dark and smoky.

A quiet rumble of satisfaction left Nightmare’s chest. The tender pink skin might have been red and puffy except that Nightmare’s ejaculate—like his saliva and his blood—held healing properties, if he wished it to.

A tool for demons to tend to their human summoner’s needs.

A tool now to keep his mate without pain, unharmed by Nightmare’s immense, immeasurable hunger for him.

Matteo’s muscles shifted under Nightmare’s palms, and a soft sigh came from above him.

Nightmare glanced up to find Matteo awake, looking down the length of his torso to Nightmare. “Scary?” Matteo frowned, his dark eyes still foggy with sleep. “You got out.” His hand drifted down to his entrance, as if to verify, and his lips pushed into a pout. “I missed it?”

Nightmare couldn’t help his smile. “There will be other opportunities, sweet.”

Matteo’s pout shifted into a shy little grin. He rose higher onto his elbows, although he didn’t attempt to close his legs, didn’t try to shield himself from Nightmare’s hungry gaze. “What are you doing down there?”

“Admiring.”

“Oh.” Matteo’s cheeks flushed pink, and he shifted on the bed.

His cock—still hard from Nightmare’s attentions—bobbed in the air.

Matteo wrapped his hand around it with a sigh.

“I’m so turned on. It’s weird to wake up like that.

” He gave himself a stroke, then let his hand drop.

His expression turned sweetly beseeching. “Will you suck me, Scary? Please?”

“Mm.” Nightmare pressed a palm on Matteo’s belly. “Lie back, sweet.”

Matteo shook his head. “No, thank you.” His flush deepened. “I want to watch.”

He was a terror, this one. And Nightmare was ever at his disposal. He blunted his teeth and took Matteo’s cock in his mouth, tonguing at the salty, bitter precum at the tip.

Matteo curled up into his touch with an almost pained cry. “Oh!”

His thighs came up around Nightmare’s head, and his hips started moving, fucking into Nightmare’s mouth without hesitation. He was so eager to mate, so responsive to any touch. Primed for pleasure in a way that must have been innate to his nature, given his lack of experience.

Nightmare hollowed his cheeks and sucked.

He was in a mood to be merciful, given how long he’d been playing with Matteo’s pliant body already.

And sure enough, the poor thing didn’t last long at all.

He only managed a few more frantic pumps of his hips before he curled up into a ball around Nightmare’s head—his hands grasping desperately at Nightmare’s antlers—and shot into Nightmare’s mouth with a cry.

Nightmare swallowed. Licked his lips. Swallowed some more.

This was even better than Matteo’s sweat.

Eventually Matteo started pushing at Nightmare’s head, forcing it off his tender member. When Nightmare released him, he flopped onto his back with a sigh, reaching his arms up without looking. “Come here.”

Nightmare climbed onto the bed and crawled over him, laying his chest down on top of his mate, careful not to let his full weight fall.

Matteo wrapped his arms around Nightmare’s back, welcoming his touch as he always did. “I can feel you in me still.”

Nightmare nuzzled against his neck. “We mated for a very long time.”

Matteo laughed brightly. “Not your cock. Your soul. Our bond. You feel things differently than I do, so the emotions are…odd.” Nightmare lifted his head to look at him, and Matteo’s dark eyes were shining.

“But I’ve never felt safer. You’re here.

You’re filling up all my little cracks and empty places.

You’re making me stronger.” His brow furrowed. “What do I give you?”

“You,” Nightmare rasped. “All of you.”

Matteo’s frown deepened. “And that’s enough?”

“Always.” Nightmare slid off the bed. He picked Matteo up in a bridal carry. “Time to bathe, sweet.”

“Okay.” Matteo wrapped his arms around Nightmare’s neck. He glanced back at the bed. “Where are my shadows?”

“Resting.”

“But they’ll be back?”

“They’ll be back.”

Nightmare took Matteo into the large hotel shower. He pressed Matteo’s hands against the tiled wall and began helping him empty himself of every last trace of Nightmare’s essence. He didn’t want his summoner left sticky and uncomfortable because he’d been careless.

Matteo looked over his shoulder at Nightmare kneeling behind him. “Should this be embarrassing?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Matteo said easily. “It isn’t.” He shifted on his feet, pushing his ass out against Nightmare’s helpful fingers. “It’s kind of hot, actually. Should it be hot?”

Nightmare bit at Matteo’s bottom with blunt teeth. “Insatiable.”

“Am I?” Matteo laughed. “That’s funny. I never thought so before.”

Nightmare carried him to the tub next, where Matteo insisted Nightmare join him. It was cramped, Nightmare’s knees jutting out from the sides, but Matteo didn’t seem to mind. He snuggled against Nightmare’s chest, his soul lemon-bright with happiness.

“Maybe we could just run away,” Matteo eventually said, tracing his fingers lightly over Nightmare’s belly under the water.

“No more running, little human. We will battle your monsters first.”

Matteo let out a sigh. “Bossy.”

Perhaps. But Nightmare was also certain in his course of action. He could taste it now, through the full bond they now shared: the corner of Matteo’s soul that Dominico had claimed with his torture and his threats, one where the bright lemon had been replaced with bitter despair and ash.

Dominico would not be allowed to keep it.

Matteo’s soul was for Nightmare and his shadows. No one else.

Nightmare once again found himself on human public transportation.

He and Matteo were meeting Chaos and Cooper in Seacliff, the other pair arriving by way of rental car.

Cooper had informed them that he’d only recently received his driver’s license, and Nightmare wasn’t willing to leave Matteo in the hands of an inexperienced human driver.

And knowing the little chaos demon, it would be just like him to take over the wheel and drive them all off a cliff, if only for his own amusement.

The bus was safer for Nightmare’s summoner.

Matteo was alert but far less twitchy than on the voyage over, his surveillance of their fellow passengers more purposeful and less paranoid.

“Maybe it’s a good thing we’re taking care of things,” Matteo mused after giving a burly, bearded man a remarkably thorough once-over.

“It is, sweet.”

“Because then we can go somewhere private and just fuck and fuck and fuck for days.”

A woman across the aisle from them coughed loudly.

“If you like,” Nightmare said evenly, as if he wasn’t salivating behind his fangs at the thought of such a thing.

Matteo gave the coughing woman a look and lowered his voice. “And when Dominico comes, you’re going to make him suffer? Make him hurt?”

“Yes, sweet. He will suffer greatly.”

Nightmare knew now that Matteo liked hearing things said out loud for reassurance, often more than once. And while by no means verbose by nature, Nightmare would tell his mate what he needed as many times over as Matteo required.

And for once in his long existence, Nightmare could perhaps use a little reassurance of his own.

He didn’t like that Dominico’s men had been found in an occult shop. Demons weren’t the only inhuman creatures roaming this realm. And while the likelihood of those mobster humans finding anything of substance was unlikely, it wasn’t impossible.