#with plot

[modedelagauze]

Lying is The Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

​​pairing: Ellie Williams x f!reader summary: Ellie finds out you do burlesque and fucks you in costume after the show. cw: nsfw, dom!Ellie, thigh riding, praise kink, cursing, strap, fingering (4.2k) Read the extended version on AO3 HERE

an: I've got serious p!atd brain rot right now so stream Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off to get the full vision~

unedited btw!

“Five minutes!” shouted a voice over many, somewhat distorted by the echo of clicking heels rapidly shuffling between the narrow corridors of the dressing rooms and storage closets sandwiched among one another downstairs. You took a moment to reapply a thick layer of the blood colored bullet in your fingers and puckering to place a kiss on the surface of a half boa covered mirror as a way of wishing good luck to yourself before the show. You were one of the only cabaret girls who actually sang at the club and the only girl to  have ever sang for Ellie Williams personally. At the beginning of the semester you’d often spend late afternoons alone and enclosed within the padded walls of the black box theater, on campus, practicing. You were blissfully unaware of the fact that there was someone else who was also using the space on occasion, probably for the better. It only was two weeks into the term that you’d stayed later than usual singing–ten minutes at most–and been disturbed by the nervous brunette carrying a guitar. To avoid drawing attention, Ellie had always entered the theater through its reliably unlocked back doors only to be gifted with the sound of your voice. Entranced by the melody, she decided to wait behind the curtains, standing just far enough for a view of your form without being noticed. It was only when you turned to take a swig of water that you became aware of the girl watching you. After that encounter she suggested that the two of you spend some time singing together, that you could learn a thing or two from each other. You ended up learning how magical her fingers could feel buried deep within that aching cunt of yours. With time, of course, she’d gone and destroyed what the two of you had built by indecisively bouncing back and forth between you and some girl back home. So, here you were ignoring her third call of the week and at the same time hoping to see her in passing just for one moment of spite.

On the stairs down from the dressing room, you practiced breathing exercises in preparation for the upcoming vocal stress. Girls called out wishes of support as you made your way down the long hall until their voices faded into the hushed whispers of patrons and the sharp clanging of glasses upon their wooden tables. It felt as though time had sped up tenfold how a wire was so quickly slid behind your ears and down your costume; a small flesh colored earpiece rushed into your right palm to be placed comfortably at your own will. Right at center stage was the band’s pianist, side facing the curtains, whilst the rest of the group were all tucked along the left side of the stage facing the audience. He passed along a supportive nod in your direction as you rushed into position; that being sat atop the far right side of his piano with an arched back and one thigh flush against the wood while the other was kicked up and bent.  

“Thirty seconds till curtains rise,” ushered one of the techies and thus began the pianist, a playful and upbeat tempo before joined by the bass then guitars. The crowd cheered, queueing everyone behind the curtains that the two dancers upon the stage beyond had begun dancing along to the music. Slowly the velvet draping began to reveal light, decorating everyone behind the curtains too in ribbons of dancing radiance. 

In synchronization with the drums having now kicked in and the curtains fully raised, you began in a teasing tone, “Is it still me that makes you sweat?”  Your hands navigated down your hair and to your breasts, stopping to cup them ever so slightly before tauntingly sliding a single bra strap down between the lines, “am I who you think about in bed when the lights are dim and your hands are shaking as you’re sliding off her dress?” An o-shaped expression of faux-embarrassment graced your face for a moment before gliding off of the piano and maneuvering around it to wrap your arms around the pianist in an attempt to imitate the look of a neck kiss. The next line was one of mockery, “Think of what you did and how I hope to god she was worth it.” As the final words of the phrase escaped your lips, your eyes landed on Ellie sandwiched within the crowd along the center stage, earning a stutter only recognized by the pianist as his eyes quickly darted to you and back to his instrument of choice. “When the lights are dim–And your heart is racing as your fingers touch her skin.” The line was rushed in order to catch up with your stutter, though the pianist threw in an additional key to make up for it, smiling as he played. In one fluid motion the two dancers along stage, darted to your figure and tugged on either side at both arms. You sang with pure confidence, borderline arrogance “I’ve got more wit” as one dancer dropped your arm the other spun you into hers and ran a hand along your face, thumbing at your flush bottom lip “a better kiss, a hotter touch, a better fuck than any girl you’d ever meet.” Your song choice for the night had been a very carefully curated one though you weren't expecting to see Ellie any time soon–especially at your place of work out of all locations–it felt so good to sing your emotions out and leave them on the stage, but seeing her just now had felt like the greatest fuck you that the universe could offer. Had she even known that you’d be here or was it all by pure coincidence? Regardless, you'd come to the conclusion that now was no better a time than ever to remind her of the mistake she’d made. The other dancer’s hands found their way to your waist, unraveling you from the original’s hold and into her own. Both of your hands landed in your hair, teasingly pulling at it leading her to imitate the ghost of an open-mouthed moan, “Sweetie you had me.”

The routine required you to pick a random guest in the audience to sing to and Ellie had just so managed to pick one of the best seats in the house. Navigation was really quite effortless as you made sure to spend a lingering moment here and there singing into the face of occasional patrons. Each strum of the bass was a stride forward before unabashedly ending up at Ellie's table. You managed to dance around the other people sitting there and right into her face without wasting a beat. You asked and received and here she was in all her glory, a bewildered look upon her face as if she hadn't expected for you to make such a commotion about her appearance. You knew under that carefree attitude that she loved to portray there was still that same nervous girl tucked away within. It was as if she’d planned to show up in order to provoke you and realized that now was too late to back out. Usually she had no issue confronting any issue at hand but the problem was that she hated the attention confrontation brought her. She wanted your attention after having not seen you in so long and was desperate enough to risk embarrassment for it, which said more than enough.

Her gaze brought out a degree of seduction in you that had been fighting to finally be on the prowl again, tantalizing and enough for the girl in front of you to practically taste you with her eyes. You could see her fingernails hopelessly digging into the arm rests of her chair, respecting  the club rules that patrons weren’t allowed to touch any of the performers unless they placed the hands of patrons upon their bodies themself. 

A wicked smile was unavoidable as your hands grew to extend themselves past your own body and onto hers, delicately tiptoeing down her shoulder blades, scuffling the tips of your freshly manicured nails down the sides of her biceps. How you knew she loved the scratches; the way you would often leave her skin tinged red the following morning after a scandalous night. Maintaining eye contact was the name of the game for the entire duration of your little escapade. Naturally you already had the girl by an inch or two, but with the added height of heels you were a steel tower of carnality that she wished to rip apart. If anything she liked that you were taller because It made watching you sink down onto her strap all the more enjoyable. Seemingly the length of your legs created an illusion of prolonged time settling down upon her crude nature and she could watch you ride all night long.

You were sure to drag your claws along her jeans, pressing just hard enough for her to feel it through the fabric as your hands retracted down to her knees and you dropped to a close legged crouch looking up at her, running your hands across your own skin and through your hair, suspending it all in the air long enough for her to get a good glance at the exposed skin of your neck and hickeys from someone who wasn’t her. Slowly you stood again, rocking your hips back and forth as and circled her seat. She hadn't taken much of a sip from her drink and so from behind you snatched the floating cherry stem from its alcohol soaked entrapment. When you could see her eyes again, you reached to wrap your left hand around her jaw, forcing it open as you allowed the cherry to hover over your outstretched tongue then flicking it inside of her mouth. Of course she caught on and separated the cherry from its stem and you dropped what was left of it back into the drink. “Oh no, you know it will always just be me.”

From there you made your way back to the stage and concluded the set. Exiting the stage, you caught the view of a faint glow upon Ellie's face as was seemingly typing away furiously upon that screen. When you finally got to the dressing room your phone had lit up with a flurry of messages from the distressed brunette. The first about how beautiful you were, next demanding you keep your costume on, followed by how much she wanted to ruin your pretty makeup and finally concluding it all by asking if you could just come outside for a moment. And of course she got the better of you. Frankly you were turned on by how desperate she looked and sounded. Maybe you’d punished her for long enough? Washington got cold fast and by early November snowfall was impending so you grabbed your fleece and made for the back door where-to nobody’s surprise-Ellie was parked almost directly in front of the door whilst leaning against the passenger door waiting for you. 

“It’s good to see you.” She spoke as she moved to open the door for you to get in.

With only inches between your lungs, you crossed your arms stopping dead in your tracks. “That’s not what you said to me Ellie. You asked me for a moment, not a damn joyride.”

The brunette rolled her eyes, now dropping her crossed arms to motion at the enormous building behind you. “Can you just listen to me for five minutes (†)?” she sighed loudly before continuing on in an almost pleading tone. “You just gave me a fucking amazing show and the place is obviously about to close. The least I can do is congratulate you on all this, because I haven't heard a lick from you in the last two weeks and suddenly you've become a damn good showgirl.”

Avoiding the situation, you sniffled at the bitter cold before gliding inside of her leather interior. “I’m freezing.”

She was quick to slam the door shut, mumbling something about you irritating her as she made her way back around to the driver’s side. Humming quietly, the speakers inside said what she refused to say aloud, “Why don't you show me a little bit of spine you’ve been saving for his mattress. I only want your sympathy in the form of you crawling into bed with me.” And of course you would've done just that, but it was only fair that you made the process difficult. Too many times had you easily given into her apologies within hours. Truthfully you missed her and the way she fucked you, but don’t get it twisted, it wasn’t that Abby hadn’t been easily laying you to rest when you couldn't see Ellie and vice versa, but why have only one pretty girl in your life when you could have two of them? It was pure and utter unapologetic greed.

As she had previously requested, you kept the same lingerie from earlier on; a pair of fishnet tights, low rising short shorts decorated by black sequins with a matching bustier so low cut that she was surprised it had not warranted one nip slip throughout the entire show. A plethora of golden cuffs spanned either of your biceps while a frilled garter belt adorned your left thigh and your hair, she couldn't even begin to speak on those perfect ringlets and how they framed your face, cascading down your shoulders into ink blotted waterfalls. The charm decorated braids placed sporadically around your head were always the cherry on top of it all because she loved how she could always hear you coming before she actually saw you; waiting like a dog with perked ears for a treat. 

After her door was closed and locked you turned to face the girl, now ready to lay bare whatever needed to be said and done. “Well?” You taunted, sliding your feet from their heeled prisons and bringing your legs up to your chest to sit comfortably.

Ellie adjusted the gear before she moved to reach behind the head of your seat , reversing out of the parking lot. Her eyes darted over to you then back on the road, laughing dryly as she responded. “Please don’t play stupid with me (†). We both know why you’re in my car.” 

You opened your mouth to speak then decided against it, staring out of the window with crossed arms when you responded. “How did you even find out where I work at Ellie?”

She laughed before placing a hand on your thigh, playfulling squeezing the tender tissue. “I knew that I only had to look for the most glamorous place around. Besides, Jessie really doesn’t like conflict.”

“And who the fuck are you, going around asking my friends about me Ellie?”

“He’s my friend too. I don’t understand why you have to be so damn difficult when you’re sitting barefoot in my car. I can’t think of any other reason you’d be undressing yourself already.” You’d been so busy pretending to be mad at her that you hadn’t realized that the car had just come to a stop in an empty parking lot, with only the faint illumination of a nearby lamppost to reveal the silhouette of her face in a warm wash of light.

Finally you decided to face her, “Maybe I’ve decided to change things up. I like hearing you whine, Ellie.” her gaze softened, eyebrows raised as a smirk played at the corner of her mouth fighting to reveal itself. 

Ellie reoriented herself to lean on the center console, partially to close the space between the two of you and also to allow her eyes finally a better view, mentally undressing your figure in the process. “You’re so demanding (†).”

You leaned in, whispering a final retort before closing the gap. “I get off to being worshiped by you, Ellie.” 

You could feel the girl smiling into the kiss as her fingers entrenched your curls, holding them tightly in a delicate cluster. After the two of you finally pulled apart a string of saliva had remained connecting you both until you’d moved far enough to break the thin bond. Her eyes were darker now, thinking of the ways she could mold you into whatever she wanted in this car. “Get in the backseat,” she demanded breathlessly. The girl then increased the volume of her music before she joined you back there, the next track being ‘Is It Really You’ from Loathe.

The two of you fought like swordsmen to control the encounter, Ellie forcing you into the cold glass of the window when she was the one kissing you and then switching to Ellie restrained with her head to the leather when you were the one kissing her. You sat straddling her lap, one leg folded up along her hip and the other fallen between the leg space separating the front and back seats. Your fingers threaded through her hair as an arm moved to gently squeeze your throat, locking you in place as the other reached around, palming your ass for a couple seconds before she snuck a finger around the ribbon holding your bustier together, tugging at the material. “So fuckin pretty,” she gasped between the dancing of your tongues. “Put your arms up.” You did as told with a careless disregard for the long process of getting that thing back on after all of this was over. You just wanted her all over you now. 

Ellie was a mess as she watched the reveal of your breast falling free from the bustier, instantly taking a taunt bud into her mouth and tweaking the other in her fingers. You moaned at the shockwaves it sent echoing down your body straight to your pussy, but there were no breaks to this ride. 

You didn’t even realize her fingers had already peeled back the crotch of your shorts when the sound of your fishnets ripping under her grasp brought you back down to reality. The air was cold against your clothed, sticky cunt as it begged for room to breathe. Her fingers began massaging small circles onto the inflamed pearl, already wet enough for it to stick to your panties. “All this dancing around the fuckin’ questions I ask you,” she laughed over your hushed moans before stopping to slap your desperate pussy. “Tryna pretend you didn't want this, but you’re so fucking wet already (†).” 

You’d forgotten who you were under her hold. Somehow it had become so embarrassing to be as bratty as you were, deliberately pissing her off in order to earn a good fucking, sitting there with your eyes screwed up and a hand over your mouth, silencing the pornographic noises attempting to escape your throat over mere dry humping. “Come back to me baby; You don't get to run away.” she teased, resulting in an aggressive hickey pressed into the skin above your nipple. Another electrifying shock when she bit down and in that same moment sneaking her digits into your panties to now perform an inhumane assault on your pink parts. “I wanna hear you.” The vulgar brunette hummed.

“How many times did she make you cum?”

Your eyes threatened to shut closed again, nearing the verge of pleasure filled tears sliding down your perfectly powdered cheeks, “What baby?”

“Abby.” At this point she was starting to sound annoyed, picking up the pace.

Out squealed a voice that you hadn't known could even come from within, “I don't know.”

“Then we should start counting how many I can put you through.”

Just as you could see the horizon of your orgasm approaching she retracted her fingers from the sopping canal, earning an exasperated whine on your end. She took your jaw into her left hand, turning your face away from her as she drug her tongue down your skin, biting at it rougher than she normally was-like there was something to be proven. “You want me to fuck you real bad huh?” She gloated, hooking a finger around the seat of your undies and running her digits along your slit, collecting more than enough slick for it to run down her fingers and onto her palm “Yeah?” She continued, pushing two fingers into your hole without warning. 

“Please,” was all that you could muster, grinding your hips onto her fingers for any sort of additional pressure. Almost there. Like clockwork she caught onto what you were attempting and stopped you dead in your tracks with her fingers having gone limp and the other hand holding your hips in place. 

“Now, you know better than that.” She spoke imitating faux-empathy, “especially when we’re like this with each other.” Because normally after arguing the two of you fucked it out and at some point during the transaction someone apologized resulting in an orgasm for the other but for now this was world’s nastiest game of chicken. In passing moments, she began again, fingers curving directly into that spot that made you see stars in the night, a hand placed on your hips rocking them back and forth. “C’mon baby, fuck yourself for me.” And you damn sure rode her like it was nothing, eyebrows knit together as you focused your entire being on getting off. It didn't even take a whole minute for you to get there, and Ellie grinned at her handy work, but this was only the beginning. “One. That’s a good girl.” Your legs shook in reaction to her aggression and you attempted to stop her fingers from continuing on, wrapping your own around her steady wrist.

“Move your hands (†).” She ordered as your eyes began to water from the overstimulation.

“I can’t.” You pleaded in broken whimpers.

All she could do was laugh at you again, offering encouragement as if this was nothing to her. “You will. I need to hear that shit real loud on my dick.” Those words alone were enough to send you through another fiery orgasm. You swore your moans were loud enough to be heard beyond the entrapment of this car and Ellie liked pushing herself to see just how loud she could get you. “Two. It was that easy.”

Stiff fabric was good for hiding things just as she had until now, exposing the strap on that you had assumed to have been her phone in her pocket earlier. Ellie took you into her arms, rearranging the two of you where she was now the one on top and your head resting against the door’s storage compartment. “You ready baby?” she enquired, taking a minute to kiss your cheeks. You nodded, cunt throbbing for more as she watched it produce more of that thick hot arousal. 

“You got the prettiest pussy in the world, (†).” She began, taking the plastic dick into her hand and tracing your slit, bewitched by the beautiful glass shine of your cum dripping down onto the leather seat as if an antiquated romantic painting. In that moment the guilt came flowing down her conscious for everything. Just wanted to make up for it by making you feel good. “Fuck, I can’t wait,” the girl whined, slowly pushing herself into you, feeling her own wetness completely entrenching her boxers and making its way for her thighs. The way your hair laid along the car interior, fanning out around you like a headdress made her melt, stopping to kiss you again before she began stroking slowly, making sure to allow you time to adjust to the feeling of fullness. 

“More,” You pleaded, beginning the process of catching her rhythm in your hips. 

“Yeah?” She answered, taking your thighs into her hands and sliding them over her shoulders, thrusting deeper for a couple of moments. “Feel good?” You struggled to formulate a coherent response and decided on simply nodding between moans. Ellie took this as a sign to make up for lost time, fucking into you with such force you were sure she could feel it on her own end, getting closer to finally cumming. 

“Like that! Just like that!” ripped a scream from your lungs, satisfied with her rhythm having at last caught onto matching with her. She thought you were too fucking gorgeous of a girl that just looking at you had her loosing it, just seeing your expressions and the way your tits bounced so beautifully, revealing the stretch marks on their underside that she so loved to trace when the two of you laid in bed together; a live erotic portrait unable to be topped by even the masters themselves. Your arms locked around Ellie’s neck, taking her hostage in your grasp and moaning feverishly into the girl’s ears. Before one could get past your lips another would come, choking you on your own pleasure. “So fuckin good El’s.” If she was doing everything right then you wouldn’t have been able to speak, so she slipped an arm between your stomach and hers, pressing your abdomen down  while the other arm kept you locked in place for her to use and abuse. You yelped, surprised by the added pressure, now feeling her deeper than before. Your hands loosed around her neck, digging into her back possibly even drawing blood.

“Take it, pretty girl.” she cooed, wanting everyone on the street to know her name and how good she made you feel. Didn’t matter how late into the night it was. It wasn't long until you came unraveled under her, your thighs clenching in anticipation for the coming waves of your climax. “Atta girl, I got you,” she whispered, continuing her dangerous pounding. A banshee would’ve been disturbed by the sound of you two. Of course Ellie always had to get the last laugh. “Three,” she sighed, wiping away the beads of sweat that had formed on her clammy forehead, bits of her fringe stuck adhered to the skin. "Forgive me?"

Would you guys be interesting in full length fic? I had lot of fun writing this. :p

Original Release: 11/7/24 Edit: 11/8/24

[mothballmilkshake]

New Stolen Moments Update Today - The Gift That Keeps on Giving (Radioapple/Appleradio)

[deliriouslyshipping]

I miss F1 Jannik

[nondelphic]

"just write a little every day" ok but what if i write nothing for 3 weeks and then suddenly type like i’m being hunted by god

[rae-butter]

Honestly, I love it when characters relapse. When someone who’s gotten over their anger issues falls into a situation so out of their depth they fall back on their old habits. When someone who’s learned to open up becomes a recluse again in order to cope with something outside their control.

There’s just something so horrible, so toxic, about watching a character grow and then slip back into their old selves in order to cope, bc you know they still care, that they’re the same inside, but watching them hurt so hard they don’t know what else to do brings a sense of catharsis.

[beaft]

it is legit bizarre to me how hard video game creators and film directors and showrunners try to pretend that fat people don't exist. can you think of the last time you saw a fat person in a lead role? god forbid a fat woman? i can walk down the street or go into a shop or restaurant and see fat people everywhere but then i switch on the tv and suddenly it's like a glimpse into an alternate universe where no one has a bmi over 24. insidious and weird

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

You're just not toxic enough.

[thewordsarestuckinmyhead]

me when the plot won't plot like it should

[bubblesthecow]

Watching Star Wars in chronological order is so funny.

Obi-Wan Kenobi really took one look at R2D2 in the middle of the desert and said “No, Luke, I’ve never seen this fucking droid in my life. Looks like a real bitch though. Not that I’d know. This is my first time meeting the asshole.”

No one in that whole franchise was Gatekeep-Gasslight-Girlbossing quite like “Ben” Kenobi, regular human-man.

[spikedfearn]

Mercy Made Flesh

one-shot

Remmick x fem!reader

summary: In the heat-choked hush of the Mississippi Delta, you answer a knock you swore would never come. Remmick—unaging, unholy, unforgettable—returns to collect what was promised. What follows is not romance, but ritual. A slow, sensual surrender to a hunger older than the Trinity itself.

wc: 13.1k

a/n: Listen. I didn’t mean to simp for Vampire Jack O’Connell—but here we are. I make no apologies for letting Remmick bite first and ask questions never. Thank you to my bestie Nat (@kayharrisons) for beta reading and hyping me up, without her this fic wouldn't exist, everyone say thank you Nat!

warnings: vampirism, southern gothic erotica, blood drinking as intimacy, canon-typical violence, explicit sexual content, oral sex (f!receiving), first time, bloodplay, biting, marking, monsterfucking (soft edition), religious imagery, devotion as obsession, gothic horror vibes, worship kink, consent affirmed, begging, dirty talk, gentle ruin, haunting eroticism, power imbalance, slow seduction, soul-binding, immortal x mortal, he wants to keep her forever, she lets him, fem!reader, second person pov, 1930s mississippi delta, house that breathes, you will be fed upon emotionally & literally

tags: @xhoneymoonx134

likes, comments, and reblogs appreciated! please enjoy

Mississippi Delta, 1938

The heat hadn’t broken in days.

Not even after sunset, when the sky turned the color of old bruises and the crickets started singing like they were being paid to. It was the kind of heat that soaked into the floorboards, that crept beneath your thin cotton slip and clung to your back like sweat-slicked hands. The air was syrupy, heavy with magnolia and something murkier—soil, maybe. River water. Something that made you itch beneath your skin.

Your cottage sat just outside the edge of town, past the schoolhouse where you spent your days sorting through ledgers and lesson plans that no one but you ever really seemed to care about. It was modest—two rooms and a porch, set back behind a crumbling white-picket fence and swallowed by trees that whispered in the dark. A little sanctuary tucked into the Delta, surrounded by cornfields, creeks, and ghosts.

The kind of place a person could disappear if they wanted to. The kind of place someone could find you…if they were patient enough.

You stood in front of the sink, rinsing out a chipped enamel cup, your hands moving automatically. The oil lamp on the kitchen table flickered with each breath of wind slipping through the cracks in the warped window frame. A cicada screamed in the distance, then another, and then the whole world was humming in chorus.

And beneath it—beneath the cicadas, and the wind, and the nightbirds—you felt something shift.

A quiet. Too quiet.

You turned your head. Listened harder.

Nothing.

Not even the frogs.

Your hand paused in the dishwater. Fingers trembling just a little. It wasn’t like you to be spooked by the dark. You’d grown up in it. Learned to make friends with shadows. Learned not to flinch when things moved just out of sight.

But this?

This was different.

It was as if the night was holding its breath.

And then—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Not loud. Not frantic. But final.

Your body went stiff. The cup slipped beneath the water and bumped the side of the basin with a hollow clink.

No one ever came this far out after sundown. No one but—

You shook your head, almost hard enough to rattle something loose.

No.

He was gone. That part of your life was buried.

You made sure of it.

Still, your bare feet moved toward the door like they weren’t yours. Soft against the creaky wood. Slow. You reached for the small revolver you kept in the drawer beside the door frame, thumbed the hammer back.

Your hand rested on the knob.

Another knock. This time, softer.

Almost...polite.

The porch light had been dead for weeks, so you couldn’t see who was waiting on the other side. But the air—something in the air—told you.

It was him.

You didn’t answer. Not right away.

You stood there with your palm flat against the rough wood, your forehead nearly touching it too—eyes shut, breath shallow. The air on the other side didn’t stir like it should’ve. No footfalls creaking the porch. No shuffle of boots on sun-bleached planks. Just stillness. Waiting.

And underneath your ribs, something began to ache. Something you hadn’t let yourself feel in years.

You didn’t know his name, not back then. You only knew his eyes—gold in the shadows. Red when caught in the light. Like a firelight in the dark. Like a blood red moon through stained-glass windows.

And his voice. Low. Dragging vowels like syrup. A Southern accent that didn’t come from any map you’d ever seen—older than towns, older than state lines. A voice that had told you, seven years ago, with impossible calm:

"You’ll know when it’s time."

You knew. Your hands trembled against your sides. But you didn’t back away. Some part of you knew how useless running would be.

The knob beneath your hand felt cold. Too cold for Mississippi in August.

You turned it.

The door opened slow, hinges whining like they were trying to warn you. You stepped back instinctively—just one step—and then he was there.

Remmick.

Still tall, still lean in that devastating way—like his body was carved from something hard and mean, but shaped to tempt. He wore a crisp white shirt rolled to the elbows, suspenders hanging loose from his hips, and trousers that looked far too clean for a man who walked through the dirt. His hair was messy in that intentional way, brown and swept back like he’d been running hands through it all night. Stubble lined his sharp jaw, catching the lamplight just so.

But it was his face that rooted you to the floor. That hollowed out your breath.

Still young. Still wrong.

Not a wrinkle, not a scar. Not a mark of time. He hadn’t aged a day.

And his eyes—oh, God, his eyes.

They caught the lamp behind you and lit up red, bright and glinting, like the embers of a dying fire. Not human. Not even pretending.

"Hello, dove."

His voice curled into your bones like cigarette smoke. You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

You hated how your body reacted.

Hated that you could still feel it—like something old and molten stirring between your thighs, a flicker of the same heat you’d felt that night in the alley, back when you were too desperate to care what kind of creature answered your prayer.

He looked you over once. Not with hunger. With certainty. Like he already knew how this would end. Like he already owned you.

"You remember, don’t you?" he asked.

"I came to collect."

And your voice—when it finally came—was little more than a whisper.

"You can’t be real."

That smile. That slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. Wolfish. Slow.

"You promised."

You wanted to shut the door. Slam it. Deadbolt it. But your hand didn’t move.

Remmick didn’t step forward, not yet. He stood just outside the threshold, framed by night and cypress trees and the distant flicker of heat lightning beyond the fields. The air around him pulsed with something old—older than the land, older than you, older than anything you could name.

He tilted his head the way animals do, watching you, letting the silence thicken like molasses between you.

"Still living out here all on your own," he murmured, gaze drifting over your shoulders, into the small, tidy kitchen behind you. "Hung your laundry on the line this morning. Blue dress, lace hem. Favorite one, ain’t it?"

Your stomach clenched. That dress hadn’t seen a neighbor’s eye all week.

"You've been watching me," you said, your voice low, unsure if it was accusation or realization.

"I’ve been waiting," he said. "Not the same thing."

You swallowed hard. Your breath caught in your throat like a thorn. The wind shifted, and you caught the faintest trace of something—dried tobacco, smoke, rain-soaked dirt, and beneath it, the iron-sweet tinge of blood.

Not fresh. Not violent. Just…present. Like it lived in him.

"I paid my debt," you whispered.

"No, you survived it," he said, stepping up onto the first board of the porch. The wood didn’t creak beneath his weight. "And that’s only half the bargain."

He still hadn’t crossed the threshold.

The stories came back to you, the ones whispered by old women with trembling hands and ash crosses pressed to their doorways—vampires couldn’t enter unless invited. But you hadn’t invited him, not this time.

"You don’t have permission," you said.

He smiled, eyes flashing red again.

"You gave it, seven years ago."

Your breath hitched.

"I was a girl," you said.

"You were desperate," he corrected. "And honest. Desperation makes people honest in ways they can’t be twice. You knew what you were offering me, even if you didn’t understand it. Your promise had teeth."

The wind pushed against your back, as if urging you forward.

Remmick stepped closer, just enough for the shadows to kiss the line of his throat, the hollow of his collarbone. His voice dropped, intimate now—dragging across your skin like a fingertip behind the ear.

"You asked for a miracle. I gave it to you. And now I’m here for what’s mine."

Your heart thudded violently in your chest.

"I didn’t think you’d come."

"That’s the thing about monsters, dove." He leaned down, lips almost grazing the curve of your jaw. "We always do."

And then—

He stepped back.

The wind stopped.

The night fell quiet again, like the world had paused just to watch what you’d do next.

"I’ll wait out here till you’re ready," he said, turning toward the swing on your porch and settling into it like he had all the time in the world. "But don’t make me knock twice. Wouldn’t be polite."

The swing groaned beneath him as it rocked gently, back and forth.

You stood there frozen in the doorway, one bare foot still inside the house, the other brushing the edge of the porch.

You’d made a promise.

And he was here to keep it.

The door stayed open. Just enough for the night to reach inside.

You didn’t move.

Your body stood still but your mind wandered—back to that night in the alley, to the smell of blood and piss and riverwater, your knees soaked in your brother’s lifeblood as you screamed for help that never came. Except it did. It came in the shape of a man who didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, didn’t make promises the way mortals did.

It came in the shape of him.

You thought time would wash it away. That the years would smooth the edges of his voice in your memory, dull the sharpness of his presence. But now, with him just outside your door, it all returned like a fever dream—hot, all-consuming, too real to outrun.

You turned away from the threshold, slowly, carefully, as if the floor might cave in under you. Your hands trembled as you reached for the oil lamp on the table, adjusting the flame lower until it flickered like a dying heartbeat.

The silence behind you dragged, deep and waiting. He didn’t speak again. Didn’t call for you.

He didn’t have to.

You moved through the house in slow circles. Touching things. Straightening them. Folding a dishcloth. Setting a book back on the shelf, even though you’d already read it twice. You tried to pretend you weren’t thinking about the man on your porch. But the heat of him pressed against the back of your mind like a hand.

You could feel him out there. Not just physically—but in you, somehow. Like the air had shifted around his shape, and the longer he lingered, the more your body remembered what it had felt like to stand in front of something not quite human and still want.

You passed the mirror in the hallway and paused.

Your reflection looked undone. Not in the way your hair had fallen from its pin, or the flush across your cheeks, but deeper—like something inside you had been cracked open. You touched your own throat, right where you imagined his mouth might go.

No bite.

Not yet.

But you swore you could feel phantom teeth.

You went back to the door, holding your breath, and looked at him through the screen.

He hadn’t moved. He sat on the swing, one leg stretched out, the other bent lazily beneath him, arms slung across the backrest like he’d always belonged there. A cigarette burned between two fingers, the tip flaring orange as he dragged from it. The scent of it hit you—rich, earthy, and somehow foreign, like something imported from a place no longer on the map.

He didn’t look at you right away.

Then, slowly, he did.

Red eyes caught yours.

He smiled, small and slow, like he was reading a page of you he’d already memorized.

"Thought you’d shut the door by now," he said.

"I should have," you answered.

"But you didn’t."

His voice curled into the quiet.

You stepped out onto the porch, barefoot, the boards warm beneath your soles. He didn’t move to greet you. He didn’t rise. He just watched you walk toward him like he’d been watching in dreams you never remembered having.

The swing groaned as you sat down beside him, a careful space between you.

His shoulder brushed yours.

You stared straight ahead, out into the night. A mist was beginning to rise off the distant fields. The moon hung low and orange like a wound in the sky.

Somewhere in the bayou, a whippoorwill called, long and mournful.

"How long have you been watching me?" you asked.

"Since before you knew to look."

"Why now?"

He turned toward you. His voice was velvet-wrapped iron.

"Because now…you’re ripe for the pickin’.”

You didn’t remember falling asleep.

One moment you were on the porch beside him, listening to the slow groan of the swing and the way the crickets held their breath when he exhaled, the next you were waking in your bed, the sheets tangled around your legs like they were trying to hold you down.

The house was too quiet.

No birdsong. No creak of the windmill out back. No rustle of the sycamores that scraped against your bedroom window on stormy nights.

Just stillness.

And scent.

It clung to the cotton of your nightdress. Tobacco smoke, sweat, rain. Him.

You sat up slowly, pressing your hand to your chest. Your heart thudded like it was trying to remember who it belonged to. The lamp beside your bed had burned down to a stub. A trickle of wax curled like a vein down the side of the glass.

Your mouth tasted like smoke and guilt. Your thighs ached in that low, humming way—though you couldn’t say why. Nothing had happened. Not really.

But something had changed.

You felt it under your skin, in the place where blood meets breath.

The floor was cool under your feet as you moved. You didn’t dress. Just pulled a robe over your slip and stepped into the hallway. The house felt heavier than usual, thick with the ghost of his presence. Every corner held a whisper. Every shadow a shape.

You opened the front door.

The porch was empty.

The swing still rocked gently, as if someone had only just stood up from it.

A folded piece of paper lay on the top step, weighted down by a smooth river stone.

You picked it up with trembling hands.

Come.

That was all it said. One word. But it rang through your bones like gospel. Like a vow.

You looked out across the field. A narrow dirt road stretched beyond the tree line, overgrown but clear. You’d never dared follow it. That road didn’t belong to you.

It belonged to him.

And now…so did you.

You didn’t bring anything with you.

Not a suitcase. Not a shawl. Not a Bible tucked under your arm for comfort.

Just yourself.

And the road.

The hem of your slip was already damp by the time you reached the edge of the field. Dew clung to your ankles like cold fingers, and the earth was soft beneath your feet—fresh from last night’s storm, the kind that never really breaks the heat, only deepens it. The moon had gone down, but the sky was beginning to bruise with that blue-black ink that comes before sunrise. Everything smelled like wet grass, magnolia, and the faint rot of old wood.

The path curved, narrowing as it passed through trees that leaned in too close. Their branches kissed above you like they were whispering secrets into each other’s leaves. Spanish moss hung like veils from the oaks, dripping silver in the fading dark. It made the world feel smaller. Quieter. As if you were walking into something sacred—or something doomed.

A crow cawed once in the distance. Sharp. Hollow. You didn’t flinch.

There was no sound of wheels. No car waiting. Just the road and the fog and the promise you'd made.

And then you saw it.

The house.

Tucked deep in the grove, half-swallowed by vines and time, it rose like a memory from the earth. A decaying plantation, left to rot in the wet belly of the Delta. Its bones were still beautiful—white columns streaked with black mildew, a grand porch that sagged like a mouth missing teeth, shuttered windows with iron latches rusted shut. Ivy grew up the sides like it was trying to strangle the place. Or maybe protect it.

You stood there at the edge of the clearing, breath caught in your throat.

He’d brought you here.

Or maybe he’d always been here. Waiting. Dreaming of the moment you’d return to him without even knowing it.

A shape moved behind one of the upstairs curtains. Quick. Barely there.

You didn’t run.

Your bare foot found the first step.

It groaned like it recognized you.

The door was already open.

Not wide—just enough for you to know it had been waiting.

And you stepped inside.

The air inside was colder.

Not the kind of cold that came from breeze or shade—but from stillness, from the absence of sun and time. A hush so thick it felt like you were walking underwater. Like the house had held its breath for decades and only now began to exhale.

Dust spiraled in the faint light seeping through fractured windows, casting soft halos through the dark. The wooden floor beneath your feet was warped and groaning, but clean. Not in any natural sense—there was no broom that had touched these boards. No polish or soap.

But it had been kept.

The air didn’t smell like rot or mildew. It smelled like cedar. Like old leather. And deeper beneath that, like him.

He hadn’t lit any lamps.

Just the fireplace, burning low, glowing embers pulsing orange-red at the back of a cavernous hearth. The flame danced shadows across the faded wallpaper, peeling in long strips like dead skin. A high-backed chair faced the fire, velvet blackened from age, its silhouette looming like something alive.

You swallowed, lips dry, and stepped further in.

Your voice didn’t carry. It didn’t even try.

Remmick was nowhere in sight.

But he was here.

You could feel him in the walls, in the way the house seemed to lean closer with every step you took.

You passed through the parlor, past a dusty grand piano with one ivory key cracked down the middle. Past oil portraits too old to make out, their eyes blurred with time. Past a single vase of dried wildflowers, colorless now, but carefully arranged.

You paused in the doorway to the drawing room, your hand resting lightly on the frame.

A whisper of air moved behind you.

Then—

A hand.

Not grabbing. Not harsh. Just the light press of fingers against the small of your back, palm flat and warm through the thin cotton of your slip.

You froze.

He was behind you.

So close you could feel his breath at your neck. Not warm, not cold—just present. Like wind through a crack in the door. Like the memory of a touch before it lands.

His voice was low, close to your ear.

"You came."

You didn’t answer.

"You always would have."

You wanted to say no. Wanted to deny it. But you stood there trembling under his hand, your heartbeat so loud you were sure he could hear it.

Maybe that was why he smiled.

He stepped around you slowly, letting his fingers graze the side of your waist as he moved. His eyes glinted red in the firelight, catching on you like a flame drawn to dry kindling.

He looked at you like he was already undressing you.

Not your clothes—your will.

And it was already unraveling.

You’d suspected he wasn’t born of this soil.

Not just because of the way he moved—like he didn’t quite belong to gravity—but because of the way he spoke. Like time hadn’t worn the edges off his words the way it had with everyone else. His voice curled around vowels like smoke curling through keyholes. Rich and low, but laced with something older. Something foreign. Something that made the hair at the nape of your neck rise when he spoke too softly, too close.

He didn’t speak like a man from the Delta.

He spoke like something older than it.

Older than the country. Maybe older than God.

Remmick stopped in front of you, lit only by firelight.

His eyes had dulled from red to something deeper—like old garnet held to a candle. His shirt was open at the collar now, suspenders hanging slack, the buttons on his sleeves rolled to his elbows. His forearms were dusted with faint scars that looked like they had stories. His skin was pale in the glow, but not lifeless. He looked like marble warmed by touch.

He studied you for a long time.

You weren’t sure if it was your face he was reading, or something beneath it. Something you couldn’t hide.

"You look just like your mother," he said finally.

Your breath caught.

"You knew her?"

A soft smirk curled at the corner of his mouth.

"I’ve known a lot of people, dove. I just never forget the ones with your blood."

You didn’t ask what he meant. Not yet.

There was something heavy in his tone—something laced with memory that stretched back far further than it should. You had guessed, years ago, in the sleepless weeks after that alleyway miracle, that he was not new to this world. That his youth was a trick of the skin. A lie worn like a mask.

You’d read every folklore book you could get your hands on. Every whisper of vampire lore scratched into the margins of ledgers, stuffed between church hymnals, scribbled on the backs of newspapers.

Some said they aged. Slowly. Elegantly.

Others said they didn’t age at all. That they existed outside time. Beyond it.

You didn’t know how old Remmick was.

But something in your bones told you the truth.

Five hundred. Six hundred, maybe more.

A man who remembered empires. A man who had watched cities rise and burn. Who had danced in plague-slick ballrooms and kissed queens before they were beheaded. A man who had lived so long that names no longer mattered. Only debts. And blood.

And you’d given him both.

He stepped closer now, slow and deliberate.

"Yer heart’s gallopin’ like it thinks I’m here to take it."

You flinched. Not because he was wrong. But because he was right.

"You said you didn’t want my blood," you whispered.

"I don’t." He tilted his head. "Not yet."

"Then what do you want?"

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

"You."

He said it like it was a simple thing. Like the rain wanting the river. Like the grave wanting the body.

You swallowed hard.

"Why me?"

His gaze dragged down your frame, unhurried, like a man admiring a painting he’d stolen once and hidden from the world.

"Because you belong to me. You gave yourself freely. No bargain’s ever tasted so sweet."

Your throat tightened.

"I didn’t know what I was agreeing to."

"You did," he said, softly now, stepping close enough that his chest nearly brushed yours. "You knew. Your soul knew. Even if your head didn’t catch up."

You opened your mouth to protest, to say something, anything that would push back this slow suffocation of certainty—

But his hand came up to your jaw. Fingers feather-light. Not forcing. Just holding. Just there.

"And you’ve been thinkin’ about me ever since," he said.

Not a question. A statement.

You didn’t answer.

He leaned in, his breath ghosting over your cheek, his voice a rasp against your ear.

"You dream of me, don’t you?"

Your hands trembled at your sides.

"I don’t—"

"You wake wet. Ache in your belly. You don’t know why. But I do."

You let your eyes fall shut, shame burning behind them like fire.

"Fuckin’ knew it," he murmured, almost reverent. "You smell like want, dove. You always have.”

His hand didn’t move. It just stayed there at your jaw, thumb ghosting slow along the hollow beneath your cheekbone. A touch so gentle it made your knees ache. Because it wasn’t the roughness that undid you—it was the restraint.

He could’ve taken.

He didn’t.

Not yet.

His gaze held yours, slow and unblinking, red still smoldering in the center of his irises like the dying core of a flame that refused to go out.

"Say it," he murmured.

Your lips parted, but nothing came.

"I can smell it," he said, voice low, rich as molasses. "Your shame. Your want. You’ve been livin’ like a nun with a beast inside her, and no one knows but me."

You hated how your breath stuttered. Hated more that your thighs pressed together when he said it.

"Why do you talk like that," you whispered, barely able to get the words out, "like you already know what I’m feeling?"

His fingers slid down, grazing the side of your neck, stopping just before the pulse thudding there.

"Because I do."

"That’s not fair."

He smiled, slow and crooked, nothing kind in it.

"No, dove. It ain’t."

You hated him.

You hated how beautiful he was in this light, sleeves rolled, veins prominent in his arms, shirt hanging open just enough to show the faint line of a scar that trailed beneath his collarbone. A body shaped by time, not by vanity. Not perfect. Just true. Like someone carved him for a purpose and let the flaws stay because they made him real.

He looked like sin and the sermon that came after.

Remmick moved closer. You didn’t retreat.

His hand flattened over your sternum now, right above your heartbeat, the warmth of him pressing through the cotton of your slip like it meant to seep in. He leaned down, mouth near yours, not kissing, just breathing.

"You gave yourself to me once," he said. "I’m only here to collect the rest."

"You saved my brother."

"I saved you. You just didn’t know it yet."

A shiver rippled down your spine.

His hand moved lower, skimming the curve of your ribs, hovering just at the soft flare of your waist. You could feel the heat rolling off him like smoke from a coalbed. His body didn’t radiate warmth the way a man’s should—but something older. Wilder. Like the earth’s own breath in summer. Like the hush of a storm right before it split the sky.

"And if I tell you no?" you asked, barely more than a breath.

His eyes flicked to yours, unreadable.

"I’ll wait."

You weren’t expecting that.

He smiled again, this time softer, almost cruel in its patience.

"I’ve waited centuries for sweeter things than you. But that don’t mean I won’t keep my hands on you ‘til you change your mind."

"You think I will?"

"You already have."

Your chest rose sharply, breath stung with heat.

"You think this is love?"

He laughed, low and dangerous, the sound curling around your ribs.

"No," he said. "This is hunger. Love comes later."

Then his mouth brushed your jaw—not a kiss, just the graze of lips against skin—and every nerve in your body arched to meet it.

Your knees buckled, barely.

He caught your waist in one hand, steadying you with maddening ease.

"I’m gonna ruin you," he whispered against your throat, his nose dragging lightly along your skin. "But I’ll be so gentle the first time you’ll beg me to do it again."

And God help you—

You wanted him to.

The house didn’t sleep.

Not the way houses were meant to.

It breathed.

The walls exhaled heat and memory, the floors creaked even when no one stepped, and somewhere in the rafters above your room, something paced slowly back and forth, back and forth, like a beast too restless to settle. The kind of place built with its own pulse.

You’d spent the rest of the night—if you could call it that—in a room that wasn’t yours, wearing nothing but a cotton shift and your silence. You hadn’t asked for anything. He hadn’t offered.

The room was spare but not cruel. A basin with a water pitcher. A four-poster bed draped in a netting veil to keep out the bugs—or the ghosts. The mattress was soft. The sheets smelled faintly of cedar, firewood, and something else you didn’t recognize.

Him.

You didn’t undress. You lay on top of the blanket, fingers threaded together over your belly, the thrum of your heartbeat like a second mouth behind your ribs.

Your door had no lock. Just a handle that squeaked if turned. And you hated how many times your eyes flicked toward it. Waiting. Wanting.

But he never came.

And somehow, that was worse.

Morning broke soft and gray through the slatted shutters. The sun didn’t quite reach the corners of the room, and the light that filtered in was the color of dust and river fog.

When you finally stepped out barefoot into the hall, the house was already awake.

There was a scent in the air—coffee. Burned sugar. The faintest curl of cinnamon. Something sizzling in a skillet somewhere.

You followed it.

The kitchen was enormous, all brick hearth and cast iron and a long scarred table in the center with mismatched chairs pushed in unevenly. A window hung open, letting in a breath of swamp air that rustled the lace curtain and kissed your ankles.

Remmick stood at the stove with his back to you, sleeves still rolled to the elbow, suspenders crossed low over his back. His shirt was half-unbuttoned and clung to his sides with the cling of heat and skin. He moved like he didn’t hear you enter.

You knew he had.

He reached for the pan with a towel over his palm and flipped something in the cast iron with a deft flick of the wrist.

"Hope you like sweet," he said, voice thick with morning. "Ain’t got much else."

You didn’t speak. Just stood there in the doorway like a ghost he’d conjured and forgotten about.

He turned.

God help you.

Even like this, barefoot, collar open, hair mussed from sleep or maybe just time—he looked unreal. Like a sin someone had tried to scrub out of scripture but couldn’t quite forget.

"Sleep alright?" he asked.

You gave a small nod.

He looked at you a moment longer. Then—

"Sit down, dove."

You moved toward the table.

His voice followed you, lazy but pointed.

"That’s the wrong chair."

You paused.

He nodded to one at the head of the table—old, high-backed, carved with curling vines and symbols you didn’t recognize.

"That one’s yours now."

You hesitated, then lowered yourself into it slowly. The wood groaned under your weight. The air in the kitchen felt thicker now, tighter.

He brought the plate to you himself.

Two slices of skillet cornbread, golden and glistening with syrup. A few wild strawberries sliced and sugared. A smear of butter melting slow at the center like a pulse.

He set the plate in front of you with a quiet care that felt almost obscene.

"You ain’t gotta eat," he said, leaning against the table beside your chair. "But I like watchin’ you do it."

You picked up the fork.

His eyes stayed on your mouth.

The cornbread was still warm.

Steam curled from it like breath from parted lips. The syrup pooled thick at the edges, dripping off the edge of your fork in slow, amber ribbons. It stuck to your fingers when you touched it. Sweet. Sticky. Sensual.

You brought the first bite to your mouth, slow.

Remmick didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His eyes tracked the motion like a starving man watching someone else’s feast.

The bite landed soft on your tongue—golden crisp on the outside, warm and tender in the middle, butter melting into every pore. It was perfect. Unreasonably so. And somehow you hated that even more. Because nothing about this should’ve tasted good. Not with him watching you like that. Not with your body still humming from the memory of his voice against your skin.

But you swallowed.

And he smiled.

"Good girl," he murmured.

You froze. The fork paused just above the plate.

"You don’t get to say things like that," you whispered.

"Why not?"

Your fingers tightened around the handle.

"Because it sounds like you earned it."

He chuckled, low and easy. A slow roll of thunder in his chest.

"Think I did. Think I earned every fuckin’ word after draggin’ you out that night and lettin’ you walk away without layin’ a hand on you."

You looked up sharply, heat crawling up your neck.

"You shouldn’t have touched me."

"I didn’t," he said. "But I wanted to. Still do."

Your breath caught.

His knuckles brushed the edge of your plate, slow, casual, like he had all the time in the world to make you squirm.

"And I know you want me to," he added, voice low enough that it coiled under your ribs and settled somewhere molten in your belly.

You pushed the plate away.

He didn’t flinch. Just reached forward and dragged it back in front of you like you hadn’t moved it at all.

"You eat," he said, gentler now. "You need it. House takes more from you than it gives."

You glanced around the kitchen, suddenly uneasy.

"You talk about it like it’s alive."

He gave a slow nod.

"It is. In a way."

"How?"

He looked down at your plate, then back at you.

"You’ll see."

You pushed another bite past your lips, slower this time, aware of the weight of his gaze with every chew, every swallow. You didn’t know why you obeyed. Maybe it was easier than defying him. Maybe it was because some part of you wanted him to keep watching.

When the plate was clean, he reached out and caught your wrist before you could stand.

Not hard. Not even firm. Just…inevitable.

"You full?" he asked, his voice all smoke and sin.

You nodded.

His eyes darkened.

"Then I’ll have my taste next."

Your breath lodged sharp in your throat.

He said it like it meant nothing. Like asking for your pulse was no more intimate than asking for your hand. But there was a glint in his eye—red barely flickering now, but still there—and it told you everything.

He was done pretending.

You didn’t move. Not right away.

His fingers were still wrapped around your wrist, light but unyielding, the pad of his thumb grazing the fragile skin where your pulse drummed loud and frantic. Like it wanted to leap out of your veins and spill into his mouth.

You swallowed hard.

"You said you didn’t want blood."

"I don’t."

"Then what do you want?"

"You."

You watched him now, trying to make sense of what you wanted.

And what terrified you was this—

You didn’t want to run.

You wanted to know how it would feel.

To give something he couldn’t take without permission.

To see if your body could handle the worship of a mouth like his.

Remmick’s other hand came up slow, brushing hair from your cheek, his knuckles rough and reverent.

"You said I smelled like want," you whispered.

"You do."

"What do you smell like?"

He leaned in, mouth near your throat again, his nose dragging along your skin, slow, as if he were drawing in the scent of your soul.

"Rot. Hunger. Regret," he said. "Old things that don’t die right."

You shivered.

"And still I want you," you breathed.

He pulled back just enough to look you in the eyes.

"That’s the worst part, ain’t it?"

You didn’t answer.

Because he was right.

His hand slid down to your elbow, then lower, tracing the curve of your waist through the thin fabric. His touch was warm now, or maybe your body had just given up trying to tell the difference between threat and thrill.

He guided you up from the chair.

Didn’t yank. Didn’t drag.

Just stood and took your hand like a dance was beginning.

"Come with me," he said.

"Where?"

"Somewhere I can kneel."

Your heart stuttered.

He led you through the house, down the long hallway past doorways that watched like eyes. The floor groaned underfoot, the air thickening around your shoulders as he brought you deeper into the home’s belly. You passed portraits whose paint had faded to shadows, velvet drapes drawn tight, mirrors that refused to hold your reflection quite right.

The door at the end of the hall was already open.

Inside, the room was dark.

Just one candle lit, flickering low in a glass jar, its light catching the edges of something silver beside the bed. An old bowl. A cloth. A pair of gloves, yellowed from time.

A ritual.

Not violent.

Intimate.

Remmick turned toward you, his face bare in the soft light. He looked younger. More human. And somehow more dangerous for it.

"Sit," he said.

You sat.

He knelt.

And then his hands found your knees.

His hands rested on your knees like they belonged there. Not demanding. Not prying. Just there. Anchored. Reverent.

The candlelight licked up his jaw, catching in the hollows of his cheeks, the deep shadow beneath his throat. He didn’t look like a man. He looked like a story told by firelight—half-worshipped, half-feared. A sinner in the shape of a saint. Or maybe the other way around.

His thumbs made a slow pass over the inside of your thighs, just above the knee. Barely pressure. Barely touch. The kind of contact that made your breath feel too loud in your chest.

"Yer too quiet," he murmured.

"I don’t know what to say," you whispered back.

His gaze lifted, locking with yours, and in that moment the whole room seemed to still.

"Ya ain’t gotta say a damn thing," he said. "You just need to stay right there and let me show ya what I mean when I say I don’t want yer blood."

Your lips parted, but no sound came.

He leaned in, slow as honey in the heat, until his mouth hovered just above your knee. Then lower. His breath ghosted over your skin, warm and maddening.

You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until he pressed a single kiss just above the bone.

Your lungs stuttered.

His lips trailed higher.

Another kiss.

Then another.

Each one higher than the last, until your legs opened on instinct, until you felt the hem of your slip being eased upward by hands that moved with worshipful patience. Like he wasn’t just undressing you—he was peeling back a veil. Unwrapping something sacred.

"You ever had someone kneel for ya?" he asked, voice rough now. Thicker.

You shook your head.

He smiled like he already knew the answer.

"Good. Let me be the first."

He kissed the inside of your thigh like it meant something. Like you meant something. Like your skin wasn’t just skin, but a prayer he intended to answer with his mouth.

The air was too hot. Your thoughts slid loose from the edges of your mind. All you could do was breathe and feel.

He looked up at you once more, red eyes burning low, and said—

"You gave yerself to me. Let me taste what I already own."

And then he bowed his head, mouth meeting the softest part of you, and the rest of the world disappeared.

His mouth touched you like he’d been dreaming of it for years. Like he’d earned it.

No rush. No hunger. Just that first velvet press of his lips against the tender center of you, reverent and slow, like a kiss to a wound or a confession. He moaned, low and guttural, into your skin—and the sound of it vibrated up through your spine.

He parted you with his thumbs, just enough to taste you deeper. His tongue slipped between folds already slick and aching, and he groaned again, this time with something like gratitude.

"Sweet as I fuckin’ knew you’d be," he rasped, voice hot against your core.

Your hands gripped the edge of the chair. Wood bit into your palms. Your head tipped back, eyes fluttering shut as your thighs trembled around his shoulders.

He didn’t stop.

He licked you with patience, with purpose, like he was reading scripture written between your legs—each flick of his tongue slow and deliberate, every pass perfectly placed, building pressure inside you with maddening precision.

And all the while, he watched you.

When your head dropped forward, you found him staring up at you. Red eyes glowing low, heavy-lidded, mouth glistening, jaw tense with restraint. He looked ruined by the taste of you.

"Look at me," he said. "Wanna see you fall apart on my tongue."

Your breath hitched, hips rocking forward on instinct, chasing his mouth. He growled low and deep in his chest, gripping your thighs tighter.

"That’s it, dove," he murmured. "Don’t run from it. Give it to me."

He flattened his tongue and dragged it slow, then circled the swollen peak of your clit with the tip, teasing you to the edge and pulling back just before it broke.

You whined. Desperate.

He smirked against your cunt.

"You want it?" he asked, voice thick. "Say it."

Your lips barely formed the word—"Please."

He hummed in approval.

Then he devoured you.

No more teasing. No more pacing. Just his mouth fully locked on you, tongue relentless now, lips sealing around your clit while two fingers slid into you with that obscene, perfect pressure that made your body jolt.

You cried out, gasping, your thighs tightening around his head as the world tipped sideways.

"That’s it," he groaned, curling his fingers just right. "Cum f’r me, girl. Let me taste what’s mine."

And when it hit—

It hit like a fever. Like lightning. Like your soul cracked in half and bled straight into his mouth.

You broke with a cry, hips bucking, your fingers tangled in his hair as wave after wave crashed through you.

He didn’t stop. Not until your thighs twitched and your breath came in ragged little sobs, not until your body went limp in his hands.

Then, finally—finally—he pulled back.

His lips were wet. His eyes were feral. And he looked at you like a man who’d just fed.

"You’re fuckin’ divine," he whispered. "And I ain’t even started ruinin’ you yet."

The room pulsed with quiet. The candle flickered low, flame swaying as if it too had held its breath through your unraveling.

Your body felt boneless. Glazed in sweat. Your pulse echoed everywhere—in your wrists, your throat, between your legs where he’d buried his mouth like a man sent to worship. You weren’t sure how long it had been since you’d spoken. Since you’d breathed without shaking.

Remmick still knelt.

His hands were on your thighs, thumbs drawing idle circles into your skin like he couldn’t bear to stop touching you. His head was bowed slightly, but his eyes were on you—watchful, reverent, hungry in a way that had nothing to do with the softness between your legs and everything to do with something older. Something darker.

He looked drunk on you.

You opened your mouth to speak, but your voice caught on the edge of a sigh.

He beat you to it.

"Reckon you know what’s comin’ next," he murmured.

You didn’t answer.

He rose from his knees in one slow, unhurried motion. There was a heaviness to him now, a tension rolling just beneath his skin, like a dam about to split. He reached up with one hand and wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of it—then licked the taste from his thumb like it was honey off the comb.

You watched, breath held tight in your chest.

He stepped closer. You stayed seated, knees still parted, your slip pushed up indecently high, but you didn’t fix it. Didn’t move at all. The heat between your legs hadn’t faded. If anything, it curled deeper now, thicker, laced with something close to fear but not quite.

He stopped in front of you.

Tilted his head slightly.

"How’s yer heart?"

You blinked.

"It’s…fast," you whispered.

He smiled slow. Not mocking. Not soft either.

"Good. I want it fast."

Your throat tightened.

"Why?"

He leaned in, hands bracing on either side of your chair, body boxing you in without touching.

"‘Cause I want yer blood screamin’ for me when I take it."

Your breath caught somewhere between your ribs.

He didn’t touch you yet—didn’t need to. The weight of his body, caging you in without a single finger laid, made your skin flush from your chest to your knees. Every inch of you throbbed with awareness. Of him. Of your own pulse. Of the air cooling the places he’d worshiped with his mouth not moments before.

You swallowed.

"You said you’d wait," you whispered.

He nodded once, slowly, his eyes never leaving yours.

"I did. And I have. But yer body’s already beggin’ for me. Ain’t it?"

You hated that he was right. That he could feel it somehow. Not just see the tremble in your thighs or the way your lips parted when he leaned closer—but that he could feel it in the air, like scent, like vibration.

You lifted your chin, barely.

"I’m not scared."

He chuckled low, and it rumbled through your bones.

"Good. But I don’t need ya scared, dove. I need ya open."

He raised one hand then, slow as scripture, and brushed his knuckles along the column of your throat. Just a whisper of contact, a ghost’s touch. Your head tilted for him without thinking, baring your neck.

"Right here," he murmured. "Right where it beats loudest. That’s where I wanna taste ya."

You shivered.

He bent down, mouth near your pulse. His breath was warm, slow, drawn in like he was savoring you already.

"I ain’t gonna hurt ya," he said. "Not unless you want it."

Your fingers twisted in your lap.

"Will it—" you started, but the question got tangled.

He smiled against your skin.

"Will it feel good?"

You said nothing.

"You already know."

You did.

Because everything with him did. Every word. Every look. Every touch. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t holy. But it was real. It lived under your skin like rot and root and ruin.

You nodded once.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

And then his lips pressed to your throat. Not with hunger. With reverence. Like a blessing.

"That’s my girl," he breathed.

And then he bit.

It wasn’t pain.

It was pressure, first.

A deep, aching pull that bloomed just beneath the skin, right where his mouth latched onto you. His lips sealed tight around your throat, and then—sharpness. Two points sinking in like teeth through silk. Like sin through flesh.

You gasped.

Not from fear. Not even from the sting. But from the rush.

Heat burst behind your eyes, white and sudden and dizzying. Your hands flew to his shoulders, clinging, grounding, anchoring you to something real while your mind drifted into something else—something otherworldly.

The pull came next.

A steady rhythm, slow and patient, like he was sipping you instead of drinking. Like he had all the time in the world. You could feel it, the way your blood left you in waves, not violent, not greedy—just…intimate. Like giving. Like surrender.

He groaned low against your neck, the sound vibrating through your bones.

"Fuck, you taste like sunlight," he rasped against your skin, voice thick with hunger and awe. "Like everythin’ warm I thought I’d forgotten."

Your head tipped further, offering him more.

You didn’t know when your legs opened wider, or when your hips rocked forward just to feel more of him. But his body shifted instinctively, meeting yours with a growl, his hand gripping your thigh now, possessive and unrelenting.

Your pulse faltered. Not from weakness, but from pleasure. From the unbearable knowing that he was inside you now, in the most ancient way. That your body had opened to him, and your blood had welcomed him.

Your moan was breathless.

"Remmick—"

He shushed you, mouth never leaving your throat.

"Don’t speak, dove. Just feel."

And you did.

You felt every lick. Every pull. Every sacred claim. You felt his tongue soothe where his fangs pierced, his hand slide higher along your thigh, his knee pushing between your legs until your breath stuttered out of you in something like a sob.

It was too much. It was not enough.

And when he finally pulled back, slow and reluctant, your blood on his lips like a mark, like a vow, he stared at you like you were holy.

Like he hadn’t fed on you.

Like he’d prayed.

The room was quiet, but your body wasn’t.

You felt every beat of your heart echo in the hollow where his mouth had been. A slow, reverent throb that pulsed through your neck, your chest, your thighs. It was like something had been lit beneath your skin, and now it smoldered there—glowing, aching, changed.

Remmick’s breath was uneven. His lips were stained red, parted just slightly, his jaw slack with something like awe. The burn of your blood still shimmered in his eyes, brighter now. Alive.

He looked undone.

And yet his hands were steady as he reached up, cupped your jaw in both palms, and tilted your face toward him. His thumb swept across your cheekbone like you might vanish if he didn’t touch you just right.

"You alright?" he asked, voice quieter now, roughened at the edges like a match just struck.

You nodded, though your limbs still trembled.

"I feel…" you swallowed, the word too small for what bloomed in your chest, "…warm."

He laughed, soft and almost bitter, and leaned his forehead against yours.

"You should. You’re inside me now. Every drop of you."

The words rooted somewhere deep. You didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. You could still feel the heat of his mouth, the bite, the pleasure that followed. It wasn’t just lust. It wasn’t just surrender. It was something older. Something binding.

"Does it hurt?" you asked, your fingers brushing the side of his neck, the line of his collarbone slick with sweat.

He looked at you like you’d asked the wrong question.

"Hurt?" he echoed. "Dove, it’s ecstasy."

You stared at him.

"You mean for you?"

He shook his head once.

"For us."

Then he pulled back just enough to look at you—really look. His gaze swept your features like he was committing them to memory. As if this moment, this very breath, was something sacred. His fingers moved to your throat again, this time to the place just above the bite, and he pressed lightly.

"You’ll bruise here," he said. "Won’t fade for a while."

"Will it heal?"

"Eventually."

"Do you want it to?"

His mouth curved, slow and wicked.

"No," he said. "I want the world to see what’s mine."

And before you could reply—before the heat in your belly could cool or your mind could gather itself—he kissed you.

Not soft.

Not careful.

His mouth claimed you like he’d already been inside you a thousand times and wanted to do it a thousand more. He kissed you like a man starving. Like a creature who’d gone too long without flesh, and now that he had it, he wasn’t letting go.

You tasted your own blood on his tongue.

And it tasted like forever.

The house knew.

It breathed deeper now. Its wood swelled, its walls sighed, its floorboards creaked in time with your heartbeat—as though it had taken you in too, accepted your offering, and now it wanted to keep you just like he did. Not as a guest. Not as a lover.

As a belonging.

Remmick hadn’t let you go.

Not when the kiss ended. Not when your blood slowed in his mouth. Not when your knees gave and your body folded forward into him. His arms had caught you like he knew the shape of your collapse. Like he’d been waiting for it. Like he’d never let you fall anywhere but into him.

He carried you now, one arm beneath your legs, the other braced around your back, his chest solid against yours.

"Don’t reckon you’re walkin’ after all that," he muttered, gaze fixed ahead, voice gone syrup-slow and thick with something possessive.

You didn’t argue. You couldn’t.

Your head rested against the place where his heart should’ve beat. But it was quiet there. Not lifeless—just other.

He carried you past rooms you hadn’t seen. A library, long abandoned, lined with crooked books and a grandfather clock that had no hands. A parlor soaked in velvet and silence. A door nailed shut from the outside, something heavy breathing behind it.

You didn’t ask.

He didn’t explain.

The room he took you to was nothing like the others.

It wasn’t grand.

It was personal.

The windows here were narrow and high, soft light slanting through the dusty glass in thin gold ribbons. The bed was simple but large, the sheets dark, the frame iron-wrought and worn smooth by time. A single cross hung above the headboard—but it had been turned upside down.

He set you down like you were breakable. Sat you on the edge of the bed, knelt once more to remove the slip still clinging to your body, inch by inch, as if undressing you were a sacrament.

"Y’ever wonder why I picked you?" he asked, voice low as the hush between thunderclaps.

Your breath stilled.

"I thought it was the blood."

He shook his head, his hands pausing at your hips.

"Nah, dove. Blood’s blood. Yours sings, sure. But it ain’t why I chose."

He looked up then, red eyes gleaming in the half-light.

"You remind me of the last thing I ever loved before I died."

The words landed like a stone in still water.

They rippled outward. Slow. Wide. Deep.

You stared at him, breath shallow, your skin bare under his hands, your throat still warm from where he’d fed. The room held its silence like breath behind gritted teeth. Outside, somewhere beyond the high windows, something moved through the trees—branches bending, wind pushing low and humid across the land—but in here, it was only the two of you.

Only his voice.

Only your blood between his teeth.

"What…what was she like?" you asked.

His thumbs drew circles at your hips, but his eyes drifted, not unfocused—just distant. Remembering.

"She had a mouth like yours. Sharp. Didn’t know when to shut it. Always speakin’ when she should’ve stayed quiet." A smile ghosted across his lips. "God, I loved that. I loved that she ain’t feared me even when she should’ve."

He exhaled through his nose, slow.

"But she didn’t get to finish bein’ mine."

Your brows pulled.

"What happened to her?"

He looked back at you then, and the heat in his gaze returned—not hunger, not even desire, but something deeper. Possessive. Terrifying in its tenderness.

"They tore her from me. Burned her in a chapel. Said she was a witch on account’a what I’d given her."

Your heart dropped into your stomach.

"Remmick—"

"She didn’t scream," he said, voice rough. "Didn’t cry. Just looked at me like she knew I’d find her again. And I have."

You froze.

His hands slid higher, up your ribs, his palms reverent.

"I don’t believe in fate. Not really. But you—" he leaned in, lips brushing your jaw, voice low like a spell, "you make me wanna believe in things I ain’t allowed to have."

You whispered against the curl of his mouth.

"And what do you think I am?"

He kissed the hinge of your jaw.

"My penance," he said. "And my reward."

You shivered.

"You said you saved me."

He nodded.

"I did."

"Why?"

He pulled back just enough to meet your eyes, and his voice dropped to a near whisper.

"‘Cause I ain’t lettin’ another thing I love burn."

You didn’t realize you were crying until he touched your face.

Not with hunger, not with heat, but with the kind of softness that had no business living in a man like him. His thumb caught a tear on your cheek like he’d been waiting for it, like it meant something sacred.

"You ain’t her," he murmured. "But you feel like the same song in a different key."

His voice cracked a little at the edges, not enough to ruin the shape of it, just enough to prove that something in him still bled.

You reached up, fingers trembling, and cupped the side of his neck. The skin there was warmer now. Still inhuman, still not quite alive, but it held your heat like it didn’t want to give it back. You felt the ridges of old scars beneath your palm. The echo of stories not told.

"I don’t know what I’m becoming," you said.

He leaned into your hand, eyes half-lidded.

"You’re becomin’ mine."

Then he kissed you again—not like before. Not full of fire. But slow, like he had all the time in the world to learn the shape of your mouth. His lips moved over yours with a kind of tenderness that made your bones ache. A kind of reverence that said this is where I end and begin again.

When he pulled back, your breath followed him.

The room shifted.

You felt it. Like the house had exhaled too.

"Lie down," he said, voice softer than it had ever been. "Let me hold what I almost lost."

You obeyed.

You lay back against the sheets that smelled like him, like dust and dark and something unnameable. The iron bed creaked softly beneath you, and the candlelight trembled with the movement. He undressed with quiet purpose, shirt sliding from his shoulders, buttons undone by slow fingers, trousers falling away to bare the sharp planes of his body.

And when he climbed over you, it wasn’t to take.

It was to be taken.

Remmick hovered above you, breath warm at your lips, hands braced on either side of your head. He looked down at you like he was staring through time. Like you were something he'd pulled from the fire and decided to keep even if it burned him too.

You’re mine, he whispered, but didn’t say it aloud.

He didn’t have to.

His body said it.

His mouth said it.

And when he finally eased inside you, slow and steady, filling you inch by trembling inch—your soul said it too.

His body hovered just above yours, every inch of him trembling with a control you didn’t quite understand—until you looked into his eyes.

That red glow was dimmer now. No less powerful, but softened by something raw. Something reverent.

Not hunger.

Not lust.

Not even possession.

Devotion.

The kind that didn’t speak. The kind that buried itself in the bones and never left.

His hand slid down the side of your face, tracing the curve of your cheek, then the line of your jaw, calloused fingers lingering in the hollow of your throat where your heartbeat thudded wild and uneven.

"Still fast," he murmured, half to himself.

"You’re heavy," you whispered, not in protest, but in awe. Every breath you took was filled with him.

He smirked, the corner of his mouth twitching in that crooked, wicked way of his.

"Ain’t even layin’ on you yet."

You didn’t laugh. Couldn’t. Your body was stretched too tight, strung out with anticipation and need. Every inch of you burned.

He leaned down then, not to kiss you, but to breathe you in. His nose skimmed your cheek, the edge of your ear, the curve of your throat already marked by his bite. His hands traced your ribs, the sides of your waist, slow and steady, like he was trying to learn you by touch alone.

"You’re shakin'," he whispered, voice low, thick with something close to worship.

"So are you."

A pause.

Then softer—truthfully,

"Yeah."

He kissed the inside of your wrist, then the space between your breasts, then lower still—his lips reverent as they moved over your belly, your hipbone, the softest parts of you.

"You ever had someone take their time with you?" he asked, mouth against your skin.

You didn’t speak.

"Didn’t think so," he muttered. "Shame."

His hand slid between your thighs, spreading you again—not rushed, not greedy, just gentle. Like he knew he’d already had the taste of you and now he wanted the feel.

"Tell me if it’s too much," he said.

"It already is."

He looked up at you then, his face half-shadowed, half-lit, and something flickered in his eyes.

"Good."

His cock brushed against your entrance, hot and heavy, and you nearly arched off the bed at the first contact. Not even inside. Just there. Teasing. Pressed to the slick mess he'd made of you earlier with his mouth.

He groaned deep.

"Fuck, you feel like sin."

You reached for him, pulled him down by the back of his neck until your mouths were inches apart.

"Then sin with me."

He didn’t hesitate.

He began to press in—slow. Devastatingly slow. The head of his cock stretching you open with a care that felt like madness. His hands gripped your hips as if holding himself back took more strength than killing ever had.

He moved in inch by inch, his breath hitched, jaw tight, sweat beginning to bead at his temple.

"Shit—ya takin’ me so good, dove. Just like that."

You moaned. Your fingers dug into his back. You were full of him and not even halfway there.

"Remmick—"

"I gotcha," he whispered. "Ain’t gonna let you break."

But he was already breaking you. Gently. Thoroughly. Beautifully.

He filled you like he’d been made for the task.

No sharp thrusts. No hurried rhythm. Just the unbearable slowness of it. The stretch. The burn. The drag of his cock as he sank deeper, deeper, deeper into you until there was nothing left untouched. Until your body stopped bracing and started opening.

You clung to him—hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt that still clung to his back, damp with sweat. He hadn’t even undressed all the way. There was something obscene about it, something holy, too—the way he kept his shirt on like this wasn’t about bareness, it was about belonging.

"That’s it," he rasped against your throat. "There she is."

Your moan was caught between breath and prayer.

He buried himself to the hilt.

And still—he didn’t move.

His hips pressed flush to yours, his breath shaky against your skin as he held himself there, nestled so deep inside you it felt like you’d never known emptiness before now. Like everything that came before this moment had just been the ache of waiting to be filled.

"You feel that?" he whispered, voice thick, almost reverent. "Where I am inside ya?"

You nodded. Couldn’t find your voice.

His lips brushed the shell of your ear.

"Ain’t no leavin’ now. I’ll always be in ya. Even when I ain’t."

You whimpered.

Not from pain. From how true it felt.

He moved then—barely. Just a slow roll of his hips, a gentle retreat and return. It was enough to make your breath hitch, your body arch, your legs wrap tighter around him without thinking.

"That’s right, dove. Let me in. Let me have it."

You didn’t even know what it was anymore.

Your body?

Your blood?

Your soul?

You’d already given them all.

And still, he took more.

But not cruelly.

Like a man kissing the mouth of a well after years of thirst. Like a thief who knew how to make you feel grateful for the stealing.

He found a rhythm that made the air vanish from your lungs.

Slow. Deep. Measured. His hips grinding just right, dragging his cock against every place inside you that had never known such touch. Every stroke sang with heat. Every breath he took turned your name into something more than a sound.

"Fuck, I could stay in you forever," he groaned. "Like this. Warm. Tight. Mine."

You dug your nails into his shoulders, legs trembling.

"Please," you whispered, though you didn’t know what you were asking for.

He did.

"Beg me," he said, dragging his mouth down your neck, over the bite he’d left. "Beg me to make you come with my cock in you."

"Remmick—"

"Say it."

You were already gone. Already shaking. Already his.

"Make me come," you breathed. "Please—God, please—"

His smile was sinful.

And then he fucked you.

His rhythm shifted—no longer slow, no longer sacred.

It was worship in the way fire worships a forest. The kind that devours. The kind that remakes.

Remmick braced a hand behind your thigh, hitching your leg higher as he thrust harder, deeper, dragging guttural sounds from his chest that you felt before you heard. The bed groaned beneath you, iron frame clanging soft against the wall in time with his hips. But it was your body that made the noise that filled the room—the gasps, the breaking sighs, the high whimper of his name torn raw from your throat.

He kissed your jaw, your collarbone, your shoulder, not like he was trying to be sweet but like he needed to taste every inch he claimed.

"You feel me in your belly yet?" he growled, words hot against your skin.

You nodded frantically, tears pricking the corners of your eyes from the sheer force of sensation.

"Say it," he panted, each thrust brutal and beautiful.

"Yes—yes, I feel you, Remmick, I—"

"You gonna come f’r me like a good girl?"

"Yes."

"Say my fuckin’ name when you do."

His hand slid between your bodies, finding your clit like he’d owned it in another life, and the moment his fingers circled that aching bundle of nerves, your vision went white.

Your body seized around him.

The sound you made was raw, wrecked, something no one but him should ever hear.

He kept fucking you through it, hissing curses through his teeth, chasing his own high with the rhythm of a man who’d waited centuries for the perfect fit.

And then he broke.

With your name groaned low and reverent in your ear, he came deep inside you, hips stuttering, breath ragged, body shuddering with the force of it. You felt every throb of his cock inside you, every spill of heat, every ounce of him taking root.

For a long, suspended moment, he didn’t move.

Only the sound of your breaths tangled together.

Your sweat mixing.

Your bodies still joined.

"That’s it," he whispered hoarsely, pressing his forehead to yours. "That’s how I know you’re mine."

The house exhaled around you.

The candle sputtered in its jar, flame dancing low and crooked, like even it had been made breathless by what it had witnessed. Somewhere in the walls, the wood groaned—settling. Sighing. Accepting.

You didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Your body was a temple razed and rebuilt in a single night, still pulsing with the memory of his mouth, his weight, the stretch of him inside you like a secret only your bones would remember. Every nerve hummed low and soft beneath your skin, like your blood hadn’t figured out how to move without his rhythm guiding it.

Remmick stayed inside you.

His body was heavy atop yours, but not crushing. His head tucked into the curve of your neck, the same place he’d bitten, the same place he’d worshipped like it held some holy truth. His breath came slow and ragged, the rise and fall of his chest matching yours as if your lungs had struck the same pace without meaning to.

"Don’t move yet," he muttered, voice wrecked and hoarse. "Wanna stay here just a minute longer."

You let your hand drift through his hair, damp with sweat, curls sticking to his forehead. You carded through them lazily, mind blank, heart full.

He pressed a kiss to your throat. Then another, just above your collarbone.

"You still with me?" he asked, quieter now.

You nodded.

"Good," he murmured. "Didn’t mean to fuck the soul outta ya. Just…couldn’t help it."

You let out the softest laugh, and he smiled into your skin.

His hand slid down your side, tracing the curve of your waist, your hip, the spot where your thigh met his. His fingers moved slowly, not with lust, but with a kind of quiet awe.

"Y’know what you feel like?" he whispered.

"What?"

"Home."

The word struck something inside you. Something tender. Something deep.

He lifted his head then, just enough to look down at you. His eyes had faded from red to something darker, something richer—garnet in low light. The kind of color only seen in blood and wine and promises too old to be remembered by name.

"You still think this is just hunger?" he asked.

You blinked at him, dazed.

"It was never just hunger," he said. "Not with you."

The silence between you was warm now.

Not empty. Not tense. Just quiet, the kind that comes after thunder, when the storm’s rolled through and the trees are still deciding whether to stand or kneel.

You felt it in your limbs—heavy, humming, holy. The afterglow of something you didn’t have language for.

Remmick hadn’t moved far.

He still blanketed your body like a second skin, one arm braced beneath your shoulders, the other tracing idle shapes across your hip as if he were still mapping the terrain of you. His cock, softening but still nestled inside, pulsed faintly with the last of what he’d given you.

And he had given you something. Not just release. Not just blood. Something older. Something that whispered now in the place between your ribs.

You turned your head to look at him.

His gaze was already on you.

"What happens now?" you asked, barely above a whisper.

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he ran the back of his fingers along your cheekbone, down the side of your neck, pausing over the place where his mark had already begun to bruise.

"You askin’ what happens tonight," he murmured, "or what happens after?"

You blinked slowly. "Both."

He let out a breath through his nose, the sound tired but not cold.

"Tonight, I’ll hold you. Long as you’ll let me. Won’t leave this bed unless you beg me to. Might even make ya cry again, if you keep lookin’ at me like that."

You flushed, and he smiled.

"As for after…"

He looked past you then, toward the ceiling, like the truth was written in the beams.

"Ain’t never planned that far. Not with anyone. Just fed. Fucked. Moved on."

"But not with me."

His eyes snapped back to yours. Serious now.

"No, dove. Not with you."

You swallowed the knot rising in your throat.

"Why?"

His jaw flexed, tongue darting briefly across his lower lip before he answered.

"‘Cause I been alone too long. Lived too long. Thought I was too far gone to want anythin’ that didn’t bleed beneath me."

He leaned closer, forehead resting against yours, his next words no louder than a ghost’s sigh.

"But you—you made me want somethin’ tender. Somethin’ breakable."

"That doesn’t make sense."

"Don’t gotta. Nothin’ about you ever has. And yet here you are."

You let your eyes drift shut, just for a moment, and whispered into the stillness between your mouths.

"So I stay?"

He didn’t hesitate.

"You stay."

The candle had burned low.

Its glow flickered long shadows across the walls—your bodies painted in gold and blood-tinged bronze, limbs tangled in sheets that still clung with sweat and want. The house had quieted again, the way an animal settles when it knows its master is content. Outside, the wind threaded through the trees in soft moans, like the Delta herself was eavesdropping.

Neither of you spoke for a while. You didn’t need to.

Your fingers traced lazy patterns across Remmick’s chest—over his scars, the slope of muscle, the faint rise and fall beneath your palm. You still half-expected no heartbeat, but it was there, slow and stubborn, like he’d stolen it back just for you.

He watched you. One arm draped across your waist, his thumb stroking your bare back like you might fade if he stopped.

"You still ain’t askin’ the question you really wanna ask," he said, voice rough from silence and sleep.

You paused.

"What question is that?"

He tipped his head toward you, resting his chin on his knuckles.

"You wanna know if I turned you."

Your heart gave a traitorous flutter.

"And did you?"

He shook his head.

"Nah. Not yet."

"Why not?"

His fingers stilled. Then resumed.

"’Cause you ain’t asked me to."

You looked up at him sharply.

"Would you?"

A long beat passed. Then he nodded once.

"If it was you askin’. If it was real."

Your breath caught.

"And if I don’t?"

His gaze didn’t waver.

"Then I’ll stay with you. ‘Til you’re old. ‘Til your hands shake and your bones ache and your eyes stop lookin’ at me like I’m the only thing that ever made you feel alive."

Your throat tightened.

"That sounds awful."

He smiled, slow and aching.

"It sounds human."

You looked at him for a long time. At the man who had killed, who had bled you, who had tasted every part of you—body and soul—and still asked nothing unless you gave it.

"Would it hurt?"

His hand slid up, fingers curling beneath your jaw, tilting your face to his.

"It’d hurt," he said. "But not more than bein’ without you would."

The quiet stretched long and low.

His words hung in the space between your mouths like smoke—something sweet and terrible, something tasted before it was fully breathed in.

Your chest rose and fell against his slowly, and for a long time, you said nothing. You just listened. To the house settling around you. To the wind curling past the windows. To the steady thrum of blood still echoing faintly in your ears.

And beneath it all—

You heard memory.

It came soft at first. A shape, not a sound. The slick thud of your knees hitting the alley pavement. The scream you didn’t recognize as your own. Your brother’s blood, warm and fast, pumping between your fingers like water from a broken pipe. His mouth slack. His eyes wide.

You remembered screaming to the sky. Not to God.

Just up.

Because you knew He’d stopped listening.

And then—

He came.

Out of nothing. Out of dark.

You remembered the slow scrape of his boots on the gravel. The silhouette of him under the weak yellow glow of a flickering streetlamp. You remembered the quiet way he spoke.

"You want him to live?"

You didn’t answer with words. You just nodded, crying so hard you couldn’t breathe. And he’d knelt—right there in the blood—and laid his hand flat against your brother’s chest.

You never saw what he did. Only saw your brother’s eyes flutter. Only heard his breath return, sudden and wet.

And then he looked at you.

Not your brother.

Remmick.

He looked at you like he’d already taken something.

And he had.

Now, years later, lying in the hush of his house, your body still joined to his, you could still feel that moment thrumming beneath your skin. The moment when everything shifted. When your life became borrowed.

You looked up at him now, breathing steady, lips parted like a prayer just barely forming.

"I’ve already given you everything."

He shook his head.

"Not this."

He pressed two fingers to your chest, right over your heart.

"This is still yours."

"And you want it?"

He didn’t smile. Didn’t look away.

"I want it to keep beatin’. Forever. With mine."

You stared at him.

You thought about that alley. About your brother’s eyes opening again.

About how no one else came.

And you made your choice.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

"Don’t say it unless you mean it, dove."

"I do."

His voice was barely more than a breath.

"You sure?"

You reached up, touched his face, fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw.

"I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life."

His eyes shimmered—deep red now, alive with something wild and tender.

"Then I’ll make you eternal," he whispered. "And I’ll never let the world take you from me."

He didn’t rush.

Not now. Not with this.

Remmick looked at you like you were something rare—something holy—like he couldn’t believe you’d said it, even as your voice still echoed between the walls.

Then he moved.

Not with hunger. Not with heat.

With purpose.

He sat up, kneeling beside you on the bed, and pulled the sheet slowly down your body. His eyes drank you in again, but this time there was no heat in them. Just reverence. As if you were the altar, and he the sinner who’d finally been granted absolution.

"You sure you want this?" he asked one last time, voice soft, like the hush of water in a cathedral.

You nodded, throat tight.

"I want forever."

His jaw clenched. A tremble passed through him like he’d heard those words in another life and lost them before they were ever his.

He leaned down.

His hand cupped the back of your head, the other settled flat on your chest, palm over your heart.

"Close your eyes, dove."

You did.

And then—

You felt him.

His breath. His lips. The soft, cool press of his mouth against your neck. But he didn’t bite.

Not yet.

He kissed the mark he’d already left. Then higher. Then lower. Slow. Measured. Your body melted beneath him, your hands curling into the sheets.

And then—

A whisper against your skin.

"I’ll be gentle. But you’ll remember this forever."

And he sank his fangs in.

It wasn’t like the first time.

It wasn’t lust.

It wasn’t climax.

It was rebirth.

Pain bloomed sharp and bright—but only for a heartbeat. Then the warmth flooded in. Then the cold. Then the ache. Your pulse stuttered once, then surged. It was like drowning and being pulled to the surface at once. Like everything you’d ever been burned away and something older moved in to take its place.

He held you as it happened.

Cradled you like something delicate.

His mouth sealed over the wound, drinking slow, but not to feed. To anchor you. To tether you to him.

You felt yourself go limp. The world turned strange. Light and dark bled into each other. Your breath faded. Your heartbeat fluttered like wings against glass.

And then—

It stopped.

Silence.

Stillness.

And in the space where your heart had once beat…

You heard his.

Then—

Your eyes opened.

The world looked different.

Sharper.

Brighter.

Every shadow deeper. Every color richer. The candlelight burned gold-red and alive. The scent of the night air was so thick it choked you—smoke, soil, blood, him.

Remmick hovered above you, lips stained crimson, breathing hard like he’d just returned from war.

And when he looked at you—

You saw yourself reflected in his eyes.

He smiled.

"Welcome home, darlin’."

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

guys is it weird for your 20 year old son to build your ex husband out of trash in your house after youve gotten divorced

[tis-the-boards-season]

I just saw a theatre almost entirely full of men very audibly gasp and/or moan at the site of a shirtless Hugh Jackman and let me tell you it was a religious experience

[selineabanto]

hear me outs but they're drunk and silly

[nondelphic]

writing is 10% storytelling and 90% rearranging three sentences for an hour like you're trying to solve an ancient curse