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Souls of the Night – Vol 3
40.
Two nights later, I felt odd. Restless and fidgety, my mind wandered even more often than it usually did. The echoes didn't bother me too much since the night I'd gone out with Nash, which probably spoke in favor of Alexander's assessment that I just needed to give it more time.
Lexington Wywern (aka: THE BOSS) had also eaten with team 34 (aka: ME and my work-clan) in the cafeteria tonight and my colleagues had seemed thawed. They had asked him lots of questions. He had been friendly and approachable and only I, who had learned to read his body language and Gargoyle facial expressions well, had seen that the questions had annoyed him a little at first. But only a little because the questions weren't primarily about Lexington's and my relationship with each other, but about what his studies had been like back then. What it had been like to be the first from his family, his clan, his species to study. What the hurdles had been, how he had felt about it.
With his senses, Lex must have realized that I was also very interested in these questions and my relaxation at not being questioned automatically affected him. So that he could be the charming, witty, eloquent guy in front of my human friends that he had once said he was just playing in front of the humans. Perhaps my friends' questions were merely tickling his ego a bit, because as elaborate and perhaps a trifle embellished as he was with the anecdotes from his student days, it was quite likely that no human had ever asked him so precisely about his experiences and his "first times" in human micro-societies, and so he was happy to provide information while everyone at the table was soaking up their by now probably cold or soggy food. And by the time Lavonne had started babbling about her latest idea (transferring swarm intelligence from ants or bees to assistant robots = more controllable than nanobots), they had both drifted off into a meandering nerdy kingdom of wacky over-excited geniuses, leaving Chad, Alistair and Anthony, as well as me, sitting alone in the cafeteria. I giggled at the thought that Lavonne might now turn her focus from me to Lex and wondered how he would cope with her hand on his knee.
I blinked and gasped as if I'd woken up from a dream I couldn't remember a second later when I heard footsteps approaching.
"I'll be going then, Nathaniel," my section chief said as he stood in the hallway, blinking sleepily at me.
I looked at the clock on my screen, bewildered. It was almost one o'clock. Even the evening shift at LeXa ltd didn't stay all night, especially not the accountants. A moment ago it had just been eleven and I had only briefly thought about my team and especially Lexington.
I smiled at him a little tensely.
"Of course, Humphrey. I'll just finish this and then I'll go too."
"Don't overdo it. You don't have to prove anything to anyone, especially not before the weekend. I mean - at the weekend," he said, giving me another wry old man smile and raising his hand in farewell before turning away, yawning. When I could be sure he was gone, I rubbed my forehead and grumbled unhappily about the lost two hours - wherever they had gone.
I typed my last numbers into the accounting system and then shut down the computer. During the automatic backup, I played around with one of my ballpoint pens.
But when I let go of it to press the power button, it remained upright. My jaw fell open and I blinked in bewilderment as I watched the pen slowly start to rotate standing on its tip. It was strange to watch but it didn't really upset me. Yet another proof of how quickly one becomes numb to the unbelievable.
I wanted to touch the pen and felt with my fingertips tiny swirls of air dancing around the writing instrument. Invisible but there and powerful enough to defy the laws of gravity and make it look like a telepath or a Poltergeist was at work. But I knew better, of course, and smirked. I rose slowly, looking over the partitions. The office was completely deserted - of course. But the surveillance camera! I sat down and looked up at the small dark knob on the ceiling in the corridor. If it was pointed at me again (not a must but a probability with my boss-boyfriend) then THIS would be proof that I was NOT going insane (more insane) and that the other things I saw and perceived were not an expression of schizophrenia or other delusions. I took a breath and slid slowly so that there was no doubt that good pictures would be taken. And the pen turned and turned like the prima ballerina of a music box. Wonderful - simply fantastic. I smiled broadly and looked down at the pen. Maybe I could get something more, something clearer out of it.
"Hello ... I was wondering if you had left me completely. I felt you sporadically but only ... like a fluttering inside me when I had strong emotions. You didn't respond to my questions either. Did you just take a little time out or are you getting weaker?"
I flinched as the pen was suddenly jerked to the side, flew across the room and clattered against the framed poster hanging above the desk of one of my colleagues. The red and white You Never Walk Alone poster was smudged blue at the word Never where the ink cartridge had burst.
I rolled my chair back and raised my hands in surrender. "Okay, no need to tax your strength again. I was just wondering if you were one of the echoes and if they were getting weaker. Because they're really bothering me and interfering with my interaction with Lex." I bit my lower lip and lowered my eyes thoughtfully. Was it really the echoes that kept me lying? Or my dealing with the alienation from my own body? Which was just another sign of mental weakness.
"I hate that I can't be honest with Lexington. We spend time together. We even eat together in the cafeteria now and get people used to seeing us together. But I still feel distant from him. I am an imposter. I was a fake Gargoyle and now I'm a fake human, even though my body is human. That's what I am, isn't it? I'm human, aren't I?" I waited, but all I heard was the whirring of my computer. There had been no reply from the entity and I didn't really need one because the pen flying away was already pretty good evidence of supernatural occurrence.
But I would have liked an answer because I felt instantly lost again as soon as I thought about my lousy coping with the general situation. My bruises and muscles still strained from the fight were stinging and anchoring me in my pathetic humanity - but still, hardly anything felt real. Like I wasn't real. Everything here seemed ... a simulation, created by great minds.
I laughed mirthlessly, switched off my computer, got up and trotted into the staff kitchen where I moistened cellulose wipes. I used these to remove the smudge from the glass of the poster (ignoring my strange reflection in it, I had become good at avoiding reflective surfaces) and to pick up the broken pieces of the pen, which I carried back to the staff kitchen and threw away. I washed my hands there at the sink but the blue ink on my fingertips didn't come off easily and again I had a moment of absolute horror that my fingertips were right but the rest was wrong. Why didn't I have claws? I shook my head, violently and frantically that the ends of my dreadlocks, which my ManBun failed to hold, were slapping my face. Enough! I WAS human!
Then I lifted my head.
"Why, actually," I said, my voice isolated in the deserted open-plan office sounding strange and rumbling.
"Why did I wanted to become human again?" I asked a little louder, leaning against the kitchen worktop for support. I closed my eyes, ignoring the illusory and deceptively enticing vision of the night streets flickering past in my mind, and concentrated hard on the answer. Yes. Control. The desire to be me again.
But ... had I even known who I was? Who Nathaniel Sharif had been as a human? Hadn't Jussuf been shaping me for more than a decade, gradually taking away everything that had made me me? Until I had had no strength left, had been nothing more than a broken shell whose only wish had been to end it all. What ideal had I been chasing with my desire to become human again? A happier me? A me that had more confidence, more self-esteem, more strength to live? WHICH of these things could I not have lived as a gargoyle? Now that I was a human again, my head was deceiving me, deluding me with hallucinations and delusions that if I shaved my whole body bald and pinched and bumped myself blue that I would be more "real" than my human body was! It was absolutely pathological, so why the hell couldn't I talk to Lex about it? He would listen to me, believe me, want to help me.
"That's the problem, isn't it?"
I probably just said it out loud to let my inner voice have its say. Oh, if my inner voice, my inner being was at the helm, I would go to Lexington right now and tell him the truth. But I didn't want to be so fucking weak all the time. It wasn't Lexington's fucking job to play my shining savior over and over and over again. That wasn't the definition of an eye-to-eye relationship. And I was also afraid of what Lex would do to try to take away my burden with his infinitely big heart and his doggedness that was barely behind it. I didn't want him to become paranoid again like he had just before my complete petrification at the beginning of April. He had been such a stranger to me. So mean to his clan, so unreasonable, so self-destructive. Arrogant, overwhelming and yet so vulnerable. I never wanted to experience him like that again.
"No matter what I do, I'm always a damn egotist," I said to myself again.
My gaze wandered out of the window over the dark exterior of LeXa ltd, building A and the lights of Manhattan in the background. And my gaze automatically wandered higher. The light in the kitchen went out because the motion detectors hadn't registered any movement for a minute and suddenly I knew that was exactly what I needed. This was much better. I sighed loudly, enraptured by the bright, almost glaring full moon. I would see it so much better as a gargoyle, I thought. Its hills, craters and gorges. But I imagined I could feel its pull. I closed my eyes and bathed in the moon's glow, shivering with sensual pleasure at the sensation of the gleam on my skin. Oh how divine, how seductive. And I was alone alone alone alone! Suddenly, my whole mind seemed cleared. Everything that had weighed heavily on me before had been replaced by a single thought. That I had to see Lex. I didn't even know what I wanted from him. Had I wanted to tell him something? Confess something? What was it? It didn't matter. I just wanted to see my mate.
.
.
A flashing alarm went off on my computer that someone was approaching my office. At the same time, a pling on my cell phone that Nathaniel's cell phone was heading my way. An early warning system for my friend? Not ... really. It was just a little gimmick so I knew he was nearby and could arm myself. I wasn't at all frustrated that he would tear me away from my work, which I had been doing for two hours straight without spying on him (yes, that was still possible, I wasn't a creepy stalker, just an attentive boyfriend - totally reasonable and healthy). And the fact that Nate had obviously stayed longer to visit me in my office for the first time was so sweet and a little naughty. But hey- I bent the rules, he bent the rules. Give and take, huh?
I switched to the camera outside my reception room, which Nate was marching purposefully towards, fixed my clothes one more time and then leaned back in my desk chair, seemingly relaxed, before pressing the door opener. Should I put my feet up on my desk? No - too much. But I wouldn't look like a puppy who was happy to see his human, so I wrapped my tail around one of the armrests to stop him from wagging when Nathaniel knocked on my door. Always the polite one.
"Come in," I said disinterestedly so it wouldn't look like I was about to jump into his arms. He'd been so worried last night when we all left for the mission, and earlier, when we ate with his team in the cafeteria, he'd been a bit introverted too. That's why I was so pleased that it wasn't me who had come to him, but that he had mustered up the courage. He closed the door behind him and suddenly didn't seem to know why he had come. I leaned back in my chair in my best Xanatos-I- own-the-world-but-for-you-I-take-my-time manner and interlaced my fingers.
"Ah, Mr. Sharif? What a lovely surprise. How may I help you?" I said chipper so that he wouldn't have the slightest doubt that I was happy to see him here and was just being a little playful.
He looked a little puzzled for a moment, then a smile spread across his features. He looked around curiously but also a little wary, then he came over to me. He leaned down and kissed me. A brief kiss, barely more than a peck. That was okay- I took what I could get until he felt more comfortable in his skin and the bruises from the instructor fight, which I'm sure he had, were healed. Sometimes I saw him flinch at the touch of others or clench his teeth. Sometimes he moved more carefully. He was human and no longer healed quickly. I would wait despite our mutual frustration.
"Is it okay that I ambushed you like this?" he asked as he rose again. His gaze briefly went out the window behind my desk, which ran across my entire office from floor to ceiling.
"Why, yes. You can come in at any time when I'm here. My secretary has instructions to always let you through ... if you ever want to come in when the offices are still occupied."
He took a deep breath and seemed to relax visibly.
"So ... is there a reason?" I asked as he just stood there and let his gaze slide over me. A look that was somehow urging and misty at the same time.
.
I licked my lips and felt a thrill as Lexington's eyes flicked down and followed the movement of my tongue. Then he swallowed audibly even to human ears, shoving two fingers under the collar of his shirt, already loosened there, as if it were suddenly too warm in here or the air too little.
Of course, we hadn't talked about the tension between us. The sexual frustration. That wasn't his fault, I knew that. But now that he was looking at me like that, I suspected he was waiting for a go from me ... to talk! I wanted to give him the green light for pretty much everything else. I didn't even know what I wanted to talk about - what I should talk about.
I had been drawn here by an urge that seemed as strong as the gravitational pull of the earth on the moon. But even though I knew something was amiss, I wasn't afraid, I didn't feel disempowered. On the contrary. I felt good and confident and like me and yet not like me and I wanted to pounce on Lexington and sniff and lick him from head to claw. I turned to the window and took a deep breath with a gargoyle Goliath grumble. But this time it didn't clear my head. Why had I come here again? Why did I suddenly have the urgent need to see him and ... everything. I tried not to lift my head but I could feel the moonlight on me. I could even feel the glass between me and the satellite. I knew Lexington was waiting for an answer, I could sense his growing concern behind me and that alone made me speak.
.
"I wanted to be near you without other people and without the clan. I missed you," Nate said.
That made me let out a relieved breath. Oh, he was sweet and a little yearning. I felt the same way sometimes.
"We were just sitting next to each other in the cafeteria four hours ago," I teased him, but he didn't turn around. He stood with his back to me and looked out of the window. Or... was he looking out of the window? Or just looking at his own reflection. Why did I have the impression that he was seeing something that I couldn't see?
I got up and stood next to him. I didn't have to worry about anyone seeing us. As in many sensitive areas on the premises, these windows were opaque from the outside. I looked out of the window and tried to figure out what and if Nate could see anything at all. Because it was very dark out there right now. The lanterns, which had been set up for the more human workforce, only switched on via motion detectors when someone entered the paths. But even if they had been lit, the terrain with its neat lawn, curved paths and scattered trees would have offered nothing to captivate him in particular. What was going through his mind right now? I felt myself growing nervous. There was something in the air. It smelled ... promising.
"The moon is beautiful," I said simply for the sake of saying something. Nate chuckled in amusement as if there was something funny about what I said.
"It's beautiful. Did you know that the Arabic word for moon is Qamar?"
"No, I didn't know."
"Oh, sorry, yeah probably not." He sighed and I took his hand.
"Don't be sorry. Is there also an Arabic word for the full moon?"
"Badr," Nate mumbled and now his gaze did wander upwards, as did mine. "These words not only describe the celestial body but are also names. Qamar also refers to a girl with a radiant face and Badr to a man with generosity and courage. Even the different phases of the moon have different names in Arabic ... but ... I can't think of them right now," he admitted.
Suddenly Nate was no longer just standing next to me, he was entering my space. Our almost equal height meant that he only had to tilt his head slightly to nuzzle me behind the ear. And he took a deep breath as if he was starving for my scent and was about to feast. A thought that immediately made my member show interest. I froze and shuddered at the same time and his warmth had nothing magical about it but was comforting and stimulating at the same time.
And was I imagining it or did he also smell of arousal? It had been too many nights and I so wanted this to go in the direction that was flitting through my mind like a hummingbird at that moment. He kissed my temple and I turned my head so he could give my mouth the same treatment. Nathaniel's bright blue eyes stared at me almost deliriously, seeming to mimic the moon itself. And although I wasn't one of those gargoyles who got moonstruck or moon drunk, I could have lost myself in those eyes.
"I haven't even told you how incredibly beautiful you look," he hummed in that slightly deeper tone of voice that he automatically adopted when he spoke Arabic.
"Beautiful?" I asked.
"Beautiful? Yes. But the wrong word. Um-," he rubbed his head against mine and his hair tickled my bare scalp as he babbled on as if he had no filter and was pronouncing every thought as it came. "Maybe- attractive. Handsome. Aesthetic. You could wear your oldest baggy clothes and I'd still find you attractive, but what that suit does to your silhouette ... that should be illegal. The others might not see it because they don't know what's underneath the layers - but I do. Your packaging only makes you more delicious. So sexy."
I laughed softly, but I could feel the heat on my face. Nate was rarely in such a mood. So incredibly bold and with this come-hither attitude.
"You're flirting, Mr. Sharif," I said, and damn why did my voice sound so guttural and croaky like when I was younger?
"Flirting? I don't even know how to flirt. I'm just telling the truth."
"Flatterer," I hummed and kissed him gently. He opened his mouth willingly and a gargoyle-like, needy whimper came from him, prompting me to dip my tongue into his mouth. And pretty quickly, and to my pleasure and amazement, our kissing got pretty greedy, wet and downright dirty but in a good way. Nate wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me against him and he had an erection. As did I. And nothing, nothing at all, indicated that he would chicken out again.
As I pulled away from him... reluctantly but clearly more lucid than Nate because he was truly grumbling at me as I removed my mouth from his, my lips felt swollen and hot and wet. I licked our sweet mingled saliva from my skin as he kissed my jawline.
"Nate, what are you doing?" I chuckled, wanting this but the voice in the back of my head urged me to question it.
"I miss you," he repeated. "I really missed you."
And I groaned loudly and vulgarly as his erection pressed against mine when his hips made a jerky equally vulgar movement and the friction increased for both of us. By the dragon - that escalated quickly.
"Oh heavens," I rumbled myself now, gritting my teeth as I bared my throat for him to plaster my neck with urgent kisses and my hands advanced under Nathaniel's shirt. He flinched briefly as I grabbed him but immediately began kissing me again. With my last bit of strategic sense, I turned my head and called out.
"Code 3418."
My own voice, slightly distorted by the technology, answered.
"Execute office security system activated, doors locked."
My boyfriend only made an approving animalistic noise.
Again we kissed and now Nate was so much more eager and urgent, almost hungry like he wanted to devour me and all my worries that he wouldn't want me that way now that he was human again flew out the proverbial window. I moaned into his mouth and let my hands roam under his shirt. He whimpered and groaned like he was in pain but I was careful and it had to be sounds of arousal and I had no idea if he could just perfectly mimic those sounds that could have come from the throat of his gargoyle body, if that was part of the echoes or if it was just my wishful thinking that put more into those sounds than was in them. But who wanted to waste too much thought in this situation? With the next greedy kiss, we stumbled a little and suddenly the back of my head hit the glass and I had the entire LeXa ltd site at my back and I had never been more relieved to have opted for opaque glass. More kisses while I felt his hands on my belt.
"Is that what you want?" I asked teasingly, nibbling on his ear.
"Yes, yes, I want it," he gasped almost pleadingly.
"Then go and get it. You'll get everything from me."
I closed my eyes in appreciative awe at the situation while his nimble, clawless fingers unfastened my button on my pants, unzipped them. He ripped away the Velcro and snaps that held the garment up even in more "stressful" situations and pulled down my pants and underpants. But when he lowered himself to his knees in FRONT of ME, my eyes snapped back open and I grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Nate, you don't have to," I started because even though we'd had a lot of sex when he was a gargoyle, I'd always been able to stop him from giving me head. He'd had to do that far too often against his will with Jussuf and I hadn't wanted to trigger any bad memories in him. Again Nathaniel made this face like I had caused him pain and I loosened my fingers and claws. I had to keep reminding myself that he was human and his skin was thinner, more vulnerable and bruised more easily. My looser grip only made him sink to the floor and his hands slid around my thighs where his breath brushed over my dick saluting him.
"You-," I began again and fell quiet as Nathaniel growled bossily and it sounded like a real gargoyle growl. Humans who spent a lot of time around gargoyles picked up some vocalizations but they didn't have the vocal chords to mimic gargoyle noises perfectly yet Nate was doing it and I would have liked to address it with the analytical interest of a cerebral nerd but hot, wet juicy lips were suddenly around the head of my cock and I was so hard and I wanted it. Basically, I wanted a lot more and not necessarily in my office but fuck it - I was the boss and I knew from movies that the boss banging his lover in his office wasn't something we both invented. I didn't think Nathaniel would consider such a thing but here we were, I hadn't initiated it and my boyfriend just went to town on my cock!
And how he did. Nate ran his tongue over my shaft, gently and occasionally teasingly squeezing my balls, licking, slobbering, grunting and I put my hand on the back of Nate's head and wished I could smash my claws into the safety glass behind me and hold on to it. But my claws only scratched the surface shrilly before I clenched my fist in order to hear my lover and watch him take me in like he'd never done anything else. The noises Nate was making were so bestial, so gargoyleesque, that I closed my eyes anew and really thought it wasn't the human but the gargoyle Nate who was doing this to me.
I'd been so worried that Nate's sex drive, his lust for these things would have weakened because humans just weren't that fixated on their mates but I never liked being wrong more and Nathaniel's hands found my buttocks and squeezed them greedily and I moaned and bucked my hips forward and Nathaniel didn't even gag as the head poked into his throat but puffed grunting through his nose that the hot breath tickled the base of my shaft in addition to those lips.
And his eyes were smiling while his mouth could do so less, and I knew I was imagining it, but Nathaniel had a silver-blue glow in them that must have come from some freaky effect of the overhead lights, because Nate wasn't a gargoyle anymore, even if he was currently acting like one. Was that one of the echoes? I didn't want to hurt him but it was instinctive and pure urge to thrust my hips into his greedy mouth again and again and I was mesmerized, horrified and thrilled as my lover hummed in approval and encouragement and devoured me so greedily that I - damn, I could see the bulge above his larynx where the head of my member poked in.
The pressure as he swallowed and struggled a little for breath but refused to let go of me for air but got greedier as he realized I was about to come was phenomenal. I lifted my head and stared at the ceiling and yes, it was rare but every thought was just sucked out of my head leaving only awe and gratitude. He was literally blowing my mind! Nate was so good. He was a natural at it, had a God-given gift because something that supremely talented had to come from whatever God.
As soon as I thought THAT, a chill rushed through me like someone had dumped ice water on me. I abruptly lowered my head again, staring down at Nate in the shocking but unsurprising certainty that my lover was unfortunately NOT a natural, not a autodidact, not a prodigy at sucking cock. But that he had had years of practice at it. That he had been trained by Jussuf Masoud. Brought up. Tortured into this practice. How often had he vomited convulsively after such acts? How often had he cried? How often had he wished for death after it? And these thoughts should have taken away my arousal but instead my own body, sucked to the edge of ecstasy, betrayed me and I came in Nathaniel's mouth and poured myself down that hot, perfect, rhythmically clenching throat like Jussuf had probably done hundreds of times.
And Nate moaned contentedly, swallowed, licked my slit again and then smiled up at me, breathing a little heavily, as if he was completely woozy and devoid of any higher thoughts.
"That was good. I think I came in my underpants," he rasped, tears in his eyes. And that made me so angry. Because I didn't know if those tears were conscious happiness (about what, actually? About the fact that he had been able to satisfy me. It should be ME who made him feel good and satisfied!) or because I had rammed my cock down his throat again and again and the watering of his eyes was a natural reaction. And I hated that I had these thoughts, that Jussuf Masoud had taken away Nate's and my bliss over this act, even from afar and unknowingly overshadowing such experiences if not for Nathaniel then for me.
And I grabbed Nate and manhandled him away from the window, sweeping utensils off one side of my desk with one arm and throwing him onto it, eliciting only a surprised UFF before I climbed on top of him and mounted his hips. And he was hard which either proved that he hadn't come or that he had a recuperation time that was basically unimaginable for humans (from what I had read). I would make him feel good, I was with him now and I would leave him blissfully and merrily fucked out where Masoud never had. I couldn't let the horror of my latest realization overwhelm me, couldn't let Nate see what I was thinking.
He should be happy with me, enjoy every minute with me with or without sex but now that he was so willing of course with it.
I smiled grimly at Nate and he hadn't noticed my inner turmoil and grinned back, his lips moist and glossy.
"Second round, gorgeous," I asked.
"Ready when you are," he said enthusiastically and I reclaimed his mouth, tasting myself but most of all his desire.
He tugged at my shirt, wanting less fabric between us, wanting more of me, more of US and I was ready for anything whether he wanted to fuck me or let me fuck him.
Right now, as he wriggled under me and thrust his hips forward so that his still covered crotch could rub against my stiffening cock, he left no doubt about what he wanted.
"Please Lex. Please. Take me, fuck me. I'm so empty. I want to feel something, I want to feel you."
"Lube," I croaked, cursing myself for not having any of this in my office because I never thought I'd be so lucky to have my timid lover begging me for sex in our workplace, which was completely out of character for him.
Nate shook his head, his grin so wide it had to hurt.
"I don't need it. I'm so hard, it hurts. Do it Lex. I want you. Don't worry about prep. It doesn't matter if it hurts, it'll go by way too fast."
I grumbled at his words, which ignored his own wellbeing in the heat of the moment. It didn't matter if it hurt? If I hurt him? I saw it differently. Since my hands were naturally not suited for it, I would prepare him with my tongue. I pulled him off my desk and maneuvered him so that he was lying on it with his chest and he wiggled his butt invitingly and giggled as I almost ripped his pants to pull them down. If I hadn't been so greedy to make him feel good I would have been more aware that humans and in particular human males should have hair on their legs or I would have been concerned about the bruises there that were turning large sections of his skin blue-yellow. But Nate started begging again and I didn't want to make him beg for something he could always have from me. And while he was making vulgar dirty talk like never before, he had turned his head on the tabletop so that his blank stare was directed to the outside. He stared out into the sky where the moon hung plump and cold white in the sky. I huffed because that was too crazy, couldn't be. It was biologically impossible but I asked anyway, half-jokingly.
"Like you're moonstruck."
Nate chirped with a laugh.
"Impossible," he confirmed my thoughts, and as if to prove it, he broke eye contact with the moon's disc, mesmerizingly arousing to some gargoyles.
But now that his gaze had slid lower - to our reflection in the window (and we looked fantastic like that, heated, disheveled - I even disheveled without hair- and sinking into each other, or close to it) his eyes widened as if he were seeing something else. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and started babbling again, even more frantically than before as he wriggled out of his shirt and rubbed his ass against me, my cock sliding through his crack.
"Please Lex! Please. Fuck me. I'll go crazy if you don't. Please, please, quickly. I'm so empty, I'm falling apart from the void. Do it hard as if I were still a gargoyle. Hurt me, it's okay. I need it. But do it fast, fuck me hard, rake your claws over my back, bite me. Where you want, as hard as you want it's okay, I can take anything you give me, I need it, don't hold back, I can-"
His increasingly desperate babbling, with each sentence less arousing but more alarming, was just the background music to the sight that made my erection shrink and stopped my efforts to satisfy him. He had managed to get rid of his long-sleeved shirt. And he was covered in bruises and bumps. No belt marks but so many sores that they couldn't possibly result from the fight with the instructors. They were everywhere. Hell, he had more painful looking hematomas than his natural skin color showed! And my hand that had been reaching around him to satisfy him there now felt what had been irritating me about his legs.
"Nate, turn around," I ordered in the middle of his ramblings and he was so into it that he happily cooperated just to get me inside him faster. But before he could lie back on the desk again, bring his arms under his knees to pull his legs up and give me better access, he saw my face. And I didn't know what he saw because I couldn't turn my head to study my features in the reflection of the window, but he fell out of his own excitement like he'd been pushed off a train.
And I saw all the perhaps moon-induced horniness, all the gargoyle-esque mannerisms and the mercy of not having to think fizzle out. And what remained was the human Nathaniel Sharif. Aghast, confused, afraid of my expression, this situation, himself. We stared at each other, both of our now limp dicks hanging between our legs. And he was bald there, too. Whereby my gaze slid more over the bruises on his thorax.
Nathaniel's mouth shut silently, his and my labored breathing the only sounds in the room. With a soft groan that emphasized the pain he must be in, he bent over and pulled his pants back up. Slowly, he grabbed his partially torn shirt, holding it in front of his chest like the shameful person he was at heart.
Suddenly the air in the room was really too little for me. I still smelled the sex - oppressive and tangy and I instinctively sniffed for the scent that might tell me if someone had assaulted Nathaniel and hurt him in the process. Or ... whether Masoud had crossed his path and claimed what he had been denied for the last few months. But I basically knew that neither was true. He smelled of distress - but not of a lack of consent. And his words. What he had said ... At that moment, the amateur dramatics that Jussuf had made Nate perform came back to mind. The words he'd made Nathaniel recite just before he'd tried to kill him and me (in human form).
"I - I want you to fuck me, Jussuf."
"And?"
"And, that you are hurting me."
"Why?"
"Because...I like it."
"Good boy."
And now, almost four months later, he stood before me, almost as bruised as he was then, even if his hands and everything above his shirt collar were intact. Had he been looking for someone to fulfill needs I'd thought were part of Jussuf's tall tale?
"Please Lex. Please say something. Anything. It's not what you think," whispered the man who kept puzzling me over and over again, standing there like a whipped mutt under my stare. New riddles ... always new riddles, but I was no longer sure whether I had the strength to rush after the answers to them. At least not tonight after flying SO high and falling SO deep.
"You begged me to hurt you, Nate," I reminded him.
He gasped like I'd hit him (and not in the way he might have liked).
"I - I'm sorry. I got, I got carried away. The moon and I were so-."
"The moon! Nate, you're not a gargoyle anymore!" I exclaimed shrilly, and my vitreous prince flinched under my raised voice.
"I KNOW," he cried and tears began to flow again. Tears, always tears.
I reached for my head in dismay, speaking more calmly but whispering in astonishment.
"And that - such a reaction! It can't be the echoes! This bullshit about me raking my claws over your body. Do you know what our claws can do? We have to restrain ourselves every - single - time we interact with humans. I do my best not to let my instincts take over and hurt you. And you beg me to! Do you know how I would have felt if I had deliberately inflicted deep wounds on you?"
"I'm sorry! I wanted to explain. I really wanted to. But- but-" he erupted into desperate heaving sobs, unable to get any more words out. But what could he have said to make it better? I felt bad for making him cry like that. I loved him, I wanted to kiss his tears away. But I was so damn tired. I felt empty and hollow.
And that's probably why I said the worst thing I could say.
"You said you needed it. What if I can't give you what you need? I am not Jussuf Masoud, Nathaniel. I'll never be able to hurt you the way he did."
Nate lifted his head, sheer horror making my own words clearer to me.
I couldn't pull my pants up and snap the magnets shut again fast enough as he ran past me. And I chased after him while I was still struggling to pull my belt through the holes in my flying skins.
"Nate! Stop! Stop, I'm sorry, I didn't meant to- please!" I shouted, but he didn't turn around, even though he almost ran into one of the cleaners who nearly fell into his utensil cart.
"You didn't see anything, man, or your job will be the least of your problems," I hissed without giving the guy with the low-sitting cleaning crew cap a glance as I jumped over his cart in a very un-chef-like manner. It wasn't until Nate ran out of the building that I stopped my pursuit. What was I going to do when I caught up with him? Jump into his back so he fell and hurt himself even more? And what kind of impression did this already leave? An employee fleeing half-naked and covered in wounds from his gargoyle boss? At least I could see from a distance that he was putting his shirt back on. I had messed it up. AGAIN. I could do nothing else ... but to give Nate time to come around on his own. I suspected (HOPED) I hadn't exactly given our relationship the deathblow - but if I pushed now I would do more damage than I already had. I took my phone out of my pocket and punched the speed dial for the security guards at the main entrance.
They recognized my number.
"Yes Mr. Wyvern?
"There's a man coming to the main gate. He's had a little accident. I don't want you to ask any questions, but explain to him calmly and friendly that one of you will drive him home. Get one of the company cars in the parking lot. He left his chip card to get out and his wallet here."
"Of course, Mr. Wyvern."
.
.
As soon as the Wyvern asshole was out of his sight Jim Miller lifted his head and raised his cap. He kept it on, of course; apart from the silicone prosthesis that gave him a pockmarked nose, it was his best protection from the cameras. He also avoided the euphoric grin that wanted to emerge. This was better - so much better than he had hoped. Darkwing 1995 had provided him with the ID and the right clothes (where he'd gotten them from, whether he'd even killed the actual cleaner, Jim didn't give a damn). He looked enough like the man in the picture and the card opened almost all doors for him because, as is so often the case, the arrogant powerful of this world gave the invisible powerless the greatest liberty because they would never believe they would being stabbed from BELOW.
At that time of night there were no others from the cleaning service out and about who could have exposed him. He'd made it past all the security guards with the ID he'd been given and had familiarized himself with the layout of the buildings. He had only wanted to make this his reconnaissance mission in preparation for his much better bigger coup. But then he came across this gem! Lexington Wyvern, the smallest, supposedly weakest, most pathetic and allegedly most humanized gargoyle was chasing a half-naked, terrified and injured human through his company! The fact that this "human" was in fact his gargoyle lover and whatever had actually happened didn't matter. What it had looked like was important, and WHAT he had been able to capture of it was important.
Jim - unsuspicious to the camera eyes on the ceiling - neatly put some of his tipped over cleaning bottles back in place, one of which concealed his latest modified "historic" camera. Oh, how eager he was to find out how good the shots were now, despite the magic that at least the Wyvern asshole always carried with him to avoid being photographed or filmed. Let's see how far these monsters would get with this. Soon Miller and his allies would prevail. It might only be one battle in a much longer war - but every blow was important.
Miller passed a window, stopped again and looked up at the almost glaring moon. As he had since his youth, the sight gave him a shiver and a feeling of great power and energy. As if the moon was his spotlight and he was the star of the show. He wanted to howl at it to announce his imminent triumph. Instead, he set off again, whistling a melody.
Maaaaan, what a long chapter. You're welcome. And more drama and heartbreak, no proper sex and NO rimming (although I learned that rimming is a sports term from basketball and describes how the ball rolls around on the rim of the metal ring that holds the net. And in that respect, rimming totally works for anilingus- Ha!).
Ahhhh there are so many descriptive and beautifully phrased terms in English that are in no way inferior to German.
And the last section with Miller had to be included because, unlike books one and two, I now have a lot of subplots but I want to finish book three before the hundredth chapter and so we have to pick up the pace a bit.
Let's see how Lex and Nate act after this disturbing evening. Actually, I don't want another therapy session with Davis - she's gonna explode, but they both need to get it together. But what do I give Nate as an impetus to reach out to Lex again? -mhmmmm (evil grin*)
Thanks for reading, Q.T. (and thanks for every comment BooGum and allegratree -kiss**)
