Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
“Please,” says Kaleb. “Tell me.”
Markadian stops, grows still. “It is a law we enforce strictly. A law I have never in all my years broken. A law that disallows us from ever … feeding directly.” His fingers close upon Kaleb’s ass, cupping it with need. “But how I crave … how I so … so crave … to take my dinner the old way … the natural way …”
Kaleb swallows hard, heart slamming against his chest.
He keeps playing his violin, his notes growing firmer the more Markadian talks, evidence of his increasing heart rate, the increasing tension in his nerves, in his body, in his blood.
Markadian’s words are mere breath in Kaleb’s ear. “I won’t ask again. Forget I asked at all. I … I can’t say with confidence where my head was at. I’ve lost it, must’ve lost my head …”
Kaleb thinks of Raya’s face.
Raya’s smile.
“You have my permission.”
Markadian grows still behind Kaleb, his breath held.
Kaleb repeats himself. “You have … my permission.” Playing even still, the music flowing, he turns his head partway. “You can have a taste of me … if you want.”
Markadian still doesn’t move, doesn’t speak.
Did Kaleb offend him? Was it perhaps presumptuous to offer permission to a god?
Until: “I will be gentle,” Markadian whispers back, barely a breath. Kaleb feels the man’s cool lips on his shoulder, then the back of his neck, then the front. Kaleb closes his eyes.
And finally teeth.
Kaleb parts his lips for a gasp, then a sigh of unexpected relief. It surprises him, that the sensation of teeth sinking into his neck is not altogether as unpleasant as he expected. Until this moment, he didn’t realize there was a gentle way to bite.
Markadian’s hands explore Kaleb’s body as he sucks upon his neck. Fingers still massaging his ass cheek. Fingers sliding to the front, across Kaleb’s abdomen, up to his chest, grazing his nipples, then down his side under his arm where it’s soft and sensitive. Kaleb only keeps playing the violin, despite his mind becoming more and more consumed by the teeth in his neck.
Then: “You taste so sweet,” moans Markadian, “so bitter.”
“Which is it?” asks Kaleb as he plays, out of breath. “Sweet or bitter?”
Markadian doesn’t answer. Kaleb’s palms sweat. His body, too. He wonders if, when Markadian isn’t speaking, he might imagine it’s Raya with her hands on his body, Raya worshiping him, Raya running fingertips over his skin.
Raya’s teeth in his neck.
“You’re excited,” whispers Markadian.
Then Kaleb feels the fingers wrapped around his cock.
He didn’t notice—the erection nor the fingers.
“An expected human reaction,” says Markadian, “with the blood rushing through you, rushing to all your ends. Will you allow me to relieve you of that pressure, too?”
Kaleb’s voice cracks when he responds, “Yes.”
Fingers around his cock are replaced by a mouth. Kaleb’s moans join the music of his violin as he experiences an entirely new rush of unexpected pleasure. There is no telling what note plays next, nor what power guides Kaleb’s hand. Each stroke of the bow on the violin is a stroke of Markadian’s mouth up and down his length.
Is this power, to bring a god to his knees? To invite a god’s mouth upon his cock? To play such music from the heavens while the gods and goddesses worship him?
Is it okay to feel so adored and coveted in this moment?
Is it wrong?
The melody picks up pace when Markadian does. It builds the closer Kaleb grows to feeling heaven. Much like rushing to the edge of this very stage, the inevitable rushes toward him as his melody crescendos.
Raya watching him with wonder, listening to his song.
Raya on a bed next to him, eyes closed, lips pursed in the most alluring way as she listens, her full, plush lips.
Raya next to him, body pressed against his, eyes, lips, teeth.
Kaleb cries out as he releases unexpectedly into Markadian’s mouth, and just as appropriately, he strikes a high note upon the violin, singing like an angel’s song freed from the strings. It seems to last forever, as long as a musical note can possibly last, as waves of pleasure rush to every end of his body, to every hair, to every cell that comprises his mortal form.
It is the most merciful relief he has ever known.
“I do wonder,” says Markadian, still on his knees, as if it is Kaleb who is the god, “if it would be greedy of me … to request your sweet music … every night … for the rest of my existence?”
Kaleb lowers his violin and bow, stares down at the god on the ground, the taste of power growing in his racing heart. “Be as greedy with me as you like, Markadian.”
17.
We Could Be Gods.
—∙—
The Devil’s Mouth is a cave hidden in a long-abandoned quarry, and from the roof of its dilapidated entrance hang two thin, sharp stalactites, like vampire fangs.