Midnight 01 - Luisa's Desire

you are my consort."
     
    "May your consort move?"
     
    His eyes twinkled. "I should be grateful, for my hands would be free to touch you as you deserve."
     
    He must have thought she deserved a lot. He caressed her as she rose and fell: her back, her haunches, her belly and hard-tipped breasts. His touch was like a drug. Her skin began to hum at the sweeping strokes. She would have purred if she'd had the means. His mouth glided up her neck and found her ear. The rush of his breath made her sheath tighten on his shaft. His fullness was exquisite, his living, vital pulse. His hands fell to her waist. He gripped her, half guiding, half greedy, then rested his forehead against hers.
     
    "Let down your walls," he whispered. "I want to touch your soul."
     
    Letting him in was as easy as drawing breath. Between one thrust and the next, her barriers simply fell. He was inside her then, as if her heart had always been his home. She could see with his eyes, feel with his body. His love was a sea that buoyed her in boundless warmth, deep, unstinting, as amazing as it was sure. No emptiness could survive it. This was her salvation, no matter what came to her in the end. She was loved and she could love, a blessing greater than any for which she'd dared to pray.
     
    Their auras flickered together, shimmers of green and blue, ribbons of red and gold. Martin groaned and thrust so hard he lifted her from his lap. She could feel his swelling rise to climax, or maybe she felt her own. Sensation blurred, doubled, as if he were joining with her in truth, as if their bodies had lost their separate forms.
     
    A hallucination, she thought. Real or not, the intermingling was delicious. Her body became her sex, yielding, giving, being taken in every cell.
     
    And then she remembered.
     
    This was how she had changed. This was how Auriclus had made her an upyr.
     
    Exultation rose like new spring wine. She could make Martin what she was. She did not have to lose him, did not have to watch him age and die.
     
    But—said the last sane corner of her mind.
     
    But—said the first selfless corner of her heart.
     
    If she made him what she was, she shared not just her gifts but also her burdens. He might have chosen to love her but he had not chosen that.
     
    Her awareness expanded, then stilled. Colors pulsed in the hush like veils spun out of gems. She felt his attention, and his question, as if it were her own.
     
    "We must stop," she said, or maybe only thought. "I cannot steal your future."
     
    "And if my future lies with you?"
     
    She wanted to believe so badly, the ache of it rang through her bones.
     
    "Luisa," he said, his thought-voice as rich as velvet spice. "In all my lives, I have lost and found more treasures than I can count. But none of them, none, ever meant as much to me as you. There is no nirvana without you. There is only an empty night."
     
    She searched him for the truth, though she knew he could not lie. What if he came to be sorry? What if she dragged him down?
     
    "We will drag each other up," he promised. "Together we will be twice as strong."
     
    "This is your choice? Truly?"
     
    "I did not know how much I wanted this until I looked into my heart. I will not be sorry, Luisa. And I am not afraid."
     
    All that he was infused the declaration: his pride, his courage, his curious, questing mind. It seemed impossible to fathom and yet she saw that loving her had made him stronger. Gone was his bitterness at his father, gone his fear that he never would belong. Because she loved him, all of him, he knew he belonged and always had. He did not need to renounce either West or East. Instead, all the world could be his home.
     
    "Change me," he said, "and I will share the world with you."
     
    ***
    A shower of stars burst within him, diamond cool and bright. His body disappeared, no boundaries, no limits, just sparks spread far and wide. I am the world, he thought, but a heartbeat later he slammed back in.
     
    He was all body then, all tautly focused nerve and flesh. His phallus tightened. His throat burned with a swallowed scream. Luisa tugged at him, outside, inside. She was so wet, so warm. Sweat sprang from his pores, the pleasure like a cramp. When it swelled his cry broke free. He could not stop it, could not stop any of it. He came so strongly he almost turned inside out.
     
    When Luisa arched, he came again.
     
    And then a peace like none he'd ever known spread outward from his sex. It was