Midnight 01 - Luisa's Desire

purely a peace of the body but its power coursed sweet and deep. For the first time in his life, he knew what it was to be flawlessly in balance, every bone and muscle, every particle of being. Sighing at the liquid, golden feel, he toppled with her in his arms onto the bed. Apparently her strength had not abandoned her. She leaned over him, smiling, her hair hanging around them like new-washed silk. She seemed an angel to him, a dakini of the highest grade.
     
    Angel or not, she traced the shape of his face with the tip of her longest finger. "You hardly look different," she mused, then laughed deep in her throat. "You must have been nearly perfect as you were."
     
    The compliment pleased him, though it seemed vain to admit.
     
    "I am sleepy," he confessed, watching her through pleasantly drowsy eyes. "If I let myself go under, will I forget what you have done?"
     
    She smoothed his brow beneath her thumb. "I am not sure but I do not think so. Auriclus never taught me to blank a mind. Not that it matters. I would not alter your memory. I trust you with my secrets more than I trust myself."
     
    This compliment he accepted without shame. "I shall strive," he said huskily, "to be worthy of your esteem."
     
    ***
    HE woke to a subtle twang inside his body. Sunset. It was almost a taste, like water from a spring: sweet, pure, the darkling dawn of his new day. At some point, he and Luisa had rolled out of bed onto the carpet. Despite the fading light, his vision was crystal clear. Different. Changed. I am upyr now, he thought. I am a foreign being. The recognition inspired exhilaration instead of fear. Maybe tomorrow would bring regret. For tonight he was simply glad.
     
    He shifted, oddly at home in his altered form. The nerves in his back were alive to every strand of Kashmir wool. Luisa, bless her, lay sleeping across his chest. She was warm even now, or possibly he'd grown cooler. Her skin still felt like burnished silk. Desire overwhelmed him, sharper and harder than before. If this was what upyr felt, he did not know how she had held off. Too impatient to wake her, he rolled her under his body and thrust inside.
     
    "Mm," she said, and cocked her calf around his hip. "I like an early riser."
     
    The act was easier now, more natural. The rhythm came without duress. His arms were tireless, his thighs like tempered steel. And the pleasure… that was a roaring flood. When he threw back his head in climax her nails left approving half-moon pricks against his skin. Sadly, they had healed by the time she climbed atop and began to ride. He would have liked to bear her mark, just as the sages promised in the sutras. That one small disappointment, however, could not allay his joy.
     
    As if she sensed this, she smiled through her flaxen hair. "You are not hungry," she said, wonder growing in her eyes.
     
    Martin gripped her waist. "Only for you," he said, and thrust as deeply as he could. "From now on only for you."
     
    ***
    "SHALL I come with you?" she asked. She stood before him, her head lowered, her hands resting lightly on his breast. She was the picture of the wife he had not known he wanted.
     
    "No," he said, "I have delayed this long enough."
     
    She smiled at that, a secretive curling of her mouth. Since sunset they had put everything off but love. On the floor. Against the wall. Standing. Sitting. Twice they had even done it head to toe.
     
    He had liked that. He thought it was a thing a god would do.
     
    "I do not care what you say," he grumbled even as his body stirred again. "This incessant desire for coupling cannot be normal."
     
    Her hands flowed seductively across his shoulders. "I did not say it was normal, I said it was natural. You were a healthy young man. Now you are a healthy upyr. Given your history, how could you not have numerous unmet urges to fulfill?"
     
    "But I am turning into a fiend!"
     
    She looked at him, her eyes round with concern. "Is that what you think? That I made you a fiend?"
     
    "No, my love, no." He kissed her alabaster forehead. "I am merely feeling guilty for enjoying this so much. Or, rather, I am feeling guilty for not feeling guilty enough."
     
    Her face lit up, as sunny as daybreak. "You called me your love."
     
    He laughed. "You are my love. And now I must go, before you convince me I cannot."
     
    She nuzzled the hollow beneath his throat. "Are you certain you don't want me to talk to the abbot with you?"
     
    "I am," he said. "This task is mine alone