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The first wolf staggers unceremoniously to life an hour or so before midnight. Delilah hadn’t muddled with the shape of it, overmuch, so it still mostly resembles a wolf – Sylas counts four limbs, a muzzle, two eyes, something that he could generously call a tail. It’s only that the pelt is replaced with wet marbling of muscle and bone; the beast is thorned in odd places, newly furred with muscle striations, and its half-wings creak and moan with every twitch of its horrid corpse. Its tongue unfurls from its mouth and hits the laboratory floor with a dry non-sound; once there, it starts to crawl around. Looking for something. (Sylas resists the urge to leap out of his chair, squealing, like a virgin maid seeing a rat.)
Delilah is beaming. Her hands are clasped under her chin; her eyes are all lit up, two jars of fresh hot lightning. Had either of them ever been inclined towards children, Sylas imagines that this is the way she would look at their firstborn child. Effusive, triumphant, loving. On the edge of tears.
She flings out her hands to the thing and it attempts a growl before it limps and stumbles over to her stool to put its rotten face in her palms. She paws at its jowls, coos at it, scratches behind its ears. (She’s going to get flesh under her fingernails again.) It tries very loyally to wag the horror that used to be its tail.
Sylas observes. He sits silently in his armchair and he observes: Delilah bidding the wolf to turn this way and that so she can prod at it, measure the give to its flesh, stroke her fingers down the white lengths of its bones. “Good boy,” she murmurs under her breath, her voice gone dreamy and hot. “What a good boy. So perfect. Wag – yes, yes, just like that. So obedient. What a marvel you are. Let me see your teeth.”
The wolf opens its mouth; its second, smaller mouth also opens. Delilah reaches her hand inside and sort of – rummages around. Her attention skitters off around the room while she gropes at it; finally (finally), it lands on Sylas.
“Oh,” she says, which means I forgot you were there. Her cheeks flush. “Hello. It worked.”
Fondness grabs Sylas’ dead heart in one hand and squeezes. “Of course it worked,” he says with helpless affection. “Delilah, you’ve brought back giants.”
“I didn’t modify the giants.”
“Well,” Sylas says, “now you know you can.”
Delilah lets out a hum of pleasure; her attention drifts down to the wolf again, and she takes her hand out of its mouth. In her palm she is holding one perfect yellow tooth. “There,” she coos to the wolf. “Is that better? Show me.”
The wolf’s jaw unhinges; once again, its tongue slaps the floor. Then that red tongue slithers forward across the tile to begin wrapping itself around Delilah’s ankle. It loves her; of course it loves her. All of her constructs love her. Everything in this world that has been touched by Delilah’s hands loves her just the way that Sylas does: monstrously.
Delilah watches the tongue creep up her leg, bit by bit; her face is focused and considering. “Could be useful,” she mutters to herself. “Restraints...there’s no beating cold iron, of course, but…and mobility…” and then she looks at Sylas, and stops. Does a double-take. Her face blows wide open with surprise.
“Sylas,” she says.
He has the sudden feeling he’s in trouble, although he doesn’t know what for. Not agreeing that she should use wolf tongues as handcuffs? He says, “Delilah.”
“My love,” she says. “My only love. My red heart.”
Sylas’ eyebrows climb higher with each word of affection. “Yes?”
“Are you,” Delilah says. “Are you...jealous? Of the wolf?”
“No,” Sylas says immediately.
Delilah’s mouth twitches with a repressed, incredulous smile; she looks down at the wolf, whose tongue has laced her up all the way to the knee. (Of course he’s jealous.) Looks back at Sylas. Looks down at the wolf again. “Really?”
“No,” Sylas says. “Don’t be ridiculous. Unless you’re planning on leaving this workroom with that thing, and keeping me in a heap in the corner—”
“Never.”
“—then what do I have to be—”
“Sylas.”
“Delilah.”
Delilah laughs; the sound is a bell ringing, a drink of ice-cold water, a falcon ripping the sky open as it dives. With an imperious twitch of her hand, the wolf collapses to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she says, still fighting the smile as she kicks her foot free of the now-limp tongue. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. Darling, I love you. In what possible universe—”
The skin of Sylas’ face informs him dourly that if it had the capacity, it would be flushed. He frantically considers denying it all again; he dismisses the idea at once, on account of the fact that Delilah isn’t an imbecile. He doesn’t have time to think of a second plan before his mouth opens and the words fall out: “I want to—”
He manages to catch himself there, but it’s too late: the words are out. Reverberating.
“You want…” Delilah says.
Well, everything. All of it. He wants to be every dead thing in Exandria; he wants to be the arcane spark in the air that Delilah pulls to life with a twist of her fingers. He wants to lie down on Delilah’s table and let her cut him open and touch every single red piece of him, and murmur wonder to herself, and take notes. He wants to be her boots. He wants to be the laces of her dress, and her hairpins, and the powder she dusts on her eyelids. He wants to have a ten-foot tongue to wrap around her calf, so he can feel her heartbeat nuzzle at his tastebuds; he wants to be her armor, her sword, her breath and her bones. Yes, he wants. He always wants. Monstrously.
“I want to be good for you,” he says.
“You are good for me. There’s nothing in this world as good—”
“I know. I’m being – I don’t know why I—”
“Sylas,” Delilah says, and Sylas’ mouth snaps shut with an audible sound. He watches his wife lick her lips. Softly, she says: “Do you want the collar?”
The arm of Sylas’ chair creaks, which is how Sylas realizes he is digging his claws into it. He winces and withdraws them. Clears his throat. Says hoarsely, “I didn’t...I…” His voice is just too shrill: “You still have it?”
“Mmhm.” Delilah’s face is placid, still. Waiting to take its cue from him.
“Do you still have…”
The face cracks; Delilah ducks her chin, looks away. A blush is licking tenderly at the apples of her cheeks. “I know,” she says. “I should have taken more books. There was a pre-Calamity te—”
“But you didn’t take the books.”
Delilah looks at Sylas again. Her eyes on him: a knife at his throat, a plunge into frigid black water.
“No,” she says. “I didn’t take the books.”
Sylas aches. Not for the first time – and certainly not for the last – he thinks: I would do anything for you. Ask me for anything. Just ask me. It’s yours. He feels his nails gouging at the wood; he would do anything, anything.
Instead of saying that (he has said it a thousand times), he says: “Would you?”
“Oh,” Delilah says, “if I must.” Her mouth twists into a pleased little shape. “You want it?”
“Yes.” Sylas drags his tongue over his lower lip, adds: “Please.”
Delilah’s face softens. “Anything,” she whispers. “Anything. Only ask for it.” She rises; she holds out her hand to him. “Come along.”
Sylas comes to heel with great relief. Soporific, that relief – his limbs weigh down with it, his whole body flushes blood-warm. He wants to lie down, rest his head in Delilah’s lap – only for the certainty that she’d know what to do with it, his head, his body, his life. Sylas is drowsy with it: Delilah will take care of it. I don’t have to worry. She knows.
She tucks herself under his arm like a bright little bird as they move through the hallways of Castle Whitestone. “Sylas?”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember the word?”
The laugh trickles out of him softly. “Lilac. Yes.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Delilah says. “Things were muddled for you. At the end.” Her voice is strained, warm: “I thought it might not be a priority.”
“Every memory of you was a priority,” Sylas says; he fishes out the key, unlocks the door to their chambers. He doesn’t have to see Delilah’s face to know the expression on it. “Lying on my deathbed, I could only comfort myself by remembering you and that riding crop—”
“Sylas—”
“And you can’t let yourself get weighed down thinking about the tragedy of it all, my love, or we’ll be here all night.” Sylas unlocks the door; in the same motion he catches his wife around the waist, twirls her into the room, closes the door behind them. And then he has her up against the door – Delilah – that old black sorrow bleeding into her eyes, yes, but her cheeks so beautifully flushed with living blood. Oh, he wants her. He always wants her. He wants to hook her legs over his shoulders and lap at her until she’s totally unraveled, a loose wet blur of pleasure, so soft and so warm—
“Down,” Delilah says, and Sylas’ knees hit the floor before his mind can catch up with him and there he is, on the floor, vaguely befuddled and already half-roused.
“Right,” he says, mostly to himself.
“Shh,” Delilah says. She puts a finger under his chin, tips his head up lightly so he’s looking at her. Oh, Delilah, Delilah. Her bright eyes. That cruel smile tugging at her mouth like a rusty fishhook. Her thumb wanders to his upper lip, pushes; Sylas raises his lip obligingly, and Delilah presses the flat of her thumb to the place where his incisor meets his gum.
“Gagging you,” she says, “would be a production. You aren’t going to make me do that.”
She doesn’t even make it a question; she just tells him. Delilah Delilah Delilah.
At his silence, she says: “Good boy.”
She says this to him not infrequently – she tosses this sort of praise around like it’s inexpensive, weightless. Sometimes it is weightless. The boy helping her into the carriage, the guard taking off his gorget, the wolves – all the carcasses – and Sylas, always (he’s good for her) (he is).
It isn’t weightless here. It’s heavy. The sound it coaxes from Sylas’ throat is a strangled little whine.
Delilah laughs. She cups Sylas’ face in both hands. “My love,” she says warmly, “I haven’t even fetched the collar yet.”
He knows.
“You do need it, don’t you?”
He does.
“Well,” Delilah says – more to herself than anything – “far be it from me to…”
She takes in a breath. She lets it out. “Clothes off,” she says, and she leaves him.
...not really. It is impossible for Delilah to leave Sylas now, as long as she’s in the same room as him – he hears her, smells her, breathes her. He could find her anywhere. Her heartbeat is, as always, his only anchor.
Where? There. Just there, crossing the carpet to the bed; under the bed; rummaging through the trunk. Sylas is good for her: he doesn’t move, he doesn’t look for her. He dismantles the costume of Lord Briarwood piece by patient piece. Undoing the cufflinks, the buttons, the ties and the knots. Taking himself apart for her, always. Until he’s bare.
Her footsteps on the carpet. Her hands on his neck, gods. Sketching out the shape of a strangulation but never quite following through.
“Good boy,” she says. Her voice wavers roughly on that first vowel. If he breathed in, he could smell her: desire. He doesn’t breathe in. He’s good, he’s a good boy. He stares at the wallpaper. He is so still. He could wait forever. He could do anything forever, if she only asked him to.
“Such a good boy,” she murmurs. “I don’t even need this, do I?”
But she would never be cruel to him: the black collar closes inexorably around his throat. When he makes a sound, it isn’t a word – he isn’t disobeying, he wouldn’t – it’s only a sound. Pleasure, desire, yearning. The collar closes tight around his neck. Click.
“Good?” she says.
Yes. Yes. It’s heady. Her fingers trailing through his hair, curling into the strands and tugging: bright silver sparks. Impossible for anything to be better.
“You like it?” she says. Her pull on his hair is unyielding – it demands that he tip his head back, bare his collared throat. He does.
“You like being my dog?”
He does.
She hums, releases her grip on his hair, presses herself to his back; her hands move leisurely along his body, petting at him, scratching featherlight fingernails over his skin.
“I know,” she murmurs. “Being a person is hard, isn’t it. Thinking. Deciding. Much easier to let me handle it.”
Yes.
“I’ll take care of you.”
Yes, yes.
“My good boy. My perfect boy. My love, my love my love.”
A whimper escapes him. She laughs: velvet, violet, chamomile.
“Alright,” she says. “Yes, I know. I know.” Her hand snakes back up his throat, grips his chin, presses the back of his skull to her body; he relaxes, leans into her. Invisible hands drag black silk up the side of his face. Before the blindfold takes his vision, he lets himself look at her – Delilah – flushed pink and pretty with desire, her breath coming fast, her face gone sharp with a lover’s exquisite cruelty. When she meets his gaze, she beams at him and winks.
Click goes the ring at the base of his cock. Magician’s trick. Misdirection. She knew he’d look at her, she knew he couldn’t look anywhere else – her fingers cradling his chin, her palm resting on his throat. Her arcane hands drawing the blindfold over his eyes, tying it. Her face the last thing he sees. He’s so aroused that it hurts, throbs in the pit of his belly – but she has the ring on him, so it’s alright. He won’t come until she says. He doesn’t need to worry. She’ll take care of it, she’ll take care of him.
Pure, perfect darkness. Then her voice: “You look so pretty like this...tied up with a bow. Like a present. Oh, my lovely wolfhound. Shall I take you for a walk?”
He whines.
“You’d like that? I’d like that.” She would: her hips are twitching slightly against him, faint little tics of desire. “I want to show you off, darling. How good you are for me.” He wants. “How special.” Oh he wants. “Have you crawling behind me through the castle, just like this. On your hands and knees. Leaking on the carpets. You’d clean up your mess, wouldn’t you?”
He isn’t whining anymore, he’s gasping. Desperate with desire. He’d do it, he’d do it, anything. Anything she wanted. To lick his own impotent seed from some dusty carpet would be the apex of his life. Please. Please, Delilah, please.
She lets out a shaky breath, shifts; her mouth comes to his ear. “But I won’t share you,” she says, voice gone dark and hoarse. “You’re all mine. Now come.”
She hooks her fingers through his collar and tugs, so he tumbles after her on hands and knees. Distantly, he feels the carpet shredding apart underneath his shaking hands – no, no, he’s good, he’s good. He’s a good boy he’s good. When she nudges him towards the bed, he clambers onto it so gently and so carefully. No damage. He presses his face to the bedspread and breathes in the smell, greedy for it: her sweat, her slick, her lotion. The peculiar non-smell of his living dead body, his presence only detectable through its absence. Their bed. It smells like them. He shudders relief, drags his face against the fabric.
She taps lightly at his upper thigh. “Up.” He lifts his rear into the air, spreads his legs: “Good boy. Can you hold it?”
Of course he can. He can do anything for her.
“Let me know if you can’t.”
He makes a sort of humming moan against the bedspread.
“Mmhm.” Her fingers tickle at the hair on his thighs, draw idle circles there, move upwards – slow, torturously slow, until finally she has her hands splayed over his rear. She gives him a quick squeeze; he jerks his hips forward, even though he knows it won’t come to anything.
“Relax,” she breathes; she squeezes, fondles, plays with him. Her dog. Her toy. “Let go, my darling. So good for me. So relaxed, so pliant. You don’t need to worry, my love. You don’t need to worry about anything.”
If she says so, then it’s true: he lets himself relax, loosens each muscle until he’s just as good for her as she says he is. Relaxed. Pliant. His whole world reduces to the movements of her hands – the heels rubbing circles, her thumbs teasing him open. Flirting around the edge of his hole. He wants her inside of him so badly, but he doesn’t need to worry about that. She’ll know when. She always knows.
There: one finger, newly slick, pushing into him and then curling. Her wicked fingers. Her beautiful hands, he loves her hands. Wants them inside of him. Wants to be her puppet. That one finger pressing into him, circling, teasing, too slow and too sweet and not nearly enough. He moans into the bedspread, rocks his hips backwards pleadingly into the promise of her hand--
—which instantly withdraws. “Bad dog,” she says, and slaps the inside of his thigh; he twitches, whimpers. Sorry I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’ll be good.
“I know,” she breathes. “You want to be good. You’re being so good. Just a little while longer, hm?”
But he wants her hands. Her hands: petting at his thighs soothingly. “I don’t want to hurt you, love.”
He wouldn’t mind.
“But you’re so…”
He wants her to.
She lets out a breathy laugh. “Dogs don’t give orders, my love. Are you pulling at the leash? Hm?”
He would give anything to be on her leash. To be pulled exactly where she wants him to go. Blindfolded, restrained. Her dumb animal. Anything.
“I was going to take my time with you,” she murmurs, and there – yes – her finger pressing slyly back into him, filling him up again. Slicking him. This time he doesn’t ask for more: he’s a good boy, he’s her good boy.
“But you really are so tempting,” she says. “You make me want to eat you up.”
A second finger, yes, yes. She’s set a faster pace this time; she’s thrusting into him, a sweet friction that’s just barely on the edge of pain. Each thrust brings her closer to that throbbing cluster of nerves, that potential of pleasure – but he’s good he’s good. He’s good he’s good he’s good so good. He doesn’t beg for it. She knows. She decides. He just takes it, like a good boy.
Three fingers now. Stretching him open. He’s drooling on the bedspread; his whole body is limp, just a thing for her to stretch open and use. A soft sheath for her knife. He loves being soft for her. Loves it. He’s moaning already, even before she brushes up against – ah – and her gentle laughter, so bright and so fond. She’s teasing him. Playing with him. Good, he’s her toy. Good.
“Can you take a fourth?” she says.
He could. Easily. Anything she wants. But he doesn’t need it, he doesn’t. He’s ready for her. Surely she can tell – she’s slicked him up so well that he’s dripping onto the bed. Her fingers slip-slide inside of him with no resistance. He’ll feel so good to her when she finally pushes into him, he’ll be so warm.
“Sweetheart,” she says. “I need an answer. Be a good boy, hm?”
But the words are very far away. He whimpers: please.
“Gods,” she says. “Gods. I can’t – I’m sorry. Tell me if it hurts.”
She takes her hand away; it hurts. The absence of it hurts. He howls for her, whines – and he feels a faint prickling pressure and then relief as her arcane hand slips its fingers inside of him to fill the empty space. He relaxes into it. Her touch, still. Even though she’s...somewhere. Where? He doesn’t know. The sound of her heart. Other sounds. He wishes she was touching him. But even this is perfect – the hand keeps perfect time, you could set a metronome by it. She’s always so precise. So steady. She’s close now; he hears her fingers in the jar of oil, hears her slicking herself up. The soft hitch of her breathing, the rattling beat of her beautiful heart.
She isn’t going to use four fingers. She’s just going to take him. The thought relaxes him, makes him so sweet and so easy that he feels on the edge of falling asleep. Even the pleasure of those arcane fingers isn’t enough to stir him.
All at once, the spell abates; he feels the wet tip of her rod rest gently on the base of his spine.
“You’re so lovely,” she says. “Unbearably lovely. Are you ready, my love?”
But she doesn’t wait for an answer: she starts pushing into him. Slowly. She stretches him open bit by bit – more than her fingers, more than the arcane hand. She isn’t terribly thick but she’s long, curved – bought it for him, just for him – and when she pushes forward she grinds on his prostate in a way that makes him see stars. Fireworks. The sun (he’d forgotten about the sun).
“Does it hurt?” she says breathlessly.
No. He could take more. Wants to take more. This body, she doesn’t need to be easy with him. But she is. She loves him. He loves her too. He arches his back, pushes insistently against the toy: it doesn’t hurt. I want more. Please.
“Well,” she says, “alright,” and she grabs on to his hips and starts to thrust.
She takes him like he’s a bitch in heat. He’s panting like one, moaning like one, slick and dripping from every orifice; she hits him at the perfect angle with each rough thrust, and it feels like a series of incandescent small deaths. Over and over again he feels orgasm shudder through him – only to be stopped when it reaches the base of his cock, where the ring holds him in a tight grip. Steady. Steady. Not for you. Just for her. He’s unmade with pleasure, blurry and dizzy from it: the overwhelming surge, the lack of release, it all just boils through him. He swears he hears her – feels her – climax, but she doesn’t let up. On and on and on and on. The wet squelching of flesh as his body does what it’s meant to do, and takes her.
“So good,” she says, her voice breathless and chopped into disconnected syllables. “So – so – ah, Sylas. Good boy. Such a good boy, good dog, oh. You like it?”
He doesn’t answer her, can’t – and her hand finds the collar, pulls. Yanks his head backwards. Oh, she knows he can take it, she knows he doesn’t need to breathe, she knows, he loves her, he’s hers and she owns him and he’s hers and he loves her, she knows.
“Tell me,” she growls. “Tell me you like it.”
He drools, babbles incoherently. Uh, guh. Ah. The sound makes her laugh; the laugh sends another pulse of pleasure through him, so he moans louder. Her fingers white-knuckle on the collar. Her thrusts are getting slower, sloppier – her breath is heaving – and each exhalation has its own sweet sound, somewhere between a whine and a moan. She’s close, she has to be close. This time she’ll let him feel it. He wants to feel it. He wants to hear the sound she makes when she is satisfied by him—
There. She lets go of him to dig her claws into the plane of his back, scrabble at him, gasp – ah, ah, ah, ah, ah – and then all at once she shudders and goes still. Her sweat-warm forehead lands between his shoulderblades; if he listens, he can hear the faint sound of her toes curling in the carpet. Climax draws her impossibly taut before its ebb releases her, leaves her slumping into him. She’s heaving for breath. He isn’t. Her breath moves both of them. Every time she exhales, her breasts rub into his back in a way that makes him ravenous. But he isn’t a wild animal, he doesn’t disobey, he stays still. He’s good, he’s good for her, he’s good.
Her shaking hand finds his back, pushes, levers her back up to standing. “Ah,” she says. “Mm. Hah.” Carefully, shakily, she pulls herself out of him; he clenches around the toy, like he could keep it there, but he can’t keep it there. It slips free of him. Her hand on his back is the only real thing in the world.
“Are you still with me, my darling?”
He spreads his legs wider for her, helpful and hopeful.
She laughs (he’s good!). “No,” she says, “you’ve done so well. So well. Such a good boy. I want you on your back now. Can you do that for me?”
Of course he can. Of course he does. He wriggles over, feels the cold wet stains of the bedspread on his back.
“So beautiful,” she says when he’s settled. She strokes the inside of his thighs, drags her hands along the hair of his belly; she traces her fingernails lightly around his nipples, which makes him groan. Her hands he loves her hands. He loves when she pets him, he loves it; he hopes she scratches behind his ears. But no: her fingers find the blindfold, slip gently underneath it.
“I want you to do a trick for me,” she murmurs. “Do you think you can?”
“Mmm.”
“Oh, you’re so good. So wonderful. My special boy. I’m going to take the blindfold off, alright?”
Of course it’s alright, if she wants it. And she does: she pushes the blindfold up, gently, slowly. The room comes back to him in pieces, in all sorts of pieces; he lets it all blur away. If he needs to care about it, she’ll tell him. Otherwise it’s nothing.
He looks at her.
Delilah, Delilah.
She’s naked except for the harness; arousal has smeared a blush all over her face, down her chest. Her hair is slipping loose from its pins to fall in coils down to her shoulders. The harness looks so good on her that it should be impossible – stark black ink drawn on pale skin, the tease of pink lines where the leather has rubbed her. He wants to rub her. He wants to taste those lines. He wants the rod – still wet, just for him. Jutting between her legs like it was meant to be there. It was. It is. He loves her, loves her.
Her hand rises, cradles the toy in an easy grip. She’s noted his attention. “I want you to help me take it off, lovely. Do you think you can?”
“Mhm.”
“You’ll need to be very careful.”
“Mmhm.”
She leans forward, rakes her other hand through his hair. Her face is soft and fond. “I know you can. My perfect love. Don’t hurt me, hm?”
Never, not ever.
“I know you wouldn’t.” She kisses his forehead and then straddles his body, walks herself up the length of him until she is settled over his mouth. She’s holding the rod in one hand, still, to keep it away from his face. He can finally see the other end of the toy – she’s soaking wet around it, her lips twitching as she keeps it in. He wishes his mouth was there instead. Licking her up. But that isn’t what she asked for, so he arches his head up until he can press his tongue to one of those thin leather straps: “Gods. Yes. Good boy.”
He has to be careful. He wants to taste her, he can’t taste her, he isn’t allowed; he curls his tongue around the strap to hold it in place, and carefully slides his upper teeth between the material and her skin. (She’s so warm, so soft—) He doesn’t let even one fang scrape against her. When he bites down, the leather parts like butter; Delilah chokes on her own sound of desire.
“Gods,” she says, voice starting to slur at the edges. “I knew you’d be perfect. Again.”
Again. (He can feel her pulse on his tongue, he can taste just a hint of her veins. She’s so sweet. He isn’t allowed, he’s good, he won’t hurt her.)
The toy sags and shifts inside of her; she bites back a moan. “Sylas. Yes. Here, let me—” She leaves his mouth before he gets a taste of her – but when she settles further down his body he gets to watch as she pulls the rod out slow. She moans as it leaves her; her eyelashes flutter, her mouth opens into a perfect o. Her sex releases the toy with great reluctance. It’s coated with slick; both ends are. (His mouth is watering.)
She smiles at him. “You’re drooling.”
He is. He lets his tongue loll out hopefully.
“That can’t be what you want. Is it?” And her hand cradles the throbbing pulsing burn of his erection; his head goes back, he makes an unholy sound. Again his body says: release. Again that tide surges through him, finds no exit, boils him.
“That’s what I thought,” Delilah says. She shimmies out of the cut-open remains of the harness and – and – and she undoes the ring, she pulls it off of him. Just the faint brush of metal against him is almost enough to set him off, but he holds on: she hasn’t said it’s alright yet. She hasn’t, she hasn’t, he’s good, he’s good.
“Good boy,” she murmurs. “Such a good boy. So obedient. So sweet. So good for me.” She gets up on her knees, right above his cock; if he thrust up, he’d be inside of her. He can feel the heat of her sex from here. He wants it so much that it hurts – but better than that, the sound of her voice: “Nothing better. Oh, sweetheart. It’s all colorless, except for you. I hope you understand that.”
She lowers herself onto him slowly. “Only you,” she says. (She’s so warm.) “Only you, for me. I don’t want anything else.” (She feels so good.) “I don’t love anything else. You have my heart in your hands.”
She has him fully inside of her, now. Her eyes are glassy, her lips parted; she’s panting for breath in a way that makes her chest heave enticingly. She splays her shaking hands on his stomach. It is taking everything he has to not move, to not instantly climax. He can feel her heartbeat.
“Sylas,” she says.
Sylas looks back to her. Meets her eyes.
“I love you,” she says. “I love you. Finish as you like, alright? You’ve been so good, you don’t need to wait. Hm?”
Oh, he loves her too. He loves her too.
Delilah smiles; she grinds down, taking him all the way, and that one push – just a small movement – undoes him.
Climax.
Like slamming face-first into a wall, like getting punched repeatedly by a god – endless and painful and brilliant, sparks, light. The distant awareness of Delilah, the way she’s riding him through it all. Her hands on his stomach, on his chest. His anchor. Holding him down so he doesn’t fly away, so he doesn’t explode into starlight.
When orgasm lets him go again, she’s still there: moving her hips in slow, tiny circles, her eyes locked on his eyes. From the look on her face, he assumes he made a good show.
She feels so good. He should tell her. But when he opens his mouth, loose syllables fall out without meaning.
“Mm,” Delilah says. “I see.” She leans forward over him; loose strands of her hair tickle his skin. “But I’d like you to come back, please. Come home now.”
And she kisses him. Delilah’s mouth: a miracle, a treasure snuck past the gods and delivered to Sylas’ doorstep by some impossible twist of fate. She nips so lightly at his lip, licks at his mouth until he opens up and kisses her back. Her mouth makes Sylas aware of his mouth; her hands make him aware of his chest, his torso; the wet silk heat of her brings him back down, so he’s all the way in his body again. Exhausted and satisfied. Alive again. Hers.
She stops kissing him, leans back. She’s picked up her rhythm again – they’ve had the time to process the last climax, start looking thoughtfully towards the next. Every time Delilah rolls her hips down, her breasts swing in Sylas’ face and his mouth waters. Oh, every bit of her makes his mouth water. He could eat her alive if she’d come back after. If she’d climb out of his throat and eat him too.
“Sylas?” she gasps.
“Delilah.”
The right answer: the smile cracks her face wide open, shows him her teeth. “There you are,” she says. “Ah. I’m close. Are you?”
“Very.”
“Mm. Good. Do you feel better?”
“Mmmhm.”
She lifts a hand to trace her fingers over the collar. “Don’t ever,” she says. “Don’t ever – oh. Gods. I—” She digs her nails into his chest; the motion of her hips is impatient, grinding in smaller and smaller circles to find the exact spot that will bring her the most pleasure. Sylas lifts one of his heavy hands and circles her clit until she’s groaning, yowling, until – yes – and Delilah has her third, maybe her fourth, maybe her fifth. Surely she kept track. He doesn’t need to. She knows everything, she always knows.
He’s quick to follow her, always. Spilling inside of her. They take their pleasure together until it ends, and Delilah pulls herself shakily off of him and collapses down onto the bedspread. She’s breathless again. Sylas would presumably be breathless as well, if he breathed.
But he doesn’t breathe, so instead he just rolls over onto his side and leans forward to lick Delilah’s cheek.
“Disgusting,” Delilah says, instantly and without heat.
“I wanted,” Sylas says. “Wanted to lick your feet. Your calves. You’re right. I was jealous.”
Delilah turns her head to look at him. “As the sun is jealous of the moons, my love.”
Sylas does take in a breath, then, even though he doesn’t need it – just to feel the comforting weight of her collar in the hollow of his throat. Quietly: “Am I your favorite?”
“Until the stars go out,” Delilah says. “And past that as well. You never, ever need doubt that. My love. Although...we did both enjoy ourselves tonight, hm? So perhaps a little doubt is warranted. From time to time. As long as it only lasts until the collar’s on.”
“You could keep it on me all the time,” Sylas says. “You could put me on a leash. You could do anything to me, Delilah.”
Delilah exhales in an almost-laugh. “I do forget,” she says, “how this sort of play leaves you punch-drunk. I’m not going to collar you, but only because I love you too much.” She rolls over to mirror him; she takes his face in the palm of her hand. “You aren’t my dog. You’re my partner. In every life and every death. I don’t want you crawling around on the ground. I want you next to me, always.”
Sylas kisses the heel of her hand. “But,” he says, because he can’t help himself: “I’m your good boy.”
Delilah rolls her eyes. “I’m taking the collar off. And then I’m going to fetch you someone for supper, because you seem to need it.” Sure enough, her clever fingers find the buckle of the collar; she undoes it, she leaves his neck cold.
“Delilah,” Sylas says. His voice cracks.
“Hm?”
Again, more urgently: “I’m your good boy?”
Delilah exhales, leaves the collar undone on the bed. Her warm hands close around his throat.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes. My sweet boy, my good boy, my hunting hound and my dear lapdog. You are the only thing in this world that I want to stay itself, and not die and become an extension of me. It’s only you. It’s always you. And you’re a very good dog.” She taps his nose. “Good?”
“Good,” Sylas says. “Thank you. I love you.”
Delilah’s face softens even more. “I love you too. Now let me take care of you, hm?”
“You already did. You already do.”
“Mhm.” Delilah sits up abruptly, pushes her hair over her shoulder, starts looking around for her clothes. At the edge of the bed, she pauses – looks back at Sylas – and then, quickly, she reaches down and scratches behind his ear. He was right: it feels absolutely perfect.