a freshly-washed Stavros.
“I didn’t think you’d be sleeping,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to be.” But I was fucking tired. It’d been a few days now since I arrived. A few days of pacing in boredom, taunting Zach with theology arguments until he got too prickly and took off. A few days of Kais watching me like a hawk, aware there was a larger predator in his territory, and not certain of what he wanted to do about it.
A few days of Stavros, circling me, scenting the air with curiosity, shame, and thick desire. As if that shit didn’t just make me hungrier when I was already approaching starving.
“I’m good, you can let me go,” I said in a rasp, but I couldn’t pull away. I didn’t like the flavors on Stavros right now, pity was a saccharine taste, and it was especially so when I knew it was directed at me.
He ignored me, lifting me from the floor with a soft grunt, rising to the couch and continuing to hold me. It was an odd kind of embrace, his arms banded around me but hands not quite touching.
“You want to talk about what was going on just then?”
“No.” I turned my head, resting my head over Stavros’ heartbeat, listening to the steady drum, the way it picked up as my legs loosened and I leaned into him, pressing my aching feet against the warm leg of his pants. “Why are you here, Stavros?”
He sighed and one hand slipped up my back, cupping the back of my neck, thumb brushing absently in the hair at my nape. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“I have days still before you need to worry.” More if he’d come to my room like this and let me soak up this strange buffet of feelings. Desire was rising gently, but so was guilt.
“Deyva, I think you should feed off of me.”
I stiffened, but when I tried to pull away the hand on the back of my neck held me still, grip careful, but firm. Desire flashed, but this time it was mine. I was hungry and tired, and Stavros was a meal.
“No. Let me go.” My own reluctance surprised me. This was what I’d been hoping for, but I didn’t want it out of pity. And I didn’t really want Stavros to give in to his self-loathing, as if he were meant to be a sacrifice to me.
“No? Then why did you come here?” He eased up and I slid off his lap and onto the cushions, the fluorescent light of the hallway still falling through the open door enough to illuminate the frown he was wearing.
“Because you were...better than where I was. I meant what I said—”
“And I meant it when I offered you sanctuary, Deyva,” Stavros said, hunching and meeting my eyes. “If you want to survive, I am the best option. I know firsthand what you are, what I’m...offering. And I’m...well, let’s just say sins of the flesh are something we have in common.”
Don’t be an idiot, just ride him like the meal ticket train he is, the hellion in me said.
A softer, older, neglected part of me wanted to say yes for an entirely different reason. One completely unrelated to my survival.
I sat up, and Stavros did too, holding my stare. His tongue flicked out over his lips as I shifted, straddling his lap, settling myself just over his crotch, but resisting the urge to grind and watch his thick eyelashes flutter with that first fall from grace he was asking for. Stavros thought he was irredeemable, like his irrepressible craving for affection—for offering it—made him the same as me.
His throat flexed as I settled my hands on his shoulders, my hair falling forward as he arched back, head against the back of the couch, chest rising and falling with quick breaths. I held his gaze as I kissed him, as the soft groan of satisfaction echoed between us as I licked around his lips. I grasped his head and Stavros’ hands gripped low on my waist, fingers digging into the top of my ass.
It was a kiss, but also a feast. He had washed himself for me, anointed himself in oils, perfumes on his freshly-trimmed beard, like an offering. A sacrifice. I sucked on his tongue and his hips rocked beneath me. Finally, I fed, pulling on the storm of desire, the twisted satisfaction he got by giving in to what he considered his sins, and that secret craving of