Nine Shillings

Spare The Rod

London - 1842

'I can't abide waiting,' I muttered, tapping a wooden rod against my knee.

Josef glanced over his shoulder at me, he was at his worktable tapping away at the wooden dragon with his chisel. 'Go looking for her then.'

'Alas waiting for her to tell me where she's going to be is quicker.' I sighed.

'Waiting will get easier as you age, time seems to pass quicker.' He turned and smiled at me. 'What's a few months in the measure of two millennia?'

I shook my head, twisting my new ring back and forth. 'I hope I don't have to wait months.'

'Sometimes the waiting makes success all the sweeter.' He put down his chisel and folded his arms making the muscles of his chest bunch. Once I wouldn't have paid any mind, now it was... interesting.

'Is that so?' I asked.

He leaned forward and rested his hands on the arms of my chair. 'The feeling of you in my arms and knowing you're with me for me is the sweetest.' He kissed me gently. 'It made the wait worthwhile.'

I smiled and rolled the rod between my fingers. 'From what you say five years is nothing to you.'

'And yet it felt like an eternity because I thought you'd never want me.'

'Nicely saved.' I pressed the rod to his chest and pushed him away.

He chuckled and settled against the table.

I bit the end of the rod thoughtfully. 'Odds on, she'll pick a place of some significance to both of us. She doesn't know the extent of my memory so it's possible I know it better than she does. Especially if it's in the old stomping grounds, I've climbed all over those places.'

Josef was staring.

'What?'

He coughed and rubbed the back of his neck. 'Do you mind not putting that rod in your mouth?'

'That was really sweet.'

'Are you laughing at me?'

'The man I thought incapable of embarrassment just got flustered asking me not to nibble a rod...' I grinned. 'Maybe a little.'

He rubbed his beard. 'I wasn't embarrassed I...' He rolled his eyes. 'It makes my dick twitch watching you chew a rod.'

I went back to tapping the rod against my knee.

'You can spank me if you want.'

'I spank Bran because he wants me to, not because I want to. There's a difference.' I got to my feet and stepped closer to him. 'I take pleasure from pleasure, but my preference is a different kind of torment.' I traced his chest with the damp end of the rod.

He took a shuddery breath, his hands gripped the edge of the worktable, and his stomach tightened.

I stopped at the top of his trousers, leaned in, and whispered, 'I will make you beg to be fucked and you'll love it.'

He licked his lips.

I flicked the rod away from him like a conductor and it whistled through the air. 'So... how's waiting now?'

He nodded. 'Harder.'

I laughed and smacked his thigh lightly with the rod. 'Chop, chop, back to work, I was enjoying the view.'

He caught my wrist, lightly, his expression so intense my toes curled in my boots. He stooped close, sniffed, nuzzled my hair, and growled softly. I swallowed, breathing deep. Josef so often appeared the perfect gentleman when he let his vampire side show it did things to me only Bran had ever been able to do. I nuzzled his beard and his breath hitched.

I touched my hand to his stomach in the gentlest caress, wiry hair, muscles, and scars. I eased my hand up, the planes of his body so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. His heart pounded against my palm. I pressed a kiss to a thick scar on his chest that cut a line through the hair. I wanted to explore every one of those scars, learn all the stories, all the secrets. His loose grip on my wrist slackened as my fingers and lips explored in soft caresses and even softer kisses.

I dropped the rod with a clatter, looped my arm around him, and drew him closer. He groaned softly, dug his fingers into my hair, and nuzzled his face into it, breathing raggedly against my ear.

I pressed my face into his chest; revelling in the feel of skin and hair, the scent of cut wood and beeswax, the sound of his pounding heart and heavy breathing. I followed the lines and ridges of the scars on his back with my fingertips, memorising each one and every sound he made under my touch.

I caught his chin, claws rasping against his beard. 'What do you want?'

His breath warmed my lips, gaze dipped to them, hungry, and he whispered, 'Everything.'

I kissed him fiercely. He lifted me like I weighed nothing. I yelped and laughed and he set me on the worktop. One boot thudded against the stone floor then the other followed by my trousers. I shoved his down and... he was inside.

Release. Not orgasm but as if some tension within me had finally snapped and everything was where it was supposed to be.

Where we were meant to be all along. Three of us, not two of us.

I wrapped myself around him, one hand gripping his shoulders and one gripping his rear as if I could pull us into each other.

'My beloved,' I whispered against his ear.

He came hard, my whisper a caress to sensitive places rarely reached, and tried to pull out as soon as his last shudders subsided.

I held him tight. 'Stay a moment. I like this bit just after.' I sighed and nuzzled his beard. 'This lovely warm, loved feeling.'

He relaxed into me with a sigh of satisfaction. 'Sorry, I'm not used to this. And sorry I came so fast.'

'Don't apologise,' I murmured, teasing his beard with my fingers. 'You don't need too.'

He groaned. 'I am going to have to get my dick out though.'

I pouted but let him shift enough to pull out then come back to our cuddle.

He kissed me, grinning ecstasy and so beautiful, then he rested his forehead against mine, breathing heavily. 'Worth the wait?'

I caressed his beard. 'You'll always be worth waiting for.'

He took a shuddery breath, eyes bright with unspoken emotion.

I kissed him to seal my promise because he would always be worth everything.