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“I’m… not uninterested,” he said carefully. “I don’t like the idea of hurting you, though.”

Wolf smiled fondly, tugging his shirt off and letting it fall to the floor beside the couch. “You won’t hurt me, seidhr, but I can do the cutting if it bothers you.”

“Maybe.”

Wolf nodded, guiding Ira to straddle his lap as he took the knife and pressed it to his chest. “I heal quickly, so don’t worry about cutting too deep. Besides, this isn’t a holy blade. It won’t do any real damage. The only risk here is the mess.”

He pressed the tip into his skin, watching the way Ira’s expression twisted with concern. He made an inch-long incision and then moved the knife out of the way as black blood trickled toward his nipple.

Deep brown eyes flickered briefly to his, and then Ira ducked his head. His tongue grazed Wolf’s nipple as he lapped up the blood, latching his mouth onto the wound as it healed. Sparks of pleasure-pain fizzled in his brain. His cock hardened rapidly, and he couldn’t stop the moan that left him.

Ira raised his head, his eyes alight. “Oh, this turns you on.” He shook his head at himself. “Duh, of course it does. I should’ve known.”

Wolf’s body shook with laughter. He’d laughed more since meeting Ira than he’d laughed in a decade. “Yes,” he admitted, “it does.”

Ira held out a hand, and with a shiver, Wolf handed over the knife. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d trusted anyone enough to be this vulnerable. The last time he got off with another person was two years ago. He’d picked up someone random from the club and gone back to their place. It was a perfunctory fuck, nothing special. He certainly hadn’t trusted them enough to give them a blade and permission to use it on him. Even people who knew what went on at In Extremis rarely indulged in those darker desires at home. It was a novelty for most of their human customers. And given his intimidating size, most people expected him to be the dominant one—which was fine most of the time. But sometimes he wanted something more.

It made it all the more exciting when Ira’s fingers wrapped around his throat and urged his head back. Wolf went pliant, his front open like a flower blooming inthe light, sprawling back against the armrest and baring himself for this precious, incredible human. Staring up at the ceiling like this, he didn’t know where the pain would appear next. He squirmed, his hands fitting over Ira’s thighs, squeezing tightly.

This time it was a vertical line between his pecs, a quick slash, there and gone, followed by the heat of Ira’s tongue, licking over the wound and then spearing the tip against it. Endorphins flooded Wolf’s brain, the pain bright like starbursts behind his eyes. He moaned, his hands drifting up to Ira’s hips and guiding his weight over Wolf’s cock, giving him something to grind up against.

“Oh, you like this alot,” Ira crooned, pressing the blade to his other pec and sealing his mouth over the fresh cut, scraping it hard with his teeth to draw out more blood.

The next press of the blade was just shy of his areola, circling his nipple, and Ira tossed the knife to the coffee table, latching his mouth over the wound. His tongue laved at the wound, flicking his nipple with each pass, and then teeth closed around the wound as Ira’s hand plunged into Wolf’s sweatpants, wrapping around his length and stripping him with long, sure strokes. Wolf moaned to the ceiling, fucking up into Ira’s grip as best as he could with Ira’s weight on his legs. It made him feel trapped in the best way, forced to sit there and take whatever Ira wanted to give him.

“Oh, fuck, yeah, just like that,” Wolf murmured.

Ira bit his way across Wolf’s chest to the other nipple, sucking it into his mouth and clamping down around it hard enough to send Wolf writhing. Sparks of heat shot through him.

“Harder, harder,” he whined, and he didn’t know whether he meant Ira’s hand on his cock or his teeth on hischest. Ira obliged with both, biting down on his pectoral so hard his teeth popped through the skin and tightening his hand until Wolf’s cock barely fit in his grip, squeezed like a vise.

He came with a whimper, his seed leaving white stripes across his stomach, and Ira raised his head, grinning brightly like he’d just gotten an A on an exam. A droplet of black blood clung to his bottom lip.

“You look very pretty when you come,” he said, and Wolf had to contend with a very unfamiliar reaction—ablush.

“Only half as pretty as you,” he recovered, reeling Ira in for a long, deep kiss, tasting the remnants of his blood on Ira’s tongue.

Ira shook his head but didn’t argue.

“Time for me to return the favor?” Wolf asked, crushing Ira against him.

Ira chuckled sheepishly. “As hot as that was, I need a little more recovery time after this morning.”

Wolf hummed, peppering his neck and shoulder with kisses and hungry nips. “Going to put you on a healthy diet. Multivitamins and protein shakes. Got to get your stamina up.”

“Hey, I did just fine,” he protested. “Besides, I’m supposed to fast for visions. Like this morning. Had one before breakfast, remember?”

“And brained yourself against the wall,” Wolf grumbled.

“Well. That’s a hazard of the occupation.”

But it wasn’t an occupation. Ira didn’t choose this. It wasn’t a job he could pick up and put down. Wolf didn’t like to think that this was just the lot in life he’d been dealt, that he would always have to go hungry and risk hurting himselfbecause of thisthinghe’d been born with that was completely beyond his control.

“Humor me,” Wolf said. “You don’t have to log visions anymore. You can have them on your own time. Let me feed you before we go to In Extremis.”

Ira shrugged one shoulder. “I’m really not that hungry.”

Wolf doubted Ira could reallytellwhether he was hungry, certain he was so used to ignoring his body’s hunger signals that it wouldn’t register to him until it was urgent. He stood, holding Ira easily in his arms. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you. You barely touched breakfast and you slept through lunch. Do you like turkey? I’ll make you a sandwich.”

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