63 Touching Music

Bel

The beat of Lily’s heart against his palm was exquisite but paled in comparison to the glory of her joy.

Staying. Forever.

Bel held her a little tighter. Forever to hold her, to nuzzle into her hair, to hear her laugh and see her scowl, forever to live . All that, and the possibility of expanding their family.

His throat clogged again, and he kissed the curve of her shoulder. She smiled against his neck as she tightened her hug, fingers stroking over the sensitive bases of his wings.

Forever.

“Fucking Lev,” she murmured, smoothing one hand up the heavy arch of one wing. He shuddered at the heady prickle of sensation that fizzed up his spine. “This was supposed to be a completely good moment.”

“It is a completely good moment. Now, anyway. I don’t know if we should thank him or kill him. That is, if Greg hasn’t already gotten to him first,” Bel grumbled into her neck, unwilling to let her go.

She hummed. “Greg got to him first. I think he was dragging him up here when I arrived, but he backed off when he saw me.”

She pulled back a bit, and he let her go with reluctance. Thankfully, she just gave herself enough room to slide her hands up his chest and smile softly at him, so radiantly beautiful and his that he had to remind himself that the moment was real.

“I could never leave you.” She brushed her thumb over his cheek. “Heartbeat or no heartbeat, I was always going to choose you. You’re worth dying for,” she said, smile broadening, “but more than that, you’re worth living for too.”

His skin felt too small to contain his emotions. They closed his throat and made words impossible, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest.

Worth living for.

Of all the praise he had ever received, that was the highest.

He kissed her palm, clearing his throat enough to rasp, “Princess…”

That was all he managed.

“I know,” she said gently, an impish gleam entering her eyes. “I had the whole elevator ride to come up with that. You can knock me on my ass with something romantic later, but let me have this one.”

He barked a laugh, running a hand over his too-warm face. “Alright, you can have this one. Besides, I have better plans for your ass.”

“Go on.”

“I’m not sharing them now . This is your moment, remember?” he teased, settling a hand on her hip while the other came to rest over her beating heart.

The rhythm of it under his palm was like touching music.

Forever. The idea of it kept washing over him in waves of astonishment.

“Can I see the new tattoo?” she asked a few moments later, brushing her fingertips over the back of his hand resting on her chest. He held it out for her inspection, a thrum of nerves cutting through his elation. He swiftly pushed the fear down. She’d yielded her ability to reincarnate to stay and have a life with him in the Afterlife. One tattoo wasn’t going to change her mind.

Well, two tattoos… But he’d mention that later.

Done in black and gray, the lily was delicately crafted of clean, sweeping lines and intricate dot work, spanning the entire back of his hand and creeping slightly up his wrist and the backs of his fingers. A furled bud was tucked amongst the few abstract lines of the background, nestled close to the flower in full bloom.

His reasoning for it had been multifaceted, and he hadn’t wanted to explain it to Greg and Asmodeus when they’d seen it. They had both correctly surmised that Lily had been the inspiration and that he’d wanted to get something to remind him of her, but it was more than that. They hadn’t commented on the furled bud, perhaps assuming that it was just a way to fill in the background. It wasn’t.

He explained it to her quietly, her fingers tracing each element as he spoke.

He’d been specific about the imagery he’d wanted. A lily like the ones they’d laid on the battlefield. The flower and the bud. Lily and Sharkie. A parent and a child. In honor and in remembrance. He’d hoped that it wasn’t too cheesy to get a tattoo for her and Sharkie, and in the same breath worried that the second half of the tattoo’s meaning would render it too morbid.

“Asmodeus gave me some loving shit for it, but not nearly as much as he gave me for the, uh…other one,” Bel said, segueing brilliantly, in his opinion, into his next big reveal.

Lily peered up at him, arching an eyebrow. “The other one? I’ve seen Azzy’s back tattoo, and he still had the audacity to give you shit?”

“It’s Asmodeus,” Bel said in explanation.

Lily rolled her eyes, bringing his hand up to press a soft kiss to the center of his new tattoo. “He shouldn’t have given you any shit about this one. It’s beautiful, Bel. For all of your reasons.”

He squeezed her hip and murmured a thank-you. He’d felt fairly confident right up until his shithead cousin started giving him grief for both of his new tattoos. Greg had been supportive, though Bel hadn’t expected anything less. Greg and Lily were more similar than either of them probably cared to realize, but Lily was—with Bel anyway—the softer of the two.

Bel stepped back to give himself a bit of room and reached for the fastenings of his pants. Lily’s eyebrows rocketed upwards, surprise giving way to blatant interest that had him focusing on not getting fully hard. A worthy distraction from the nerves.

“You know how everyone keeps telling me I need to pick a motto?” he asked, fingers undoing the laces while he studied her expression.

She watched his progress with rapt attention but met his eyes at the question.

“Yeah,” she said, a smile quirking the corner of her mouth. “Don’t tell me you’re sticking with ‘Veni, Vedi, Velcro.’”

“Funny, but no,” Bel said, loosening the last lace. “An artisan will add my new motto to the door next week, but it resonated with me so much that I wanted to get a tattoo of it too. And because it was a result of your brilliance, I wanted to get it in a spot you’d appreciate.” He eased the front of his pants down just far enough to reveal the tattoo that Asmodeus had given him such grief over.

Across the lowest part of his stomach, stretching nearly from hipbone to hipbone in a single line of clean, simple font:

Vires Per Intellectu

Lily went wide-eyed, lips parted slightly as she stared at the words in complete silence.

Shit.

He’d always liked the idea of a tattoo on his lower stomach for sexual and aesthetic reasons—and Lily had agreed with him when he’d mentioned it in bed one time—but perhaps Azzy had been right about the subject matter.

Heat scorched his cheeks and ears as he fought not to fidget under her stare.

“Princess?” he managed, hands twitching with the urge to pull his pants up.

“That’s fully healed right? Like, fully healed?” Lily asked with the same neutral tone as someone inquiring about the readiness of a meal.

Bel was fairly certain his face was about to burst into flames, but something in her expression…he’d seen that before. Hope sparked along with arousal.

“Yeah,” he said, then added cautiously, “I can always get it removed—”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Lily glared at him in affront, dropping her eyes back to the tattoo and reaching for the hem of her shirt. “Asmodeus gave you shit for that? What an idiot,” Lily said, hauling her shirt over her head and kicking off her shoes. “I love it. It’s sexy and thoughtful and I want to lick it. Think of it as celebrating my heartbeat, which I’m currently feeling between my legs for the first time in too fucking long. Pants off now. Please.”

Well then.

Nonexistent crisis averted. In hindsight, he’d been an absolute and utter idiot to ever worry.

“So bossy.” Bel smirked, reaching behind him to undo the clasps of the wing slits in his shirt instead, enjoying the sight of her shimmying out of her leggings and kicking them aside. He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it.

Lily prowled towards him in nothing but her underwear, the black lace contrasting beautifully with her hair and skin. She’d always been so stunningly beautiful, no matter if she was covered in blood spatters from some evil soul or wearing sweatpants or dressed like a walking wet dream, but she seemed somehow… more .

Alive.

His.

Forever.

She grabbed him by the front of his undone pants, the backs of her fingers brushing against the base of his erection and driving the breath from his lungs, pulling him closer. Heat boiled up his spine.

He resisted the urge to take her like a primal beast. Again. This wasn’t the time for that. Probably. He skated his hand up and down her side, following the flare of her hips, the dip of her waist, up to the fullness of her pretty breasts, leaving goose bumps in his wake. Lily tipped her head back, offering her mouth, eyes gleaming with passion and love, fingers lingering so damn temptingly close to where he ached for her.

With his tattooed hand, he cupped a breast, not missing the way her breath caught and her grip on his pants tightened. Electricity hummed over his skin, prickling over his nerve endings in a way that should have been painful but only brought exquisite sensitivity, similar to the adrenaline rush of combat but infinitely better.

He lightly pinched her stiffened nipple, then rolled the pad of his thumb over it to soothe away the small hurt. Her eyes fluttered closed, the soft noise that escaped her parted lips like a tangible stroke along his cock. His breathing hitched, and she half opened her eyes to smile indolently at him.

He released her breast, watching it settle with a small bounce, and moved his hand to press flat on the upper slope of her chest. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. The rhythm was faster than the first time he’d felt it, but no less wondrous. He understood why she always seemed to like resting her hand over his heart. Her heart was his new fascination, its beat his favorite song.

Lily’s hand slid from his neck down to his chest, some of the hazy arousal fading from her eyes to be replaced with soft wondrous joy, an expression he felt mirrored on his own face, in his own chest.

Thump-thump.

“Ah, princess,” he rasped, shifting his tattooed hand to trace up the side of her neck with his fingertips. “You’ve always had a beautiful heart, now you have the heartbeat to match.”

“And an equally beautiful new necklace if you hold my throat with that hand,” she breathed, leaning in to kiss the center of his chest.

She let go of his pants and brought her hand up for a quick lick, then slipped it into his pants to wrap around his aching cock. Whatever romantic thing he’d been planning on saying flew out of his brain as his vision went white. She squeezed his base lightly, moving her fist as far along his ridged length as she could within the confines of his pants.

Should have taken the pants off, really should have—

She twisted her grip as she stroked down to his base. He dropped his head back and groaned.

When synapses started firing again, he kept his hand right where it was, holding her hip to keep her in place as he dipped to capture her mouth. She arched into him with a little laugh that he felt in his bones.

“How,” he murmured in between deepening kisses, “committed are you”—he nipped at her lower lip, careful not to catch it with his fangs—“to licking the tattoo?” He groaned into her mouth as she worked him in her grip, and he shoved her soaked thong out of the way to slick his fingers against her core.

“Floor,” she gasped, hips working as she rode his hand. “I’m licking the tattoo.”

Somehow he ended up on his ass, wings splayed, leaned back on his elbows as Lily kissed, licked, and nipped her way down his torso, pausing to nuzzle his hipbone like a fucking tease.

“Princess,” he growled, shoving his pants down around his hips. She shot him a wicked grin, gripped his thigh with one hand to brace herself, lowered her head and…planted a feather-soft kiss on the first letter.

When he regained his ability to think and form a plan he was going to—

She ghosted her tongue over his skin in delicate motions, carefully tracing each letter and leaving behind a damp trail. Her hand seared against the skin of his thigh. She held his cock in a loose grip, the head occasionally brushing her breasts and leaving gleaming traces of his arousal on her skin. The dark, possessive part of his brain purred.

She finished tracing the first word and paused. Every molecule of his body paused with her, waiting for the next touch of her tongue to his skin. She blew over the dampness she’d left behind, his already sensitive skin crackling with an overload of sensation and pleasure, robbing him of every rational thought he’d ever had except—

“More,” he snarled, hauling her up his body to devour that smartass mouth he loved so much. “Ride me?” He managed to make it a request, though the way her ass filled his grip was more than a little distracting.

She sucked on his lip, making a breathy noise of assent, fumbling to reach down to guide him to her entrance. He half tugged her thong out of the way just as she notched the head of his cock inside her. The first slide into her silky, wet heat always reordered his understanding of the Universe, and this time was no different. Home. They gasped into each other, adjusting, reorienting themselves to the new paradigm of ecstasy. Different. Being inside her was always Paradise, but somehow it was different .

“Oh, fuck…” Bel ground out, eyes squeezing shut as he fought not to rut up into her. “You feel so...” He could swear that he felt her pulse, that she was warmer, silkier wrapped around him than she ever had been before.

“I feel it,” she panted, half laughing.

He sure as shit felt that . He couldn’t help thrusting slightly, working more of himself into her. She pushed back, supporting herself by splaying her hands on his abdomen, her legs spread wide over his broader hips, framing the place where they were joined with her thighs. Fuck.

He gripped her hip, urging her into motion. Nothing else mattered after that. His whole world narrowed down to the slick grip of her around his cock, gliding, stroking him into a frenzy as he met her thrust for thrust. Her hair gleamed, tumbling over her shoulders and chest in a spill of silky decadence, lush breasts bobbing with each movement, muscles in her stomach and legs flexing as she worked.

A ball of tension coiled at the base of his spine, tingling down his tail, spooling tighter and tighter, threatening to explode at any moment. He sat up, hips working as hard as they could as he pressed his lips to her chest, to her incredible racing heartbeat, his arm banding around her lower back to guide her movements. Her face got that lovely, almost desperate expression that told him she was teetering on the edge of a climax, and he slid the hand on her back down her ass, spreading his fingers to press on either side of where they were joined—

She came apart around him, curling forward with the force of her orgasm and burying her face in his shoulder like he fucking loved , her breathing stuttering as her core rippled around his cock, pulsing, clenching, driving him over the edge right after her. The explosive energy at the base of his spine raged through his whole body with enough force to stun him, though he tried to keep his hips in motion until it all became too much.

He held her as they panted together. She ran her hands over his wings while he moved his trembling hands up and down her back, inhaling the salty tang of her hair, still buried in her tight heat. Long minutes later, a cohesive thought managed to form and he almost chuckled. What a picture they probably made, tangled up on the dais in front of his floor-to-ceiling windows, his pants around his knees, her thong twisted around her hips, both of them sweaty, disheveled…the happiest people in Hell.

“I think I still have a sock on,” Lily muttered breathlessly.

“Do you?” He thought she’d been thong-only, but he admittedly had been a bit distracted by her breasts. And hips. And thighs. And everything else. Everything except her feet apparently. He kissed the spot on her neck that always made her shiver and savored her shuddered inhale. “You know who fucks with one sock on, princess?”

“People with one cold foot.”

He pinched her ass. She tickled him where the membrane of his wing met the bone. He squirmed, and they both gasped as his softening cock shifted inside her.

“People who are alive .”

She shifted back to grin at him, her lips red and kiss-swollen, the blush of exertion still fading from her pale skin. He grinned back, dipping to press his lips over her heartbeat.

“You know,” she said, toying with the newly tattooed tip of his ear, “I didn’t get to finish licking your tattoo. Which, by the way, I’m a huge fan of, in case it was unclear.”

A flicker of arousal hummed through his veins, but he tamped it down, unwilling to celebrate such a momentous occasion entirely in his office.

“I picked up on that, eventually, but you might need to remind me again sometime. You can finish your little project later. We’ve got eternity to fill, after all.”

He couldn’t keep himself from grinning like a lunatic at the last bit. Forever. Together. As a family. And, someday, with more kids. He could see them, hundreds of years in the future, wedding rings on their fingers, watching Sharkie teach her siblings how to live with fearless joy.

Eternity.

He was going to savor every moment of it.