The Watcher’s Claim

Chapter Five: He’s Patient

The third time, he was less careful.

He had me on my stomach, wrists pinned above my head in one of his hands — effortlessly, like it wasn't even a thought — and his mouth was at my ear saying things in a low rough voice that I was not going to be capable of repeating afterward, and I had entirely stopped pretending I was a rational person.

"Tell me again," he said, the words vibrating against my neck. "What you want."

"Dorian—"

"Say it." His hips rolled against me, the heavy heat of him pressing exactly where I needed it, not quite giving me what I was asking for. "I want to hear you."

I said it. Out loud. In explicit detail.

He made a sound that was almost reverent.

Then he delivered, with the thoroughness of something that had been thinking about this for twenty-six years and was not going to do it halfway. His free hand gripped my hip, angling me exactly where he wanted me, and when he pushed inside the stretch of him made me gasp into the pillow. He held there for one long, deliberate moment — let me feel all of it, the size of him, the heat, the possession in the grip of his hands — and then he started to move.

Deep. Unhurried. Consuming.

Each thrust pushed the breath out of me. He set a pace that was generous and absolutely merciless, the kind that built from deep rolling rhythm into something harder, more punishing, as my sounds got louder and less coherent. His hand slid from my hip around to find exactly the right place and I nearly came off the mattress.

"Stay," he said, pinning me back down with his weight, never breaking his rhythm. "I've got you."

He did have me. Completely. His hand working in time with each thrust, the hard unyielding heat of him hitting deep with every stroke — there was nowhere to go, nothing to do but feel it, and I felt every single inch of it.

"Dorian—" His name came out wrecked.

"I know," he said against my ear, voice raw now, control cracking. "Let go."

I did. The first time crashed through me like a wave breaking — my whole body seizing, a sound tearing out of me that I'd never made before, my hips grinding back against him helplessly while he held me down and *kept going*, rhythm never faltering, merciless and perfect.

"That's one," he said, low and rough, like he was keeping score.

The second built faster, his hand still working in perfect counterpoint to each thrust, my whole world reduced to heat and hardness and his voice in my ear saying filthy, reverent things that I would think about for the rest of my life. When it hit I screamed into the pillow and he drove into me harder, chasing it, wringing every last shudder out of me.

"Mine," he said, rough, *certain*. Not possessive so much as stating fact. Like he was confirming something he'd always known.

Then he let go — and watching him come undone was its own thing entirely. The control that defined everything about him simply *gone*, replaced by something ancient and raw, his hips snapping hard and deep, a sound tearing from him that shook the walls, my name buried in his throat like a prayer and a possession all at once. He held himself buried deep and shuddered through it, arms locked around me, every muscle in that stone-carved body drawn taut and trembling.

Afterward the room was very quiet. He was still half over me, heavy and warm, his face pressed against the back of my neck.

"Four hundred years," I managed.

"Worth every one," he said, rough. Not moving. Not letting go. His hand spread flat against my stomach like he was feeling my heartbeat slow back down. Like he was memorizing that too.

I lost track of time after. The room had gone golden with late morning by the time I surfaced.

Dorian was watching me again.

"You're smug," I told him.

"Yes," he said, without apology.

I laughed — actually laughed, surprised out of it — and something in his expression went very still and then very warm.

"You have a nice laugh," he said quietly. "I've heard it a thousand times. It hits differently from here."

I sat up, pushed my hair out of my face, looked at him. He was real. He was in my bed. Four hundred years old and impossibly warm and looking at me like I was the entire point.

"What happens now?" I asked.

"Now," he said, "you tell me if you're hungry, and then we talk about everything, and then—" his eyes moved over me in a way that wasn't subtle — "we'll see."

"We'll see," I repeated.

"I have four hundred years of patience," he said. "I can also be very impatient. I contain multitudes."

"That's an unexpected thing for a gargoyle to say."

"I've had four hundred years to read," he said, simply.

I looked at him for a long moment. Ancient creature in my bed, watching me with that complete, unnerving focus, warm like a sun-heated stone on a long summer day.

"I have eggs," I said finally.

Something almost like a smile moved across his face. "Good."

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