Chapter Text
Things weren’t awkward between them. If he had nothing else to fall back on, at least Adam could say that. Shit between him and Lute was not awkward.
Sometimes it felt like it would be better if it was awkward, and fuck if that didn’t fill with with a level of rage that he’d previously thought was reserved for Lucifer.
Lute was anxious. Not anxious around him— Well, sorta. Kinda.
Fuck.
Lute was still anxious around Adam, but she wasn’t anxious in the sense that she didn’t think he loved her. At least, he sure fucking hoped that she still thought that he didn’t love her anymore. He really, really, really fucking hope it wasn’t that, because he’d been working his ass of to show her that he did. If she still thought that he didn’t at this point, then he was permanently, undeniably, and irreversibly fucked.
Lute hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to fuck.
That was where the problem was. It wasn’t that the seraphim had gone and drained all of the horniness out of her. There was no fucking way. Up until shit went to shit, her reactions the night they nearly went there had been real as hell. He had seen her looking at him like he was a five star rig rack ready to be torn apart. She looked, when she looked away and pretended that she hadn’t been looking. He made moves, small and slow because that was all he could afford to do thanks to this whole clusterfuck, and she always pulled away before he could do anything that wasn’t small and slow.
She didn’t look at him with repulsion when he pulled away. Adam wanted to be happy that she didn’t. It would suck ass if Lute was suddenly disgusted by him. The thing that sucked more was that he was starting to feel like it might be a better option than what was actually happening.
When Lute pulled away, she looked at him like he was a king and she was some random dirt person.
Those were on the good days. On the bad ones, she looked at him like he was a god and she was a worm.
Adam was trying to fix it. He’d gone from someone who kept that gooey emotional shit trapped in an iron box to telling her that he loved her damn near every day. He made sure to spend every bit of his spare time with her. Yeah, he’d back off if she seemed like she wanted to be alone, but she didn’t. She also didn’t give any hint of believing him when he complimented him. She thanked him and smiled at him and all of that shit, but her voice was empty and her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
This was probably one of those things that took time. Given that he was already dead, Adam had a lot of time. Embracing the fact that he had time meant being patient though, and being patience right now was absolute bullshit. He’d been trying to do it this whole time. He’d been doing a fan-fucking-tastic job of it, too. But things were different now. Being patient meant letting things happen on their own time, and letting things happen on their own time meant letting things take longer.
He didn’t want to let Lute feel shitty for a day longer, let alone the sort of length that came with “patience”.
But what was he supposed to do? Did Lute want him to agree with the shit going on in her head and say that she was a “downgraded model” now? Was he supposed to meet her where she was and tell her that he would still love her if she was a worm? Because he would, but she wasn’t! Lute wasn’t a fucking worm!
Adam was going to kill something. Preferably Gabriel.
He didn't mean that in a theoretical or beautiful fantasy way or whatever the fuck. No, that shit was as literal as it got.
It was a decent day. Not good, but not as fuck awful as it could have been.
It ceased being decent when Lute tensed up beside him.
Adam didn't notice it right away. That was one more mark on his growing list of screw ups. He deserved to have the power of precognition, but he didn't. Failing that, he should have been paying attention to his surroundings, but he wasn't. The rest of the world may as well have ceased to exist as he rambled to Lute about something or other.
Something or other, as in he didn't know what he was talking about, as in the knowledge abandoned him the moment he noticed Lute's wings twitching. It was a subtle motion that she was clearly trying to stifle, but once he had caught it, he couldn't stop himself from catching onto other details. Her shoulders were tense. She had switched from surveying her surroundings to looking at the ground in front of her. Most damningly, she had inched closer to him.
Or she had inched further away from the bastard coming up the other side of the street.
Gabriel greeted them with a polite, dismissive, cold, “Good afternoon.”
Adam could say that he acted without thinking, but really, he would have done the same thing if he had stopped to think. He shoved himself in between Lute and Gabriel with a snarl, one wing stretching out to fold around her. Her muffled protests went ignored, for there was nothing, not a goddamn thing, that could stop him from snarling, “It was a good day until you decided to show your ugly mug.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he asked, flat and unimpressed.
“Really?” Adam mocked. “Fuck, I always knew you were a dumbass, but I didn’t think you were that gorked. I can punch you in the face if that’ll help you get the message. Or shit, here’s an idea!” He grinned ferociously. “I could rip your dick off! That’d be fun. A pussy’ll fit you better anyway.”
Lute gave his wing a sharp tug. “What the fuck are you doing, you moron!?”
Adam winced, but only wrapped his wing around her more tightly. “Sending this jackass a message someone should have a long fucking time ago.”
“Really?” Gabriel repeated. “Are you sure you want to play this game?”
“Are you?” Adam snarled.
Gabriel’s eyes drifted to Adam’s wing. Or rather, the woman hidden behind it. “Do you expect me to believe that you still think she’s worth it?”
He had felt Lute grab his wing again, probably to try and physically drag him away, teacup chihuahua size be damned.
At Gabriel’s words, he felt her let go and slump against him, muscles tensing.
“Gabe. If you touch her again, I will kill you,” Adam breathed. “I don’t care if it gets my ass thrown out to rot with Lucifer for all eternity. Sera can fuck around and find out what’ll happen without me. It will be worth it to drive my axe through your worthless fucking skull.”
“...You’ll get tired of her eventually,” Gabriel said.
With that, he turned and left.
He didn’t leave fast enough for Adam to miss the flicker of fear in his eyes.
Lute was trembling too hard for it to be remotely satisfying.
Adam dropped his wing in favor of wrapping his arm around her. It was awkward as fuck with how much shorter she was now, but through spite for the miserable bastards who'd hurt her, anything was possible. “Come on,” he murmured.
Lute took in a deep breath. Her trembling stilled, which would have been great if it wasn't replaced by her going as stiff as a fucking tree. She pulled out of his grasp and said, “You don't need to fuss over me, Sir. I'm fine.”
Adam knew better than to argue. He learned some things throughout this whole festival of dumbfuckery that was the last few months.
That didn’t mean he going to let Lute get away with her self-conscious distancing bullshit.
“Who said I’m fussing?” Adam demanded. “Maybe I’m freaked. Did you ever think of that?”
Lute rolled her eyes skyward with an exasperated sigh. It would have been a beautiful sight if there was just a little more spark behind the gesture. “What would you have to be freaked out about Adam?”
“Plenty of things.”
Her pale golden eyes met his with a squint that called bullshit.
He knew that squint like the back of his hand. He knew that squint. He knew every goddamn inch of that face, even the parts that didn’t look the same way that they used to. It was beautiful in that familiarity. The exasperation that marked it now, the amusement that would be lurking beneath it if their circumstances were just a little better, the sheer love and adoration that he could no longer pretend he deserved. If he was the world, then she was the moon, her gravity anchoring him in place and keeping him stable. Losing her would cause him to be lost adrift in a way that could only lead to his complete and utter destruction. It would be the end of him.
Where would he be if he had never had her? What would hold his world together if she had been created as she is now?
He knew the basic details, although he wished that he didn’t.
Her face would be the first major difference. All he would ever see when he looked into those familiar eyes would be the same deference of any other exorcist. It was all that he’d ever see, for he’d never seen a reason to reach out and try to build anything more. Why would he? They exorcists made for perfect little hanger-ons, an obedient fanclub who didn’t know him beyond the untouchable adonis of a badass and who he didn’t need to worry about beyond the title of ‘exorcist. That was enough for him. They weren’t enough for him to want anything more.
His girls as a whole were his in the same way that his clothes were his.
Lute was his in the same way that his heart was his.
He had fucking loved the adoring, obedient, distant, adoring way that they looked at him.
The thought of Lute looking at him like that…
If the seraphim had been allowed to fuck with her head, would she be looking at him like that right now?
Why wouldn’t she? If she was the same of all of his other girls and his girls were his in the same way as his clothes, then why shouldn’t she consider him hers in the same way as her helmet?
He would have fought and clawed every inch of the way to get her back, but…
How could a helmet convince a person to love it?
Why would she have given him a chance if she only remembered him treating her like that?
“I think I’ve got a whole fucking lot to be scared of, actually,” he rasped.
The surprise with which her eyes widened and her lips parted fucking stung.
Realization followed it quickly enough to provide a balm.
“You didn’t say that you were scared,” she muttered, glancing off to the side.
“I didn’t.”
Lute looked back at him, her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed in the way that she did when she was yet to figure out if she was annoyed or confused.
Adam grinned. “Go ahead, babe, tell anyone you want. No one will ever believe you.”
Annoyance won out. Annoyance and, with a fluffy shuffle of her wings and over-loud huff, amusement. “You jackass,” she grumbled.
“Damn right. And ‘cause I’m such a jackass, I’m going to drag you back to the apartment if you don’t get your pretty ass moving.”
He extended his arm in an invitation; spoken, unspoken, and eternal.
Amusement faded as Lute nibbled her lower lip and glanced to the side. Doubt; brief, fleeting, and undeniable.
She turned back to him with a declaration of, “To keep you from having a tantrum.”
Adam scowled. “I’ve never had a tantrum in my life, you cunt.”
Lute walked over to him with a faint smirk. “Whatever you say, sir.”
He made a show of grumbling as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. They were still.
He didn’t point out the faint tremor in her wings.
*
Lute was still quiet and withdrawn three hours later. She was leaning heavily into the couch and staring diligently at the television, as if she could trick him into think she was actually paying attention to Severed or whatever the fuck she was watching. Dumb bitch. Didn’t she know that he knew her better than that?
Hadn’t she realized that he cared too much to leave it be?
Adam already knew what the answer was when he asked, “You alright?”
He already knew that he was going to get a huge fucking lie, but still gave her the chance to prove him wrong. Naturally, the bitch didn’t, instead drawing her wings in closer and offering him a curt, “I’m fine.”
“Bullshit.”
She hunched her shoulders inward.
Adam frowned. “Hey.”
“I’m trying to watch TV.”
“Yeah, and? I’m trying to knock some sense through my partner’s thick fucking skull.”
Lute’s wings twitched. She almost looked at him, hope and insecurity intertwining into an image that threatened to tear his heart in two, before brushing him aside with a huff. “You don’t need to knock anything into my skull, sir.”
“Bullshit,” Adam repeated. She shuffled across the couch. When Lute continued to be too much of a stubborn bitch to look at him, he gently pinched her chin between his fingers and turned her face toward him. “You know that what Gabriel said was bullshit, right?”
She yanked herself out of his grasp quicker than he could blink. “I know.”
Adam wanted to grit his teeth. He couldn’t grit his teeth or she might get the wrong message, but… Fuck, he hated having to tiptoe around like this. It was one thing around the hoity-toity thin-skinned seraphim and all the other bureaucratic fuckers, but Lute? Lute? It was un-fucking-accepting. He had her back, but he needed them back, and–
Fuck.
Fuck.
“You know you’re a shit liar, right?” he blurted out.
Lute grit his teeth. It should have been a red fucking alarm, yet looking at the way her feathers fluffed up and her eye twitched, he got the feeling that he might, by some fucking miracle be headed in the right direction.
“What do you want me to say, Adam?” she ground out.
“I want you to tell me why you’re letting that bastard get to you.”
She took in a sharp breath. Her shoulders tensed. He could tell that she wanted to look at him, yet she kept her gaze fixed straight ahead as she asked, “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because he’s a dick stuffed with shit?”
“But he’s not full of shit!” Lute whipped around to face him in all her grief and fury, a maelstrom of every emotion that she’d tried to hold back during this weird ass point in their relationship. “You wouldn’t have looked twice at me if I didn’t look different before! Why wouldn’t you get sick of me eventually?”
It felt like getting stabbed in the chest. Yeah, it was the same old shit that they’d argued about before, but that didn’t get rid of the pain. Yet the pain wasn’t as bad as if had been last time, if only because it was eclipsed by a fucked up sense of relief that they were actually talking about this shit. If he managed to redirect it away from the same old shit, maybe they could finally fucking get somewhere.
Because he had given in to the impulse to be an insensitive jackass instead of handling her all delicately.
Well. Why the fuck not? It’s not like Lute had ever made sense. Why wouldn’t she respond to blunt, awkward jackassery where his best attempts at kindness and tenderness had failed.
He didn’t try to force himself to be gentle as he exclaimed, “Because you’re you! How many fucking times do I need to say it, you deaf bitch? I love you. I’m not going to throw you out because some asshats changed the way you look.”
Lute shot to her legs, wings flaring out behind her. “I fucking know that! That’s not the same thing as wanting me!”
Adam stood up as well. His own wings massively eclipsed hers when he spread them. Despite the absolute fuckery going on, his heart felt a little warmer when she didn’t flinch back or falter at the sight. “I already told you, I’m fine with–”
“You’re only saying that because we haven’t fucked!” Lute shouted.
Adam’s fire sputtered out in an instant. “What?”
That was when Lute hesitated, not because of anything he said or did, but because of the absolute shitstorm that had to be going on in her head. She looked away before saying, “It’s one thing to say you like something when you haven’t tried it. You can delude yourself into thinking it’s good. It’ll change after you try. You’ll realize that you can do better.”
Adam opened and closed his mouth a few times, completely and utterly stupefied. Consequently, he sounded absolutely fucking stupid when he asked, “You just fucking… decided that?”
“I didn’t decide. I know I’m right.” She drew her wings back in. It made her look small despite the way she held herself tall. He had the feeling that she would look small regardless. “I know you love me as a person, Adam. I know you aren’t going to abandon me. But if you actually try–”
“Okay, no, fuck that, shut the fuck up. First of all, don’t talk about yourself like you’re a fucking ice cream flavor. Secondly.” Adam closed the distance between them to tilt her chin up, his touch damn near as gentle as it ever got, but firm enough that she’d have a hell of a time trying to squirming away. “Where do you get off saying that when you haven’t given me a chance to prove you wrong?”
Adam was aware of every little aspect of Lute in that moment. The way her wings pulled minutely upward, feathers puffing out ever so slightly. The hitch of her breath. The way her expression shifted as she tried to make herself look like the cold, badass bitch that the rest of heaven knew and he loved so much, but couldn’t quite keep her vulnerability from rising to the surface. There were layers to it; hope and fear and caution, the aching certainty that she was right and a dangerous hope that she would be proven wrong.
It hurt to see her looking like that. At the same time, it was vindicating in the way that every closely held secret was. He was the only one who could look at her and see what she was hiding. Anyone else, any other goddamn soul, would have looked at her and seen the mask she was trying to put back in place. It went the other way, too. If he was speaking to anyone else… Quite frankly, Adam probably wouldn’t give enough of a fuck to try and suss out what the other person was feeling if he was talking to anyone else. If he did, odds were that he’d get it wrong. But Lute? He knew Lute like the tides knew the sun and a compass knew the moon… or however that astrology shit worked.
They knew each other better than they knew anyone else. If he had to make a guess – with the knowledge that his guesses were damn near always dead fucking center – he would say that they were the only ones who truly knew each other. Which was how he knew, beyond a shadow of a fucking doubt, that Lute’s anxieties were nothing more than a mountain of festering bullshit that he would take immense fucking joy in knocking down.
Adam ran his thumb over Lute’s cheek. Her jaw stiffened at the contact. It might have been convincing if her shoulders weren’t pulled up so high. When Lute was cold and in control, she was always in perfect military posture. This was her trying to be strong and brave. Which, it was hot and badass and all that shit, yeah, but this wasn’t the time for it. It wasn’t something that she would need to prove, either.
“Come on,” he said. “None of that shit right now. I’m talking to Lute, not my lieutenant.”
Her jaw relaxed in time with her heavy exhale. “Adam…”
“I’m not blowing wind up your ass. I love you, Lute. All of you.” He shifted his hand over to lay his palm against her cheek. “But I don’t know how I can convince you if you won’t let me prove it.”
Lute leaned into his touch so gradually that he suspected she wasn’t aware she was doing it. She searched his face, her attempts at masking finally falling away as she did so. He didn’t have a fucking clue what she was looking for at this point. The feeling of her gaze searing his skin saw him standing perfectly still regardless.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
Adam grinned. “Babe, I’ve been sure. You’re the one who’s been overthinking.”
He lowered his hand, caressing her neck and shoulders as he made his way to the small of her back. There, he hesitated for the time that it would take her to pull away.
She didn’t.
Adam pulled Lute over to him. She came along pliantly. Pliantly enough that the heat that had begun spreading through his veins cooled and a frown formed on his lips. “Hey, if you don’t want this–”
“I do.” Lute looked up at him with a jaw that was set once more, this time in familiar stubborn resolve. “If you want to try, then I do too.”
Adam’s responding grin was more genuine than it had been in a long time. It wasn’t as confident as he would have liked, but right then, he didn’t give a flying fuck. He cupped Lute’s ass before scooping her up, eliciting a sharp squeak before she wrapped her legs around his waist.
“I like that sound,” he purred. He adjusted the arm beneath her to hold her more securely and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to his chest. “I like how this feels.”
Lute leaned into him with a petulant huff. “You could have given me some warning first.”
“Now where’s the fun in that?”
“You reduce the odds of me biting your inconsiderate ass.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, babe.”
Lute swatted him gently on the shoulder, too sharp to be gentle, too loving to be painful. Her glare was much the same, ferocious at a glance, but not hard enough to disguise the laughter that was threatening to spill forth.
When was the last time that Adam had seen her laugh?
Had he ever seen her laugh with this face? Had he seen her fight to hold it back, lips twitching and eyes glowing even as she tried to look like the ball-busting cunt that she tried to present herself as?
Adam didn’t waste time trying to remember. He moved his hand from Lute’s shoulder to cup the back up her head to pull her in for a kiss. It was—
Look.
Adam didn’t do chaste. He was the first man, the original dick, the one who had propagated humanity. You didn’t get that shit by being chaste. But the way he kissed Lute… it wasn’t like the way he had kissed other people. It wasn’t like the way he had kissed her so many times before. His lips moved slowly, guiding hers without quite taking command. He memorized the feeling of her mouth against his, the way he had to move so they would fit right, what made her sink in closer. He adjusted his hand so that he could run his thumb in circles around her cheek, feeling the softness of her skin and savoring the way she leaned into the touch ever so slightly.
Where he would have deepened it before, he leaned back to take in the beauty before him.
Lute’s face was flushed. It wasn’t the deep gold that appeared when they were getting hot and heavy. He fucking loved that look, it was hot as shit, but the view in front of him was way, way sweeter. There was a light dusting of gold across her cheeks, the sort of faint, luminescent blush that came with feelings. She looked at him the way that only she ever looked at him, like she was looking at Adam. Not the first man. Not the Head Exorcist. Not an archangel or the first soul in Heaven or the biggest badass the world had ever seen or any of that shit. She looked at him like he was Adam, and somehow, being Adam alone meant that he was good enough.
It was terrible to see that look marred by a frown. Fortunately, it didn’t do shit to bring his mood down. He would be getting rid of it soon enough. He wasn’t going to let a single goddamn thing stop him, not even the un-Lutely way she asked, “What is it?”
You’re beautiful.
There was no point in saying words that she wasn’t going to believe. No amount of saying it would get it through her head if he hadn’t given her reason to believe it, especially not when he was the dumbfuck who had made her doubt in the first place.
“I love you,” he said.
Lute’s smile returned, soft and warm and all the things that nobody but him ever got to see. “I love you too.”
He was given a few more seconds to savor the sight before him before she swatted his shoulder again, this time a little harder. “Now stop wasting my time and fuck me.”
Adam laughed, a sharp, surprised burst of sound that shook his shoulders and saw his wings puffing out.
He didn’t remember the last time he had laughed, either.
“Someone’s a pushy bitch today,” he teased even as he obediently turned to carry her into the bedroom.
“You said that you have something to prove to me.” She had wrapped her arms around his neck. Now, she brushed a hand up his cheek to twine her fingers in his hair, stopping just short of pulling. “If you were lying, I’m going to call your bluff.”
Adam scoffed. “Still think I’m blowing air up your ass, huh?” He kicked the bedroom door open. “You won’t be thinking that by the time I’m done with you. You’ll be too busy thinking about my dick.”
“Try to get a better—” Lute was cut off by him flinging her onto the bed. She landed with a squawk, bouncing on the mattress a few times before glaring up at him like a pissy little murder machine.
“Can’t get a better dick when I’ve already got the best,” he smugly said.
Lute smirked. “This coming from a man who’s spent a long time bragging without a thing to show for it.”
“Just giving you time to prepare yourself, pretty tits.”
“For?”
Adam pulled his shirt off and tossed it aside like it had offended him personally. He flexed his pecs like they were as muscular as they had been when he was alive. He grinned at her like he was even hotter and she should be in complete and utter awe to be seeing him.
Like he wasn’t something that she’d seen a thousand times before, he knew what he was doing, and he knew that this would be new in a good way.
He needed to make it good for her. Even if it came at the cost of him never having another good fuck again — which it had fucking better not — he needed to make her feel good.
So, with a righteous confidence of a man who knew that he fucked like a god no matter the circumstances, he said, “The best night of your life.” He spread his wings out, allowing her to see them in all their glory, and purred, “Undress for me.”
Lute’s smirk wobbled. She gripped the bottom of her shirt more slowly than she was supposed to, fingers twisting the fabric between them rather than tightening to pull it up. Her wings, which should have been moving in to get the offending article off, spread a little wider instead.
They were trembling.
Well, fuck that.
“Hold it right there,” Adam ordered. He fumbled with his belt, fingers heavy and clumsy were they shouldn’t have been, and tore his pants off with an increased ferocity to make up for it. “I have a better idea.”
“What—”
Adam prowled onto the bed. He stopped just short of caging Lute in between his arms, but did allow himself the indulgence of pressing his knee forward to brush the tender space between her legs. He was rewarded by a blush and tremble that would have made him grin hungrily under other circumstances. It felt strange as fuck that he didn’t, but…
The smile that developed as he grasped the hem of Lute’s shirt and gently pulled it over he head was nothing short of soft.
“Adam…” she murmured, uncertainty rising to the surface once more.
“Shhh,” he murmured, hooking his fingers under the top of her pants. “Let me take care of you.”
She bit her lower lip, eyes gleaming with an uncertainty that he knew she was trying so hard to suppress, before giving him a tiny nod of consent.
He wiggled her pants off her gently. Which, that was a weird fucking thing to do gently, but it felt important. Everything needed to be gentle this time. Loving. Considerate. All of the things that he wasn’t any fucking good at, but needed to learn if it meant his balls exploded.
Again, that had better not fucking happen.
With her pants off and carelessly thrown aside, Adam moved to fiddle with the hem of her panties. He couldn’t count the times that she had worn mouth-watering lingerie for him. Lacy pink things that left just enough to the imagination to give him the biggest hard-on known to man, gold bikinis that made her look like an empress, skimpy red lace creations that would make the filthiest of sinners seem angelic by comparison. He’d seen it all and loved every goddamn second of it. Now, she wore plain, sensible gray briefs.
The seraphim didn’t have a thing to do. It was a manifestation of her own expectations, driven by his failures. The black sports bra wrapped around her chest was because she hadn’t seen a reason to be anything but practical.
Adam fiddled with the fabric for a moment before moving his attention higher. He ghosted his fingers up Lute’s stomach in just the right way to make her breath hitch. When it did, he stopped above her heart, laid his hand flat there, and wrapped the fingers of his other hand through her hair to pull her into another kiss.
It was deeper this time. He didn’t come anywhere close to the ferocious need with which he had ravaged her so many times before, but she parted her lips to let his tongue in and he accepted eagerly. Diligent wasn’t a word that many people would apply to him, but he made his best attempt as he roamed the inside of her mouth, moving in tandem with her until he got the moan that he was looking for. Then and only then did he pull back.
Her blush had returned and deepened. It wasn’t quite to the point that meant things were getting real, but he was getting there.
Tonight wasn’t about getting there at all. Not… really?
It was and it wasn’t.
It was about the way he grasped her chin to tilt her head back, look into her eyes, and say, “You’re beautiful.”
Her frown was familiar. Her lips thinned in the center and pulled down very slightly at the corners, sending the same unspoken message that it always did. She wasn’t upset, but she didn’t believe him.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to prove her wrong about something. If he pulled it off, it might be the most satisfying though.
When. When he pulled it off.
Adam didn’t give his beautiful, stubborn, hard-headed bitch a chance to argue, talk shit about herself, or any of the bullshit that he knew was coming. He pulled her bra above her head, eliciting a flustered sputter as it pulled across her face, and tossed it to the side.
She was still reeling, but visibly coming closer to chewing him out, when he laid a hand over he tit and brushed a thumb over her nipple. He got exactly what he was looking for; a hitch of her breath and slight widening of her eyes. He ran his thumb in circles without giving her a chance to catch her breath, applying just the right amount of pressure to make her back arch.
There was a sound building in the back of her throat. He could hear it, the faintest, most delicious rumble, but she bit her lip before he could enjoy it properly.
She was fighting a losing battle.
Adam moved the rest of his hand experimentally, kneading with his fingers and flexing his palm. Before, trying to do so while working on her nipple only would have resulted in him palming awkwardly at her tit. Now, he was able to envelop the whole thing in his hand.
Lute shivered at his ministrations, a tremor that went all the way from her shoulders to the tips of her feathers.
That was all he needed.
Adam reached one of his wings out to wrap around her. It covered her back like a soft golden cloak, drawing her closer to him as he leaned forward to breath, “You’re a perfect fit.”
Lute took in another small, sharp breath. He wanted to believe that it was a sound born of pleasure. Any chance that he might have had of engaging in those beautiful delusions was foiled by how small she sounded when she said, “I’m—”
“Perfect.”
In case that wasn’t enough to shut her up, he pressed a kiss against her jaw. And another just below it. Down, down, down, he laid a trail of kisses down her throat, stopping at the crook of her neck, where he grazed his teeth against her skin. He didn’t come anywhere close to breaking it. The way that he sucked and lapped at that tender spot would leave enough of a mark without that.
The moan finally tore free from her throat.
It wasn’t good enough.
Adam pulled away from her neck once his mark was made, but it was only to move to the other side. Before pressing his lips to her neck, he made sure to brush them against her ear and whisper, “I love the sounds you make.”
He loved the way she shivered as he gently dragged his hand over her chest to embrace the tit that had gone neglected thus far.
He wasn’t sure he loved that way that she stiffened when his hand slipped beneath her panties. But the immediate gasp when he slipped a finger into her pussy, rubbing against the walls that were already so wet for him? That was glorious.
One finger became two. Two saw him letting go of her breast to twine his fingers through her hair and pull her into another kiss. She was rocking against his fingers by the time he inserted a third to rub at the nub that worked a beautifully breathy groan out of her. Not even a minute of that and she was wrapping her arms around him, fingernails scratching at his shoulderblades like he had missed so fucking much. Her wings trembled fiercely enough that he had to pull his own back a fraction.
Lute’s face had finally turned that deep, warm, needy gold by the time they needed to pull back for air.
“Good girl,” he breathed. “Let me—”
“Fuck me.”
Adam’s hand stilled. He blinked at her like a dumbass. “What?”
Lute pressed her hand against the bulge in his underwear in lieu of words. She didn’t have to rub much before it was his turn to struggle to maintain composure.
“You don’t need to be gentle with me,” she said. “You say that you want me? Prove it.”
Yeah, no. He still had no idea what the fuck she was talking about.
Obviously Adam wanted her. He wanted her in every way that it was possible to want someone. Fuck, he didn’t know what he was doing if he hadn’t been showing her. He was touching her as gently as he could, putting all his attention into making her feel good, being more considerate than he’d been in thousands of years. He was…
Treating her completely differently from how he had before.
That was a good thing, right? He had to treat her differently in bed. Nevermind that he had shit to make up for, she was different. It had been one thing when she was a towering amazon who looked like she could run through a steel wall. They’d been more of less the same then. He was still exactly the same, but she was…
He loved her more than he’d known it was possible for him to love another person. She was more precious than every star in the fucking sky. She was more beautiful than them too, even if he’d had to look for it. He should have had enough faith in her to know that his perception would change once he stopped to look.
His perception was the only thing that had changed. He took in her arms, slender enough that he could completely engulf them in one hand. Even sitting down, he loomed well over a head over her. His fingers were still in her pussy; her tight pussy.
Fuck. Could she even take him?
“Lute…” Adam began, stopping to consider his words in an attempt to avoid being a dumbass again, only to find himself unable to say anything as a result.
No shit he wanted her. He fucking loved her.
He loved her too much to risk hurting her.
The way she looked at him, the pain and pleading, told him that he was going to run that risk no matter what he did.
She reached up to run a hand along his jaw. “I’m still me.”
Don’t treat me like someone else.
Somehow, he felt like it would have been easier if she had said it out loud.
Lute shivered as he pulled his fingers out of her to tug at the hem of her panties.
“Tell me if anything feels wrong,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you think I’ve suddenly become nice enough that I wouldn’t tell you if you were doing a bad job?”
Taking their underwear off when they had already gone so far was an awkward affair. Adam had planned to pull Lute back into his lap when they were done. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and laid back, pulling him down with her.
Adam braced his hands against the bed to hold himself up before he could flop on her or some shit. “Really? Missionary?”
The turn of Lute’s head was subtle enough to be almost unnoticeable, but there was no missing the way her eyes drifted off to the side. “I’m taking it easy on you.”
Adam leaned down to envelop her in another gentle kiss. Different, but different in a way that they both needed right then. “I’d fucking soak as long as it was with you,” he murmured when he pulled back.
The look Lute shot him was nothing short of disgusted.
At least she was looking at him.
“You get the fucking point,” he huffed. He shifted his weight onto one arm so that he could caress her cheek. “You are the fucking point.”
Disgust softened into a look of soft, fragile hope.
The look of someone starting to believe.
“I’m going slow for my own sake,” he said. “I know you’re a needy bitch, but let me be a bit of a pussy dickbag this time.”
She smiled weakly. “Well, if you’ve turned into a pussy…”
“Still a good enough dick to plow your pussy.”
Despite his words, what happened next was a far cry from plowing. It was too slow. Too gentle.
He pressed his dick against her entrance carefully, hesitating when he felt how much more space he took. There was no fucking telling how long he would have floundered uselessly if not for Lute pressing against him impatiently. The threat of seeing hurt and insecurity on her face once more saw him pushing forward.
He moved slowly, but she was tight. She was small. He had no doubt that Lute’s gasp was entirely against her will, but it was still there. So was the way that she gripped his shoulder and hissed, “Keep going,” just as ferocious as ever.
Like he wasn’t the only one with a point to prove.
Lute tensed as he pressed further and further in. Discomfort was written in the tenseness of her shoulders and wings, yet she still glowered at him when he stopped halfway in. That glower turned outright wrathful when he began to turn back.
It was erased when he thrust back in, absurdly gently by their standards, but still hard enough to draw a gasp from her.
It wasn’t the ecstasy that he wanted, but there was enough pleasure in the pain for him to keep going.
That pain faded away while the pleasure increased. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing down to encourage him further in. He picked up his pace as much as he dared, which turned out to be a lot fucking more than he had expected to dare. Before he knew it, his own groans and grunts had joined the heavy, high-pitched noises seeping out of her. The feeling of his dick dragging against her walls was fucking fantastic. Lute’s nails raking across his back sent an electric thrill across his skin.
It couldn’t hope to compare to the look on her face, flushed, ruined, and wanted. The way that she looked at him made him feel like he might actually be worth something, for all the reasons that the rest of Heaven didn’t see as worth anything at all.
She came first. For the first time in his existence, he was proud that she came first. The release that overcame him shortly after was great, but for once, it wasn’t the point.
Adam tumbled off of Lute gracelessly. She didn’t seem to care all that much as he pulled her into his arms and held her close.
“I love you,” he said again, knowing that he would say it countless more times after. She deserved him at her best, but he’d loved her at his worst. Because she deserved better, his worst would have to be worse than he ever got again.
For her, anyway. Everyone else could get fucked, but…
Adam buried his face in the crook of Lute’s neck, the comfort of her closeness enough to make the awkwardness of the maneuver with it. “Stay with me?”
She shifted to drape one of her wings over him, pristine grey and black mingling with gold. “Forever.”