Liez's thumb hovered over the booking list, the blue glow of his phone the only thing between him and the darkness pressing against the windows. Three more tonight. Three more creatures who'd found his little corner of the internet, who'd scrolled past the testimonials and the carefully vague promises, who'd typed their names into the form and waited.
He scrolled past a lamia priestess named Sable — elegant, probably, centuries old, the kind who'd want conversation before anything else. Past a phoenix whose profile picture flickered even in the thumbnail, copper and gold and crimson bleeding into each other like a sunset caught mid-collapse. Past a ghost named Selene who'd written *"eighty years of watching, I want to feel something warm"* in the notes field.
His dick twitched against his thigh. Fucking ridiculous. Fourteen inches of supernatural magnet, and he still got hard reading a booking form like it was a menu.
Luna. Twenty-three. Werewolf. The notes field said: *"I've never done this before. Don't make it weird."*
He'd laughed when he read it. Now, an hour later, the laugh had worn thin, and what was left was the quiet hum of anticipation that lived under his skin whenever a new one came. The first-timers were always the best. They came in with their walls up and their hands shaking, and they left with something loosened in their chests, something they hadn't known they were carrying.
The floorboards creaked.
Liez looked up from the phone, his thumb frozen over the screen. The sound was soft — a careful step, a foot testing the wood before committing weight to it. Not the mailman. Not the neighbor's cat. A person, coming up the walk, hesitating at the bottom step.
He set the phone face-down on the sheets. The glow died, and the room came back to him: the oil lamp throwing its long, hot shadows across the rumpled bedding, the smell of woodsmoke and musk that had soaked into the walls over months of this exact ritual, the worn floorboards that knew the weight of a hundred different bodies.
The knock came. Three soft raps. Hesitant, but deliberate. A knock that said *I'm here, I'm not leaving, but I might if you open the door too fast.*
Liez crossed the room in four strides. He didn't check the peephole. He never did. The gift that let him see the dead and the divine and the in-between also let him feel the shape of what waited on the other side of a door — the heat of it, the hunger, the fear. This one was all three, tangled together so tightly he couldn't tell where one ended and the others began.
He opened the door.
The woman on his porch was tall — nearly his height, which was saying something — with silver hair that fell in wild waves past her shoulders, catching the lamplight like moonlight on water. Her eyes were brown, warm and wary, and they flicked over him once, twice, three times, like she was checking him for weapons or checking herself for the nerve to run.
She wore a leather jacket over a thin tank top, jeans that hugged her thighs, boots that had seen better decades. Her hands were shoved into her pockets, and her shoulders were up around her ears, and she looked at him like he was a doorway she wasn't sure she wanted to walk through.
"Luna," he said. Not a question.
Her jaw tightened. "You're him."
"I'm him." He stepped aside, leaving the doorway open. "Come in. The floorboards are creaky, but they hold."
She didn't move for a long moment. The air between them was thick with the smell of her — pine and cold night air and something underneath, something animal and warm. Her eyes did another sweep of his face, his shoulders, the way he filled the doorframe, and something in her posture shifted. Not relaxed. But decided.
She stepped over the threshold.
The door shut behind her, and the woodsmoke and musk thickened, closing around her like a hand. She stood in the middle of the room, not quite looking at the bed, not quite looking at him, her hands still in her pockets and her spine still straight.
"So," she said. "This is what it looks like."
"This is what what looks like?"
"The place where the monsters come to get fucked." Her voice was low and gravelly, rough at the edges, like she'd spent years swallowing rocks. "I wasn't sure what I was expecting. Candles, maybe. A pentagram. Something that told me I wasn't the first."
"You're not the first." Liez moved past her, picking up the lamp and adjusting the wick so the light fell warmer across the bed. "But you're the first werewolf in three weeks. The last one —" he glanced over his shoulder, "— she wanted me to chase her. Literally. Ran through the woods for an hour before she let me catch her."
Luna's mouth twitched. "Did you catch her?"
"Caught her, fucked her against a tree, carried her back here when her legs gave out. She left a note saying I was 'acceptable.'" He set the lamp down. "Highest compliment I've gotten all month."
She laughed. It was a small sound, barely more than a breath, but it loosened something in her shoulders. She pulled her hands out of her pockets, and he saw the scars — faint white lines crisscrossing her knuckles, the kind you got from years of fighting and never quite healing right.
"I don't know how this works," she said. "The website — I found it through a link on a forum. Someone said you were —" she stopped, her jaw working. "Someone said you were the only one who could see us. Really see us. Not just — not just the monster."
Liez leaned against the windowsill, crossing his arms. "That's the pitch, yeah. I see what you are, and I don't flinch."
"And then you fuck them."
"And then I fuck them." He let the words sit there, heavy and simple. "You booked the appointment, Luna. You typed your name into the form. You walked up my porch steps. You knocked. What part of this are you still trying to talk yourself out of?"
Her eyes flashed — for a second, just a second, the brown went gold, and he saw the wolf looking out at him, wary and hungry and proud. "I'm not trying to talk myself out of anything. I'm trying to figure out if you're worth the risk."
"The risk."
"I'm an alpha." She said it flat, like it was a warning. "My pack — what's left of it — we've been hunted. By hunters, by other packs, by things that wanted our territory. I've spent the last five years learning not to trust anyone who isn't pack. And I'm standing in a stranger's house, about to let him —"
She stopped. Her throat worked.
Liez didn't move. He let the silence sit, let it stretch, let it fill the space between them until it was thick enough to touch. Then he said, quietly: "You don't have to do this. You can walk out that door right now, and I'll delete your booking, and you'll never hear from me again."
Luna stared at him.
"But you're not going to," he said. "Because you didn't come here to run. You came here because you've been alone for so long that even the idea of being touched by a stranger sounds better than another night in your own head."
Her breath caught. The gold bled out of her eyes, leaving only brown — brown and raw and so nakedly human that it made something in his chest clench.
"How do you know that?" she whispered.
"Because I've been that person." He pushed off the windowsill, crossing toward her slow, giving her time to bolt. "I've been the one standing in a stranger's doorway, trying to decide if the risk was worth the chance that someone might actually see me."
He stopped a foot away from her. The smell of her was stronger now — pine and cold and that animal warmth, her body heat bleeding into the space between them. He could see the faint tremor in her hands, the way her fingers curled and uncurled at her sides.
"I see you, Luna," he said. "I see the wolf. I see the scars. I see the alpha who's been carrying her pack on her back for so long she forgot what it felt like to put it down." He reached out, slow, giving her every chance to step away. "And I see the woman who's so fucking tired of being strong that she just wants someone to hold her for one goddamn night."
His hand landed on her hip.
The room went quiet.
Luna's breath stopped. Her eyes were locked on his, and he saw the war in them — the wolf wanting to run, the woman wanting to stay, both of them fighting for control of a body that had already made its choice. She swayed toward him, a fraction of an inch, and that was all the answer he needed.
He drew her onto the bed.
Her knees buckled the moment the backs of them hit the mattress — not from weakness, not from fear, but from the sheer animal relief of finally setting down a weight she'd been carrying so long she'd forgotten it was there. She fell backward onto the rumpled sheets, and the lamplight spilled across her like warm honey, catching the silver of her hair, the sharp line of her jaw, the way her chest rose and fell too fast.
Liez followed her down, one knee landing between her thighs, his weight settling over her but not on her — holding himself up on his forearms, giving her room to breathe, to run, to change her mind. His hand was still on her hip, his thumb tracing the jut of bone through the thin denim of her jeans.
"Still here," he murmured. Not a question.
"Still here." Her voice was rough, scraped raw by something that wasn't fear. Her hands came up, hesitating for a moment, then landed on his shoulders — not pushing, not pulling. Just touching. Just feeling the solid warmth of him beneath her palms. "You feel real."
"I am real."
"I know." But she said it like she was still convincing herself. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, gripping tight, and he felt the faint tremor in her hands again — that telltale sign of a body running on adrenaline and nerve for too long. "I just — I've spent so long —"
She stopped. Her throat worked.
Liez didn't rush her. He let the silence sit between them, let it breathe, let it fill the space until it was thick enough to hold the weight of what she wasn't saying. Then he lowered his head, slow and deliberate, and pressed his mouth to the corner of her jaw.
She made a sound — small, broken, barely more than a breath — and her hands tightened on his shoulders.
"Tell me what you need," he said against her skin. "Tell me what you came here for."
Her answer took a long time coming. He could feel it building in her, the words fighting their way up through years of walls and caution and carefully maintained distance. When they finally came, they came out in a rush, low and almost angry, like she was daring herself to say them.
"I need to feel something." Her voice cracked on the last word. "Anything. I've been so fucking numb for so long that I forgot what it felt like to be alive. And I thought — I thought if I could just — if someone could just —"
She stopped. Her eyes were wet, and she blinked hard, furious at herself for the tears, and Liez felt something in his chest twist.
"You thought if someone could just fuck you hard enough, you'd feel something," he finished for her, gentle, not mocking.
She laughed — a broken, wet sound. "That's — yeah. That's exactly it. It sounds pathetic when you say it out loud."
"It's not pathetic." He brushed a strand of silver hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear. "It's the most honest thing anyone's said to me in months."
Her eyes searched his face, looking for the lie, looking for the pity. She found neither. What she found was something steady, something patient, something that didn't flinch.
"Okay," she whispered. "Okay."
And then she kissed him.
Her mouth was hungry against his, all teeth and heat and the desperate press of a woman who'd been starving too long. Liez groaned into it, his hand tightening on her hip as she arched up into him, her fingers already fumbling at his belt with a frantic, graceless urgency that made his cock throb against the denim of his jeans.
"Hurry," she gasped against his lips, the word rough and broken. "Fuck, just—hurry up, I need—" Her fingers slipped on the buckle, clumsy and shaking, and she made a sound of pure frustration in the back of her throat. "I can't—goddammit—"
He caught her wrists, gently, and she stilled beneath him, her chest heaving. Her eyes were wild, that gold bleeding back into the brown, and he could smell her now—not just pine and cold night air, but something deeper, something wet and warm and animal. The scent hit him like a fist to the gut, and his cock jumped hard against his fly.
"Easy," he murmured, his voice low. "I've got you. Let me."
He released her wrists and sat back on his haunches, his hands going to his belt with the practiced economy of a man who'd done this a hundred times. But his eyes never left hers, and he watched the way her throat worked as she swallowed, the way her hands clenched in the sheets on either side of her hips, the way her chest rose and fell too fast under the thin cotton of her tank top.
"You're shaking," he said, not a question.
"I told you." Her voice was scraped raw. "I've been numb for so long. And now—" She laughed, a broken, breathless sound. "Now I feel everything, and it's too much, and I don't know what to do with it."
The belt came free. He drew it through the loops with a hiss of leather, and her eyes dropped to the bulge straining against his jeans, and he watched her pupils blow wide.
"Then let me give you something else to feel," he said, and he heard his own voice drop into that darker register, the one that made spirits and gods and women alike go quiet and still. "You came here to be fucked, Luna. You said it yourself. So lie back and let me do it."
The gold in her eyes flared. Not fear. Not defiance. Something rawer, hungrier. "Don't talk to me like I'm breakable."
"You're not breakable." He popped the button on his jeans, the sound sharp in the quiet room. "You're the opposite of breakable. You're the thing that breaks other things." He pushed his jeans down over his hips, and her breath caught as his cock sprang free, thick and heavy and already leaking, the head dark and slick. "But tonight, you're going to lie back and let me take care of you. And you're going to feel every goddamn inch of it."
Her eyes locked on his cock, and the sound she made was small and needy, barely more than a whimper. Her thighs shifted restlessly against the sheets, and he could see it—the way her jeans had gone taut across her hips, the dark damp patch that had bloomed at the crotch. She was soaked. Absolutely, utterly soaked, and the sight of it made his mouth water.
"Jesus," he breathed. "You weren't kidding."
"I told you." Her voice was barely a rasp. "I'm wet as fuck. I've been wet since I knocked on your door." She reached down, fumbling with the button of her own jeans, her fingers still shaking. "Please. I need you inside me. I need—"
He caught her hands again, and she made a sound of frustration that was almost a growl. But he didn't let go. He leaned down, his mouth brushing the shell of her ear, and he felt her shiver against him.
"Let me," he said again, softer this time. "Let me take care of you. That's what you came here for, isn't it? To put it down for one night?"
She went still. Then, slowly, her hands relaxed in his grip, and she nodded, a single, jerky movement.
He released her and hooked his fingers into the waistband of her jeans, and she lifted her hips to help him, and he pulled them down her thighs, along with the thin black underwear beneath. The scent of her hit him full-force then—hot and musky and so fucking wet he could smell it across the room. Her pussy was slick and swollen, the lips glistening with her arousal, and he could see the way her clit pulsed with her heartbeat, engorged and desperate for attention.
"Fuck," he said, the word dragged out of him. "Look at you. Soaking wet for me, and I haven't even touched you yet."
Her cheeks flushed, but she didn't look away. "Are you going to keep talking about it, or are you going to do something about it?"
He laughed, low and dark. "I like the way you think." He kicked his jeans the rest of the way off and settled between her thighs, his cock sliding through the slick heat of her folds, not entering, just—testing. Just letting her feel the weight and heat of him against her. Her hips bucked up, trying to take him, and he held her down with a hand on her hip.
"Not yet," he said. "I want to hear you ask for it."
Her eyes flashed gold. "I did ask."
"You said 'hurry.'" He dragged the head of his cock through her slickness, pressing just barely against her entrance, and she gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders. "That's not the same thing. I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you tell me exactly what you want."
For a moment, she just stared at him, her chest heaving, her eyes wild. Then something in her broke open, and the words came out in a rush, raw and desperate and utterly without shame.
"I want you to fuck me." Her voice cracked on the word. "I want you to shove that huge cock inside me and fuck me so hard I forget my own name. I want to feel you in my throat, in my cunt, I want to feel you everywhere. I want—" She stopped, her throat working. "I want to feel something. I want to feel everything."
The last word came out on a sob, and Liez felt something in his chest twist even as his cock throbbed against her. He leaned down and kissed her, hard and deep, swallowing the sound, and she melted into him, her hands fisting in his hair.
"That's what I needed to hear," he murmured against her mouth. "Now hold on."
He pulled back just enough to line himself up, the head of his cock pressing against her slick entrance, and then he pushed.
The sound she made was unlike anything he'd heard from her—a raw, punched-out gasp that was equal parts pain and pleasure, her body arching off the bed as he sank into her. She was so fucking tight, her walls clenching around him like a fist, and he had to stop, had to give her a moment to adjust, his forehead dropping to hers as he fought for control.
"Fuck," he gritted out. "You're so tight. So fucking wet and tight."
"Don't stop." Her nails raked down his back, and he felt the sting of it through his shirt. "Please, don't stop. I can take it. I can take all of it."
He pulled out almost all the way, then slammed back in, and her cry was sharp and broken, her head thrown back, her throat exposed. The sound of it—the wet, obscene sound of his cock driving into her soaked cunt—filled the room, and he did it again, harder, and she took it, her hips rising to meet him, her body already learning the rhythm of him.
"That's it," he growled, his hand sliding under her tank top to find her breast, her nipple already hard and tight. "Take it. Take all of it."
She was so fucking beautiful like this—her silver hair spread across the pillow, her eyes half-closed, her lips parted on a moan. The gold had taken over her eyes completely now, the wolf looking out at him, but there was no fear in it. Only hunger. Only need.
"Harder," she demanded, her voice rough. "Fuck me harder."
He gave it to her. He braced his hands on either side of her head and drove into her with a rhythm that was all raw, animal force, his hips slapping against hers, the sound obscene and wet and perfect. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her heels digging into his ass, pulling him deeper, and he felt himself hit the back of her cunt, felt her walls clench around him at the sensation.
"There," she gasped. "Right there—fuck, right there—"
"You like that?" He didn't wait for an answer, just kept hammering into that spot, watching her face contort with pleasure. "You like feeling me in your guts?"
"Yes—" The word came out on a moan, barely coherent. "Yes, fuck, yes—"
"Tell me how it feels." He was losing himself in it, in the heat and the tightness and the sound of her falling apart beneath him. "Tell me how my cock feels inside your tight little cunt."
Her eyes flew open, gold and wild, and she looked at him like she wanted to devour him. "It feels—" She gasped as he hit that spot again. "It feels like I've been empty my whole life and I didn't even know it. It feels like you're the only real thing I've touched in years."
The words hit him harder than any physical sensation, and he groaned, burying his face in her neck, breathing her in—pine and sweat and sex and something that was just her. He felt her hands come up, tangling in his hair, holding him there, and for a moment they just moved together, not frantic anymore but deep and slow and devastating, his cock sliding in and out of her slick heat like it was made for her.
"Luna," he breathed against her skin. "Fuck, Luna."
She made a sound at that—his name on her lips, broken and raw—and he felt her start to tighten around him, felt the fluttering of her walls that meant she was close. He reached down between them, his thumb finding her clit, swollen and slick, and she cried out, her hips bucking against his hand.
"Come for me," he commanded, his voice low and rough. "I want to feel you come around my cock. I want to feel you fall apart."
"I—" She shook her head, her eyes squeezed shut. "I can't—it's been so long—"
"You can." He kept his thumb on her clit, circling it with just the right pressure, and he drove into her harder, deeper, hitting that spot with every thrust. "Let go, Luna. Let me catch you."
Her back arched off the bed, a sound torn from her throat that was almost a howl, and he felt her climax rip through her—her cunt clenching around him so hard he saw stars, her body shuddering beneath him, her nails digging into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood. He kept moving through it, kept fucking her through the waves of her orgasm, and she sobbed with the pleasure of it, her body writhing beneath him.
"That's it," he growled. "That's it, take it all—"
She was still clenching around him, still trembling, when he felt his own climax building, a hot, desperate pressure at the base of his spine. He pulled out just enough to flip her onto her stomach, and she went willingly, gasping, her hands fisting in the sheets as he hauled her hips up and slammed back into her from behind.
"Oh, fuck—" Her voice was muffled in the pillow, but he heard the pleasure in it. "Yes, yes, yes—"
He grabbed a fistful of her silver hair, pulling her head back, and she arched into it, her back bowing, her ass pressing against him. He drove into her with a rhythm that was all raw, possessive force, his balls slapping against her clit with every thrust, the sound of it obscene and wet and perfect.
"You feel that?" he growled, his voice rough. "You feel how deep I am? How fucking good you take me?"
"Yes—" She was sobbing now, broken words torn from her throat. "Please, please—I'm gonna come again—"
"Then come." He reached around, his fingers finding her clit again, and she screamed, her body convulsing around him. "Come on my cock. Let me feel it."
She came with a sound that was almost a howl, her cunt clenching around him so hard he couldn't hold back anymore. He drove into her one last time, buried to the hilt, and came with a groan that was torn from the deepest part of him, his cock pulsing inside her, flooding her with heat. She shuddered beneath him, her body still clenching around him, milking him dry, and he collapsed onto her back, his forehead pressed to her spine, both of them gasping for air.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The only sound in the room was their breathing, ragged and uneven, and the distant crackle of the oil lamp. Liez could feel her heartbeat thundering against his chest, could feel the trembling of her body beneath him, and he knew—he knew—that something had shifted between them. Something that wasn't supposed to happen with a client.
He pulled out slowly, and she made a small sound at the loss, her body already missing him. He rolled onto his back beside her, his arm coming up to rest over his eyes, and he felt her turn to look at him.
"Liez."
He lowered his arm. Her eyes were brown again, soft and human and utterly unguarded, and she was looking at him like he was something she'd never seen before.
"Yeah?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she reached out, her fingers brushing his jaw, and she said, quietly, "Thank you."
It wasn't about the sex. He knew that. It was about being seen. About being held. About being allowed to put down the weight for one goddamn night.
"Anytime," he said, and he meant it.
She smiled—a real smile, small and crooked and genuine—and then she leaned in and pressed her lips to his, soft and slow, a different kind of kiss than the ones before. This one wasn't hungry. It was grateful. It was warm.
And for the first time in a long time, Liez felt something other than the quiet hum of anticipation that came with a new body in his bed. He felt something that might have been the beginning of a connection.
He didn't know what to do with that. So he just kissed her back, and let himself feel it.