Archive of Our Own

“Where did you get these?”

Rafayel’s gooseflesh-inducing vocal fry is right at your ear, a little lazy, a little stretchy, as his fingers tap the corner of the box balanced on your lap. The lid lifts with a papery sigh. Cold lamplight spills across the remaining couple of chocolates, turning their glossy shells into tiny planets.

You tip your head back against his shoulder so you can see his face. From this angle his jaw shadows the night sky, the stars and the city blur together past him, a smear of light beyond the glass railing.

“Nicole,” you say. “Break-room fairy godmother. She dumped them on my desk and told me to ‘enjoy my time off.’”

“Mmh.” He plucks one from its paper cup. Dark chocolate swirled with gold.

He examines it, tilting it so the dome light ricochets off the metallic flakes, making them dance and shimmer like fish scales beneath a choppy surface, but makes no attempt to eat it. You wonder if he must be thirsty after finishing half the box, but neither of you has moved to get water.

The car is as still as a sleeping animal beneath you. Engine off, handbrake up, only the occasional cooling tick comes from somewhere under the hood. With the roof folded away the cabin feels almost outdoors, the night air washing over in soft drafts that smell of green mountain, wet leaves, and a little bit of hot metal. Above the windshield, the lamppost throws a warm cone of light over the red paint, over the ring of pale paving stones, over the flowerbeds crowding the edge of the overlook. Hydrangeas, you think, the heads of them bowed and bluish in the dark.

You’ve claimed the passenger seat, slick red leather tilted back just enough that you can see the sky without craning your neck. Raf is mostly in the same seat; “mostly” because the car really was designed for one person at a time to be dramatic, not two people trying to share each other’s oxygen. His right leg runs along the cushion under you, solid and warm beneath your thighs. His left knee is jammed up against the center console, foot wedged awkwardly in the passenger footwell. The curve of the door digs into your back in a familiar way, shoulder resting just under the seatbelt anchor, the plastic edge nudges gently against your collarbone every time you breathe.

He’d slid the driver’s seat all the way back before he climbed over, but the steering wheel still stands in its proper place on the other side, turned straight, a mute witness. The dash glows faintly — speedometer needles at zero, infotainment screen dimmed to a soft, slow-moving waveform. Somewhere far below, down past the glass railing and the slope and the tangled trees huddled together, the city spreads around the bay in layers of light. Clusters of skyscrapers that look the part of glowsticks in size and luminescence, ferris wheel, strings of traffic like loose jewelry in the arteries of the city, a carpet of spilled diamonds thrown over a dark mirror.

(Rafayel mentioned he’d once seen a piece built on a scene like this, painted only through light reflection: black paint on a black canvas. The whole image depended on the direction of the brushstrokes. Vertical strokes caught almost no light and sank into darkness. Horizontal strokes caught the most and turned bright. With a single color, the artist had re-constructed the entire concept of constellations taking shape.

You told him, fascinated, that you’d love to see it someday. He looked strangely dissatisfied with that answer.)

You hear the faint click of him setting the gold-dusted chocolate back in its cup, and you feel the movement more than you see it. His chest shifts against your back, the tendons of his arm sliding under the fabric of his sleeve where it brushes your upper arm.

“Did you at least read the label before you let me inhale half the box on the way up here?” he asks.

“Does Mr. Qi not eat chocolate other than seventy-five percent cacao, single-origin, sourced from some obscure mountain?”

“No, I’m just thinking Nicole might be more of a practical joker than a benefactor.”

His right arm is looped around your waist, palm resting flat and heavy just under your ribs, thumb idly rubbing the same small arc in the fabric of your shirt. You shift a little, trying to ease the pinch of the door against your shoulder blade, and you feel his body tighten underneath you in a way that has nothing to do with the cramped seat. His arm reflexively tightens, holding you in place.

You haven’t eaten any of the chocolates. You didn’t feel like it, not with your stomach still knotted from the day. So you spent the whole ride watching the roads blur past in the magical haze of the golden hour as Rafayel took the hairpin turns like calligraphic sweeps, while your fingers did the darting in and out — reaching into the box on your lap to make your selection, then lifting it to his lips between gearshifts and controlled slides. His hands stayed where they belonged: one on the burning red steering wheel, the other occasionally dropping to the shifter with motion that matched the car’s apex-kissing exactitude around each curve. You’d time it perfectly, waiting for a straight stretch or a moment when his attention could spare a second, watching the chocolates disappear past his smiling lips, his jaw working to break through the shell.

It had been a good excuse as to why you kept your focus on the bizarre sexiness of his driving instead of watching the sunset scenery streaming pase, openly drinking in the apricot pink glow of his peacock preening and feeling like a female bird. Less a good memory now, with him sounding… off.

“Why?” you ask. “You feeling sick?”

“Sick?” He rolls the word around like he’s tasting it. “Nah.”

He shifts, the leather squeaking softly as he braces one foot against the floor and straightens up slightly, pulling you more fully against him with the arm around your waist.

You press the back of your hand to his forehead. The skin is a bit damp with sweat, definitely warmer than usual, a subtle heat radiating from him that could have been reasonable if the car heating was on. It’s not.

You twist enough to look up at him properly, and Rafayel just happens to turn away and be interested in something in the distance. His ears are faintly pink. That never bodes well — for him, anyway. For you it usually means something entertaining.

That entertaining thing ends up being a folded, slim cream card he holds up in between his index and middle finger right in front of your face, acting as a barrier between him and your inquisitive staring. He waves it slightly, the cardstock making a soft whistling sound as it cuts through the air.

You squint at the elegant text, and then take it from him to read properly. The font in the front is a loopy, romantic cursive printed in gold foil.

LUNE NOIRE · INTIMACY COLLECTION
DARK CHOCOLATE APHRODISIAC TRUFFLES

Crafted with 72% single-origin cocoa and a blend of botanicals traditionally used to enhance desire and physical pleasure.

ACTIVE BOTANICALS

Maca root · Damiana · Muira puama · Ginseng · L-arginine

INTENDED EFFECTS

When consumed in a relaxed setting, these chocolates may:
Increase sexual arousal and responsiveness
Heighten skin and nerve sensitivity
Promote genital blood flow and natural lubrication
Intensify orgasm and post-orgasm afterglow
Onset typically occurs within 20–40 minutes and may last up to 3 hours. Effects vary by individual.

DIRECTIONS FOR USE

Enjoy 1–2 pieces per person, preferably with someone you trust and want.
Do not exceed 3 pieces per person in 24 hours.

WARNINGS

Not recommended for individuals sensitive to stimulants or with cardiovascular conditions.
May cause flushing, elevated heart rate, and persistent erection or arousal.
For consenting adults only.
Do not consume before driving or operating machinery.

Lune Noire assumes no responsibility for clothes, furniture, or reputations affected by improper use.

“Nicole!” you scream at the top of your lungs, face on fire as you shove the little card at him. It bounces off his chest and lands somewhere in the footwell. “NOOOO! Oh my god, oh my god!”

The half-empty chocolate box on your lap suddenly feels like a box of grenades with the pins already pulled. You get jostled around on the lap of the victim himself when he laughs heartily. And it’s nails on a chalkboard of your mortification instead of the musical thing it usually is. There’s nothing remotely funny about any of this.

Do not exceed 3 pieces per person in 24 hours.

A gasp tears from your lungs. You’d fed him at least four, maybe five, while he was busy playing Mario Kart with an actual millions-of-dollars sports car, the speedometer needle tap-dancing way past the “you’re going to jail” zone. Your mind flashes back to the journey: the winding roads, blurry panorama of the golden-blushed Linkon, him maneuvering the steering wheel as he took each curve with the same mastery he had over his brush, all while casually consuming what now felt like a dose of pure, concentrated trouble. You feel slightly ill.

Rafayel does not appear so. He’s still staring out the windshield, but a smile is playing at the corners of his lips.

You, on the other hand, are about two seconds from cardiac arrest.

Your hand dives blindly down the side of the seat and finds your phone by touch, wedged between leather and door panel. You almost fling it into the footwell, secure it on the second try, and fumble it upright. The screen explodes into your face, harsh blue-white that makes your eyes sting. It also lights the whole cabin, ghosting a second, paler Rafayel in the glass of the windshield.

Your thumbs fly. Aphrodisiac chocolate oversose. Yes, with the typo. Enter.

The signal here is good; the results load fast. A wall of text appears: polite serif font, tasteful logo, clinical language wrapped around words like arousal and blood flow. You skim with the manic speed of someone hunting for the word death and trying to avoid it at the same time.

May cause increased sexual arousal and sensitivity, flushing, headache, rapid heartbeat, difficulty sleeping…

Your gaze skids and stops on rapid heartbeat. There’s a solid thud against your back. It doesn’t sound fragile. It does sound fast.

You scroll.

Overconsumption may lead to uncomfortable levels of arousal, persistent erection, pronounced flushing, pounding heartbeat, anxiety, and in rare cases fainting due to changes in blood pressure. Very high doses of certain botanical ingredients have been associated with agitation and convulsions.

Your stomach drops clean through the floor of the car.

Fainting. Convulsions.

The words flare in your mind in giant red letters, drowning out everything else on the page. Your grip tightens around the phone until the case creaks.

You stab the search bar again, type with even less grace this time: aphrodisiac chocolate overdose reddit.

A cluster of thread titles pops up. Phrases like thought I was going to die and never again immediately jump up, and you slam your thumb on the home button before your lungs can decide between laughing and screaming.

This is about to become an ER-worthy situation about to have you squirming before an overworked and underpaid nurse who has seen all kinds of furniture shoved up people’s asses.

“Okay, enough,” Rafayel’s hand closes over yours, plucking the phone from your grip with the lazy grace of a cat nabbing a passing fly. He drops it into the center console with a decisive clink. “I’m not sharing your attention with a phone of all things after being apart for so long.”

“You’ve eaten like half the box, Rafayel!” you blurt, twisting around as far as the cramped space allows. “What if you have a heart attack? We’re miles from anything!”

“I’m fi-iiiine,” he sings back, all too happy for reasons unknown, drawing the word out, the leather creaking with the movement. In contrast with how light he speaks, the sea-glass pink and blue of his irises are are a couple shades darker, having shrunk hoop-earring thin around his pupils. “It was one or two over the recommended portion, not the entire box. If I was going to have a heart attack, I would have done it already.”

You cover your face with your hands, a strangled sound escaping your throat. “God, ı'm so sorry, I didn’t know! I thought they were just fancy chocolates! What do we do, should I drive you to the ER? I can probably figure out how to—”

“Hey.” The word is soft, but the grip he has on your waist is anything but. “Look at me.”

You slowly peel your fingers apart. His gaze is locked onto you, head slightly tilted like a curious cat. The glow of the city lights dances across the sheen of his lower lip, highlighting its softness and inviting allure.

“I’m not having a medical emergency,” he says, enunciating the last two words like they’re a particularly funny joke. “But I reckon I don’t have long left until my brain turns into mush, so we have to figure out what to do about this actual one.”

He gestures to his crotch, which — you don’t want to look, okay, since this was supposed to be a cute joyride date with adrenaline giggles and it was ruined because of you, but how can you not, when he’s such a peacock about it? — is tenting his black jeans in a way that has to be impossible. Because those jeans are thick. Heavy, rigid denim. Slim fit. And the line of the zipper looks ready to pop like a soda can. Sitting on his right leg the entire time, taken by the scenery and the stars was how you were completely unaware of this developing situation until now.

You look away, your cheeks so hot they feel sunburned.

“Rafayel, this is not funny,” you manage, your voice thin.

“I’m not laughing,” he says, but he is, you can hear it in the shaky exhale that follows, the slight wobble in the arm holding you. “I’m suffering. This is a crisis. I’m in danger of popping a seam and then what would I tell my tailor? That it was a ‘Is there a gun in your pocket or are you happy to see me?’ situation gone wrong?.”

At the mental image of a gun going off in some man’s jeans has unwanted and inappropriate chuckles start escaping you despite the hand you have over your mouth, brittle, half-mad snort-squeaks only make it worse. What even is this situation? On a dark, isolated viewpoint in a sports car, sitting on top of a ridiculously beautiful man who has started sporting a chemical-induced erection the size of a cruise missile.

The sheer absurdity of it all is so overwhelming you feel a bubble of hysteria rising in your chest. Your shoulders start shaking.

“See? You think it’s funny too,” Rafayel accuses, but there’s no heat in it.

“I’m so sorry, Rafayel,” you get out sincerely between wheezes. “It’s not — oh god, I’m a terrible person.”

“Yeah, a little,” he teases unseriously to fluster you further, “This is the second time you’re trapping me with unknown substances, you know. In public, too. You’re getting too bold. I should be screaming.”

“Hey! I was just being a good girlfriend sharing my treats with you. You ate every single one I offered like a baby bird!—”

“Easy, easy,” he says, then winces.

That sobers you right up. You had a tendency to flail around when you got heated, and even though you are nowhere near the main event and still perched on his leg it must’ve jostled him. Nerve endings going off like pop rocks, right. You stop wriggling and lean back, a gesture of apology, a full-body contact that backfires spectacularly when he twitches under you, and lets out a pained grunt.

“Okay,” you say, your voice suddenly business-like as you scramble to come up with a solution. “Okay. Let’s just — let’s get you home. I’ll drive. You just sit there and — and think of… dead fish. Or something. It’s fine. We’ll be fine.”

“I don’t wanna leave,” he whines. He holds you with both arms, pulling you flush against him until there’s no space left for anything but the heat of his body and the ridiculous, press-hard problem in his pants. “We just got here. I finally have you to myself. Don’t...”

He has that spaced out, lowered, siren-like delivery you recognize from Ebb Day and The Perfume Incident, and that does not bode well at all. Your skin prickles and a hot stream that has your head blanking out pours out inside from head to toe. You really want to kiss him, and the fact that you’re already leaning forward registers until you’re a breath away from him, blinking in confusion. What the hell are you doing?

When you pull back, his bottom lip juts out in a sulky, disappointed curve that makes him look much younger than he is. You ignore that, and try to lean over his legs and scoot towards the driver’s seat to take matters into your own hands.

And are instantly caught, his fingers digging painfully into your hips, yanking you back. The force sends you sliding along his lap. His clothed cock catches in the valley of your ass, a burning hot presence that can’t be ignored, not at this proximity. He chokes on whatever he was about to say, the sound breaking off into a hiss, nails biting crescents into the material around the opposite dips of your pelvis.

“This’s — so bad,” he groans raggedly with an involuntary, shaky grind against you. “Saw white from just that. This is so bad.”

Then, before you can react, he seizes your chin from the underside, tilting your head to meet him. Then his lips slot over yours.

His mouth is a furnace, a fever, a reckless surge that steals the ground from under you. It chases the breath from your lungs, sends your knees jerking up, feet curling tight, demanding you bend to the fit of his hold until you fit into the crook of his elbow. Your neck rests on the bicep, your back arches involuntarily into the press of his body, and Rafayel licks into your mouth like he’s starving. There is none of his usual teasing slow-burn preamble. He is all-consuming. A force of nature.

Rafayel licks a thick, hot stripe across your lower lip and then bites down, not hard enough to break skin but with enough possessive pressure that has your hips hitching forward, your core clenching down on nothing. He swallows your gasp. The kiss deepens into a tangled, messy and desperate thing.

His other arm wraps around your waist, yanking you fully onto him, a movement so forceful and sudden it sends the half-empty chocolate box tipping over the side of your lap, its contents spilling across the red leather and onto the floor mat with a series of dull, insignificant thuds. He bats the few pieces from the seat and breaks the kiss momentarily to slide you off his lap, trapping you in the corner between the car door and passenger seat. Your back hits the plush leather and bounces off a little from the force of the impatient manhandling, lips tingling from friction, the world slightly tilted. 

With the illuminated city’s scenery to his back, Rafayel looks taller and menacing despite the awkward twisting of his body to hover over you in the confined space. His arms cord tight, hands splayed into claws, white-knuckled against the window ledge and the expensive red leathering of your seat. It’s only now that you can actually see the state he’s in: The sweat. The glassy, wet shine of his eyes, the thin ring of blue-pink rimmed sharp as a penknife. The visible, eerie to witness pulses at his turtleneck-covered throat. He’s panting, a thousand-yard stare hovering just south of your collarbones, cheeks flushed a beautiful, brilliant shade of pink that makes his features impossibly vivid in the shadows of the night, more beautiful.

Rafayel’s hands aren’t idle; first, he straightens your shirt, only to then fist it at the clavicle, tugging the collar wide so his mouth can go straight for the soft skin there, his exhale positively scorching. There’s a desperation to the way he inhales against your throat, as if he’s drinking you in, printing the taste of salt and skin onto brain matter he currently has very little control over. You brace hard against the door, knowing you physically can’t help him when the car is this tight but somehow needing to try, especially as his kisses go south, teeth scraping a worried path along your pulse.

“Raf—” you squeak, and he hushes you instantly, the hand at your hip dragging you forward the inch or so he could try pressing your bodies together, the hand at your collar shifting its territory to frame your jaw.

“You are. So,” he fights with language for a second, jaw ticking, “…cruel,” he finishes, though he says it like a blessing. “You get your hook in me, have me at your mercy, and act shocked when I want you to pull. I want you to pull so hard it hurts,” Rafayel slurs, his hips rutting against your thigh because he can’t get in between your legs properly from this angle. “Fuck, it hurts. Everything hurts. So good.” He grunts again, shoving his face into your neck and latching on to your earlobe, biting down hard.

You flinch hard and cry out from the sudden pain. But the sting of the bite is followed almost immediately by the hot, slow stroke of his tongue, a deliberate apology that has your head falling back against the door, your body going lax with a complicated rush of endorphins.

“Can’t take this,” he mutters, more to himself than to you, and with a grunt of pure, unadulterated frustration, he shoves you back against the seat and pushes himself up.

He half-stands, one foot on the floor mat, one knee on the seat cushion next to your hip, crouching over you in the open-topped car like some mythical beast that’s crawled out of the sea and into a metal shell. The dome light catches the sweat on his temples, the dark, wet sheen of his hair where it’s fallen into his face. Your stomach does a strange little flip. One more leg up and he’d be straddling you.

“Can you—” He breaks off, shaking his head, a brow-furrowed, choking laugh escaping. “I can’t even future tense my thoughts right now. All my blood is gone.”

Somewhere, you know, you should be a little worried. The chocolate’s effects are working entirely as advertised: he’s not high, just wound so tight it’s like a wind-up toy ready to pop an axle. The physical discomfort is a baking hotness radiating from him. The real problem is how the same heat is building in you too, a slow, creeping rising that shamefully isn’t a product of any aphrodisiac.

“We’re doing this here? Like this?” You manage, your own breathing unsteady. “Rafayel, someone might see. Anyone could drive up. We’re on a—”

“Let them,” he cuts in, and it’s the Rafayel of canvas and pigment, the one who creates worlds and breaks them on a whim. “I’ll paint them a masterpiece. Catafalque for a Peeping Tom.”

You don’t think he’s thinking straight at all and hasn’t been for a while, but he clearly wasn’t joking about that part. The threat is more intoxicating than any aphrodisiac. He sees it in your face and lunges.

There’s no elegant way to make out heavily in a two-seater, so the two of you make absolute fools of yourselves. Someone’s knee gets jammed into the dashboard, someone’s head knocks hard against the seatbelt anchor, you drop the gearshift into neutral with and scramble behind you to wedge it back where it belongs without being able to look because you’re busy getting kissed stupid. Your hair gets caught in the leather, and Rafayel’s fingers immediately follow after, delicately untangling each snared lock with clumsy but attentive fingers, as if even now the fine-motor task is second nature to him even though the rest of him is being reduced to a twitching, rutting, single-minded mess.

He tries to talk, but it comes out as bitten vowels and shaky little purrs, punctuated by a desperate, “Don’t want to go back, not yet… let’s stay, please, let’s just—” but he need in his eyes is perfect, crystalline. It’s too pathetic to be pretty, too feral not to love. For whatever reason, the previous conversation about going back home is being brought up again, and it’s as if that fear is what’s fueling his fervency. Like his mind has been gnawing on the gristle of it the entire time. You can hardly believe his previous coherency and confidence has flown away after one clumsy make-out session.

He’s trying to get closer, but the angle and the limited space aren’t allowing it. It’s either the dashboard digging into his behind or the console in the middle tripping him up. You laugh a little, mostly out of nerves, and shift awkwardly so your back digs into the leather. His hand is ghosting up and down your thigh, not quite begging but practically vibrating with every pulse from his chest to your own.

“Raf, you’re going to break something,” you say, half-laughing.

He grumbles and grabs your collar, tugging you until your teeth clack together. He kisses you like it’s the only thing left in the world, mouth open and raw. His tongue is slick and greedy, lip trembling against yours. It’s nothing like the measured, teasing make-outs you’ve weathered up till now; sloppier, hotter, fierce enough that you realize with a jolt that he’s not faking any of the desperation. He can’t get a grip, not on his breath or his body.

“Not fair,” he whines, digging his forehead into yours, sweat misting his hairline getting on you. “Inside of me is on fire. How — why do people use this stuff?”

“Do you want to take a minute? I can—”

He shakes his head, violently, nearly headbutting you. “No. No. If I stop, it gets worse. I want—” He closes his eyes, shakes again, inhales to the point it whistles. “I want you.”

He looks at you with that barely-contained hunger hiding beneath, the sort that makes you think if you don’t move first, he’ll shatter and scatter like paintwater tilting off the edge of the page. Whatever the aphrodisiac is, it’s stripped him of his usual reserve and left only an aching openness; he’s wearing his want like an unfamiliar shirt, not bothering to hide the way it fits.

Your hand finds his thigh, traces upwards, higher, until you fit your palm over the rigid line straining against his pants, and he makes a half-strangled sound. “Yes. Yeah.” The syllables tumble over each other, nearly melting into a thick, trembling groan as you work him through the fabric with a steady pressure that soothes and embarrasses in equal measure. It’s clumsy, almost, how he responds to you, all overexcited puppyish eagerness barely shaped into whimpers that light up along your nerves.

He tries to rally, to pull you closer by your wrist, but you’ve stolen all advantage and use it ruthlessly, dragging your palm from base to tip with purpose. He stiffens, thighs quaking under your grasp, his mouth parted and hungry but too overwhelmed to close the distance, left panting in that small, helpless ‘o’. You tease him, not unkind but playful, just enough pressure to coax out a sound from him you thought impossible: delicate, almost heartbreakingly high-pitched, more a whine than an outright moan.

That’s when patience finally fails him altogether.

He lurches forward, both hands scrabbling to undo the button of your jeans, words tangled in the rush: “Can’t—” His fingers, usually so precise, fumble now, the little metal disc slipping again and again as the effort defeats him.

“Raf, okay, okay, stop, stop for now, please,” you find yourself saying, soft but urgent, because the raw edge in his frustration is too much to bear.

To his credit, Rafayel listens. He stops with all the force it takes to resist a canvas half-finished, pressing his forehead to your shoulder instead. His breathing is heavy and hot, soaking right through your shirt, and you feel him there in the trembling, in the heat, in the long pause between want and surrender.

“There isn’t even space for me to take this off,” you supply, a comforting hand rubbing slow circles on the back of his head. He flinches at the contact, then immediately leans into it, a soft sigh escaping him. His entire body is one drawn string. He might actually shatter if you pluck him too hard. Or even a little.

The guilt is a sour knot in your throat. You did this. You fed him the chocolates.

“But it’s fine, listen to me,” you say, the resolve in your own voice surprising you. “I’m going to get you off either way, okay? But not like this. We can’t get anywhere if you keep trying to wrestle me in this car.”

You slide your fingers into the hair at his nape, and he makes a low, wounded sound at the back of his throat. He nuzzles closer, like a giant cat seeking comfort, and for a fleeting second, you almost forget the problem straining the seams of his jeans.

“How do you wanna do this? I want to make you feel better,” you ask gently, turning your head enough to press a soft kiss against his temple. He tastes of salt and a faint, almost sweet tang.

Midway through inhaling, you make the error of glancing down — and there, his hand has claimed you, fingers sprawled wide and sinking deep into the slope of your thigh, folding the muscle in his grasp. The fabric of your jeans drags taut beneath his palm, and the blue veins on the back of his hand run bold as rivers, feeding out from the simple, gleaming band circling his wrist. His sleeve is shoved up, the shadows of tendon and vein tracing his arm like roads beneath stretched skin.

It hits you, then, a stunning lurch in your gut, the kind that burns low and spreads, hungry, rippling outward from the knot in your belly. It hollows out everything else. Suddenly your own jeans are too tight, the seam biting in with a kind of pointed promise; the pressure is focused, precise, a line of friction that’s impossible to ignore.

But he lets go, pulling back with effort. He looks at the steering wheel, then back at you, then over your seat where the road curves down towards the city. A slow, lazy smile spreads across his face, the kind that divines trouble and makes you want to sprint straight toward it.

“Rafayel, no.”

“You know me so well.” He leans in, his breath fanning across your cheek, then stands up straight in the car. Makes no attempt to move.

You’re face to face with his crotch, the denim pulled taut over the hard line of him. Your own breath wobbles. The city lights blur in your periphery.

Looming over you with one hand braced against your seat’s headrest for balance, Rafayel works at his own belt buckle with the other, jean chains jangling around with the force of it. The leather whispers as it threads free. The button popping is loud in the quiet air, followed by the rasp of his zipper lowering, like it lets out a relieved sigh in Rafayel’s place.

“What do I need to do for you to sit down for this? Do you want everyone who decides to take the scenic route at night to get a private showing of Catafalque for a Very Horny Artist?”

You say that, but your eyes are glued to the revealing vee of his jeans, at the dark fabric of his boxers and the rude and immediate shape beneath, the patch of dampness darkening the material where the head presses against the constriction.

He answers by hooking both thumbs into the waistband of his underwear and shoving them down with the pants in one fluid motion. The night air must be cold against his overheated skin because he makes a noise, a clipped-off gasp that is entirely swallowed by the view. The subsequent bob, slap, and bounce of him springing free is so indecent that your mouth waters. The noise is heavy. He’s flushed an angry, deep red that almost matches the color of the sports car, swollen enough that the skin looks tight, a glossy bead of fluid already welling at the tip. It’s a mesmerizing, vulgar thing against the frame of glittering cityscape and dark silhouette of mountains.

“Will you open for me?” he asks, raw, no playfulness left in the request. It’s a beg and a command at once. “All I can think about is... Wanna be in that smart mouth and.... Mess you up like I...”

He’s mumbling to himself.

A thrill goes through you. You glance up, meeting his hooded, colorless gaze. Rafayel is trying so valiantly to keep his composure, even as he’s one massive, shivering bundle of ‘I’m going to die if you don’t do something right fucking now.’ An index finger comes up to tilt your head up, and your bottom lip slips from the top row of your teeth. His eyes follow the movement, a fresh flush rising to his cheeks, his lower body shifting in an abortive jerk.

His thumb tip runs the curve of your lips. You part them, and his whole body twitches. His cock is an inch from your nose. And there’s a sudden smell of him, a hint of his expensive soap and perfume on top of it, along with a muskier undertone that sends a bolt of pure heat shooting through you. You can see the muscles in his bare forearm contract, breathing ragged, hand shaking where it grips the headrest.

“Pretty, pretty, pretty,” he mutters, feverishly, like a mantra. “So unfair.”

Your tongue darts out, swiping at the wet pad of his thumb, and he exhales, shaky. The taste is salt and the lingering trace of chocolate, a chemical sweetness. You bite down lightly, and he lets his hand fall. His cock bobs in front of you, and the urge to reach out and grab him is a physical ache. It feels wrong to just stare at it. Especially the way it curves upward, straining, the veins stark under his skin and a clear droplet of precum threatening to roll down his shaft.

“Gonna paint your mouth,” he murmurs, palm coming down to smooth your hair. His grip on your scalp is the only steady thing about him, grounding himself with you while the rest of him threatens to leave orbit.

You give him a firm, ungloved touch and the downright panicked sound he makes at the back of his throat is worth every second of potential public humiliation. He slaps a hand over his mouth to stifle the rest, eyes wide open and brows drawn together, chest rising and falling rapidly. His hips twitch, an aborted thrust. You grip him, feeling the hot, silky-smooth skin glide under the circle of your fingers. Even the lightest squeeze is rewarded with a glistening pearl of moisture. You hear the leather creak and bend from the white-knuckled grip, a groan muffled by the meat of his palm. A tiny, pleading noise escapes him, soft and weak, and he shifts, pushing forward just a little.

All this from a single, chaste stroke. No wonder he’s on the verge of losing his mind. You’re amazed he hasn’t gone full feral. Yet.

“Fuck, what is this, what is...” He bites it back, a ragged noise that turns into his usual showy laugh, but the edge is gone and now he is just trembling, head tilted and chin down, every muscle lit up with electricity. He looks a bit drunk, glazed, like the world is tilting a little. “That’s good. That’s — that’s good. Feel like... I can just... Please, can you—”

“I got you, I got you, don’t worry, come on, feed it to me, baby,” you murmur, a soft reassurance, and you hold him steady while he lines up, and slides home.

The stretch is obscene, a thick and heavy weight on your tongue. He arches so violently the seat shakes, his moan echoing off the glass and the windshield. His other hand finds purchase on the lip of the window, the knuckles white, nails scraping the paint job.

Meanwhile, you have to adjust. The half-delirious man above you is throbbing, the vein pulsating under your fingertips and his cock doing the same in your mouth, the flesh inside hard, the skin outside soft. He can’t fit all at once, of course, and the angle is awkward, your neck craned to accommodate his height. So, you wrap a fist around him and bob shallowly.

What surprises you is him losing all strength in his legs and crumpling in half over the speedster bump behind the passenger seat, his hands slipping to clutch at the buttress. The sudden shift shoves his head all the way in, the blunt tip hitting the back of your throat, and you gag, sandwiched between the back of the seat and the trembling wall that is his body. At the same time Rafayel sobs, his whole body seizing.

“Ffffuck, sorry, ‘m sorry, I can’t, my knees, I can’t, I can’t,” he cries, the last word cracking on the high note. “I’m so sorry, cutie, I’m— please, keep moving, I’ll, yes, fuck, yes, thank you, thank you, thank you—”

But fully flattened against the seat, you have no space to move. It’s him doing all the moving.

You can only close your eyes, hold on to him and try to catch a breath, his thighs and stomach quivering as he fucks your mouth in a series of hesitating, slow, stuttering and shallow jerks that contradicts his desire. It must be painful, you think. All you can do is flatten your tongue, relax, and let him go. Let him use you. Take what he needs. Let him have it.

It’s filthy, the smothered noises and hisses he’s making and the sounds that are coming from you. The wet, obscene slurp of spit, the squelch of his movements, the slips of his hands sliding on the buttress where he’s draped over like a limp, broken doll.

He tries to speak, to say anything, but his words are breaking apart, and the only syllable that stays intact is the hisses and low moans your name, over and over and over, until—

You swallow around him, and his rhythm stutters. He makes a strangled, shocked noise. And your mouth is suddenly flooded, the taste of his release coating the insides of your cheeks and your tongue, thick and salty and a little bitter, and then he’s pulling away, his cock leaving your mouth with a slick pop and a loud cry. You swallow. His upper back hits the windshield header and even bends a bit backwards, his head thrown back and his face blissed out of his skull, and he strokes himself to a second crest the rest of the way, painting his hot pink shirt in thick spurts of white.

You’re both panting. Your jaw is sore, and you’re leaning forward, still holding onto his thigh, blinking at the thick mess of him making its way down in a snail’s pace. Your heart is racing, a frenzied bird in your chest, and you’re strangely aware of the cool night air, the dark sky and the quietness of the mountain.

Rafayel drapes a forearm over his eyes, his other arm bracing his torso against the dashboard, his entire form sagging as the tension ebbs, the harsh lines of his shoulders and collarbones smoothing out. His Adam’s apple bobs.

“That was fast,” you manage. Because it was. Barely minutes. But also, not. It had felt like forever. You’re not sure. You’re also a little dazed. “Feeling better?”

He laughs. It’s an utterly ruined sound, a choked, wheezing derision. He drops his hand and looks down at you, and his resentful smile is crooked, punch-drunk, his lower lashes clumped together. Sweat shines at his chin and the sides of his face and you briefly glimpse the wet patch on his sleeve.

And you have to admit, the aftershocks are hilarious. Rafayel, minus two thirds of his mortal dignity, is giggly in the way of a migraine patient just after the pain breaks and the world is suddenly hilarious, every sight or sensation knocking him off-kilter. He slides into your lap in the passenger seat, purrs like a huge, wrung-out feline, and just lets you take off his ruined shirt and use it as sort of a cleaning rag on him. He’s left with yet another pink dress shirt with its buttoned up collar rimmed a darker shade due to sweat, and somehow, throughout all that, his tie stayed perfectly in place.

After it’s done, you fold the overshirt that probably costs more than your salary carefully and put it away on the dashboard, run your fingers through the roots of his lavender hair, and kiss his temple until he’s coiled around you practically boneless.

You were very wrong about that last line.

Because not even five minutes later he has you bent like a pretzel the hood of the car, rambling about how in these models the motor is in the back, so it doesn’t get hot at all.

You honestly don’t know how both of you got here.

One moment you were enjoying stargazing and watching the city beyond the glass railings, cuddled together on the sloped front of the vehicle; and the next thing you know Rafayel is on you. Maybe you underestimated how long-lasting the aphrodisiacs were going to be and should have driven him back home instead of giving into his pestering to stay and continue the date, who knows.

Point is: a horny, demanding artist has a hold on the backs of your knees and has them pushed all the way to the underside of your breasts. Your shirt has become some sort of cardigan open in the front, showing your chest littered with lovebites. Your ass is exposed to the night, jeans and underwear tugged to your knees — which act as fucking restraints, if anything. A single shoe has come off, hanging precariously from your foot. His mouth is pressed to your core, and the world has shrunk to the warm, silky-wet drag of his tongue and the heat of his breath, your own breath fogging the gleaming red. But you’re in no danger of falling, not with the bulk of him pushing you up like that.

(“Rafayel, there’s no lube, it’s not going to—”

“You make a great point. Let me get to it.”)

There’s no sound from the distant highway, only the wind in the grass, and the rustle of leaves, and the faint, almost meditative hums from Rafayel, the slick sounds his mouth is making, and your own breath, hitching and hiccupping. Your fingers scrabble at the smooth metal. You’re on fire, feverishly aroused, the cool of the occasionally blowing wind is doing nothing to ease the burning need inside.

You want to see Rafayel, want to paw at his hair, but your smushed position is one that has him completely hidden behind the wall that is your legs. Looking anywhere else is a slap on the face on he’s got you laid out like this out in the fucking open, on top of a flashy, expensive car, the city lights spread beneath you and the starry heavens above. You can’t believe you’re getting off on this, or that you willingly went along, or that —

His teeth scrape lightly at the nub of nerve endings and your thoughts disintegrate.

“Yeah, stay with me, pretty girl, I got you, gonna make a mess of you,” comes his low, sing-song warning from between your thighs. The vibrations add to the sensation. It’s a lot.

He’s relentless. Alternating between broad, flat-tongue licks and a pointed tip to poke and prod at your hole. The obscene noises his mouth produces are loud enough to fill the whole clearing. When his nose bumps against the apex of your cleft, and his tongue slips in, the bolt of pleasure-pain that goes through you has you seeing stars. Literal, real-life, actual constellations, in the backdrop of the Milky Way. Or the tears in your eyes have decided to take that shape.

“Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit. Please, please, don’t stop, keep going, please, please, please, I’m so close, fuck, fuck, right there, oh, god, that’s good, so good, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes—” you babble, your whole body tight and tense, the coil of your orgasm ready to snap.

You’re at the edge, feet flailing a bit from the knees, and the knowledge that anyone could see this if they happened to drive by is only spurring the pressure to build and build and build, and then, and then—

Rafayel wraps an entire arm around your pressed thighs, an iron bandtrapping you in and pulling you impossibly closer to his face, his nails giving the soft skin crescent dimples. He gives a particularly electrifying suck on your clit, and you’re slingshotted out of your body. A shattered cry echoes off the trees, and you’re shaking, and thrashing. He has to push down with the same arm to pin your hips to the car while his mouth keeps working on you, prolonging the pleasure, dragging it out of you, until finally, finally, you’re slumped on the car, gasping, and his grip loosens, and his mouth pulls away.

The post-climax daze lasts exactly half a second, because when you look down, his head is visible from the side, and the sight is... He is flushed and beautiful, the glow of the overhead lamppost and the moonlight glistening the sheen of his lips and his chin. His hair is a tousled, sexed up mess, the tips of his ears and the tops of his cheeks a brilliant pink.

Rafayel carefully helps you let down your shaking legs, and, at that point, you are just a puddle of a person too exhausted to give a damn about anything else.

“I’ve never heard you curse so much. Must’ve been good, huh?” he teases, his voice deep and rougher than normal, the usual sultry, melodic tones replaced by gravel and the rumble of an oncoming storm. “You’re into the threat of being caught? Didn’t think my cutie had that in her. What other dirty little secrets are you keeping from me?”

He’s standing, stroking up and down your trembling upper thighs, the tender touch the complete opposite of what his words imply. He leans in to press a damp kiss on your sternum, and the contrast of the chill and the warmth raises goosebumps in your flesh.

“I think I’m leaking on the paint job, Rafayel, can we get in the car now?”

It was a niggling feeling before, but now you think about it again, he looks too in-control for someone under the effects of the chocolates, his gaze not as hazy, his grin not as wide and dopey. Before, his entire body was a live wire. You’re not sure what this is or if you should be worried.

Despite needing a wipe first, you reach down to pull your pants up and attempt standing up at the same time, but get a bit of a shock when the world flips around and find yourself on your belly over the hood, arms pinned at the small of your back, held in the clamp of his fingers. As if you’re being arrested.

Your yelp is a mix of indignation and surprise, and a hint of arousal, and that has him laughing, the noise darkly delighted. “Caught in the act avoiding the question. How are you gonna plead?”

“Rafa—” you protest, but then his hand is between the layers of fabric, finding that spot and circling it with the same firm, gentle movements that had already brought you to climax not moments ago. Your breath is knocked out of you in a shuddering exhale, the suddenness of the stimulation taking the reins from you, and your cheek slides against the glossy red. “Oh, fffuck, please, we pushed our luck enough, come on, let’s go home—”

He slips two fingers in so easily. “You were begging so sweetly for me to keep going, where’s that spirit now?”

You are, once again, at his mercy. That hand around your wrist might as well be a zip cuff. The realization sends a bolt of pure, unadulterated lust shooting straight down to the pit of your stomach, and it’s a relief that the car is the one bearing most of the weight, otherwise your knees might have buckled. “I’m — I’m sensitive, can you— slow, slow, please, Raf—”

“Of course, baby,” he says, and the tempo of his movement eases. Gentle. Soothing. It’s still too much. Too intense. You feel raw, exposed, and you try to shy away from him. But the hand that has a grip on your wrists won’t budge. And the fingers inside of you are curling and coaxing, an implacable force. They’re not thrusting. Just. Rubbing. Stroking. A languid massage. “Better? Am I doing okay?”

You nod, forehead sliding across the metal, a high whine escaping from the back of your throat, stifled against the car. It feels like every nerve ending has been scraped clean and reconnected to a single circuit board. Like the synapses in your brain have been rewired.

“You’re squeezing so tightly, pretty. You want to cum again, don’t you? Want to show the entire city how pretty you sound when you fall apart?”

A flush of heat creeps through you, and it’s almost mortifying how quickly your body is responding. He’s hardly moved, yet your legs tremble with anticipation, and a pulsing throb radiates from your clit. The warmth in your belly twists tighter, a knot of desire that seems to draw you closer to the edge. The heel of his palm presses against your slick folds, sending waves of sensation crashing over you, and you can’t help but gasp, a breathy moan escaping your lips, trembling with the intensity of it all.

“You’re so cute. So, so, cute.”

You can’t help the way you grind back, chasing the friction, the pressure, the fullness of him. Your eyes are screwed shut, and your mouth is open, panting. Rafayel leans forward, then, chin hooking over your shoulder and nosing at the hinge of your jaw. His breath is hot on your neck, and his hair brushes your cheek. It’s ticklish. Intimate. Overwhelming. You tilt your head, pressing your temple against his. The hard length of his bare erection, which you have no idea when he took out, presses insistently against your backside, the only giveaway against the iron control he’s showcasing. How little the chocolates have worn off despite his brief respite.

“Tell me,” he whispers. “Did you really like being eaten out in a public place that much?”

You’re a little past the point of shame. “Yes, fuck, yes, I liked it. I loved it.”

“Let me make it better for you.” His tongue is wet and hot against the shell of your ear, tracing the delicate whorls with an intimacy that feels dirtier than anything he’s done so far, the obscene slick of saliva as his breath catches is so loud from the proximity. The wet rasp of him licking. Your whole body breaks out in a shiver that has nothing to do with the chill of the night air. “Show me how much you want it. How good you can be, hm? Be a sweetheart, and say ‘thank you, Rafayel.’ Use those manners.”

“Thank you, Rafayel,” you parrot, and the words are an easy submission. An automatic reaction to the command. You’re not even thinking. Not anymore. Just reacting. Obeying. Letting him have his way. Because, god, does his praise feel good. Even the ones that sound more like a taunt.

He rewards you with a third finger, and the stretch is incredible. He works them in and out, a lazy, slow pump that has you trying to rock backward, desperate for more. For something to clench around. To fill you up.

“What’s that? Can’t have them knowing I’m some kind of a bully, or that you’re here against your will. Say it nice and proper. Tell everyone that I’m not coercing you to spread your legs. Come on, cutie. Louder. Let your voice rise and sweeten the night. Tell the stars what you’re begging for. Don’t be shy, now.”

“Please, please, I need it, please, I’ll do whatever you want, just—”

“Yeah, like that, so, so good,” he coos. “So, so, good. Look at you, opening up for me, letting me in. Such a needy girl. My needy, sweet, pretty girl. You’re aching, aren’t you?”

You nod. A frantic, feverish motion. Your hips are rolling in time with his thrusts, a mindless, instinctual movement. The world is blurry and fuzzy and bright.

“I could just eat you all up. Or have you on display in a museum, have people stare at the piece of art that’s making the prettiest sounds. Would you like that?”

The laughter in his voice is unmistakable, a note bright with provocation, a glint of challenge. He is fully aware of the absurdity curling off his tongue, and still, you’re clamping tighter around him, the tension spiraling deeper, tighter, heedless. Some heady impulse tilts your chin back, makes you meet his gaze; there he stands above you, haloed by the moon, intent, unyielding, his eyes pinning you in place, cheeks fever-bright, teeth carving into his lower lip, stray beads of sweat glimmering silver at his temples where the moonlight finds them and refuses to let go. The sight emboldens you. It brings a wildness to your words as you ask, “Would you?” Your voice trembles between daring and desire. “Would you put me on a pedestal, let the world look at me, marvel at me? Or would you secret me away, locked behind glass, kept just for you — a private gallery where no one else is ever allowed?”

There’s a slip in his composure — a ripple flickering over his face, impossible to name before it’s gone. “Ha!”

In an instant, his fingers slide out of you, leaving a shadowed ache in their wake; the grip on your wrists dissolves, only to reform as his hand circles the base of your nape, loose, warm, possessive. Rafayel rises, steadies himself, and then he’s inside you in a single, heavy shove, blunt and perfect in its inevitability. The relief is nearly religious, and the sigh that escapes you is a surrender, an admission: yes, fuck, finally.

He fills you completely, bottoms out, and the pressure of his hand tightens, a collar, an anchor. For a moment, you wonder, dazed, whether he’s always been this impossibly big.

There’s the stretching ache, the delicious burn, peaking on the edge of pain but never quite falling, the sharpness swept away by the satisfaction of being filled so utterly, down to the last inch. Buried, claimed, every nerve alive to him and only him.

“You can’t say things like that,” he chides. His voice is shaky. Raw. Like the words are being dragged forth from somewhere deep in his chest. “Or I’ll never ever let you go. I’ll take you home, lock you in, and hide the key, and have you every day, in my bed, on the kitchen floor, the living room, in the pool, in the bathroom, in the studio, the balcony, on the beach, against my canvases.”

He gives an experimental roll of his hips, a shallow grind that punches the air from your lungs. And keeps at it. “I’d sell those, too, the paintings. Every single piece will have a bit of you in the grain, on the brushstrokes, on the colors. And maybe those will be the last the world sees of you. Does that excite you? For the entire world to have a little piece of you to admire and covet forever? But they won’t have this, will they?”

And then he’s moving, setting a brutal pace, pounding into you so hard that the clearing becomes an open theater of the graphic sex scene in a movie. The slap of flesh on flesh, the metallic creak of the chassis, the whole car shaking, the choked-off, punched-out noises coming from you, the lewd, filthy wet suck and shove of him entering you, the sticky, messy shlick, shlick, shlick of his length as it pistons in and out. All of it, echoing off the trees. Your hands are splayed on the hood, palms pressed flat, trying to find purchase. Anything to hold on to. You’re bouncing on the balls of your feet, bare tits dragging across the metal, the fabric of your pants caught around the knees still.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh, yes, yes, yes,” is all that spills from you, flooding the quiet cab with your desperation, sweat slickening your skin, drool tracing warm lines beneath your chin and dripping to the front of the vehicle. How you ache for him to fist your hair, yank you back until you bend for him, force you to look at the winding road leading up to the viewpoint beyond the car. Force you to see the possibility of someone walking in on this. Someone seeing you. Seeing him. Seeing the both of you, like this.

And when he does exactly that, you’re so lost in the sauce that you don’t even question how in sync the two of you are. He curls one arm around your waist, yanking you in so close you can barely breathe, while the other winds cruelly into your hair, clutches at the roots, tugs until tears spring in the corners of your eyes and the muscles of your abdomen are straining. You have to balance yourself on your forearms, nails scratching the paint job.

“There you go cutie, is that — hhh, better? Mmm, yeah, it is. Making a mess of my car, breaking it in, overwriting everything, that’s right, that’s—” his breathing is labored, and he sounds a touch delirious, a slight break in the cadence of his dirty talk a telltale of his approaching orgasm, but he’s still not slowing, the tempo of his thrusts only growing faster, more frantic. “Want you to mark every part of this thing—”

The angle is different now, and his cock grazes a spot that has you seeing stars. “Oh, shit, oh shit, I’m gonna cum, please, Raf, ‘m close, ‘m close, keep going, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes—”

Rafayel stops.

“What—”

“Shh.”

His grip releases its hold on your hair, the warmth of his arm sliding away from your waist.He pulls out of you with a slick, audible pop. You are left cold and bereft for not even a second before he pivots and hoists you over his shoulder with effortless strength, and you hear the chirp-chirp of the key fob unlocking the car. You twist to look behind as he’s walking and see the door on the driver’s side scissor open. Between one breath and the next, you’ve somehow ended up facing the steering wheel, caged between his thighs while the whirring of the roof and windows rolling up purrs through cabin, noises of the outside replaced by the low hum of the air conditioning kicking in.

It takes your addled brain a bit to process what just happened.

“People,” Rafayel says, answering the question in your head.

“Oh.” That is the most eloquent response you can formulate at the moment. Your brain is still stuck in the gutter, and your libido is screaming at the abrupt yanking of the rug from underneath its feet. “Did they see us?”

“No. But I think they’re about to come over here.”

You dart your gaze from the vibrant red leather of the square steering wheel to the trio of analog gauges gleaming behind it, then to the sleek touchscreen nestled in the center console. Anxiety grips you, making you reluctant to glance around for any signs of onlookers creeping closer, a knot of tension tightening in your stomach.

“You think?”

“Well,” he drawls. You feel the movement of his shoulders on the back of yours and a tap of something at the edge of your vision, and turn to see a finger adjusting the rearview mirror. The belated realization that Rafayel picked up on their approach long before they were anywhere near the viewpoint is a jab to your pride. It’s a touch humiliating, even with the Lemurian factor considered. He’s the one under the influence of aphrodisiacs, not the other way around.

Shame hot in your cheeks, you take in that small window of opportunity to say, “I’m really ruining your upholstery, I need to, like, pull up my panties or something. Can’t sit like this.”

Rafayel doesn’t answer at first. When he does, it’s through the tips of his boots having a battle with your feet to kick your shoes off.

“What are you doing?” you laugh.

“Giving you a seat. You’ve yet to ride, riiiight?”

You don’t see it coming, how suddenly your pants (and the panties with them) are swept from your legs, the two of you forced to lean in, awkward, close to get them free. Rafayel tosses the heap onto the passenger seat with the same indifference as a priest clearing an altar. You feel relief crest through you, legs unshackled at last, the urge to stretch and move nearly overwhelming. You flex your toes, bracing as sensation courses through your limbs.

Rafayel pats both his thighs like he’s inviting a pet to hop onto his lap. “Up and at ‘em. This is the best seat in the house.”

You fight back a chuckle, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, and shift your weight, careful not to knee him too hard in the process. It’s graceless, messy, yet somehow you find him, straddling his lap. Your shirt’s a rumpled halo around your shoulders, barely concealing anything. His cock juts up, urgent and insistent, hot against your belly. The head gleams with precum, and everywhere he touches leaves an echo across your skin. Your body responds before you can marshal it, clenching tight around nothing at all, need building by the second.

“You’re like this even though—”

“You know whose fault it is,” Rafayel quips. His palms are warm and slightly rough, stroking up and down the valley of your back, a soothing and electrifying massage at once.

You swivel your head as the unmistakable sound of male laughter drifts toward the car. Two of them. 

“Dude, I knew my eyes weren’t fooling me, check that out!”

“Is that a Spider?”

“Nahh, Maserati for sure. Look at the shape on her, the headlights, the curves, the tail. What a beast. She’s gorgeous.”

A shadow looms at the driver’s side, and you freeze, your breath hitching in your throat. The tinted windows offer a false sense of security, cloaking the interior in darkness. He can’t possibly see you like this. Yet, staring directly into the eyes of someone who doesn’t see you prickles at your nerves, and your heart races, thumping wildly against your ribcage.

He bends a little, peering in, and then straightens, looking at the convertible roof. His attention goes to the windshield. “D’you think the owners are nearby?”

Rafayel’s hands glide to your waist, urging you down until his cock nestles against your folds, sending a jolt through your hips.

The man’s companion is inspecting the front. “No idea. Maybe someone’s getting lucky in the bushes.”

Rafayel’s lips trail along the sensitive curve of your jaw, his teeth grazing the tender skin with a teasing bite. A shiver cascades through you, igniting a wave of goosebumps that ripple across your body. He deftly encourages your hips to sway against him, and a breath catches in your throat, leaving your mouth parted in a silent gasp as his shaft glides over the sweet spot nestled at the apex of your sex.

“Rafayel, we have to stop, we’re gonna—”

But he’s not listening. His mouth traces their own answer up the tender column of your neck; his tongue, seeking, dips into the hollow at your throat’s base. He presses closer, pushing the crown of his erection against the slick, wet entrance of your core.

“Look at these tires.”

“You think the engine is the original?”

“I mean they must have—”

He’s using the leverage of his body to control the motion of yours, forcing you to grind on his cock, the friction of the veiny, smooth flesh dragging across the sensitive nub and the twitch of him in return sending a jolt of pleasure-pain lancing through you. Your nipples are stiff, aching peaks, begging to be touched. He latches on to the right one, sucking it into his mouth and swirling his tongue around the bud, his thumb finding the other and rolling, pinching, plucking, his index and middle finger squeezing the soft flesh around the nub.

“Bro, what do you think the top speed on this baby is?”

“It’s not a muscle car, but it’s at least 180, 200, somewhere in that range. If not more. They’re not exactly the same. Lemme have a better look at the badges and the trim...”

The first moan that comes out of you is soft and muffled, swallowed by the thick, humid air of the car. The scent of sex is heavy in the enclosed space. You’re acutely aware of the two men talking and circling the vehicle. It’s so wrong. This is so wrong. But you can’t bring yourself to care. Not when Rafayel is working you over like an instrument, playing you like a maestro.

“...fuck, that sounds amazing. Wish I had one of those.”

“Really? I thought you liked the old ones more, the vintage classics. Like that Impala from that ghost hunting show, or whatever.”

“Nah, not that much. Those are nice, but kinda overrated, in my opinion. Besides, the maintenance costs on that shit is a killer. And the fuel. My bank account would cry if I tried to restore a 69 Mustang or something.”

He huffs against your nipple, all irritation, a hot, petulant rush over your skin. Rafayel’s head thumps back to the seat, jaw set, and then, with no warning at all, the flex of his arms closes around you, a vise, hefting you up so the world slips from under you. When he brings you down, it’s pure, impatient force, lining himself up and then spearing you onto his cock in a single, brutal stroke.

You lurch forward, face driving into the place where his shoulder meets his throat, biting down your voice. Your arms lock around him; your fingers sink into his biceps, nails carving into hard muscle as you try to keep your breath steady, to let yourself adjust to the bright sting of being split open, filled to the edge of agony. Rafayel doesn’t move. He holds you there, stone-still. The reason flickers through you, sudden and wicked: you’re not the only one straining to bear it.

You’d almost forgotten about the chocolates.

“It’s so hot,” he rasps. The words scrape out of his chest, his whole body shivering under your palms, skin a furnace that burns, his pulse racing wild enough to tremor through you.

Rafayel, then, pushes you away with a shuddering breath. A yank of the knot loosens his tie, which ends up joining your discarded clothes in the passenger seat. You help him with the buttons and throw that away, too, leaving him in the turtleneck compression shirt that makes his frame seem broader, and reveals all the ridges of his musculature and the taper of his waist.

“You think the owners are gonna be pissed if we took some photos?”

“Just don’t get the plate.”

“Duh, I’m not an idiot. Let’s get a few shots from different angles. The lighting is pretty sick, the city and the moon, the trees and stuff—”

There’s a sudden avalanche of noise, a tangle of yelps and curses tumbling through the hilltop, sharp as shattered glass. All at once you’re whirling, pulse stuttering, and catching the scene: the two men have dropped their phones, fumbled them like live coals snatched barehanded from the stove, and now they’re dancing in place, hands flapping, horror twisted across their faces.

“Ouch, ouch, what the fuck!?”

“What the hell, man, what the fuck was that!”

“Are you okay, dude!? Shit, did you get burnt too—”

“That phone was brand new!”

“Did this car just electrocute us!?”

Rafayel snickers, and you glance over your shoulder, half caught between bewilderment and that sweet, mean delight that always finds you at the antics of him. He answers in the language of bodies: a slow, circling tilt of his hips, that deliberate, indolent grind, coaxing you into the back-and-forth of it, a slow rock that makes you ache and open, that has him moving inside you like the tide and his breath turning ragged at the corners. His gaze doesn’t meet yours, it’s dropped, heavy-lidded, lips parted, eyes trained on the place where he fills you, where there’s nothing separating you from each other except the shiver and clench of your body around him. Your insides tighten, involuntary, seizing around him, and he groans. His lashes tremble and a new sheen of sweat stand out at his temples.

“Let’s just get the heck outta here, this is some freaky shit.”

“Oh my god, it’s melted. There’s no fucking way, look at yours too—”

“Ugh, it is, holy hell, it’s completely fried, that’s fucked, what in the world...”

You notice at the very last second that leaning a little back to get the angle right would make you collide directly with the steering wheel. But it’s too late.

The honk the car emits is deafening. An echoing, ear-splitting blare that pierces the night. You jerk back right up, a helpless squeak escaping you, both hands flying to clamp over your mouth.

“Shit, let’s go, now, run, run, RUN—”

“Wait for me, wait, I lost a shoe, FUCK—”

You don’t get to see where the two scurry off to — the thought barely has time to spark before Rafayel is surging up, cupping your face with both hands, drawing you down to him with a hunger that blots out everything but the present and the heat between you, swallowing the tail end of your laughter in a savage, breath-stealing kiss. There’s no patience to it: his tongue pushes between your lips, insistent, demanding, as his fingers tangle tight in your hair, right at the base of your scalp. The other arm cinches you closer, curled hard around your waist.

His hips buck as if powered by a force that doesn’t belong to the world above water. One motion, and his cock plunges deeper, a brutal thrust that sends you scrambling to anchor yourself, knees digging into the seat so you don’t slide right off of him. A gasp slips out, breaking the kiss, but Rafayel gives you no quarter; he chases, ravenous, crushing your mouth beneath his again. His hand abandons your hair only to clamp around the nape of your neck, pulling you back onto him, relentless.

You recognize the source of that impossible strength — the same core and hips made for cleaving through ocean currents, now turned on you, working with inhuman perfection to drive into you, fast as a riptide. The whole car shudders, frame creaking, every thrust rocking you in his lap; there’s no keeping pace with him, no room for resistance. He’s governing every movement, and you’re left clinging to his shoulders, a ragdoll on his cock.

And he keeps devouring you. His lips are welded to yours, ravenous, his tongue plunging deep over and over, tasting, scouring, staking a claim until your breath is a fading echo inside your chest. He swallows your air, shoves the world to the narrow point of his mouth and heat and teeth, and suddenly there’s no oxygen, nothing but slick, dizzying darkness scrabbling at the edge of your vision. You have to tear free, break the seal, gasp, gulp down the air he stole from you and—

That flavor. Pennies. No, not just pennies—

Blood.

You yank at Rafayel’s hair the way you’d pull a body from quicksand, and he comes with you, teeth flashing scraping against your bottom lip. The scene he paints when you force him to look at you is obscene, unearthly: blood streams in a red ribbon from his nose, splits and stains along the line of his upper lip and chin, spills crooked down one cheek, and beads, a single lazy drop, slow and heavy, on the edge of his chin.

His eyes: blown wide, black and burning, hunger barely sheathed. That reckless, fever-bright sort of wildness. The slash of crimson on his skin and the darkness crowding his gaze could almost be a warning, but he only drags his tongue across his upper lip, painting it redder. He grins at you, not a hint of shame, white teeth and blood all at once, the image carnality incarnate, so wicked it’s almost beautiful.

“Shit, are you okay—” the rest of your words die on a moan as he hits a spot that has you seeing stars.

“You look so good painted with my blood.” He says it quiet, but the words are a lash, a shiver. His thumb glides across your lip, pressing just enough to part your mouth, and he traces the warmth where he’s marked you, smearing red at the curve of your mouth, leaving behind that dark, perfect print. He’s still smiling. Feral, ecstatic, a wicked joy that sits bright and raw under his skin. Ruined, undone by something only you can see, but so clear; hyperfocused. He watches every intake of breath, everything you do with that mouth. He lingers, thumb holding you wide open, as if he’s daring you to taste the streak of his blood. So far gone, and yet: more present than you’ve ever known him.

“Fuck,” is all you manage, an incredulous whisper. Your heart is hammering, and not just because of the pleasure. “I think we should— oh, fuck,” that last word pitches high, ending on a whine, and it’s a wonder that you can still form words at all, given how badly the car is rocking, how hard he’s pounding into you.

“I think you should,” he says, “Cum on my cock already. You did this to me, so it’s only fair, yeah? Won’t you give it to me? Come on. I know you’re close. Let go for me, cutie. Cum, cum, cum, cum—”

Denial behind you, need sudden as a knife to the ribs, you reel beneath his shepherding. He’s inside again, the memory of it still raw, and the thrill of near-discovery — their voices and footsteps, the dirty words he ground out against your ear, his fingers bruising your skin. It’s a riot of sensation, a merciless battering. There’s nothing you can do but arch up into it, helpless on the cresting wave.

He never lets up. Not one heartbeat’s worth of mercy. He drags you along the ragged edge, pistoning his hips, driving you to the edge of madness, past pride, past language. One more thrust, perfectly brutal, and the tension in your belly explodes, unstoppable, a coil snapping, heat and white noise blooming behind your eyes. Your hand slaps against the fogged glass, sliding, desperate for purchase, the other digging in hard at his shoulder as you come apart around him. You can’t breathe, can’t think, except to cling, to let the rush tear through you until your mind goes bright and empty and blank.

It feels as though your assent grants Rafayel some silent permission, a license to abandon every trace of restraint. You can’t say when his climax wracks him, whether it precedes yours or crests in tandem, only that it is a force, elemental, inescapable. With you in his arms, he flies off the seat, his whole body straining; tendons cord the length of his throat and jaw, the dark beads of blood weaving fresh lines over his chin, the hollow of his neck. His mouth opens, slack with the violence of it, and the cry he makes fractures against your skin, rough and beautiful, a breaking chord. He spills inside you, pulses of heat unleashed in rhythm, a tide battering, flooding, refusing to abate — a torrent that feels as if it could outlast you, outlast the moment, shuddering through you both.

The interior of the car is a disaster.

The driver’s seat is a mess of bodily fluids and the passenger seat’s floormat has crushed chocolate everywhere. His overshirt is a thorougly soiled rag on the dashboard having been used to clean the both of you, blood and all. The stink of sex is slowly fading thanks to the convertible’s roof being open again. And you are a boneless heap of jelly on top of Rafayel. Your pants and panties are a sad, damp, pile on the opposite side. Your button-up is half on. The zipper of his slacks is undone, his belt unbuckled still. He has an arm loosely wrapped around your waist, his breath tickling the hairs at the crown of your head. The rise and fall of his chest has evened out, his heartrate a steady, calm thump under your ear.

“I feel like we’ve disappointed Wade somehow,” you murmur. It’s a half joke. Half honest thought. Because the poor man had put in the effort to fix the damage and restore this poor car to its former glory, and now it’s gotten christened in the most depraved of ways.

Rafayel chuckles, and his free hand finds one of yours. He traces the shape of your knuckles. Slips his index finger between the webbing of yours. Twines the two of you together. Palm to palm. Fingers interlocked. “We certainly didn’t disappoint your friend.”

You turn your head to press your embarrassment to his sternum.

“You’re missing the scenery sitting like that by the way,” he says, patting your back repeatedly.

He helps you turn around in his lap, scooching towards the console so you can share the seat together. You lean on his shoulder, and his cheek rubs against the part of your head, the arm around you going a bit higher to hold you closer. After the frenzy that was earlier, the air of peace that has settled over the both of you is a welcome respite.

It’s a bit ridiculous to think about, also.

“Do you know in Lemurian the word for ‘moon’ and ‘liar’ are the same?”

Your gaze shifts from the twinkling heavens above to the pale, round disc that hangs there.

“It comes from the myth about the lovers, the Moon and the Sea. How the moon is unreliable, ever-changing and always hiding half of her in the darkness, and the sea is the lover, who is pulled at the whims of her tides.”

Things can’t be awkward enough for him to pull Philomena Cunk’s ‘The Egyptians believed the most significant thing you could do in your life was die,’ line, you think. But also, he might be speaking in riddles again. Or maybe not. Who knows. The moment is too fragile to risk breaking with a question. “That’s a bit sad.”

“It is. But the story goes on to say that no matter how many times the Moon changes, the Sea will always rise to her pull, no one else’s. Will always find her again no matter how many times she disappears.”

The melancholy that has seeped into the moment unsettles you. You want to chase it away, to fill the air with something brighter. With a playful lilt, you decide to break the tension, saying, “Before you explained I thought, like, liar must be because the light the moon reflects doesn’t belong to it, therefore, it’s lying. Not all that glitters is gold and all that jazz. Like those chocolates. Your explanation is prettier, though,” you offer, and his content smile is warm water on the flowerbed of your soul. “The moon isn’t going out anytime soon, and the ocean won’t dry up out of nowhere, either. There’s a certainty in that. They’ll figure it out. Eventually.”

His laugh is soft and airy.

“What? You want to talk about stories, let’s talk about stories. I’m pretty sure they’re gonna be fine, don’t they still meet up all the time? And who called the Moon a liar in the first place? So what if she likes her alone time, huh? Even the sun has its break every day. It goes away for six months in some places in the world. She’s entitled to her vacation days. Maybe the Sea needs to learn to take a hint. Besides, he’s not entirely innocent, since he’s the one throwing tantrums all the time? Tsunamis and floods and storms and stuff...”

Rafayel gets pretty restless and fidgety soon enough.

It's not that the acrobatics inside and around the car had worn you out to the point you were praying this aphrodisiac thing was over. Babbling on about anything and everything so no silence fell between you two was mostly selfish wishful thinking and guilt-stemmed ignorance on your part, despite telling yourself it was to distract him. But you don't keep it up for too long, as Rafayel also doing the exact same thing through clenched teeth ends up staking you in the heart. 

You can't let him stay out here in the open painfully rock hard and beet red about it to make this date good for you, so, with a heavy conscience about having ruined this day for him, you drive a pouting Rafayel who wanted to stay a bit more (and was in no shape to operate a vehicle) back home. 

Good thing you have an indefinite amount of time off from work, because he takes the remaining aphrodisiac in his system out on you until the morning, and then some. 

Well. You can't exactly complain, and neither can he. All your stress is gone, you sleep like a log after, and the cheeky fish gets what he wanted from the very start since you're too sore to leave his house. 

Concerningly, instead of being even a little bit upset with you for, you know, drugging him, unintentional or not, his only takeaway from all this ends up being a cheerful, “I meaaan, I trust my darling Miss Bodyguard with everything. She's always taken such good care of me, yeah? There's nothing to apologize for other than her tendency to take candy from strangers without a second thought... What if she ate them when I wasn't around? She's lucky it was me and not her...” followed by his trademark impish laugh, “I'm open to the idea of her owing me one, though. Let's see... How would she feel about leveling out the playing field and try out those chocolates on herself?”

A frosty chill washes over you. So he is angry, but for all the wrong reasons! There's so much to unpack about that and you don't even know where to start. 

A week later, just when you think Rafayel’s whole legal mess with the auction house is about to be sewn up, a new painting of his appears in the storage room that’s grown to swallow your house. At first you convince yourself: this can’t be right. You stare at the delivery slip, doubting. The canvas is blank. White as surrender.

But then you’re tugging it inside — and your hand hits a line, a ridge. You freeze. Something in the texture. Because suddenly you’re compelled, dragging your fingers back and forth, tracing the invisible geography of it, finding out the entire surface is literally a raised-relief map in white.

You set the piece down in the living room, and fall to the floor beside it. You lie there, cheek to the carpet, staring up at the painting from every angle, rolling onto your back, flipping yourself over, seeing it from below and sideways, upside down. You can already hear Rafayel’s pouting. But you get nothing from it, nothing at all, until you finally give up, and message him.

He just says, what a fish brain

Your eye-rolling can probably be heard from the other side of the phone, because a follow-up comes after, wanst it you who said you wanted to see that painting i literally made it for you and this is what i get

Oh! The black on black painting!
You made it for me?

You keep what’s actually in your mind to yourself: Why is it white, though?

if i sent it to you then it obviously means its for my aunt
yes silly it’s for you

You really shouldn’t have. You’re busy enough.

i know that’s why i did it
you were supposed to say ‘thank u’
‘rafa ur so kind and thoughtful <3’ would’ve worked too

Thank you, Rafayel...
Does it use the same trick? Should I shine a light on it?

opposite principle actually
i used the shadows
but yea try the light
or you could wait for the moon tonight
i highly recommend the latter
because i used moonlight alone to complete this

He tells you the exact place in your house he envisioned the painting to hang on, which apparently parallels the direction the canvas in his house was pointing to, and instructs to position yourself at the center when you want to look at it. It takes some time for you to get it right, you don’t quite manage it at first, and he ends up having to guide you, bit by bit, by voice, until the painting finally settles into its proper place. Until the moon, through the window, spills its light onto the wall, and the raised map’s shadows come alive: the thing he calls ‘mångata’ flickers to the surface, moon reflected over ocean. He tells you, then, that the correct orientation is upside down, the moon has to be situated at the bottom edge of the canvas. The ocean almost touches it, a conversation, a secret shared in proximity, the moon’s own image caught in the eye of the sea. The rippling water stretches itself horizon-ward, and the moonbeams ride out with it, a silver path like a bridge, a guide, a ribbon lighting the way between them.

The title is, fittingly, The Lovers, visible during a specific slice of time in moonlit nights from a specific angle, like a secret created for your eyes alone.