Mark of the Beast

The door slammed, and I jumped, my heart going to my throat. The quiet calm of the room was replaced with Nikolas's fury. I saved the file I'd been working on for Peter, my Master's lover and my friend, and closed the laptop before pushing it away.

"What's wrong?" I sat up in bed. "You look like you want to rip someone in half."

"Fucking Lucien," Nikolas fumed.

I rolled my eyes. Nikolas and Lucien butting heads had become a run of the mill thing in recent months. A lot of it had to do with the relationship between Peter and Nikolas, which in turn strained the relationship between Peter and Lucien. Peter was doing the best he could to handle the situation, but Nikolas and Lucien were too stubborn to even attempt sitting down together to work through it all.

As Lucien's servant and Nikolas's lover, I'd spent a whole lot of the last couple of months listening to both of them bitch about each other. There were times I considered locking them both in a room in the dungeon and not letting them out until they fought, fucked, and made up.

"What is it now, honey?"

"Don't fucking honey me."

"Oh, hush." I slid off the bed and walked to him, taking his leather jacket from his hands before he could throw it across the room. "Talk to me."

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "I'd rather not."

"Come here." His hands went to his hips and he growled before glaring at the ceiling. I leaned against the wall before him and gave him a few minutes to fume and rave in his head. But too long would do more harm than good. "Nikolas? Come. Here."

I watched the battle war in his expression. Emotional vulnerability had never been something Nikolas dealt with very well; whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was a wreck.

His body still tense, he took the two steps it required to bring us together. He looked down at me and shook his head, then pressed his forehead to mine. A sigh passed through his lips and the heat of his breath across my cheek made me shudder. I grasped his hips and pulled him close.

"Talk to me, baby."

"Not right now." He groaned and sank to his knees, fingers finding the zipper at the top of my robe. "Please not now."

Soft kisses trailed down my belly. They were followed by increasingly sharp nips that left bruises in their wake. I rested my hands on the top of his head and guided him downward. He pressed his face into my groin and inhaled deeply. He glanced up, gazed locked with mine as he took me into his mouth.

There was nothing sexier to me than seeing him on his knees, my dick in his mouth. It was an intimacy he didn't share with anyone other than me. I guess that made it special in a weird sort of way. I was only half-hard though, worry about his fight with Lucien still heavy on my mind.

He pulled off and nipped at my foreskin with his teeth, drawing a sharp hiss from me. "Nikolas..."