Page 94 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

my tongue?

I want to know what it feels like when you use your tongue on… other places apart from my mouth

Fuck, Felix

Where specifically?

Everywhere?

That’s probably too vague for a list

No, no, everywhere is fine.

Everywhere is great.

I woke with Felix’s words burned into my brain. Everywhere. The memory of his messages ricocheted through my skull, and I had to press my face into the pillow to muffle a groan.

Bloody hell, what had I done to myself? Two years of wanting him, and now I had a detailed list of everything Felix wanted me to do to him. Written evidence of his desire, sitting in my phone like a loaded weapon.

My wolf stirred restlessly beneath my skin, still worked up from the night before.

I dragged myself to the shower, but the hot water only made things worse. Felix had said he wanted to know what my tongue felt like everywhere. Everywhere. How the hell was I supposed to function today?

Last night’s debrief with Seb played on repeat in my head as I towelled off. I’d barely managed to keep my voice steady while reporting back on Marcus Vale, my skin still tingling everywhere Felix had touched me.

“His vampires were particularly unhelpful this time,” I’d told Seb. “Told me to fuck off in three different languages.”

Seb had leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. “He’s avoiding us, and his fledglings are getting worse. Three more incidents this week alone. Brixton’s turning into a feeding ground.”

Marcus Vale had been a thorn in our side for years, reaching his pinnacle of bastardry when he’d worked with Seb’s dead sister to harvest souls across London. You’d have thought he’d have had the decency to behave after that particular nightmare ended, but no. He kept turning fledgling after fledgling, seemingly for his own amusement, with no regard for the streets of Brixton and beyond. The new vampires were out of control, which meant Seb and I constantly had to put them down like rabid dogs.

I grabbed a clean shirt, then spent a full minute choosing a cardigan, my brain still half replaying that moment Seb had asked what on earth I was doing all the way over in Ealing with Felix.

I’d spun some bollocks about Felix messaging to ask if he’d accidentally left his headphones at the hotel and me wanting to check out new running routes by returning them to him that evening. The lie had come easily, though it felt like betrayal. Seb was my best friend, had been for years, but I couldn’t expose Felix’s secrets without his permission. Seb’s eyebrow had lifted at my strange story—Ealing would be a three hour run from Bermondsey—but he hadn’t pressed.

“We’re lucky Felix didn’t get hurt,” he’d said.

Lucky.

Lucky. Right. Lucky that I’d been walking with him when two vampires decided to make us their evening entertainment. Lucky that I’d had to stake one of them while Felix almost got eaten alive by another.

Lucky that afterward, back at his flat, he’d kissed me like the violence had awakened something in him too.

Seb and I had discussed strategy for another thirty minutes—surveillance schedules, options for luring Marcus out of his hole, the usual dance of keeping London’s supernatural community from tearing itself apart.

When I left the hotel, I had this mad urge to go straight back to Felix’s flat. Obviously, that would have been far too intense—I’d learned my lessons—so instead, I’d settled for harassing him via text message, drawing out his desires one careful word at a time.

I’d gone to sleep thinking of Felix’s confession about wanting to feel trapped in a good way. Safe but pinned down. I understood it perfectly. Trust wrapped in restraint. Surrender without vulnerability. The desire to be held so completely that escape became irrelevant, because you didn’t want to leave anyway. To be overwhelmed by someone who’d never hurt you, never push too far.

I had a road map now. A road map to Felix’s pleasure. A bloody detailed one too.

But walking to work, doubt crept in. What if he regretted those messages in the cold light of morning? What if seeing me today brought only mortification at his boldness?

I pulled out my phone before I could second-guess myself.

Free for lunch today?

The reply came almost immediately, making my traitorous brain latch onto the possibility that he’d had our conversation open.