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He was sweating hard.
Moving to the leg curl bench, he worked out his quads. Every few minutes, he’d switch to another station, and hammer a different set of muscles.
A half hour passed, then an hour. Dawn had come and gone.
When Rachel finally came home, he heard her call to him, letting him know she’d arrived safely.
“Good,” he responded.
Brilliant of him.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to keep a lid on how much he craved her right now.
He recalled how she’d been lusting after the other men and his breh-hedden reflexes suddenly vaulted into another searing overdrive. He took several deep breaths, struggling to get calm. He even growled and his fangs made an appearance. Still, he remained where he was and put his weights in motion again.
How could he explain to Rachel what his life was like, what it had always been? A viper lived inside him and had from the time he could remember, a serpent moving through thick waters, writhing and biting when he got too close to anyone. He’d promised himself long ago to keep his distance from any serious relationship.
He’d made an exception with Rachel repeatedly over the decades, but he’d always found a way to end things, usually forcing her to break up with him.
He had nothing to give, not a damn thing.
Now that she was home, her scent, like earth and flowers, the smell of grass in springtime, of life and growing things, wafted into his workout room. He wanted her so bad he ached for her, ached to have his cock buried deep between her legs, his body moving over hers, his arms surrounding her, his fangs in her neck, her earthy blood flowing down his throat. And he wanted her tasting him, feeding from him, taking him inside her body, her mouth, her well.
Rachel. How he loved her.
The snake swirled faster now, jaws unhinged, sharp fangs dripping with poison.
He left the weights and hopped onto the rowing machine. He set a heavy pace, one intended to squeeze every ounce of water from his body.
But the snake moved faster and he knew this would be a bad one.
The memory rose sharp and clear of his mother’s arms around him, her tears wet on his young six-year-old neck. “You’ll be safer without me here,” she had said. “You have to understand, Duncan. You’ll be safe, but only if I leave.”
The serpent’s fangs bit deep.
He stopped rowing and roared the pain of the bite, of watching his mother walk through the front door to never come back, of falling into his father’s rigid discipline as he stood in one place for hours, as his father hit him to make him stronger, cut him, whipped him.
He rolled off the machine and fell onto the floor, shaking. The poison was in his veins now and wouldn’t come out.
He had nothing to give Rachel.
Nothing.
~
Rachel sat up in bed. Duncan’s anguished shouts had awakened her, pounding against her chest and forcing tears to her eyes. He’d been doing this a lot lately, roaring when he spent a couple of hours in his gym. The sound of
his suffering had helped her to understand the level of pain he was in.
She’d tried more than once to encourage him to tell her what was going on, but her presence only seemed to add to his suffering.
She rubbed her temples and prayed for wisdom, something beyond herself to help the man she loved.
After a moment, her spirit grew quiet and in its place was a small sense of peace and the soft words floating though her mind, He’ll figure this out. You’ll see.
She lay back down in bed. Her nausea was better but her current man-hungry state wouldn’t let her fall back to sleep. Her craving for Duncan had returned, stronger than ever. She didn’t know what to do. She’d tried pleasuring herself, but for whatever reason, it didn’t help at all. Instead, her thoughts became fixed on the last time they’d made love in this bed, how Duncan had sucked on her wing-locks and made her come.
She groaned, put a pillow over her head, and screamed her frustration.
