The best lays he'd had were with women whose hinges were perhaps a bit looser than others. Crazy women, in other words, got the job done for him best.
Was that another reason why the Countess was so enthralling to him? In any case, he had never had a lot of sex with the same woman.
That…would be a new experience.
The potential of it excited him. He could feel his blood throbbing in his veins at the thought of him finding a certain rhythm, a familiarity with dira that the two of them agreed on.
He wanted to know all her secrets, how to
make her cum with just a touch. He had heard the men working for his father brag about their exploits with their wives.
The idea that you could become so intimate with someone that pleasing them to their breaking point became not only easy but second nature—it had remarkable allure.
And she would know his secrets, too. She would voraciously seek the truth of his pleasure, he was sure about that.
Vladira was nothing if not determined to please him, to make her case as his lover with a finality that would silence his doubts.
He wanted that—imagined her face looking up at him as she slurped his length, applying perfect suction and knowing licks.
But then the other thought came…why did it have to be her? Of all people, why his archnemesis, the demon countess, the vampire queen, the Princess of Evil, the one who'd killed more members of his extended family over the years than any other threat.
Why her?
But it was pointless to have doubts now.
He'd committed to her already, and he was a man of his word. Whatever honor he had left, it was alive in the strength of his word. If he gave that up and reneged on their promise to one another, how could he even call himself a man at that point?
Plus, he'd seen her naked. Yikes. It would prove hard to turn that body down forever—emphasis on 'hard'.
"You doing alright there, ric?" Justin asked, nodding at him with a concerned look.
"Just thinking about—never mind."
Justin looked this way and that, making certain there were no customers around.
"You're thinking about your lady, right?"
Alaric nodded grimly. "The situation is rather awkward."
"How so?"
"Long story short, I am a monster hunter, she is a monster, we both came from centuries in the past, and now we're here. You see? Complicated."
"Sounds pretty simple to me," Justin said with a laugh. "Unusual? Sure. Complicated? Not really."
"But there are problems."
"Moral ones, right?" he guessed. "I can see that."
Alaric stared out the window for a moment, deep in thought. "Are you in a relationship with a woman?"
"No, just got out of a bad one, actually. She was crazy. Really jealous, really demanding. I loved her, though," he sighed.
The warrior smirked in spite of himself.
"Sounds oddly familiar."
"Difference between you and me is you can handle your girl," Justin chuckled. "I think you're strong enough to keep her satisfied. I just wasn't strong enough for mine."
Alaric stroked his stubble. "A little jealousy in my time was the norm—but Dira threatens to kill any woman who gets close to me. It's a bit much."
"Agreed, but I think you'll figure each other out eventually," he said.
"Chick like that—look, there's a graph I call the Craziness Coefficient." He grabbed a bit of receipt paper and started charting it down.
"Let's say that X is equal to crazy and Y is equal to hot." Alaric's brow arched curiously and he leaned forward.
"I'm listening, Justin. Share your wisdom."
"So—basically, according to the Craziness Coefficient, the crazier a woman is, the hotter she needs to be to balance it out. If she's hot enough to balance it, then not only is she worth it, but the craziness acts more like seasoning than poison.
If she's crazier than she is hot, then she's not worth it in the long run. If she's hotter than she is crazy—well good for her, but that sounds boring, am I right?"
"Regrettably, yes, you are not mistaken in the least, young Justin," Alaric muttered.
"So what you're saying is that my Dira, while indeed insane beyond reason, is worth the trouble because she is unusually comely."
"And, hey, she's clearly into you," he said. "That's the best kind of crazy—the obsessive thing? That's hot. I vibe with it. I say you're a lucky guy."
Alaric's brow furrowed. "She threatened to murder a woman for looking at me."
"And that is extremely hot, my guy," Justin said.
The monster hunter blinked. "Well, yes, it is, but—the consequences of a failure to manage that kind of behavior seem rather daunting."
"Well then fuckin' manage it, bro," Justin said, throwing up his hands in exasperation.
"A hottie with that body, completely into you to the point of madness,plus she's a vampire that'll never look any different from how she
currently does—sign me the fuck up. If I get a girl like that, she can lock me up in a cage and feed me bread twice a day and I will bark like a dog when she asks. I simp a crazy queen."
Alaric's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "I feel as though you are the exact wrong person to seek guidance from on this matter."
"Or am I the right one?"
He could not deny the possibility. Justin was saying precisely what his darkest side wanted to hear—yes, it was okay to be with Vladira, to love her, to fuck her, to let her be herself with him.
Not only was it okay, but it was good, sexy, validating. The comfort in the notion was powerful, but he had his doubts.
"I don't know what to think," he admitted.
"That's fine. Your dick knows."
Alaric chuckled in spite of himself at the crass comment. "Indeed he does, young Justin. Indeed he does."