[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Acts of Service
Acts of Service
by K. Stonham
first released 31st August, 2023
Claire came back different.
Or at least she came back looking different, her armor and face absolutely covered with different colored powders. If it wasn't for her large brown eyes and the way she smiled up at him, Jim wouldn't have been sure it was even her.
"Don't touch me," she said. "I need a shower."
"Or three," Krel agreed, his eyes wide.
"What happened?" asked Jim.
"Eh." Claire shrugged. "Some booby traps, some unhappy locals. They calmed down when I managed to let them know I was there to give the tablet back." She sneezed. A small cloud of dust rose from her.
"Maybe next time we'll send backup with you," said Jim.
Claire grinned, and pecked him on the cheek. "If you're volunteering, I won't say no. But for now, I'm hitting the showers." She left the throne room, a faint trail of colored dust drifting to the ground in her wake.
For a while, that was it. The next time Jim saw her, she was freshly showered and garbed, stealing an apple off the fruit basket on the kitchen counter.
Everything seemed normal.
Everything seemed normal, in fact, for two more days. Well, Claire was getting a little crankier, but Jim assumed that was to do with girl things and just made sure they had chocolate and painkillers on hand.
He assumed that, in fact, until there was a knock on his bedroom door around the time he normally would have been falling asleep.
The Trollhunter answers all calls, he thought exasperatedly, and rolled out of bed, going to open the door.
"Claire?" he asked, blinking against the hallway light. She was wearing a long, light nightgown, her hair braided up and away for the night.
"Jim, I." She bit her lip, her eyes flickering from his face to his chest and back away. "I," she repeated herself, grabbing her arms and rocking, just a little, from side to side.
"Claire?"
"Can I come in?" she blurted, glancing up and down the hallway.
"Um. Sure." Jim let her in, closed the door behind them. "Is something wrong?"
"I. I don't know. I. I want something."
"Oh." Jim blinked. "I thought it was that time of the month."
"Not that. Or." Expressions flickered across her face, too fast for him to read. "Maybe that. I don't know!"
"Hey." He crossed the space between them, took her in his arms. "Whatever it is, we'll figure it out together, right? We always do."
She was tense in his arms for a moment, then melted against him. "Yeah," Claire breathed. "We do."
"Come on." He led her over to the bed, where at least their bare feet wouldn't be on the hard stone floor. Shoving the pillows high, Jim leaned back against them, keeping Claire in his arms. "What's wrong? You know you can tell me anything, right?"
"It's like... it's like an itch," Claire said, splaying her fingers on his chest, her head on his shoulder. "I know there's something I want, something I need. But I just can't figure it out. And it's driving me nuts!"
Jim caught her hand, kissed her fingers. "Something to eat?" he suggested.
Claire was watching his mouth. She licked her lips. "Maybe," she said. She shifted up, swung her leg over him so that she was sitting on his lap. "I want a kiss," she said abruptly.
Jim blinked. "Well, I'm never going to say no to kissing you. Except when we're covered in sewage," he amended. "That was gross and I don't think you wanted to kiss me then either--"
"Shh." Claire pressed her finger against his lip. She leaned in closer. "I want a kiss," she repeated, and then her mouth was on his.
Jim melted. It was absolutely true that, sewage incidents excepted, he would never turn down kissing Claire. She was beautiful, and strong... and seated on exactly the right (or wrong, depending on how you counted it) part of his anatomy. Jim opened his mouth to express this to her before he could embarrass himself too much. Claire took the opportunity to dive into his mouth, her tongue exploring his teeth, the roof of his mouth, his tongue.
Anatomical embarrassment was pushed to the wayside as Claire pushed him down deeper into the pillows, and Jim went willingly, his hands resting on her waist as hers pressed on his chest. Jim returned her favor, and explored her teeth with his tongue. She whimpered, grinding down on him.
Her canines were very sharp.
She broke off the kiss with a gasp. "I know what I want," Claire said. Her teeth gleamed in the room's low light. "I'm hungry." Her hips rolled on his lap. "Jim, I need. I need." Her thumb brushed the side of his neck. "Please," she whimpered.
He'd always said he'd give Claire anything. Looking up at her now, turned on, with her face flushed and her chest heaving, Jim couldn't find anything in him that said no.
Not even with the realization that her canines were, in fact, fangs.
Jim bared his neck.
Claire's fangs touched his skin. Her breath was moist against his skin. Jim's neck had never been particularly sensitive before, but all of a sudden he could feel everything there.
Claire struck.
Her fangs piercing his skin felt like a jolt livewired to his dick.
Jim moaned as Claire pressed deeper into him, his cock twitching in his pajama pants, pushing right up against the hot moist center of her. Too many layers of cloth were in between them, blocking.
The instant spun out, a single heartbeat stretched into forever. Then her fangs retracted, to Jim didn't know where, and she sucked.
If he'd thought her love bite turned him on, this left it far behind.
Jim shouted and bucked. Her legs tightened around him, Claire's hips tightening against him.
Her tongue rasped against his neck, and Jim tripped over the line from incredibly turned on into coming.
It went on and on, pounding through his whole body, every suckle, every graze of her teeth, every swipe of her tongue another assault until he was left emptied. Wrung out. Trembling.
And still wanting more.
Claire lifted her lips from his neck and sat up. She looked as dizzy with pleasure as Jim felt. Her lips were flushed. She licked them. Jim couldn't tear his gaze away from her tongue. What she'd just done with it, to him.
"Oh. That was... that was good," she breathed, sounding dazed and satisfied. She stretched her body along his, pressing down one more time with her hips. "Oh!" A shiver ran along her frame, like one last little orgasm as a chaser. She breathed and moaned deep in her throat, and snuggled against him. Her eyes shut. Opened. Shut again. Flickered one more time. "Mmm," Claire said.
And then she was asleep.
Jim stared blankly at the canopy of his bed, still trying to get his racing heart under control. His mind was an absolute blank.
He'd just had the orgasm of his life, his girlfriend was snuggled up against him in the bed, and... what?
He eventually realized that he probably really did not want to sleep in pajama bottoms he'd come in, and started trying to extract himself. Claire didn't want to let go, but after a few minutes of trying, Jim managed to free himself. He went to tug down the hem of her nightgown so that she was decent, and paused. Claire's thighs were slick, her panties absolutely soaked.
At least he hadn't been the only one enjoying himself, Jim thought, covering her up before going to the bathroom for a quick wash and change.
It wasn't until after he'd accomplished those two things and stood in front of the mirror that Jim let himself confront the other aspect of the encounter.
He tilted his head to the side, examining the two small marks on his neck. There was no blood. His usual jacket had a high enough collar that they would be covered.
He pressed a finger into them and nearly fell to his knees, overwhelmed by the sudden flash of heat that pulsed through him.
His breath shook as he regained his balance and fumbled for his phone.
His girlfriend was a vampire.
Jim called an expert.
Douxie answered on the third ring. "Mrmn. Jim? Do you know what time it is?"
"What do you know about vampires?" Jim whispered, scared.
"Vamp-- Jim, are you okay?" Douxie was clearly wide awake now.
He swallowed. "Claire... Claire just bit me and drank my blood," Jim whispered. He peeked out the bathroom door, at where Claire lay sleeping on his bed, then shut the door between them. He wasn't sure if he didn't want to wake her, or if he didn't want her to hear this conversation.
"F--" Douxie said a word that was clearly not fuzzbuckets. "Of all the weeks for me to be on another continent. Jim, what happened? Tell me everything."
"I don't know!" Jim said. "She came to my room and said she'd been feeling weird. I was going to try to help her figure it out, but then we ended up on my bed making out--"
Douxie hummed. "I can guess the rest."
Jim flushed.
"All right. First thing is, there's several kinds of vampires," the wizard said. "Given that you survived and are alive to call me now, that rules out the entire nosferatu branch of the tree."
"What are the other kinds?"
"Well, I'm going to guess, based on the making out, that her biting you felt really good?"
Jim absolutely positively was not going to tell Douxie he'd never come so hard in his life.
The wizard clearly heard what Jim wasn't saying, and snickered. "All right. Sounds like Claire's somehow a succubus."
"A what?" Jim was sure he'd heard the term somewhere, but absolutely nothing was coming to mind.
"A branch of vampirism that's light on the blood, heavy on the sex. They like endorphins, and all the other feel-good chemicals humans get swamped with during intercourse. They also tend toward monogamy, and having their own special person to feed from."
"Which means what, Douxie?"
"It means be prepared to have your sex life go through the roof, Jim."
Jim blinked. "I'm not sure I have enough energy to go through that every night, Douxie."
Douxie scoffed. "Who said every night, mate? Think more like twice a day. At a minimum."
Jim's brain screeched to a blank.
Douxie sighed. "Look, right now you may not think you have the energy. But trust me, you will. When a succubus, or incubus, wants their partner, that partner will rise to the occasion. Claire will be absolutely irresistible to you, Jim. And even if you could resist her... right now, that sexual energy? That's what she's feeding on. Human food is for seduction purposes. A meal is the bed sport that follows."
Jim swallowed.
"What I want to know," Douxie continued, "is what's happened to cause this. Any thoughts?"
"Um." Jim tried to think. "The only thing we've left Camelot for this week is Claire returning that tablet you found in Merlin's things to the Naga snake tribe."
"The Nagas?"
Jim nodded even though Douxie couldn't see him. "Yeah. I guess they thought she was an intruder at first? They hit her with all kinds of colored dust before they realized what she was there for."
Silence rang from Douxie's end of the line, followed by the sound of flesh hitting flesh.
"Douxie?" Jim was concerned.
A harsh sigh. "Do you remember what you told me, about when you all went into Gatto's belly? The first time?"
"Uh...."
"What happened to Blinky," Douxie stressed.
Jim's eyes flew wide. "You mean the potions that turned him human?"
"Yes, Jim. Potions can come in solid form too. And look like colored powder."
Now it was Jim's turn to say a very short word that started with F. "Is this going to be temporary, then?" Like Blinky's transformation had been.
"Hard to say." There was a rummaging sound. "I'll cut our trip short and see if we can get back tomorrow. Mid-afternoon, at the latest. Hold the fort."
"Hold the fort?"
A snicker. "And don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"That is a very short list," Jim informed the wizard, and hung up.
Okay, he thought, looking at himself in the mirror. Okay. Claire's a vampire. A succubus. She's going to want frequent sex. I can deal with that. Douxie's on the way back, he'll help us figure out a solution.
The question was, Jim decided, what could he do now?
Absolutely nothing, he concluded after a minute.
Well. Go to bed, I guess.
Sighing, he closed his eyes and sagged. He let himself have a moment. Then he straightened, flicked off the light, and went back to his bed. Where his very beautiful, very warm girlfriend was waiting to snuggle up against him.
Jim looked up at the dark bed canopy for what felt like a long time.
Then he closed his eyes, and let himself fall asleep. The morning would take care of itself.
The morning came with a lithe body rubbing against his, her pert nipples hard buds through the thin fabric of Claire's nightgown. "Jim," she said, smiling as he opened his eyes. Her fangs pressed against her bottom lip. The heat of her embraced his thigh, her panties still tacky from the previous night.
His heart pounded. "Claire," he said, reaching for her. She as much as purred.
"I don't know why I feel like this," she said, moving to sit on his lap and undulating. "I just want...."
Thinking was hard in the light of her hips moving like that. Jim fought back against just what exactly the sight of her fangs did to him. "Douxie said you'd been hit by a succubus spell," he managed before his voice failed and he threw back his head with a groan.
Claire's fingers whispered across where she'd bitten him the night before, causing heat to flash through Jim. His cock twitched against her. "You're so delicious," she breathed. "I want more." Her fingers scrabbled at her own hips. He heard fabric tearing. She threw something away. "I want you to fuck me, Jim." She raised up off him enough to pull his pajama bottoms down.
His fingers itched to touch her breasts, to tease them, to make her react. "Wait," Jim held just enough presence of mind to say. "Condom." He scrambled for the bedside table, for the drawer.
Claire pouted but allowed it. His hands shook, tearing open the packet, as she traced his bite marks. She was so wet, riding the length of him. He could barely roll the contraceptive on.
"Mine," Claire said, sinking down on him. "Oh-h-h~~" She moaned, taking him all the way in more quickly than usual.
She was so hot, so wet, so tight. Jim's heart pounded in his chest. "Claire," he managed, thumbs finally finding her nipples.
Claire whimpered, rocking. He thrust up into her. "More," she said. "I want more, Jim--"
"Take it," Jim whispered, baring his throat to her.
Her fangs, dangerous and cute, and so fucking sexy, pierced his skin.
Jim surrendered to pleasure, feeding the woman he loved.
After.
After, they cleaned up together. Jim felt wrung out. But he was still somehow hit with a pulse of want every time Claire smiled up at him. Every time he caught a flash of fang or her smug satisfaction.
She helped him shower. Helped him dress. "Come on," Claire said, taking his arm. "Let's get you something to eat."
"Aren't you hungry?" Jim asked, curious.
Her expression turned thoughtful. "You know, I'm really not," said Claire. Then, after a minute, "He said I'm a succubus?"
"Hey." Jim stopped walking. Made her look at him. "We've got this," he promised her. "Whether it's temporary or permanent. It's you and me, together, right?"
Slowly, Claire nodded. "Yeah. But I should do some reading."
"There's the overachiever I know and love," Jim teased, tugging her closer, breathing in the scent of his own shampoo in her hair.
Claire's arms around him were tighter than warranted.
"It's okay to be scared," he whispered. "But you didn't give up on me when I was a half-troll, or even a full one. A hundred lifetimes, remember?"
"A hundred lifetimes," Claire promised, with a sniff that meant she was holding back tears.
Jim just held her. Held on, swaying together, for a long time. Until his stomach groaned.
Claire laughed, skipping back, dashing tears away from her eyes. "Come on, hero. Let's get you some breakfast, okay?"
He followed her to the kitchen and assembled himself something quick and easy: a giant sandwich. Claire flitted in and out of the fridge room while he ate, working on some project of her own. It wasn't until Jim was nearly done that she sat down across from him, setting two bowls on the table between them. The larger was full of tortilla chips. The smaller, guac.
Claire took a chip and a scoop and put it in her mouth, neatly biting the chip in half. Her tongue swiped across her flushed mouth, licking the guac from her lips.
Jim pointed at her. "You are not seducing me with guacamole."
"Aren't I?" Claire asked innocently, laughter in her eyes and on her face.
Jim groaned and gave in.
"Ooh, guac!" Toby came into the kitchen, Darci following behind. "Any chance you made enough for everyone?"
Douxie arrived that afternoon, as promised, his airship docking in the great hall. He looked uncharacteristically concerned, his brows furrowed as he jumped down from the vehicle, Archie following, and walked over toward Jim and Claire, who had been waiting for him. In fact, Jim thought, Douxie looked almost a little like Merlin.
The impression vanished almost instantly as the wizard crossed his arms and sighed, looking the two of them over, top to toe. "Why do you keep getting into these scrapes?" he asked of no one in particular.
"I didn't do it on purpose!" Claire defended herself.
A smile quirked Douxie's mouth. "One never does," he said, his tone implying long familiarity with accidental consequences. "Come on, let's go up to the workshop and run some tests, see what we can figure out."
Half an hour later, Douxie had waved crystals over Claire, had her touch various blocks of who-knew-what to see if she reacted, and read her palm. It all looked like so much woo-woo mysticism to Jim, but he had rock-solid faith that Douxie knew what he was doing.
Well, mostly.
"Temporary," Douxie pronounced, to sighs of relief from both of them.
"Thank God," said Claire.
"That said, I don't know when it will wear off," Douxie continued. "Could be days, could be weeks, could be months. Depends entirely on how big a dose you inhaled, Fair Claire, or absorbed through contact."
"Months?" Jim asked.
Claire huffed. "I just don't get why they hit me with a potion of succubus," she complained.
Douxie shrugged. "They probably didn't."
"Uh." Claire exchanged a confused look with Jim. "Going to need you to expand on that, Teach."
"Well, you said it just seemed like they were panicking, throwing everything they had at you, right?"
Claire nodded.
"The interaction of combined potions is an area of study that's been much neglected," Archie said from his perch on the reading table, where a tome was open before him. "Largely because making potions is often such a labor and time intensive process that no one wants to waste them."
"Plus, potions act differently on different species," Douxie added. "So the Nagas probably weren't intending this result at all." His mouth pursed. "Actually, Jim?"
"Yes?"
"You," said Douxie, pointing at him, "will need to make sure you're doing enough self-care during this. Because I can't imagine either of you want Claire feeding on someone else--"
"No," and "Nuh-uh," accompanied by swift head shakes, came from both of them.
"--So you are literally eating for two right now. Get enough sleep, eat large meals, have as few world-saving adventures as you can," the wizard prescribed. "Do that and you should both be all right."
"Okay," said Jim. "Okay, we can work with that...."
Claire's smile was hopeful.
"And one other thing," Douxie added. They both looked at him. "Lay in a larger stock of whatever contraceptives you usually use, and keep them to hand."
Jim flushed.
"Succubi can get pregnant as easily as any other woman," Archie said calmly, cleaning his glasses.
Beside him, his familiar grinned. "And when they're carrying, their libidos double."
"If not more," Archie agreed.
Jim blanked. Next to him, he was pretty sure Claire was doing the same thing.
"Right," she said, recovering first. "Condoms. Lots and lots of condoms."
Douxie laughed, waving them out of his workshop. "Good luck, lovebirds. See you at supper."
Later that night, laying in bed, sweat cooling on both of their bodies and Claire's favorite spot on his neck buzzing in just the right way, Jim looked at the woman in his arms. Claire looked like the cat that had gotten both the canary and the cream.
Well. Jim's cream, anyway.
"Move in with me," Jim said before he could second-guess himself and talk himself out of it.
Claire's eyes blinked open. "What?"
"Move in here with me," Jim repeated. "We're going to be spending a lot of time together, and it's convenient, and god knows all the bedrooms in Camelot are big enough to house a whole family--"
"Jim." Claire's finger was on his lips, silencing him. She studied his face for a minute, then smiled. "Yes," she said simply.
Jim lit up. "Really?"
"My mom's going to flip," Claire said, but didn't really seem concerned about the possibility.
Jim laughed and hugged her tight. Claire laughed too, returning the embrace. His mouth found hers, kissed deeply.
"Oh, don't-- don't turn me on again," she complained halfheartedly, but made no objection when his kiss strayed to her bare shoulder, and then lower. "Oh!"
"I love you," Jim said.
Her eyes widened. "Say that again."
"I love you," Jim said, and he did, his heart full to overflowing.
"I love you," Claire repeated back to him. "Oh! Jim!"
But she didn't protest as, with mouth and fingers, he teased one nipple to pertness, then the other. They were each perfect. Completely perfect, just like all of her. Jim looked up at her, at Claire's blushing face, her pupils dilated. "If earlier was dinner," he said, fumbling to try and sound cool and suave, "then this is dessert."
That made her laugh, and she smacked his shoulder as his fingers glided down her sides. "Dork," she accused.
"Guilty." Jim grinned, and bent to lay a kiss on either side of her belly button, before moving down farther and gently thumbing open her folds. Claire sucked a breath in as he ran his tongue up the center of her in a long, considering stripe. "Jim," she said, voice shaky.
Jim grinned and set to, knowing by now where she was most sensitive. He wrote with his tongue, a secret message. JLJ + CN, followed by a heart. Just like he'd carved on the kissing tree. An I love you, in her most intimate place.
He followed how turned on she was by the cadence of her breaths, the movement of her thighs on either side of his head, the curling and clawing of her hands in the sheets. "Jim," Claire said, and it sounded like begging.
He grinned, and shifted, freeing a hand. Slowly, so slowly, never stopping his worship of her, he pressed a finger inside, crooking and massaging from within.
Claire gasped, her head thumping back against the pillow. "Jim," she warned. "Jim, I'm not gonna--"
He didn't change a thing, just kept going, solid and steady. It wasn't the size of the wave, as the saying went, but the motion of the ocean. Slow and steady would get Claire off a lot easier than hard and fast. And he wanted her to come, wanted to feel her clenched around him, her interior, her thighs, the tightness of her belly--
"Jim!" she cried, and he got what he wanted, her gasps rocking her body even as he didn't stop, just kept licking at her, spelling their initials, drawing it out, making it good, making it last--
"Stopstopstop," she breathed, her hands grasping his hair. Jim obeyed, drawing away, though he left his finger in place, motionless. His head was trapped by Claire's smooth, strong thighs. He managed to turn his head, place a kiss on that creamy flesh as she trembled. "Give me a minute," Claire said.
"All the minutes," Jim promised, unsure if he was heard or not. It didn't matter; his vow was true regardless.
Gradually, the grip of her legs eased. He drew his finger out of her body, crawled up over it, gave her a kiss. As always, Claire grimaced at the taste on his lips, but drew him down anyway, her arms around him, their bodies pressed up against the lengths of one another. "Want one more?" he eventually asked her. Given how hard he'd come earlier, he really felt he shouldn't have been up for another go, but there it was. Douxie, he was sure, would have something to say about teenage hormones.
Claire smiled, clearly having felt him pressed firm and hard against her. "I could manage," she said, and there was something wicked in her smile and gaze. She rolled her hips, and Jim stifled a groan. She really had no business feeling as good against him as she did. Claire snickered. "How do you want me?" she asked.
He considered the options. When the succubus side of her was in charge, she tended to end up on top of him, at least so far, taking what she wanted and needed. But since this wasn't about the succubus thing, was just about them....
"On your hands and knees?" Jim suggested. Because there was something about that position that felt really good to both of them.
Claire grinned. "Got a condom?"
Jim leaned over and fished one out of the bedside drawer, without moving off her. "Right here," he told her, waving it.
"Gimme." Claire took it out from between his fingers and opened the foil packet. He canted up and off of her as she reached down between them, biting his bottom lip as she got her hands on him. Putting on the condom wasn't exactly a source of pleasurable feelings, except maybe anticipation, but the fact that it was her rolling the tight sheath onto him definitely was.
He wanted kids with Claire someday, but not yet. And definitely not now, with the succubus thing going. Doubling (or more) their sex life would probably legitimately kill Jim. Though, he thought with a touch of humor as they both moved, Claire squirming onto her belly and him moving back to give her room, what a way to go.
Breathless, he appreciated the view as she rose up onto her hands and knees. Like the rest of her, Claire's ass was perfect. He dropped a kiss onto the beauty spot high over her left hip, brushed his thumb appreciatively on the dimple on her right cheek, and shuffled into place between her spread legs as she bowed her back, flattening her forearms on the mattress. Her nipples brushed the sheets like this, and she was so, so beautiful.
There was something about the position that felt vaguely dirty, illicit and demeaning. But as Jim found where to press into her and did so, there was also something about it that felt so fucking good and right.
"Ohhh~~" Claire's moan as he filled her went up in tone until it ended in a whine. "Jim," she breathed.
It was hard to still the pounding of his heart, to slow his breath. It felt-- she felt-- so damned good. And it felt good to her too, he knew. Like she couldn't come, she'd told him once, because she was already continuously coming.
His hands grasped her hips. Not hard enough to bruise, which he could do all too easily, especially on the fair part of her skin that never saw sunlight, but enough to hold her, so they could both move. Jim rocked into her and out, his movements starting small, the drag of sensitive flesh against sensitive flesh lighting up something like fireworks for both of them.
"Oh. Oh. Oh." Claire's breath came quick, her words small as she rocked back against him in turn. Jim bit his lip again and tried to stay in control of himself, to draw it out as long as he could, to make Claire feel so good and never regret choosing him--
But the problem was, it felt so good, and his control frayed even as he tried to hold onto it, slipped away from him moment after moment until he was pounding into her, almost sobbing, chasing that high, that perfect plateau where nothing mattered and it was just him and her and clarity.
Claire was sobbing too, breaths and his name and "oh" and "yes."
"Claire," Jim managed, "I'm gonna-- I'm gonna come--"
And then he did, and it was like white noise and the line of her back combined and nothing else mattered...
Claire made a high, cracking sound in her throat as he stilled, throbbing inside her.
Smooth skin under his hands. So smooth, and warm and perfect, and he wanted to give her everything, give her this feeling of peace and utter love, and keep her there, happy, forever.
Jim choked, almost unable to breathe with how much he loved her. Unable to speak it, even, because the feeling was too big for him, too big to fit into words. He only knew that he was made of love, and all of it was for her.
Long seconds passed, feeling like aeons. Time was measured out in heartbeats, thick and slow. In grains of sand, like waves on a beach washed in and out. Slowly, the golden feeling faded. He became something less again, something human. The grasp of her body became something less than divine. With a wince, Jim pulled out of her, carefully, holding the condom at its base. Claire made a sound of disappointment, but he just-- he couldn't--
He needed a minute.
Jim busied himself with taking off the condom and tossing it into the trashcan while Claire slid down to lay flat on the bed again, rolling onto her back. Her face was flushed; her mouth, satisfied. She made grabby fingers at him when he was done; Jim obeyed, and came to lay next to her. Her head rested in the hollow of his shoulder. They snuggled in silence for a minute. He tried to recapture a bit of the feeling of peace he'd had only moments before. Finally, Claire spoke.
"Every inch a king," she murmured, somehow managing to sound satisfied and salacious at the same time.
Jim's face heated. "Claire!"
"What?" She laughed. "It's true!"
He whimpered. "Please don't tell me you gossip about that."
"Fine," she said. "I won't tell you." Her dark eyes sparkled.
"I love you," he said, out of nowhere, and it was true.
"Hmm." She snuggled into him. "Lucky for you, I love you too."
Maybe that was all that mattered, Jim considered. Not that golden place after orgasm. Not the perfection. Just Jim and Claire, regardless of what they were at the moment, or whatever craziness, magical or other, was going on in their lives. Just them, and holding on to one another.
Author's Note: This started with the mental image of Claire smiling cutely with fangs, and spun out from there. The title comes from a discussion on HoneyxMonkey's Discord server, where we all ended up agreeing that Jim's love language really is acts of service. Douxie and Archie saying a succubus' libido doubles or more was inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Phase." Claire's line about "every inch a king" is from King Lear, but perhaps more references a review of Ian McKellan's performance of Lear, wherein the reviewer noted that Sir Ian's nude scene in that production aptly proved the claim (for reference). ^_-