Yours, Insatiably: A Fangs With Benefits Monster Romance: Hunger Duet, #2

By Aveda Vice

Avirin understands hunger.

 

With her ravenous desire to succeed, it's no surprise she hides her monstrosity from the world. Easier said than done once she sleeps with her infuriating coworker and lets her succubus secret slip. But it's a one-time thing; she's not jeopardizing her career over a night with Pye…

 

No matter how much she can't stop thinking about it.

 

Pye understands hunger, too.

 

Being famished for something they can't have, mouth watering at the sight of her...but Pye and Avirin agreed to be friends, and since faeries can't lie, he'll keep his late-night thoughts to himself. But when Pye introduces Avirin to the world of monsters she's long avoided, they both have a hard time forgetting what they did together…

 

And a harder time remembering why they can't cross that line again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aveda Vice
• Release date: Dec 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9798985004205

Book preview

YOURS, INSATIABLY

Hunger Duet: Book 2

in the Fangs With Benefits universe

Aveda Vice

Bad Bite LLC

Copyright © 2021 by Aveda Vice

All rights reserved.

Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9850042-0-5

Print ISBN: 979-8-9850042-1-2

No element of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from Aveda Vice, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is theft of the author’s intellectual property. For permissions, contact [e-mail].

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, cultures, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book contains content of an explicit and mature nature and is intended to be enjoyed by those of and above the age of consent.

The author does not assume responsibility for third-party websites or their contents.

Written by: Aveda Vice

Cover illustration by: Evertein

Cover design by: Designed by Vee

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Table of Contents

Dedication

Author’s Note

Chapter 1: Avirin

Chapter 2: Pye

Chapter 3: Pye

Chapter 4: Avirin

Chapter 5: Avirin

Chapter 6: Avirin

Chapter 7: Pye

Chapter 8: Pye

Chapter 9: Avirin

Chapter 10: Pye

Chapter 11: Avirin

Chapter 12: Pye

Chapter 13: Avirin

Chapter 14: Avirin

Chapter 15: Pye

Chapter 16: Avirin

Chapter 17: Pye

Chapter 18: Pye

Chapter 19: Avirin

Chapter 20: Pye

Chapter 21: Avirin

Chapter 22: Pye

Chapter 23: Avirin

Chapter 24: Pye & Avirin

Epilogue: Pye

About the Author

Also By Aveda Vice

Acknowledgements

Dedication

May you find someone who loves what’s behind your mask.

Author’s Note

This novel follows the events of the novelette, Feed. Feed contains no major plot points and is not necessary to understand the events of this book.

However, if you would like to read Pye & Avirin’s first night together, check out Feed.

This book contains sexual situations. It is not intended for anyone under the legal age of adulthood. All characters depicted in sexual situations herein are over 18 years of age. This book is not to be used as an informational guide to any type of sex or sexual education.

Some topics within this book may be sensitive or disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

For detailed information on the topics addressed, please visit the author's website or scan the code below.

ONE

Avirin

For the past two weeks, Pye has been pleasant. Naturally, Avirin is terrified.

Not just pleasant, either — and that’s more disturbing. Because he’s as irritating as always, but other things are happening. Things that some might consider...nice.

Nobody at the historical archives notices a difference. They don’t look twice when Pye saunters in, black bag slung over his shoulder to match every studded, leather-clad inch of him. No one else questions the flutter of his hawk-moth wings disappearing around a corner, the fur of his skull-shaped ruff peeking out between his shoulder blades.

He’s a bright spot between cubicles and offices. The pollen yellow color of his skin could almost be mistaken for a bumblebee...but Pye is not soft and round and bumbling. His body’s firm and taut and covered in black tattoos that Avirin swears she can still taste.

There’s no way to avoid him when they share the same massive circulation desk, but Avirin does her best. She stays away from their private office space — the only place available when the Archives contracted her. Instead, her papers spill as she tries to wrangle the small tables in the breakroom. Her distance from Pye does nothing to keep her mind where it’s supposed to be, always slipping into the hallway, down the stairs, imagining him bent over a canvas...

Big project?

Her knee slams into the table. A strangled curse spills from her mouth, eyes lifting to see Pye steeping tea on the counter. She’d been so distracted by the thought of him that she hadn’t noticed the real deal strolling into the breakroom, clattering utensils while Avirin pictured paint slipping down his fingers.

Yes. She grinds the heel of her palm into the bruise forming on her knee. The pins on his leather jacket clack against his nametag: Pye. He/they/whatever. Just...getting everything in order.

He blows on his mug, voice thick with sleep. That table seems a little small for your purposes.

Fuck them. It’s like faeries can sniff out a lie — or she’s just painfully fucking obvious. I need...perfect silence to work.

Mmm. Pye tugs on the tea infuser. Hadn’t noticed that before.

Heat bleeds out of their words and up her cheeks, but she can’t drop their gaze, crosshatched and pixelated like an insect. The infuser tinkles against the side of their mug. Gods, they’ll do anything to get under her skin — and they are, peeling it back until she’s an exposed nerve that he’s tap-dancing over.

If it’s any consolation, they murmur, pushing off the counter, your work is always impressive. Especially when you’re loud.

And there’s that smirk again, tucked behind the lip of their mug as they disappear back through the door. Memories of the sounds she made for them flood her mind. Her chair scrapes back from the table, and she locks herself in the single bathroom, dabbing a wet paper towel on the back of her neck.

It does nothing to quell the heat.

Furiously, she hikes her skirt over the thick swell of her pale thighs and sinks too easily over her fingers.

That’s the day she starts thinking about Pye. A dangerous pastime in the best of cases, but now that she knows how his teeth grit when he’s about to come, it’s lethal.

Fucking him was an accident. She can hear his voice pressed to her ear at the thought of that, lifting every hair on the back of her neck. You ‘accidentally’ fell on my dildo? My fingers? My dick? Over and over? Avirin envisions exactly how they’d say it, but she convinces herself their voice is nothing more than an earworm — an irritating song she can’t get out of her head.

She wants to throttle herself every time she’s caught singing it.

Before Pye showed up at her apartment two weeks ago, the Monstr app had been a lifesaver, pairing supernatural creatures with other people who would meet their needs. Anonymous and safe — or safe until being anonymous placed her work nemesis on her doorstep to feed and fuck her. But she can’t blame what happened between them on anonymity — not completely. Because she could have sent him away once they recognized each other. Could have stopped their interaction after she fed on his life force and sexual energy. Hell, she could have limited herself to one orgasm at his hands, but she certainly did not do that.

It’s concerning that she’s not concerned about Pye spilling her secret. No one else at the Archives has uncovered what she is in the six months she’s been contracted there. No one at the project management firm she works for suspects anything, either. So, of course, the restoration artist that gives her hell would be the first to find out exactly what she is.

Succubi aren’t an impossibility — but Avirin’s never met another one. At least, not that she knows about. Once, across the refrigerated aisle at the grocery store, she came face-to-face with a familiar pair of black eyes glancing over the seafood. They looked…uncomfortable. Only then did Avirin realize that she was watching them with her suppressed, brown, human gaze. Still, she followed the succubus with a haunted familiarity until the creature disappeared out the front doors.

There are others out there. There have to be, but Avirin’s not the only one keeping what she is a secret. No demon is well-received by the general public, especially in cities influenced by humans. At least succubi have the opportunity to hide in plain sight. A method to avoid the judgmental looks, the well-meaning commentary, the barriers that form as soon as anyone learns the truth. And more than that, Avirin has a way to avoid the reminder that maybe she is as despicable and dangerous as the world has taught her to believe.

It’s easier for Avirin to mask her pupils before they can spread to engulf her eyes. Easier to relegate her feedings to the privacy of her home, where no one can get hurt. Easier to force her resting expression into a smile, so she handles every curveball without complaint, because gods forbid anyone at work discover what she is.

Which should mean Avirin is more careful. Less trusting, even through an anonymous app, but there’s nothing she can do about what Pye knows now. And ever since their...incident, she’s more disturbed by him knowing how to toy with her than knowing what she is.

It’s concerning on multiple levels. Never did she think she’d long for the days when her thoughts of them were bound up solely with bitterness, when her emotions were an uncomplicated hatred that she could deal with. But when Pye glances at her now, and her skin heats, it occurs to her that perhaps her feelings about them have never been simple.

The way he smirks makes everything feel like it comes at a price, and she’s already paying it.

The day after their illicit encounter, she spent the entire morning waiting for a shift in his demeanor. There was nothing except the knowing smile balanced on his lips. He’s always met her hateful glares with his grating grin, but there’s a different weight to it now; it only grows when he catches her looking.

When he left her naked on her couch, he told her to call him, if you want to do this again. But days turned to weeks, and Avirin couldn’t bring herself to admit she might want another round of the humiliating sting of him playing with her, so she returned to work in their shared office space. Pye never mentioned it, save for that luxurious curl of his smile.

He’s barely been anything less than professional. Which is horrifying, because she’s the one catching her gaze lingering on the back of their waistband when they crouch to the bottom shelf of supplies. A hint of lace underwear peeks out of the top of their jeans, and she has to shake her blouse off her back so the sweat doesn’t stick.

It was so much easier before. When her thoughts of him were a stream of hate, vitriolic as it may have been. It was safe. It was easy, slotting Pye into a box she could handle without any complexity. But now she hates him with a heat that grows in her stomach, and if she’s honest...she may have hated him with that before, too. Because her mind is working overtime, running through images of his face between her thighs even before they ended up pressed together. She tried for months to shove the low rumble of his voice from her head, warring with the fantasy of brightly-colored hair peeking between her fingers.

Her computer search history is a confession: lithe men covered in tattoos, girls with piercings who make people beg. Avirin’s fingers hover over the f-a-e keys while the cursor blinks an accusation until she shuts her laptop the same way she’d close a freezer lid over a body.

Now, she’s trying to focus in the very conference room that has starred in more than one of her fantasies. Pye never puts their feet on the table, but that’s the energy they carry into every room: the punk kid tilting his chair in the back of a classroom. In reality, Pye runs a hand through the undercut of their dyed orange hair, focused on the human director’s presentation slides.

It’s the same way Pye looks at Avirin any time she speaks: intent, honed, rapt attention meant to torment her. Any sane person would say he’s being polite, but she sees the little quirk of his mouth that he doesn’t save for anyone else. Nearly imperceptible...but it’s there.

Or she’s just hoping it is.

...and Avirin will finish us off with updates on the Infinite Senses exhibit.

Thom returns to his chair with an encouraging look, fluorescents winking off the sepia skin of his bald head. Gods, she missed everything. All the departmental updates from the rest of the Archives because of the fae swiveling in his chair. All his attention makes her lose focus. She does her best to follow her notes, but Pye’s gaze has her rereading the same sentence before she speaks.

We’re on schedule to complete the art collection in time, but we’re a little over budget. Should be fine as long as marketing brings in enough people to offset the difference, but it’s something to keep an eye on. The educational experience should be good to launch as planned in a couple of weeks. I’m keeping in touch with the owner of the gallery to make sure everything goes off without a hitch.

You know, I was thinking…

And there’s a fucking hitch. Pye’s tone weaves curiously as their pointed ears perk.

The illusory dust experience we’ve been eyeing from Faerie — would it be possible to rent it? I know we’ve never had luck getting it in the past, but… A slyness dips onto their lips when they look at her. That was before we had Ms. Ellison managing our projects.

Irritation ticks the hard set of her jaw. No one else notices — no one but Pye with their faerie realm obsession. But Thom is already nodding, tapping fingers against his lips before he glances at her. What do you think? Can you add that to your plate, Avirin?

Of course. It’s an automated response. No question: she can always take on more work. Always spend more hours at the office. Always exceed expectations. With the succubus secret she’s harboring? She doesn’t have much of a choice.

Thom beams. It would be a fantastic addition to the exhibit. Don’t overexert yourself trying to get it, but hey, maybe you’ll have better luck than we’ve had.

Don’t overexert yourself. Hilarious. Like her brain will let her leave anything unfinished.

The meeting adjourns as everyone gathers laptops and bags, but Avirin’s eyes narrow across the table, every muscle in her face taut.

Anything else to add, Mr. Riften?

The pads of Pye’s fingers press against the table when they rise. You’ll do an immaculate job as always, Ms. Ellison.

And that’s the worst part — Pye is good at his job. Every irritating thing he does to make her work harder is him actually giving a shit. Not just when he restores artifacts, but all the other things Avirin struggles with, due to her autism or otherwise. He has little problem charming people. No issues devising creative problems that require her to find solutions. He doesn't even bat an eye at the thought of relaxing.

Her neck is stiff. She needs to feed. Since the night with Pye, she hasn’t taken the chance, too worried she’ll draw him from the Monstr lottery again. And a smaller part of her, the part she refuses to acknowledge, wonders about the possibility of him showing up on her doorstep a second time.

But that’s not happening. Once the conference room clears, she pulls out her phone, glancing out the glass walls. She opens the Monstr app, forcing her fingers to move without thinking to click into her most recent order.

Hawks. Pye’s