Are There Still Beautiful Things
Vampire Ilia x f!reader smut mdni 4.3K so far He's not a vampire. Alright, he is, but he's a fruit vampire with a sweet tooth for in-season raspberries and women.
Bidlake Gardens, the historic estate you love to escape to and pretend is your own, is really run as a public museum, gift shop and all. Families have had to get creative over the years in funding their inherited homes. It's magnificent. During holidays, every room is decorated, and they hold parties. The gardens change with each season, and now in the summer, they host the local farmers' market, where no one minds wrapping lines because everything is so fresh and delicious.
It's passing your time in one, you notice the man making smart use of a tree's shade, tearing through a half pint of raspberries, a little too handsome, until he smiles, Kleenex-white teeth and organic, bright juice trickling from the corners of his mouth. Just handsome. A fruit vampire. You file the cute moment away for yourself and move forward, one step closer, fingers crossed that the vendors don't sell out before your turn.
"Next!"
Totes laden with today's haul, you regret nothing except how far away you had to park. It's busy.
"Let me help you with those?" It's the fruit vampire, cleaned up and back in his volunteer vest.
You'd politely decline except it's hot out and he already has the bags in his grip, their weight like nothing for him.
"I'm Ilia."
When you tell him your name, you miss the way his look softens as you press on to the car park. There's a lot in a name, and he likes yours.
"I see you here often."
The sound of a record scratch plays in your mind, thinking you've always gone unnoticed, just another patron. What parts has he seen? When you hog the best window and stare out over the grounds? When you strain your neck from trying to peer around cordoned-off halls, the private residence portions a great mystery to you? When you couldn't help yourself and picked a flower and felt guilty all weekend? When you sit so long in the south lawn grass by the pond, watching the fountain and the swan you've decided is named Agnes, that your ass leaves an imprint?
"Oh," is all you say, keenly aware of the embarrassed heat now residing in your cheeks.
"Didn't mean to put you on the spot. It was a good thing."
You shrug and give in, opening your trunk for the bags now that you've finally made it. "I like it here. Still dying to see the parts not opened to the public yet."
Ilia sees his chance. "Really? Would you like to see my room then?"
"You? Live in there?"
Ilia tugs on the crest-embroidered panel of the vest. "Room and board included. Personal tour guide at your service."
"No!"
"Yes," Ilia is thrilled you're thrilled, somehow, your enthusiasm contagious. He doesn't usually need special powers or deceit, but it has taken more effort in the past.
He walks you to Bidlake's back entrance, less grand and by the original kitchen. His hand finds yours to pull you along, though you'd love to look around more. On your way out.
In the private hall, you take it all in, looking up to the ceiling painted like the firmament. There are too many railings for the number of stories you've counted outside and know by heart. Construction added a false gallery at the top for even more grandeur. He flings the vest over a chaise lounge in the careless way only an occupant could.
You feel solid against the marble floor as you walk, passing tapestries and hand-knotted rugs that make you understand why they hide away from the masses, each piece worth a not-so-small fortune.
Ilia lets you decide, "Lift or stairs?"
"Stairs," your answer is easy, even though your legs are already tired. Along the way are portraits and plasterwork you need to study. The original wood still smells. A taxidermied bear on the landing is a jumpscare, but authentic Jacobean furniture is even more surprising. What king sat there?
"Did I mention I'm on the top floor?" Ilia laughs lightly back at you as he takes more of the stairs two at a time in a breeze, already ahead of you.
On his level now, the hallway is long, and the ceilings are lower. You ask, "How many rooms does this place have?"
Ilia answers, "We're told to say 100. 100 rooms, 100 acres, but I bet there are more. No one's allowed up in the attic. But here we are."
Ilia opens the door to his roughly L-shaped place for you. He's in what had surely been servants' quarters. You rush around to look. The ceiling is patterned, and the walls have slopes and interest, making the LED strip run along it seem laughable. A bay window overlooks the vineyard and has a perfect number of books halfway read waiting. "It's crazy to be in a room that's not a boring box shape."
Ilia cards his fingers through his hair and looks down, dipping his head before responding, "I guess about anything can lose its magic once you've been around it long enough."
"No. Never. I'd never grow tired of being here."
He almost believes you. "You're cute."
This is what Ilia had brought you in for, everything else an added amusement. Normally, his guests are only pretending to care about the estate. He keeps things casual. Ilia tried a serious relationship once, and it did not end well.
"May I kiss you?" After all, vampires are required to ask permission for entrance. Ilia's body is right in front of yours, and his voice is sweet like his touch at your elbows. Something about it makes you feel as if the question was more intimate than the act.
Instead of answering, you take your lips to his. One small leads to one large leads to one deep leads to one over another on the bed and gasping. Ilia uses the break to take his kisses down your neck, finding your most sensitive portion with ease and staying there until your legs drag up his body.
It makes him go down yours after pulling off his shirt. "Want to taste you."
You are a substance that he craves.
Your top is rucked up to expose excited skin. Ilia's touch and lips work over you systematically, nothing left untouched. You’ve had dreams like this.
Your bottoms inch down your hips, thighs, shins, slowly, enjoyably. You're not usually so easily seduced, but this man, this stranger, has some sort of pull. A draw, like after Ilia kisses the edges of your underwear before taking them with his teeth in a playful, exaggerated gnaw, lower, going until gone.
One slow, savoring lick, entrance to clit makes you think you must have been a very good person in a past life. "Shit!"
Ilia stops and lifts up on his elbows to look over you. "You're around in winter too, right?"
"Why?" You really just want his mouth on you again.
"They never put central heating in the private space. It can get pretty cold at night, and I think your thighs could keep me warm." He'll wear them like earmuffs.
Ilia's lips brush your folds more before parting you by tongue. So slick and sensitive, it has you murmuring. The little whines women make are his favorite. He is detailed and thorough before allowing more spit to mix in, making things messy. Up and drag back down, in deep to taste, then flicks across your clit so quick your words fail entirely. He moves in mysterious medleys, like that one setting on sex toys that manages to make you weak enough for your legs to shake.
Your fingers work your appreciation through his bleach-enhanced hair before he makes a pretty noise when you tug. "How did you figure out how to do that?"
Ilia knows the one word truthful answer practice might kill the mood, but he's been bringing women back to this room since before you were born and sadly figures, barring an unforeseen accident, he'll be bringing people back here after you're long gone too. He'll make it all a joke.
"I'm a vampire," Ilia's voice teases along with his kisses while shedding the rest of his clothing against the bed with wriggles like a snake.
"Then bite me." You'll play along.
"You really want that?" Ilia takes his time nosing along your body, breathing deep. His lips have a natural proclivity for finding your pulse points. "People have it all wrong. Vampire teeth don't have little straws. They're only for nicking skin. Or piercing. Blood gets lapped up by tongue."
"So it does make sense you're so good."
"Mmhmm," Ilia groans into you, ready for more.
After letting his canines drag the curve of your hip just enough to get your attention, he pushes your thighs further apart. His tongue twirls again, and then it doesn't.
"Why'd you stop?" He's driving you mad.
"To grab a condom. Lose the shirt." He crawls up you and then leans over for the nightstand, able to catch its pull handle by fingertip. It'd be off-putting to have them out on the top, although Ilia finds the idea funny. He'd find a giant candy bowl or cookie jar and say, 'Pick a flavor.' He should buy flavored ones next time.
"Ready?" Ilia double-checks before taking his lips over yours with honeyed need again. He's usually rougher, but something inside has him taking his time, slowing it down, being gentler with you. As far as humans go, you’re not any more particularly delicate, but he still wants to handle you with care.
You feel his tip at your entrance and then the push, the heat and weight of him following.
"Ah, ah!"
Your hands hold his ass before exploring. Your gaze takes in the way his muscles move and how his hair falls. How his hips snap.
It could be minutes or hours you while away beneath him, melding with the sheets, melding with each other, but it is definitely time well spent.
He whispers your name and then goes on, "You can say my name too. Ilia. It's nice to hear it."
There were lost years where he hardly knew his name anymore. No family left, no real love, no friends. When not called, it's too easy to vanish, the name, the person, the soul, if there is any of that left.
"Ilia. There," your voice is more air than thought.
He likes how his name sounds over your tongue and knows he wants more of himself there. Ilia sees your vulnerability as your high builds and finds it touching, catching him off guard, the first feeling he's had like that in so long. As a vampire, his own is nearly nonexistent. He fears nothing but those traditional monster murdering methods, though on darkest nights he's wished for such.
He adds a finger over you where he hears the blood in your body begging.
Its touch is all you need to free your release. Feeling overheated and fuzzy-minded, you come with a sound you'll try hard not to be mortified by. Ilia presses out his breath in a steady, measured go and follows from the way you feel around him. There's a chewed lip he nearly tears open with his bite, and an eye roll you avoid from kissing along his chest and shoulders. Something crossed in the process, he can't remember, fruit and sex sustain Ilia like blood does the others. They call him the vampear. The vegan.
For Ilia, time stops, dissolves for whole seconds, an oddity, only knowing its endless, pointless march.
No matter how beautiful, his eye contact unsettles until Ilia remembers to close them while moving in for another kiss, tilting his head, going through the motions, but maybe feeling something along with them. He trashes the condom with a toss and then smooths the sheet you've pulled up over your chest. "So what do you do? When you're not taking tours?”
"I am a lady of leisure right now," you joke, unhappy with your current position or lack thereof.
"Bidlake is hiring. You should apply." Ilia raises his head onto one muscled arm you want to touch. You're the only mark he hopes to see again. The others? Please be a stranger.
"Why's that?"
"I can tell you have good taste," Ilia starts, believing his line since you love Bidlake and followed him home. "Besides, this place could really use some fresh blood."
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apologies, i'm ao3 speed and just feel better there i will try to make and keep a master list updated here soon though