Dark Summer, page 3
I returned my phone to my pocket and my knuckles brushed against Jay Singh’s business card. I looked at it for a moment, then my stomach rumbled.
Why not?
Soon I was ducking through the low doorway of World’s End pub at the bottom of the Royal Mile. Jay waved from his table in the corner. I weaved my way through the hot, packed room, which smelled strongly of beer and pub chips, remembering all the reasons I liked to be away from people. Still, I couldn’t help but smile at the pleased expression on my old friend’s face as I joined him. We ordered our food and Jay insisted on getting the first round of beers. I sipped the cool lager appreciatively.
“So, how’ve you been? You, know, since it all happened?” I leveled a look at Jay over my pint glass. “Not digging,” he said, lifting his hands in a gesture of innocence, “I swear. Just asking as a friend.”
I looked into my beer. “There are good days and bad days.”
“Yeah, I bet. Shit, man. I really am sorry.”
“It’s fine. Tell me about you,” I went on, not caring if the switch of subject was obvious. “I heard you got married?”
“Engaged,” Jay said, looking uncomfortable. “But it didn’t work out.”
I cursed myself silently. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Jay said, smiling. “It was a good thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Jay said with a shrug. “I finally got my head around what you knew all along.”
I blinked. “What’s that?”
“That I’m not into women.”
I raised my eyebrows, trying to decide if his expression had changed. “Wow. Well. Yeah, at uni I wasn’t sure. But you always said—”
“Yeah, I know.” Jay sipped his beer. “My folks always wanted the standard for me, you know—a wife, kids. It’s hard to see past that stuff sometimes.”
I was grateful when the food arrived to get me out of having to reply. Jay took a wolfish bite of his haggis burger with every appearance of relish, and I loaded my fork with fried fish, savoring, the sharp, vinegary tang and trying to remember the last time I’d had a meal out. Haemo-friendly hotels might be becoming more of a thing, but as they didn’t eat what humans did, I doubted I’d ever be able to sit down to a meal in a romantic restaurant with Terje.
“Still,” Jay said after he’d cleared his mouth with more beer, “better late than never, right?”
I smiled in response, startled by the prickling his look started at the base of my spine. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Shame I missed out on a bit of formative fun at uni, though,” he went on, the look in his eyes unmistakable. “But you know what it’s like when your brain says one thing and your heart—and other parts—say another.”
I speared a chip. “Not really. I’ve always known. Guess I was lucky that way.”
Jay frowned thoughtfully. “Nah, there was a girl once, wasn’t there?”
“Was there?”
“Mel…or something?”
I looked at my plate. “Meg.”
“Yeah, that was it. She was involved in what happened, wasn’t she? And back in the day, she visited the house a few times. I remember that. She was sound. Good looking, too.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
Jay looked at me curiously. “Are you telling me you never even tried—?”
“No,” I said, raising my glass again only to realize it was empty.
Jay raised his eyebrows. “Sorry. I just always thought you might have had a bit of a thing for her.”
“I dated her brother. Meg and I were just friends.”
Jay’s face was solemn. “Did she know that?”
I scraped the last of my mushy peas together. “She does now.”
“Ah-ha,” Jay said with a sympathetic look. “Yeah. Been there, mate.”
I laid down my knife and fork and nodded to Jay’s glass. “Another?”
Jay drained his drink then held the glass out. I was glad of the chance to head for the bar but could feel Jay’s eyes on me the whole time. When I returned with the drinks, he thankfully seemed happy to change the subject.
“So you’re doing up Glenroe? Finally planning to sell?”
“No,” I said, forcing back my instinctive reaction to bristle whenever anyone brought up the subject of putting the hall on the market. I took a breath to allow the anger to dispel and made an attempt to think of a normal, conversational answer. “No, not selling. I came into a bit of cash, so thought it was about time to make the place habitable.”
“Congratulations,” Jay said, smiling again. “I remember seeing pictures of it. Quite a pile. You don’t get lonely?”
My skin flushed in response to the unasked question. “I like it that way.”
Jay laughed. “Of course. You always were the loner. Couldn’t drag you to the pub for love nor money.”
“Too many people.”
Jay chuckled. “Still, on a serious note, if you ever did want to rejoin civilization, you wouldn’t have any trouble selling. That place would be perfect for a haemo commune. There are caves under it, right? And it’s secluded, remote…”
Jay is just chatting, I reminded myself. This was how normal people talked. Just because he’d expressed an interest didn’t automatically mean there was something else going on—even if, in the past, there always had been.
“The thought had crossed my mind,” I said. “But it’s my home. I’m not planning to sell.”
“Can’t say I blame you,” Jay said, his face growing serious. “I’d escape society right now if I could. Oh,” he said, scowling over my shoulder at the TV hanging over the bar. “Speak of the devil and she shall appear.”
I craned my neck. There was a news report on, muted but with subtitles. A large, maroon-suited woman with honey-gray hair and a forbidding expression stood at a podium, an equally large and grim-faced man stood at her shoulder. The flashes of cameras washed the scene white every few seconds and she was speaking with her head held high and her piercing gaze sweeping the reporters.
“…and that’s why we must take action now,” the subtitles read. “This is not a suppression of freedom, but a matter of safety. Leniency has already resulted in injury and death of innocent people…men, women and children. I acknowledge that the haemophile community aren’t a wholesale threat, but their very nature means risk is high, whatever their conscious intentions. There must be more measures, like with any potentially dangerous animal, to ensure the public’s safety. The licensing of independent haemophile habitations must stop and stricter security imposed on existing communes—”
“Absolutely unbelievable,” Jay muttered.
“Who is she?”
“Allegra Brassington. And that charming fella behind her is her husband, Edgar. You’ve seriously never heard of the Brassingtons?”
“I know the name.”
“Officious, right-wing bigots, the pair of them,” Jay said, anger transforming his face. “The damage they’re doing is unbelievable. They shouldn’t be allowed—”
“Jay,” I started, shifting in my seat.
“It’s important,” Jay insisted. “They’re promoting hatred and bigotry.”
“They’re politicians. What else is new?”
Jay regarded me for a long, startled moment, something between anger and pain darkening his eyes. “You seriously have no interest in any of this? After everything you went through?”
I glared. “What happened to me wasn’t about any cause or a campaign. People like that”—I gestured at the couple on the screen—“and people like you just use these things for your ends. The only difference between them and you is that they know they’re doing it for themselves. But none of you, none of you, know what really happened. None of you understand. Don’t pretend you do.”
Jay stared, his dark eyes wide. Eventually, he blinked and looked away. “I…I’m sorry,” he said softly. I drank my beer, already regretting the ferocity of the outburst, if not the content of it. Jay leaned over the table and put his hand on mine. The touch sent sparks up my arm. “I’m sorry I upset you. And I’m sorry I gave you the impression that any of this is about me. It isn’t, Alec. I swear. My editor wanted me to steer well clear of the whole thing. She thinks it’s a career-killer. But I can’t, Alec.” He squeezed my hand and I attempted to control the effect it had on me. “I can’t let it alone. Haemophiles need human champions.” His tone softened further, as did the look in his eyes. “You know that better than most.”
I pulled my hand away. The noise and heat and smell of the pub pressed in on me. I suddenly longed for Terje with a deep, keen passion and was more aware than ever of how far apart we were.
Jay startled me back to reality by laying a hand on my cheek. His warm, beer-scented breath brushed my lips. His eyes were burning. I took a gentle hold of his hand and removed it from my face.
“I’m sorry.”
Jay was quiet, but then his disappointment melted behind another soft smile. “It’s okay, Alec. I understand.” He leaned forward and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to my cheek. I was momentarily surrounded by the smell of woody aftershave undercut by the musky, natural scene of a human male. But then Jay was standing, pulling out his wallet and waving away my protests. “I insist. Besides, I can put it on expenses.” His smile remained, even if the sadness hadn’t left his eyes. “Good luck, Alec,” he said, shouldering his bag. “Stay in touch, okay? And look me up if you’re ever in London.”
Jay went to the bar, paid the bill and left, pausing at the door to raise a hand in farewell. I stared at his empty seat and half-drank beer for a long time, trying to figure out what had happened. Not Jay’s part of it… I understood that well enough. But I didn’t understand my own, my reaction and the undeniable comfort I had got from looking across the table and understanding just what was going through the other person’s mind.
I finished my own beer, then Jay’s, then ordered another.
By the time the sun was setting and I was heading to the hotel, I was more than a little drunk, but it had done little to improve my mood. The bartender hadn’t helped by giving me that half-sympathetic, half-wary look people wore when they finally realized where they knew me from. That was the moment I had decided to continue my descent into oblivion in private.
I let myself into the luxurious room with a sigh. The air-conditioned space was pleasantly cool, but I went straight to the balcony windows and opened them wide, keen to let in the summer night, the sounds of the bustling city and the smell of exhaust and heated tarmac—anything to distract me from who wasn’t there. I emptied the fridge of its miniature bottles of whiskey, rum and vodka and dumped them on the bed. I leaned into the soft pillows, giving the door to the lightproof sleeping cell next to the bathroom a glare as I twisted the cap off the whiskey.
I emptied it into my mouth in one, enjoying the warmth it spread down my throat. I opened the vodka next and took a sip, grimacing at the taste, then emptied that too. I threw the bottle on the floor and stared at the ceiling. The bed was very soft and smelled of laundered linen and lavender. I ran my fingers over the soft fabric, thinking what a waste it was to be here alone.
I began kneading my cock through my jeans but felt nothing other than a faint stir beneath the numbing swirl of alcohol. I sighed and dropped my hand. I bit my lip, then closed my eyes and visualized Jay’s suggestive smile, remembering the smell of human skin and clean hair.
The blood started to pool in my groin, but then the bed dipped. I started and sat up. Terje sat on the end of the bed, his pale, blue-white hair tucked behind his ears, his silver eyes glinting in the low light. He was so beautiful that I was convinced he must be a dream. But then he laid his long-fingered hand on my shin. The pressure was real.
“Hello, Alec.”
I blinked, the dozens of things I’d wanted to say to him tumbling out of my head.
“You didn’t think I was coming, did you?”
I swallowed, still reluctant to move, worried the spell would break and Terje would vanish. “Where have you been?”
“That’s not important.”
Anger came rushing back. “A month, Terje. You’ve been gone a month—no word, no nothing.”
Instead of answering, Terje shrugged off his jacket and pulled his black T-shirt over his head. My breath caught in my throat, as it always did when I took in the smooth, toned lines of the unblemished torso, the lean, muscled arms, the skin of an unearthly color between fresh snow and warm milk. From his paleness, I knew he needed to feed and I felt an answering spark of excitement, knowing how intense sex could be when he was hungry.
I tried to speak again, the hurt and the questions still sticking like claws in my chest, but Terje climbed on top of me and captured my mouth. My control, along with any remaining thoughts of Jay, evaporated like mist under the rays of the morning sun. He kissed me deeply, tasting the inside of my mouth and swallowing, breathing deep as he did so, like he was consuming every aspect of me. As I ran my hands up his back, the familiar shape and feel of the iron-hard muscles sliding under the silk-smooth skin allowed my arousal to fight through the alcohol. I was painfully hard in seconds.
Terje made a low noise, and I knew he’d felt it. Knowing my desire stoked his sent another stab of pleasure down my spine. I sat up enough to unbutton and throw away my shirt while Terje undid my jeans. I rid myself of them and my underwear, then fumbled impatiently at the button on Terje’s pants. He removed them, then I lay back, pulling Terje on top, comforted and exhilarated as I always was by the surprising weight of his slight, lean frame. I buried my face in his neck, mouthing the sensitive skin just under his ear and breathing in his startling fresh, clean smell. No musk there. No scent of sweat or shampoo or aftershave. He was, as always, the cool but heady smell of wind over the autumn moors, heavy with fading sunshine and sharp with incoming snow.
“Alec,” he breathed in my ear. I quivered to hear my name in his accented voice, already tight with need. I kissed him again, delving my tongue deep into his mouth. I brushed his sharp canines with my tongue and groaned, not realizing until that moment just how much I’d missed his wonder and the strangeness. Sensing my urgency, Terje sat up. I rose too, keeping our bodies pressed together, thrusting just to feel friction against my straining erection. I fumbled a hand between us and grasped Terje’s cock. It was only half-hard, but Terje gasped into my mouth. I forced myself to slow, knowing that if I kept this pace, I’d be done before Terje had even gotten started.
The kiss went on and his grip began to tighten on my shoulders. Finally, Terje was hard in my hand and he broke the kiss to fling his head back and arch into my hold. I licked at his collarbone and shoulder.
“Alec,” he breathed again, wrapping his hand around mine to still my ministrations. His cheeks were flushed, his lips swollen with kissing, the dark black of his pupils expanded so that only the tiniest thread of silver iris remained. As I watched, he pricked his index finger against his canine. A red-black drop of Blood swelled on the pad. He held it to my mouth and the thick smell of strong wine and autumn fruit flooded my senses. My entire body thrummed with anticipation, but I held back, as I always did, just so I knew I could, then I took the finger into my mouth.
The taste and smell filled me like hot water welling up from a thermal spring. My own blood rushed into every inch of my frame and thumped in my rigid cock. I closed my eyes, fighting the terrifying second that always came where I felt I might be lost forever. But then my heartbeat slowed to a thick, strong slug, my skin began to tingle and I was aware of every fiber of the covers under me, every curve and contour of Terje’s body and the slow, warm sound of our hearts beating in time.
I opened my eyes to gaze into the molten fire of Terje’s eyes. When we kissed again and I knew I was feeling, tasting and smelling everything he was, the heat of my desire flared to a raging furnace.
This feeling of being together on a Blood-high, naked and kissing, would almost have been enough on its own. But as Terje’s need grew more desperate, his kiss became harsher, his teeth catching my lip. I tasted hot cooper. Terje swallowed at it hungrily then started to lick and kiss where my shoulder met my neck.
“Now, Alec. Please.”
I took a deep breath and slid my hand around Terje’s toned, smooth hip and over the curve of his arse. Slowly, I pressed two fingers into him. He went rigid then let out a long, low sound, closer to a cry than a groan, and I had to take a moment to marshal my own reactions. Even with the tempering effect of the Blood, I was still human, and it was still possible to come too soon.
I pushed my fingers farther in, reaching the place that made him curse in Norwegian. I added another and rubbed them over the spot again and again. Only when he was panting and begging into my hair did I withdraw my fingers. Terje lifted himself, then slowly lowered onto my cock. He glided down in one smooth motion, tightening his hands on my shoulders to the point of pain. My flesh shivered and sang as the tight, warm heat enveloped me. I let out a low groan, enraptured by knowing that, finally, we were together again.
Terje moved slowly at first, his eyes shut, holding so tight that his fingernails pierced my skin, the sharp counterpoints of pain deliciously punctuating the deep, slow heat radiating out from my crotch. I held still and let Terje take his pleasure, watching hypnotized as his face transformed. The steel-strong control that usually masked his expression melted away and he became pleasure-hungry and helpless—his mouth open, eyes shut, his forehead pressed against mine, panting hot, wet breath against my face as he rode me.
Terje had tried to describe how fucking made him feel. He said it was like the only thing that mattered in the world was the sensation of me in him—the way it completely changed the way he was able to think and feel and yearn.
It made him feel human again.
Just watching him was like nothing I had ever known before with any other partner or in the deepest and most personal possibilities of my own imaginings. And I knew that even if I lived forever, I would never be able to get enough of it.
Terje increased his pace, his breathing coming in hitched gasps. He opened his eyes and stared deep into mine as the thunderstorm of impending orgasm started to gather under my belly. I shifted, adjusted my angle and Terje cried my name. I reached between us and grasped his now-weeping cock.
Why not?
Soon I was ducking through the low doorway of World’s End pub at the bottom of the Royal Mile. Jay waved from his table in the corner. I weaved my way through the hot, packed room, which smelled strongly of beer and pub chips, remembering all the reasons I liked to be away from people. Still, I couldn’t help but smile at the pleased expression on my old friend’s face as I joined him. We ordered our food and Jay insisted on getting the first round of beers. I sipped the cool lager appreciatively.
“So, how’ve you been? You, know, since it all happened?” I leveled a look at Jay over my pint glass. “Not digging,” he said, lifting his hands in a gesture of innocence, “I swear. Just asking as a friend.”
I looked into my beer. “There are good days and bad days.”
“Yeah, I bet. Shit, man. I really am sorry.”
“It’s fine. Tell me about you,” I went on, not caring if the switch of subject was obvious. “I heard you got married?”
“Engaged,” Jay said, looking uncomfortable. “But it didn’t work out.”
I cursed myself silently. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Jay said, smiling. “It was a good thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Jay said with a shrug. “I finally got my head around what you knew all along.”
I blinked. “What’s that?”
“That I’m not into women.”
I raised my eyebrows, trying to decide if his expression had changed. “Wow. Well. Yeah, at uni I wasn’t sure. But you always said—”
“Yeah, I know.” Jay sipped his beer. “My folks always wanted the standard for me, you know—a wife, kids. It’s hard to see past that stuff sometimes.”
I was grateful when the food arrived to get me out of having to reply. Jay took a wolfish bite of his haggis burger with every appearance of relish, and I loaded my fork with fried fish, savoring, the sharp, vinegary tang and trying to remember the last time I’d had a meal out. Haemo-friendly hotels might be becoming more of a thing, but as they didn’t eat what humans did, I doubted I’d ever be able to sit down to a meal in a romantic restaurant with Terje.
“Still,” Jay said after he’d cleared his mouth with more beer, “better late than never, right?”
I smiled in response, startled by the prickling his look started at the base of my spine. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Shame I missed out on a bit of formative fun at uni, though,” he went on, the look in his eyes unmistakable. “But you know what it’s like when your brain says one thing and your heart—and other parts—say another.”
I speared a chip. “Not really. I’ve always known. Guess I was lucky that way.”
Jay frowned thoughtfully. “Nah, there was a girl once, wasn’t there?”
“Was there?”
“Mel…or something?”
I looked at my plate. “Meg.”
“Yeah, that was it. She was involved in what happened, wasn’t she? And back in the day, she visited the house a few times. I remember that. She was sound. Good looking, too.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
Jay looked at me curiously. “Are you telling me you never even tried—?”
“No,” I said, raising my glass again only to realize it was empty.
Jay raised his eyebrows. “Sorry. I just always thought you might have had a bit of a thing for her.”
“I dated her brother. Meg and I were just friends.”
Jay’s face was solemn. “Did she know that?”
I scraped the last of my mushy peas together. “She does now.”
“Ah-ha,” Jay said with a sympathetic look. “Yeah. Been there, mate.”
I laid down my knife and fork and nodded to Jay’s glass. “Another?”
Jay drained his drink then held the glass out. I was glad of the chance to head for the bar but could feel Jay’s eyes on me the whole time. When I returned with the drinks, he thankfully seemed happy to change the subject.
“So you’re doing up Glenroe? Finally planning to sell?”
“No,” I said, forcing back my instinctive reaction to bristle whenever anyone brought up the subject of putting the hall on the market. I took a breath to allow the anger to dispel and made an attempt to think of a normal, conversational answer. “No, not selling. I came into a bit of cash, so thought it was about time to make the place habitable.”
“Congratulations,” Jay said, smiling again. “I remember seeing pictures of it. Quite a pile. You don’t get lonely?”
My skin flushed in response to the unasked question. “I like it that way.”
Jay laughed. “Of course. You always were the loner. Couldn’t drag you to the pub for love nor money.”
“Too many people.”
Jay chuckled. “Still, on a serious note, if you ever did want to rejoin civilization, you wouldn’t have any trouble selling. That place would be perfect for a haemo commune. There are caves under it, right? And it’s secluded, remote…”
Jay is just chatting, I reminded myself. This was how normal people talked. Just because he’d expressed an interest didn’t automatically mean there was something else going on—even if, in the past, there always had been.
“The thought had crossed my mind,” I said. “But it’s my home. I’m not planning to sell.”
“Can’t say I blame you,” Jay said, his face growing serious. “I’d escape society right now if I could. Oh,” he said, scowling over my shoulder at the TV hanging over the bar. “Speak of the devil and she shall appear.”
I craned my neck. There was a news report on, muted but with subtitles. A large, maroon-suited woman with honey-gray hair and a forbidding expression stood at a podium, an equally large and grim-faced man stood at her shoulder. The flashes of cameras washed the scene white every few seconds and she was speaking with her head held high and her piercing gaze sweeping the reporters.
“…and that’s why we must take action now,” the subtitles read. “This is not a suppression of freedom, but a matter of safety. Leniency has already resulted in injury and death of innocent people…men, women and children. I acknowledge that the haemophile community aren’t a wholesale threat, but their very nature means risk is high, whatever their conscious intentions. There must be more measures, like with any potentially dangerous animal, to ensure the public’s safety. The licensing of independent haemophile habitations must stop and stricter security imposed on existing communes—”
“Absolutely unbelievable,” Jay muttered.
“Who is she?”
“Allegra Brassington. And that charming fella behind her is her husband, Edgar. You’ve seriously never heard of the Brassingtons?”
“I know the name.”
“Officious, right-wing bigots, the pair of them,” Jay said, anger transforming his face. “The damage they’re doing is unbelievable. They shouldn’t be allowed—”
“Jay,” I started, shifting in my seat.
“It’s important,” Jay insisted. “They’re promoting hatred and bigotry.”
“They’re politicians. What else is new?”
Jay regarded me for a long, startled moment, something between anger and pain darkening his eyes. “You seriously have no interest in any of this? After everything you went through?”
I glared. “What happened to me wasn’t about any cause or a campaign. People like that”—I gestured at the couple on the screen—“and people like you just use these things for your ends. The only difference between them and you is that they know they’re doing it for themselves. But none of you, none of you, know what really happened. None of you understand. Don’t pretend you do.”
Jay stared, his dark eyes wide. Eventually, he blinked and looked away. “I…I’m sorry,” he said softly. I drank my beer, already regretting the ferocity of the outburst, if not the content of it. Jay leaned over the table and put his hand on mine. The touch sent sparks up my arm. “I’m sorry I upset you. And I’m sorry I gave you the impression that any of this is about me. It isn’t, Alec. I swear. My editor wanted me to steer well clear of the whole thing. She thinks it’s a career-killer. But I can’t, Alec.” He squeezed my hand and I attempted to control the effect it had on me. “I can’t let it alone. Haemophiles need human champions.” His tone softened further, as did the look in his eyes. “You know that better than most.”
I pulled my hand away. The noise and heat and smell of the pub pressed in on me. I suddenly longed for Terje with a deep, keen passion and was more aware than ever of how far apart we were.
Jay startled me back to reality by laying a hand on my cheek. His warm, beer-scented breath brushed my lips. His eyes were burning. I took a gentle hold of his hand and removed it from my face.
“I’m sorry.”
Jay was quiet, but then his disappointment melted behind another soft smile. “It’s okay, Alec. I understand.” He leaned forward and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to my cheek. I was momentarily surrounded by the smell of woody aftershave undercut by the musky, natural scene of a human male. But then Jay was standing, pulling out his wallet and waving away my protests. “I insist. Besides, I can put it on expenses.” His smile remained, even if the sadness hadn’t left his eyes. “Good luck, Alec,” he said, shouldering his bag. “Stay in touch, okay? And look me up if you’re ever in London.”
Jay went to the bar, paid the bill and left, pausing at the door to raise a hand in farewell. I stared at his empty seat and half-drank beer for a long time, trying to figure out what had happened. Not Jay’s part of it… I understood that well enough. But I didn’t understand my own, my reaction and the undeniable comfort I had got from looking across the table and understanding just what was going through the other person’s mind.
I finished my own beer, then Jay’s, then ordered another.
By the time the sun was setting and I was heading to the hotel, I was more than a little drunk, but it had done little to improve my mood. The bartender hadn’t helped by giving me that half-sympathetic, half-wary look people wore when they finally realized where they knew me from. That was the moment I had decided to continue my descent into oblivion in private.
I let myself into the luxurious room with a sigh. The air-conditioned space was pleasantly cool, but I went straight to the balcony windows and opened them wide, keen to let in the summer night, the sounds of the bustling city and the smell of exhaust and heated tarmac—anything to distract me from who wasn’t there. I emptied the fridge of its miniature bottles of whiskey, rum and vodka and dumped them on the bed. I leaned into the soft pillows, giving the door to the lightproof sleeping cell next to the bathroom a glare as I twisted the cap off the whiskey.
I emptied it into my mouth in one, enjoying the warmth it spread down my throat. I opened the vodka next and took a sip, grimacing at the taste, then emptied that too. I threw the bottle on the floor and stared at the ceiling. The bed was very soft and smelled of laundered linen and lavender. I ran my fingers over the soft fabric, thinking what a waste it was to be here alone.
I began kneading my cock through my jeans but felt nothing other than a faint stir beneath the numbing swirl of alcohol. I sighed and dropped my hand. I bit my lip, then closed my eyes and visualized Jay’s suggestive smile, remembering the smell of human skin and clean hair.
The blood started to pool in my groin, but then the bed dipped. I started and sat up. Terje sat on the end of the bed, his pale, blue-white hair tucked behind his ears, his silver eyes glinting in the low light. He was so beautiful that I was convinced he must be a dream. But then he laid his long-fingered hand on my shin. The pressure was real.
“Hello, Alec.”
I blinked, the dozens of things I’d wanted to say to him tumbling out of my head.
“You didn’t think I was coming, did you?”
I swallowed, still reluctant to move, worried the spell would break and Terje would vanish. “Where have you been?”
“That’s not important.”
Anger came rushing back. “A month, Terje. You’ve been gone a month—no word, no nothing.”
Instead of answering, Terje shrugged off his jacket and pulled his black T-shirt over his head. My breath caught in my throat, as it always did when I took in the smooth, toned lines of the unblemished torso, the lean, muscled arms, the skin of an unearthly color between fresh snow and warm milk. From his paleness, I knew he needed to feed and I felt an answering spark of excitement, knowing how intense sex could be when he was hungry.
I tried to speak again, the hurt and the questions still sticking like claws in my chest, but Terje climbed on top of me and captured my mouth. My control, along with any remaining thoughts of Jay, evaporated like mist under the rays of the morning sun. He kissed me deeply, tasting the inside of my mouth and swallowing, breathing deep as he did so, like he was consuming every aspect of me. As I ran my hands up his back, the familiar shape and feel of the iron-hard muscles sliding under the silk-smooth skin allowed my arousal to fight through the alcohol. I was painfully hard in seconds.
Terje made a low noise, and I knew he’d felt it. Knowing my desire stoked his sent another stab of pleasure down my spine. I sat up enough to unbutton and throw away my shirt while Terje undid my jeans. I rid myself of them and my underwear, then fumbled impatiently at the button on Terje’s pants. He removed them, then I lay back, pulling Terje on top, comforted and exhilarated as I always was by the surprising weight of his slight, lean frame. I buried my face in his neck, mouthing the sensitive skin just under his ear and breathing in his startling fresh, clean smell. No musk there. No scent of sweat or shampoo or aftershave. He was, as always, the cool but heady smell of wind over the autumn moors, heavy with fading sunshine and sharp with incoming snow.
“Alec,” he breathed in my ear. I quivered to hear my name in his accented voice, already tight with need. I kissed him again, delving my tongue deep into his mouth. I brushed his sharp canines with my tongue and groaned, not realizing until that moment just how much I’d missed his wonder and the strangeness. Sensing my urgency, Terje sat up. I rose too, keeping our bodies pressed together, thrusting just to feel friction against my straining erection. I fumbled a hand between us and grasped Terje’s cock. It was only half-hard, but Terje gasped into my mouth. I forced myself to slow, knowing that if I kept this pace, I’d be done before Terje had even gotten started.
The kiss went on and his grip began to tighten on my shoulders. Finally, Terje was hard in my hand and he broke the kiss to fling his head back and arch into my hold. I licked at his collarbone and shoulder.
“Alec,” he breathed again, wrapping his hand around mine to still my ministrations. His cheeks were flushed, his lips swollen with kissing, the dark black of his pupils expanded so that only the tiniest thread of silver iris remained. As I watched, he pricked his index finger against his canine. A red-black drop of Blood swelled on the pad. He held it to my mouth and the thick smell of strong wine and autumn fruit flooded my senses. My entire body thrummed with anticipation, but I held back, as I always did, just so I knew I could, then I took the finger into my mouth.
The taste and smell filled me like hot water welling up from a thermal spring. My own blood rushed into every inch of my frame and thumped in my rigid cock. I closed my eyes, fighting the terrifying second that always came where I felt I might be lost forever. But then my heartbeat slowed to a thick, strong slug, my skin began to tingle and I was aware of every fiber of the covers under me, every curve and contour of Terje’s body and the slow, warm sound of our hearts beating in time.
I opened my eyes to gaze into the molten fire of Terje’s eyes. When we kissed again and I knew I was feeling, tasting and smelling everything he was, the heat of my desire flared to a raging furnace.
This feeling of being together on a Blood-high, naked and kissing, would almost have been enough on its own. But as Terje’s need grew more desperate, his kiss became harsher, his teeth catching my lip. I tasted hot cooper. Terje swallowed at it hungrily then started to lick and kiss where my shoulder met my neck.
“Now, Alec. Please.”
I took a deep breath and slid my hand around Terje’s toned, smooth hip and over the curve of his arse. Slowly, I pressed two fingers into him. He went rigid then let out a long, low sound, closer to a cry than a groan, and I had to take a moment to marshal my own reactions. Even with the tempering effect of the Blood, I was still human, and it was still possible to come too soon.
I pushed my fingers farther in, reaching the place that made him curse in Norwegian. I added another and rubbed them over the spot again and again. Only when he was panting and begging into my hair did I withdraw my fingers. Terje lifted himself, then slowly lowered onto my cock. He glided down in one smooth motion, tightening his hands on my shoulders to the point of pain. My flesh shivered and sang as the tight, warm heat enveloped me. I let out a low groan, enraptured by knowing that, finally, we were together again.
Terje moved slowly at first, his eyes shut, holding so tight that his fingernails pierced my skin, the sharp counterpoints of pain deliciously punctuating the deep, slow heat radiating out from my crotch. I held still and let Terje take his pleasure, watching hypnotized as his face transformed. The steel-strong control that usually masked his expression melted away and he became pleasure-hungry and helpless—his mouth open, eyes shut, his forehead pressed against mine, panting hot, wet breath against my face as he rode me.
Terje had tried to describe how fucking made him feel. He said it was like the only thing that mattered in the world was the sensation of me in him—the way it completely changed the way he was able to think and feel and yearn.
It made him feel human again.
Just watching him was like nothing I had ever known before with any other partner or in the deepest and most personal possibilities of my own imaginings. And I knew that even if I lived forever, I would never be able to get enough of it.
Terje increased his pace, his breathing coming in hitched gasps. He opened his eyes and stared deep into mine as the thunderstorm of impending orgasm started to gather under my belly. I shifted, adjusted my angle and Terje cried my name. I reached between us and grasped his now-weeping cock.
