An hour later, maybe two, maybe six, Qhuinn lay naked between cool sheets, staring up in the dark at a ceiling he could not see.
Was this horrible, aching pain what Blay had felt? Like, after that showdown in his parents’ basement—when Qhuinn had been prepared to leave Caldwell, and made it clear that there were gonna be no ties between them anymore? Or maybe after that time they’d kissed in the clinic, and Qhuinn had refused to go any further? Or following that final collision when they had nearly come together, right before Blay’s first date with Saxton?
So damn hollow.
Like this room, really: Without illumination, and essentially empty, just four walls and a ceiling. Or a bag of skin and a skeleton, as it were.
Shifting his hand up, he put it over his beating heart just to reassure himself he still had one.
Man, fate had a way of teaching you things you needed to know, even if you weren’t aware the lesson was required until it had been served to you: He’d spent way too much time wrapped up in himself and his defect and his failure to his family and society. Such a tangled fucking mess he’d been for so long, and Blay, because he’d cared, had been sucked into the vortex.
But when had he ever supported his best friend? What had he ever really done for the guy?
Blay had been right to leave this room. Too little, too late, wasn’t that the saying? And it wasn’t like Qhuinn was offering any kind of winner. Underneath the surface, he was no more stable, really. No more at peace.
Nope, he deserved this—
The slice of light was lemon yellow, and it cut through the black field of his vision as if the blindness were cloth and the beam a sharp knife.
A figure slipped into his room silently, and shut the door.
By the scent, he knew who it was.
Qhuinn’s heart began to thunder as he shot upright off the pillows. “Blay…?”
There was the softest of rustling, a robe being dropped from the shoulders of a tall male. And then, moments later, the mattress depressed as a great, vital weight got up upon it.
Qhuinn reached through the darkness with unerring accuracy, his hands finding the sides of Blay’s neck sure as if they had been led by sight.
No talking. He was afraid that words would cheat him of this miracle.
Lifting his mouth, he pulled Blay down to his own, and when those velvet lips were in range, he kissed them with a desperation that was returned. All at once, the pent-up past was released in a fury, and as he tasted blood, he didn’t know whose fangs had scored what.
Who the fuck cared.
On a hard yank, he laid Blay down and then he rolled over on top of the other male, spreading those thighs and pushing himself between them until his hard cock came up against Blay’s….
They both groaned.
Dizzy from all the naked skin, Qhuinn began pumping his hips up and back, the friction of their sexes and their hot flesh magnifying the wet heat of their mouths. Frenzy, everywhere, hurry, hurry, hurry—holy fucking shit, there was too much hunger to make any sense of where his hands were, or what he was rubbing against, or— for fuck’s sake, there was too much skin to touch, too much hair to pull, too much…
Qhuinn came hard, his balls going tight, his erection kicking between them, his come going everywhere.
Didn’t slow him down in the slightest.
With a quick jerk, he broke away from the mouth he could have spent the next hundred years working, and shoved himself down Blay’s chest. The muscles he came across were nothing like the human guys’ he’d fucked—this was a vampire, a fighter, a soldier who had trained heavily and worked his flesh into a condition that was not just useful, but downright deadly. And holy hell was that a turn-on—but more than that, though, this was Blay; it was finally, after all these years…
Blay.
Qhuinn dragged his fangs down abdominals that were rock tight, and the scent of himself on Blay’s skin was a marking that he knew he’d done on purpose.
That dark spice was going other places, too.
He groaned when his hands found Blay’s cock, and as he circled the hard column, the guy arched up sharply, a curse cutting through the room, much in the same way the light had just moments before.
Qhuinn licked his lips, stood Blay’s sex up, and let the head of that thick, blunt cock part his mouth. Sucking down deep, he took it to its base, opening his throat wide, swallowing everything. In response, Blay’s hips shot up, and rough hands bit into his hair, forcing his head even farther down until he couldn’t get any breath to his lungs—and who the fuck needed oxygen, anyway?
Digging his hands under Blay’s ass, he tilted that pelvis and started going up and down, his neck straining under the punishing rhythm, his shoulders bunching and releasing as he followed through on exactly what he’d been offering before Blay had left.
He wasn’t stopping with this, though.
Nope.
This was just the beginning.
TWENTY-EIGHT
As Blay jacked back against the pillows on Qhuinn’s bed, his head nearly snapped off his spine. Everything was out of control, but he wouldn’t have slowed things down in the slightest: With his hips pumping up and down, his cock was pushing in and sucking out of Qhuinn’s mouth—
Thank God the lights were off.
The sensations alone were too much to handle—adding a visual? He wouldn’t be able to—
The orgasm rocketed out of him, his breath catching, his body going tight all over, his sex kicking hard. And as he came in great spasms, he was milked by that mouth—and man, that suction kept the release barreling through him, great waves of tingling pleasure sweeping from his brain to his balls, his body hitting a different plane of existence altogether—
Without warning, he was flipped over with a rough hand, his body handled like it didn’t weigh a damned thing. Then an arm shot under his pelvis and popped him up onto his knees. There was a brief lull, during which all he heard was heavy breathing behind him, the panting getting faster, and harder—
He heard Qhuinn orgasm and knew exactly what that was for.
Even though his whole body went weak with anticipation, he knew he had to get good and braced as a heavy hand landed on his shoulder and—
The penetration was a branding iron, brutal and hot, going right to the core of him. And he cursed on an explosive exhale—not because it hurt, although it did in the best possible sense. Not even because this was something he had wanted forever, although he had.
No, it was because he had the strangest sense he was being marked—and for some reason, that made him—
A hiss sounded at his ear, and then a pair of fangs sank into his shoulder, Qhuinn’s grip shifting to his hips, his torso locked in so many places now. And then the relentless hammering started, Blay’s molars clapping together, his arms having to hold both their bodies up, his legs and torso straining under the onslaught.
He had a feeling the headboard was slamming against the wall—and for a split second, he remembered that chandelier in the library going back and forth as Layla had been subjected to this.
Blay cursed the image. He couldn’t allow himself to go there; he just couldn’t. God knew there was plenty of time to dwell on that stuff later.
Right now? This was too damn good to waste….
As the pounding continued, his palms slid on the fine cotton sheets, and he had to reposition them, pushing down into the soft mattress to try to keep himself in place. God, the sounds that Qhuinn was making, the grunting that reverberated from between the fangs buried in his shoulder, the thumping—yeah, that was the headboard. Definitely.
With pressure building up again in his balls, he was tempted to palm himself—but no hope of that. He needed both arms on the job—