Club Zombie 1-4

by Z. Allora

  “Thanks.” The exhaustion of not having essence in a timely fashion hit him hard.

  Instead of returning to the bar, Corey slid into Colton’s chair. “You shouldn’t go so long without essence.”

  “I know.” Anthony left out “Captain Obvious” but he hoped his tone made his feelings clear.

  Corey put an elbow on the table and rested his chin on his palm. “So, you’ve seen him every night for a week.”

  “Are you keeping tabs on me?” Shitty to be bitchy to a friend, but it wasn’t Corey’s business.

  “Well, Jackson and I miss our sucking buddy. You haven’t been in the back since you’ve met him.”

  It was insane but Anthony didn’t want to. Sucking dick was the only thing sexual he could do since his transition. However, he couldn’t bring himself to get another man’s essence from the source, even if it lowered his chances of finding a mate. “Colton is… special.”

  Somehow in a week he had become everything to Anthony. He cared way too much about him. His heart felt like he had always known him and just demanded to be with Colton. They even texted during the day about nothing in particular but the connection felt necessary.

  Corey leaned forward. “You need to find out if he’s your mate, because if he’s not….”

  Anthony did not want to contemplate that outcome. “Yeah, I know. But—”

  The doctor instead of Nurse Robert marched over to him.

  Yikes. Cue the lecture Anthony was due.

  “Here’s your vial. What’s going on, Anthony? Usually you never take essence this way, but you’ve been requesting it for the last week.” Doc sat down.

  Anthony unstoppered the vial and drank the contents. Instant energy recharged him and he felt refreshed and renewed. “Ah, that’s better.”

  “He’s met someone,” Corey volunteered.

  “I see.” The doctor took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was never a good sign. “You know your ability to orgasm won’t return until you find your mate and do the exchange with them.”

  Anthony sighed. He knew the score but it didn’t change his feelings. “I know, Doc. I need to figure out if he’s my mate or not.”

  Please let him be mine. I don’t deserve him but I want him.

  The doctor studied him. “What exactly is stopping you?”

  “Nothing really.” Only that Anthony didn’t want to lose the companionship he had with Colton. Colton saw beyond the physical to who Anthony actually was. He cared about his feelings and thoughts, not just how well his long hair could be used for reins as he fucked him.

  On top of which, Anthony was pretty sure Colton had zero experience with men. How devastating would it be if Anthony sucked him off but he turned out to be not Anthony’s mate? Reason would suggest he’d be forced to move on.

  Fuck, it was his own Schrödinger’s dilemma. He didn’t want to move on and lose what he had with Colton, so until he tasted Colton, he was and was not his mate.

  “Then you might consider moving forward on that front before you develop feelings for him,” the doctor logically insisted.

  “Too late,” Corey chimed in.

  Corey wasn’t wrong, so Anthony didn’t even glare at him. He shrugged to the doctor.

  Doc sighed. “To minimize your own pain, please find out.”

  “I could—”

  The doctor held his hand palm out. “Please don’t say you’ll simply live a happily chaste life with him until he dies, then you will simply stop taking essence and expire with him.”

  Anthony bit his lip. There was no denying that had formed as Plan B.

  Corey gasped and covered his mouth. He shook his head. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  Doc put his glasses back on to study Anthony. “You’d be condemning yourself and your actual mate to a half existence.”

  Keeping his mouth shut was the only thing Anthony could do. The doctor was correct, but how could he forego seeing Colton’s smile or hearing his laughter? They hadn’t even kissed and Anthony had fallen in love with him.

  Giving him a nod, Doc stood and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Just find out before you go any further down this path.”

  “He will, Doc,” Corey reassured the doc for Anthony.

  The next night Colton was on time as usual.

  Just seeing him at their table made Anthony want to ignore the doctor’s sage advice. Colton was more than just adorable—or adorkable, as his friend Raven had called him. Awkward but too cute not to have enchanted Anthony. Colton showed himself to be smart, kind, interesting, and was pretty funny.

  There was no pretending he wasn’t completely taken with Colton. He had almost wished it was his imagination, but each night Colton’s adorable innocence gave him dangerous hope. Anthony wanted him to be his mate in the worst way.

  Tonight, Anthony didn’t sit down, but pulled Colton up into a hug. God, no one ever felt so right in his arms before. “Let me show you one of the back rooms tonight.”

  “Sure. Lead on, brave adventurer.” Colton allowed Anthony to guide him to the back of the club.

  Club Zombie had a variety of options for men like him to get what they needed to survive. There were BDSM rooms, the BJ bar, a shoeshine blowjob room, but he had a more semiprivate destination in mind.

  Laughing, Colton pointed to the sign edged in gold. “Blowjob Alley, huh?”

  “Ha, ha, ha just a nickname.” The little white lie fell from Anthony’s lips far too easily. It was really long past the time that he should know if Colton was his. He had fallen for this guy and decisions might have to be made.

  Colton grabbed his hand and pressed a sweet kiss to his knuckles.

  Anthony melted. Please let him be mine.

  Taking a deep breath, Colton squeezed his hand. “Look, I know we just met last week, but my mom said never leave anything unsaid. Live every day like it’s your last. So, um, I wanted to say I love—”

  Pressing a finger to Colton’s lips, Anthony “Shhh-ed” him.

  “But I—”

  Anthony couldn’t let him finish that sentence. Those words would do him in even more than sucking cock without orgasm for the next fifty years while trying to find his mate. Colton’s words would offer him too much hope, and would make his crash to earth that much more traumatic.

  Heaven help him, but he’d never wanted anyone to be his mate as much as Colton. Truth be told, even without the words of love and affection, Anthony was fucked. He’d made the fatal error of getting to know this incredible guy before sucking him off.

  Anthony distracted him but pressed Colton against the wall. The quick dominant move made Colton moan with heat. Their mouths were so close together, their breaths mingled.

  Whispering, Anthony asked, “Can I kiss you?”

  “Please.” Colton’s voice dropped to a lower octave.

  Combing his fingers through Colton’s hair, Anthony grabbed on to some at the base of Colton’s neck and tilted his face. He licked his own lips, then brushed them across Colton’s.

  Colton moaned and grabbed on to Anthony. He pressed his erection against Anthony.

  Deepening the kiss, Anthony swept his tongue into Colton’s mouth. The sweet surrender of Colton curled his toes.

  Gliding his mouth back and forth caused Colton to writhe in his arms, seeking more. He ended the kiss, but then went back to Colton’s clingingly sweet mouth for one more.

  Anthony stepped back and tugged Colton’s arms up until his hands reached the handles embedded in the wall. “Colt, honey. I want you to hang on to these handles. Right here, okay?”

  “Why do you want me to hold on to these handles?” Even as Colton questioned him, he grasped the metal on either side of his head.

  “Don’t let go,” Anthony warned as he dropped to his knees. Actual excitement wound its way through his body and twined around his heart.

  “Anthony, why are you on your knees?” His voice squeaked in the most adorable way. Colton was too precious.
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br />   Smiling, he unzipped Colton’s jeans. It might be the first time since he lost the ability to orgasm himself that he didn’t resent kneeling on the hard floor to give someone else what he couldn’t have. He worked the tight material and his cute purple underwear down past his ass.

  “What are you—I don’t want a consolation—oh my god!” Colton’s words ended in a gasp.

  Anthony licked a drop of sweet precome from Colton’s erection. He trailed his tongue around the head like he was enjoying his favorite flavor of lollipop, but goddamn, this was so much better. He wanted to prove to Colton that this was the prize, not a consolation anything.

  Every teasing touch of his tongue seemed to jolt Colton, making Anthony feel powerful. He was on his knees but he was the one yanking those sexy sounds coming out of Colton’s throat.

  “No one has ever done this to me before.” Colton added his words in between his moans.

  Confirmation of being his first gut-punched Anthony and at the same time made him ridiculously happy in a purely unhealthy you’re-mine sort of way.

  He glanced up at Colton and their gazes locked. Colton’s mouth had dropped open and he white-knuckled the bars like the metal was the only thing keeping him upright.

  “So delicious.” Fuck, and for the first time in years, that wasn’t just a come-on. He’d meant that in every sense of the word: taste, reaction, and Colton.

  Anthony enveloped Colton’s erection in his wet mouth, sucked halfway down, then glided right back to the tip. He prided himself on being excellent at giving head.

  Colton whimpered and his lower half moved restlessly.

  Unlike the craptastic bastards who used Anthony’s mouth like it was a hole, Colton—even though he was obviously losing his mind with his first ever blowjob—managed to restrain himself.

  The consideration liquefied everything in Anthony and made him fall deeper in love with Colton.

  However, Anthony couldn’t have Colton holding back, so he reached around and pulled Colton’s plump ass to him, forcing his dick to the back of Anthony’s throat. A tendril of long-absent arousal whipped into Anthony.

  “Anthony! I can’t hold on.” Instead of flooding his mouth, Colton removed a hand from the handle and combed gentle fingers through Anthony’s hair.

  Tears sprung into the corners of Anthony’s eyes. Fuck, Colton was too sweet. If there’s any God or Goddess, please let Colton be mine. Colton is mine!

  He sucked harder and guided Colton’s hips into a faster rhythm.

  Colton gasped, “Anthony!”

  A few more deep, sucking pulls on his cock, and Colton’s pleasure pulsed out into his mouth.

  Colton’s delicious taste set off waves of joy accompanied by a sense of togetherness that thundered into Anthony, and just as Colton’s orgasm finished, a miracle happened.

  Anthony came.

  He fell back onto the floor and rubbed his dick through his pants. Hard contractions of his orgasm racked his body, and his first relief in years had him shivering with pleasure that seemed to go on forever. When he could form a word, he groaned out, “Colton.”

  “Are you okay?” Colton knelt by his side.

  Anthony had barely finished coming, but he had to say it aloud. “Better than okay. You’re my mate.”

  “What?”

  Anthony didn’t answer; instead he tugged Colton’s mouth to his and kissed his mate.

  He didn’t believe in playing games. “Would you like to be with me forever?”

  Colton’s mouth dropped open and a “Yes, please” came out.

  “What do you know about zombies?”

  “Zombies?”

  Note from The Mating Book’s author, Cassidy Frost: Once Colton understood about zombies and that he was Anthony’s mate, he had none of the usual hesitation a nonzombie might have about doing the blood exchange. Colton was all about forever and always with Anthony. Once the exchange with Anthony was made, first on their agenda was to visit the capitals of each country. The only thing Colton worried about leaving behind was Raven. And if you’re curious to know what happened to Raven, you can read his story next in The Mating Book.

  Kai sighed and closed the book. What a story. Reading about Anthony and Colton gave him a bit of hope that becoming a zombie wasn’t the end of the world… just the end of the world as he’d come to know it.

  Though what was the deal with a blood exchange?

  7

  A Step to the Right

  Jasper glanced down to check if he’d paced a bare spot on the polished oak floor. He’d barely slept last night. Images of his new nineteen-year-old cottage mate danced through his mind. When he was younger, he’d spent hours and hours dreaming about the physical characteristics and attributes he found alluring in men. Kai met the criteria and then some.

  His golden-blond hair and blue eyes reminded him of his hometown, which Jasper had long been exiled from. He had an athletic grace and a shyness Jasper unfortunately found endearing. His care and consideration for his cousin was admirable.

  From what Jasper could tell so far, Kai wasn’t just a pretty face. He might have lacked experience, but he absorbed concepts about the computer and extrapolated the information. Kai had also started to piece together and that was like watching a butterfly emerge from a cocoon and spread its wings for the first time….

  Geez, Kai had gone into the bathroom twenty minutes ago, and he was still in the shower. Jasper didn’t want to imagine what he was doing with his time. The scent of what Kai did behind the locked door tested Jasper’s sanity.

  Ingesting essence earlier than usual might help. He left a message at the doctor’s office. “Good morning, Robert. You probably already know, but Kai Bauer will stay with me. This is just a reminder we need two vials of essence. And since he just transitioned, can I trouble you to send the essence over earlier? I, um, don’t want him to have any issues. Thanks.”

  The beep of the voicemail called him a liar. Jasper sighed and texted a similar message. The truth was he craved the essence with an unusual intensity this morning.

  Breakfast. He should make breakfast. Jasper rushed out to the kitchen. What does he eat for breakfast? He stared into the refrigerator. Eggs? Pancakes? Toast? Nothing? With no clue, Jasper started the coffee maker.

  How long did it take Kai to get dressed? Why was Jasper so eager to see him again?

  The door opened, and Jasper’s heart raced. He slid onto a stool at the end of the granite island, ran his fingers on the smooth surface, and focused on his breathing.

  Kai stood in the hallway.

  What was he doing? When Jasper couldn’t control his anticipation any longer, he called out, “Good morning, Kai.”

  Finally, Kai appeared in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot.

  “Morning,” he said without looking at Jasper. Why was he blushing?

  “Happy birthday! What can I get you for breakfast?”

  “Um… oh, you don’t have to get me anything. I can make an egg or something.”

  Jasper jumped off his stool, thrilled for something to do. “Scrambled, over easy, hard-boiled, fried, sunny side—”

  “Scrambled, if you don’t mind. What can I do?”

  “If you want toast, the bread is in the cupboard.”

  Kai scuffed over in his bare feet to retrieve the bread. “Can I make you some?”

  Thoughtful. Add that to the list Jasper was not keeping about Kai’s qualities.

  “Yeah, two pieces of the rye, please.” Jasper’s hands trembled, making him drop the whisk. He needed to relax or he might have a breakdown. He wanted— What was wrong with him? He should treat Kai like anyone else.

  But everything in him screamed Kai wasn’t just someone else.

  Eggs. He beat the eggs in a bowl, then bent over to get the pan out of the cabinet—at the same time Kai reached for the toast, which had just popped up.

  Their bodies touched.

  Shit! Jasper froze, and every molecule in his body savored the contact. Shoc
k and a shiver of long-blocked sensation stirred.

  Shifting, Kai brushed across Jasper’s shoulder with his groin, and gasped, “Sorry,” and stumbled back exactly when Jasper stood.

  Kai’s body heat seared through Jasper’s clothing, and the most delightful shade of pink colored Kai’s cheeks, making him even more enticing.

  Inhaling Jasper counted, One, two…. Dear Lord!

  Kai’s scent assaulted his senses with outright want. Jasper experienced an intense, urgent desire… but for what? Not that he had anything to offer Kai, and Kai wasn’t offering him—

  When did he turn into a perv?

  Jasper had lost his damned mind. He focused on making breakfast. The scrambled eggs and buttered toast were on plates, orange juice made it into glasses with only a few spills, and coffee poured into mugs.

  Jasper pulled two packages from the cabinet and handed them to Kai. “Here’s something from the guys at Club Zombie, and this small one is from me.”

  Kai opened the present from the guys. “Wow! An Apple Watch. They gave one to Ulrich too.” He ducked his head and unwrapped Jasper’s present, which was a Milka chocolate bar.

  Tracing a finger over the letters, Kai whispered, “Aw, I love these!”

  “Who doesn’t? Not an Apple Watch, but I thought you might enjoy a bit of home.” Jasper sat.

  Clutching the chocolate, Kai peered through eyelashes wet with tears. “My mom used to get me these after I’d done well on a test… or bad on a test. Where did you get it?”

  “There’s a store here that carries products from all over the world.” Jasper was glad he’d shared a bar from his own personal stash.

  Kai sniffed. “Thank you so much. I’ll save the bar for later. Ulrich always says ‘Chocolate, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.’ It’ll be good after lunch.”

  Jasper chuckled and then asked because nothing else came to mind, “What are your plans today?”

  “Um, I don’t know. What do you think Lafayette and Beau want me to do?” Kai frowned and spun his orange juice in his glass.