West got his palm as wet as he could manage given the situation, then he gripped Axel’s cock firmly. He thumbed the leaking slit, spreading the moisture there around the crown.
“Guh,” Axel got out, his head thumping the wall lightly. He clenched his fists on West’s shoulders and without hesitation, began fucking West’s fist.
West pinched at Axel’s nipples through his shirt while he jacked Axel off with a rough, quick rhythm. “Quiet,” he warned when Axel moaned loudly.
Axel rolled his lips in and buried one hand in West’s hair, tugging on it.
West tightened his hold and pressed his thumb against Axel’s slit. He flicked the underside of Axel’s cock with his thumbnail.
Axel’s eyes shot open and the barest hint of sound escaped him before West slammed his mouth over Axel’s. He swallowed every sound Axel made as hot cum shot from Axel’s dick.
His climax didn’t ebb quickly. Axel shook and bucked as he came. When he finally stilled, West kissed him gently then slowed his strokes until Axel whimpered.
“Come on. We have to talk,” West said a moment later. He began tucking Axel’s cock into his briefs.
Axel grunted and pushed West’s hands aside. “I’ll just leave my shirt out.” He pulled his T-shirt and button-up over his unfastened pants. An uncomfortable air of tension built rapidly between them as they took the stairs to the room.
Before they reached the exit door, Axel stopped him with a hand to West’s forearm.
West looked at him. Worry pinched the outer corners of Axel’s eyes and thinned his lips. That wrinkle across his brow reappeared, and his nostrils flared as if he were scenting danger.
“Are you dumping me?” Axel asked in a gritty voice. “That’s what it is. You’re going to—”
“No,” West said with more calm than he felt. He was angered that Axel would believe him capable of doing what they’d just done while having such intentions. But Axel was hurting, and scared, and West refused to add to that by snapping at him. “It isn’t that, although you might want to ditch me after you hear what I have to say.” It hurt just to speak those words. West’s chest ached and he rubbed a hand over it.
Axel’s eyes widened with trepidation. “What’re you talking about?”
West reached for the door. “In the room. I’ll explain.” He snorted at his own inability to speak reasonably. Get it together, idiot.
Axel nodded sharply and led the way to his room. He used the keycard to open the door, then held it for West. The second they were inside, Axel crossed his arms over his chest and with an impassive expression in place, said, “Explain.”
West walked to the bed and sat on the edge of it. He wanted to ask Axel to sit beside him, would have if he’d had the nerve.
Axel huffed and seemed to deflate a little, his stiff, defensive posture giving way to slumped shoulders and a loose-gaited stride as he came to West. “I’m sorry. I’m…I’m a fucking mess, I know, and I jumped you in the stairwell like what you wanted didn’t matter. I—”
West felt the second apology coming and he shook his head. “No, I could have said no. I won’t deny that I was nervous, but there was definitely something very hot about knowing someone could walk in on us at any time.” In fact, despite his fear about the coming conversation, West’s belly warmed and tingled with the beginnings of renewed arousal. He shifted on the bed and blushed at Axel’s knowing smile. “I can’t help it. I want you, all the time.”
Axel beamed at him. “Then take me— Wait, I’m not that passive. Let’s get naked—” He began running one hand up West’s thigh.
West held up a hand in protest. “Wait, please, Axel. Let me say what I have to say, then if you still want me, we can…we can…” Well, he wasn’t sure what, exactly, Axel had in mind, but West was game for anything with him.
Axel licked his lips and moved his hand down to West’s knee. “I can’t imagine you telling me anything that would make me not want you. If you think it has to do with sex, like you don’t want anal or you hate swallowing after all, those aren’t deal breakers.”
West’s cheeks were burning hot. His ass had clenched tight without him thinking of it when Axel had mentioned anal. Not because he was scared, but because his dick was hard as it had ever been.
He had to force himself to speak instead of falling onto his back and begging Axel to fuck him. West had meant to move the physical side of things along slowly—now he feared doing so would mean he’d miss out on sharing such an intense, personal experience with Axel.
One thing was for certain. If Axel didn’t run him off tonight, West was going to quit letting fear restrain him.
“It isn’t sex, or about sex,” he said when he realized he’d been quiet for too long. “It’s…it’s…” He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s about me being a stupid vampire.”
“You’re not stupid,” Axel said firmly. “Look at me. Stop hiding in your head.”
West opened one eye and peeked at Axel. He looked angry and sexy and like everything West suddenly, achingly, knew he needed. And he couldn’t let himself fall any deeper if Axel was going to leave him.
Opening his other eye, West took a steadying breath.
Axel grimaced and began to fidget with a thread on the blanket.
“Can you imagine what would happen if the world found out about us?” West asked. “Vampires, I mean, not you and me specifically.”
Axel canted his head to the left and looked at him. “People would flip out. They can’t handle knowing there’s a competing life force in the world. It’s why the dolphins are going to end up extinct.”
“Seriously?” West felt his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “You think—you’re, uh—”
Axel snickered. “No, I don’t think that, but you’re so tense. I get what you’re telling me is important. I want you to get that I’m not going to expose you, or vampires, period. Besides, who’d believe me? They’d think I was getting into Jukie’s drug stash.”
West knew there were people who did actively hunt vampires. He’d been warned about them. “You might be surprised.” He took Axel’s hand in his, unable to not touch the man. “Herve, he’s the coven leader, he has a very strict rule about humans knowing about us.”
Axel gulped. “He kills them?”
“No!” West said vehemently. “No, I mean, of course not. Herve wouldn’t do that. He’d…” Crap, what he would do wasn’t necessarily a whole lot better. “He’d erase me, and your knowledge of vampires, from your memory. It’d be as if we never met.”
Axel gasped and scooted back a foot or so. “What? What the fuck? How could he do that? And what about Yolanda, and Jukie? What about them? They’ve met you! Would he do some funky mind-erase shit on them? And what if he fucked up and left us all mush-brained, or he erased something else important to us? How the fuck could he do that?”
West dared to move closer to Axel as he spoke. “I don’t know. Maybe he’d just erase the memory of what I am, then. I hadn’t thought about the others. Herve is the coven leader, and he has abilities, like he can put people, and vampires, in a trance. I guess he can remove memories too.”
“That’s horrible.” Axel scowled. “Seriously fucking horrible.”
“How else can he protect our kind?” West asked. “Murdering people is out of the question. It’s wrong, and I know the memory wipe isn’t right, either, but what would you expect him to do to ensure our safety, when humans fear anything and anyone different from them?”
“I don’t know, but the idea of someone fucking with my brain is too creepy to contemplate. How do we prevent that?”
West wavered on answering, because the only way around that was to get a commitment out of Axel, and forcing him to do that was wrong. “We have a week to decide what we want.”
“A week?” Axel glared at him. “I have to leave in a couple of days—”
“Stay, for the week,” West pled. “Come back to the coven with me, and see what we’re like.” Herve mi
ght kill him for making the offer. West refused to retract it. “Meet my family and stay with me.”
Axel didn’t appear to be reassured. “Blood. How do you—?”
“I don’t take from a human,” West assured him. “I did when I was first turned, well, from Claude, who turned me. Then I reached the point where I had to have blood other than his, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t bite someone, like I was bitten. They brought me bags of blood, like the donation kind. I don’t ask how, I just use it when I have to.”
“Oh.”
How could one word carry so much disappointment? And what was Axel disappointed about?
West was afraid to ask. “Other vampires have mates, human mates, that they’ve formed a willing bond with. They are lovers, committed to each other.”
“And the vampires they’re with feed off of them,” Axel said, extrapolating correctly.
“Well, I don’t think—okay, feed, I guess, is a word you can use for it, but they’ll tell you, the humans and vamps both, that it isn’t about feeding.” West had seen the bond between mates. It was intense. “That’s a necessary part of it, but it’s something both mates enjoy. It brings them closer together and extends the life of the human, too.” Gods, he sounded like some kind of used-vamp salesman, although he wasn’t used, much.
Axel’s eyes widened. “And?”
“And,” West drawled softly, that fluttering starting in his gut again. “And Herve says he can’t have a human knowing about us, unless that human is committed to us. Unless you are committed to me. I told him, it’s too soon. We’ve only just met—”
“Is that what you think?” Axel said quietly.
West wasn’t sure what he thought, and said as much. “I don’t know, Axel. I want you, and not just sexually. You smile and it makes me feel so good deep inside. I think of you all the time, but we haven’t known each other long. Not long enough for me to ask you to become my mate.”
“Why not?” Axel demanded, standing up and fisting both hands on his hips. He glared at West and was magnificently handsome as he did so.
West had to swallow twice before he could speak. “B-because I’m a mess and you don’t know me, and you’d have to take on raising my brothers and sisters with me because we’d be a family, and I’d have to bite you and—”
“Bite me,” Axel demanded.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Axel blinked. Had he really just demanded that West bite him? His fingers went numb.
West licked his lips, his cheeks pinking as he averted his gaze. “No. I don’t— I mean, vamps can bite people who aren’t their…their partner. Not…not once they’re mated, not then. Once a couple declare themselves mates and exchange blood, it’s a done deal.” He flicked a glance at Axel. “So I could bite you, but I won’t. Not when I’m already hungry.”
Axel could swear his neck was growing warm right where he’d imagine West biting him. “You wouldn’t kill me, though. Right?” Well, that question hadn’t come across as confidently as he’d hoped.
And why the hell was his dick growing hard again?
West shook his head. “I wouldn’t risk you. I’m…I’m scared of trying.”
“You don’t trust yourself.” Axel didn’t ask that time. He knew it was the truth.
“How do I know I won’t turn into a monster like the ones that bit me?” West questioned. “I don’t. I’m already hungry. I missed my usual serving of blood, and I only ever take the least I can get by with needing. I won’t risk you.”
Axel gave in and touched his neck. His dick grew even harder. It finally clicked that it wasn’t fear making his pulse race and his body tingle. Fear didn’t give him an erection.
“You won’t hurt me.” Axel took a deep breath and told his libido to settle down. “West, I’d let you bite me. I—”
“No!” West leaped up from where he’d sat on the bed. He paced away from Axel. “No, please, stop saying that. You may trust me, but I can’t trust myself, not when I’ve missed feeding, and I want you in so many ways. After I’ve taken care of that hunger, when I don’t feel so on edge, I would be willing to discuss it. Not until then. Not until you’ve seen the coven, the way we live, the…the relationship between mates and then, if you’re ready, if you don’t want to run away screaming, then I’d like you to meet my brothers and sisters.” West turned and dipped his head. “If you think you might want to have something more enduring than the usual human relationships.”
The phrasing confused Axel, then he remembered. “Vamps live forever.”
West shrugged. “I don’t know about forever, but for a long time, yes. So do their mates. The blood exchange does that. So mates, human mates, they end up having to leave behind their family and friends.”
“Because I wouldn’t age, not like they would,” Axel murmured. Jesus, he’d said that like he was actually considering doing it. Because he was. The connection between him and West was undeniable, and while maybe Axel wouldn’t have chosen for them to be bound together as vamps had to be with their mates, at least not without months of dating, he got that time was an issue. He even understood Herve’s reasoning. The idea of having his memory screwed with was terrifying, though.
But not as terrifying as the thought of losing West.
Axel closed the distance between them. He cupped West’s jaw. “West, look at me.”
Once West raised his eyes to Axel’s, and Axel saw the pain and fear, the longing there. Any lingering fear Axel had vanished as he pressed his lips to West’s.
Axel felt West shake, heard the gasp that sounded almost like a sob as West parted his lips, his tongue seeing Axel’s immediately. He clung to Axel before sliding his arms around Axel’s waist.
Axel pressed against West, needing to feel every inch of the man that he could. He wanted, plain and simple. He wanted West, and though the need was simple and pure, there was so much more going on that complicated such need.
And Axel could either let it interfere even more, or he could decide what he wanted. Who he wanted. It was fast, so fast his head spun from it, but time wasn’t on their side in this.
As Axel moved even closer, backing West up against the wall, he knew what his decision was going to be. He couldn’t walk away, and short of any jarring, immoral revelations about the coven in general and vamps in particular, he was going to be spending a very long time with West.
“Take me home with you,” Axel murmured minutes later, his body thrumming with need. “Take me to your home, get the blood you need.” Then Axel was going to get that bite, and he’d make sure it was something they both enjoyed. West wouldn’t ever fear biting him again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Maybe he should have called ahead, West fretted as they neared the coven.
Axel’s head was swiveling around like he was following some kind of invisible tennis game.
“What’s the matter?” West finally asked.
“I was just—” Axel laughed and swiped at his mouth. “Aw, man, it’s gonna sound stupid, but I was surprised by the area we’re in. Guess I thought a coven of anything would live in some dark, scary old mansion. Sorry, I told you it was stupid.”
West wasn’t offended. “It’s fine. From what I understand, Herve couldn’t find a crumbling haunted house big enough for his coven, so he bought that place.” West pointed at the very upscale apartment complex. The large, stone gargoyles mounted on top of the roof gave the property an air of affluence. “It has a large courtyard in the middle of it. The apartment building itself is built in a square shape with the center being the outdoor area. It’s a nice place to live.”
“And fuckin’ huge,” Axel muttered, eyes wide. “Jeez. How many people live there?”
“A lot,” West said. “I’ve been here for a few months and I still don’t know everyone.” He took Axel by the hand and twined his fingers with Axel’s. “Come on. I’m already nervous and I see someone peeking out the blinds at us.”
Axel squinted. “I can’t see shit. Where?”
West pointed to a spot by the main entrance. “There.” He doubted Axel could see it. “The blinds and curtains are always pulled tight in any room vamps may be in. During the day, the human mates and kids have set rooms that they open up to the sun, and they go outside too.”
Axel gripped his hand. “You’re not the only one who’s nervous. What should I expect?”
“Well—”
West’s explanation never came because the door opened and Terrence came bounding out.
“Hey there! What a surprise! You two look adorable together, by the way!” Terrence jogged over to them and fluttered his lashes. “Almost sweet enough to melt this cynic’s heart.”
“Terry,” Axel muttered. “I remember you. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine, fine,” Terrence answered, flapping a hand at Axel. “How’s Jukie?”
Axel shrugged, an internal pang of worry zipping through him. “Same, last I checked. In a coma that he may or may not ever come out of. Yolanda is with him.”
“That’s too bad,” Terrence murmured. “I’m so sorry. It hurts to lose people, even if you aren’t close to them anymore.” He pasted on a bright smile. “Anyway, come on in. Herve’s probably in the lobby by now, growling and pacing. I’m surprised he hasn’t come outside yet.”
Axel grimaced.
“It’ll be fine,” West assured him. He hoped he wasn’t lying.
Terrence ran ahead of them like an eager puppy.
“Is he always so energetic?” Axel asked.
“As far as I know, yeah.”
They entered the complex and sure enough, Herve was waiting for them.
Herve arched one red eyebrow at West.
West felt himself blush. “Herve, this is Axel. I told him about the deadline, and I thought—”
“I asked to come here,” Axel cut in. “I need to know as much as I can to make an informed decision.”
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