Seti's Heart
Page 17
That was all it had taken. He’d reached out over the breakfast table, unable—and unwilling—to stop himself from touching Logan. His finger had circled Logan’s nipple, rubbing and lightly tweaking the hardened bud. The next thing Seti knew, Logan’s pajama bottoms had been pushed down around his ankles and Seti was buried up to his hips inside him.
Not that it was always Seti who initiated things. No, Logan did an equally fine job of that and usually picked the most inconvenient times for it too. He’d once dragged Seti behind a display of hubcaps in a dark corner of the automotive aisle at Walmart, dropping to his knees and giving Seti a blowjob that was the stuff of legends.
Seti had gotten even with Logan the following week in the Anthropological Studies aisle at the New York Public Library. He remembered Logan having to bite down on the spine of a copy of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species to keep from screaming out loud when he’d come.
“Seti! Oh God, Seti!”
“Not a god. Close, but not quite.” Seti chuckled, angling himself and pushing in deep. Logan’s hand was moving underneath his belly, the wet sounds of his hand on his cock sounding like the sweetest music Seti had ever heard. When he came, his entire body shuddered hard, contracting around Seti like a molten vise.
Seti threw his head back, howling his pleasure to the ceiling as he came, stars dancing in his peripheral vision. It was so good with Logan! No, it was better than good.
It was life, and Seti would never have enough of tasting it.
Breathing hard and still trembling from the strength of his orgasm, Seti turned Logan around and drew him in close, kissing him soundly. “You are my heart,” he whispered. “Have I told you that yet?”
“Only about a million times. Not that I ever get tired of hearing it.” Logan laughed. He laid his head on Seti’s shoulder. “I love you, you know.”
“I know,” Seti said, feeling the lump form in his throat that always formed when Logan said those three powerful words to him. “But I never get tired of hearing it either.”
He helped Logan clean up the mess they’d made, then helped him scrape the cold remnants of their breakfast plates into the trash.
For a five-thousand-year-old former Egyptian king, Seti thought he’d adapted well to twenty-first-century living. He’d learned what a refrigerator, a stove, and a dishwasher were, and how to use them. Logan had taught him how to operate the DVD player (although he still couldn’t set the clock on it—which Logan assured him was not at all unusual), the alarm clock, the toaster, and a myriad of other mystical, magical household appliances.
He’d learned the monetary system and how to read and write in English. Logan had taught him how to hail a cab and how to figure out which bus and subway train would take him where he needed to go. Although Seti still used the Seti Wind Express, as Logan referred to his power over the elements, whenever he had the opportunity.
Hey, Seti thought, mentally shrugging, you can only teach so many new tricks to an old dog.
The year had flown by swiftly. Logan had accepted Perry’s old job as curator of relics, recently rechristened Antiquities and Curiosities at Logan’s request. He was the youngest curator in the museum’s history, and Seti was very proud of him.
Logan had published several papers over that time period too, astounding theories—some quite controversial—about life in ancient Egypt, in particular about a clan of nomads who called themselves the Children of Setekh. Try as they might, Logan’s older colleagues couldn’t discredit or dispute his findings.
Of course they couldn’t. Logan had gotten his facts directly from the horse’s mouth. His paper about the life and death of one King Seti had garnered him national prestige.
The first few weeks had been difficult for them. Logan had sunk into a black depression over Jason’s death. They’d attended the funeral, which only seemed to drive home the point that his friend was not coming back.
It was then, sitting on the back steps of the funeral home as Logan had wept in his arms, that Seti had told Logan the full story of his Ashai. He told Logan that he understood how it felt to lose someone you loved.
“You would have liked him, Logan. He was much like you—younger than me, smart. There wasn’t an evil bone in his body,” Seti had said, holding Logan tightly, stroking his hair. “I once thought that you were he returned to me. Now I know you are not him. You are unique.”
“You loved him a lot, didn’t you?”
“Yes. He was my heart. But I am a very lucky man, Logan. Ra has seen fit to give me another to replace the one I lost when Ashai died. He gave me you. You are also my heart. And you I will keep close to me all the rest of my days.”
He’d kissed Logan then, his lips drying each of Logan’s tears. Seti had held Logan until he’d stopped trembling, rocking him back and forth in his arms.
Seti smiled to himself, remembering that at Jason’s funeral there had been an enormous, beautiful bowl, carved with hieroglyphics and filled with blue-and-white Egyptian water lilies. The accompanying card had simply read, “O.”
They’d both known who’d sent the flowers. Osiris.
Logan had seemed to get a little better every day after that. It had been shortly after Jason’s funeral that he’d first told Seti he loved him.
Those three words had never sounded sweeter than they had on Logan’s lips.
“Hey,” Logan said, snapping Seti’s ass with the kitchen towel, “Penny for your thoughts.”
“I was thinking of Osiris. And I worry that Setekh will seek revenge on us for shaming him as we did.”
“We didn’t shame him! He fucking shamed himself, Seti,” Logan said, frowning. “He pulled every ounce of shit down on his own head.”
“I know this. You know this. Osiris knows this. But somehow I doubt that Setekh knows this,” Seti said, offering Logan a half smile. “It matters not. If he comes, we will face him together, you and I.”
“Yeah,” Logan said, reaching out for him. “You and I. I like the sound of that.”
Seti smiled, enfolding Logan in his arms.
Outside the wind blew, kissing the window with frosty lips, as its master and his love raised the temperature inside.
More from Kiernan Kelly
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And when they discover Winter isn’t the government’s only target, Michael and Winter band together to free the others and find somewhere they can hide from a government bent on hunting them down. Their plan takes them across the country from the Haight in San Francisco to Fancy Gap, a small town in Virginia where others with talents similar to Winter’s are being held against their will.
Along the way, they touch the lives of ordinary people with King’s extraordinary power and find an unexpected love growing between them that makes the success of their journey even more vital. Because if they fail, their love is not the only thing in jeopardy.
When a demon saves an angel’s life, he wins the chance to stay out of Hell and walk the earthly plane until the End of Days.
&nb
sp; Cael wasn’t aware of the loophole when he spared the angel Malak, but he plans to exploit it. All he needs to do to earn his freedom is convince Malak to give up his virginity. Three thousand years should be plenty of time. But Malak isn’t interested—not in having sex with Cael and not in being exiled from Heaven as a result.
Time is running out, and if Cael fails, his punishment will be unspeakable. With only days left, Malak realizes he can’t let that happen—not to the demon he’s come to love.
But the End of Days is coming sooner than either anticipated. Lucifer has found a way to unleash the Four Horseman and end all existence. If Cael and Malak want to stay together, they need to seek out all four Horsemen and stop them from bringing about the Apocalypse.
Despite a major setback, Lucifer has no time to feel sorry for himself. Running Hell is a monumental task, even though he’s taken steps to modernize it with technology like closed-circuit cameras and security systems.
As he struggles with his infernal issues, an unannounced visitor threatens to break his black heart. Lucifer hasn’t seen Uriel since his Fall, but he remembers how much he loved Uriel and how betrayed he felt when Uriel didn’t stand with him during the War.
Uriel has been sent to inspect the changes Lucifer has made and report back to Heaven. Lucifer has no choice but to give Uriel a guided tour of the Nine Circles, and all the feelings come rushing back.
Uriel hasn’t forgotten Lucifer either, and they pick up where they left off—with enough sizzle to rival the hottest of hell’s fires. But their reunion will be short-lived, unless Uriel relinquishes his halo—which Lucifer is unwilling to let him do.
Heart of the Wolf
What happens when a veterinarian ends up a patient in his own animal clinic?
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Just as Dae and Sean are settling in to life as a couple, Dae is contacted by his brother, who still lives with his former pack and who exiled him for being gay.
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KIERNAN KELLY lives in Florida among the alligators and palmetto bugs with her husband and a Shar-Pei/Labrador puppy who thinks she’s a person (the dog, not Kiernan. Kiernan knows she’s a person. At least, she is after she’s had her daily dose of caffeine). Kiernan spends most of her time writing gay erotic romance while chained to a computer in the dark recesses of her office, which her children have dubbed, “The Gay Cave.”
Website: www.kiernankelly.com
By Kiernan Kelly
A-Viking
The Curious Case of Winter King
Dancing on the Head of a Pin
For Love of War
Hell Takes a Holiday
Running With the Moon (Author Anthology)
Seti’s Heart
Staking His Life
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
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DREAMSPINNER PRESS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Seti’s Heart
© 2017 Kiernan Kelly.
Cover Art
© 2017 Paul Richmond.
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Digital ISBN: 978-1-63533-400-5
Published July 2017
v. 2.0
First Edition published by Torquere Press, 2008.
Printed in the United States of America