by Kayleigh Sky
Oh yeah. “Mushroom?”
Otto chuckled. “I like mushrooms.”
Outside, the low sun lit the tops of the buildings and the clear sky shone like silver. They stopped at a Round Table and got in line. Jessa brushed Otto’s hand with the backs of his fingers. “Order it to go,” he murmured.
Otto gazed into his eyes, a playful smile teasing the corners of his lips. “Extra cheese with that?”
Jessa grinned. “Oh yeah.”
He left Otto at the register and sat at a booth. A TV hung on the far wall, but nothing was on. A DVD player sat on a shelf underneath, so maybe they had movie nights too. A pool hall would be fun to go to. A sketchy place with dartboards and dangerous people. People like Otto. Who wore a gun under his jacket and was carrying two Cokes with him.
“Just for here,” he said when he set the drinks down. “The pizza goes with us.”
Jessa grinned again. “Good.”
“Tomorrow, back to the case.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I wish I could see how all of this was connected. You. Comity House. Jewelers. Mateo. Was he the witness, or did he just move on?” He turned his head again, frowning at Jessa. “Is Isaac lying?”
Jessa startled. “About Mateo? Why?”
“Maybe Mateo asked him to. Isaac told us where to go to see Mateo’s family. Maybe he was leading us away.”
Jessa squinched his eyes half shut, thinking back over his last times with Isaac. He shook his head. “They’re not good friends.”
“They wouldn’t have to be.”
“Okay. Mateo makes a deal with Brillen and meets with him. Brillen is murdered, and Mateo runs away. Or Mateo was in on the murder with someone else.”
Otto shook his head. “Not from what I saw on the surveillance tape. If that was Mateo, he was running for his life. Maybe he was part of a robbery that got out of hand, but Acalliona wasn’t robbed from the looks of him.”
“Unless it was just one thing they took.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he had something they wanted.”
“Well, the obvious thing would be a jewel, but I can’t see a jeweler wearing a piece of jewelry somebody would go to the trouble to steal. I don’t know, I just see somebody like Acalliona being more cautious. So, was it something he wasn’t supposed to have and was selling on the sly? And where does Mateo fit in?”
“Maybe Brillen didn’t have it and was supposed to. Or maybe it was something he didn’t even know he had. Mateo, if that was him, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Which would bring us back to the convention, and that means we’re looking at someone attending the convention or a guest, which opens the pool of candidates to just about anybody.”
“Would the hotel or the organizers have a list?”
“Both would. We interviewed a number of people right away. The problem is anybody can walk into a hotel. And in this case maybe they didn’t even need to. They could have just waited for their moment.”
“Vampires for sure. They weren’t worried about Mateo.”
“Wonder why they let him go though?” Otto frowned and turned his glass in a slow circle. “They… or whoever it was, let him go.”
“Or something went wrong and gave him time to get away.”
Otto took a swallow of his Coke, gaze going distant until he swallowed and set the cup down. “Yeah. Time. The first murder was two years ago and looks like a hate crime. Probably not connected, but if they are, the killers are in no hurry.”
The plot to one of Jessa’s romances popped into his head and he said, “I read a suspense story once where an ex-cop was protecting a victim of an attempted murder. She was perfectly innocent and had no idea who would want her dead, but the crime looked like an earlier murder. For most of the book they couldn’t figure it out, not until they discovered there were other murders in between, and they realized it was—”
“A serial killer.”
Jessa nodded. “That’s right. A woman—”
“A woman serial killer?”
“Yes. She was killing people who checked out the book of a guy who’d rejected her. She’d killed him too, but it looked like an accident, so nobody guessed.”
Otto smiled.
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m agreeing with you,” said Otto. “I mean I don’t think this is necessarily that, but you’re right. The victims are the clue.”
“The victims were drainers.”
“And in the last two years only two drainers have been killed in this area. Ten years ago, somebody drained a… a human. Could be who we’re looking for, though it’s a stretch, I guess.”
The distance had returned to Otto’s eyes, tamping out the light this time. A shivery feeling crept over Jessa’s skin.
Ten years ago. That meant…
A vampire who drained somebody ten years ago did it out of malice. Synelix had been on the market over eleven years. That meant it wasn’t hunger that drove the killer. Unless…
He was a drainer.
Jessa pushed back against the booth as a drenching shame at being what he was washed over him. “A real drainer?”
Otto nodded. “And a cold-blooded murderer. Got away too.”
“Were you on the case?”
Otto shook his head. “No. This was in Heritage. Not too far away.”
“I don’t get it. A drainer doesn’t have to drain anyone for real blood.”
Otto’s eyes went dark. “I’m guessing he just felt like it.”
“Could it be connected to our case?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. The victim was a blood whore like Mateo.”
“But Brillen wasn’t a drainer. Maybe that first murderer wasn’t either. Any vampire can drain a blood whore.”
Otto didn’t move, his gaze unfocused. Looking back through time? Back to the case that wasn’t even his? Another wave of dread hit Jessa with a sick thump. Ten years ago, Otto’s…
“Who was the victim?” he whispered.
Otto blinked and took a breath. “My sister.”
The floor dropped away, and Jessa’s stomach fell with it. He grabbed onto the edge of the table, and Otto grabbed his wrist, holding him still. Heat rose up his arm and spread into his chest.
Otto sighed and shook his head. “Lousy way to break it to you. That was a shitty time. My dad blamed Maisie for him giving up on life, but he’d checked out a long time before. Upwood Prosper, the detective who got Maisie’s case, was and is a lazy fuck who let her killer go. A friend of hers saw her with a vamp that day. A drainer. Prosper claimed her friend was a druggie and refused to follow up. It was just too fucking ironic that questioning every last one of her friends was the whole extent of his efforts. It was laughable. They were unreliable for fuck’s sake.”
He sat back, his hand sliding free, but Jessa grabbed it. “That’s a horrible story.”
Otto smiled and squeezed his fingers. “Yours too, Jess. We all got a raw deal. I’m over feeling sorry for myself. Maisie wouldn’t want that. She was full of life. You remind me of her.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. The minute I saw you stuffing romances into your bag.”
Shock drove Jessa back against the booth again. “You remember?”
“So do you.”
“I wasn’t sure.”
Otto nodded. “Weird how life works.”
Fated.
“Can I go home with you?”
Otto grinned. “Well, we’re not eating the pizza here, babe.”
Babe.
Jessa liked that. Liked the closeness to Otto. The sharing of their secrets. Even though a thread of darkness slipped inside him and wound its way into his heart. Something told him Maisie’s murder wasn’t as simple as a distant memory, and that buried secrets never stayed buried forever.
38
A Bendy Boy
The amber eyes burned like fire.
Otto’s nerv
es jangled like prey’s in a dark wood in the moonlight when a branch snaps. Something ancient rose inside him, but he wasn’t prey. He finished his water, skimmed his gaze over Jessa’s half-finished beer, and took his plate to the counter.
“Pizza was good,” said Jessa.
“Too many mushrooms.”
“Ha. Funny.”
He circled behind Jessa’s chair and smiled at the vibration that hummed in the air. Otto imagined Jessa’s breath coming short and fast, every hair on his body standing on end, waiting for Otto’s attack.
Was that what it was like with vamps? Stalking their human prey in the night.
And humans…? Succumbing with no fear that anyone would see their submission?
Well, Otto was switching things up, feeling the pounding of Jessa’s heart in his own chest, the fire of his burning breath.
He slid his fingers into Jessa’s hair and pulled his head back, staring into hooded eyes.
He bent and Jessa reached for him, wrapping his arms around Otto’s shoulders. Otto kissed him, drinking him in like nectar. Soft lips gave under his, opening. Moans met him, quiet at first, then loud and throaty. Jessa yanked himself up, still clinging to Otto’s shoulders, and Otto backed him slowly across the room, kissing him the whole way.
His bedroom wasn’t much of anything, gray with the seep of a distant streetlamp. A bed, a dresser, a decade of nothing. Nobody had made this place his home. But now it was a palace, his bed as soft as a cloud, made to catch Jessa’s fall. He grunted, and Otto covered him, stroking him from belly to chest, rolling a nipple under thin cotton.
Jessa groaned and arched.
Opening his shirt, Otto sucked the flesh into his mouth, pulling until Jessa thrashed and gripped Otto’s shorn head.
“No fair,” Jessa muttered. “You don’t have any hair to grab.”
Otto chuckled against the firm, warm chest, then lifted his head. “Method to my madness.”
The feathery caresses of Jessa’s fingers over his short hair traveled down his spine and sent shivers all over him. He rolled his hips, and Jessa hissed and opened his legs.
Otto whispered, “Tell me, baby prince, all those nights you spent all alone, sweaty and aching, what were you dreaming of?”
Jessa made a strangled sound. “Um… dicks.”
Otto chuckled.
Sweet thing.
“Imagine you’re dreaming now.”
“Oh… okay.”
He popped the button on Jessa’s jeans. “Are you naked?”
“Y-yes.”
“Am I?”
“N-no.”
Otto grinned. Well, well. His voice fell lower still, barely a whisper. “Tell me where you are.”
“I’m on… on my bed. Your bed.”
No hanging from the chandelier. No sex on the kitchen counters. No matter. He needed the light on, all that skin blushing pink, hot and tender and twitching at his touch.
He pulled off Jessa’s shoes, jeans, and underwear, then turned on the overhead light. It poured down on the startled Jessa. Wide-eyed. Rash red on his chest and neck. He stared at Otto and pulled his legs up. Otto gripped his knees and pulled them apart, and Jessa’s face softened like putty. But his legs kept tightening, trying to close again.
Letting him go for a moment, Otto turned and pulled the drapes open. Jessa gasped.
“Shy for a vampire,” Otto mused. “You posed nude before.”
Jessa huffed and tried to tug the comforter over him. “I wasn’t having sex.”
“You aren’t having sex now. You’re exposing yourself to me.”
Jessa groaned. “I don’t… I was just…”
“Fantasizing.” He pulled the blanket away. “Did you play with yourself?”
A giggle struggled through the hands Jessa clamped over his face. Otto pulled them away. “Wish I’d been there.”
“No.”
“Feel this.” He leaned over Jessa’s naked body and rubbed him with his crotch. “You make me so fucking hard. You playing with yourself. All hot and sticky.”
He circled his hips. Jessa rocked back and spread his legs wider. Slipping a hand between them, Otto rubbed Jessa’s hot hole and gazed into Jessa’s fluttering eyes before they rolled up in his head. “Did you play with this?”
Jessa whipped his head back and forth, and Otto bit his knee. “Why not?”
“You did.”
“What did I do with it?”
Jessa shuddered, bit his lip, and let out a whimpering moan. “You looked at it.”
“No,” Otto whispered. “You spread yourself for me, did you? Let me check out your hole and decide if I wanted it?”
“Oh.” Jessa rocked again, his dick sliding like hot steel across the strip of Otto’s skin exposed under his shirt. “You… wanted it.”
“You have a pretty hole.”
“Yes.”
“Sweet.”
“Uh huh.”
“Show me.”
The blush on Jessa’s chest and neck spread with the heat rising off his skin. A pink, splotchy, innocent, wanton sign. An urge to devour, to tear into the flesh below consumed Otto. He gasped at the shock of it, trying to catch his breath.
“Show me,” he rasped again.
Jessa groaned, gripped his legs beneath his knees and curled up. His pink sac shrank around his balls. His dick hovered above his belly, dribbling a pearly string to his reddish treasure trail. His hair was sparse around his hole. Pink splotches marred his skin where his ass had lain on the mattress. So tender. Like the flowers that had fallen in his garden like snow.
Otto traced the inside of Jessa’s thighs with his fingertips, his light touch sparking shudders the whole way. He reached Jessa’s ass and probed between his cheeks. The soft hairs tickled him, the rough wrinkling drawing him like a treasure. He moaned in strange relief and fell to his knees beside the bed. This was—Mine. Though Jessa would never be. Though Otto was unworthy.
He buried his face in Jessa’s ass. Flesh rose to meet him, bucking against his mouth. He pulled away and tickled the insides of Jessa’s cheeks with his tongue. The light red hairs glowed like gold, his marble-like skin glistening under the light.
But Otto drowned him in shadow again, teasing his rim and clamping down on his squirming hips.
Sweet skin filled his senses, floral, salty, a little soapy. He probed the center of Jessa’s hole.
“Oh my God.”
Otto raised his eyes. Jessa’s rosy red balls contracted. He leaned up and swallowed one. A screech rent the air. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Otto dug his fingers in to keep the thrashing hips still and gently massaged Jessa’s ball with the flat of his tongue.
Jessa moaned now, his fingers rubbing Otto’s scalp.
Otto pulled off with a pop. Jessa braced on one elbow, his other hand still holding onto one leg, his face a weird twist of pain and pleasure. A brush of Otto’s bristly chin against the tip of Jessa’s dick sent him floundering back on the bed with a hiss.
Working his thumb against Jessa’s hole, Otto murmured, “Did you like fucking yourself?”
“Um… I… wanted someone.”
“You got off though?”
“Y-yes.”
“You taste so good.”
Jessa blinked at him, his mouth in a soft O shape. Sweat beaded his forehead and upper lip. Shiny, human teeth. “Thank… you.”
“I want you to taste yourself,” Otto murmured.
Jessa shuddered. “O… kay.”
He grabbed his other leg again, and Otto scooted his knees underneath Jessa’s back and eased his feet toward the wall. “Pull that pillow under your head and relax. I won’t push.”
Otto’s heart beat with crazy lust.
After Jessa dragged the pillow under his head and bent his neck to face the dick looming toward his lips, he flicked a slightly queasy look at Otto.
“What?” Otto asked. “It’s gorgeous.”
Jessa’s face twisted. “It’s mine.”
&nb
sp; “You seriously never tried this?”
Jessa’s eyes widened as Otto rolled him deeper into a ball. He grunted and stretched his neck. His cock was right there, hovering at his mouth. Nervous as he was, he was hard, twitching, his tip shiny with precum. Otto groaned. “Go on.”
Jessa rolled his head back, face red, took a breath, and leaned forward again. His tongue snaked out and flicked his dick. With a gasp, he fell back on his pillow. “Oh God.”
Scooting closer, Otto braced Jessa’s sweaty back against his chest. His hot skin was slippery and the scent of his musk bloomed. “Was it good?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
Jessa scrunched his forehead, face reddening again. “I didn’t really feel it on my dick.”
“Where’d you feel it?”
“My tongue.”
“Put it in your mouth.”
Only Jessa’s weight held Otto’s body in place. His head floated, his heart pounding at light speed. The picture of Jessa with his cock in his mouth took over Otto’s thoughts. It gripped like any temptation. Overwhelming. Compulsive. Like a vampire’s desire for blood.
“Go on.” His voice fell to a whisper.
With a glazed look, Jessa curled his body and opened his mouth. A locomotive was barreling through Otto’s chest. His ears rang with a high-pitched clang. Jessa stuck out his tongue, and Otto’s lungs froze. C’mon. You can do it.
“Oh fuck,” he muttered when Jessa gasped and grunted and… wrapped his lips around the crown of his cock.
Otto’s head swam for three seconds before Jessa’s head fell back on the pillow, and he panted, blinking at the ceiling.
“There’s a reason,” he gasped, “guys don’t do this.”
“They aren’t bendy.”
Otto leaned back, letting Jessa’s legs sprawl across the bed.
“That was… like sucking your dick except… awkward. It’s not like—”
“This?”
Otto stroked Jessa’s cock, rolling his thumb over the tip. Arching, legs stretched and tight on either side of Otto’s hips now, Jessa sighed and smiled at the ceiling.
“That,” he murmured.
“This,” Otto agreed, bending over Jessa’s crotch and sucking his dick into his mouth. It leaked on his tongue. He stroked slick skin and slid down half way. Jessa rocked and Otto hummed. Jessa was honey sweet, like no one else in Otto’s life. His heart slowed but beat hard. Music filled his head, a strange far away sound like an orchestra. Jessa’s fingers, stroking at his head, lit him with warmth and fluttered across his scalp like feathers.
