by Kayleigh Sky
Zev’s chest hit his. Asa wasn’t as tall as Zev, but Zev let his head fall, let their lips come together, let out a hiss when Asa bit him. His fangs dropped again, and Asa fell back a step.
“No blood,” Asa said.
Zev swiped his bleeding mouth, anger snapping like sparks in his eyes. “Only mine?”
“Can’t take it?”
“Why should I?”
The pain resurfaced as though the vampire suffered, as though he longed for something he didn’t have. Asa forced out a laugh, and the pain deepened.
“I don’t save you,” said Asa.
“I don’t want you to.”
The wounded face with its tangle of pulled hair struck Asa like a fist in the chest. A flurry of bloody images swept across his gaze. The diamond-like glitter of shattered glass in the lights. The sprawl of bodies in the corridors of his dad’s office building. And Zev’s face—that was the face that had done it. Wasn’t it?
But the pain, the loneliness. Was that just the price Zev paid for his deeds?
He’d gotten what he’d wanted in the end. He’d stolen the throne from the real king. He ruled them all. And Asa would get what he needed to get. The way he got it… Well, it didn’t really matter. And he had no choice.
He cupped Zev’s face and stepped up close, teasing Zev’s lips with his. A flutter of breath warmed his skin again.
He dipped his tongue inside and stroked Zev’s hair. The strands slipped through his fingers and snagged against the roughness of his palms.
He pulled back. “Do you want this?”
The vampire’s eyes fixed on his. As black as night. Or the bowels of the earth. “Yes.”
“I hope you have lube.”
A smile crinkled Zev’s eyes. “In my study?”
“Well… Somewhere.”
He had no time to react before Zev circled an arm around his back, slipped his other one under Asa’s knees, and lifted him.
Zev’s grin showed his teeth. “You are easy to carry, human.”
“I’m letting you.”
Zev grunted and nuzzled his hair before he kicked open his bedroom door and stepped into the shadowy room. A fire burned and pushed the cold back. Zev dropped him on the bed and strode away. The comforter pillowed around him and released a warm, musky scent that stole inside him. Was it Zev’s? Asa relaxed into it, letting his gaze rove the room. He fought against the sense of peace surrounding him. It was a vampire’s lair. A lair with roses carved into the wardrobe and red and gold floral drapes. Warm and cozy.
“What are you laughing at?”
He twisted his head. Zev stared at him with a hint of a frown. Asa dropped his gaze to the jar in his fist. Of course, he’d have fancy lube. Only the finest for a king. Memories of vampires who’d taken him dry forced their way into his mind. He sat up and grabbed the jar.
“Get undressed.”
Uncertainty crossed Zev’s face.
“What?” Asa asked.
The vampire’s expression went blank. “Nothing.”
Asa tossed the jar behind him and stood. He raised his gaze to meet Zev’s and lifted a hand, tugging his fingers through Zev’s soft hair. A few thin braids hid in the locks. “Show me your fangs.”
“Why?”
“I never want to forget what you are.”
“I’m a man.”
“Never that.”
He hardened himself to Zev’s flinch.
“Then what do you want with me?” Zev asked.
“You’re beautiful. I want sex. It’s been a while.”
“For me too.”
“How long?”
“Two months.”
“Not so long. Was he special?”
“She. And no.”
“Why not?”
Zev’s face stilled, but his eyes burned, the light shrinking like the glowing center of a coal.
Asa grabbed a fistful of Zev’s hair. “Why? Not?”
“She is not my fated.”
Asa guffawed and pulled his hand away. “That. I’ve heard that before. Vampires waxing poetic while they pay up for services rendered.”
“Love and sex are not the same.”
“Love is bullshit. And tonight, you serve me, so take your clothes off.”
He sank onto the bed again and leaned back on his elbows. Zev had no shoes to kick off, because he seldom wore them. He lifted his fingers to his shirt and shrugged it off. Slowly. The sapphire blue fabric fell away from his chest. Asa’s mouth watered as the pale flesh emerged. Dark hair covered Zev’s broad chest and spread down his belly. His shoulders, cut with strips of muscle, rippled as he pulled his arms from the sleeves. Asa sat up, the feather-soft brush of his fingers over Zev’s ribs drawing a shiver out of him.
Like a ribbon or a silk rope, Zev’s heat curled around Asa’s wrist, and spiraled up his arm. His chest bloomed with it, and he gasped. What the—
He pushed away the crazy thought blowing the frozen embers of happiness to life inside him. My fated.
No.
He drew his hand up Zev’s waist, tugging goosebumps to the surface of his skin. It was sex. That was all. Looking up, he let his gaze settle on the teeth Zev sank into his lip.
“Your fangs,” Asa whispered.
They slipped out, long and gleaming and thick. Splashes of red mixed with the sepia colored tattoos. Asa frowned and stood again. Wings decorated one tooth, and the other… Were those— Spires and towers, complete with windows and crenellations. “What are those?”
“My city. Abbatine.”
Asa lifted a finger, reaching toward Zev’s fangs.
“Don’t… let me taste your blood.”
He drew back. Vampires had drunk from him before. So many times he’d lost count. But not this vampire. Asa had been good enough for him to use though. Good enough to steal from. Good enough to fucking orphan.
He sat again. “Finish up.”
Zev unbuttoned his jeans. His cock pressed in a thick ridge behind the zipper. He lowered it, and a swath of blue cotton came into view. He pushed his jeans off his hips, bending until they reached his knees and fell on their own. Then he straightened and stepped out of them.
Asa’s lust rose into his throat. The long, strong legs rising in front of his eyes held him spellbound. Muscle and bone. Curved and cut and dusted with hair. He gripped the warm swell of hamstrings and stroked upward until he cupped Zev’s ass and tugged him close. A wet spot marked Zev’s blue briefs. Asa pressed his lips to it, and a low groan fell over him. He squeezed Zev’s ass, pulling him hard against his face, rolling his lips against heat and swollen flesh. He breathed into the cotton, and Zev moaned again and gripped his hair.
“Yessss.”
Asa moved away, brought his hands forward and peeled back the waistband of Zev’s briefs. His cock jerked in time to Zev’s as though the cooler air had touched him too. He rolled his hips, dragging his jeans tight on his dick.
Zev rocked, his eyes at half-mast, color pinking his cheeks.
Asa’s voice rasped. “Take them off.”
Zev nodded, tongue flicking his lips. He peeled his briefs off, and his cock bounced up, the pearly head stretching past his foreskin. His heavy balls hung low, begging for the caress of Asa’s palm. But first, Asa stroked his belly, shivering at the tight quiver of Zev’s skin, before curling his fingers around the straining dick. He licked a swipe up the hot skin and swirled his tongue over the juicy tip.
Fuck that was good, and the musky odor stole his breath. His head swam with it.
“Are you okay?”
Not answering, he cupped Zev’s balls and squeezed until he rose on his toes.
Zev hissed.
“Hurt?” Asa asked.
Zev jerked a hard nod. “I don’t… wait…”
“Pain?”
“No,” Zev whispered.
Asa squeezed harder before letting go and gasping when Zev grabbed a fistful of his hair a moment later. He followed the pull on his head, rolling his eyes to c
atch the reappearance of Zev’s fangs. His odor swamped Asa again, musky, slightly floral, and hot as summer used to be. It stung his nose and tickled his throat. Zev crawled over him, forcing Asa backwards. He sank into the comforter and arched against the press of Zev’s thighs into his. He squeezed rock-hard shoulders.
“I don’t like my gifts thrown back in my face,” Zev grated out.
“Ha! That’s a good one.”
Teeth slid on his neck. The sensation drove through him like a shot of electricity. His skin sizzled with it, and the husky rasp of Zev’s voice sawed at his nerves.
“I can rip your jugular from your neck and let it slither and flop on the floor like a decapitated snake,” Zev said. “I can drain you of every red drop in your body and hold you while the dark steals you away.”
Asa gasped—how fucking romantic—smoldering inside from the heat of Zev’s body. He tightened his grip on Zev’s shoulders and flipped him onto his back. Never doubting Zev let him, but he jammed his pelvis against Zev’s anyway. The bite of pain made him dig his fingers in deeper. Zev’s mouth fell open, and his tongue curled with his pants.
“How ’bout if I suck the life out of you?” Asa asked.
A smile split Zev’s face, and he winked. “You can try and find it.”
“I already have.”
Uncertainty replaced Zev’s smile as he arched his chest into the press of Asa’s mouth. Moving in a line of sucking kisses, Asa made his way back down to Zev’s cock. The silken hair tickled his lips. A burst of bittersweet danced on his tongue, and Zev’s leaking cock throbbed as he popped his mouth over it. Closing his eyes made everything disappear. The red and gold florals. The mural of baby blue sky above.
The hurt in Zev’s eyes.
He caressed the dick in his mouth with his tongue, sliding up and down. A fire roared inside him, fed from Zev’s heat. He sucked in his cheeks, pulling up to the hot, spongy head where he teased the slit with the tip of his tongue. His jaw ached, but he slid up and down anyway, over and over, the skin under his fingers sweat slick, slippery and warm, bobbing until he spilled spit and gagged on the flesh closing off his airway. He swallowed, and Zev jerked and grabbed his hair. “Stop… I don’t… want to…”
He pulled off and swiped his face on Zev’s heaving belly, smearing sweat and spit.
The vampire stroked his hair now, soothing the places where he’d pulled. Why was he giving himself to Asa? Taking Asa’s bile? He had no reason to.
He was a king.
But Asa drank his sorrow as though it seeped through his skin. This was not the vampire who’d snuck into his room at night. That vampire had had music in his voice and a quick smile he’d hidden in the dark. His face, the one of Asa’s fantasies, had none of the haunted years that lay over it now.
But this vampire lived in luxury.
How many people had warmed his bed because he was a king?
Asa opened his throat and swallowed him again. Zev bucked and groaned. “Fuck.”
Asa dug his fingers into Zev’s hips, holding on while his throat convulsed. Zev moaned and Asa threw his head back.
Zev panted. “I said… Stop.”
“Don’t come,” said Asa.
Zev whimpered.
Asa ran his teeth along Zev’s slippery length, sucking and kissing. The hips between his hands quivered, straining into his grip. He pushed Zev down and popped off again.
Zev’s breath rattled, his glassy eyes fixed on Asa’s. He swallowed and blinked. “Mine,” he rasped.
Asa chuckled. “You think so?”
“Yes.”
The conviction drew Asa’s attention. Tugged at him. The word mine tickled his tongue, but his voice stuck in his throat. It was a lie. A heartless joke life had played on him from the day they’d met.
“Have you ever done anything you regret?” he asked.
“Like this?”
“Do you regret this? I can stop.”
Zev shook his head. “I don’t regret you.”
Something cold in Asa thawed, washing cool through his body until his heart warmed it again. He bent and kissed a line along Zev’s body, worrying a nipple with his tongue, nipping his throat until he reached Zev’s lips.
“I regret everything,” he whispered and swallowed Zev’s pained cry, stroking his face and hair as though to soothe the pain he’d just caused. “Everything I can’t take back,” he whispered again.
“That’s war,” said Zev.
“That’s losing the war.”
He covered Zev’s mouth before the vampire could respond. The softness of Zev’s parting lips stole a moan from him. The chest beneath him swelled. When he pushed away, he laid a hand on Zev’s torso. “Don’t move.”
Tugging on his T-shirt as he stood, he pulled it off and dropped it.
Zev watched him, his arms above his head, cock shiny red and slick.
Asa kicked out of his shoes and shucked his pants. Zev’s gaze trailed the tattoos that usually hid under his clothes. The bulk of the biggest one rose up one side of his body and down his arm. Angels with broken wings fell from the clouds, and the buildings emblazoned on his side belched orange flames. He didn’t want to think about why it resembled the tattoos on Zev’s fangs.
A part of him wanted to ask when Zev had gotten his. Another part of him stayed far away from that question. This was just sex, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d be as addled as Isaac.
Fated love was romantic bullshit.
Underneath him, Zev’s eyes cleared, and he lay motionless. Asa forced a corner of his mouth into a cynical smile. “Memories,” he said of his tattoos.
“Like mine,” Zev said.
But Asa didn’t agree. Abbatine was a vampire city and nothing to him.
He grunted and crawled over Zev’s body until they were face to face. Looking him in the eye was probably a bad idea. At least the dull ache in his heart as though Zev was pulling it out of his chest made it seem that way.
He sat back on his heels and snagged the lube off the covers. Zev’s stare burned into him, but he didn’t look up until he pushed a lubed finger between Zev’s ass cheeks. He wrapped his other arm over Zev’s bent leg and rubbed his thigh.
“You’ve done this before, right?”
A mocking smile twisted Zev’s mouth. “You can’t hurt me.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he murmured back.
He tapped Zev’s hole and got a sigh. Energy vibrated under the fair skin, and every muscle rippled. For a moment, Asa’s mind flew back to the puncture of fangs, and the dizzy wonder of never knowing the day a vamp would go too far and drain him. And underneath churned an unshakeable fear that he’d died a dozen feedings ago and hung on only to get his vengeance against the vampire squirming beneath him.
Zev grunted. “You don’t have to worry.”
Asa circled his hot hole with a fingertip. “About what?”
“About hurting me. I’m a vampire.”
True, but Asa had already hurt him, in body and soul, and Zev’s eyes said he knew it.
Asa slipped a finger inside him and let out a moan as though he’d just shoved his dick up Zev’s oven of an ass. The vampire’s sigh reached inside him. He added another finger, working him, until Zev bit his lip around a smile. Then he pulled his fingers out and stroke himself, his fat girth sliding inside his fist. His dick leaked, a dribble teasing his skin. He rested his weight on a palm beside Zev’s body, pointed himself at Zev’s hole, and eased in. A flash of pain crossed Zev’s face, and Asa froze, but only until Zev wrapped Asa’s hips between his thighs and dragged him closer.
Zev inflamed him. Asa’s cock burned, and he sank onto his elbows and stared into the dark forever of Zev’s eyes. Asa wanted to fall into him and never resurface. Live out an adolescent fantasy that had somehow become a grownup nightmare. But this… Zev’s hot flesh wrapped around him was no nightmare. His mouth fell open, a moan spilling out. Waves of pleasure like warm, nimble fingers stroked his dick.
The vampire panted
and rocked into his thrusts. Asa looked into his eyes until Zev clamped them shut and rolled his head from side to side.
“Look at me.”
But Zev shook his head and bit his lip. “Keep doing that,” he whispered. “Just… like that.”
“Don’t leave me.”
Asa didn’t know where those words came from, but Zev’s eyes snapped back open, as black as the tunnels to his ruined city.
“I promise.”
Asa groaned now, thrusting faster, the heat building, the pressure swelling inside him.
Face slackening with pleasure, Zev moved a hand between them. The hair on his chest glistened with sweat. Curling over him, Asa licked the fluttering pulse under his chin. Zev craned his neck, and Asa kissed him, drinking his hot, sweet breath.
“Close,” Zev whispered.
With a grunt, Asa slipped his arms under Zev’s knees and curled him up, pounding into him. A tingle bloomed at the base of his spine, and his breath hitched. Zev’s eyes flew wide, and he stiffened, his ass clamping down on Asa’s dick. He pumped spurts of cum onto Asa’s belly and his own chest, milky ribbons against his dark mat of hair. Asa gasped, fire rippling down his spine and out his cock, filling the hot body beneath him. He ground into him, jerking fitfully, his balls achy and hollow.
With a final wheeze of breath, he fell on Zev’s chest, lulled by the pounding heart under his ear and the shake of the legs sliding loose from his hips. Cold froze him everywhere Zev’s flesh had touched him.
He shivered and pulled a handful of Zev’s hair to his nose.
He breathed him in, memorizing him, before he slowly pushed himself back up again.
His body stuttered as though the ties that tethered him to his life had begun to snap one by one. He was free to float away now, except he didn’t want to. He wanted the anchor beneath him. The one gazing at him through slitted eyes.
What did he see?
The face Zev had forgotten about? The one he’d left behind?
I promise.
Asa pushed to his feet and steeled himself. “Thanks.”
A sour smile twisted Zev’s lips. “Well, it was my night to serve.”
Asa had no comeback for that. He was empty. He stooped and gathered his clothes.
