Lover At Last tbdb-11

by J. R. Ward

  Qhuinn reached out again, going under the robe, stroking a strong, muscled leg—and when Blay stepped back again, he knew he was losing the battle.

  Shit, he was going to lose this chance if he didn’t—

  “Look, Blay, I’ve done a lot of shitty things in my life, but I’ve always kept it real. I almost died tonight—and that sets a male straight. Up there in that airplane, looking over the dark night, I didn’t think I was going to make it. Everything got clear for me. I want to be with you because of that.”

  Actually, he’d known a fuck of a lot sooner, waaaaaaaay before the Cessna situation, but he was hoping the explanation made sense to Blay.

  Maybe it did. In response, the guy weaved on his feet, as if he were going to give in—or leave. There was no telling which one it was.

  Qhuinn rushed to get more words out. “I’m sorry I’ve wasted so much time—and if you don’t want to be with me, I get it. I’ll back off—I’ll live with the consequences. But for the love of God, if there’s a chance—for whatever reason on your side—revenge, curiosity…hell, even if you’ll let me fuck you just once and never, ever again, for the sole reason of driving a stake through my heart? I’ll take it. I’ll take you…any way I can get you.”

  He reached out a third time, snaking his hand around the back of Blay’s leg. Stroking. Pleading. “I don’t care what it costs me….”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Looming over Qhuinn, Blay was preternaturally aware of everything around him: the feel of Qhuinn’s hand on the back of his thigh, the way the hem of the robe brushed against his calf, the scent of sex thickening the air.

  In so many ways, he had wanted this his whole life—or at least ever since he’d survived his transition and had any sexual impulse at all. This moment was the culmination of countless daydreams and innumerable fantasies, his secret desire made manifest.

  And it was honest: Qhuinn’s mismatched eyes were without shadows—or doubts. The male was not only speaking the God’s honest as he knew it in his heart; he was at peace with laying himself vulnerable like this.

  Blay closed his lids briefly. This submission was the opposite of everything that defined Qhuinn as a male. He never surrendered—not his principles, not his weapons, never, ever himself. Then again, the turnaround did make some kind of sense. Facing death did tend to be followed by a come-to-Jesus chaser….

  The trouble was, he had a feeling this wasn’t going to last. This “eye-opener” was undoubtedly tied to that plane ride, but as with a heart attack victim resuming his piss-poor diet soon afterward, the “revelation” probably didn’t have a long shelf life. Yeah, Qhuinn meant what he was saying in this heady moment—there was no doubting that. It was hard to believe it was permanent, however.

  Qhuinn was who he was. And soon enough, after the shock wore off—maybe at nightfall, maybe next week, maybe a month from now—he was going to go back to his closed-off, hands-off, distant self.

  Decision made, Blay reopened his lids and bent down. As their faces got closer, Qhuinn’s lips parted, the fuller, lower one pursing as if he were already trying out the taste of what he wanted—and liking it.

  Fuck. The fighter was so magnificent, his powerful bare chest glowing in the lamplight, his skin carrying a sheen of arousal, his pierced nipples rising and falling to the driving beat of his heated blood.

  Blay ran his hand down the corded muscles of the arm that linked them, from the heavy thickness of the shoulder to the bulge of the biceps and the cut curl of the triceps.

  He removed the palm from his thigh.

  And stepped away.

  Qhuinn paled to the point of going gray.

  In the silence, Blay didn’t say a word. He couldn’t—his voice was gone.

  On sloppy, loose legs, he scrambled for the way out, his hand flapping around the doorknob until it gathered enough coordination to open up the exit. Walking out, he couldn’t have said whether he slammed the door or shut it quietly.

  He didn’t make it far. Barely three feet toward his room, he collapsed back against the smooth, cool wall of the hallway.

  Panting. He was panting.

  And all that effort wasn’t doing any good. The suffocation in his chest was getting worse, and abruptly his vision was replaced by black-and-white checkerboard squares.

  Figuring he was about to pass out, he sank down onto his haunches and put his head between his knees. In the recesses of his mind, he prayed that the hall stayed empty. This was not the kind of thing he wanted to explain to anyone: outside of Qhuinn’s room, hard-on obvious, body shaking like he had his own personal earthquake going on.

  “Jesus Christ…”

  I almost died tonight—that sets a male straight. Up there in that airplane, looking over the dark night, I didn’t think I was going to make it. Everything got clear for me.

  “No,” Blay said out loud. “No…”

  Putting his head in his hands, he tried to breathe calmly, think rationally, act reasonably. He couldn’t afford to go any deeper in this—

  Those heated, glossy, mismatched eyes had been the stuff of legend.

  “No,” he hissed.

  As his voice resonated inside his own skull, he resolved to listen to himself. No further. This would go no further.

  He’d long ago lost his heart to that male.

  There was no reason to lose his soul, too.

  * * *

  An hour later, maybe two, maybe six, Qhuinn lay naked between cool sheets, staring up in the dark at a ceiling he could not see.

  Was this horrible, aching pain what Blay had felt? Like, after that showdown in his parents’ basement—when Qhuinn had been prepared to leave Caldwell, and made it clear that there were gonna be no ties between them anymore? Or maybe after that time they’d kissed in the clinic, and Qhuinn had refused to go any further? Or following that final collision when they had nearly come together, right before Blay’s first date with Saxton?

  So damn hollow.

  Like this room, really: Without illumination, and essentially empty, just four walls and a ceiling. Or a bag of skin and a skeleton, as it were.

  Shifting his hand up, he put it over his beating heart just to reassure himself he still had one.

  Man, fate had a way of teaching you things you needed to know, even if you weren’t aware the lesson was required until it had been served to you: He’d spent way too much time wrapped up in himself and his defect and his failure to his family and society. Such a tangled fucking mess he’d been for so long, and Blay, because he’d cared, had been sucked into the vortex.

  But when had he ever supported his best friend? What had he ever really done for the guy?

  Blay had been right to leave this room. Too little, too late, wasn’t that the saying? And it wasn’t like Qhuinn was offering any kind of winner. Underneath the surface, he was no more stable, really. No more at peace.

  Nope, he deserved this—

  The slice of light was lemon yellow, and it cut through the black field of his vision as if the blindness were cloth and the beam a sharp knife.

  A figure slipped into his room silently, and shut the door.

  By the scent, he knew who it was.

  Qhuinn’s heart began to thunder as he shot upright off the pillows. “Blay…?”

  There was the softest of rustling, a robe being dropped from the shoulders of a tall male. And then, moments later, the mattress depressed as a great, vital weight got up upon it.

  Qhuinn reached through the darkness with unerring accuracy, his hands finding the sides of Blay’s neck sure as if they had been led by sight.

  No talking. He was afraid that words would cheat him of this miracle.

  Lifting his mouth, he pulled Blay down to his own, and when those velvet lips were in range, he kissed them with a desperation that was returned. All at once, the pent-up past was released in a fury, and as he tasted blood, he didn’t know whose fangs had scored what.

  Who the fuck cared.

  On a hard yank, h
e laid Blay down and then he rolled over on top of the other male, spreading those thighs and pushing himself between them until his hard cock came up against Blay’s….

  They both groaned.

  Dizzy from all the naked skin, Qhuinn began pumping his hips up and back, the friction of their sexes and their hot flesh magnifying the wet heat of their mouths. Frenzy, everywhere, hurry, hurry, hurry—holy fucking shit, there was too much hunger to make any sense of where his hands were, or what he was rubbing against, or— for fuck’s sake, there was too much skin to touch, too much hair to pull, too much…

  Qhuinn came hard, his balls going tight, his erection kicking between them, his come going everywhere.

  Didn’t slow him down in the slightest.

  With a quick jerk, he broke away from the mouth he could have spent the next hundred years working, and shoved himself down Blay’s chest. The muscles he came across were nothing like the human guys’ he’d fucked—this was a vampire, a fighter, a soldier who had trained heavily and worked his flesh into a condition that was not just useful, but downright deadly. And holy hell was that a turn-on—but more than that, though, this was Blay; it was finally, after all these years…

  Blay.

  Qhuinn dragged his fangs down abdominals that were rock tight, and the scent of himself on Blay’s skin was a marking that he knew he’d done on purpose.

  That dark spice was going other places, too.

  He groaned when his hands found Blay’s cock, and as he circled the hard column, the guy arched up sharply, a curse cutting through the room, much in the same way the light had just moments before.

  Qhuinn licked his lips, stood Blay’s sex up, and let the head of that thick, blunt cock part his mouth. Sucking down deep, he took it to its base, opening his throat wide, swallowing everything. In response, Blay’s hips shot up, and rough hands bit into his hair, forcing his head even farther down until he couldn’t get any breath to his lungs—and who the fuck needed oxygen, anyway?

  Digging his hands under Blay’s ass, he tilted that pelvis and started going up and down, his neck straining under the punishing rhythm, his shoulders bunching and releasing as he followed through on exactly what he’d been offering before Blay had left.

  He wasn’t stopping with this, though.

  Nope.

  This was just the beginning.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  As Blay jacked back against the pillows on Qhuinn’s bed, his head nearly snapped off his spine. Everything was out of control, but he wouldn’t have slowed things down in the slightest: With his hips pumping up and down, his cock was pushing in and sucking out of Qhuinn’s mouth—

  Thank God the lights were off.

  The sensations alone were too much to handle—adding a visual? He wouldn’t be able to—

  The orgasm rocketed out of him, his breath catching, his body going tight all over, his sex kicking hard. And as he came in great spasms, he was milked by that mouth—and man, that suction kept the release barreling through him, great waves of tingling pleasure sweeping from his brain to his balls, his body hitting a different plane of existence altogether—

  Without warning, he was flipped over with a rough hand, his body handled like it didn’t weigh a damned thing. Then an arm shot under his pelvis and popped him up onto his knees. There was a brief lull, during which all he heard was heavy breathing behind him, the panting getting faster, and harder—

  He heard Qhuinn orgasm and knew exactly what that was for.

  Even though his whole body went weak with anticipation, he knew he had to get good and braced as a heavy hand landed on his shoulder and—

  The penetration was a branding iron, brutal and hot, going right to the core of him. And he cursed on an explosive exhale—not because it hurt, although it did in the best possible sense. Not even because this was something he had wanted forever, although he had.

  No, it was because he had the strangest sense he was being marked—and for some reason, that made him—

  A hiss sounded at his ear, and then a pair of fangs sank into his shoulder, Qhuinn’s grip shifting to his hips, his torso locked in so many places now. And then the relentless hammering started, Blay’s molars clapping together, his arms having to hold both their bodies up, his legs and torso straining under the onslaught.

  He had a feeling the headboard was slamming against the wall—and for a split second, he remembered that chandelier in the library going back and forth as Layla had been subjected to this.

  Blay cursed the image. He couldn’t allow himself to go there; he just couldn’t. God knew there was plenty of time to dwell on that stuff later.

  Right now? This was too damn good to waste….

  As the pounding continued, his palms slid on the fine cotton sheets, and he had to reposition them, pushing down into the soft mattress to try to keep himself in place. God, the sounds that Qhuinn was making, the grunting that reverberated from between the fangs buried in his shoulder, the thumping—yeah, that was the headboard. Definitely.

  With pressure building up again in his balls, he was tempted to palm himself—but no hope of that. He needed both arms on the job—

  Like Qhuinn read his mind, the male reached around and gripped him.

  No pumping needed. Blay came so hard his vision went twinkle-twinkle-little-star, and at that very instant, Qhuinn started orgasming, too, those hips spearing inside and freezing for a split second before withdrawing an inch and going deep for another kicking explosion. And yeah, wow, the combination of them both doing their thing was so erotic, it just primed everything all over again: There was no break for recovery, no pause at all. Qhuinn just resumed driving—if anything, it was like the release had made his need stronger.

  As the sex raged on—and in spite of all the strength he had in his upper body—Blay ended up getting fucked clean off the bed, one hand locking on the side table to keep him from hitting the wall—

  Crash.

  “Shit,” he said roughly. “The lamp—”

  Qhuinn wasn’t interested in home furnishings, apparently. The male just yanked Blay’s head around and started kissing him, that pierced tongue penetrating his mouth, licking and sucking…like he couldn’t get enough.

  Dizzy. He got downright dizzy from it all. In every fantasy he’d ever had, he’d always pictured Qhuinn as a ferocious lover, but this was…on another level.

  So it was from a distance that he heard himself say in a guttural voice, “Bite me…again….”

  A great growl from above threaded into his ears, and then another hiss ripped through the darkness as Qhuinn shifted positions, his massive weight torquing so that those sharp fangs could sink in deep on the side of the throat.

  Blay cursed and wiped clean the rest of whatever was on the table, his chest taking the place of the objects, his sweat-streaked skin squeaking on the varnish as he lay half on his side. Throwing a hand out, he caught the flat plane of the floor and shoved back, keeping them both stable as Qhuinn fed and fucked him so good….

  Too many times to count, until the pillows were on the floor, the sheets were torn, another lamp got knocked over—and he wasn’t sure, but he thought they banged the picture over the bed off the wall.

  When stillness finally replaced all the straining and effort, Blay breathed heavily, and still felt like he was underwater.

  Qhuinn was doing the same.

  The growing wet patch at Blay’s throat suggested things had gotten so out of hand that there had been no sealing up the vein that had been taken. Whatever. He didn’t care, couldn’t think, wasn’t going to worry. The blissed-out, floating aftermath was too glorious to spoil, his body at once hypersensitive and numb, hot and temperate, sore and satiated.

  Man, the sheets were going to need to be cleaned. And Fritz was undoubtedly going to have to find some Super Glue for those lamps.

  Where exactly was he?

  Putting his hand out, he patted around and ran into carpet and a dust ruffle…and a blanket chest. Oh, right—
hanging off the far end of the bed. Which would explain the head rush he was rocking.

  When Qhuinn finally eased off of him, Blay wanted to follow, but his body was far too interested in being an inanimate object. Or more like a bolt of cloth, maybe…

  Gentle hands lifted him up and carefully, gingerly, rolled him over onto his back. There was some other movement at that point, and then he felt himself get repositioned against pillows that had been returned to their rightful place. Finally, a lightweight blanket was settled halfway up his body, as if Qhuinn knew that he was just about too hot to have any more coverage, and yet already feeling the chill as the sweat that covered him started to dry.

  His hair was brushed back from his forehead, and then his head was eased to the side. Lips like silk kissed down the column of his neck, and then long, slow lapping sealed the puncture wounds that he had asked for and been given.

  When it was done, he allowed his head to be turned toward Qhuinn. Even though it was pitch dark, he knew exactly what the face staring into his own looked like—flush on the cheeks, half-mast lids, lips red—

  The kiss that was pressed against his own mouth was reverent, the contact no heavier than the warm, still air in the room. It was the consummate lover’s kiss, the kind of thing he had wanted even more than the hot sex they’d just had—

  Panic struck in the center of his chest and resonated outward through him in the blink of an eye.

  His hands shot out of their own volition, shoving Qhuinn away. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you touch me like that—ever.”

  He sprang up off the bed and landed God only knew where in the room. Fumbling around, he hit various pieces of furniture, but then was able to orientate himself by the thin line of light that shone under the way out.

  Grabbing his robe from the floor, he did not look back as he left.