by James Brock
The Leatherwing Chronicles
Book One
James Brock
For Tuxedo (aka Miss Eve Harrington),
defender of Hill House
The Leatherwing Chronicles
Copyright 2011 James Brock
Cover photo courtesy of Isabell Schatz & iStock photos
Cover by Joleene Naylor
Chapter One
He was a swimmer, long and lean, smooth and sexy. We’d locked eyes across the pool earlier that afternoon, the attraction was immediate and mutual.
Which was helpful since we were soon having sex and attraction is a big ‘ol part of that.
And fuck did he feel good! Not shaved like some of the other swimmers I’d been with, this guy was naturally hairless. Or perhaps like me he had spent enough years in heavy chlorination that hair just gave up trying. Don’t get me wrong, I like hair in a lot of places; pit’s, pubes, legs, arms-well just about anywhere as long as I like the guy. But the guy I was currently wrapped around who was as naked and hair free as me would do just fine for now.
Pulling his mouth from mine he gave me a wicked, crooked grin, sparkling blue eyes twinkling he kissed his way down the length of my torso, me groaning and giggling at each feather soft touch of his lips against my skin. Stopping short of my throbbing cock head he looked back up at me again with an innocent smile before swallowing my throbbing piece to the base.
FUCK!
I slicked my fingers back over the smooth short blond hair, dedicated to his sport he wore a near buzz cut that was sexy as hell on him, and let my fingers ooze out over the back of his head. I was lost in the soft, slick feel of his mouth when I realized I had not checked the time. Rolling my head slightly I saw the red numbers 6:02 glaring at me. I know when someone is being nice enough to lavish attention onto your fully hard cock with their mouth that the last thing you should do is ask them to stop but work is work so with another glance at the clock, the red glowing numbers burning an accusing 6:03 into my eyes, I eased my other hand down to his face and gently backed him up off the length of my dick.
“Let’s take this bad boy home.”
With a confused grin he wiped the edge of his mouth with the back of his hand and plunged back down on me like he was peeling a banana, his own hard cock poking up into the flat sheet of muscles on his stomach. Letting my hips start to thrust upward into his mouth I closed my eyes and relaxed, reaching down to pull his head up over the length of my cock as I erupted, my hot load slashing up over the smooth hard skin of my own flat stomach. While I finished with my orgasm, breathing ragged as if I had been chasing Michael Phelps in a fifty meter race, my partner sat up as well, strong fist pumping furiously up and down over the length of his own cock-his back arching as he came again, his hot load jumping out over mine. I was pretty covered in the mess of our fun goo.
Leaning forward I snagged his chin, pulling the hot blond down toward my face I kissed him then sat right back up.
“Really running late,” I said while pushing up out of the bed and hooking a still damp towel from the floor where it had dropped after our joint shower not more than half an hour earlier. Yeah, the skull was not our first of the afternoon, more like our fourth or fifth or twelfth so while I hated pulling him off me I knew it was the thing to do.
“So if you’re hungry (I was ravenous) and want some food,” I said as I swiped the gunk off my body then snagged the other damp towel that lay on the floor (his) and began to cinch it around my narrow hips while the poor guy just sat there watching me, his cock still hard and barely spent, “go next door to the kitchen and Marta’ll take care of you.” She was used to feeding my strays. I’d catch some hell for it later but didn’t have time to waste.
“I’ll call you!” I yelped as I tightened the towel and skidded out into the hallway, cursing myself for not paying more attention to the time.
Running down the long hallway I slowed as I reached the doorway I was heading for. The small room I entered was silent as I walked slowly toward the casket. The oblong silver capsule looked like something out of a science fiction movie but I knew it was the real deal. I tried to be somber in my approach to the tomb and let me tell you that wasn’t easy considering my cock wasn’t fully deflated yet and I was wearing nothing but a towel.
Reaching out to the coffin I splay a hand across the cool metal. I let my fingers rest there a moment before smoothing a hand on down over the capsule and on down to the support beam below. Finding a small button recessed in the thick wood I depressed the tiny knob and stepped back, watching as the top half of the custom made box rose, a bright white light radiating from inside. As the lid rose it revealed the body.
Ashford Connor appeared to be in his late forties and looked like a movie star of that same era. His lean, athletic torso was clothed in a pair of neatly pressed khaki pants, a light pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt stretched over his muscular chest. His often unruly shock of thick auburn hair had been combed into submission; piercing blue eyes were shielded by a pair of steel rim glasses which. I smiled down at Ash while reaching into the coffin to pluck a pair of ear buds from his head.
“Thank Jupiter for the New York Times,” the handsome man in the casket said with a broad smile.
“Uh huh. I’m sure it wasn’t some trashy novel,” I returned with a trace of sarcasm, which, given that I was late and nearly naked was NOT called for. I went about picking up the electronic reader that had been resting on his chest as if nothing were unusual. Modern life had made some parts of being undead easier. Ash liked to be able to retire a little earlier than sunset some days and use his e reader before he was turned into a statue in his dark, safe place.
Turning the device off I smoothed a hand back under the bier and depressed another button, this one smoothly lowering the side of the coffin, the side panel silently sliding down and slipping under the custom designed tube as Ash swung his legs out and pushed himself up out of the casket. Soon as he was up I tucked the reading device along with the ear buds back into a sleeve on the inside of the lid, plugging it in to charge. Ash was worse than a kid with a comic book when it came to lights out.
The auto open feature of his dead chamber was still on the fritz. Auto close wasn’t working 100% either so I HAD to be there to get him OUT every day until the designer (who also was the mechanic) got the bugs worked out. The chamber had been created to keep people out as well as keeping Ash safe inside. Currently without me there to perform that function Ash would have been locked in and starved.
“The museum event is at eight, video conference with the Greek ambassador at three AM,” I said as I continued re pressing the buttons in reverse order to close the sleep chamber/vault back up. The mechanics locked up, sticking the thing open as if it were a gaping mouth. Giving the side a smack there was a gargle of static followed by the machine catching and going on to close. I was going to make getting the stupid thing fixed my priority.
“Damn! I forgot that was tonight! Do I have to go?” Ash wheedled as he flipped through the stack of mail I left out for him.
“It was on your daily reminder for yesterday,” I replied sternly, “your evening clothes are ready so shut up and dress” I followed Ash through the doorway of the small room which led into his state of the art office. The office in turn connected with a beautiful library housing everything from ancient texts of the library at Alexandria to current works by Stephen King, Christopher Moore and Stephanie Meyer. Ash would be the last to have said that any of that trio had any inside information on the undead but they were pretty darn accurate in some of their descriptions. The library led into the master bedroom and dressing room.
“
Well if I have that Wagner woman as a midnight snack let it be on YOUR conscience.” He was referring to a human female of a certain age who was always pestering Ash for a date. She was a startling bore who never stopped chattering.
“Go ahead, bite away. Then spend a few centuries with her following you around until she figures out how to enslave a bunch of followers.”
“Pretty bigoted of you. I don’t turn everyone I bite,” he trailed off as we moved on into the bedroom, Ash shuddering as he remembered some hangers on from the past. The worst was the Roman woman he turned in eleven or twelve AD who kept cropping up. In addition to her eternal need to feed she had become power hungry. For centuries Ash spent time and energy keeping her in check. Some creatures of the dark wanted only to feed and be alone; some wanted revenge on the life they had lost. This one had a thirst not only for revenge but for power and had worked her way up to the post of Governor from a northern state. A job she quit pre midterm to join a think tank-which most people assumed was just a forum to get her ready for a bid for the presidency. She wore her thick jet black hair pulled up on the back of her head and wore eyeglasses with clear glass lenses to make her look like she knew a verb from a noun. Her studied cheesy accent was so practiced you expected pieces of cheddar to actually fall out of her mouth, you would never know that she had once worn a tattered toga of the empire. Her current chosen name, Sally Davis, was as all American as apple pie as was the image she projected of being a strong single woman on the road to the White House. While Ash still didn’t seem as concerned with her as I thought he should be I was comforted by the fact that he did keep in regular contact with her. She scared me, frankly. When you saw her in her perfectly tailored suits, dark good looks that made her the sex symbol of the conservative party it was easy to see how she had after all these centuries finally found her niche. I thought she fed more on power than blood and that being turned had made her nuts. It seemed she had come to enjoy the fame she had come into as much as blood and power. Ash and I knew her goal was more than the White House of the United States but to go on to rule world, and if left unchecked that just might happen. Our motto for her was an old one: Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. Which meant we spent a lot of face time with Sally and her various assistants.
Stopping in the bedroom Ash changed into the vintage Armani tuxedo I had arranged on the unused bed, leaving the jacket there he fumbled with a pair of beautiful antique cuff links then turned and gave me a helpless look. He could all but leap tall buildings in a single bound, I’d seen him! Smash a concrete wall? There was no one better! Watched him do it with my own two eyes! He was strong, in other words, but could not manage jewelry. He asked who called while I began slipping the links in place.
“Laura Sue,” current favored assistant to Sally, “called three times to confirm we were booked on the seminar cruise.” he just shrugged. While he still had a slim degree of control over the old vampires calling herself Sally Davis he had no way to stop the effervescent young southern woman who was currently her, well, me.
“Ty?” he asked.
Ty.
On a bitterly cold night in the cruel winter of 1658 Ash found the young American boy he freezing in the woods after banishment from his village for sexual misconduct. His partner in the “crime” of passion they were caught in was the son of the village minister who became his own child’s executioner, stoning him to death in the town square when catching the young men in their sexual embrace. Ty managed to break free of their captors, the screams of his beloved echoing behind him as he ran through the dark woods.
Ash himself was still new to the country having emigrated Europe steps ahead of a mob out to torch him when he was caught feeding. Sometimes there is was a kernel of truth in those old myths and legends. Vampires have never been looked on kindly in the old country and he was learning the new country was not offering much of a fresh new start any time soon. Out feeding one night he came across the handsome young man rolled into a ball, nearly frozen in the middle of the dark forest, having run out of the village steps ahead of his judgmental family and friends. Ash was going drain the youth out of mercy but food was so scarce he stopped short each time, using Ty as a feeding device in the modest cabin he had built deep in the frontier regions of the upper Connecticut valley before finally turning him when the weather had changed and feeding material re appeared. Guilt was a powerful master so Ash had taken the young man on as a kind of ward, which worked to both their advantage over the years.
Tyler Winthorp had turned well, becoming an apt pupil. Eternally nineteen he also had a perpetual erection it seemed which led him to trouble time and again. Ash was forever getting him out of jams, which naturally led to resentment. Luckily Ty would never be as powerful or secure as the older vampire, who had been around enough fallen/falling empires to have stashed away untold wealth which he now used for good as much as possible through the Conner Philanthropic Organization.
Ty did a lot of things in my world: annoyed me, anger me, meddled in what he had no business in. He pushed my buttons, creeped me out (I’d seen him feed. Shudder inducing to say the least) he bugged me, tormented me, was thorn in my side and just downright made me mad but he DID NOT scare me. Yeah, I know. Bad things happened to the couple hundred year old kid and yeah, I know, vampire, super powers including the ability to run like lightning, eat bugs and lizards-THOSE little parlor tricks WILL slow down a dinner party let me tell you-crush steel beams and he could probably dance like Derek Houff. I’d never witnessed any of that, though. Ty was all too eager to show me anything he COULD do so I just took to NEVER INQUIRING Oh there were times he would get all snarly and make insinuations about what he could DO to me yet no matter how Nosferatu he went on my ass I just was not afraid of him. He was too freaking cute to be afraid of for one thing. And besides, if he ever did try any funny business with me he would be on the receiving end of Ash’s wrath and the God’s of old help him then!
I am sorry to say that he also got me hot, as much as I disliked his SO MANY bad qualities he was one sexy vampire. While I had as many boyfriends as I could ever want, which meant a fun and varied sex life (note, if you are ever offered the chance to be tied up and covered in chocolate and honey consider it!) so yeah, despite some anger management issues I often had carnal thoughts of Ty at the back of my mind.
I understood Ash was his creator of sorts, mentor and had long ago learned to hold my council when it came to the rock star handsome kid. Ok and, I saw why it was so hard for Ash to have chosen to turn the him rather than just use him for fuel. If you mixed a tall Jonas brother with Chase Crawford and Cam Gigandet then topped the creature with thick, shiny black hair, lashes about a foot long and added huge eyes the color of coal…well you still wouldn’t have captured his sculpted features but you get the idea. He was still smokin’ hot for a kinda dead guy and had NO trouble picking guys up. Which is part of the reason at least he hated me. He’d started hitting on me in the first ten minutes I’d known him and I’d turned him down even though he turned me on. It was Ash I’d first been after sexually.
So I guess I better back up to that for a minute here and explain some who what when where why.
Get me going all Jimmy Olson Ace cub reporter!
Once upon a time I was born and immediately given away. It happens. I don’t think it involved being left in a basket on the doorstep of a convent or anything that dramatic and I DO appreciate that whoever let me gestate was thoughtful enough NOT to keep me if she could not care for me.
So I was adopted. Puppies, kittens and most babies-yay me!-tend to get picked first in the adoption line up. Well, perhaps not baby tarantulas or scorpions.
But I was pink and squeally (I can only assume) and had no noticeable extra appendages or stinger devices so was snapped up like I was on sale by an all American family of three: Dad, Mom, Big sis and probably a Boston Terrier. They took me home and babied me up and man, I was living.
Until the horrible accident (car) that left
me strapped in and bouncing all over the pavement in my government approved! seat, the only one unhurt-and to come out alive.
I had been signed, sealed and delivered so there was just no shipping me back to the agency for a do over. After some digging back into my records an uncle from some dubious side of some family came forward once the settlement with the car company, bad brakes or something, had been doled out and took me home with him. Where I lived happily ever after in a series of boarding schools (when he remembered to enroll me, which meant I spent a good deal of grades 0-7 with staff who luckily met my nearly every whim) while Uncle quit his job as a milkman or parole officer or Lady in Waiting and took on, in a quite serious way, the task of investing and doubling, tripling quadrupling and basically turning the already huge settlement into an even bigger nest egg/trust fund. He also on occasion devoted himself to a series of drunken/drug addled pretty boy friend’s but he was sweet and loving and fun and didn’t rip me off so I got an education on how to LIVE like Auntie Mame said and I still got a sporadic academic education as well. I really did not miss the family I had never known. Uncle preferred people think we were just buddies hanging out, which must have caused some concern and confusion to people at the beach resorts he took me to on school breaks during my 7-15th birthdays. They were gay (not as in fun and sparkly but as in hardcore White Party GAY) times and EVERYONE was my uncle or big brother. I’ve been drinking virgin Mimosa and Bloody Mary’s at brunch longer than any other out gay man on the planet.
By the time I was in middle school, a toney boarding school in Rhode Island, Uncle had purchased Lavender Hill, an estate with a pool and pool house and guest house and a stable with horses and a tennis court and a tennis instructor who got fired because he couldn’t keep his hands off me. An estate, in other words. A BIG comfy fireplace and antique filled house that became home along with the three bedroom apartment in Manhattan and the beach condo in Miami and the rentals Uncle took each year in P-Town, Fire Island and Ibiza.
