by Jaye McKenna
“I’ve never… I don’t…” He trailed off, unable to put his confusion into words.
Those brown eyes that could look so hard and so mean softened even more. Cameron kissed him again and Draven felt the slightest brush of tongue against his bottom lip before Cameron drew back. “Then we’ll take it slow.”
Heat rippled through him as Cameron took his hand and laced their fingers together, then drew him slowly toward the stairs.
Draven hesitated, still struggling with the idea of choice.
It’s okay to say no.
He had a choice.
And whatever happened in that bedroom at the top of the stairs would happen because Draven had chosen it.
Swallowing hard, he let Cameron lead him up the stairs.
* * *
In the bedroom, Cameron didn’t start tearing at his clothes or order him to strip, didn’t shove him down on the bed. Instead, he put his arms around Draven and pulled him close. It felt awkward and stiff until Draven flashed on that day at the lodge, when he’d broken down and Cameron had held him. The tension eased a little, and he rested his head against Cameron’s shoulder. When Cameron’s arms tightened around him, he relaxed a little more, and slowly, slowly, his arms crept around Cameron’s waist, and he held on.
He couldn’t have said how long they stood there, fully clothed, simply holding one another. No one had ever touched him like this before. Not taking, not demanding, just holding.
“I’m sorry,” Cameron whispered. “About last night.”
“I don’t… why are you apologizing?”
“I treated you like… like DeMira did. I thought that was what you wanted but… I think now, it was more what you expected. And maybe all that you knew how to ask for. I thought… I thought that was what I wanted, too, but… I realized afterward that it wasn’t. I don’t want you like that. When you don’t have a choice.”
“Having no choice is easier,” Draven whispered. When he had no choice, he knew exactly where he stood, what was expected. This… this was like standing at the edge of a cliff, trying to decide whether to jump without knowing how far he would fall or what was at the bottom.
“Maybe. But I want you to have a choice. I’m not DeMira, and I’m not Romani. I don’t own you, Draven. I don’t want to own you.”
Draven didn’t know how to respond to that. What was he supposed to say?
“Relax,” Cameron’s voice was a whisper of velvet. He brushed a feather-light kiss against Draven’s neck. “If you don’t want this, all you have to do is say so. I’ll go sleep in my room.”
Draven tilted his head back, shivering at the drag of stubble against his skin. “I don’t… I don’t know what you want from me.” He hadn’t meant it to come out sounding like a plea, but it did.
“Forget about what I want. What do you want?” As if his arms weren’t enough to hold him, Cameron drew back a little, capturing Draven’s eyes with his intense, dark gaze.
The scrutiny made him twitchy, and Draven closed his eyes. It was the only way to escape those eyes that knew him right down to the core. Eyes that had seen him naked in ways that had nothing to do with clothing.
There was no going back; he could only muddle his way forward, so he tried to puzzle out an answer to Cameron’s question.
What was he supposed to want?
He didn’t know.
“It’s okay,” Cameron whispered.
“I want…” He was trembling, and he was certain Cameron felt it. He wanted to pull away, to hide. A lifetime of denying his own needs made him shy away from this kind of closeness.
It would be so much easier if this could just be about sex. Draven knew exactly how to bring a man off; there was nothing mysterious or frightening about that. But he didn’t know the first thing about intimacy. Didn’t know how to communicate anything other than intimidation or submission through the language of touch.
Those weren’t the things he wanted to communicate to Cameron now.
His hand was shaking as he lifted it to cup Cameron’s cheek. Cameron leaned into the touch, closing his eyes and rubbing his face against Draven’s palm.
Trusting him.
There was power in that.
Power.
Shifting.
To Draven, for once.
This was more than heat. This was…
Incendiary.
With growing confidence, Draven began to unbutton Cameron’s shirt. Cameron watched him, catching his lower lip between his teeth as Draven pushed the shirt back over his shoulders. He made no move to stop it from sliding to the floor.
“Show me how to touch you,” Draven whispered.
“You already know how to touch me,” Cameron murmured, eyes locking onto Draven’s. “Do it.” Cameron’s hand went around his wrist, and placed Draven’s hand between his legs, rubbing it against his erection.
Part of him wanted to shove Cameron to the floor and fuck him raw, to be the one in control for once.
To give pain instead of receiving it.
But one look at those eyes staring back at him — trusting him — melted something inside him. Cameron could have hurt him badly this morning.
He hadn’t.
Hadn’t pushed. Hadn’t forced. Hadn’t taken. Instead, he’d given Draven a gift. He’d shown him in a way he could never deny, that sex didn’t have to be an act of power and control. Shown him that it didn’t have to hurt.
Was that what he’d meant by making love?
Draven moved his hands to undo Cameron’s pants, and as he shoved them down over his hips, he had to fight the urge to drop to his knees. That was his place: on the floor. On his knees. Mouth full of cock…
Only…
That wasn’t where Cameron wanted him.
He’d made that clear downstairs.
Cameron stepped out of his pants and stood before him, naked, aroused, dark eyes burning into his. Draven reached out to touch his hair, rich, dark auburn, with only a hint of silver glinting in the lamplight. Cameron might be in his mid-forties, but he looked damn good.
“You should grow this,” Draven murmured, running his fingers through it, massaging Cameron’s scalp as he remembered Cameron doing for him back at the lodge.
Cameron’s eyes drifted shut.
Vulnerable.
Draven could take him so easily now. Hurt him.
What do you want?
Not that.
Not to give pain.
What he really wanted was to watch Cameron lose it.
Countless times, he’d used the skills he’d learned to bring men to their knees. But he’d never really been present or engaged when it happened. He’d never cared about the outcome, except in the sense that if he performed well enough, maybe there would be less pain at the end of it.
This… this was different.
Without the specter of punishment looming over him, he found himself wanting to watch Cameron’s control dissolve at his touch. Wanting to make Cameron feel the things Cameron had made him feel this morning.
Draven put his hands on Cameron’s shoulders and guided him toward the bed. “Lie down. I want…”
He didn’t have the words.
Then again, maybe he didn’t need them; Cameron seemed to understand. He lay down and watched as Draven stripped and climbed onto the bed. Then Cameron pulled him down on top of him and Draven was lost in sensation.
This was nothing like sex with DeMira had been. Every touch, every stroke, elicited a response, an answering touch. It was like a dance. Instead of things being done to him, or him being ordered to do things to someone else, it was an exchange.
The world tilted, and something clicked into place as it occurred to Draven that this was just another kind of communication. A conversation that needed no words.
Soft sighs and moans of pleasure filled the few spaces between them where their bodies weren’t pressed close. When Cameron said please, Draven didn’t even think about asking permission. He rolled Cameron onto his back
and knelt between his legs. Face to face, continuing the conversation.
Trembling, he slicked himself up and pushed himself into Cameron’s body. Cameron’s eyes locked onto his, dark with desire. Draven held his gaze, flexing his hips slowly, using his body to tell Cameron all the things he couldn’t find the words for.
* * *
Draven stared into the fire. Outside, the night was a howling fury of wind and snow, but inside the cabin, it was warm, calm, and loose. It had been that kind of day. Lazy, with nothing to do, nothing to distract him. He wasn’t used to such luxury.
He’d slept late and woken with Cameron in his arms. He’d thought about sneaking out of bed before Cameron woke, but when he’d tried to disentangle himself, those dark eyes had slitted open, and Cameron had let out a contented sigh and wriggled even closer. Draven had ended up drifting back to sleep with Cameron’s warm weight pressed against him.
They hadn’t talked about last night.
Hadn’t talked about this morning, either, but when Draven had gotten up to shower, Cameron had followed him, and they’d brought each other off under the pounding hot water.
Now, with his belly full of the homemade pasta he’d watched Cameron prepare, he felt drowsy and content. Safe in a way he’d never felt safe before.
“That’s a good look on you.” Cameron dropped down on the couch next to him and handed him a cold bottle of beer.
Draven examined the label. It was a local brew called Corrigan’s Gold. “What’s a good look?”
“Relaxed and sleepy. No masks. Kind of soft… like the night I found you in that downside dump.”
“Soft?” Draven scowled as he twisted the cap off the bottle.
“Yeah. You were all loopy from shock and high on riptide. If I hadn’t been so scared, it might have been kind of cute.”
“I was Nikolai DeMira’s executioner. I’m hardly cute.” He took a drink to cover his confusion. He didn’t normally touch alcohol; it robbed him of his edge, made him vulnerable. Not an issue here and now, although that could change in a hot second, if Cameron decided they needed to talk. He’d have to be careful. Drink slowly, make the bottle last all night.
“Cute is pretty subjective, actually,” Cameron said, and Draven heard the smile in his voice. “Can I ask you some questions?”
Draven gave him a sideways look. “Why?”
“Maybe because I’d like to know more about the man I’m sleeping with.”
“You don’t want to know,” Draven said flatly. “Trust me. My story isn’t any prettier than yours.”
“You’ve been inside my head. You know all about me. Things I buried so deep, I didn’t think anyone could ever drag them into the light.” Cameron fiddled with his own bottle. “But I know nothing about you. Except that Miko adores you, and… I’m kind of starting to see why.”
“You could have had it all the other night.” Draven slid a fingernail across the cool, slick surface of the bottle and up under the label, separating it cleanly from the glass. Cameron’s scrutiny was making him uncomfortable as hell. Those dark eyes made him want to give up all the secrets he’d held so close to his chest for all these years. Dangerous eyes, definitely, but once he looked up, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from them.
“No,” Cameron said softly. “I couldn’t. I shouldn’t have even taken as much as I did. I’m sorry for that.”
Draven looked away. That kind of admission deserved something, he guessed. And at least this way, he got to tell it, instead of having it ripped out of his head. “Grew up in downside Paris, on Alpha, same as you. No need to tell you what it was like.”
Surprise flickered through Cameron. “I’d never have guessed. You talk like you come from old money. Earth’s New England Metroplex, maybe.”
Draven managed not to wince, but it was a near thing. Cameron’s words brought long-buried memories bubbling up to the surface. Teach the filthy little savage how to speak properly, Trinian, or I’ll cut his tongue out.
DeMira had hated his downside Paris accent and his rough, dirty, gutter-talk. His stomach turned as he glanced at Cameron, who was waiting in patient silence for an answer. “It’s amazing how fast one can learn when one has the proper motivation. Trinian taught me to talk pretty for DeMira.”
“The healer.”
“Yes. She was a high-class Companion before she worked for DeMira. I don’t know where she came from. Maybe Earth, maybe not. She never talked about her past, but she was smart, knew how to walk the walk, talk the talk.”
“What about family?” Cameron asked.
“My mother. She was a riptide addict, so she must have been a psion. She spent every credit she brought in on riptide. I was the one who kept us fed. Learned to steal early on. And how to hide the money from her. By the time I was thirteen or fourteen, her dealer, Roark, offered to take me in exchange for a constant supply of riptide. To her credit, she never did take him up on it. But a year or so later, when she died of an overdose, she owed him money. He decided it was up to me to settle her debt. He owned a sex pit, the Meat Market. I spent a year in that place, paying off her debt with my body.
“Then my psi awakened and the world broke open, all the colors of the mythe pouring into my head. Roark must have figured he’d had about all he was going to get out of me. He dumped me on the doorstep of a psych hospital. I hardly remember it. No idea how long I was there. Trinian found me. Said she could feel my screams all the way across the city. She talked DeMira into letting her track me down, and lucky me, I was pretty enough that he wanted me for his bed. Anything else you’d like to know?”
Cameron hesitated for a moment, then reached across the space between them and laid his hand over Draven’s. “I’m not asking because I want to hurt you,” he said softly. “I’m asking because I want to know you.”
“The way I know you? No, you don’t, Asada.” He drew his hand away and turned his attention back to scraping the label off the bottle.
A moment later, Cameron plucked the bottle from his hands and straddled his hips. “Yes. I do.”
Draven sank back into the couch cushions and stared up at him, at a loss. “There’s no mystery about me. I did what I had to. Survived, same as you did. Fought to make a place for myself the only way I knew how. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
“Tell me about the man behind those eyes. Not the shooter. Not the psionic interrogator. The one Miko calls Diri.”
He rolled his eyes. Was this what normal people did for fun? His head fell back against the couch, and he stared up at the ceiling. He supposed he owed Cameron something more than he’d just given him, and if this was the kind of game that amused him… “What do you want to know?”
“What’s your favorite color?”
Draven closed his eyes and said the first thing that came to mind: “The soft ones. The ones that don’t hurt.” Then he smiled, remembering. “Purple. Miko said purple is for happy. There’s never been enough purple.”
There was a long pause before Cameron said, “Favorite food?”
“Anything that can’t be stuffed into a meal-pak. I had enough Pond Scum Fiesta to last me a lifetime at that charming lodge of yours.”
Cameron let out a bark of laughter, and Draven opened his eyes and froze at the sight. Dark brown eyes sparkled in the firelight, and Cameron looked more relaxed than Draven had ever seen him. The solid weight across his thighs, the heat of Cameron’s body, the clean, musky scent of him… it was starting to make Draven’s head spin and his cock fill. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad game, after all.
“That pasta you made for dinner,” he conceded. “That was damn good.”
“Thanks.” Cameron’s smile turned decidedly wicked. He reached behind Draven’s head, pulled loose the band that kept his hair out of his face, and leaned forward to whisper in his ear, “Best sex you’ve ever had?”
Visions of Cameron spread out on the bed before him slammed into his mind. His hands moved to Cameron’s hips, slid around to cup his
buttocks through the soft, faded jeans. “Last night,” he whispered. “With you.”
“Mmm… right answer…” Cameron’s lips feathered across his neck followed by the rough drag of stubble.
Draven pulled Cameron down on top of him and wrapped his arms around him. “I want that again.”
“Greedy,” Cameron whispered.
“Hungry.” Draven captured his mouth in a deep, possessive kiss.
“Not half as hungry as I am,” Cameron said as he came up for air.
Draven gripped him by the hair and dragged him down into another heated kiss.
* * *
Miko sat in the infirmary’s lobby next to Luka and tried not to fidget. His last meeting with Rafe was never far from his thoughts. The raw pain in Rafe’s mythe-shadow was burned into his memory, along with the knowledge that finding Miko hadn’t fixed anything for Rafe. It was bad enough to want something and know it was gone forever. Worse to have it just within reach and never be able to touch it.
“Hey. It’ll be okay, Miko,” Luka said in a low voice. “I’m sure Damon will help.” He looked like he might have said more, but at that moment, Luka’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket to check it. “He’s ready for us. C’mon, let’s go before you chicken out.”
Miko followed Luka down the hall to Damon’s office.
The moment they walked in, Damon’s grey eyes darted from Luka to Miko, and settled there, searching Miko’s face. “This looks serious,” he said soberly. “What can I do for you?”
Miko lifted his hands and signed, I need a shot of Anarin. I’m done with work for today, and I want to go and see Rafe. Only I can’t be near him without hurting.
Luka stood next to Damon, translating Miko’s signs. Damon was learning, but he didn’t know enough yet to carry on anything but the simplest conversation.
