“Baby, what’s wrong?” Quin’s thumbs cleared the tears off Kit’s face the second they fell.
“You’re going todie.”
“Not anytime soon!”
“You already appear so much older than me.”
“Hey!”
Kit pulled at another grey hair. “Grey!”
“I’m in my thirties—it happens!” Quin batted at Kit’s hand. “Don’t pull it out, for fuck’s sake. Two more will grow back in its place.”
“But you’re going grey and you’re going to die and I love you and I can’t recreate you as a vampire and it’s not fair.” The words spilled out of Kit before he had the wherewithal to contain them.
“I—oh,” Quin said, blinking.
“What?” Kit asked, feeling flustered.
“You love me.”
“Yes, obviously.”
“You realise you just said that? That you love me?”
Kit hadn’t. Not at all. “Yes?”
“I love you too.”
“You’ve said.”
“Kit.”
Now that the words were out there, saying it again was easy. “I love you. Now please, can we stop talking about emotional shit and lie in silence?”
“Of course, my cute-little-vampire-boyfriend-who-loves-me.”
“Stop it.”
“Never.”
Kit rubbed at his face, his hand coming away smeared with blood. “Fuck.”
Quin’s arms banded around him. “Don’t worry about the mess. I want to hold you right now.”
Kit sniffled. He also might have surreptitiously rubbed his face—blood and all—over Quin’s cheek, marking him up. If Quin noticed, which he most likely did, he didn’t voice a complaint.
Eventually, Quin slid out from under him. “Stay there. I’ll get a cloth for your face.”
“I’m going to end up ruining every set of sheets you own,” Kit said with a snort.
Quin grinned down at him before turning and heading to the bathroom. “Good thing you’re mega-rich and can buy me more. Look at us, subverting the Daddy/boy expectations. We’re trailblazers.”
“Sure, you tell yourself that,” Kit muttered.
“And you’re the older one,” Quin called through from the en-suite.
“I look two decades younger than you.”
