Took wanted to touch him, but Madoc just smirked and tightened his grip when he tried to pull away.
“Wait,” he said as he thrust down.
“I don’t want….” Took pressed his head back into the mattress and clenched his hands into fists, his nails digging down into his palm. “I can’t….”
Madoc pulled him up by the arms and pressed a hard kiss against his still-bloody neck. “Then don’t,” he said, as he rasped his tongue over the bloody wound. “I want to see what I did for you.”
It was enough. The hot flash of pain from his worried neck was pleasure by the time it hit his spine and spilled out. He groaned as he thrust up off the bed, his cock settled a little deeper inside Madoc, and his balls untwisted with a wet spill of come. He leaned against Madoc’s shoulder, a soft, openmouthed kiss pressed to the crease where shoulder met neck.
For a second, he was tempted to bite down, but he lost his nerve at the last second.
Madoc pulled them both down onto the bed, legs tangled together and stickiness smeared over their thighs. His cock was still rigid, and he guided Took’s hand over to it. Took easily cuffed the shaft and idly rubbed his thumb along the thick vein on the base of it. It made Madoc clench his jaw and move his thighs apart. He reached over and tucked a finger under Took’s chin as Madoc turned his head toward him.
“I want to see your face when I come for you,” he said. The corner of his mouth tilted with amusement. “I like your face.”
Took stroked his hand, fingers tight as the skin creased around it, from base to tip. It was slick with precome and blood, fine skin pulled tight over the thick shaft. Madoc hissed softly between his teeth and arched up into Took’s fist. He pumped again and twisted his fist around Madoc’s shaft on the way down. Took could feel the wire-taut tension under Madoc’s skin, and Madoc’s balls were clenched up tight between his legs. Madoc came after a few more strokes, with a rough sound in his throat and a spurt of pale liquid that dripped between Took’s fingers and over his knuckles.
They both sprawled out against the sheets. After a second, Took made a halfhearted attempt to roll away but was pulled back. He let himself settle against Madoc’s side, one arm slung over lean hips and his chin propped on one broad shoulder.
“Should I be self-conscious my fangs are smaller than yours?” he asked.
“Yes,” Madoc said without missing a beat. He waited through Took’s chuckle and then brushed his finger over Took’s lower lip. “I have missed you.”
“Me too,” Took admitted. The truth slipped out before he could catch it back. He let it be for a second and then made himself ask, or try too. “That night. Do you remember—”
Madoc stiffened under the sprawl of Took’s body and scowled. “Not today,” he said as he stroked a finger down Took’s back. “I don’t want to think of that here. Tonight.”
Neither did Took, but it was hard not to when he was curled around the man who probably did it. Or it should have been hard. Instead he let it slip and relaxed into Madoc’s body.
When he woke up that evening, Madoc was gone.
Chapter Ten
LAWRENCE STOODwith her hands braced on the wrought iron railing of the balcony and stared out through the glassy, gothic skyscrapers, toward the skyline. Her jaw was set, and she didn’t look around at Madoc once as he outlined what was going to happen next for her.
“I doubt we’ll get any of the children back alive,” he admitted as he leaned back against the wall. The moon hung fat and yellow overhead. Drakul keeping an eye on them went the old superstition. Madoc had met the man—or whatever you would call what Tepes had made of the raw material of his birth—once, but he had no idea if the great old vampire really could see through celestial bodies. He wouldn’t put it past him. “But when we find their remains, or find nothing at all, that will be laid at our door too.”
Lawrence sighed and leaned forward, her weight braced on her arms. Her gaze finally dropped from the skyline to the street below. Madoc didn’t move from his sprawl, but he was ready to grab her if she suddenly pitched forward. She was a good agent, and he would call her a friend if someone asked, but he’d never had to see her take bad news before—not this bad, at least.
“When you say ‘our door,’ what you mean is at my feet,” Lawrence said acerbically. “I’m not a child, and I don’t need the facts of life spoon-fed to me. Took caught something I didn’t, and now I have to take the consequences. That’s fair enough.”
Madoc relaxed slightly. He’d had men about to kill themselves vent their spleen on him before, but not with a declaration of responsibility.
“Everyone missed this,” he said.
“Took didn’t.”
Divided loyalties stung when they caught you unexpectedly. Madoc hesitated on the edge between support for his agent and loyalty to his… whatever that worked out as.Ifit worked out. That pessimism should have made it an easy choice, but it didn’t.
“He’s the best. After the incident, the Academy in California invited him back as an instructor,” Madoc said. “And evenheonly saw this because he was bored and followed a shadow on the file further than anyone would think made sense. If you’d come to me with the same lead, Lawrence, I’d have told you that it was a waste of your time.”
She leaned back against the rail and crossed her arms. The smile on her pale mouth was wry. “But what would you have told him?”
It was a good point, and they both knew it. Madoc acknowledged that with a lack of acknowledgment as he changed the subject back to the present rather than answer her about the past.
“It’s not a sanction, Lawrence. It’s a heads-up,” he told her. “When the boyars get this new information, they’ll reopen the case, and that won’t be easy for any of us. We’ll get questioned about our protocols, they’ll probably want to do audit on this case, and the press will rip us to shreds.”
Lawrence’s shoulders slumped under the weight of his words. She licked her lips.
