Roger was tonguing his hole. Zack shivered and moaned and sucked Takashi. Working his way down, he took more and more of Takashi’s length in his mouth. But as much as he pushed backward toward him, Roger’s tongue just couldn’t reach deep enough to satisfy. With a frustrated groan, he pulled off Takashi with a wet pop and glanced over his shoulder.
“Fuck me,” he pleaded.
By the time Zack had returned his lips to Takashi’s dick, Roger had shifted position and nudged his tip against Zack’s hole. A moan shuddered out of Zack, and he rocked between them, taking in more of Roger or Takashi in turn. His own heavy cock swayed with the movement.
Deeper and deeper they reached, and Zack lost himself to the fill and absence they brought. He was never totally empty; he was never actually full, caught between moaning, yearning, and panting.
And somewhere in the rocking, their positions started to shift. The rhythm hurried on, and Zack moaned as Roger was fully seated, but the sound was muffled around Takashi’s cock. Takashi cupped the back of his head and brought him farther down. Zack took him far in, his throat catching and closing around him.
Roger wrapped his hand around Zack’s dripping cock first, but Takashi joined him, and both of them were stroking him. A whine in Zack erupted into a moan and then a muffled, long shout. Ecstasy started in the base of his spine and spilled upward and through him. The darkness behind his eyelids became an electric white burst that faded to an oblivion too sweet to perceive.
When he finally drifted back into his body, he was cuddled between them. Roger at his back, Takashi at his front. There was some kind of conversation going on, but Zack needed a moment to understand what words were.
“You can’t get him a book for Christmas,” Takashi said quietly. “You just got him one for his birthday.”
“It’s hard to think of anything. He’s not interested in material things,” Roger murmured.
“Surely you can think ofsomething.”
“Everything else feels too cheap.”
Takashi stroked Zack’s hair, a sort of gentle petting that made Zack wonder if he realized that he was awake. “Come on, Roger. Appeal to his heart. You ought to know it.”
“I do.” Roger kissed Zack’s shoulder. “Maybe a cozy sweatshirt and tickets to an event of his choice. Something daytime he can take Blake and Kit to.”
Zack squeezed Takashi’s hand. With a light chuckle, Takashi said, “I think that’s a good idea.”
Something buzzed, and Roger moved. The bed dipped and settled as he went to the edge of it.
“What is it?” Takashi asked.
The alertness in his tone woke Zack the rest of the way. He rolled onto his back to regard Roger, but he could only see Roger’s back. His head was dipped, his face out of view.
Then Roger sighed and lifted his head up enough that his hair fell past his shoulders. He ran his hand through it. “Playtime is over. Seamus has summoned us to Devil’s Cove. Tonight.”
CHAPTER 27
Roger buttoned his suit jacket and smoothed his hands down the length of it. He’d chosen a midnight black with a deep blue base and a royal purple dress shirt. The top three buttons were undone, and he had a gold chain on and diamond cufflinks. He was in style without being too flashy. He was back; this washim.
But Seamus hadn’t asked to see him since the Halloween party, and Roger had hardly spotted him during the ensuing weeks. Getting summoned churned in Roger’s gut. Matters weren’t helped by the fact that he’d attempted to reach out to Dmitri and hadn’t heard back from him. His strange behavior the other night and Seamus’s sudden demand to see him were spinning Roger’s mind to frantic corners. Zack and Takashi hadn’t shared any hypothesis of what Seamus could want, and Roger had been too afraid to ask them. If what they could guess was worse than what he imagined, he didn’t want to know.
As far as Seamus knew, Roger was the same as he’d always been.Time to carry on.
Inside the three steps across the pavement, Roger locked his fears into a chest and tossed them to the bottom of his mental sea. He pulled on his old, reliable persona. By the time he knocked on the door to Devil’s Cove, he had his sly, charmingsmile fixed in place. Takashi, Zack, Kit, and Carver fell in behind him.
A small hatch opened, and a moment later, the door opened. Roger’s group was admitted into the short hall that led into the club proper. Zack, Kit, and Carver checked their coats, and then the five of them moved into the main club.
The entire atmosphere had changed from the party energy to the slink and shadow Roger was accustomed to. The lighting was dim, soft yellow glows. Each fixture seemed incapable of reaching its light to the pool of the next. Rather than teeming with the undead and choked with crowds of mortals, there was ample seating and free space at the bars. The vampires were still displaying their full plumage with fine clothing and half-naked collared pets. Instrumental music played over the speakers and had a menacing flair, which Roger would’ve enjoyed if he wasn’t scanning the area for possible attacks.
No one seemed to particularly mind that he and his had come into the club. Roger drifted forward, ignoring the scent of old fear and fresh death. Mortals, naked except for the gray bands on their arms, ferried drinks and empty glasses between the patrons and the bar. Two larger, muscular men dressed in the simple blacks of the bouncers dragged a sobbing, beautiful young man between them. His words were lost to a gag, and he struggled in vain against the men carting him over to a booth.
A vampire with dark, curly hair and an olive complexion ran his thumb across his lip as the bouncers drew close. Roger recognized the vampire: Xenofon, a vampire sired by one of Seamus’s now-dead fledglings during their crossing to the new world in 1800. With a hungry grin, Xenofon welcomed the captive mortal into his arms. “You look delicious.”
Roger continued moving forward. He didn’t need to look to understand the sounds. In a matter of seconds, the mortal’s cries turned to whimpers. No doubt he’d be dead close to dawn,assuming Xenofon still preferred to play with his food rather than outright kill.
Nearby conversations didn’t even shift their pitch. A few passing glances went toward the booth where Xenofon and his friends were, but not a glimmer of concern showed on a vampire’s face. Few mortals showed anything other than a primal fear that might happen to them.
Because this was the sort of place Seamus had sculpted over the centuries. Before spending time in Taliville, Roger had grown numb to the ongoings. This was nothing new. Roger himself had had food brought to him on numerous occasions. Because he was expected to feed like that. Because he couldn’t show that he was any different from the rest of them.Don’t fool yourself. You’ve enjoyed it, too.
