There were the big things, too. Zack did want him, not in the surface way Takashi had feared but all the way through. He trusted him. Wanted to protect him. To be the king that he and Takashi both needed in their lives. Though he longed to have Roger back, this moment wasn’t about him. It was about them. Takashi was what mattered.
He was growing hard. They both were. Zack had always mingled blood drinking and sex when he was a mortal. The only times Takashi had drunk from him before had been in the middle of the act. No surprise, then, that this would make him horny.
Feeling what he’d felt, walls in Takashi’s heart were crumbling. Hesitation, restraint, all of it was bullshit keeping him from truly enjoying what he and Zack were building despite their terrible situation.
When his bite healed, Takashi groaned with need. But blood wasn’t what he wanted. He pressed a kiss to Zack’s lips, then another and another until they were tangling lips and tongues, and oh, he nicked himself on Zack’s fang, and his blood spilled into Zack’s mouth. Zack’s blood and his mingled into their kiss, and fuck, he was so fucking hard now.
“I need more,” Takashi moaned against Zack.
“I could spare a little more,” Zack whispered.
“Not that.” Takashi rocked his hips down, grinding against Zack’s erection.
“Oh, that. Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.”
Takashi laughed softly into their next kiss. How was it that Zack always brought a smile to him? This had to be love, and he dared to let it fill his heart. Perhaps, for once, it wouldn’t drop him.
CHAPTER 31
Takashi’s kisses were the wildest, most feverish they’d ever been. Somewhere in the midst of the feed, Takashi had lowered his defenses entirely. Reading emotions or minds or souls or whatever Zack currently had access to of Takashi’s wasn’t easy. He wasn’t sensing the journal page or the mental screen with pop-ups. Takashi was like another presence inside his body, sort of like Seamus’s voice but entirely different. He knew Takashi was horny for him. That was the easiest to figure out, as his own libido was skyrocketing.
But there was something else. Something deep and beyond definition, and yet it longed to have a label.
Love? Is that what he’s feeling for me?
For a brief flicker of a moment, Zack had worried he’d misjudged Takashi. Roger had been too scared to engage in the horrific ways vampires manipulated each other, while Takashi seemed to have thrown himself into what roles he could gain power with inside the mansion. Zack had thought that maybe Takashi was too cold and jaded. Then he’d spotted that crack in his armor, the same one he’d seen on his birthday.
The aloofness and stoic persona made a kind of sense. Takashi reminded Zack of a character from his favorite bookseries. He hadn’t seen it in real life. Hadn’t known what it might actually look like until he realized that Takashi was terrified of being truly alone.
And as soon as he’d pointed that out—well, here they were, making out in the hottest way Zack had ever been a part of. They kept nicking each other’s tongues on fangs, bringing bits of blood into the action and making every kiss more intense than the last. There had been times in his life he’d come earlier than he wanted and was embarrassed, but he’d never been this close to coming in his pants before.
“Wait,” he said, having to dart his lips out of the way of Takashi’s next eager kiss. He cupped Takashi’s cheeks and held him close but also kept him from kissing him. “You are …wow. This … I …holy shit.”
“Yet you stopped,” Takashi whispered. Moonlight on a clear night had a quarter the magnificence of his smile. He writhed against Zack. “Why?”
“Because I want to be in you before either of us comes,” Zack replied.
Takashi reached for the buttons on his shirt. “Yes.”
Stripping was a delicate twist of limbs and cloth that took far too long. They were shredding their clothes. Buttons flew—mostly Takashi’s as Zack took hold of his shirt and tugged. He’d meant for the gesture to be light, but his new strength had won. The ruined garment was worth the moan Takashi let out when Zack stroked his chest, thumb brushing over his nipple.
They rolled onto the bed together. One of them reached for the lube. Zack lost track of who exactly. He had been going for it but had gotten distracted running his hand along Takashi’s arm and tracing out places that made him shiver. Little touches led to flares of want that continued to fuel the desire pouring from him.
More kissing. Caresses that traced firm lines into tender places. Zack nipped Takashi’s shoulder and drew a few drops of blood that danced on his tongue. The blood lust didn’t dry his throat. His hunger was still sated, but he was with Takashi. He neededmore.
The kissing and nipping and touching became a roll and slide of movement until Zack was on his back, and Takashi put a hand on his chest to keep him there. Takashi sat up, straddling Zack’s lap once more.
Zack reached for him and intended to bring him down for another kiss but was struck with the sudden clarity of just how handsome Takashi was. His short black hair was mussed, completely broken free from style for a change. Tiny drops of blood dotted his fawny skin here and there from where Zack had nipped him and somehow missed a drop. Some were gaining the momentum to move and slid down his lean muscles. His wicked grin and the sparkle in his red eyes were all for him.
Zack rested his hands on Takashi’s hips. Fuck, he seemed made of solid muscle.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever felt anyone want me this badly,” Takashi murmured. His voice was a velvet purr that brought a moan to Zack’s lips. He stroked down Zack’s chest in slow, gentle spirals.
Takashi’s words couldn’t be true, but Zack didn’t detect a lie from him. And he knew, in his soul or gut or whatever, Takashi meant what he was saying. An instinct deeper than observation kicked in.He wasn’t blocking himself off from me when I took sips from him. I know him like no one else does.
“I know we’re immortal,” Zack said, a grin shaping his lips and feeling wondrous and strange all at once, “but my dick really wants attentionnow.”
With a soft laugh, Takashi wrapped his hand around Zack’s cock. “What happened to taking it slower?”
