“If he wants to be,” Takashi said.
“Me on the throne with the two of you at my side?”
Takashi nodded once.
Slowly, Zack inched his fingers in farther. “That is one hell of an idea.”
Takashi was glad he didn’t need to breathe. He wasn’t sure he could have held his breath during the long moment Zack was taking to say more. The rejection hadn’t come, but he couldn’t relax just yet. With Sergei … he’d trusted Sergei, and that had ruined him.A hundred and twenty-six years hasn’t been enough to heal that? I’m hopeless.
“Wait,” Zack said, and the rumbly, growly deepness was back in his voice, “were you getting hard because you like the idea of me being a badass vampire?”
“Yes.” Takashi arched when Zack touched just right inside him, but the movement was too quick and too shallow to bring satisfaction.
“But ambition isn’t making your cock leak, is it?” Zack asked.
A tiny, icy fear—the twin of Takashi’s—was crawling through those words. So Takashi laid his mind open, praying Zack wouldn’t delve through him and tear him apart. He embraced honesty. “No.”
Zack stroked that special place inside a few times. Takashi moaned and fought to keep his eyes open. He shuddered, nearing the brink.
“There are drops all over your abs,” Zack continued. A possessive rumble surged upward, wiping away the fear. He stepped off the end of the bed, dropped his underwear off to the side, and then crawled up between Takashi’s legs. Slowly,he spread one of the cum drops across Takashi’s stomach. A deliciously hot and haughty expression filled his red eyes, and Takashi nearly came from that. “What has you ready to come?”
“You,” Takashi said.
“That’s right.Me.” Zack withdrew his fingers from Takashi’s hole and probed him with his tip. “Andyouhave me ready to fuck ’til we’re senseless.”
Zack pushed into him. Takashi tried to relax into the stretch and pull on his body, but without being able to move his legs much, he couldn’t adjust his position. He had to take what Zack offered. The constriction was getting in his way, but he wanted to be good for Zack. Good for his lovers. He needed that.
With a blur of speed, Zack undid the bondage tape on Takashi’s legs. He took Takashi’s left leg and pushed it up while keeping his other hand on Takashi’s right thigh. Pinned open, exposed—Takashi had less movement than before, but this position was better. He wasn’t being used; he was being held. Not fucked but pleasured. Filled and stroked inside and out with every flex of Zack’s hips, every caress of his fingers. Touched. Wanted.
When he came, he clenched and relished the way Zack gasped and bucked into him. Soon, Zack orgasmed, and that toppled him further into wonderful oblivion.
They were a mess, the pair of them, and yet Takashi didn’t want to move a muscle when Zack finished unbinding him afterward. He was a puddle on the bed, and he let Zack scoop him up and spoon around him.He is worth every risk.
CHAPTER 23
Orgasm typically turned Zack into a metaphorical goo that slowly solidified back into a thinking being. However, once the initial blast of pleasure had shot through him—and it was an intense fucking blast—he dropped into a sense of absolute clarity. In the middle of the act, he’d finally gotten Takashi to fess up to what he’d been thinking about before.He thinksIcould take over the GLC?
That had to be the craziest idea he’d ever heard. Well, apart from the time that Cal thought running through a forest screaming, “Can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!” would actually attract the pack of vicious redcaps that were killing hikers. Actually, Cal’s dumbest idea had been wrapping Mom’s car in the last roll of plastic wrap on April Fool’s Day.
Okay, Zack had been privy to crazy plans before, not all of which were Cal’s. One could argue that Roger’s intent to take the position of master had been more insane than naïve. All of their talk had revolved around how to take the coven and why they couldn’t do it yet. Roger claimed he’d spoken with a few leadership members like Candide about what changes he’d make as leader, but he’d never really gotten into the subject with Zack. He’d never really made a plan. He’d barely set a date forSeamus’s execution and had rejected all of Zack’s ideas on how to make it work.
The coven meeting the previous night had given Zack access to a whole slew of information that Roger had never even mentioned. The coven ran like a massive business, not entirely unlike how the hunter network worked on the higher levels. As the de facto stay-at-home caretaker for his familial pod of hunters, Zack had been the one to coordinate missions and ensure the financials were paid. Those skills would be far more applicable to running a coven than he’d known. Vampires didn’t just have gobs of money and underlings and expect it to just run itself. They had to manage things.And apart from the drinking blood until I kill people, I really don’t mind being a vampire.
Zack tightened his arm around Takashi, pulling him a fraction closer. They were still a mess of lube and cum that was quickly drying. Normally, he or Roger would have been rushing them off to the bathroom to clean up, but he lacked the urge to move, and Roger wasn’t here.
Thinking of their missing lover created a sore spot, but Zack had done something entirely new. He’d flirted with topping with a bit of dominance before, but he’d found a place inside himself. And rather than confining and restricting him, he felt like he’d stretched a muscle that had been clenched too long. His limbs didn’t actually ache—vampire healing for the win—but he was comfortable in his body in a way he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before.
Takashi was comfortable, too. He had linked his fingers with Zack’s and held Zack’s hand to the center of his chest. But if he was thinking bigger thoughts and burning with brighter desires, he was keeping them behind a very contended mindset.
But this couldn’t last. Had Takashi meant what he said? Would he ever talk about his idea? Zack almost bit his bottom lip, remembered his fangs, and sighed instead.
“You’re tensing,” Takashi murmured. “Careful how you squeeze me. You might crack a bone.”
“Sorry,” Zack muttered. Somehow, quiet voices were his standard go-to. Speaking at a louder volume felt like shouting anymore. He eased his grip. “Guess I don’t know my own strength.”
“We all have to adjust.” Slowly, Takashi loosened his hold on Zack’s hand and then turned toward him.
Zack kept his arm over him and did his best not to stare at Takashi’s perfectly kissable lips. A growling burn deep in his gut was starting, and tender skin was beginning to look edible in a not-good way. He cleared his throat, hoping to distract himself from his building thirst.
