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“My God, you tempt me so.” Soft as a velvet glove, the voice hammered at any defenses he had left, sending Carson spiraling into darkness.

Spiders, his mind shrieked as he was hit with a sensation of silken webs touching and dragging all over his body. There are spiders.

And his psyche soothed him, “No, love, just me with you,” with steady strokes driving away any thought of spiders. “There are no bugs, no crawly things. It’s only”—that silk of the voice and a firm caress of callused fingers—“you and me.”

He was erect, cock so hard it throbbed with every beat of his heart, tiny pulses of trapped pleasure, heat trickling in a trail of white along the crown. And his psyche told him to “let go, this is what I need,” and he lay on his back, listening to the rustling of clothing, which didn’t make any sense because he was asleep.

“Not yet,” he thought he said, and his psyche groaned out in answer, voice threaded with blades of pleasure-pain, “God, yes, now,” as heat and pressure engulfed the head of his penis, a rough sucking pull that drew every nerve in his body taut, the graze of a tooth across his slit bringing with it a singing, tingling pleasure as he came, hips thrusting up into that firm, wet hold. He felt a pinch on the inside of his thigh, a sweet sting followed by a bliss he’d never known could exist.

“So good,” his psyche murmured in a fluttering touch against his skin. “So fucking addictive.”

***

Mathias

Chest heaving with the resonance of desire still flooding through him, Mathias stretched out alongside Carson on the couch, their bodies touching all along their lengths. Carson breathed in time with him, and as his need for oxygen fell away, Mathias was aware his heart had started on its own and now matched rhythm with Carson’s, falling from racing to thundering, still too fast.

It had been decades since he’d lost control of his nonautonomous functions in such a way, and Mathias thrilled at this broken façade of life. His throat already buzzed, lying to his mind with claims of “parched” and “dust dry,” all while his veins waited impatiently for the blood he’d ingested to make its way through the virus-grown connective tissue. The semen he’d swallowed would be in the process of curdling in his stomach, unable to utilize the same absorption techniques as blood products, but if he was lucky, it would trickle down into what remained of his gut, becoming nutrient there.

Mathias licked his lips and groaned, capturing tiny traces of blood that remained. He trapped the hint of Carson’s essence with the tip of his tongue and painted his palate with the rich fluid, flavors bursting through his mouth. “God.”

An electronic sound tinkled from the coffee table. Slowly Mathias glanced over, too caught up in the whole experience with Carson to worry overmuch about the device. There was a message on the screen. He had to squint to read it through the flashing backlighting, but made out enough to know it was a question about the show Carson had been watching. “No, he is not,” he murmured, reaching out to close the lid.

Standing, he stared down at Carson, counting each breath and measuring every heartbeat until he nearly lost himself in the study of this man. How? he wondered, shaking his head. But the how didn’t matter anymore, because the connection was quite simply there, and strong, and even if it wasn’t something he’d asked for, Mathias knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. You took what the universe handed you and ran with it, because that bitch was nearly as jealous as the sun.

“If you’re to be mine for the time, then I will take better care.” He’d fed heavily on Carson the first time, less so tonight, but even so he knew from experience that there had to be a longer recovery period in between.

You could help that along, his mind obligingly informed him, and he grimaced, brushing the idea away. It was true that he could speed up the cycle if he gave Carson even a drop of the fluid now racing through his veins, but no responsible vampire followed that route with someone they didn’t intend to turn. To feed a human more than a thimbleful throughout their entire life was to court Renfieldism, a slow decaying process similar to dementia, also involving the mind.

The turning was a different method, one he’d only witnessed, never participated in. Before this instant, the idea had been enough to turn his stomach, make his belly ache with disappointment in himself for even considering such. Carson’s beauty would fade with the years, true, but it wouldn’t be diminished by him remaining human. If turned, the threat was real. More than half of those turned had to be put down. And even if they survived the Call of the sun during their first weeks, the siren’s wail could still be enough to drive them mad.

Tenderly gathering Carson to his chest, Mathias walked through the small apartment, noticing more details than on his previous passage. Formal poses where Carson was so clearly a carbon copy of the others shown, they could only be his parents. Images of Carson alone in front of monuments and attractions such as the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum in Rome.

In the bedroom, he laid Carson gently on the bed and made to pull away, his movements foiled when arms wound around his neck and pulled him closer. Nuzzling into the bend of his neck, nose tracing circles below his ear, Carson mumbled through the utterance of the single plea that would sway Mathias. “Stay with me.”

He froze for a long moment, heart ceasing its inefficient pulsing as his breath lodged in his chest. Unreal, this, the ability of a single human to bring me to my knees. He stroked his cheek against Carson’s until everything restarted.

“I’ll be back,” Mathias murmured, firmly removing Carson’s hands from his skin and hair. “Sleep, love. Sleep.”

He quickly stalked through the apartment, skin buzzing with the need to be beside Carson. Checking the door and windows, he verified they were secured, then turned off every light. His pupils enlarged, granting him clear vision in the darkness. On his way through the living room, he spied the clothing he’d stripped from Carson’s body and idly picked them up, folding them before he laid them on a piece of furniture in the bedroom, fingers stroking the material as if he were petting Carson’s skin.

Even though Carson was now deeply asleep, just the proximity of Mathias was enough to make him restless, and he began to twist and turn. Slipping between the sheets beside him, Mathias smiled when Carson immediately rolled into him, hands out seeking more contact. “I’ve got you.” Twining his legs with Carson’s, he shifted to his back, pulling Carson half on top of him. “I’ve got you.”

Mathias lay perfectly still, savoring the impossible warmth radiating from the man sprawled across his chest. Carson’s heat seeped into him like sunlight filtered through leaves—gentle, life-giving, and dangerously addictive. He didn’t need to feed more, not tonight; the taste of Carson still lingered on his tongue, rich and potent. Yet the pull to draw even closer was magnetic. Mathias shifted subtly, pressing more of his cool body against Carson’s fevered skin, letting the living heat sink deeper into his dead flesh. For a few precious moments, the sun’s jealous sigh receded to a distant murmur instead of a roar.

His mind drifted, unbidden, to another time. Decades ago. A thrall he had tried, and failed, to keep. Elias had begged for the bond, eyes bright with trust and desire. Mathias had been careful, giving him only the smallest drops at first. But the man’s craving had spiraled faster than expected. Within months, Elias’ mind had begun to fracture. He would wake screaming from nightmares of endless hunger, clawing at his own skin, begging Mathias to finish the turning or let him die. In the end, the sun had claimed what little remained. Mathias still remembered the blistering husk, the howling complaints that echoed through his mind long after the ashes had been scattered on the wind.

A shiver ran through him. He tightened his arms around Carson, buried his face in the crook of the man’s neck, and inhaled deeply. This heat, this bond...it quieted the sun more effectively than anything he had ever known. But the memory of Elias’ ruin lingered like a warning.

Not him, Mathias thought, pressing a cool kiss to Carson’s pulse point. Not this time.

He closed his eyes and let the steady beat of Carson’s heart lull him, drawing strength from the very thing that might one day destroy them both.

***

Carson

The alarm on his phone woke him, and Carson had to strain to swing his bare legs to the edge of the mattress. He was in the center of the bed and he shuffled to the side, sitting up as he reached out to mute the sound. He pushed the covers back and stood, stretching, every taut muscle in his body giving voice to a twinge as if he’d worked out too hard the day before.