Page 15 of Artifacts

“Your eyes.” Aldric tried to clear his throat and gave up. “I wondered. I didn’t see the color clearly.”

Darrell grinned, enjoying this. “See ’em now?”

Aldric nodded.

“You keep telling me what I’m thinking—and getting it wrong—so what are they saying?” he asked.

Aldric dipped his head, but Darrell’s hand under his chin, where his fingers stroked the soft skin they found, stopped him. Instead Aldric raised his eyes to Darrell’s face.

“Can’t you guess? That I want you?” Darrell asked.

Darrell’s words thrilled Aldric. They shot through him like a bolt of lightning, sizzling a path. Answers rumbled together in his brain like gumballs fighting to get down a chute, but what came out was, “I want you too.” Before his brain could catch up with his mouth, could take back those words, he’d moved, and so had Darrell—to grab his hips and kiss him.

His brain tried to second-guess, but Aldric told it to shut the hell up and opened his mouth under the pressure of Darrell’s lips against his, then gasped as Darrell swept his tongue in—tasting, andlearning, was the only description Aldric could supply, when his brain was stuck on the wordswept.Swept in and swept me away.Wanting to escape his own thoughts, he pressed close. Tight. And didn’t flinch when Darrell’s hand moved from his side to his lower back, and his ass. It squeezed and caressed, and as if there were a direct connection, Aldric’s cock thickened in his pants, the swiftness of his reaction shocking him.

Darrell moved so there was no gap between them, only contact, then hummed low in his chest. It vibrated along every nerve ending in Aldric’s body and gathered in his balls. As if Darrell knew, he shifted to put a little distance between them, enough to get his hand to Aldric’s crotch and duplicate the stroking he was doing to Aldric’s ass on his cock. Aldric’s dick grew more erect still, as if wanting to push into Darrell’s fingers.

No. Too much, too soon, after too long. After never.Aldric’s brain was trying, but all his blood was pooling lower, while Darrell caressed him. Aldric tore his mouth from Darrell’s and twisted his body away too, but too late. His arousal thundered, ripped from him, and he came in his pants. A dismayed, disbelieving sound forced itself from his lungs and he hunched over.

“Hey.”

He wasn’t going to look up. Ever.

“It’s okay. Been a while?”

He wasn’t speaking again, either. Ever.

“We can move this to the bedroom and—”

“I don’t— I mean I haven’t. Not like this.” Okay, so hewasspeaking, even if it made no sense. He risked a tiny peek up.So I’m looking again too.“Hook-ups. Just meet and well, get down to it. I don’t know how to.” He forced himself to straighten up and dragged his gaze along Darrell’s body to his chest. “Let me go clean up. Then I’ll make some tea, and we can talk. You’re staying anyway, right? We can get to know each other a bit.” He finally managed to look Darrell in the eye.

Darrell was frozen, like a deer in the headlights. He heaved in a ragged breath, then backed away, giving tiny shakes of his head. He clapped a hand to his chest as light played over it. Actual headlights, followed by the sharppah-pah-pahblast of the horn Selena always gave.

“Huh? That’s my cousin.” Aldric didn’t understand why she’d be here at the best of times, let alone this time of night. “Oh, I had her down as next-of-kin. The hospital must have called her!”

Darrell had reached the door by now and opened it behind him. “So she’ll stay with you? Aldric…I-I don’t do talk and getting-to-know. Sorry.”

And he was gone, leaving Aldric alone, confused and with his pants full of cooling cum.

Chapter Seven

Sean shot Darrell a look. “You wanna drive? Is that the reason for all the clenching your fists and sighing?”

“What? Oh, no.” Darrell stretched out his fingers and made an effort to focus on the here and now.

“I know people think I got a lead foot.” Sean turned the patrol car onto one of The Dominion’s smaller avenues. “My ma gets really Catholic in the car with me, clutching her crucifix and crossing herself.”

“You drive fine. Just thinking. Nice houses.”

They should be.The neighborhood was the most affluent in the San Antonio area. It was hard to see most of the houses, with them being set far back from the road and their grounds screened by mature trees.

Mature.Funny, he’d just been brooding again on what animmature jerk he’d been to Aldric. It had been three days ago now and still Darrel’s face heated when he thought about how he’d left the guy. How he’dbehavedtoward the guy, and not just in walking out on him like that.

He’d been snappy with him when they’d met. What had Aldric’s boss called him, a Neanderthal?About right.Then taking advantage of a victim of an assault. Aldric had been whacked out on pain pills, for fuck’s sake, and yet Darrell had moved in on him.

He moved on me back, a small voice in his head argued. It replayed images of Aldric’s lips parting and his mouth opening for Darrell’s tongue. Of his dick pushing into Darrell’s hand. His dick that had shot its load within minutes because Aldric wasn’t used to—

The thought that it could have been the guy’s first time had Darrell turning to stone, his lungs trying to quit working on him.

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