Page 11 of Wolfgang

Normally Eric would lie there on the table as Brenda left the room, feeling all newly peaceful and zen with that fucking flute music, but he found himself sitting up abruptly, before the guy even had a chance to lower the table back down, just so he could bunch the towel around his hips and protect what little was left of his modesty.

Too little, way too fucking late.

The room was small enough that the masseur was barely a foot away, staring at Eric with that impassive look. His eyes weren’t red at all. They were a light brown.

This was where Eric would normally try to turn on the charm. The guy was attractive enough—even if he kind of reminded Eric of that one Bond villain, the one whose eye wept blood sometimes—and he clearly knew how to use his hands. And he had actually shown some sort of genuine interest, which was more than Eric could say for anyone else recently. But he felt weirdly unmoored, incapable of smarming his way through a pickup line.

“I’m sorry,” Eric said instead, feeling completely pathetic. “I never caught your name.”

“Does it matter?”

Eric’s stomach dropped with his words, and the man’s lips quirked at his obvious dismay. For all his reassurances about normalcy, he seemed to revel in Eric’s discomfort in that moment.

But before Eric could ask him to lower the massage table and let him get dressed, the masseur took a step toward him. “There is one thing you can do, Doctor. Straighten up for me.”

Eric straightened from his slouch, not sure where this was going. Was he going to get a lecture in bad posture?

But the man sidled even closer, an almost predatory look in his eyes. “Tilt your head. Show me your neck.” His words were commanding, but his tone was mild as ever.

Eric did as he asked, weird as the request was. Did the guy have some kind of neck fetish? It would really only be tit for tat if he did, considering how horned up Eric had been for the entire massage. He couldn’t begrudge the man a little neck ogling, could he?

The masseur leaned in, and that bergamot smell Eric had been drooling over the past hour intensified. Had it been him this whole time, and not incense or essential oils at all? He didn’t even have time to process that before the tip of the man’s nose was brushing against his skin. Eric shivered. He was still hard as hell, and his erection didn’t seem like it was going to let up anytime soon.

He tilted his head back to steal a glance at the guy. Maybe he didn’t need to make a move at all. Maybe he could just lean forward the slightest bit, and then they’d be, like, kissing, right? And if the professional part of this interaction was over, what could it hurt?

Except—

“Holy shit.” Eric immediately startled back, falling onto his hands on the massage table. “What the—”

The masseur’s eyes weren’t brown anymore. And they weren’t fucking red either. They were black, all black.

But the other man just met his eyes like nothing was wrong, blinking slowly at him. “You’re not afraid,” he told Eric, calm and clear.

“What’s going on with your—?”

“Shh.” The masseur leaned in again and pressed a soft kiss to Eric’s neck.

Eric let out a breath. Okay, that was…okay. That was nice, even. Maybe the guy had some kind of neurological condition, and when he was turned on, his pupils just, like…took over his whole eyeballs. That could be a thing, right? (No, idiot, that’s definitely not a thing.)

Another kiss. Eric relaxed a fraction more. But then there was a sharp, stabbing bite of pain at Eric’s neck.

He leaned back hard, tearing away from the source of it. “What the fuck?”

Um. Okay. It wasn’t just the eyes now. Fangs. Those were fangs peeping out between the man’s soft pink lips. And that was definitely Eric’s blood dripping off a pair of goddamnfangs.

What the fuck was happening?

The masseur smiled at him, his lengthy incisors bright red. “Just a little taste,” he murmured. He licked a drop of blood off his lips. “You’re not afraid,” he told Eric again.

What. The. Fuck. “Iamafraid,” Eric countered, and it came out weirdly petulant, almost bordering on shrill.

He was afraid. Sort of. Mostly he was confused as all hell and worried he’d had some kind of stroke, or maybe he’d fallen asleep on the massage table and was now dreaming some weird, sexual vampire fantasy.

Confusion passed over the man’s face, followed quickly by irritation. “Why—?”

And really,whywas a good fucking question. Like, why was Eric sitting still, studying the man’s expressions? If he wasn’t dreaming, then he needed to get the fuck out of here. He scrambled to get off the table—it was still raised high off the floor, making the action harder than it should be—but a strong pair of hands gripped his shoulders.

The masseur made Eric meet his eyes again. “You’re not afraid,” he repeated.

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