Page 70 of How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager
“You already are, Wes.” He sounded utterly sincere, his mouth lifting crookedly on one side. His hand sifted through Wesley’s hair and down his neck and along his shoulder, like he was confirming that the man before him was the same as the one he spoke about. By the way he looked at Wesley, he clearly approved of the answer. “Besides, I already took you back a month ago. You’re just a fool who didn’t stay long enough to find out.”
“Fuck,” Wes cursed and tipped his head back against the floor. He was still laughing, still smiling so wide his face hurt. He felt like he would never stop.
“Yeah.” Vincent chuckled as he leaned over Wes. He pressed his face against Wesley’s, not kissing him or biting him, but just breathing with him, fingers running up and down Wes’s arm. “I have a question. And whatever the truth is, it won’t affect how I feel, I just want to know. When did you change your mind, about me? About giving me to Vitalis-Barron?”
A sliver of panic tried to tear into Wes’s mood, but he fought it back. This was serious to Vincent, clearly, but it wasn’t the kind of serious that could ruin them. If he let it, perhaps it was the kind that would deepen their relationship instead. Wes lifted himself back onto his elbows. “Is the hallway floor the best place for this conversation?”
“Anywhere we are is the best place, I think.” Vincent kissed him, small and chaste, and took Wesley’s hand, drawing them both into a sitting position. Neither of them made a move to get up though, their legs still tangled and their gazes locked. Wes leaned on his palms and Vincent wrapped his arm around Wes’s calf, lowering his chin to Wes’s knee like he was debating hiding behind it. “So?” he asked.
“I don’t think there was an exact moment when I decided not to give you to the lab.” A sigh escaped Wes, but he found it wasn’t as deep or heavy or painful as it should have been, not with Vincent’s committed affection so tangibly before him. “The day I got you that blood bag from Babcock, I still thought I was going to do it. But then you talked about how you didn’t want your existence to harm anyone else, and you were so scared and pained when you started passing out, and it fucked me up to know you were such a good person and yet to see you hurt like that. If I was any smarter or any less of a stubborn asshole, I probably would have realized then and there that I couldn’t lift a finger against you without tearing out my own heart in the process. I had to call Kendall to make her talk me through it. She was against it, for the record. That was probably our first real fight since college.”
Vincent’s brows were tight, but he hadn’t pulled away, one hand creeping up and down Wes’s thigh in a soothing motion. “So you put me in the van to take me to Vitalis-Barron, and then?”
“You woke up.” Wes gave a half-laugh, half-sob, a bright, soft thing that was entirely saturated in his love for Vincent. “And I missed the exit—well I missed it before you woke up, actually, because I really just didn’t want to take it to begin with—and you thought I was bringing you to the hospital. You trusted me so damned much. I just wanted to be that person you believed I was, because you deserve someone like that in your life. Someone incredible.”
“Ihavesomeone incredible,” Vincent replied. “He’s just also a stubborn ass on occasion, and I’m okay with that.”
The certainty in his voice brought another weird sob-laugh out of Wesley.
“You didn’t accidentally spill the rest of that blood bag, did you?”
“Fuck no, I poured it down the drain. While blubbering. Like a baby.”
Vincent nodded, solemn but smiling softly. “Thank you.” He drew his fingers through the tips of Wesley’s curls where they stuck out a bit beyond his ears now, uncut for the last month.
Vincent on the other hand looked fresher than Wes had ever seen him, clean in a way he’d rarely been before and sporting a pair of sweats and sweater that looked almost new. Despite the messy state of his hair, it seemed he’d had it cut into a proper style sometime that month, and the tiredness of his hauntingly light eyes didn’t stop them from sparkling.
His thumb drew down the front of Wesley’s throat as his fingers trailed beside it, fluttering over Wes’s pulse. He licked his fangs. “I like your blood better than the bagged stuff, anyway.”
Wesley swallowed, and the momentary increase in pressure it put on his neck brought back all his thoughts of Vincent’s mouth around his dick, the prick of his fangs bringing almost as much pain as pleasure, perhaps a few fingers pressing in and out of him, and—oh god, Vincent was looking at him like he knew exactly what had just gone through Wes’s mind and was going to use it against him in the very best way.
“In that note you left, you said I could still feed on you.” Vincent’s voice dipped into a feline growl, rich and predatory. “And since you vanished on me, that means you owe me a lot of blood. And maybe a taste of something else, too?” His gaze dropped at that, settling for a moment between Wesley’s legs.
Wes felt himself flush like his skin was being set on fire. “You can’t just say things like that if you’re not going to follow through, you know.”
“You’re my boyfriend, I can say whatever the fuck I want to you.” Vincent pressed his lips to the side of Wesley’s knee, then lower. Crouching like he was preparing to pounce, he dragged the blunt side of one fang down Wes’s inner thigh with enough pressure that Wes shivered despite the fabric between them. “And I cantakewhatever the fuck I want from you too… If you want that.”
“God do I want that.” Wesley whispered, already hoarse with need. He inhaled and clenched his hands beneath him, breath heavy in anticipation. “But you’ll have to catch me first.”
Wes shoved Vincent back and scrambled to his feet, throwing himself toward the living room. He made it barely to the coffee table, stumbling a little from the fantastically uncomfortable tightness of his pants and the aching of his abs as he laughed, before Vincent launched over the couch. The vampire caught him around the waist and threw him into the cushions, growling in a way that was almost a cackle.
He pinned Wes down, fitting his hip against Wes’s swollen dick and grinding in a ragged way that was so rough Wes almost screamed, his own hips bucking to amplify it. Vincent’s fangs sank into Wes’s neck, mouth sucking hungrily. Wes had barely finished moaning by the time Vincent closed the wound, moving on to nip lower and lower along his neck. The vampire tugged up Wes’s t-shirt with his free hand and ran his palm hungrily along Wes’s abs and over a nipple. Wes felt his boyfriend shudder, like just touching him was doing things to Vincent; it was certainly doing things to the front of the vampire’s sweatpants.
Vincent seemed to pull himself together a little bit, still holding Wes down even as Wes gave a little wiggle, not trying to free himself—unless that freedom might mean Vincent came down on him harder—just wanting to feel his boyfriend’s strength, his need for Wesley, his desire to be there in that moment and have Wes in every way imaginable. Vincent shifted to keep him pinned, smirking as he licked a drop of blood off the corner of his lips.
“You had enough of me yet?”
“God, never,” Wesley breathed.
And he was absolutely certain he would never, ever have had enough of Vincent.
28
VINCENT
Vincent woke to find the bed empty beside him anda sticky note on the nightstand. The sight brought a smile to his lips. Eighty-two days sleeping beside Wesley, trusting him to still be there in the morning, at least in spirit, and it had finally sunk in that Vincent’s boyfriend wasn’t going anywhere. He plucked the note up:Be back by four. Three red hearts followed it.
Vincent was pretty sure they were written in blood. He tapped the largest one with his tongue, and the slightly stale, darkly sweet flavor of Wesley filled his mouth. It gave him a ridiculous craving. With how many times he’d told Wesley he was being silly pricking his finger for this, he was pretty sure that craving was the entire reason his boyfriend kept doing it.
