Page 39 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
Shane glanced down, a soft heat in his cheeks. “Is there somewhere else I can sign mine instead?”
“Of course,” the host answered immediately, handing Shane one of the stacks and a pen. “If you go through the curtain there, you’ll find the dressing room.”
Something hot and wet burned behind Andres’s eyes, but the most he could do to thank Shane was press his lips to the top of Shane’s head. “I’ll be in shortly.”
The way Shane startled at the kiss could have been everything or nothing. Andres watched him leave, unable to tear his gaze away until the curtain had re-settled behind him. He took a quick glance around the room, trying to spot any cameras they might have hidden in the corners, but the attempt only slid his contacts slightly off-center. The tunneling effect they had on hisnon-human eyes made him nauseous at that angle and rolled the red of the colored iris he’d chosen for the night directly into his vision. Oh well; if they really were providing a space for a bunch of vampires with morally-questionable preferences, then they were probably locking up that information tight.
He removed his mask long enough to squeeze an eyedrop into both eyes, then signed the forms after an attempt to look like he’d skimmed them, planting a fake name on the print line and hoping Shane had the forethought to do the same. Andres felt terrible just for asking him to put any mark on something like this. They could be waiting at the back door for Tara to emerge later, or stealing their employee records to hunt them back to their house or—
“Thank you very much. You may proceed whenever you’re ready. If you wish to return for future events, stop by before the end of the night and I can provide you with a code to our pre-event forms.”
And that was it.
Andres slipped his mask back into position and pushed into the hall-space behind the curtain. Shane’s scent had already taken over the space, turning the air bright and bold and a little sharp to Andres’s nose. A bench and three ornate dressing mirrors had been arranged inside, electric candles hidden in bundles of fake flowers along a counter. He hung their outfits from an elegant metal rack and plopped the bag on a stool. Shane was still staring at his form, his brow tight and his focus unmoored. He startled, then signed before tucking the papers farther onto the counter.
Andres felt sick.Hewas going to enjoy this evening—he’d put so much work into making sure it happened—but god, he wished Shane could do the same.
He tried to be gentle as he set Shane’s ornaments on the counter and showed him the pieces of his outfit, not quiterelishing these particular flinches and swallows as Shane brushed his fingers over the silk and refused to meet Andres’s gaze. He’d be sure their outfits to Vitalis-Barron’s gala looked nothing like this.
Andres turned away to let Shane change. Flashes of skin still caught his attention through the surrounding mirrors: a graceful shoulder blade, a pale hipbone, an ankle with a line of ink. He forced himself not to look.
His own outfit was coordinated to match Shane’s in anopposites attractfashion. Black lace gloves ended halfway down his fingers, and his high-waisted black pants were tucked into his tall boots, an elegant belt holding in the deep red shirt he’d unbuttoned nearly to his navel to show off more lace in the form of an undershirt. He kept his long dark coat over it—a new one, thrifted two days ago, which he’d augmented with frills of lace. His dangling earrings of black and maroon gemstones matched a brand-new necklace that he slid on delicately. It hung down the front of his chest, a rose gold chain ending in a large maroon gem at the base of his sternum. It all came together nicely with the spiraling red of his gala mask and the scarlet of his colored contacts.
He looked good. He lookedgreat; like he’d drawn his soul into the fabric and formed it to fit. It was the kind of outfit he felt seen in, regardless of whether anyone was looking, but especially when they did. And if they had a problem with it, then, well, he had the strength and the teeth now to make that a problem forthem.
But his looks were less important than—
“A little help?” Shane asked, his voice low.
Andres’s knees went weak at the sight of him, but he cleared his throat, stepping in to button the back of the rose gold outfit. Every faint brush of his fingers on Shane’s back was like being reborn, the world started afresh just for him, the first evertouch of skin on skin. Shane was so soft, so elegant, from the long curve of his neck to the graceful slopes of his shoulders, scattered in constellations of freckles, and down his back, his spine a defined ridge.
With a few quick twirls and tugs, Andres fastened the stray waves of Shane’s hair with bobby-pins studded in pearls and little red stones. Finally, he took up the collar. It felt so much lighter in his grasp than everything it could represent. He slipped it around Shane’s throat with the utmost tenderness, basking in the way his swan trembled as he drew his fingertips along the sides of his neck.
His tension accumulated into a visible shudder as the jewelry clicked shut.
“You can remove it whenever you’d like,” Andres whispered, taking Shane’s hand to glide it over the latch.
Shane fiddled with it for barely a moment, but he kept his fingers in Andres’s far longer, staring at himself in the mirror like he was trying to see inside the being that stared back.
Shane was a vision. His pale silk shimmered pearlescent in the low light. The fabric started at his shoulders, wrapping in an x across his chest before turning to a jumpsuit that appeared as a skirt at first glance. It made up for how little of his torso it covered by pooling in waves off his shoulders, turning fine and translucent and filled with twinkling white gems—a star to Andres’s black hole. A puff of the same material fluttered around Shane’s arms, veiling the little white glucose monitor on his triceps, and tucked into his wrist cuffs.
On its own, the outfit would have been spectacular, but Mercer’s work exalted it. Each polished rose gold piece contained flat segments of elegant etching connected by delicate chain linkage, with a red stone suspended against Shane’s pulse on the cuff’s undersides, and a dangling series of them in the gap where Andres preferred to sink his fangs into Shane’s neck.He knew the little clip beside each would unlock them, giving him unrestricted access—though in truth the metal hardly covered enough to prevent a bite. Like the loop of delicate chain that draped down the front of Shane’s chest, waiting to be tugged on, it was for the show of the thing. The message it sent.
Shane belonged to Andres.
For tonight, at least.
Shane seemed to be coming to the same conclusion, his throat bobbing against the collar. He shifted, swaying first to the right, then the left experimentally. A pair of sneakers poked from beneath the swirling fabric around his feet. Andres knelt before him, wordlessly pulling them off to replace them with the jeweled sandals he’d altered to match the rest of the ornamentation Shane now wore.
“There’s one more piece,” he said, withdrawing the simple sleeve from his pocket. “Give me your arm, my pet.”
Shane drew in a breath, hesitating for a deliciously long moment, but slowly he let it out, and as he did, he uncurled the arm that Maul had tried to drain him from. No trace of the vampire’s work remained, but Andres could still see the invisible scars of that night in the way Shane moved, his arms always tucked in close—closer the more tense he grew. It was wrong of Andres to enjoy that tension, wrong of him to love how it gave him the chance to peel his Cygnus apart.
He wondered, absently, if Shane ever held himself so tight while texting the Andres he’d met at the Fishnettery.
A quaver rolled through him as Andres took hold of his wrist. Still on one knee, Andres gently slid the six-inch sleeve up until it covered the crook of Shane’s elbow, remaining still when Shane twitched and letting him slowly ease into the touch. As soon as the fabric was in place, he seemed to relax, just a little. It fit perfectly.
Andres let his gaze travel up Shane with what he hoped came across as tender adoration even from behind the mask. His attention caught on a pair of scars that Shane’s outfit didn’t quite cover; small, light things with a hint of a crook around one of his ribs where a tattooed flower had been inked as though it was splitting from the irregular tissue.
