Page 42 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
They were so muchbetter.
Shane’s fingers trailed along his arm. “Are you all right? We can sit down?”
Andres shifted just out of reach. “No, I’m… I’m good. This is good.” His voice was too weak, as pathetic as it had been the night they’d met at the Fishnettery.
Shane watched him. As he did, his hand drifted up, towards Andres’s face. It detoured away at the last moment, coming to fiddle with the edge of his collar.
A sudden thought hit Andres. “Do you wish Ihadn’tobjected to Valentine touching you?”
Pink blossomed beneath Shane’s freckles, and he pressed his hand to his neck, just above the metal. “I would have accepted whatever you asked of me,” he said, so softly that the emotion behind it was muddled. “You just didn’t have to scare him. I think he was testing the waters, trying to feel out what we’re into.”
Whatever you asked of me.Because of their mission. So they could talk to Tara.Notbecause Shane was his little swan who lived to please Andres. Even if hewasAndres’s, even if hehadalways obeyed of his own free will…
Andres swallowed, the laughter of the party ringing in his ears. Here were people who’d taken that pretense and made it—what had Shane called it?Safe. At least for a predetermined period of time. Perhaps there were ordinary couples beneath the costumes, but for this one evening they got to be something else entirely, and they reveled in it, vampires and humans alike.
Andres was not sure what to do with the lightness forming in his chest.
One of the human servers took note of his and Shane’s weird little huddle and moseyed up to them. She was lovely, with flawless brown skin and long dark lashes, and the personal jewelry she’d added to the customary velvet server’s outfitlooked like it had come from a Bollywood movie. Andres could smell her, a faint shimmer of blossom and a deep oaky scent that reminded him of red wine, and while he doubted he could ever fall in love with her the way he was quickly feeling himself tumble head over heels for Shane, he knew that—before meeting Shane, anyway—he would have been able to lose himself easily in her blood and body.
Her bright smile outshone the room’s flickering lights, and when she bowed her head to Andres, it seemed both sincerely submissive and exquisitely eager. “Master vampire, I see you have a delicacy of your own, but if you would like a taste of me, I’m happy to oblige…”
Shane stiffened, glancing up at Andres, his expression went so hard that he looked like he was contemplating murder based on Andres’s response.
The sight made Andres giddy. He coiled a finger through Shane’s hair, drawing the tips of his nails gently down the side of his little swan’s neck until he reached his collar, relishing in the way it birthed a tremble so strong it tore through Shane’s indignation for a moment. “What do you think, pet? Should I indulge?”
Shane leaned into his touch and turned a sharp smile on the woman. “He’ll have nothing from you, temptress,” he snapped, then flushed, his voice turning to an apologetic whisper. “Sorry; you’re wonderful. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“What you’re doing is great,” the server assured him, waggling a hand at him with a smile. “You both have a lovely evening.” The quirk of her lips grew playfully sly. “But do tell me if you change your mind…”
As she wandered off to the next couple, Andres wrapped his arm around Shane. “I’ll havenothing?” he purred. “Is that so?”
“I’myour human. If you want to go biting other people, you have to drain me first.”
It took Andres a moment to register the words in relation to his tone—sharp and serious with only a hint of a tease at the end—and then another moment to convince himself they’d actually come from Shane. His Shane. Who was claiming Andres, and not only claiming him, but claiming a sole spot as his human. It felt wonderful, right and warm, and it filled Andres with overwhelming pride. Shane wanted to behis, or something verylikehis, at least—even if it wouldn’t last beyond the moment Andres removed his mask.
Unless this was all just for the show of the thing? But the show here was obedience, and Shane was very obviously breaking that. It seemed then only right that Andres put him back in his place, made him quaver and swoon and turn his sharp edges to puddy. For the sake of the game.
Hetsked, flashing Shane a loose smirk. “Bossy little pet. And overdramatic, too.” He eased his hand down Shane’s shoulder, pressing his fingers into the slits of his transparent sleeves to touch him, skin to skin. “If Ididwant to drain you, you know where I’d go for?”
Shane stiffened as he kept moving, drawing his way down Shane’s arm toward the vein inside his elbow. He didn’t pull away, though, trembling meekly under the touch. Each soft brush of skin still sent a rush through Andres, the thrum of Shane’s pulse and the rise and fall of his chest such fascinating things that Andres would have been happy to bask in them forever.
At the last moment, Andres diverted away from the vulnerable inner elbow that hid beneath Shane’s shielding fabric and scooped his hand around the back of Shane’s arm to lift it, sweeping Shane’s wrist towards his mouth. He kissed the tender skin there. Shane breathed out and leaned against him. It felt so natural, to let him linger there, to share his release in the most physical way possible. Weeks ago in that alley Andres hadbasked in this with a hunger, but now what he felt went deeper than desire. It sparkled like the laughter around them, stable as a safe word and warm as fresh blood.
From across the room came the clatter of falling plates, and Shane jerked, stumbling. Andres caught him with an arm around his waist. “Be gentle with yourself, my swan,” he muttered, trying not to laugh.
Shane straightened with a flush, but his lips lifted. “Isn’t that your job, master?”
“Is it a master’s job to treat that which they own in any particular way?” Andres countered teasingly, baring his teeth.
“Perhaps not, butmymaster has always been good to me, and his hands and mouth are soft… even if his teeth are sharp.” He touched Andres’s mouth as he said it, his thumb brushing Andres’s top lip with such tenderness that Andres was caught between adoration and disbelief.
He wanted to live in that moment forever, to take up permanent residence there. But across the room, where Valentine and his human had been standing, he spotted a vampire he’d heard described so many times that even with their cloud of cotton candy hair dyed all in deep blue streaks, he still recognized them.
He brushed Shane’s fingertips as he whispered, “I think I’ve found our target. Would you like to pay Tara Williams a visit with me?”
17
SHANE
