Page 55 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
Andres exhaled. He nodded, his gaze shifting into the middle distance. “I make my own clothing—or doctor up existing pieces—and I have a channel where I share what I’ve created. The videos do well. They get ugly comments on occasion, when the wrong person notices how masculine my hands are, but it inspires people too. I never tell anyone it exists, though. I’ll get questions at the Fishnettery and I just shrug and pretend I can’t remember where the jacket came from.”
Shane fingered his rose gold fabric. “You made our outfits?”
“I’m a criminal and seamstress, and occasionally the two collide.” It sounded like a confession. “Letting you believe I was two different people was exceptionally selfish of me, but I want you to know that in both cases you’ve gotten a version of myself that’s the mostmeI’ve been in a long time. I’ve withheld things,but what I did give you has always been sincere. Always been me. I think you’re the only one that’s true for.”
It helped, knowing that at least what they had in itself hadn’t been a lie. But it didn’t fix things. There were the obvious questions: why me, why this. Instead, Shane asked, “Whoareyou without me?”
“Without you, I’m no one,” Andres whispered, fiddling with his long necklace—the one that matched Shane’s collar.
Part of Shane wanted to let the dramatic words woo him into submission the way his vampire’s possessive murmurings had been doing since they met. But they were supposed to be getting to the bottom of this. After weeks of dodging the truth in favor of the romance, Shane owed it to himself not to be led astray, because maybe—just maybe—then they could really have that romance they both seemed so desperately to want. “That doesn’t seem healthy,” Shane replied. “I can’t make you real, Andres.”
“No—I know,” Andres admitted. He tipped his head back against the door, still gripping his necklace. “I suppose what I mean is that before I started texting with you, and before we decided to stand against Vitalis-Barron together, I’d grown incredibly shallow in how I presented myself. Not really an individual, but a caricature of a vampire; strong and dark and secretive and sensual, and I let no one see beneath that for so long that sometimes I wondered if there was a me there at all.”
Shane could relate to that, in a way. He hadn’t dimmed himself, but he had portioned out who he was where it felt appropriate, and the people who’d received the biggest and brightest versions of him—the ones where he hadn’t buried his passions or limited his emotions—had all left one by one until his only friends were a woman nearly as obsessed with vampires as he was, and the vampire who was obsessed withhim. “Why wear the literal mask with me, then? What was so terrible about the person I texted, that you were afraid for me to see them?”
“You’re looking at them.” Andres drew a breath that could have been a laugh or a sob and waved at his face, long lashes and dark eyes and tear-stains blurring his makeup. “I’m not a pleasant sight.”
He was, in fact, gorgeous, and holding his gaze made Shane hot in all the right places, though Shane recognized neither of those things were the point. Gently, he stated, “Ihadseen you already, back at the Fishnettery.”
“And you thought I was a wreck.”
“True,” Shane admitted. “But I’m also a wreck, and it doesn’t seem to bother you much.” He felt himself grinning a little at the thought of waking to find his apartment tidied that first morning. Andres had seen how far he’d been letting his life deteriorate and instead of judging him for it, he’d quietly committed to helping pick up the pieces. If Andres’s life was a mess, too—and clearly it was, beneath the mask—then what other option did Shane have but to offer him the same compassion in return?
Andres stared through the crack in the door, brow tight and lips parted. “Well, you only wanted to be friends.”
Shane snorted. A wreck, indeed. “I had a vampire who owned parts of me and pressed his mouth to my skin every night! How was I supposed to explain that on a third date? There’s open relationships, and then there’sI’m in a toxic blood-bondage thing with a mask-wearing vampire criminal!”
A twisted expression broke over Andre’s face, and in the low light it took a moment for Shane to realize it was a shocked delight. “Us,toxic?” Andres scoffed, lips quirking. “I’m offended. I thought you liked my antics.”
Shane snorted, but the little shiver that ran down his spine was blissful. “What gave you that impression?”
Andres’s smile grew. He leaned toward the gap in the door, and his hand crept closer, brushing Shane’s. Goddamn, how theone little touch could make all of Shane’s body light up. He drew in his fingertips, forcing Andres to follow him.
His vampire did, lacing his fingers between Shane’s, gently tugging them out. He encircled Shane’s wrist with the barest of touches. “May I?”
Shame lifted a brow. “Are you asking or commanding?”
A growl came into Andres’s voice as he responded, fangs bared. “Give me your arm, my pet.”
Shane closed his eyes.
Andres tugged, and Shane loosened, letting his arm be drawn through the gap in the door. The vulnerability of it coiled in his gut and tingled along his skin, the jacket slipping off his shoulder to leave his arm bare but for the billowing strips of his outfit’s sheer fabric and the small sleeve Andres had given him for the crook of his elbow. Beyond that, his brain sparked with the uncanny knowledge that he was trapped like this, his shoulder in the gap of the door and his arm stretched at an angle where one wrong push could snap it. It would be easy for someone with Andres’s strength—would be just as easy to hold Shane in place and dig in fangs as he cried and struggled.
But all that fear felt muted by the brush of his vampire’s fingers, like their quiet touch was slowly but surely calming Shane’s demons.
Andres touched the edge of the tiny sleeve that protected Shane’s inner elbow. “May I?”
“Yes,” Shane breathed. As Andres tugged down the piece of fabric, he focused on his breathing and the gentle pressure of Andres’s nails on his skin, so tender and thoughtful that it formed a lump in Shane’s throat. All the pain he’d felt on the boardwalk and the longing he couldn’t seem to extinguish came together, thick in his chest, and he whimpered.
“Look at me,” his vampire whispered. Two fingers traced into the crook of Shane’s arm, settling there with a pressure that trapped Shane’s lungs. “Cygnus, look at me.”
Never, not now, of course—a cascade of reactions flew through Shane’s mind. This was his vampireandthis was Andres, and they both wanted him, all of him, one a request, the other a demand. Shane’s heart saidyesandyesandyesagain for good measure.
He pressed his forehead to the gap in the door and opened his eyes.
Andres held his gaze, strong and sure and wonderful. Slowly, they lifted Shane’s arm, cradling it as they brought the crook of Shane’s inner elbow to their mouth. They pressed a kiss to Shane’s pulse.
Shane’s world quavered, his heart pounding, but all he could feel was the softness of his vampire’s lips and the giddy lightness in his chest and a warmth so pleasant that it seemed to form a film over the awful memories of Maul’s vampire’s bites. The pressure of the kiss retreated without a prick or a nip, and somehow that was perfect, because it left Shane with a wanting in place of his fear. A desire where apprehension had been.
