Page 92 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
Shane didn’t hear the door open or close behind him, but he could feel the approaching presence in the tingle that ran up his spine, the hairs lifting on the back of his neck. He tensed, the fear and the thrill both holding taut in his chest. The heat of a breath came at his neck, gusting between the chains and plates of his collar, and his stalker’s finger traced over his hip, slipping just beneath the fabric of his outfit to caress the delicate skin. Their other hand trailed between Shane’s collarbones and up his throat to fiddle with the collar’s clasp.
“Master?” Shane breathed.
His vampire made a sound, soft and predatory. “You have such a lovely neck, my swan,” they murmured, their voice as dark as the night and perfectly velvety. “Lean back your head.”
Shane obeyed with a fierce joy that made the world shine and left fire in the wake of Andres’s fingers as they slipped between Shane’s legs. Their fondling brought a soft cry from Shane’s lips. He let himself be touched, be taken, pinned there against the dark balcony in the quiet, empty night, his vampire’s mouth on his neck, gently kissing him between nips of fangs. The orgasm came like a firecracker, bright and sparkling, and Andres gentled their stroking after, bringing Shane down slowly as they finished feeding.
When Andres closed the bite with a series of long, lingering drags of their tongue and squeezed gently between Shane’s legs a final time, he was almost disappointed his vampire hadn’t pushed him harder—held him tight to the railing and made himcome a second time with his body bucking against it. But then Andres hummed, kissing him beneath the ear, and said, “I’m thinking of putting you in a new outfit next time. One with a little pocket just the right size for that vibrator you connected to my phone.”
The shudder that worked through Shane’s body was a beautiful thing, all lust and anticipation.
Andres must have felt it, Shane’s back pressed to their chest, because they laughed softly and dragged their thumb along Shane’s lower lip. “Would you like that, little swan?”
“I’ll like whatever you want from me, master.”
Andres wrapped one arm around Shane’s waist, folding their free hand against the front of Shane’s throat with such care that it felt like a shield instead of a noose. “I want you to know your place, my pet. To know that I can take what I want of you, when I want you, and you will always submit.”
Shane couldn’t have faked the whimper of desire that escaped him even if he’d tried. “I’m yours,” he whispered.
And his vampire replied, “I love you.”
The pressure of Andres’s arms turned warmer somehow, less sensual but more affectionate as he continued to hold Shane, burying his lips in Shane’s hair and snuggling against him. Shane relaxed into the hold, turning his head to kiss his vampire on the cheek. Shane the blood slave would never have dared, but Shane the boyfriend received a little happy noise from his partner and a tug of teeth on his lower lip.
“Was that nice?” Andres asked, sounding proud but a little hesitant.
“It was lovely,” Shane reassured them, snuggling against their chest. “You could have pushed me even more, though. And I like the vibrator idea. For the right event, anyway.”
Andres beamed. “Diego mentioned one in July that sounded like it would fit. They’re really leaning into kink for it. Sexualtorment, or something? Maddox is planning the subordinate side of things.”
“That sounds delightful.” Shane pressed his lips to the two little fang scars on Andres’s neck. He could feel his partner’s fingers circling a line along his shoulder, so soft and slow Shane didn’t think Andres realized he was doing it. “How was your last meeting with Dr. Ivey?”
The two of them were taking some sessions together and some apart, and Shane was still not quite sure whether to push Andres for details or wait to see whether he shared them naturally. The question didn’t seem to bother him, though, his posture perking up but his body just as relaxed. “It went well, I think. We spoke a lot about my family. And… Natalie.”
Her name still felt like a curveball every time it came up. But Dr. Ivey had told Shane that was normal. She was complicated, and her death was complicated, and Shane and Andres were allowed to feel complicated things for it, and to keep feeling them as long as they needed to. “Do you miss her?”
“Every day.” Andres held Shane tighter. “I used to get a text or two, a meme, or a picture—just something little. Maybe I’d pulled back, but she was still there.”
“And now she’s not,” Shane concluded.
“And now she’s not.”
“I miss her too. You haven’t found anyone who knows…?” Shane couldn’t bring himself to say,where her body went. Of course the vampires who’d attacked her had taken it for the blood, if they could, but where they dumped her after was still a mystery.
Andres shook his head, then buried his chin against Shane’s shoulder. “That part of Maul’s old group is still running in two or three separate but impenetrable blood-dealing gangs. I’ll have to start pushing at the one on the East side of the inner city if they keep edging up against Ala Santa, but I don’t want toturn it into a thing until I have to.” He fiddled with Shane’s hair—a distraction, Shane knew, from all the ways his body wished it could hide itself. “How can they not understand that we still have too much trouble with Vitalis-Barron to fight among ourselves?”
Shane ran his thumb along the side of Andres’s neck, offering him a measure of protection, no matter how metaphorical or unnecessary. “Perhaps it’s easier to pretend you hold some power, than to admit you have none at all.”
A little shudder went through Andres, but he leaned into Shane’s touch, holding tighter to him. “I told myself he wasn’t in control of me. I planned the heists. I took his paychecks. I bared my teeth, and every now and then he’d half-listen to what I had to say. It was easier to be his employee, even if that meant my community suffered, than to accept that I was his plaything.”
“You’re making the blood trade betternow. And people are noticing.”
“I wish I could give all the bags away.”
Shane had reminded Andres enough times that he and his new team of infiltrators and distributors did still need money to survive; not everyone could run a charity funded by their rich human family. Instead, he kissed his good, kind-hearted vampire and said, “When we tear down capitalism, then you can.”
Andres hummed and kissed him back. He kept kissing, turning Shane in his arms until they were chest to chest. Gripping under Shane’s thighs and behind his back, he picked him up, spinning him once before setting him on the railing, their lips still locked in a soft but hungry union. Shane wrapped his legs around Andres’s waist and lost himself in it: the softness of Andres’s skin, the way his hair felt beneath Shane’s fingers, the curves of his face in the backlight of the brewery’s upper windows. His life, his being. He was everything and more.
A part of Shane had known all of that the moment they’d locked eyes at the Halloween gala, but even then he could never have fathomed just how much Andres was capable of meaning to him. His vampire had been his obsession, but now he was Shane’s life in an entirely different way, and he knew he was not alone in that.
