Page 56 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
His vampire smiled and laced their fingers through Shane’s. “Hi, I think it’s time I make your acquaintance,” they said. “I’m Andres, your vampire. I’m a little bit obsessed with you, and I’d like to turn that into loving you instead. If you’ll let me.”
Shane groaned with relief. “God, fucking yes.”
20
ANDRES
There was no better sound in the world than the chain unlocking from Shane’s door.
Despite all the ways he had managed to push Shane—showing up on the mere chance he’d be let in, asking for his arm, for his eyes, for his heart—Andres still hesitated at the threshold. “May I?”
Shane grinned. “I happen to know vampires like you don’t need to ask permission to enter their humans’ house.”
So he did, letting the motion carry him further, reaching for Shane and wrapping him up in a shaky hug. It wasn’t sensual or erotic, more relief and hope and a flood of other emotions that welled in the backs of Andres’s eyes, and when Shane returned the hug, Andres had to kiss the top of his head to hide how ridiculously he was blinking away the tears.
“Sit with me,” he whispered as Shane withdrew, not a question or a command, but a plea. “I don’t want to stop holding you.”
“You’re a sap.” Shane laughed. He nudged his shoulder into Andres’s. “It’s very cute.”
They moved to the couch, settling beside each other like it was the most natural thing in the world. It felt like it—felt right. It occurred to Andres that perhaps there were other questions they needed to answer now that everything was out in the open.And he found, oddly, that he wasn’t afraid anymore. He had his Cygnus, not as a bought body or a play-acting human pet, but as a partner—as just Shane—and now that they were here, he found it was what he’d wanted most all along. “Do you prefer me sappy? I know I’ve been demanding, and—correct me if I’m wrong—you seem to enjoy that, but it’s a role I enjoy playing, not the person I am underneath. Icanstop it.”
“Please don’t stop it permanently.” Shane pulled his legs onto the cushions and leaned against Andres, his knees resting on Andres’s thighs. “I loved what we did at the Starlight Club. Like twelve out of ten, something I didn’t know my life was missing until now. It was exhilarating, and so damn hot. And as long as we have rules, like they do, and we know when it’s appropriate and when it isn’t… then maybe we can have our sappy, equal partnership and when we’re both in the mood, I can still be your blood slave?”
Blood slave.All his guilt and shame would have made him recoil from the phrase, if not for the hope on Shane’s face. Andres’s heart soared. He wasallowedto want to take what his little swan was happy to offer. “So you’d like to go back, then? Have nights where we dress up and play the part someplace like the club?”
“Yes, but maybe not just those nights, and maybe not such a strict separation of the two?” He bit the inside of his lip, tucking his knees against his chest and cupping the sides of his neck, but as he did so, he leaned onto Andres’s shoulder, looking up at him through soft lashes. “As I said, I really enjoy you taking control,master.”
Andres’s little swan, his magnificent Cygnus, was curling himself up on purpose. The two of them weren’t basking in the mysterious thrill of darkness and anonymity, or even the sensual pretense of the club, but sitting on the couch beside a coffee table stacked with used dishes, a cat giving them annoyedglances, as casual as any couple and bare as their hearts would allow. And Shanestillwanted this.
It made Andres yearn, for more, forhim.
“Is that so, my pet?” He took hold of Shane’s thighs and hips, and, gentle as ever, nudged him forward, tugging Shane up and into his lap.
Shane let himself be unfurled, and when Andres pressed his legs apart, he whimpered beautifully. A part of Andres wanted to keep pushing him, to see what Shane would do if he slipped a hand beneath the fabric that pooled around Shane’s navel, what noises he might make, how he might tremble then—but there would be time for that later. Instead, he pulled Shane flush to his hips with one arm wrapped around his back and the other cradling his neck.
“And if you do disobey me?” he whispered, fiercely holding Shane’s gaze. “What should I do with a little swan who doesn’t submit to his master?”
Shane’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his breath noticeably lighter. “I have no plans to be anything but perfectly and utterly submissive.” He leaned closer, his breath on Andres’s lips, cheeks pink. His fingers skimmed along the front of Andres’s shirt. “But if I displease you, then you can punish me with your fangs or your touch, if you’d like.”
Andres responded with a smirk and a growl, deep and low and sensual, but the swell of affection in his chest warmed it in a way he hadn’t anticipated, and the sound turned to a laugh, fresh tears brimming along the corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry, I just—this is wonderful, Shane.Youare wonderful. I spent so much time worrying that you wouldn’t want this, and now here you’re asking for it, because you have the freedom to do that, and I have the freedom to accept it, and—”
Shane kissed him.
It was so quick, a brush of lips as sudden and soft as the one Andres had given him on the balcony months ago. It caught in him like a blow to the chest, his mouth tingling long after Shane had pulled back.
A flush deepened in Shane’s cheeks. He looked down. God, he was perfect, with his hair half fallen from its pins and the top of his outfit shifted out of place from being pulled onto Andres’s lap, one of his chest scars still peeking out the side.
Andres caught a few of his stray hairs, tucking them gently back. He traced up the length of Shane’s soft jaw and through his waves until he was cupping the back of Shane’s head, and whispered, “Open your mouth for me, pet.”
Shane looked at him again, finally. Without question, his lips parted.
Andres stole them. He pressed his tongue against Shane’s and caught the next breath from his lungs, dragging forth a moan that he echoed himself, lower and more graveled. Shane returned his aggression with a hungry obedience, moving always with and never against, letting Andres tug and tease and lick. His fingers tightened into Andres’s shirt and Andres could feel every tremble and shift, every whimper and groan.
He tasted like he smelled: like sunshine and all the brilliance and bitterness of living, and it made Andres hunger for him—not merely for his blood but for his essence and the wetness between his legs. The latter, he’d have to ask for, but there were parts of Shane’s body he knew were his, not because he’d bought them, but because they’d been given freely.
Holding Shane’s head firmly in place, he pressed his fangs into the soft skin inside Shane’s lip. The sound his little swan made was transcendent, and Andres sucked; sucked and bit until Shane was putty in his arms, both their mouths faintly red. By the time he finally let go, his whole body was alight with athrobbing ache, caught somewhere between total satisfaction and eternal yearning.
Shane leaned into him, forehead resting against Andres’s cheek. He breathed hard and his shoulders shook, but he seemed deliriously happy, spent in a way that was akin to orgasm. Andres ran a hand down his back and along his side, just holding him. His thumb brushed Shane’s scar, and he let it linger there.
