“You should know better than to kink-shame me,” Rahil teased.
Mercer turned to find him staring down at the bed he’d assembled, mat and pillow and blanket spread neatly in the center of the aisle. He shook as he stepped toward the vampire, one step, then another, until he was so close… “Could you just lean against me, like—ahh.” Mercer’s breath caught as Rahil obliged, settling his back against Mercer’s chest, his ass cheeks gently cupping the bulk of Mercer’s half-hard cock. A shudder ran through Mercer, and he tried not to think of anything but how sweet and perfect Rahil was, letting his body take over as he wrapped his arms around Rahil and pressed his face into Rahil’s neck. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“Why are you thankingme?” Rahil’s voice sounded rough, wet with emotion. “This is the best night of my life.”
Mercer held him all the tighter for that, gently nuzzling into his skin. Despite the churning of his stomach, when he kissed the crook of Rahil’s neck, it feltgood. Felt right. With Rahil’s gentle, compassionate presence, the alarm bells telling him to flee the intimate vulnerability of it all were just quiet enough that he managed to give Rahil’s ass a little squeeze and a push toward the cot. “When I lie down, will you bite me? I think the venom will help.”
“As though you have to ask for that, babe.” There was a smirk in his voice, and as Mercer awkwardly stepped around him, settling onto the cot with all the grace of a preteen having sex for the first time and not a man who’d conceived a full-ass child, Rahil’s expression turned delirious. “Fuck, you’re just as gorgeous without clothes.”
Mercer gave the chub on his thighs a little wobble. “It’s genetics?”
“Mm, no, it’s magic,” Rahil replied. “Definitely some fairy nonsense.” He ran his hand along Mercer’s knee as he sat down, touching him in such steady, smooth motions that it felt calming.
“And here I thought I was a bear.” Mercer gave the hair on his chest a ruffle as evidence. The way Rahil’s eyes dragged over him made his skin feel like fire.
“You can be everything. Infinite.” Rahil slid his leg over Mercer’s stomach to straddle him, and the weight of him atop Mercer’s hips was a good feeling.
Mercer pressed his fingers beneath Rahil’s chin, admiring him for a moment before sliding his thumb, then his index finger, into Rahil’s mouth, carefully removing the fang caps. He tried to truly focus on his senses this time, to push back the shame andlethimself want. And hedidwant, in a distant, fantastical way—he indulged in the thought of this mouth holding him, sucking harder and faster as his tip drove against the back of Rahil’s throat, but at the same time, he wasn’t sure hedidwant that at all. He enjoyed the thought of it, the way he’d always enjoyed the thought of Leah’s mouth when her lips quirked from intense concentration, and had, too, enjoyed the sensation of that mouth when she’d taken him in it beneath the sheets, classical music gently playing in the background. But there was a gap in between those joys—a gap he’d always assumed he just hadn’t figured out how to cross. Maybe the truth was that he didn’t need to cross it.
Mercer set the fang caps to the side. With his hands empty, he wasn’t sure what to do with them. Rahil must have seen his indecision, though, because he took them, placing Mercer’s palms on his thigh and ass, before leaning in to stroke back the loose curls around Mercer’s face. He tugged at Mercer’s bandana. “Would it help if I pulled this over your eyes?”
The thought sent a flare of what felt like panic through Mercer, but as it settled in his center, he realized the emotion was something else entirely—a deep, consuming worry that if he asked for this, and it didn’t help, then it would be his fault. But that wasn’t how kink worked. It wasn’t howpeopleworked. And it certainly wasn’t how Rahil would see it.
So, Mercer nodded. “It’s worth a try.”
Rahil’s tiny grin was repayment enough for any risk. He tenderly drew Mercer’s bandana down, and Mercer closed his eyes as the fabric slid across them. His not-panic tried to rear again, but he breathed and let the moment linger, and once his body settled, it felt… nice. Calming. It was just him, lying on a blanket, with the skin of someone he loved pressed gently to his. Whether there was a God watching him didn’t matter. Whether he looked like a fool, whether he reacted right, felt the right things, wanted in the right way—that didn’t matter either.
Rahil’s mouth pressed tenderly to the edge of his, and Mercer focused on the sensation, the softness of it. He found his lips tingling, parting slightly. Rahil caught them in a kiss, just as gentle but not nearly so chaste. Mercer lost himself in the moment as his body took over where his mind had failed him, going back to the thousands of kisses he’d shared with Leah. These were different lips, a different gender, a different soul entirely—each movement a little surprising, Rahil’s technique not quite what Mercer had been used to once upon a time—but somehow, he still managed to fall into it, a thoughtful hum rising in his throat when his tongue grazed Rahil’s.
As he pulled away, Rahil whispered, “Tell me how I’m doing.”
“You’d like to know whether you’re a good boy?” Mercer smiled, his lips still a mess of lighted nerves and curious wonder.
“Fuck you.”
“Not yet,” Mercer teased. “But hopefully next time. For now, just, keep going.”
And Rahil did.
He kissed Mercer again, and again, moving from his mouth to his forehead, to his temple, and his jawline, tugging at his earlobe before shifting down to his neck. Mercer anticipated the bite, was ready for it, but the pressure of lips and the devilish sucking of his skin before fangs even penetrated made him ache for it all the more. He could feel the rising of his dick, and not being able to see it, to judge whether he was reacting appropriately, made the sensation far better, letting him focus on purely enjoying the moment, each little tug of teeth and press of tongue.
“You’re doing so well,” he whispered. “What a lovely boy, with your lovely mouth.”
Rahil made a pleased sound, working on Mercer’s neck all the harder.
Finally his fangs sank in, lighting Mercer up with a dose of venom, and he was a goner. With how far down his hips Rahil was straddling him, he could feel Rahil’s crack against his dick, and his body shifted to accommodate as a second wave of venom rolled through him. He squeezed his fingers into Rahil’s ass and thigh, riding out the moment of bliss in a gasp so long and hard it left him breathless. He fell limp afterward.
Rahil barely managed to lick up the side of his neck as he laughed. “Did you—did you just come?” He seemed to be confirming the question as he spoke it, his fingers finding the slick that now coated his ass and dripped onto Mercer’s balls. He laughed again. “Baby.”
“I was watchingyoube pleasured for an hour,” Mercer grumbled, pushing back his bandana. “What were you expecting?”
He grinned. “Next time, we’ll have to put you in one of those rings too.”
Mercer glared at him, but he was already trying to decide if anything he currently had would fit. Not that they’d need it tonight. He was already feeling part of his mind slip into the grasp of the post-coital void. “Grab that towel on the bench—yeah, it’s cleanenough. And then… would you lie here with me?”
“Isn’t that what we’re already doing?” Rahil asked as he wiped them both down, before snuggling against Mercer’s side. His tongue snaked across Mercer’s skin, and it felt… like a tongue. But the tongue of someone Mercer cared about, and in that, it was lovely.
“As in, through the night,” Mercer clarified.
