Page 64 of Thirsty
“But your world became hard to ignore after a while,” she whispered. “And I was so curious.”
Charlie nodded. “And then, ever since I came here, it’s become so hard for me to find my way back to the Wood.” She stared at her hands in her lap. “And even when I do, my peoplearen’t there. I spend hours out there sometimes, but the wind is still. It’s just...trees and rocks and water. And the Wood—our Wood—is gone.” Very, very quietly, she said, “It’s like they...they don’t want me to find them.”
Maggie murmured something Lorenzo couldn’t hear, reaching out to rub Isolde’s back. Rachel had stopped moving completely. “That sounds...really lonely, and confusing,” Charlie said. “I probably can’t...ever really understand, completely. But. I can always listen.”
“No thank you,” Isolde said, and she stood up abruptly, stalking over to her room. Rachel watched her go.
Charlie blew out a breath. “Sorry, Rachel,” he said. “I—I didn’t mean to derail your thing.”
“No,” she said gruffly. “I just, uh. I think I’m good. Need to stop thinking about this for a bit.” She gestured to her cards, and then retreated to her own room.
Maggie left quietly after them. Charlie slumped back against the couch once they were alone, looking haunted. “Jesus,” he said. “I had no idea.”
“I don’t think any of us did,” Lorenzo replied.
“How awful.”
Lorenzo nodded in agreement. He’d never been cast out by a group like the unicorns, but feeling isolated and adrift? That he could understand.
“I pushed her,” Charlie was saying bitterly. “And now it’s...I screwed it all up. Again.”
Lorenzo wasn’t generally inclined to support Charlie’s interference in the personal lives of others, but his investment in whatever Rachel and Isolde were working through was touching. “You didn’t screw it up,” he said. “They’re upset, but it’s not about you.”
Charlie scoffed, and Lorenzo rubbed his back. “Why are you being so hard on yourself?”
At that, Charlie flicked him a quick look that Lorenzo couldn’t decipher. Then he shook his head, closed his eyes, and ground his knuckles against his brow.
“Hey, come here,” Lorenzo said, putting an arm around him. Charlie still looked troubled, so Lorenzo kissed him. He could tell that Charlie barely noticed it with everything else running through his head, though; so he took Charlie’s chin, turned his face, and kissed him again, deeply. And this time he could feel it through Charlie’s skin and in the shift of his muscles, the way his anxiety faded and a breathlessness took over. He gasped when Lorenzo broke off the kiss.
“My room?” Lorenzo murmured.
Charlie nodded frantically.
Later, Lorenzo lay with his head on Charlie’s chest, enjoying the rhythmic rise and fall of his breath and the swirling velvet sound of blood in his veins. Charlie’s skin always smelled delicious after sex, hot and limber and sated, and he had to fight the urge to lick the warm sweat off him. Charlie was a temptation in many more ways than one.
Not for the first time, Lorenzo thought about how hard it was to have only part of this—to hold back so much even while they were together. Charlie had told him many times that their arrangement was “educational,” and Lorenzo could follow those rules, he felt reasonably sure. Charlie said a lot with his eyes that he didn’t say out loud, and so what if that ran in both directions—so what if he could never really tell what Charlie was thinking, could never hope to be as detached as him, as unaffected, as above it all? He could hope for the best and distract himself from the worst by jumping Charlie’s bones—he seemed to want him for that much, if not more. Nothing ventured, nothing lost.
He ventured a gentle hand through Charlie’s hair, and watched his eyelashes flutter closed against his cheeks. That was something gained, at least.
“Can I ask you something,” Charlie whispered.
Lorenzo rested his chin on his knuckles, his hand splayed on Charlie’s chest. “Yes?”
“Um. Do you...I mean...” Charlie was blushing, and shook his head after a moment, as if gathering his courage. Lorenzo waited with a slight prickling sense of unease, not sure where this was going.
Finally, Charlie blurted out, “Why don’t you bite me?”
Lorenzo’s mouth went dry. He was frozen in place for a moment before he rolled onto his back, away from Charlie.
Charlie had been thinking about this?
Wanting it?
A phantom ache swept through his mouth and throat, and he swallowed. Charlie had asked, so he tried to quiet the chanting ofbite bite bitein his lizard brain and focus.
He couldn’t look at Charlie while he said it, so he spoke to the ceiling. “A bite is...significant for vampires. A big step in a relationship.”
Charlie rolled onto his side. “Really?” he asked. “Why?”
