Page 85 of Thirsty
He slept again, for a few minutes at least. Then he woke to see Lorenzo looking down at him, naked and adorably disheveled, his hair sticking up in every direction. “So,” he said, with a shy smile. “Did it, uh. Live up to the hype?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Charlie whispered, pulling him close. His mouth tasted faintly of iron, and the kiss made his head spin.
Lorenzo settled into bed, sprawled over Charlie until their noses were a hair’s breadth apart. “So how was I,” he said, his breath teasing against Charlie’s lips. “On a scale of one to ten fangs.”
“One to ten?” Charlie asked, giggling breathlessly. “You only have two fangs. It should be a scale of zero to two.”
“No,” Lorenzo said. His eyes were a soft brown blur, his eyelashes tickling Charlie’s cheek. “I want you to rate my biting on a one-to-ten fang scale. Including half fangs.”
Charlie laughed, obsessed with Lorenzo’s bubbly, arrogant grin, and thoughtI love you.
Then he sat bolt upright as something belatedly occurred to him. “Vampires can’t, uh, read minds,” he asked. “Can you?”
Lorenzo blinked up at him, then smiled slowly. “No,” he said, whisper-soft.
Shit.“Oh,” Charlie said, stupidly, and shuffled back down onto the bed. His heart was pounding.
Lorenzo was still looking at him, radiating fond happiness, growing warmer by the moment. Charlie felt like the air had turned to water. Panicking, he kissed Lorenzo, trying to ignore the ghost of a smile on his lips.
As Charlie got his arm under him, he felt a twinge in his neck and fell backward, hissing. Lorenzo glanced at his neck, looking concerned, and touched his bite mark with incredible gentleness. “Sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s okay,” Charlie told him.
Lorenzo maneuvered them until Charlie was lying back against him, so Lorenzo could kiss the bite and massage Charlie’s shoulders. He tried to get his breathing under control.
It was fine. Scary—embarrassing—but at least now he knew.
And he knew what he had to do.
He was going to tell Lorenzo the truth. He wasn’t sure how or when, but he knew now that he had to.
He had to figure out if this could be real.
Chapter 26
Ican’t believe you’re calling it asoft launch,” Lorenzo grumbled, his hands slipping under Charlie’s shirt.
“That was in one text!” Charlie protested. They were in a quiet corner of the kitchen, avoiding their guests so Lorenzo could berate Charlie. And grope him.
“Three texts,” he muttered, stroking Charlie’s skin.
“It was the same text to three different people,” Charlie said. “My point is, itisa soft launch.”
Lorenzo had, at long last, agreed to have a party and invite all of his supernatural—well, mostly his clients and acquaintances, and only potentially friends. It was part of Charlie’s idea for Lorenzo to embrace the idea of community, which he felt was a bit hacky and probably unrealistic, but. He didn’t hate parties; and he didn’t hate Charlie pushing and prodding him, and taking an interest in his life that felt real.
But asoft launch? “How dare you,” he said, drawing closer to Charlie, intoxicated by his body heat. “I should threaten to rip your throat out just for that.”
“Please,” Charlie whispered, pulling him close.
“Mmmm,” Lorenzo said. “We have people here.”
“I don’t care,” Charlie breathed into Lorenzo’s mouth.
So far, their rudeness aside, the soft-launch-slash-regular-party was actually going well. Gray had come, thankfully no longer reeking of wolfsbane; so had a few of the succubi Lorenzo had met briefly at their art show; and a few of Kenny’s pack. The young druid they’d watched bomb his initiation was there—he was a necromancer, apparently; not something particularly welcomed by the nature-worshippers. Sal was there, the bartender from the demon pub, and he was chatting with one of the werewolves in a way that made Lorenzo think he’d dumped his fae girlfriend after all. Lorenzo had also invited Roberta, mostly because he’d been worried no one else would show, and she was happily eating most of the finger sandwiches Maggie had helped him make.
It was a bit of a motley crew, but they all seemed to be mingling happily; and Charlie was smiling up at him even as Lorenzo forced his hands to behave and tried to put a respectable amount of distance between them.
The party could have been a total disaster, and he probably wouldn’t have noticed.
