Page 122 of Touch in the Night

“My dearest,” Emory said, taking his hand. “Becoming a haemophile doesn’t leave emotion behind. It doesn’t let you escape the fear, the anger.” His grip tightened. “Quite the opposite.”

Jesse blinked. “What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t escape these feelings. They would get worse.”

“But you said you don’t remember being human…”

“I don’t. Not now. But there was a time when I did. And I carried everything with me so strongly I didn’t know how to handle it.” He stood, looking hard into Jesse’s face. “Why do you think so many people died those first few years, Jesse?” he whispered. “It was nothing to do with hunger.”

Jesse stepped back. His skin rushed with chills.

Emory didn’t blink. “I’ve learned to understand who I am and handle how I experience the world. But it took hundreds of years, too many lives—and cost me far more than I would have ever willingly paid, had I known.” He ran a thumb down Jesse’s cheek. “I wouldn’t do it to my worst enemy, let alone someone I care about.”

A whirlwind rose inside Jesse’s chest, clogging his throat and flooding his head with rage and sorrow. He buried his face in Emory’s chest and sobbed. He choked and cried—ugly, loud crying that soaked and slimed Emory’s shirt and made his face grow hot. But he didn’t stop…couldn’t stop.

Emory held him until the crying slowed and eventually eased. Jesse held his face against his chest, breathing heavily, not wanting to move. Finally, Emory brought him back to the bed. He undressed him, slowly, kissing as he went. It wasn’t long before Jesse was overwhelmed with a very different mix of sensations. Emory moved slowly, teasing and licking, lighting fires, forbidding Jesse to talk or move as he prepared him, slowly and thoroughly, with a well-lubed plug until he was writhing and crying and beyond conscious thought. That was when he leaned over Jesse’s quivering body and whispered an instruction in his ear.

“Turn over, my love.”

Jesse scrambled to obey then Emory was filling him, inch by glorious inch, plunging to his depths with his long, rock-hard cock. Jesse lost himself in the burning pleasure, the smell of the sheets, the feeling of Emory’s sharp nails digging into his hips.

Emory continued to thrust into him, slowly and languidly, until time lost all meaning.

“I love you, Emory,” Jesse whispered as he clutched the sheets. “I fucking love you…Ah…”

Jesse came, hot and hard, spasming around Emory’s cock. Emory wrapped an arm around his chest and drew him up, so he was sitting in Emory’s lap, penetrated so deep Jesse thought they may never be parted again. Emory nuzzled his face in Jesse’s neck, thrust several more times then shuddered and came, flooding Jesse with warm, sticky heat.

They lay in each other’s arms in silence as their breathing slowed. Jesse was aware of the clock on the wall ticking closer to dawn, but Emory didn’t leave.

“So that’s a no to being turned, then?” Jesse murmured into Emory’s jaw, only half-joking.

“It’s a definitive ‘no’,” Emory said, turning his head so he could look into his eyes. “You don’t want it, Jesse. It won’t fix anything.” He ran his finger over Jesse’s lower lip. “Especially as nothing needs to be fixed.”

“I dunno. I feel pretty broken right now.”

“I’m sorry this has been so hard,” Emory said. “But I can’t be sorry this has happened between us.”

“Even if I can never really understand you or how you feel, see, think? Or even join you for a meal or anything like that?”

Emory grimaced. “You really want to join me for my sort of meal?”

“I would if I was like you,” Jesse went on doggedly.

Emory sighed. “Think about what people who care about you would feel if you became a haemophile. Would they be pleased for you?”

“What I want is nothing to do with anyone else but me.”

“Most of the time, yes,” Emory agreed with a nod. “But with this, no. In this circumstance, you have to think of yourself as if you were a friend…or a parent.” Emory looked at him hard. “What would you think if Olly asked this of someone one day?”

Jesse went cold. “That’s different.”

“But it’s not,” Emory whispered. “Just imagine what your father would feel, were he still here. Or your mother. That’s how you need to start thinking of yourself, as someone you love rather than someone you’re trying to escape.”

Jesse rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “Right in the orphan thing. Cheers, Emory.”

“It’s important to think about it, though, isn’t it? And talk about it?”

Jesse sighed, a heavy sigh that rattled from somewhere from deep inside him. Into the still silence, he heard himself whispering, “I would have liked to have known her, you know.”

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