‘I’m fantastic,’ James assured him. ‘I loved that.’ And he had. He’d felt a buzz, right at the end there as Gabriel was coming in his lap. It had fizzed right through his brain and down his spine.
Gabriel nuzzled into James’s hair. James held him and listened to him breathe. Other sounds filtered in to him too. Small animals in the field over the hedge from where they had parked. The hum of cars on the M3 beyond the line of trees separating this road from the highway. The world, going about its business, while inside the frame of this car, their lives had suddenly, irrevocably changed.
For the better, James decided, inhaling the scent of Gabriel and sex, and hearing Gabriel’s heartbeat, a lazy, sated dub-thub where it thumped through Gabriel’s ribs and against his own.
Eventually, Gabriel slid back into his seat and rearranged his clothing.
James tried unsuccessfully to tidy himself up too, dabbing at stickiness with the already soiled red sash. ‘We definitely can’t send these costumes back to the hire place now,’ he said. ‘Worth it, though,’ he added.
‘Totally,’ agreed Gabriel. He yawned.
‘It’s a long drive back,’ said James. ‘Get some sleep.’ He manoeuvred out of his galleon coat and folded it up on his thigh, then guided Gabriel to lie curled on the seat, head pillowed on his leg. James ran his fingers through Gabriel’s messy hair. ‘I’ll keep you safe,’ he said.
‘I know you will,’ said Gabriel sleepy-content. As James started the car and drove north, to where the road intersected with the motorway, Gabriel drifted off to sleep.
When they got home, James helped Gabriel out of the car and up to the flat with one arm, keeping the weapons concealed under the galleon coat he had draped over the other. When Gabriel was too exhausted to undress, James helped him to strip, gave them both a quick flannel wash, and helped Gabriel to get under his own sheets.
‘Come to bed,’ slurred Gabriel.
Without argument, James stripped and got into bed beside him. Gabriel grunted in satisfaction and wriggled until he had his head pillowed on James’s shoulder and an arm slung across his waist.
‘I’ll always protect you,’ said Gabriel sleepily.
James played with a tendril of Gabriel’s dark hair. ‘That’s my line.’
‘The concepts aren’t mutually exclusive.’
‘No. They’re not.’ He kissed Gabriel’s brow. ‘Sleep now. We’ll talk in the morning.’
Gabriel snuggled in and was soon asleep.
James lay still, Gabriel cradled warm in his arms. He reflected with wonder on the new world in which he now lived. A world where he could be human and vampire, doctor and soldier, protector and hunter, all at the same time; with Gabriel – the one person who knew everything about him, for good or evil, and trusted him anyway. Loved him anyway.
And be all that with the one person he trusted and loved with his whole heart, and with his whole soul. Assuming he still had one.
If Niall Frazer threatened Gabriel in any way, shape or form, James Sharpe was going to bring all of his fragmented selves to that fight, and anything and anyone else he thought would keep Gabriel safe.
Chapter Fifteen
In the morning, Gabriel stirred, muttered in his sleep, burrowed closer to the body at his side then sighed in sleepy satisfaction before kissing the ribs under his cheek.
‘M’ning.’
James ran his fingers through Gabriel’s messy hair. ‘Good morning, yourself.’
Gabriel kissed James’s ribs again. He stretched so he could kiss James’s chest and collarbone and neck. ‘It’s nice, you being here.’
‘Aye.’
‘How are you, after last night?’
‘Fair to muddling,’ said James, hoping not to talk about the events at the Ball, knowing it couldn’t be avoided.
Gabriel sat up in bed. He took James’s hand in his. ‘We need to talk.’
James froze. ‘That’s in the top ten worst sentences in the world.’
Gabriel kissed James’s fingers. ‘I think, after yesterday, you’d better tell me all about what happened to you in Afghanistan. I don’t want you worrying what I’m reading between West’s lines.’
James told Gabriel the whole story.
He told him about going out on patrol with his unit, for whom he was the medic, and about West’s unwelcome presence with the convoy. He explained about the ambush that West later admitted to having organised with his own small band of recruits, two other vampires. About taking shelter with West, who overpowered him, drank his blood, then forced his own vampire blood down James’s throat when he was on the brink of death. About tipping over that brink.
He glossed over the dying part and how awful it had been. The greater horror of waking up dead, crazed with thirst and terror, he told sparingly but Gabriel, with his artist’s imagination, could picture it too well.
He told of Corporal Taylor at the entrance to the abandoned cottage, bleeding out from the blast that had taken his legs and how James, nothing but a mass of pain and fear and need, had drunk the spilling blood instead of trying to help.
West took him to a village next, where a man begged James to drink only from him, to let his family live. James’s mind had been crawling back to the surface, but he was still so thirsty, and he bit. He tried to stop in time and failed.
Sick at heart, he’d tried to save the others, but he didn’t know how. West wasted their blood all through the house. A lesson, he’d said. The predator should never spare the prey.
James, in rage and despair and shame, had snatched up a chair, smashed it to make a weapon, and tried to stake West. But he was weak and overwrought, and West was strong and experienced.
After that he’d stumbled back to the ambush site where, to his further humiliation and shame, James had wiped up the drying blood of the dead in his bare hands and licked them clean, while he waited for the base to send help.
‘And that’s the story.’ James held still, staring at his clenched fists in his lap. He watched as Gabriel’s long-fingered hands covered both of his.
‘Okay,’ said Gabriel softly. ‘Now I know the worst of it.’
‘Aye,’ said James, gazing into those green eyes. ‘The worst of me.’
Gabriel pressed a soft kiss to James’s mouth. ‘I don’t think we’ve come anywhere near the worst of me yet,’ he said, with half a shrug. ‘But if you’re willing to give it a try, I’m sure we’ll get there.’
‘You still…?’
‘Of course.’
After the confession: absolution. James didn’t know how to fall more in love with Gabriel, and yet he did.
‘And you’ll help me with this? With Michael and Frazer?’ asked Gabriel
‘Of course.’ James pressed his hand over Gabriel’s heart, to feel as well as hear the steady rhythm of it.
Gabriel laid one hand over James’s on his chest. ‘This is so much better than “just good friends”, isn’t it?’
James wanted to say, be my love but don’t stop being my friend. He wanted to say, you make me unafraid of myself. He wanted to say, I don’t know how I survived without you. He wanted to say, if the capacity to love proves I have a soul, then you planted my new soul in me. He wanted to say, I didn’t want to belong to anyone but I want to belong to you for as long as you’ll have me and even when you don’t want me anymore, I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours.
What he said was, ‘Aye. Much.’
‘Come here, then.’
Gabriel sealed his mouth over James’s, kissing and licking, then ghosting his lips sensuously over James’s so he could resume waking up in the best way possible. Before long, he had straddled James’s hips while the very willing vampire ran his palms down Gabriel’s ribs, waist, thighs.
Gabriel trailed kisses down James’s throat. He traced his fingertips over James’s tattoo; the curve of his shoulders and upper arms. He kissed lines over James’s chest again, down his stomach, to the thatch of
dark blond curls and James’s unaroused cock.
‘Is this okay? Do you like it?’
James gazed fondly at him. ‘Oh, aye.’
Gabriel brushed the tip of his nose along James’s unresponding shaft, kissed the crown, then looked up at James. ‘I’d love to have you in my mouth.’
James looked away. ‘You don’t have to.’
‘I want to. I’d love to, if you’d like it.’
‘It’d be… nice. But I don’t… I dinnae get… I mean, I can. I can make it hard,’ James glanced at him then hurriedly away again. ‘But it isnae big. It’s not blood flow giving me an erection, it’s me choosing tae have one. So. It’s not… impressive.’ He couldn’t look at Gabriel, until Gabriel kissed the inside of his thigh, then the root of his resting cock, then his other thigh.
‘I’m not a size queen, you know,’ said Gabriel. ‘The opposite, if anything. I’ve… ah…’ He nuzzled against James’s thigh. ‘I’ve had some bad experiences, I guess. Huge cocks make me literally and figuratively uncomfortable.’
James carded his fingers though Gabriel’s hair and Gabriel smiled despite the awkwardness. He bent to kiss the resting length of James’s prick. ‘Your cock doesn’t have to be huge to be fantastic. I like it. A perfect mouthful.’ He demonstrated by sucking James into his mouth and swirling his tongue around the crown.
‘Oh,’ said James again softly, ‘I like that.’
Gabriel, eyes sparkling with delight, suckled softly, and as he did, James grew stiff. Hard, his prick was only slightly bigger than when unaroused, but a nice fit, Gabriel thought, a lovely feel in his mouth. Full but not overwhelming. Gabriel hummed and swirled his tongue under the frenulum and glans, sucked again and looked up. He kissed the slit, licked it, then suckled again, raising a querying eyebrow.
James, captivated by the sight, brushed Gabriel’s hair back from his forehead so he could better see what Gabriel was doing.
‘That’s lovely,’ he murmured. ‘You’re so warm. That feels good.’
Gabriel hummed and licked. His enjoyment was so evident that James decided to believe him.
James spread his thighs wider and watched. He found his pleasure at the heat and movement were as bound up in how he felt about Gabriel as in the physical sensations. It was different to how his body used to respond, but there was a response. He felt it in the wet warmth and teasing pressure of Gabriel’s mouth, lips and tongue. Those sensations intensified in his heart and head.
He wants me. He likes to touch me. Oh, he looks gorgeous doing that to me.
James stroked Gabriel’s hair with his fingertips, and flexed his hips. It felt nice when his cock scraped past Gabriel’s teeth.
‘I’m starting to realise that my early experiments with masturbation are an inadequate baseline to draw on,’ he said when he could gather his thoughts. ‘It’s better when you touch me.’
Gabriel took his lazy time over the fellatio, obviously enjoying the texture and weight of James’s cock in his mouth, and the soft sounds of pleasure of James’s response. Finally, James reached for him, hooked his hands under Gabriel’s arms and pulled him up the bed, as though he weighed no more than a feather, to kiss him.
‘I might have developed a strength kink right about then,’ Gabriel panted when James finally released his kiss-swollen mouth to lick at his neck.
‘How do you feel about rimming?’ James muttered against his jaw.
‘I feel bloody fucking fantastic about it, since you ask.’
‘Hmm,’ James verbalised his pleasure at Gabriel’s response.
Again with that easy strength, he laid Gabriel on the bed; kissed and licked and nuzzled at his throat.
‘You taste fantastic,’ James murmured. He sucked Gabriel’s earlobe, licked the delicate skin below it. ‘You smell good.’ He nuzzled at Gabriel’s throat. ‘The sound of your heart is the most beautiful sound in the world.’
Gabriel felt the slight scrape of James’s fangs against one pebbling nipple, then the other and he arched into James’s mouth, encouraging a repeat.
‘You’re warm as the sun,’ James said in tender awe. ‘I want to spend my days learning your eyes, green as… as…’ He laughed self-deprecatingly. ‘I wish I were a poet, to tell you what your eyes are tae me. Who you are tae me. I love you.’
James dotted Gabriel’s face with kisses, his eyelids and nose, cheek and jaw, his lips. His tongue flickered against Gabriel’s lips, his tongue, before sealing their mouths together again.
On instinct, Gabriel breathed, deep and long, through James’s mouth, the air pulled in through his nose, into James’s mouth, into his lungs, and out again. Two or three breaths this way, until James moved, slowly breaking away with a series of tongue-tip licks, soft- swift presses of their lips.
‘I want tae kiss you everywhere. Taste you everywhere. I want ye tae come in mae mouth, ye braw man.’
‘J-j-j-…’
‘Ye like it when I talk Scots at ye, I’ve noticed.’
‘I like everything you do.’
‘I like everything you do, too. I like your art, I like watching you drink tea. I like your eyes, I like your body. I like your cock.’ With a wicked grin, James kissed Gabriel’s sternum and down his belly, his abdomen, then mouthed at Gabriel’s rosily flushed prick. Sucked. Gabriel wriggled and bucked. James licked his wet slit, suckled again, then moved lower, flicking his tongue down Gabriel’s’ shaft, then his sac, then between his legs. Gabriel’s knees fell open in wanton invitation.
‘Let me lift ye?’ James asked from between Gabriel’s legs, kissing his inner thighs, hands braced below his backside.
‘Oh please, yes. Lift me up. Show me how strong you are.’
James grinned, unselfconsciously showing his fangs. He slid his hands under Gabriel’s backside and lifted up as he went onto his knees, raising Gabriel’s hips up, lifting his jutting erection, his tightening balls, his exposed little pucker, to his mouth. Gabriel, arms flung back on the bed, fists clenched in the sheets, put his feet on James’s shoulders so he could hold himself wider.
James responded to the invitation first by swallowing Gabriel’s cock and sucking. Gabriel arched and panted, whimpered inarticulate pleasure.
James let Gabriel slide wetly from his mouth and lifted Gabriel’s arse higher so that he could kiss-lick further down, and then nuzzled into the cleft.
Gabriel made an undignified squeak, spread his legs as far as they would go, and began a series of shallow thrusts of his arse towards James’s mouth and tongue, which was sliding over and over, in, oh-god-in, and over, and Christ, that tongue, that little tongue-fucking it was giving him, in and out of him, then James licking and kissing the pucker in the centre, filthy-fantastic, cool and wet and Jeeeeeesus incredible.
Gabriel wriggled and panted on the cusp of orgasm, but without the friction on his cock it wasn’t enough to send him over. But James held him firmly and easily, and licked and tongue-fucked, pausing to kiss the pale, sensitive skin of Gabriel’s inner thighs, the crease of his leg, his tightening balls and the base of his shaft, before returning to lavish his entrance with sensuous, wet attention.
Not needing to inhale for a long while yet, he nuzzled into the warmth, pushing his nose into the smooth space under Gabriel’s sac, where the scent of sweat and sex was strong. It made his mouth water.
When Gabriel was a moaning, begging, writhing mess in his hands, James swallowed his cock down to the root. He sucked, a soft-hard-soft pull, and then Gabriel was coming in thick spurts right against the back of his throat. James swallowed and sucked some more, as his lover thrashed in his arms in an excess of pleasure.
Finally, Gabriel subsided, sweaty, sated, and limp-limbed, to the mattress. James lowered him to the bed, crawled along his body to kiss him. His thickened cock pressed to Gabriel’s sweat-damp belly and James thrust against the yielding warmth.
Gabriel spread his knees to bracket James’s hips. His long arms grasped James’s b
ackside and encouraged him to rut.
‘That’s my gorgeous boy, Jamie. Do that. Do that. God, yes.’
Suddenly, James felt a frisson of pleasure, a buzz in his brain that sparkled down his spinal column and all his nerves. Not an orgasm like he had when he was human, but a champagne fizz of wellbeing from cerebral cortex to fingertip. When it ended, he lay in Gabriel’s embrace, ear pressed to his lover’s chest, listening to his heartbeat.
The most beautiful sound in the world.
Gabriel toyed with his hair, rubbed his fingers lovingly against his skin.
‘Jamie?’
‘Aye, love?’
‘You’re poet enough for me.’
James beamed up at him, kissed Gabriel’s belly, then crawled up the bed to sit against the headboard. He held out his arms, but when Gabriel began to crawl into them, he wrapped his hands around Gabriel’s ribs and pulled him into his lap.
‘Definitely got a strength kink,’ Gabriel said, laughing, and peppered James’s shoulders and neck with kisses.
They showered together, the theoretical efficiency compromised by the extra time allocated to frequent kissing.
Gabriel showed no inclination to talk about the Halloween ball and James wanted to hang on to this happiness a little longer. Time enough to talk later.
‘You finish up. I’ll get breakfast ready,’ said Gabriel, licking rivulets of water from James’s neck before stepping onto the bathmat.
James emerged from the shower to find Gabriel, tousle-haired, dressed only in his jeans, placing a mug of warmed pig’s blood on the table, beside his own breakfast of toast and tea.
They consumed their respective meals in companionable silence. Gabriel brushed his fingers against James’s knee or wrist or shoulder whenever the mood took him. James rubbed his toes against Gabriel’s ankles and drank the pig’s blood. It didn’t fill him with a sense of power the way the merest mouthful of Gabriel’s freely offered blood did, but it was enough.
‘I need to paint this morning,’ Gabriel said when breakfast was done. ‘There’s a picture in my hands I need to get out.’
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