by Willa Okati
“I only did what had to be done. What I set into motion has freed Quentin from his cage.” The incubus looked sideways at Tezcatli. “Now, it is up to you to help him walk past the bars. Are you man enough for it?”
Tezcatli bristled. “You’re asking me a question like that? He’s soaked with my sweat and my come. What do you think?”
“So defensive. I did not ask if you could, or would, fuck him. I asked if you would help him. Will you? Can you?”
“Fucking isn’t helping?”
“It is part of the cure, of course. Quentin needs a warm, live body, not a ghost.” Liam fiddled with his crushed pack of cigarettes for another moment, then pocketed them. “However, he also needs someone who will be honest with him.”
Hot blood rushed into Tezcatli’s face. “I’ve never lied to him. Not once!”
“A lie by omission is still a lie. You did not tell him who you are. What you are.” Again, the slanted look. “I would suggest that you do so.”
Tezcatli had had just about enough of the nosy incubus. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, anyway?” he snarled. “Quentin is my mate. Not yours. I suggest you stay out of our way from now on, do you hear? Pretty damn far away.”
“No.”
Tezcatli opened his mouth, then blinked. “What did you say?”
Liam rounded on him, human mask slipping. Behind the cracks, Tezcatli could see a creature of unbearable beauty and deeply marked ugliness. A creature from both a wet dream and a nightmare. Not a god, but not too fucking far from the mark.
“He was mine first,” Liam said in a terrible voice. “If I find out that you have not been taking care of him, that you have not been honest with him ... You will wish you had never come here this night.”
“I am a favored child of the Old Ones! I --”
“You are a foolish Cat who was so hungry for cream he would knock anyone else away from the plate.” Liam looked suddenly very tired. “Go on along, Tezcatli. Go to ‘your’ Quentin and seize this moment by the reins. See if you can gentle the colt and win him over.” They’d been speaking in low voices, but Liam suddenly raised his. “Quentin! Eh, Quentin!”
Quentin raised his head. His face was blank, no emotion showing in the eyes. He tried twice to form a word before managing it. “What?”
“Listen to Tezcatli,” Liam said, clapping the man’s shoulder. “Remember what Zach had to say before he left. Give yourself a second chance -- and take it, Quentin, grab it with both hands and hang on. Do you understand me?”
Quentin nodded slowly. “You’re leaving, too?”
“I must.”
“Thank the gods,” Tezcatli snapped. “Get out.”
Liam’s air of mockery floated back around him like a pair of sheltering wings. He grinned wickedly at Tezcatli. “If I did not wish to go, you could not budge me. Favored of the Old Ones or not.” He leaned up on tiptoe and spoke into the Cat’s ear. “I am an Old One,” he whispered. “And you are no child of mine. Bear that in mind.”
He danced backward toward the door. “Remember what I told you!” he ordered, hand upon the crash bar -- then he was gone. A quick burst of noise from inside Amour Magique floated out to them on the patio. Then, all was silence.
Tezcatli turned to Quentin. He watched him for a long minute, measuring him up. His temper, never far from the surface, was simmering to the boiling point. “This is not how I play my games,” he growled. “Bringing in a ghost is cheating.”
Quentin looked back at Tezcatli. Directly, no hiding his face or ducking behind a tangle of emotions. “I didn’t have a choice. He came with me.”
“You dragged him along behind you.”
“I suppose I must have.” Quentin’s fingers picked at each other. He never lowered his eyes. “He’s all I have. Everything that matters. Mattered.”
“Wrong. Now you have me. And if you think I’m letting you go, you have another think coming. Several of them.”
“I’m not deaf. I heard you the first dozen times.” Quentin leaned his head against the cool-looking stucco of the patio wall. “So, you have me. What are you going to do with me?”
“No. No, no, no.” Tezcatli’s temper flared too hot to be restrained. “What do you think? That I want a puppet? A dog that’ll roll over when I say, ‘Play dead’? I came in search of a partner.”
“Which would be why you fucked me like an animal. It all makes perfect sense now.”
A thrill shot through Tezcatli. He stopped still for a moment, then began his approach. Slow, languorous, sinuous. “Yes, I did. And you liked it. I can still feel you --” He ran a hand down the length of his chest. “-- beneath me. The way the muscles in your back bunched and stretched. The weight of your cock in my palm. The hot spunk when you came all over my hand.” He raised that hand to his mouth and sucked in a finger, savoring the memory of his taste again. He’d been saturated with Quentin. He wanted more.
Pacing closer, he let himself stretch and arch, loosening his muscles. “You didn’t just like it. You loved it. The way you gasped my name -- you were begging for more even when I was hammering. And you want me again. There’s no ghost in our way now.”
“You don’t think? I figured he always would be.” Quentin smiled tiredly, resignedly. “By the way, yes, that does mean I see us having sex again. Probably often. But he’ll still be there.”
“No!” Tezcatli came to a stop in front of Quentin but refused to kneel or put himself in the inferior position. “He has said his goodbyes. And Liam has said it’s time for you to move on. I’m saying the same thing. Let go of him and go forward. With me.”
Quentin half-laughed. “Oh, and you’re a real catch, aren’t you? What makes you think I’d want to be with you, outside of the sex? What do you possibly have to offer me?”
Tezcatli bent and seized Quentin’s head with one hand on the back of his skull. He dragged the man into him for a crushing kiss. Teeth and lips and, insistently, tongues. He slid between Quentin’s lips intending to put his mark of ownership on that smart mouth and make it his own. He wouldn’t want him to shut up forever, but they had to get past this.
As he kissed Quentin, Tezcatli slid a hand up underneath his shirt. He tweaked one nipple, just hard enough to sting, then brushed it with his fingertips. Responsive as ever, Quentin gasped and arched into his hand.
“More?” Tezcatli whispered against his new partner’s lips. Yes, new partner. Paired with him in all but words. He would trust Quentin with his life, and the lives of his pack. If the man had been so loyal to a ghost, he wouldn’t betray a group of people who had never done him any harm. “Tell me. Ask me. Do you want more? Will you be good enough to earn it?”
Quentin moaned, seemingly against his will. He followed Tezcatli’s mouth, kissing it just as hard, if not harder. “Good ...” he managed to say before slipping his tongue in turn between Tezcatli’s lips. Taking the advantage shamelessly. He glided that tongue along Tezcatli’s, stroking it, dancing along his teeth, trailing across the sides of his teeth. He fell into their kiss, sucking Tezcatli’s lower lip into his mouth, then nibbling at the top.
Tezcatli heard himself groan as the man pulled him into a sweet surrender. No, not quite -- not a defeat. He never gave up, and he was still in control. Damned if he didn’t want to just give in, though, and let Quentin have his way. The man kissed as if he’d won contests for it.
He felt a stab of jealousy. Who had taught Quentin to kiss that way? Zach? His shoulders stiffened at the thought. He would gladly have wiped his mate’s memory of the man, if it weren’t for the ghost’s threat. He would have to walk carefully. A spirit protector could be powerful if it were pissed off enough. He didn’t want to see what Zach could do now that he’d moved on to his full strength, no longer caught between earth and the heavens.
What he did want to see was more of Quentin. Preferably all of him. Naked from head to toe with nothing to get in the way of feasting on him with his eyes. On his knees again? God, yes. Tezcatli snarled and
dipped in deeper.
His fingers started the tedious process of unbuttoning again -- then, he changed his mind. Bunching the fabric in both hands, he used a little of his Cat strength and yanked. Buttons went flying across the concrete of the patio floor, pinging this way and that. Quentin didn’t protest. As the cool air hit his bare chest, he only moaned more and sank deeper into Tezcatli’s grip.
“Beautiful,” Tezcatli chanted as he moved away from Quentin’s lips and down his arms. “Handsome, gorgeous, obedient ... mine.” His fingers itched to shape themselves into paw and claw. To mark this man and be sure that the infection would take him over and make him one of the Pack.
He hesitated for one moment, then stopped abruptly. Quentin had jerked away and was staring at him with dazed eyes that were quickly growing sharp with suspicion.
“Liam’s words, what he said, it just now sank in. You’re a goddamned liar!” he exclaimed.
“What the hell?” Tezcatli snapped, annoyed.
Quentin planted a hand in the middle of Tezcatli’s chest and shoved. “Liam said you’d lied to me. A lie of omission. What did he mean?”
Ah. Tezcatli stared intently at Quentin, judging whether or not he was ready to see. Asking whether the man believed in the supernatural would be stupid. Hadn’t he had a ghost lover for -- who knew how long? Yet he didn’t seem to know the truth about Liam. Tezcatli settled for the easiest road out. “What do you mean, lie?”
Quentin brushed away the question. “You know exactly what I mean, what Liam meant. Stop it -- stop kissing me! I can’t think when you do that.”
“Good,” Tezcatli said, diving in for another taste of his soon-to-be official mate. “I don’t want you to think. Just accept. Just be. Be mine.” These weren’t candy heart statements. He’d infused his words with all the fire and blood he had in him. A tang of the Cat. No one could have mistaken his words for anything but what they were -- out-and-out claiming.
Quentin, though, still wasn’t satisfied. “Who are you?” he demanded. “You keep starting explanations, then stopping. I’m not stupid, you know. You think I believe Liam is entirely normal? No way. He saw Zach and talked to him. You did, too.” He started. “Zach! He said it, too. You’re hiding something from me. Tell me what they were talking about. Now, Tezcatli.”
“Damned pushy bottom.”
Quentin’s eyes flashed. “What makes you think I’m always on the bottom?” Oh, fire, fire. Tezcatli liked that in a man. He wasn’t about to have his dominance challenged, though. But Quentin went on defiantly. “What if I want you on your knees, Tezcatli? Taking it from me from behind?”
A hand shot forward to grope Tezcatli, still hard inside his jeans. He’d taken a moment to wash himself clean in a lavatory, and the skin still tingled from the rough paper towels on sensitive flesh. His member sprang to full life under Quentin’s touch, swelling up hard and proud.
A glance down told him Quentin was in the same state, his dick pressing at the zipper of his khakis. A small, spreading damp spot revealed even more clearly to him what his kisses had already accomplished.
He wanted more. He could still taste the ghost on Quentin’s lips, and he wanted it off, gone. Needed to have the specter of his mate’s old lover erased from his body. “Have you been with anyone since him?” he whispered. “Anyone but me?”
Quentin shook his head wordlessly. His mouth followed Tezcatli’s, demanding more kisses, more tongue, more teeth. Tezcatli couldn’t help but give him what he wanted -- a gift, for being such a hellcat. “He’s gone,” he managed to say. “Gave us his goodbyes. I’m all that’s left.”
Quentin moaned, his arms coming up to grasp tightly at Tezcatli’s neck. “I know,” he said through kiss-swollen lips. “He wants me to live. And I want to do what he said, in his memory.”
Tezcatli stilled. “Is that all?”
“No.” Quentin’s tongue flickered out to trail along Tezcatli’s cheek. “He said I should go on. That means with you. That means it’s all right.”
“What’s all right?” Tezcatli thought he knew, but had to be sure. Everything rode on what Quentin made up his mind to do. “Say it, boy. Say it out loud.”
“Stop calling me ‘boy’!”
Tezcatli refused to look away. “All right. Boy.”
Quentin bared his teeth. “You are a pain in the ass. Literally. I don’t know what you’ve done to me, or who you are, beyond your name, but you’ve caught me. You got me by the short hairs, then you dragged me in. I want you. I’ve been alone for a long damn time. You are the first one to have gotten through. Does that make you happy?”
“Oh, yes. And I’ll be the last,” Tezcatli threatened/promised. He moved his hands downward, jerking at the fastening to Quentin’s pants. They popped open easily under his strong grip, freeing that swollen cock to the night air. “It’s all right,” he said. “No one can see us,” he lied. “Tell me. You know what I want to hear.”
“Damn you!”
“Tell me!” His hand hovered over Quentin’s cock. “Tell me, or I won’t be good to you.”
“Good to me? Good? Fine, then, you fucker, fine! I want you. I belong to you now. I am yours.” Quentin blazed with anger and lust. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Tezcatli grinned, his mouth full of sharp teeth. “It’ll do,” he said. “It’s a start. Now.” His hand began to work the hard column of flesh he’d been so close to, but hadn’t yet touched. Again. He half closed his eyes at the feel of the weight in his palm. Gods, nothing compared to cock.
His free hand ran up Quentin’s chest, counting the muscles as he went. Six-pack -- hell, he all but had an eight-pack. This one was strong, proud, brave. He had fire inside him. There was no doubt in Tezcatli’s mind that he’d make a gorgeous cat.
Tezcatli made his decision. “I’ll be good to you,” he said, meaning it on several levels. He thought Quentin understood him as he dipped his mouth down toward that cock. “So good,” he breathed over the tip. “I’m all you need ...”
He sank down. Quentin gave a choked cry and gripped at Tezcatli’s shoulders, at his hair. Tezcatli grinned around his mouthful and set to work. Tongue up the thick vein on the underside, teasing circles around the head; suction up and down the length. He loved cock. Loved sucking as much as he enjoyed fucking. He wouldn’t ever stop if he had a choice.
And with a tom like this? There’d be plenty of chances.
Quentin moaned beneath him, writhing up and down as Tezcatli rubbed his thighs, weighed his balls in one hand and rolled them back and forth with just the right amount of pressure, then used his hand to work what parts of the cock his mouth didn’t cover. The man was shameless, kneading Tezcatli’s scalp and arching his hips up.
Tezcatli drew back to breathe over the wet cock, drenching it in sensation. “It’s all right,” he said. “You have permission. Live again. Give it to me.” He licked once more, a long, lazy stroke. “Live!”
Then, he drew the head back into his mouth and probed at the slit with his tongue. Quentin bucked, yelled something that wasn’t quite words, and grabbed Tezcatli hard enough to hurt. Spunk shot from his cock into Tezcatli’s mouth, salty and musky. Jet after jet of the stuff, even though he’d already come once.
His balls were tight as knots against his body as he came. Tezcatli gave them a squeeze, milking his mate until Quentin cried out again and slumped back against the wall.
Tezcatli followed, swarming up onto the bench and balancing on his knees. He thrust his own hard cock at Quentin, nudging his lover’s spent member. “Me now,” he said. “My turn. Service me.”
Quentin looked at him with dreamy eyes. He opened his mouth and closed it -- so fucking tempting that Tezcatli had to seize it in a kiss. Let Quentin taste himself on Tezcatli’s tongue. When he drew back, though, the look he got had sharpened. He wasn’t quick enough to avoid the man’s hand as it shot downward to grab his cock through his clothing.
“Thanks,” Quentin said. “Now, I want to know something. I fi
gure turnabout is fair play.”
Tezcatli gaped. “You -- you --”
“Tell me, Tezcatli,” Quentin warned, applying just a little bit of pressure. “You distracted me before, but I don’t forget easily. Tell me who you are. Are you going to hurt me? Put me in danger? I’ve had enough for one lifetime.”
Tezcatli couldn’t believe his ears. “You think I can just blurt it out? You think it’s that easy?”
“No. I think it’s hard.” Quentin did something with his hand that should have been illegal -- Tezcatli registered the thumb sweeping down the length of him and a finger digging into the swollen head. “I’m willing to accept what Zach told me. God help me, but I do want you. The thing is, that means if you want me to take you on, you have to tell me the truth. I’ve done my fighting and my hiding, Tezcatli. I don’t ever want to do that again.”
Quentin drew back, utterly serious. “Tell me, or I walk away. You said you wouldn’t take me by force. I don’t think you will, even if you can be a conceited asshole. I want to hear everything from you, the whole truth. I know you’re not normal. Are you even human?”
Tezcatli opened and shut his mouth, stunned at his mate’s defiance. “I -- I --” he stuttered. A madness overtook him. He wouldn’t give up Quentin, he couldn’t. So he’d just have to make sure the man couldn’t leave him. “Forgive me,” he whispered.
Then, with the slightest application of pressure, he quickly extended a claw and scratched a light trail down Quentin’s chest. It wouldn’t be enough to turn the man, but he had to mark him. Had to see his signature on that beautiful flesh.
“Ow!” Quentin jerked back. A few ruby droplets of blood welled to the surface. “What did you do that for?”
Tezcatli caressed his shoulders, then moved his hands down Quentin’s arms to the elbows. “So handsome,” he murmured. “Your body gave me no say in the matter.”
“Between hurting me and walking away? Great choice, Tez!”
“Don’t call me that!” Tezcatli ground his teeth. “I’ve warned you not to mock me. No one does so --”