Blood Revealed

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Dominic recognized then that Patrick really did understand. Patrick had lost his art, too.

  Was that why he kissed him? He wasn’t sure. Yet he found himself leaning through the few inches that separated them and pressing his lips up against Patrick’s.

  Patrick’s breath expelled in a rush and he could feel the man stiffen and surprise. That only lasted for a second. Patrick groaned and his hand came up to hold Dominic’s head steady. Now, Patrick was kissing Dominic. That felt perfectly natural, too.

  There was an inevitability about this moment, as if they had been circling around it and drawing closer for weeks.

  Tentatively, their tongues met. They had bypassed the moment where one of them could have drawn back and pretended nothing had happened. They were both committed now. The kiss deepened.

  Dominic realized that his hand was pressed against the keyboard and the keys were depressed. The room would be filled with discordant notes and he could hear none of them….except there was a distant echo of jarring chords from Patrick’s mind because Patrick could hear them. It didn’t matter. Not right now.

  He felt the other person’s surprise in his mind at the same time he heard the throat clearing from somewhere across the room. Patrick jumped to his feet.

  Dominic mentally sampled Patrick’s awkwardness and underneath it, a sense of defiance.

  Dominic looked around. Sebastian was standing just inside the doorway that led to the family rooms at the back of the house and the stairs up to the second floor. He had a grin on his face that he was trying hard to suppress. “You took so long finding Dominic and bringing him up to the bedrooms that I figured I’d better come and see if you’d been dragged off by the paparazzi or something.”

  “No one steps inside this house unless I say they can,” Patrick said.

  He was deliberately shifting the subject. Dominic appreciated that.

  Sebastian jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Should we just sort out the bedrooms and bathrooms for ourselves? I think I’ve got the lie of the land up there.”

  “No, it’s fine, I’ll come up and help,” Patrick said.

  Dominic got to his feet and moved around the piano, his fingers trailing along the black lacquer. “If there’s a small room at the back of the house overlooking the garden, could I have that?”

  “Of course,” Patrick said immediately.

  Dominic very carefully didn’t look for the emotions underneath his words. There would have to be a reckoning, of course. The kiss would have to be explained and spoken about. But it would have to come later, preferably much later, after Dominic had found time to think this through.

  Chapter Nine

  It had been a long day of moving heavy computer equipment around and unpacking boxes. That was the excuse Patrick gave himself for shutting himself up in his bedroom early that night. In truth, he wanted to get away from all the people in his house, so that he could be alone and think.

  Because of his fame and because he spent his life in front of cameras, the vast majority of the world figured he was an extrovert, that he liked being among people.

  It had taken him many years to understand that he was an introvert and that being among people for a long period of time tired him out. He drew energy from being alone and having time to think things through and sort them out, whether that was on paper, or in his head. Up until he realized that, he had spent miserable years passing time among virtual strangers, letting the cynicism of Hollywood color all his dealings with other humans.

  He didn’t mind being in front of cameras, because when he was there, he was generally not being himself. He had lines and directions and a job to do. Being in front of cameras was part of his work.

  Being among people as himself was a different sort of work, one that taxed him to the point where diving into a bottle had seemed like a much better proposition.

  He had opened his house up to others. It had been a deliberate choice and a sensible one, yet he still had to deal with the impact of having people around him all the time.

  So he escaped to his bedroom, sat on the bed he no longer used and listened to the silence in the room and let his body relax.

  There was a lot to think about.

  The tap on the door ten minutes later told him that he wasn’t going to get that chance. Even as he opened the door, he knew who it was.

  Dominic frowned as he looked at him. “You want to be alone. I’m sorry, I should have left this until tomorrow or something.”

  Patrick shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Let’s deal with this before it goes sour on us.”

  “Goes sour?” Dominic gave a short laugh.

  Patrick stepped away from the door and beckoned and Dominic followed him into the room and shut the door behind him. “Goes sour. You spend forever thinking things over and turning them over and mixing them up into a churn of sick feelings, until you don’t know which way is up.”

  “That’s what you do? Go over things forever?”

  “You don’t?”

  Dominic’s smile was small and there was a twinkle in his eyes. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  True.

  Patrick drew in a breath and let it out. “So let’s talk.” He waved toward the arrangement of easy chairs over by the window. Dominic made no move to head toward them. Instead he pushed his hands into his pants and Patrick could see that his hands were fisted under the fabric.

  So Patrick stayed where he was in the middle of the floor. He let his hands hang loosely by his sides. When he had first started acting, it had taken him many weeks to learn how to stand still and not fidget with his hands and arms. The average human couldn’t stand and not cross their arms or put their hands on their hips or otherwise keep their hands moving. It was as if they didn’t know what to do with them while they were standing there.

  But such movements, if they were not portraying character or story narrative, were a distraction on film. He had been forced to learn how to stand still and only let his hands move in ways that progressed the story.

  Now it was easy to just stand there and wait out Dominic, because the fisted hands in his pockets said that Dominic wasn’t nearly as laid-back about this as he was trying to make himself look.

  Dominic’s jaw worked.

  “Is there another name I should use for you?” Patrick asked.

  Dominic’s head tilted a little. He looked puzzled. “Name?”

  “I’m presuming that Dominic is not your real name. Should I keep using that, or is there a different name I should use?”

  “Dominic is my real name.” He shrugged. “It’s my middle name. One of my middle names.”

  “How many middle names do you have?”

  Dominic held up his hand and checked off a finger for each time he spoke. “Antonio Dominic Vincenzo.” He held up the three fingers with a small smile. “I’m Dominic now.”

  Patrick understood what he had not said. He was Dominic now because he had put the past behind him. Today had been an aberration. Probably something that he regretted now. It had been a difficult moment for Dominic to learn that even though he had his hearing back, music wasn’t to be a part of that.

  Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly,” he said softly.

  “I’m sorry,” Patrick said quickly. I think more frankly in my thoughts than I would speak aloud, because I’m not used to you having access to the thoughts as well.”

  Dominic’s smile broadened. “Well, it cuts through all the bullshit, doesn’t it?”

  It does. Patrick deliberately spoke the words in his mind but didn’t say them aloud. And then, because he really did want to cut through all the awkwardness, he reached back to the memory of the day that Dominic had walked into his house and he had sampled his scent. The unexpected arousal that had ripped through him and the way that Dominic’s presence had played upon his consciousness ever since. The longing and need was not something that he was deliberately invoking. It caught him by surprise every single time. It was there, neverthel
ess.

  How could he explain that this was not something he was deliberately seeking out? It was as much of a surprise to him as it was to everyone else. He liked women. He loved women. He loved them enough that he’d been through four disastrous marriages and dozens of failed relationships, enough to keep the tabloids cranking out copy for twenty years now.

  When Dominic walked into the room…he just knew. And his whole body leapt.

  Only, he didn’t know if this was all part of being a vampire and something to ignore. Perhaps it was a passing thing. Roman had explained that vampire sensibilities when it came to sex were far more acute than the average human’s. Patrick had to adjust to that, was still adjusting to that. If he pursued this, whatever this thing was, with Dominic, then he might be doing it for all the wrong reasons….

  Dominic pulled his hands out of his pockets and moved over in front of Patrick. He was a tall man, surprisingly tall for a South American, yet Patrick still had three or four inches to spare. Even so, Dominic held his own.

  Dominic looked him in the eye. “You can sort out all the reasons why later. Just know that I’m not doing this for any of the reasons that you might have.”

  Patrick’s heart squeezed and stirred to life. So did his body. “Why are you doing this?” His voice was hoarse.

  “I didn’t know until this morning that you and I are the same.”

  “How?”

  “We must create. One way or another we must. It is the only way we can be happy.”

  Patrick’s surprise was smothered by Dominic’s mouth against his. The kiss was every bit as good as the one from this morning. Except now they were both standing, which meant their bodies could meet and mingle, just as their tongues were.

  The pressure of Dominic’s hips against his made Patrick groan. He was wrong. This was much better than this morning.

  At first Dominic was hesitant, his hands only resting against Patrick’s chest, as if he dared greatly. For that reason Patrick found he couldn’t reach out and pull Dominic closer. He didn’t want to rush him. He didn’t want to startle him away. Except he really wanted to hold him while he kissed him. Dominic’s eyes opened and this close-up Patrick could see that they were really as black as they seemed, not just a dark brown.

  “Do what you must,” Dominic said. He picked up Patrick’s hands and drew them around him. “You are not my first by a long shot. You’re just the first man.”

  As Patrick absorbed that, Dominic grinned, gripped the back of his head with his big hands and long fingers and pulled him closer.

  This kiss was much better. Patrick let his hands run freely and this time it seemed quite natural when they separated that he fumbled with Dominic’s belt. “I’ve never taken off another man’s belt before.”

  “You’ve had other men as lovers.” It was not a question.

  “Yes. But there was no seduction involved.”

  Dominic stepped back a little and looked at him.

  Patrick deliberately recalled the uncomfortable sex he had had to endure early in his career. He hadn’t had to remove any belts because the men who had taken him had been naked to begin. Sometimes they didn’t even bother being naked, or taking off their clothes at all. An open fly would do the job.

  “Ah,” Dominic said softly. “A transaction, not a seduction.” He grinned. The warmth in his eyes was soothing. “I guess we’re both beginners, then.”

  After that, there was no words. Patrick didn’t know if Dominic was reading his thoughts and didn’t care. They were at one and it worked.

  Eventually, the clothing was gone and they stood with nothing to hide. Dominic’s cock was as rampantly erect as his, throbbing readily between his thighs. His eyes were sleepy, thick with arousal.

  “Damn!” Patrick said softly, as he realized something.

  Dominic’s eyes opened a little wider. “Perhaps there’s some in the bathroom, in the back of a cupboard somewhere.”

  Patrick nodded and headed for the bathroom and flipped on the light. He felt awkward and foolish.

  “It’s not like you planned this,” Dominic called out from the bedroom. “If you had, then I would be offended.”

  And just as Dominic had suspected, there was a bottle of lubricant, long forgotten, at the far back of the cupboard. It was a left over from some seduction of one blonde or another. He couldn’t remember who and he was quite sure they had moved on to bigger and better things.

  Thankfully, he took the bottle out to the bedroom and placed it on the nightstand. “Very new at this,” he added.

  “Good,” Dominic said flatly. He picked up his hand and drew him onto the bed, which was mussed from where Patrick had been laying on it earlier. Neither of them bothered drawing the covers or tossing pillows.

  For a moment their eyes locked, as they settled on the bed. A small silence followed.

  Patrick cleared his throat. “Does this seem in any way strange to you?”

  Dominic didn’t smile. His expression was sober. “Do you mean, we should both be freaking out because we’re in bed with a man? Because it seems to me that would be the natural reaction, yet I don’t feel that way at all. Do you?”

  Patrick shook his head. “Not at all.” He let the corner of his mouth curl up. “Although I still have my learner’s permit. So…” He pushed on Dominic shoulder, forcing him to lie down on the mattress. Dominic cooperated and Patrick settled over him. He looked him in the eye. “I’m just following my instincts, okay?”

  “I know. That’s all I have to go on, too. We both know how to do that, right?”

  Yes.

  Patrick didn’t bother vocalizing the affirmative, because he knew that Dominic would pick it up from his thoughts, anyway. In a way, having Dominic inside his brain made life a lot easier. It certainly helped him circumnavigate a lot of awkwardness.

  So he pressed his lips against the base of Dominic’s neck and tasted the salty heat of him. It seemed perfectly natural to let his lips trail down to the flat discs of his nipples. One at a time, he licked them and sucked them into his mouth, to nip at them with his teeth.

  Then, still going with his gut, he let his lips move farther down onto the flat plain of his stomach. There was a dusting of dark hair there, which was odd after kissing so many women in the same position. Odd, yet good.

  Dominic was breathing hard and his heart was slamming in his chest. Patrick could hear the heartbeat as loud as a shout. The sound of it was driving Patrick onward, inflating his desire with every passing second. It wasn’t just the sound of Dominic’s arousal that was goading him. The scent, the human markers that Patrick had first sampled and been so powerfully impacted by, were all around him, a hundred times more powerful now they were so close together.

  It was intoxicating in a way that no amount of alcohol had ever managed. Patrick didn’t feel drunk, he felt alive, with every nerve twitching and every blood vessel in his body hot with fast-flowing blood.

  The tip of Dominic’s thick, heavy cock brushed against Patrick’s cheek as he moved downward. Dominic groaned. The sound was delicious.

  Patrick settled himself between Dominic’s thighs, shoving his knees aside to make room for himself. Dominic’s head rolled back on the pillow and his eyes closed as Patrick gripped his cock.

  “Do not spare me.” Dominic’s accent was the thickest that Patrick had ever heard.

  “No way that’s going to happen.” His own voice was as thick and distorted as Dominic’s.

  He ran his tongue around the red and sensitive flesh at the tip of Dominic’s cock. His body was pounding with need. Everything he was doing to Dominic was just driving that lust higher. His cock was throbbing between him and the sheet and felt like a molten steel rod. He could finish this so easily and so quickly, but wouldn’t.

  With a growl of hunger he pushed his lips over Dominic’s cock, sliding them down the shaft that felt as superheated as his own. Dominic reared back on the bed, his hips lifting, shoving his cock deeper. Patrick feasted upon it,
enjoying himself in a way that no meal or drink had ever imparted. He could have kept going forever, except that he became aware of Dominic’s growing stress, the way his hands were fisting the cover into a tight wad and the shortness of his breath. He was too close to coming and Patrick didn’t want it to end this way.

  He lifted himself up and Dominic gave out a soft desperate groan. His eyes opened, not all the way because they were heavy lidded with lust. His glance, though, was speculative.

  “I don’t just hear your thoughts,” he said. “I can feel everything you do. You liked what you were doing.”

  Patrick shrugged, perhaps for the first time feeling a touch of awkwardness. “Of course I did.”

  Dominic sat up, his cock jutting up against his stomach, red and glistening. “You were giving, not taking. How much will you like it when you have to take?” Using a strength that Patrick had not suspected him to have, Dominic flipped him over so that he was on his hands and knees. Using that same strength, he rearranged Patrick’s knees so that he was spread open and exposed.

  Patrick let out his own groan. It was incredibly arousing to be vulnerable this way. He dug his fingers into the cover, trying to breathe. His heart felt as though it might explode with only a little more excitement. He was going to pay for this later. He would have to feed sooner rather than later and feed deeply, too.

  Then all his concerns evaporated as Dominic slid his hands down along his back and over his ass. He slid his fingertips between his cheeks and stroked between his cheeks.

  Patrick let his head drop and his eyes close, riding the almost overwhelming excitement.

  He listened as Dominic picked up and opened the bottle of lubricant, heard the liquid squeeze out and swallowed against the surging pleasure. Just anticipating what was to come was delightful.

  Dominic stroked him from his anus to the base of his balls. Tension snapped Patrick’s spine taut. His breath squeezed out of him in a wheezy moan. When Dominic’s fingers curled around his balls and squeezed, the groan that pushed out of him felt like it was being drawn up from the bottom of his belly. He was beginning to shake with the coming climax.