by Mary Calmes
“Is that right?”
“Oh yes.” He grinned, and I felt his fingers sliding up the back of my neck into my hair. “So how ’bout I pick you up after work, we’ll grab some Chinese food, come here, and get in bed. How would that be?”
“I want you to move in.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow, for sure. Tonight, you hafta sleep over here with me. I need to make sure you’re safe.”
“Okay,” I agreed, pressing wet happy kisses to his throat and jaw.
“God, I needed this,” he sighed, “you coming over here all worried and hot for me.”
“Watching you and Malic last night, I wasn’t sure you—”
“Jules.” He framed my face in his hands, making me still. “Me and Malic, me and all the others… we work great together, the killing is seamless, but that part is just training and ability. A sentinel can find his warders, knows them when he sees them, and when he trains us, it triggers the speed, the strength, the power. Jael finding me made me a warder, but that’s all it is. The real part, the true part, is just about being a man and being loved. Having a hearth, a home, that’s who I am, what I am.”
Every doubt I had crumbled with his words. Being loved was the most important thing to Ryan Dean; I would not make him tell me again.
“You’re gonna love me, Julian, sooner than you think.”
I already loved him; I just wasn’t ready to tell him. Pushing him back through the door, I locked it behind me.
“Mr. Nash, you—”
I grabbed him, pivoted, and shoved him face-first up against the front door.
“That’s it… push me around.” This, then, was Ryan’s need, to feel my strength, my power exerted over him, to trust that I would be rough but never hurt him, my love his safety net. “Do whatever you want to me.”
I loved him shaking with desire, the need there in his voice, his face, his heavy-lidded eyes and trembling lower lip. His sharp gasp of pleasure made me smile as I pinned him with my body, his inability to form words, only sounds from deep inside of him, his profile a study in anticipation.
“God, I love belonging to you,” he moaned.
I loved it too. He was mine. “I’m not letting you go.”
“Promise?”
“I do.”
“Say it again.”
So I did.
I
IT HAD been a good night, my favorite kind. Nothing planned—just the fun of being out with a few close friends and letting the night lead you wherever it wanted. Lack of a destination always made the journey fun. Planning was for amateurs.
“See,” Rene Favreau said, smiling over his shoulder as he walked into the club ahead of me, “aren’t you glad I talked you into coming out with us?”
And I was, up until I saw who we were meeting at our last stop. I never understood the need in some people to add others to the mix when what you had with you was working out fine. It was probably the same principle in action that made people cheat. If one guy is hot, two would be better. The mentality to want, need, to have more was lost on me. I liked small groups, a tight circle of friends, and one lover at a time. But Rene wanted to dance and have fun and to him, the more the merrier. He had gotten a text that Graham Becker and some of his other friends and acquaintances were at a dance club in the Castro, so he had routed us there to meet them. I was suddenly ready to call it a night.
“Wait.” He slipped around in front of me, barring my path. “C’mon, Mal, just stay. You don’t even have to talk to Graham.”
But I would. He was there and I was there, and even in a large group, even with ten of us at a table being loud, I would get stuck at least acknowledging his presence and him mine. And then there would be trouble.
“Malic,” Graham muttered after maybe five minutes of us all sitting down.
“Graham.”
You could feel the ice blow over the table. I shot Rene a look.
He nearly spit out his Chivas and water.
“What’s so funny?” Graham asked him.
He just shook his head, trying to breathe around the burn of having good Scotch go down the wrong hole.
Graham’s dark green eyes were back on me, staring daggers. This was what came of telling the truth.
“How ya been?” I asked politely.
“What the fuck do you care?”
I didn’t; I was making polite conversation, but if he was going to be a dick, I could easily ignore him.
A month ago we had been at a party together, and Graham had gotten really drunk. At one point in the night, he was in my lap, arms wrapped around my neck, nearly dry-humping my abdomen and whining for me to fuck his brains out. I had been more than willing to grant his request; he was tall, dark, and handsome, and his sexy green eyes made my cock hard. To cut down on drive time, I had suggested the bathroom. I was thinking of him. Fucking in the john, his face plastered up against the mirror, ass bared, was more comfortable than my car; it seemed like a good plan. I thought he’d be pleased. He was nowhere near it.
Apparently Graham Becker was not hot to be my hookup for the evening. He was not a one-night stand kind of guy; the man was looking for a relationship. I just wanted to get laid. He was upset that he had misinterpreted my interest as long term when it was merely immediate. And then he was embarrassed. And then he took it out on me again and again and again until just seeing the man made me cringe. He could hate me if he wanted, that was his prerogative; he just didn’t need to be vocal about it.
“Lay off Mal,” Rene told him. “Give it a rest.”
“Why are you here?” Graham snapped at me. “Shouldn’t you be in your closet?”
Christ.
“Well?”
He meant my club. My strip club. My straight strip club.
Ever since Graham had found out my club down on Mission was a girls-only venue, he had been giving me crap about it. Why did a gay man own a place where only women stripped? That made no logical sense. But it made perfect sense to me. At my strip club, Romeo’s Basement, you could only watch beautiful women writhe out of elaborate costumes; there were no boys on stage. I had purposely made it a gentleman’s club because hot men strutting around in nothing but G-strings would have been hard on me. Sleeping with your employees was bad for business as well as morale, so I made sure I was never tempted to do either. My explanation would not have interested the man who hated me. What he didn’t know was that I took my sex casually for a very serious reason. I didn’t want to hurt anyone.
I was not simply a cold-hearted bastard being a dick; I had nameless, soulless encounters in hopes that if they were fast, then the other person wouldn’t suffer. Yes, I wanted to get laid, but also, because I was a warder, if you weren’t my hearth and I screwed you, you could get hurt. Graham had no idea of the very real jeopardy he was in.
I was a warder; warders killed demons. I killed demons. I hunted them with others just like me, five of us in all, plus my boss, the sentinel of the city, Jael Ezran. Every city had a sentinel, every sentinel had five warders, and all of them hunted demons together either in pairs or in a group. I fought things that went bump in the night, which was the heroic part that probably would have excited Graham. The part that would not have excited him was that sleeping with me could not only hurt his feelings when I left in the middle of the night but could actually kill him.
The kiss, the touch of a warder, if you were not their hearth, could be deadly. There were a select number of humans who could be intimate with us, and when we found one of them, it was a cause for celebration. It wasn’t like a hearth was the one and only mate of a warder; they were simply one of very few people that could handle being intimate with a warder.
Ryan, or Rindahl, as my sentinel called him, one of the other four warders I hunted with, had recently found his hearth, and I could not imagine him ever letting the man go. When a warder found a hearth, usually it was because they had finally taken the step and slept with someone they loved. When they had sex they hoped, prayed, that
that person was compatible with them. Ryan had wanted Julian, and so he had gambled on a future with the man. When he found out that Julian was his hearth, could truly be his, I had never seen him so happy. He even allowed Julian to watch us hunt. And it had only happened once, but to so indulge another simply out of love was horrifying. The very idea made me crave lots and lots of air and wide open spaces. Love, in all its many forms, seemed more about control to me than anything else. I would fight to make sure it never got ahold of me.
“No snappy comeback?”
I looked over at Graham, unsure of what he was talking about.
“Malic?”
“Sorry, I stopped listening. What’d ya say?”
He threw up his hands, got up, and stalked away. I turned to look at Rene.
“You know you’re an ass, right?”
My mind had drifted, that was all. I didn’t try to piss people off deliberately, but it happened a lot nonetheless. I bored easily, as a rule; it was hard to keep my interest. Those that could usually became my friends. “So, what, are you picking up a fuck buddy or not?”
“We say make love to or sleep with,” Rene corrected me, brows furrowed, scowl dark. “Why do you always have to be so goddamn crass?”
“Have the balls to say fuck, ’cause that’s all it is,” I said, yawning.
“Mal––”
“If it’s hearts and flowers you really want, you should pick someone up at the library and ask them out for tea.”
“You do not have a romantic bone in your entire body.”
Which was probably true, but it didn’t change the facts. “If it’s romance you want, it ain’t happening at a club.”
He was still scowling at me, but I was right and we both knew it. “Malic, you know you’re never gonna find someone to put up with your bullshit, right?”
I grunted, because that was simply a fact of life. I excused myself to go hit the head.
“I’m gonna get drinks. Whaddya want?” he called after me.
I yelled back for a Black and Tan and moved through the thick Saturday night crowd toward the bathroom. Once I reached it, I encountered something I never had before: a line.
“Something’s going on,” the guy in front of me said to my shoes.
“What?” I asked, annoyed. It would have been nice to have more people look me in the face, meet my eyes. But they didn’t.
“I think some hustler’s getting his ass beat.”
I moved by him and several others, but no one said a word. The theory was that my perpetual scowl coupled with my height and wingspan, as well as my shoulders and chest, made most guys give me room. When I stepped around the corner, inside the bathroom, I realized how dark the red neon made it. Because the space was so big, there were dark spots everywhere, and at the other end of the row of stalls, there was a guy standing guard.
“No!”
The scream was from inside the stall, and I moved toward it. I didn’t run, but it was easy to see that I was on my way down to have a word.
“Back off, man.” The guard put up his hand. “This is shit you don’t wanna be in.”
“Get off me!” A second yell from inside.
I shoved the guard back hard, and when he moved further than he thought he would, I got a wary glance. Power exhibited over others is either seductive or scary. He was scared; it was all over his face.
“Let him out… now,” I ordered, my voice low, cold.
He stared holes in me, but he turned and pounded on the door. “Greg, c’mon.”
I waited. Not that I couldn’t have picked the guy up and thrown him across the room. I was a warder, after all, I fought and killed demons, but it would have raised eyebrows and therefore questions if I put the man through the wall. I was solid and muscular, but the guy in front of me looked like he’d taken a few too many steroids. I might have been big, but the guy in front of me was bigger.
I heard another smack, that unmistakable sound of someone being hit, then a bang, and finally a guy stepped out who was almost as large as the one standing guard. The two of them could have easily passed for defensive linemen––massive muscle-bound guys with no necks.
“You gotta lotta balls, man,” he said, shoving me back as the two of them moved by me.
I slipped inside the stall, and there on the floor was an angel. Literally. The guy was dressed all in white, dusted in glitter in a Lycra T-shirt, white leather pants, and white patent leather Doc Martens. The huge, white feather-covered wings he was lying on completed his outfit.
“Shit,” I groaned, sliding down the wall beside him next to the toilet. His lip was split, there were big red blotches on his right cheek and throat, and his eyes were closed. He had either fainted or he’d been knocked out. “Hey, look at me.”
There was no movement.
I leaned back, squatting, and got out my cell, sending Rene a text because there was no way he would either hear his phone ring in the club or be able to talk on it.
“What….”
I looked back down at the guy as he looked up… and was swallowed in big, warm, chocolate-brown eyes framed in the longest, thickest eyelashes I had ever seen in my life. I could barely breathe.
I hated feeling like that.
His hand reached for my knee.
I cleared my throat. “You all right?”
He nodded, just staring up at me with those huge anime eyes. I instantly changed my mind about his age. Not a guy, a boy. Very young. Maybe, if you were stretching it, just barely legal. He had thick mahogany curls that fell over his ears and down the delicate slope of his neck, fragile features, and full, pink lips that were made to be devoured. He looked about five eight, five nine, built like a gymnast with a tight lean body, defined muscles, and smooth skin. He was beautiful, much too pretty to be on the floor of a bathroom.
“What’s your deal?” I asked him gently.
“You saved me,” he said, lifting himself up, his body very flexible, sliding over my knee and down against my abdomen.
“Wait.” I tried to stall him, but my balance was upset, so I ended up sitting on the floor with him in my lap.
“Why?” he asked, straddling my hips, tightening his legs as his hands went to my shoulders. “You saved me. You have to keep me now that you saved me.”
He was warm on top of me, sliding his tight little ass over my groin, wriggling to get a better angle.
“Stop.”
His eyes narrowed in half, and he bit his bottom lip, pressing, pushing.
“Baby,” I said, because he was so young and so sweet. Tasting him would be heaven.
He leaned forward to kiss me, and when I lifted my head he came up short, his lips on my jaw.
“Stop. Stop,” I said, taking his wrists in my hands, pushing him back so he had to look at me. “We’re not gonna have this scene, okay? Are you hurt?”
He shook his head slowly, his eyes locked on mine. And it was then, after years of experience looking at and talking to men and women who came into my club, that I realized how drunk he really was.
“Why can’t I kiss you?”
I doubted he could even tell me his name. He was sloshed out of his gourd.
“I wanna thank you for being my hero.”
Christ.
I let him go and put my hands on his face, looking at his lip, moving his head, lifting his chin so I could check his throat, his neck. His hands went to my chest as he tried to push himself forward, get closer.
“Stop.”
“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, his hand slipping around the back of my neck. I could not even fathom the amount of alcohol that had to be in his system for him to think I was anywhere near hot. The beer goggles were on good and tight.
“I have never seen eyes like yours.”
Uh-huh. “They’re blue,” I said distractedly, checking him over. His neck was already darkening where he had been choked. Christ, who roughed up a guy this pretty?
“They’re like ice,” he said, shifting in
my lap, sliding over my groin, notching his cleft over the bulge in my jeans. “They’re really scary.”
And he somehow made that sound good instead of bad. But that was hardly the point. The point was that he was trying to kill me. “Stop,” I told him again, realizing that to stand from the angle I was at in the cramped space, he’d have to move first. Normally I could have stood with anyone in my lap, but the maneuver was out of the question from where I was beside the toilet.
“Mal!”
“Last stall!” I yelled back, and I heard Rene’s shoes clip the floor as he came closer. “Listen, that’s just my buddy Rene, okay? Nobody’s gonna hurt––”
“You smell great.” He inhaled, leaning forward, wrapping his arms around me as his head hit my collarbone. “And you feel amazing.”
His skull was hard, and it hurt for a minute when he knocked it against me.
“Do I even wanna know?” Rene asked as he appeared above me, brows furrowed as he held up his phone. “And can I just say that this is the weirdest text message you’ve ever sent me?”
“What?”
“I need you in the bathroom?” He arched a brow for me. “For what?”
I shot him a look as the top of a wing nearly took out my left eye. “Shit.”
“Okay, Cupid,” Rene said, bending down to get his hands under the boy’s armpits. “Let’s get up.”
“Wait,” he protested, but Rene was too strong.
As he was put on his feet, I got up, and Rene and I stood there staring at the wobbly angel.
His thick eyebrows had a slight arch in the middle, which gave him a mischievous, almost wicked look, definitely alluring. He reminded me of those guys in paintings from the Renaissance, fragile-looking, with porcelain skin and big eyes. Because of all that, he was easily pulling off the angel costume.
“I’m Dylan.” He smiled up at me, his eyes heavy-lidded, biting his bottom lip. “What’s your name?”
“Malic.” I smiled down at him. “What are you doing in the bathroom, Dylan?”
The decadent look I was getting, like I was candy, was adorable, and I had to remind myself that he was much––spell it out in neon––too young for me. And drunk. God, he was so drunk.