With a Kiss

by Kim Dare

  Liam cleared his throat, only just keeping back a really bad joke about fang shaped condoms and safe biting. He shook his head at himself, but at the same time, his lips quirked into a small smile. “I have a really bad sense of humor,” he confessed, dropping his voice to a whisper, as if sharing a secret with a good friend.

  His expression faltered as it occurred to him that he was probably speaking to the one and only person on the planet who really could be trusted to keep any and all secrets someone shared with him.

  Marcus Corrigan wasn’t going to rush off to Ralph, carrying tales. Liam was safe there.

  “So, um, where was I?” he tried again, finally able to relax into his chair a little. “I was going to tell you about me, right?”

  * * * *

  Liam closed the door leading into the private room behind him and leaned back against it. He thought about shutting his eyes in an effort to hide a little bit more thoroughly from the world, but the sight before him was far too beautiful to waste.

  Marcus lay exactly as he always did, right in the center of his hospital bed, long black hair trailing over his pillow.

  Liam took one more deep breath and let it out very slowly. There was something amazingly reassuring about entering a room and knowing exactly how the man in there was going to react to his presence, something gloriously safe about knowing that the man in front of him would never lash out in his direction, no matter how badly he screwed up.

  “Hi, Marcus.” Liam whispered the words so quietly he could barely even hear it himself. Clearing his throat, he looked up at the bright florescent lights set into the ceiling and tried to summon up the will to make another attempt at it.

  It was no use. Speaking wasn’t in him right then. He wasn’t sure he even had the strength to take another breath. Adrenaline ebbed away rapidly, allowing Liam’s pain to flow back into his body and make itself felt in every joint and sinew.

  His frantic dash across the city had inflicted its own blows, apparently aimed at all those places where Ralph’s fists hadn’t landed that night. Very slowly, Liam bent his knees and let himself slide down the door, until he sat, curled into a tight ball on the hard tile floor.

  Folding his arms on top of his drawn up knees, he rested his forehead against his damp forearms. For a long time, he just sat. Unable to think, unable to move, Liam merely existed.

  Time passed. Liam had no idea how long he remained on the floor just inside Marcus’ door, but, eventually, some tiny part of his mind that was a little more ready to face the world than the rest of his psyche, began to focus on the steady beeping emanating from one of the machines by Marcus’ bed.

  Liam slowly lifted his head. For a few seconds, everything remained a blur. Blinking his eyes, Liam swiped at the drops of rain lingering on his lashes with the back of his hand.

  The beeps continued, one every second, one for every beat of Marcus’ heart, just as they had ever since Liam first met the other man. The News Year’s Eve festivities hadn’t made any difference to Marcus. The vampire hadn’t gone out drinking with friends from work; he hadn’t come home spoiling for a fight.

  Liam swallowed rapidly. There was something incredibly pathetic about sitting alongside a man in a coma and being jealous of the other guy’s life. Pulling himself to his feet, Liam slowly crossed the room until he stood right next to Marcus’ bed.

  “Have you had a good day?” he asked the slumbering man.

  No answer was forthcoming, but Liam was already used to filling in the other man’s side of their chats.

  “Sarah was on duty today, wasn’t she? Did she tell you her plans for tonight?” Liam managed a small smile for the picture that formed in his head. “I bet they were wild!” He couldn’t imagine the stunning blonde doing anything that wasn’t wild.

  Gradually, even that mild trace of a cheerful expression faded from Liam’s face.

  “You’ve probably guessed that my plans didn’t exactly go the way I hoped.” he mumbled, his fingers fidgeting with the edge of Marcus’ bed sheet.

  Whoever had washed Marcus’ hair that day had left one dark lock trailing across his forehead. Liam reached out and stroked it back from the vampire’s face without even thinking about the gesture.

  Marcus wasn’t the type of man who would want to look anything other than his best at all times. Sighing quietly to himself, Liam stepped away from the bed and paced over to the window. “It’s stopped raining,” he said, before glancing at his watch. “And it’s three minutes to twelve. The weather men were right for once. It’s cleared up just in time for the firework display. That’s good…”

  Rubbing at his bare arms, trying to warm them up, Liam couldn’t help but wonder if Ralph had gone to one of the displays on his own, after Liam had run out on the older man. A shiver traced its way down his spine. He’d have hell to pay for that when he went home.

  Crossing the room, Liam peeked through the little window in the door leading out into the corridor. No one was within view. Ralph hadn’t guessed where he’d run to and come after him.

  Liam ran his hand down his face. Blood from his cut lip smeared on his fingers. Liam absentmindedly wiped it on his wet jeans. He was just being stupid now. Ralph hadn’t followed him to the hospital in all the time they’d been together. He wasn’t going to start now.

  Liam glanced at his watch again. Pinning a smile to his lips, he made his way back to Marcus’ bed and picked up the ear phones attached to the hospital radio system. Putting one ear bud in Marcus’ ear, he slipped its companion into his own ear.

  They were only just in time. The chimes on Big Ben were already counting down the last moments of the year. Under his breath, Liam counted down the seconds along with them, his eyes never leaving the sleeping vampire’s face. “Three…Two…One…”

  Marcus didn’t join in. He didn’t smile, or wish Liam a happy New Year as noisy celebrations were relayed to them over the radio. He didn’t turn his head when the first firework whistled into the air not far away and pretty colors exploded in the night sky outside the window either.

  “Happy New Year, Marcus.”

  Liam’s brain, pounded by both fists and panic, packed its bags and slipped away for an impromptu holiday.

  It was good luck to welcome the New Year in with a kiss, and God knew that Liam needed all the luck he could get. Unable to think of a single reason why it was a bad idea to do so, Liam leaned down and pressed his lips very chastely against Marcus’ mouth.

  A frown spread across Liam’s forehead as he straightened up. Against all logic, he was almost sure he’d felt the other man’s tongue brush against the cut on his lower lip as they kissed.

  Chapter Two

  Blood.

  For the first time in three years, the taste of it danced on Marcus Corrigan’s tongue as an impossibly soft mouth brushed against his lips. It was only the tiniest drop, but it was real, human blood, and it was enough.

  The droplet sparked frantic messages that raced through Marcus’ veins faster than sound, or light, or even thoughts could travel. There was blood to be had. It was his for the taking. The call to arms bounced off nerve endings and ricocheted through Marcus’ joints, reactivating muscles that had lain dormant for so many long, painful months.

  Marcus’ tongue slipped out to taste the other man—his first voluntary movement since he’d been admitted to the hospital. His taste buds brushed against a cut on the boy’s lower lip.

  The bastard had hit him again.

  If Marcus hadn’t been sure of it before, the split in Liam’s skin confirmed all his worst fears.

  A shocked little noise caressed Marcus’ mouth. Liam jerked away from him.

  No! That couldn’t be allowed to happen.

  It was far from the first time Marcus’ brain had demanded that his limbs reach out and catch hold of the boy. The only difference that night was that his body actually seemed willing to obey those orders.

  Marcus’ fingers twitched. His hand slowly rose from the bed sheet. He fumb
led blindly at empty air until he finally found Liam’s arm. He wrapped his fingers around the boy’s wrist—his thumb and forefinger meeting easily on the other side.

  “What the—?”

  Panic filled Liam’s voice. He tugged at Marcus’ hold on him, but mere human strength was no competition for a vampire’s grip.

  Little by little, Marcus managed to remember exactly how a man went about prying open his eyelids. Harsh white light stabbed at his senses, as vicious as any knife.

  Growling his displeasure, Marcus squinted up at Liam, desperate to catch his first glimpse of a man he’d been picturing in his mind’s eye for months. All he could make out was a blur. He forced his eyes to open completely. Pure survival instinct insisted that Marcus lift both his hands to shield his eyes from the light.

  Liam’s wrist slipped from Marcus’ grip. A shadowy outline backed away from the side of his bed.

  With depth charges still exploding through re-activating joints and nerve endings, Marcus didn’t have energy to waste on complex thought processes. All he could do was react the way nature intended a vampire to react when his prey was trying to escape.

  The scent of Liam’s blood insisted Marcus play his part in the chase. After all the time he’d spent unable to do anything but listen to his visitor babble away at his bedside, he’d be damned if he’d let the other man withdraw now. Muscles finally sprang into action.

  Barely aware of wires and leads being yanked and torn from his body, Marcus threw himself out of the bed. Pain shot through his feet as his soles hit the floor. Tendons screamed in agony. Joints exploded as if a sledge hammer were being brought down on each one in turn.

  Liam stumbled backward. Marcus’ fingers brushed against the boy’s t-shirt only for the thin material to slip from his grasp as his prey jerked away.

  Gradually, the world swam into focus. Marcus saw a clear image of Liam for the first time; saw the way the boy’s hand scrabbled at the handle of the door leading out of the room. A clumsy step brought Marcus to within arm’s reach of the boy.

  His hand closed around Liam’s shoulder and jerked him away from the door.

  As suddenly as Marcus’ ability to stand had returned to him, it vanished again. His knees buckled. His muscles battled to keep him upright, but it was a war they were destined to lose.

  Gravity dragged Marcus unstoppably toward the floor. His grip on Liam instinctively tightened. The boy looked over his shoulder. His eyes opened very wide as their gazes met. Twisting around as if in slow motion, Liam opened his arms to catch Marcus, as if he really believed there was any way in hell he’d be able to keep a man twice his size upright.

  The room spun around them both, walls rising rapidly on all sides as the floor rushed up to greet their flailing limbs. Marcus landed hard on the cold tiles and their chill quickly rushed through his naked body. Pain flared in his shoulder and quickly spread through his entire body. Liam tumbled down half next to Marcus, half on top of him.

  With what little strength he had left, Marcus increased his grip on the boy’s T-shirt—determined to maintain his hold on the man, even if he couldn’t keep his own balance.

  The smaller man’s body pressed down against Marcus’ bare chest, his hands resting neatly on his shoulders, as Liam stared down at him, his eyes full of panic.

  “Safe,” Marcus tried to say, but his throat howled in agony as he tried to force words through it.

  Liam didn’t seem to understand the word. His gaze traveled rapidly over Marcus’ face as if desperately trying to get a read on him and work out how to protect himself.

  “You’re safe,” Marcus tried again. His vocal cords still weren’t his to command. The voice didn’t sound anything like he remembered it. There was no strength to it, no certainty. A frown creased Marcus’ forehead.

  Dropping his gaze to Liam’s throat, he saw the boy’s Adam’s apple bob when the boy tried to swallow down his nerves. His jugular pulsed right next to it.

  Blood. Fresh and delicious, and right there. All he’d have to do was pull the boy’s neck down a few inches and he could take all he wanted from him. Liam wouldn’t be able to stop him. Predatory instincts howled inside Marcus, but he pushed them away.

  “Safe. Understand?” he pushed. That was important. Liam wanted to feel safe. If all his babbling had told Marcus anything at all, it was that the boy wanted to feel safe more than anything else in the world.

  Liam didn’t answer. He wasn’t even looking at Marcus. All his attention was on the door leading out into the hospital corridor.

  Marcus’ frown deepened as a loud banging sound registered in his senses for the first time. He followed Liam’s gaze up to the door. Someone was hammering on the other side of it, trying to force it open. It jerked against Marcus’ bare skin, hitting into his shoulder over and over again, but whoever was trying to get in wasn’t strong enough to move him.

  Liam pushed at Marcus’ chest, trying to get up and scramble away from him.

  “No.” Marcus tugged at the sodden T-shirt, pulling the boy back down as he lost all interest in the door.

  Their eyes met. “Please don’t tell them?”

  Marcus’ frown deepened as he fought to make sense of the words.

  “Please don’t tell them that I kissed you,” Liam whispered, urgently. “I…they’ll…I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have…”

  Marcus somehow managed to summon the energy to lift his other hand and press his fingers clumsily against the boy’s mouth. “Not mad,” he forced out. His voice was still thin and raspy, but finally starting to sound a little more like he remembered it being three years ago.

  “You’re not?” Liam’s eyes opened very wide as if he’d never heard anything so shocking in his life.

  Marcus’ lips curved into a smile. He didn’t even need to order them to do that. The muscles remembered how to form the expression entirely on their own.

  The boy really was charming. Perhaps not as pretty as Marcus had pictured him, but he was just as easily shocked as Marcus had known he’d be, and his blood still called to him as strongly as ever.

  Liam looked up at the door again.

  “They won’t hurt you,” Marcus promised, quietly impressed with himself for managing to say something that sounded suspiciously like a whole sentence.

  He stroked his fingertips over the cut on Liam’s lip. The scent of the blood made Marcus’ teeth ache and his veins plead with him to feed. A bruise was forming on Liam’s temple too, where his blood was pooling just beneath his skin—a criminal waste.

  “I think you’re freaking out some of the nurses,” Liam said.

  Marcus didn’t bother to offer any sort of comment on that. Who gave a damn about the bloody nurses?

  Liam nibbled on his bottom lip, right next to the split. “I…I’d like to get up now, if you don’t mind?” he asked, cautiously.

  Getting up… Marcus mentally cursed—his prey might as well have asked him for the world on a stick. Marcus had no idea how the hell he could accomplish such a complicated maneuver without a proper feeding.

  “Maybe I could help you back to your bed?” Liam offered. “And we could let the nurses in?”

  Marcus’ shoulders tried to tense at a mere human thinking that he couldn’t get up on his own. The energy wasn’t there. It wouldn’t be there until he fed. The nurses would be able to supply him with blood until Liam could offer his willingly.

  Marcus reluctantly nodded his willingness to accede to his prey’s request. “You should be checked,” he said, his attention once more straying back to Liam’s bloody lip. He should be checked and cleaned up, before Marcus gave in to the temptation to feed from him no matter what Liam’s views were on it.

  “Me?” Liam asked, as he pulled himself up into a kneeling position at Marcus’ side.

  “Bastard hit you again.”

  All the color drained out of the boy’s face. “You…?”

  “Heard every word,” Marcus finished for him.

  Liam pull
ed away, scrabbling backward on the floor as if Marcus was the man who knocked him to the ground, and kicked him while he was down, every damn time he had a drink.

  “I…you…I…” Liam sat on the floor at the foot of the hospital bed, wide-eyed, with his hair dripping wet.

  Marcus brushed a hand against his own skin. He was damp now too.

  “I’m sorry,” Liam whispered. A shiver ran through him. He was soaked through the skin.

  Marcus lifted a hand and held it out toward the boy. “You offered to help me back to my bed.”

  Just as Marcus suspected, the reminder brought Liam hurrying back to his side, just like the good little submissive he was so blatantly cut out to be.

  It should have been the other way around. Marcus should have been the one supporting the younger, weaker man. He knew that, in a part of his soul that went even deeper than his desire for blood. He was the one who should have all the strength, who should be offering to help and heal his new submissive. The fact that their roles were reversed was enough to send a wave of familiar anger coursing through him.

  Vampires weren’t designed to be helpless! They were designed to feed.

  As Liam pulled him awkwardly to his feet, Marcus reached out and put his hand on the door, easily keeping it closed in the face of the hospital staff a little while longer. His gaze homed in on Liam’s neck. Everything would be so simple, so easy if he took just a little from the boy.

  Marcus could damn near taste Liam’s blood filling his mouth; imagine the hot sweet liquid caressing his throat as he swallowed it down. Every cell in his body ached, crying out for the energy and the pleasure that blood would bring with it.

  Lifting his gaze to meet the other man’s eyes, Marcus swallowed rapidly.

  Liam blinked and seemed to refocus in on the world around them. He dropped his gaze but he still remained close, allowing their bodies to brush against each other in his desire to support him. As scared as he obviously was, Liam slid his arm cautiously around Marcus’ naked body.