Blood Claim

by Laura Baumbach, Angela Fiddler, Jet Mykles

  The adrenaline rush that had fueled his exit from the diner and his rapid trip home began to ebb. Lethargy crept into his muscles, and the crisp sheets and cool night breeze of his bedroom called to him, his fears fading in the familiar security of home.

  He stripped as he walked, gathering the discarded items over one shoulder until he was completely naked by the time he entered the bath off his bedroom. A breeze gently blew in from the open window. Hunter inhaled the fresh night air, letting the familiar scents ease his rattled nerves.

  Dropping everything but his jeans into an open hamper inside the door, he then moved to the curtained shower and adjusted the water temperature. Billowing waves of white steam filled the room, chasing away some of his lingering chill from earlier.

  He stepped under the stream of water, relaxing into its soothing heat, letting the streams pulse hard against his flesh. The sound of the water filled his ears. He let the splashing beat invade his mind, blocking out everything else, including thought. Bowing his head, Hunter let the spray pound across his neck and between his shoulders, acutely aware of the rivers of cooling water that ran along his spine into the crease between his asscheeks and trickled around his ribs to the vee of his groin. Eyes closed and mind lost in the fog of steamy relaxation, he imagined the trail of running water to be a lover's touch, wet fingertips or, better yet, a moist tongue exploring his body.

  Frustrated with the earlier rampant, yet ultimately unfulfilled sexual tensions, his cock jumped to full attention at the first slippery touch of his soap-lathered hand. Swollen and heavy, the circumcised shaft jutted up and away from his abdomen, a respectable seven inches, slender, but firm like the rest of his body. It was a shade darker than his abdomen, the head dusky pink. Its length was ribbed with veins that stood out close to the surface, like supporting steel cables pulled taunt along the structure.

  His balls hung close to the base of his shaft, compact and unevenly suspended in their lightly furred sac of wrinkled flesh. They were very sensitive to touch, even more so than any of his lovers’ sacs had seemed to be, especially the thin strip of flesh directly behind them. A slippery touch, a wet kiss, or just a bit of the right kind of pressure, and sufficiently aroused, he had more than once reached orgasm from that alone.

  He fingered the sac, bringing it forward, feeling it tighten as the pulling caused a delicious pressure to tug at the sensitive skin behind it. He clenched his ass to still the immediate fluttering at his opening, his body begging for attention.

  Rubbing two soaped fingers over the delicate strip, he fisted his cock with his other hand, sighing at the satiny smoothness of lather and hard flesh. Warm, moist air filled his nostrils and bathed his lungs. His skin flushed, his face aflame with surface heat and a growing internal glow of desire and need.

  The last thing he wanted to think about right now was a menacing man who seemed to be stalking him and who made gooseflesh break out on his skin.

  Yet Malcolm Crane, malevolent, ghostly pale, and intensely unnerving, was the only thing he could visualize, no matter how hard he fought it. As scary as Malcolm was, his pale, alabaster skin gave him a classic physical attractiveness. He radiated a raw sensuality and possessed an intriguingly dangerous quality Hunter had always found exceedingly appealing. Add the unexpected mystery of Malcolm's failure to appear in the first set of photos or in the diner window reflection, and Hunter was hopelessly entranced with the man, stalker attitude be damned. So, gooseflesh or not, head bent under the pulsing spray and body supported by one hand on the wall in front of him, Malcolm Crane was the face Hunter saw behind his closed eyes. His hand stroked and tugged, but Malcolm's large, cool hands were the hands he imagined. He gripped his cock firmly, almost roughly, the way he imagined the imposing man would do, occasionally rubbing a slippery palm over the swollen head, mixing pearls of creamy white pre-cum with larger dollops of bright white soap.

  He formed a ring of index finger and thumb around the shaft and moved it slowly up and down in the slick coating of soap gel, letting his mind envision Malcolm's face at his groin and his pale, thin lips sliding up and down his cock. He increased the pressure so that the corona of the tip had to be dragged through the tight ring of his hand. Each upward pass made the supersensitive skin under the bulbous edge tingle and burn.

  His asshole winked, his cheeks clenched hard, both searching for the long, thick monster of a cock Hunter imagined Malcolm possessed under those immaculately tailored trousers. Having experienced Malcolm's erection pressing against his body in the park, he tried to replay the incident in his head, savoring the feeling of the hard shaft. His leg tingled at the memory. His cock jumped, and flashes of heat infused his abdomen and limbs, fueled by the subconscious memory of at least nine heavy inches of thick fullness jabbing into his body as he lay under the fallen Malcolm.

  Hunter groaned out loud, his own panting breath rasping in his ears over the pulsing water. He felt his knee weaken, the visual so real he had to stop himself from reaching down to tangle his hand in the short brush of hair on Malcolm's head.

  Leaning his head against the wall to free his other hand, Hunter rested his weight on his forehead, shivering as the pulsing spray moved to stream harder into the small of his back and channel a river between his cheeks. He used one hand to part the globes of his ass, letting the trickle tease his opening before he reached under and between his spread legs to plunge two suds-covered fingers into his body. Placing his thumb behind his sac, he stroked over the sensitive spot, pressing just hard enough to make his eyes water. His balls jerked up the last centimeter as he twisted the two fingers jabbing deep into his ass. The memory of Malcolm's piercing gaze rippled through him, as did the memory of the other's tongue running over his lips. He sucked on his lower lip, hoping to reclaim the taste.

  Electric bolts of pleasure shot out from the pit of his abdomen and groin, setting fire to his entire body. Gooseflesh prickled his skin. His knees locked, his asshole spasmed in a burning grip, and his eyes clenched tight while a strained litany of “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Jesus, Malcolm, fffffffffuck!" poured from his panting lips. Opal threads of cum spurted from his cock and were instantly washed away.

  Hunter slumped against the shower wall, tired fingers hurriedly finding new purchase on the tile surface to keep him upright. He felt drained and shaky, the orgasm one of the fastest and most powerful he'd experienced in ages. It left him weak-kneed and gasping. He was astonished by strange flashes of Malcolm's intense, victorious stare and wickedly satisfied smile, flashes so vivid that they seemed real.

  His abandoned opening fluttered and burned, unsatisfied and still eager for more, fuller attention. Even his cock had only marginally softened. A knotted blaze of unleashed desire glowed and flared in the pit of his abdomen, making him squirm and gasp. His skin was hypersensitive to every touch as he rinsed the remaining soap away and stepped out of the shower.

  Waves of gooseflesh broke out again. Hunter cursed under his breath and dried off, hurriedly toweling his hair into a tousled, but no longer dripping, mess. He tumbled into just his worn jeans, leaving them partially unbuttoned in his haste to leave the haunting visions behind, hoping they would disappear along with the fading mist of the shower.

  He strode out into the hallway and sped through to the living room to retrieve his camera. It sat waiting for him on the stand, its single, all-seeing eye staring at him as he paced barefoot and flushed across the room. Despite the cool air from the bedroom, Hunter found the air thick and unusually still, like his hearing had become suddenly muffled.

  A quick scan of the room revealed nothing unusual. His coat lay on the end of the couch, the same mail lay on the table by the camera where he had dropped it earlier, and the chain and deadbolt were still securely latched. Even so, he had a nagging sense of something being out of place. He turned the knob on the twin lamp sitting on the side table, snapping its second bulb on. The whole area brightened.

  He searched the room a second time, but the lure of the new photograp
hs he had snapped of Malcolm at the park and diner were too great to be ignored or delayed by a childish insecurity. The door was still locked. There was no one here. Hunter shook off the unsettling aura, hefted the camera, and padded off to his makeshift darkroom, shaking tufts of drying hair out of his eyes.

  Dim amber safelights gave the darkroom a surreal, B-movie quality once he was sequestered behind the closed door to begin the labor-intensive job of developing the roll of film. Hunter worked through each painstaking step with an automatic sureness of hand that spoke of years of practice. So much of it was done without conscious thought, Hunter was mildly surprised when the film negative began to reveal its hidden secrets so quickly. He stared it, examining each frame, eyes squinting to catch every detail and shadow on the ghostly cells.

  He tried to tell himself that the shivers that ran down his spine and made him glance over his shoulder every few seconds were caused by lack of sleep and a lingering adrenaline rush from the hasty, dark walk home. But, Hunter couldn't rid his mind of the unsettling, passionate images of Malcolm in the shower. It seemed those would be his only images because Malcolm didn't appear to be on this new roll of film either.

  With several of the newly developed photos held fanlike in one hand, eyes riveted to the pictures, Hunter moved out of the surreal dim of the darkroom into the light of the living area. He was still only dressed in his unbuttoned jeans, the flesh of his bare chest and bare feet bracketing the worn, button-fly denims.

  Head down studying the pictures, Hunter came to a stop a few feet into the room. The same heavy, vaguely off feeling touched him again. The shadows in the room looked darker, thicker. Looking around the room, he scrutinized every gray-shrouded corner.

  It took a moment for him to realize one of the bulbs in the lamp was out. Burned out, probably, but he couldn't keep his gaze from darting to the front door to check that the locks were still in place.

  Not as reassured as he would have liked to see the chain still draped securely in the place, Hunter slowly began to walk toward the lamp to check the bulb. As he walked past the couch, he suddenly realized what had struck him as odd earlier, what he hadn't noticed, but what now he was sure had been there.

  Haltingly, one hand still holding the pictures, he reached down to touch his scarf where it lay casually tossed on top of his coat. The scarf that belonged to his father, the one he had left behind at the diner during his hasty retreat a few hours ago. The scarf that couldn't possibly be here, behind his solid, locked door.

  Mouth so dry his throat seemed to shrink closed, Hunter took a halting step toward the front door, wishing it were unlocked and standing open now instead of tightly sealed.

  But after the first step, the need to know, the need to understand, the same need that made him such a good photojournalist, made him seek a sensible answer to an impossible puzzle. He turned toward his bedroom.

  One of the darker shadows disengaged from the living room wall and shifted fluidly toward him. The eyes seemed to materialize first—cold, gray with a touch of red to them like in a photo taken with a cheap camera.

  Hunter immediately stopped short, his heart choking him, pounding in his constricted throat. As the dim lamplight pushed the black shadows away from the shape, the towering, reserved figure of Malcolm Crane emerged.

  Malcolm was still immaculately dressed in the same black overcoat, business suit, and black collarless dress shirt he'd worn earlier, his polished boots unscuffed and his trousers unwrinkled. If he had climbed the apartment building wall—the only way into Hunter's locked apartment—he was not only an amazing man, but astonishingly tidy as well.

  Even though he wasn't truly surprised to see Malcolm, a bolt of fear shot through Hunter. His breathing turned to shallow panting that forced his heart rate to rocket until he could hear it pounding in his ears. Despite it all, or because of it, he was uncomfortably aware his cock was fully hard, pressing against the seam of his jeans, trying to jut out of the partially unbuttoned confines of denim. He stood still, ten feet away from the man, studying Malcolm's calm, almost expressionless, bold features.

  Malcolm returned his silent stare and after a few seconds, maybe because Hunter hadn't run or screamed, the man's eyes seemed to warm with a hint of respect and a renewed light of interest. His pale lips twitched with the grudging beginnings of a pleased smirk.

  Hoping to hang on to some tiny strand of control in the situation, Hunter glanced past Malcolm toward his bedroom. “How?"

  "That's an old wives’ tale.” The smirk tugged harder at Malcolm's mouth. He didn't move, but his presence was filling the room, making it difficult for Hunter to breathe.

  Thrown off base, Hunter blinked and stammered, “What is?"

  "Needing an invitation to enter a dwelling for the first time.” Malcolm slipped off his long coat and draped it over the back of a chair. He looked larger without it. His suit jacket followed. He slowly unbuttoned the neck of his shirt, eyes never leaving Hunter's confused stare while he talked.

  "I meant, how did you get up to a sixth-story window?"

  "It's not hard.” Malcolm smiled, his clothes immaculate, no visible evidence of having climbed a sheer wall. “For me. With or without the invitation."

  Malcolm hadn't made a move closer, but Hunter felt as if the man was invading his personal space, engulfing him in some kind of powerful aura. He took a small step to one side to escape it, instinctively gravitating in the direction of the front door. He stopped when he heard what sounded like a low hiss. The door was only a few feet away, but he knew he'd never make it.

  Frozen in place with panic, Hunter tried to laugh. It sounded husky and raw, nothing like his laugh. His gaze dropped to the photos in his hand. His eyes were telling him the truth about his visitor, but his mind wasn't accepting it.

  "I thought that invitation stuff was for vampires."

  When Malcolm answered him with nothing more than an intense, knowing look, a shiver ran down his spine, so strong his shoulders shook. Hunter impulsively thrust the pictures at his uninvited visitor.

  "You aren't in any of them.” He paused to take a deep breath, then plunged ahead. “You should be in them. I know you were in them when I took them, but ... you're not there.” His voice rose by the last sentence. He had to clear his throat and swallow to bring the tone down. It came out a husky rasp instead.

  He took a step closer to Malcolm, pictures held out accusingly. “It's not the film. I thought it was, the first time it happened, but the film is good. Everything else is in the shot.” He swallowed hard again, terrified and turned on by it, by the man in front of him. “Everything but you."

  Malcolm made no move to take the photos from Hunter's hand. His gaze had become lazy, sultry, that light of renewed interest taking on a lustful, predatory quality. His long, thick fingers began to work off the links at his shirt cuffs. Once free, he dropped the glinting metal into his pants pocket.

  Hunter's gaze followed every move. He had to wet his lips to keep them from cracking. The air in the room seemed to grow thin as he imagined all the reasons this man might need to remove his shirt. Keeping it clean of bloodstains took first place.

  Since it had started to shake, Hunter dropped his hand. He tossed the photos onto the couch, where they scattered over his coat and scarf. The sight of the scarf made his stomach clench, and he looked up at Malcolm to find the man standing a mere foot away from him, bare-chested, sculptured, alabaster body boasting a hardened physique as perfect as any of Michelangelo's statues—and just about the same color.

  Taken by surprise, Hunter started, gooseflesh covering his body, his pulse hammering through his veins, his hearing suddenly acute to the point that his breathing rasped in his ears. The scent of his own body and its primal, sexual reaction to this dangerous, alluring, predatory man filled the air between them. It was embarrassing to be so obviously turned on, but Hunter couldn't control it. He was attracted to danger, always had been, and this man—or whatever he was—was danger personified, all
wrapped up in alluring muscle and mystery.

  The room grew warm, the air heavy, sensual against Hunter's chilled flesh. The sensation increased the closer Malcolm moved to him. It was intoxicating, suffocating, delicious, and exciting.

  Hunter stumbled back, colliding with the end of the sofa. Malcolm merely watched him grope for a hold on the couch arm in order to stay upright, no offer of help, no rush to rescue him. Hunter liked that. Too many of the larger men he was attracted to tried to treat him like a frail flower just because he was smaller. It was ironic that this man would treat him as an equal. But once again, the minute he regained his footing, Malcolm was standing a breath away. Hunter never saw him move.

  "Who are you?” He barely stopped himself from adding what are you? “Why are you here?” A clean, slightly tangy scent surrounded Malcolm, one Hunter couldn't place but found mildly exciting.

  Malcolm's eyelids drooped, and his gaze shifted to look at the scarf on the couch, then slid a heated stare back up to meet Hunter's. “Just before he died, I promised your father I would visit his son.” The words were cold, factual, but something hot and needy lit up Malcolm's eyes.

  Hunter leaned back to give himself breathing space, attraction and lust battling fear and, now, confusion. This wasn't a direction Hunter expected the conversation to take.

  "You took your time.” Despite a lingering sense of survivor guilt, Hunter had accepted his parents’ deaths long ago. It was an effort to hear even his own voice over the steady pulse echoing in his head. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if the pulse was his own. “My father's been dead for years."

  "From his mortal existence, yes.” Malcolm extended one sinewy, powerful hand and ran a single fingertip up Hunter's bare arm, over his shoulder, and down the shallow valley that defined his chest, dropping away just as it reached his belly button. “But his immortal life ended just a few months ago."