Dante’s World 4: Crimson Nights

by Willa Okati

  His grin widened. “What, didn’t you get quite satisfied last time we fucked? You want to be inside of me again? Now, I’m a big believer in share and share alike, but I’ll be gracious if you’re wanting --”

  “No!” Ransom stumbled back -- then blinked with surprise. Ho, there! Turning Fox down was new, and the way he saw things, it was a fine start. He felt so ridiculously pleased with himself that he wanted a tot of whiskey to celebrate. Any other time, after such an invitation, he’d have been unable to help himself. He’d have snatched Fox up and started to devour him with kisses and gropings after that little speech. But somehow, he’d found the strength to back away. How’d that happen, then?

  No matter. Take advantage of it while it lasts, eh? “It’s always your body, my body, end of story,” he went on, fast, backing up a step for each one Fox took forward. “Doesn’t matter when, where, why, taking or giving, but I can’t help feeling you’re putting your mark on me. And I don’t care to be owned by any man. So answer the question, or I’ll make myself wake up.”

  “You can’t do that.” All the same, Fox stopped, a frown creasing his forehead. His kissable lips turned down at the corners… now that’s an expression just begging to be licked away… no, stop it! Bad, Ransom. Think about the important thing, and then rub it in his face.

  He folded his arms across his chest, knowing his eyes were lit up with an unholy glee. “I can, too, can’t I? Else you’d not be so upset about the idea.” Ha! Why he’d never thought of this before, he didn’t know, but he had some power over the vampire now.

  Fox was out-and-out sulking by then, his lower lip pushed out, just inviting itself to be nibbled on. But nah, Ransom decided he was going to stay strong now that he’d got the upper hand for once.

  “Yeah, you could wake up,” Fox admitted. “I don’t want you to, though. I like having you here like this.” Then, the vampire smirked. “I’d rather have you without this heavy sweater on me, though. I want to have you underneath me, opening up wide and letting me right on in, sweet as you please. Best fuck in the city. And you are, you know. There’s not a man, demon or vampire who I’ve run across that knows how to give as good a fuck as you.”

  “Right, stop there.” Ransom held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing to know. But you’re trying to distract me --”

  “Is it working?”

  “Not quite well enough.”

  “Damn it.” Fox kicked impatiently at the grass. “Fine, then. But I was answering your question. I’m just using my own style, is all. Why’s it always sex? Beats playing pool and drinking beers while we ogle serving maids ten or fifteen years past their prime.”

  Ransom pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alternatives to sex are very much not the point I’m trying to make,” he said, voice muffled by his hand. “Why’s it you’re here, in my mind? Why’d you pick me? What’s the point of this whole joke?”

  “No joke, baby.” Fox came a little closer, and Ransom let him. “Guess your mind thinks it wants me, that’s all. Happy to oblige it.”

  “Not likely,” Ransom scoffs. “In the waking world? I happen to hate your kind, wanting to enslave us all, and I don’t feel a thing when I look on you but the need to see you and your lot all brought down to the dirt.”

  “Oh, so you’ve decided to show your balls,” Fox purred. “Guess what, though? We aren’t going down, Ransom. Vampires have been here a lot longer than your breed, and we plan to stay. But as for going down, I’d say I can do that just fine.”

  “If you don’t stop with the fucking sexual innuendo --”

  “Can’t do that, and no, I’m not sorry. This is just the way I’m made. But you keep on talking. I’m listening.” Fox made a great show of doing so, even keeping still in an attitude of deep concentration. “Go on, then. You must think there’s a reason I want you. What’s on your mind?” Besides the obvious? the shape of that lickable mouth leered at him.

  Truth be told, though he’d pondered it many a time before Ransom was giving the question some thought. “You’re a trick,” he says finally. “Bait in a trap. I know your lot want my kind as servants, and as for me, you want my dab of a gift for foresight. What good would seeing the future do you? Your kind isn’t long for this city, this world. The humans outnumber both our races -- ah, hell, what am I saying? I’m half human -- and they’ll outlive both breeds. You won’t be any better off with me by your side.”

  “Aw, now, that’s just bad of you.” Fox shook his head, little droplets of mist flying off his curling hair. He came closer, personal enough, somehow, to trace a finger down over Ransom’s heart. “Now if the vampires really wanted you, don’t you think we’d just take you? Snatch you up like a little stray dog and bring you home?”

  “Might be,” Ransom shot back, “but you know you couldn’t keep me if I didn’t come of my own free will. There are rules to everything, and this is one: since this is only a dream, I don’t belong to you. You can’t bind a demon with phantom blood or sex.”

  “Mmm-hmm. And you’ve got this all… figured… out, don’t you?” Fox’s finger stopped, circling around Ransom’s navel.

  Ransom swallowed dryly. “Yeah. I do. Took some thinking, mind, but I get it now. You make me fall for you in my dreams, then offer me the same deal in real life. I come along nice and quiet and you’ve got yourself a slave. Just let me tell you straight up then, thanks but no thanks.”

  “Now did I confirm any bit of your slander?” Fox’s whole hand had gotten in on the action by then, stroking just above the hairline low on Ransom’s torso. Toying with the elastic on his sleep trousers.

  “You didn’t deny anything, either,” Ransom whispered. He knew he should step back… but somehow, he couldn’t stop Fox, and didn’t want to smack his hand away like he should have.

  Fox’s eyes narrowed. “If this is all a fantasy, like you figure, then I’m just a figment of your imagination. A damn good one, too. I could be any man you want. Anyone you care to dream about, doing what you want him -- or her -- to do. But you don’t want that, do you? Come on, at least be honest with yourself. You want me. You’ve wanted me since that night in the tavern.” He tapped his nose. “I can smell things pretty keenly, halfling, and this doesn’t lie. Tell yourself the truth. You like these dreams. You need me. You ache to be with me. It’s not just the dreams. You want to live your life out with me, whether I’m a damned vampire or not.”

  All Ransom could feel was a numb kind of shock, and the tingle of rough-tipped fingers slipping under his waistline.

  “If I’m wrong and you don’t want this, I don’t have to come to you again. But let me have just this once, huh? One more drop of you on my tongue, to last me until I find someone else to love. Someone else’s mind to visit. You don’t think these are ordinary dreams, do you? I’ve been visiting you on purpose. And I can come here any time I want. All you have to do is invite me back, and you’ve done that every single night. Don’t lie to yourself.”

  Fox’s hand dipped lower, lower, lowest, all the way down until he found what he’d been looking for -- not such a difficult task, really -- and squeezed. “One more time,” he coaxed. “Bottom, top, neither, I don’t care. Just let me see that face of yours while you’re coming. Feel your muscles shake like you’re havin’ a fit.” Clever fingers skimmed and stroked over heated, swollen skin. “Say yes, baby. You know you want to. One more time before I go.”

  Ransom was gasping by then, wishing he had a handy tree of his own to lean against and support himself. “You promise?” he managed. “Once more around the park, and you’re gone?”

  “Gone like the wind,” Fox whispered. He pulled down Ransom’s pants with eager hands and drew him out, just rough enough to make Ransom’s nerve ends thrill with pleasure. “Though why you’d want to give this up is beyond me. It’s your loss, Ransom, and I’m going to show you what you’ll be missing out on.”

  He dropped gracefully to his knees and pressed his face to Ransom’s groin, inhalin
g deeply. “Just the smell of you gets me so hard,” he whispered. He licked one long stripe along the throbbing vein beneath Ransom’s cock, tapping his tongue in time with the pulse beat. “Mmm, but the taste of you is so fine.” He sucked hard, once, on the spongy head. “Finest flavor in the world, all whiskey and sin.”

  Ransom’s hands were clenching into fists. “Shut the fuck up,” he rasped. “Do it.”

  Fox teased him with a long row of light tongue-flicks. “Say please.”

  And because by then he was so horny, and because he no longer cared, not about pride or being right or getting this sweet night-after-night torture to end, Ransom ground out, “Please. For the love of pity, please!”

  “Now that’s what I like to hear,” Fox whispered, then slid his chilly, heavenly mouth over the head of Ransom’s cock. He kept on going, cheeks full and throat working, until he’d taken every inch in. Then he sucked, he swallowed, he worked his tongue the way only he could until it was all Ransom could do to stand upright. His rough fingers slipped back around Ransom’s ass cheeks, sliding between his crack to tease the hole he’d been in so many times, filling it up and killing him with pleasure.

  Ransom was so close to coming he didn’t care about anything else. Unable to speak, he grabbed Fox by the hair and worked his hips, thrusting in and out of that eager mouth, heedless of the fangs, until he came with a moan from the very heart of him and a great shudder that nearly knocked him off his feet.

  Fox pulled off, lapping hungrily at a strand of come. Ransom’s cock was slick and shiny with saliva and his own juices, “And you wanna give this up.” Fox sounded just a little too amused. “Damn fool.”

  Ransom found he was still too wrung-out to speak. All he could do was stare, blankly, at the man before him, licking come off pinkened lips. “You wanna wake up now?” Fox whispered. “Or you want a little more?”

  Ransom’s mouth moved, all ready to say the word, but then --

  “Ho, ho! Six o’clock of the morning, and time to wake! Time to wake! Six o’clock of the morning, and time to wake!”

  The clanging of a bell and gong woke Ransom from a solid sleep. He rocketed up from his armchair with a thundering curse of “Damn it all to hell!” His eyes wide open and shocked, he stared around his home. Scattered clothes, check, bed empty, check, vast wet puddle of come on his belly, check.

  Fuck -- again! His heart was beating trip hammer-fast in his chest, and his skin felt slick with droplets of sweat. But -- and this was new -- the details of the dream were already fading. All he remembered was a cool mouth around his cock, and a rough-rum voice telling him he’d be on his way after just one more shot. Gone.

  And vampires kept their promises, didn’t they? They considered themselves to be honorable folk, in their way.

  There’d be no more Fox in his dreams, then.

  Ransom stuffed down the tiny little qualm he felt about that. If things were truly over, then thanks be to the gods. Course, when you’ve got the half-demon lineage with an odd quirk that lets you see the future from time to time, you can’t control what you dream about, but if that truly was the last time the vampire appeared in his night visions, he decided to be glad of it.

  Because? Fact was Fox had been telling the truth. As much as Ransom dreaded them, he was starting to look forward to those dreams. To the thrill that wracked him backbone to bellybutton. And bein’ divided like that, between someone he knew for a damn good fact wanted to take him over, and the life he’d carved out for himself? Not a good thing, no, not good at all.

  It’d be a mercy if it was over. He’d always have regular fantasies, he could visit the taverns again, and if worst came to worst he’d always have his own hand to keep him company at night.

  No more Fox.

  Ransom tried to make himself smile, but couldn’t quite pull it off. He felt as if… no, fuck, no! He wasn’t already missing the vampire. Couldn’t have been. He was glad to have the creature out of his life, so he was.

  Bye, Fox. Doubt I’ll be seeing you around. Mind that you do let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, eh?

  Ransom shook his head resolutely. God, he felt like a new man. Good enough to shower and eat some breakfast instead of drinking a tot of whiskey to drown out all-too-vivid dreams. Then back to work, where he could get good and tired and come home to rest in peace.

  Yeah, he thought as he reached for some fresh work clothes, determined not to let himself regret. Not one bit. He was going to have a good day today, no two ways about it.

  * * *

  It was way too early in the morning to still be awake, but Fox was at his home, pacing around the room with angry strides, kicking a circle of enchanted herbs into a muddled mess. Throwing a temper fit wasn’t the smartest of moves, he knew, but if Leila dared poke her nose in on him just then she’d likely find it bitten off.

  Fox was not in the mood for company.

  He dropped to one knee, tracing patterns in a small, scattered heap of herbs on his floor. Just a bunch of crushed roots and other things; no real smell to them, and a slightly slippery feel, but the power they hold… held…

  Power that’d be useless now, because the game was up and his plan hadn’t worked. The damned -- beloved -- seer figured it out. All by himself. And they were that close -- making him think of home, blowing his mind via his cock --it had all been meant to be the sealing of their bargain. He’d planned to tell him the truth before Ransom woke up: that he wanted the man in much more than his dreams. He wanted him real, alive, and in his bed.

  All he would have had to do would be to say: yes.

  Then Fox would have had that warm body to wrap himself around, snug and naked in his own, real bed. Waiting for a good and nasty morning wake-up call. How much better could the sex have been when it wasn’t filtered by that faint, filmy touch of surreal vagueness that dreaming lent their little encounters?

  Fox shifted irritably, angered by the erection that just wouldn’t go away. He’d only entered Ransom’s mind, not really had his mouth around that prick, but he could still taste the half-demon, still smell him, and still feel him under his fingertips. Phantom pain had nothing on phantom fucking.

  The leader of his blood-kin would be pissed beyond words, he’d been so determined to have a demon seer on their side -- but the canny bastard would probably do nothing more than give him that creepy smile of his and say, “Better luck next time, Fox. And I’m sure you’ll come up with a new plan by, say midnight, won’t you?” Then Fox would have to scramble to figure something out, all the while dying for a taste of what he couldn’t have anymore.

  He dashed the herbs he’d been playing with aside.

  Okay, fine. New plan. He’d find one. Win Ransom. He didn’t care about the demon part of him, didn’t care about his occasional glimpses into the future, just wanted him, the man, in his bed and in his life. He was going to win Ransom no matter what it took. He was Fox, he was feared, and once he’d staked his claim, there’d be no shaking loose whatever shackles he chose to use.

  And Ransom was his. Just as he knew he belonged to Ransom. They’d forged a bond, he was sure of it.

  He just had to figure out a way of getting them back together again.

  A small smile curled up one corner of his mouth. Ransom was many things, but he could be predictable. Ten to one odds that he’d go to his favorite tavern again for a drink to celebrate, after work, when the sun was down and Fox could go play.

  Fox decided he might just be in the mood for a drink himself that night.

  He’d do whatever it took.

  He’d do anything.

  He was in love.

  Willa Okati

  Willa Okati is one hundred percent in love all things vampire and supernatural. However, she’s an even bigger fan of stories that feature beautiful men exploring their desires for one another. Casually known as the “blue-haired, tattooed wench” among Changeling folks, she lives for the fun of acting just as young as she feels. She’d love for you to visit h
er website at http://www.willaokati.com or join her reader’s loop for fun and chatter at willa_okati@yahoogroups.com. Happy reading!