Brandon groaned, his pace turning feverish. Then he came with a growl, his teeth bared, spilling into Quinn.
Quinn purred, the heat of Brandon’s release soaking into his body. Above him, Brandon panted, his chest heaving, sweat beading along his throat.
“Enjoyed that?” Quinn murmured, admiring the strength in Brandon’s body, the contours of his biceps, the thickness of his cock still inside.
“Hell yeah,” Brandon said. Quinn groaned at the pleasure of him sliding out, and Brandon swiped Quinn’s come off his chest, licking it off his fingers.
Quinn flushed. You’re eating that? But Brandon seemed to have no qualms doing it, his tongue dragging up his fingertips. Then he scooped up the rest of Quinn’s come, licking it off.
“You like that,” Quinn choked, his cheeks prickling. As though fucking on his office desk wasn’t depraved enough.
Brandon grinned, the years of bitterness falling away from his face. “Made you come. Wanted to taste it.”
This was insane, but adorable. Precious. And Quinn couldn’t look away. So he asked, “Do you like it?”
“Yeah.” Brandon licked his lips. “It’s bitter, kind of mild.”
“Must be all that chicken blood.”
“I’m surprised it doesn’t taste stronger,” Brandon said. “Mine is.”
And here they were, talking about eating come like it was just another thing. Quinn shook his head, smiling to himself. “I guess I should try that sometime.”
“Yeah.” Brandon leaned in, slipping his arms around Quinn’s waist. Then he pressed their foreheads together, his eyes blurring with how close they were. Quinn’s chest tightened. Unlike the other humans decades ago, who had fled after fucking, Brandon stayed. He was a hunter, too, and he could easily kill Quinn with that knife on his belt.
“I can’t believe we did this,” Quinn murmured, hesitating, before he stroked Brandon’s cheek. The blood in his cuts had dried; it was a faint sweet-salty scent now. But Quinn remembered the savory richness of Brandon’s blood, the silky weight of it, and it never strayed far from his thoughts.
“I can’t believe it, either,” Brandon said. “Was just a couple weeks ago that we fucked against your office door. You said it didn’t happen.”
Quinn squirmed, looking at the angry red scratches on Brandon’s shoulder. “It shouldn’t have. And here we are.”
“Here we are.”
“You’re really not going to kill me.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you even here?” Quinn laughed, glancing at the clock. It was close to 9 PM now. He hadn’t even questioned Brandon’s presence in the lab, he realized. They’d been distracted.
“I had questions,” Brandon said, nuzzling his ear. “You never replied to my emails, and you’ve been skipping out after the lectures.”
Quinn winced. He should’ve been a better teacher than that. “I was busy with the antidote. Sorry. I guess... you could text me if you really need questions answered.”
“Or call you to chat?” Brandon grinned, his smile boyish, and Quinn’s stomach flipped.
“You really want my phone number?”
“Yeah.” Brandon pulled away and wiped his hands on his jeans, tugging his phone out.
Quinn squirmed off the desk. Cool air brushed his thighs; he grabbed his discarded pants off the floor, fishing around in its pockets. When he turned, he found Brandon eyeing his bare legs. “See something you like?”
Brandon met his eyes, smirking. “Maybe.” He stepped closer, though, pulling his own phone out. “Hey, we have the same phone. What were the chances?”
Quinn shrugged. He held his phone next to Brandon’s, looking at their blank screens, their thin rectangular shapes. Technology changed so quickly these days; companies produced new phones in the blink of an eye, changing things that didn’t need to be changed. “They look the same to me.”
Brandon tapped his screen, and Quinn did the same, unlocking his phone.
“Quit copying me,” Brandon said.
“I am?”
“You don’t have a password, either.”
“I’m the only one touching my phone.”
“Shouldn’t you be more careful with it?” Brandon asked. “If you don’t want people looking into your phone?”
Quinn frowned. “I’ve had this phone for years. No one’s looked at it twice.”
“Hate changing, huh?”
“So do you,” Quinn said, eyeing the scratches on Brandon’s phone. His own cell phone had scratches, too, and he hadn’t thought he and Brandon would have that in common. They were hunter and vampire. Different species. They shouldn’t be similar at all, but they were.
They exchanged phones, tapping their phone numbers into the contact lists. When Quinn shoved his phone back into his pants pocket, he found Brandon zipping his pants up, his knife handle gleaming by his side.
After all the times they’d met, the hunter still hadn’t killed him. And Quinn didn’t know where they’d go from here, what they’d do. They’d had sex. Nothing else could happen between them. And Quinn liked this man, wanted to spend more time with him.
“What question did you want to ask?” he said instead, wishing Brandon wouldn’t leave if Quinn answered his questions.
“The chicken blood. It’s not good for you, is it?” Brandon’s gaze never left his.
Quinn stared. “That’s it? You came all the way here to ask about chicken blood?”
Brandon looked away, his cheeks turning dark. “Well, that and some research group questions. But I want to know about the blood first.”
Quinn swallowed. It seemed as though Brandon was interested in him, and... he never would’ve thought it would happen. His face prickled. “The chicken blood is good enough, I guess.”
“But not like human blood,” Brandon said. “You were a lot stronger when you drank the one for the test. Was it because of the poison that you got stronger?”
“No.” Quinn sighed, leaning against the desk. No one had asked about this before, though he and Seb had discussed it. “It’s the human blood. Vampires are self-healing—the cell regeneration is what makes us immortal. I suspect that the white blood cells in human blood help curb the new cell growth.
“With chicken blood, or any other animal blood, the white blood cells attack the human cells more indiscriminately. So there is still some healing, but it doesn’t happen as fast.” It made him weak, but Quinn was fine with that.
“So it makes you weaker than the other vamps.” Brandon frowned.
Quinn shrugged. “I shouldn’t even be alive.”
“Stop saying that, damn it!” Brandon prowled closer, his strong fingers closing around Quinn’s arm, pulling him forward. “You deserve to live.”
Quinn remembered his sister’s body in his arms, pale and far too light, and shook his head. “This thing. You and me. It... shouldn’t even happen.”
“What if I want it to?”
He glanced up at Brandon then, stunned, his stomach flipping. “I could hurt you,” Quinn said, staring at the blood-stained rips in Brandon’s shirt. He could have done a lot worse. “Or kill you.”
“I can kill you just as easily.”
Quinn backed away. Even if Brandon believed in this, he couldn’t. “I’m a predator. A parasite. I’ve killed people.”
“You’ve killed one person.”
Brandon’s gaze bored through him, calm, without judgment, and for the first time since Brandon had stepped into his lecture hall, Quinn allowed his own fears to show. “I couldn’t control myself when I bit my sister—you should stay away.”
“Maybe,” Brandon said. “But I’ve seen a lot more vampires try to kill me. You haven’t really.”
“I almost did, didn’t I?” Quinn sniffed at the cuts on Brandon’s lip. This wasn’t right. Nothing could come out of a relationship between them—he still posed a danger to Brandon. With a heavy heart, he said, “I’m still reliant on blood. I haven’t invented an artificial
blood I can consume. I’ve been trying twenty years, and I’ve failed so many times—”
Brandon kissed him, swallowing all the words tumbling from his mouth. His lips pressed soft against Quinn’s, his hands broad and gentle on Quinn’s waist, and Quinn whimpered, leaning into his heat.
“You shouldn’t,” he said against Brandon’s lips. “I’m a threat.”
He shouldn’t be here at all. But Brandon was kind, Brandon offered Quinn a bubble of safety and care, and he’d been holding Quinn despite all their differences.
“I probably shouldn’t,” Brandon murmured, his eyes a hazel blur.
“Really?” Quinn’s heart soared a little.
“Shouldn’t like you this much.”
His stomach squeezed. “What?”
“I’m not saying it again.” Brandon broke the kiss and looked away, his cheeks flushing. He looked adorable like this, too. Quinn wanted to pull him close and kiss him, but he held his hands to his sides. Had Brandon lost his common sense sometime during their fucking?
“You can’t possibly like me.”
And even though Brandon offered salvation, Quinn knew this couldn’t last. He couldn’t let himself fall any deeper, let Brandon hurt him when Brandon inevitably remembered Quinn could kill him, just like vampires had murdered Brandon’s parents.
“You threatened to exposed me to the Dean,” Quinn said. “And you hate me.”
Brandon studied him, his eyes narrowing. Then he stepped back.
Quinn’s heart sank. I knew it.
“We should clean up the lab,” Brandon said. “You have students coming in tomorrow, right?”
Quinn swore. He’d completely forgotten about the students, and his job, and everything but Brandon. That wasn’t supposed to happen at all. Brandon backed away from the desk, and Quinn hurried to pull his clothes back on.
When he turned to the office doorway, his mind whirling, Brandon caught his arm.
Then he kissed Quinn again.
9
Brandon
Brandon knew he was an idiot.
Kissing a vampire. Fucking a vampire, and enjoying the little helpless sounds Quinn had made, squirming on his desk. Like that stolen moment two weeks ago, Brandon had caught the whimpers falling from Quinn’s lips, glimpsed the bundle of need Quinn was when he craved touch.
And here they were in Quinn’s office, Brandon’s lips on his. Because Quinn had come to mean more to him than an ordinary faceless human, and even his car shop coworkers.
Quinn had rejected his own vampirism, spent two decades trying to invent artificial blood. He only drank animal blood, and he even filed off the points of his fangs.
How did you reject the core of who you were?
Quinn was human, perhaps more so than some people Brandon knew. And at every turn, he brushed away compliments, reminding Brandon about the things he’d failed at.
He was broken, just like Brandon was, and Brandon realized that Quinn had never tried to heal himself, because he never saw his own worth.
So he’d grabbed Quinn before he left, kissed him to show him he was deserving of... concern, if nothing else. Quinn froze against him.
“Why do you keep doing this?” Quinn breathed, golden eyes wide.
“Because I...” Love was... not the right word for whatever he felt. He couldn’t love a vampire. But he liked Quinn a whole damn lot, and that was enough of a reason. “I told you, I like you.”
Quinn turned away, his cheeks darkening. Before he met Quinn, Brandon had never seen a vampire blush, and, well. He wanted to see it again. Wanted to see Quinn smile and laugh and not be so harsh on himself.
“I’m cleaning up the lab,” Quinn muttered, ducking out of the office.
His heart thudding, Brandon straightened his clothes, then followed him out.
He found Quinn standing on the periphery of the broken glass, looking around, his expression lost. It had been a lot of damage; Brandon could guess at how much the repairs would cost. “Do you have enough funds to get replacements?”
Quinn blinked up at him, the corners of his lips pulling down. “I do, but I’d rather save it for future experiments. I’ll pay for this myself.”
Re-calibrating the centrifuge had to be expensive, and so was fixing the oven. And replacing all that glassware. But Quinn had lived two hundred years, and Brandon supposed he had enough savings for all that. He picked up a broom, sweeping the glass shards to one corner. “About the Dean... I won’t actually expose you, you know.”
Quinn glanced at him, eyes wide. “Really?”
Brandon squirmed. Looking back, he wouldn’t have blackmailed Quinn, if he’d had a better option. “Yeah. I just... wanted to join the lab group, that’s all. Sorry.”
The professor grimaced. “It’s fine. You did what you had to.” After a pause, he asked, “Have you learned anything of value?”
Brandon thought about the Basics of Blood lectures he’d been attending. “Some. But I don’t know how that human blood knocked you into a haze.” He nodded at the shattered glass. “I’ve never seen anyone with blood like that.”
Quinn sighed. “Oriel’s blood contains white blood cells specific to his DNA. Those blood cells enter a vampire’s body and attack the nervous system—through the nose, the taste buds, the stomach and small intestines. I’ll have to do further tests to figure out why that happens, but that’s the gist of it.”
Brandon remembered the emptiness in Quinn’s eyes, the gleam of his fangs. “And yet you drank it.”
Quinn cringed. “I’d rather not have. I was surprised you didn’t kill me, actually.”
But Brandon’s instincts had been to kill Quinn. He buried those thoughts, knowing he would never attack this man, even if he was a vampire. But Quinn’s explanation about chicken blood still bothered him. “What if you drink my blood instead?”
Brandon wasn’t sure if he himself was ready for that, but it would be better than Quinn drinking Oriel’s blood.
Quinn’s gaze darted to Brandon’s throat. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Surely you need the strength.”
Quinn shook his head firmly, tearing his eyes away. “No.”
They fell into silence. Brandon swept up the broken test tubes, and Quinn picked up the plastic racks and scattered notes from the floors.
“How did you even stay on as a professor so long?” Brandon asked. “Don’t you have to go through health checks?”
Because the easiest way to identify a vampire was the coolness of its body, and the lack of a heartbeat. That, and its fangs and mist and healing. Which vampire would reveal those if it wanted to pass a health inspection?
Quinn shrugged. “I know a doctor. He does my inspections.”
“The college doctor?” Brandon’s stomach clenched. How could a vampire be in contact with so many people? As a doctor, no less?
“No, no. But he does substitute here once in a while.” Quinn smiled wryly. “At my request, and when I need my health checks done. He’s a vampire, too.”
Brandon froze. The hell? “The college has a vampire doctor?”
Quinn’s gaze flickered toward him. “Don’t kill him, please. I can vouch for him.”
“Is there a list of vampires I shouldn’t touch, then?” Brandon glanced at Quinn’s phone.
Quinn’s mouth pressed into a line. “I suppose there is, but I’m not giving it to you. Although you could be more... mindful of the vampires you kill. Dr. Carter is a good person.”
Brandon’s skin itched. How many more vampires lurked around this place? He’d lived in San Luis Obispo all his life, and these creatures kept crawling out of the shadows, dragging humans into alleyways and draining their blood. “Look, I can’t promise anything. My goal is to protect people from vampires.”
“Even if those vampires don’t kill?” Quinn’s eyes flashed. “Not all of us are murderers. Some of us feed just enough to stay alive. You’ve met one of them.”
Brandon remembered the vampire with the red eyes,
the one who wanted to start a family with Oriel. It hadn’t occurred to him that there were vampires who drank but didn’t kill. “I wouldn’t trust a vampire who’s also a doctor. He’d be dealing with human blood all the time!”
“Even if he drinks discarded samples?” Quinn narrowed his eyes.
“He could drink chicken blood like you do.”
“Chicken blood weakens a vampire—I’ve told you that. I can’t even shift easily into dust, for heaven’s sake.” Quinn sighed, folding his arms. “My friends are vampires, Brandon. We’re just trying to stay alive in our own ways.”
Brandon gritted his teeth. Quinn wouldn’t tell him who the other vampires were. How was he to know who to avoid? Could Quinn even trust his friends? “So you’re saying I should just stand aside and watch people die.”
“No, I just...” Quinn rubbed his face. “I’m just saying to be careful who you kill, that’s all. I don’t think vampires would readily tell you their names, anyway.”
But Brandon still remembered his mom’s body crumpling to the floor, her face peaceful and bone-white. He’d wanted to tell her so many things over the years, and... He couldn’t. Because some damn vampire had sucked out all her blood, left her lifeless in their home.
He inhaled deeply, setting the broom down. The more he hung around Quinn, the more guilt clung to him. He’d slept with a vampire twice, and by doing so, he’d dishonored his parents’ deaths. “Fine. But that doesn’t mean I agree.”
Quinn opened his mouth, reaching for him. But he dropped his hand after a moment, stepping back. And he should. He couldn’t change Brandon’s mind about vampires.
“I’m leaving,” Brandon said, his chest aching. It felt like something had cracked between them, or maybe the fracture had always been there.
Quinn didn’t follow him out the door.
Twenty yards away from the lab building, Brandon’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, tapping on the new message.
You mentioned a vampire Seb, the nameless contact said. Do you know a human by the name of Oriel?
Yes, Brandon typed. Then he hit Send and shoved his phone back. He wasn’t going to think about it.
Professor Blood (Ironwrought Book 2) Page 10