by Marcy Jacks
Tory pulled Zack up and into his arms. Zack thought the other man was going to push his cock inside him again, but no, he was just resting in the other man’s lap, those large arms around him while his body spasmed.
“Let it hit you. I got you.”
“I... I am letting it hit me! When—oh fuck—when does it stop?”
“When it stops,” Tory said.
Which was not the answer he was hoping for, but it seemed that was the only answer he was going to get. And he’d best damn be grateful that he was getting anything, it seemed.
What the fucking hell?
Finally, finally, it seemed to come to a stop.
It left Zack gasping for breath, his brow sweaty, and his mind and body still reeling from what happened. He blinked a couple of times, feeling as though he’d just woken up after being passed out, but nope. He’d been awake this whole time.
He just felt as though he’d come out of a coma.
And then it was just the two of them. Zack’s panting breath seemed loud in the open space of his condo.
“Is that… is that normal?” Zack asked. He needed to ask something because he had to have something out in the open other than his own breathing. Some noise. Some conversation. He’d happily have elevator music playing at this point.
“That will happen for the first few times we fuck. It’ll turn into a normal orgasm eventually.”
“What?” Zack looked back at the man, horrified. “You mean to tell me that we could fuck again, and I could come for, like, ten minutes, and you can go and grab a snack and come back and I might still be going?”
Tory laughed at him, showing off those white teeth one more time as he threw his head back.
Zack glared at the man. “You’d better watch it. I might seriously be reconsidering this.”
“No, you’re not,” Tory said, squeezing Zack a little tighter. “You’re right where you belong, and you know it.”
Zack wanted to argue, if only for the sake of arguing, but he couldn’t.
Because he knew the man was right.
Zack was right where he belonged. He didn’t want to be anywhere else and he didn’t want to be with anyone else.
“Well, shit.”
Then he thought of something else, and suddenly felt like the worst friend in the world. “Wait a minute, where’s Mike?”
Chapter Five
Realizing that Mike was nowhere around made Zack feel like a colossal asshole for forgetting about his friend. He should have known where he was and he should have been paying better attention.
Not getting off and having the time of his life.
Even though it had been amazing and he definitely wanted to do all that again.
But he had to know where the hell Mike was, and where that other dragon had taken him off to. Which meant he nearly tripped over himself trying to get back into his clothes as he looked around the spacious apartment, as though Mike would materialize at any moment.
“Where is he? Where is Mike?”
He felt a little gross and still kind of wet in some places since he didn’t get the chance to clean up after himself before shoving his clothes back to all the right places, but a sudden panic began to build itself up within him.
He had no idea where he really was. Not really, aside from being at the penthouse of a luxurious apartment, and he also didn’t know where Mike was, after they’d both been jumped and attacked by dragons in that alleyway.
And Zack had just fucked this guy seconds after all that happened.
When his brain put all that together, it felt pretty strange.
“Your friend is all right.” Tory stood up, gently touching Zack’s shoulders, but it was the shock of pleasure and sudden desire that came with that touch that had Zack pulling back from the other man.
Now that he was finally able to think clearly, he wanted to keep that. He didn’t want to let himself come undone, to be lost in that haze of lust again.
And he wasn’t in the mood for another ten minute orgasm.
He kind of was.
But no, Mike came first.
“You need to start telling me what’s going on while my head is still clear. Where am I, and where is Mike? Were you in on that attack in the alley? Are you with those other dragons?”
The look on Tory’s face, as though Zack just punched him in the dick with that question, gutted him. Not only that, but he felt the other man’s injured feelings.
Zack didn’t like that. He didn’t know how much of this he could take, but in that moment, it wasn’t much.
“I did nothing to your friend. He is all right, and I have nothing to do with those other dragons other than our fights for territory.”
Dragons talked so weird. Zack didn’t often hear it unless he was watching an interview on the news, but he forgot sometimes that dragons still thought in terms of territory. It wasn’t about owning a piece of paper that said who owned what land or buildings, no. It was all about who got to piss on whichever walls.
So crazy.
“You’re sure?” Zack said, backing off a step, even though to do that felt as though he was committing a sin. “I’m just saying, it’s kind of convenient that I was being attacked by some horny dragon looking for a redhead, and then you show up out of nowhere to save me and Mike.” Shit, Mike’s hair was even redder than Zack’s. “That other dragon better not be touching him.”
“Tristan wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that to you either. I’m not a monster.”
Zack could still feel that guilty unease pushing through him. He couldn’t tell if it was coming from himself or Tory, but it didn’t matter.
He needed to see Mike.
Without thinking, Zack turned his back on the man and headed for the door to, what he assumed to be, the outside hall. If he could just find an elevator at some point, he knew he would be all right.
And if he could ignore the voice of the man behind him, pleading with him to come back.
“Zack, please,” Tory said, following him down the hall. “Listen, I know this must be a lot for you to take in, but I promise you, I’m not your enemy.”
“You don’t even know me,” Zack said, finding the elevator quickly.
It seemed the only other door on this floor was something marked for the cleaning staff. Did Tory have the entire top floor to himself? Getting to the elevator was easy enough but avoiding eye contact with Tory was something he especially struggled with.
“I do know you,” Tory insisted, a smile in his voice as he followed Zack into the elevator. “I feel like I’ve known you my entire life. I would never want to bring you harm. You’re my mate.”
“No, I’m some guy you want to fuck because you think it will make you stronger when you go to fight with other dragons. I don’t want any part in that.”
“That’s not what it’s about,” Tory said, sounding hurt again.
Zack hated that. He hated how it constantly made him feel guilty. He hated how he felt like he had no control, and he hated the way everything felt like it was crashing down on him.
The elevator wasn’t moving. Right, he needed to pick a floor. Fuck, he felt so stupid. He didn’t know where he was or what he was doing.
“Which floor takes me to Mike?”
“Tristan lives on the one beneath me,” Tory said, pressing the button for the eighty-fourth floor.
Holy shit. They really were high up. They must have been in the tallest building in the city, one of the few left over after the dragons took over and rebuilt everything how they liked it.
“I promise, I won’t bring you harm and Tristan won’t to your friend Mike, either.”
“He’s not just my friend, he’s my cousin. Some of the few family I have left, so you’d better not,” Zack said.
Tory didn’t follow up with an or what question. Which was nice, because Zack knew he had absolutely nothing he could threaten the man with. He was just a human, after all. A human stuck in a tower with a dragon who kept on claiming they were mated, even
though there was no way that was possible.
There was no way it could be that they were actually… what were the odds of that?
Thankfully, the doors opened quickly, because of course they did. It was only one floor down.
Tory followed him out. It was another short hallway with two doors, one of which looked to be a closet for any cleaners who showed up. The other door made it out as though the entire floor was here for that Tristan guy.
Fucking dragons and their money. Zack hated so much how he was jealous of it all. He ignored that as he went right up to the apartment door and knocked on it with his fist.
He could still feel the concern from Tory standing behind him. He didn’t want to give the man too much attention right now because if he did, if he so much as looked at Tory, then Zack might jump into his arms, beg his forgiveness for doubting him, and then start kissing the other man nonstop.
He pounded his fist on the door again, desperate to get an answer. He didn’t hear anything inside, but that didn’t mean something wasn’t going on. The walls around here didn’t look cheap and shitty like in his apartment.
“Zack, will you please at least look at me.”
He wanted to. Fuck, he was probably making the other guy think he’d hurt him or something.
“Look, no offense, but I just don’t want to get hungry for your cock and drop to my knees right now, so let me do this and we can work everything out later.”
“You… what?”
Zack rubbed his face with both of his hands. “Please don’t make me spell it out. You know what we were doing in there and you felt it as much as I did.”
And he wasn’t about to let that happen again. At least not right now.
He glanced back at Tory, if only to make sure he really wasn’t having such a bad impact on the other man. It turned out that he didn’t have to bother. The guy was looking like he was struggling to keep from laughing again.
And that just made Zack all kinds of angry. “You laugh at me way too much.”
“You’re funny. How can I not?”
“You shouldn’t laugh. For all you know, I’m here to hurt you.”
Tory definitely stopped laughing at that, and only then did Zack think that he maybe should have kept his mouth shut. He was still standing next to a dragon, and they knew literally nothing about one another aside from the fact that the sight of each other made them want to get naked and start doing the rabbit dance.
It was spring, so it made sense.
“Look, I don’t want you to think—” Zack stopped talking when he actually heard something on the other side of that door.
A scream and a crash.
It sounded far away, so it must have been loud as all hell to have made it through the walls of this place.
Zack tried the door handle, but of course it was locked. He pounded his fist on the door again. “Mike? Mike!”
“Step back, I’ll let us in.”
Zack did as he was told, letting Tory do what he wanted.
“Would your friend hurt my friend? What if Mike didn’t want to have sex with him? He likes dragons a lot, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Tristan is not going to rape your friend. Please don’t think so little of us after we rescued you,” Tory said, and this time Zack could hear the annoyance in his voice as he punched in the code to the lock.
With a buzz, the door popped open as though it was made of cardboard.
Zack’s cheeks were also on fire from being called out like that, but as Tory held the door open, he couldn’t bring himself to think too hard about that as he pushed past the other man.
“Thank you, and sorry,” he said.
A shitty apology if he ever heard one, but it was the best he could pull off now that he was here and rushing inside to see what the hell was going on with his friend.
It was another spacious apartment, and at first he didn’t see Mike anywhere, not in the kitchen or the living room, and he wasn’t spotting them out on the balcony either. He didn’t see them at all until he watched a huge guy, the same one from back in the alley, Tristan, run out of what had to be his bedroom, ducking as something very breakable was launched at his head.
The guy looked like he was about to light himself up on fire and go on a rampage.
“You nearly hit my head, you son of a bitch! What the fuck was that about?”
“Hey!” Zack snapped, catching the larger man’s attention.
The instant Tristan looked at him with those bright, red eyes, he thought it might have been a mistake to have the man looking over at him like that.
What the hell had he been thinking?
“Uh, don’t yell at my friend?”
Tristan’s eyes were a bright shade of red. He had the dragon wing tattoos on his neck like all other dragons, though he looked a little more like a vampire than a dragon.
It was enough to scare Zack into backing off just a little.
Tory stepped in the way. “Tristan, what are you doing?”
Those red eyes somehow got even brighter. The man might actually start to bleed out of his eyes if he didn’t calm down, but he pointed toward the bedroom. “That little shithead punched me in the face! And he broke my lamp! I fucking rescued that little prick!”
“You were standing over me like a lunatic!” came an annoyed shout from within the bedroom. “And where the hell am I anyway?”
Even though he couldn’t see Mike, hearing his voice was enough to make Zack feel better. If he could hear Mike, then that had to mean he was doing all right. At least there was that.
“Mike, I’m out here. Come on out.”
“I am not coming out while that asshole is standing right there!”
It looked like there was real fire being spit from Tristan’s mouth as he snapped back at him. “I’m the asshole that stopped you from cracking your head open and getting molested by those other idiots! I should have left you behind to rot!”
“Do it next time. You pervert!”
“Why you—”
Tory had to step in before Tristan could rush in there and possibly strangle him. “That’s enough, Tristan. You’re done with him. I don’t want any more trouble than we already have.”
Wait, was he talking about Zack? Oh shit, what if he was? That was humiliating. Zack didn’t want to be one of the reasons why Tory thought there was trouble.
Tristan scowled, fire still seeming to flicker from his mouth and nose before he finally rolled his eyes and walked away. “Whatever. You deal with that asshole. I won’t be bothered.”
“Why did you take Mike to your bedroom?” Zack asked. He was definitely curious about that.
Tristan turned that lava level stare on him now. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, uh, Mike is a redhead. I mean, his hair is darker than mine, and I was the one approached in the alley. He has a reason to be freaked out when he wakes up in a bed that’s not his in a place he knows nothing about.”
That molten lava stare turned into something scarier and more hellish, like the guy was about to transform into a demon in front of him.
“I brought him there to rest. Next time I’ll throw him on the floor and dump ice water over his face, and don’t you ever accuse me of something like that again.”
“Tristan,” Tory said, a warning in his voice.
Tristan was already walking toward the balcony doors, not giving Tory another glance. Not even a fuck off, though his body language screamed it as he jumped off his balcony, wings spread wide, and flew away.
Zack actually felt guilty. His own guilt, nothing that he felt coming from Tory, but then he was tackled a little, steely arms wrapping around his shoulders and holding on tight as Mike held on for dear life.
“I knew you’d come and save me!”
“Right,” Zack said. “What the hell were you doing there anyway? I thought you were staying at the bar?”
“I was, but then I thought you would have to be a complete moron to let your st
rawberry blond friend walk home when night was coming, and it turned out I was right. They were totally going to have their way with you if I didn’t show up to rescue you.”
“I think Tory and Tristan did that, and you broke something that was important to him, and pissed him off,” Zack said, looking down at the shards of broken lamp on the floor. He was hoping that wasn’t some family heirloom. Would anyone care that much about a lamp?
Maybe it didn’t matter either way.
Mike squeezed him a little harder, not replying to what he said otherwise as he looked at Tory. The nervous smile on his face confused Zack a little.
“Thank you so much for rescuing us, and for watching out for my friend. We’re both very grateful.” Mike sucked back a deep breath and gave his hand.
Zack was pleasantly surprised when Tory reached back and took it, shaking it. Not every dragon in the world did that. Some thought it was morally unacceptable to shake a human’s hand. Fuck them for power, sure, but shake their hand? That was against their moral code.
Not for Tory. He shook Mike’s hand firmly, and apparently, the act was enough to make even Mike’s eyes pop a little wide open. He might have pulled back from the handshake a little too soon, but again, it was something that Tory didn’t seem to make a note of, or mind.
“You’re Zack’s cousin, it’s very good to meet you.”
“Yeah,” Mike said, still looking at Tory as though he was trying to find out what he was hiding.
Zack found himself intensely disliking that. He elbowed his cousin in the ribs, trying to snap him out of that behavior, but it didn’t seem to be working out so well.
Even if they had sort of been kidnapped, Zack would have thought that this would have been his dream come true to have been taken in by a rich dragon and wake up in his bed.
Maybe all the daydreaming was nothing compared to the reality.
“It’s all right that you’re confused,” Tory said, being the ever-understanding example of dignity that he was. “You had a traumatic experience. Tristan and I aren’t here to harm you. We wanted to keep you away from those other dragons who were looking for lovers to make them more powerful.”
“Yeah, well, thanks for that. I think Zack and I will head home and dye our hair now, or something.”