With a Kiss (11 page)

He was obviously deep in thought. Liam didn’t interrupt.

Several seconds passed by. Liam risked another glance at Marcus’ face. The vampire wasn’t staring at his hand anymore; he was staring at his neck. Liam had never seen such an intense expression.

No!

Without thinking, he snatched his hand out of Marcus’ hold and covered his neck.

No!

Something inside Liam screamed the word so loudly, it drowned out any other thoughts in his head. No, he didn’t want the vampire’s teeth inside him. He didn’t want any part of any man inside him ever again.

Liam closed his eyes very tightly, cowering away from Marcus until his back hit into the cot-like railing on the far side of the hospital bed. Tucking his head down, Liam protected his neck as best he could. He curled into a ball as his whole body started to shake.

Sweat broke out on his skin. His breathing sped up. Liam’s heart raced faster and faster. His ribs screamed. Half the muscles in his body seemed to moan in pain, but all he could do was try to force himself into as small a space as possible.

“No…”

Liam could barely gather enough breath to do more than whisper the word, but that made no difference to how loud the screams were in his head, how real Ralph’s hands felt against him. Pain burned inside him, and it was almost impossible to believe that Ralph wasn’t right there, his body pressed against Liam’s back, and his cock forcing its way inside him.

“No…” It was half a protest, half a sob.

“Liam.” Something came to rest on his shoulder. “Liam.”

Liam tried to twist away, but whatever it was still lay on his shoulder, impossible to shake off. Whimpering into his blanket, Liam gave in and stopped trying to escape.

“You’re safe now. No one can hurt you now.”

The hand on his shoulder slowly warmed the skin beneath it. No pain followed. Liam shuddered as he frowned into the darkness behind his eyelids.

He heard something behind him and whimpered.

The hand didn’t move. “Liam’s going to be fine,” the person in front of him repeated.

They sounded so confident, it was impossible to dismiss their words entirely. The idea that nothing would ever be fine again suddenly had competition inside Liam’s mind.

Another noise behind him made Liam uncurl slightly.

“It’s okay, she’s gone. It’s just you and me now.”

The hand on Liam’s shoulder didn’t move. It just lay there, reminding him that Marcus was still sitting alongside his bed. Very gradually, Liam’s panic began to drain away.

He uncurled far enough to lift his head a little. He opened his eyes. Marcus’ expression was still impossible to read.

Keeping his left hand where it was, Marcus extended his right hand toward Liam, palm open and upraised as if to prove there was nothing in his grip.

He brushed clumsily at the skin beneath Liam’s eyes with his thumb. The vampire obviously wasn’t used to wiping away another man’s tears. There was no reason why he should be.

The man before him once more became the same person who had lain in the bed he’d visited. He had nothing to fear from him. Liam uncurled a little more and stopped trying to cover his neck.

He brushed away the tears himself, ashamed of their presence. Both of Marcus’ hands retreated in response.

“I’m sorry.”

Marcus said nothing for several long seconds.

Working entirely on instincts, Liam shuffled closer to him, wanting Marcus’ hand to return to his shoulder, needing Marcus’ hand in his in a way he’d never needed anything before.

“I can ease your pain,” Marcus finally said. “If that’s what you want.”

Liam frowned slightly, staring up at the other man through watery eyes, unable to make any sense of his words.

“You know what I am,” Marcus said, with that same great care. “Vampires would have died out a long time ago if the bites placed on humans from which they fed hurt—or if they didn’t heal quickly. My bite could ease some of your pain and help you heal—but having me feed from you right now… If you’re not ready for that…”

Liam stared at where Marcus’ fingers interlinked as the vampire rested his elbows on the arms of his wheelchair. The other man’s hand had felt so good in his. He’d felt safer than he had in as long as he could remember.

If Marcus wanted his blood in exchange for that then… Liam took a deep breath. It wouldn’t be so bad. It wouldn’t be anything like what happened with Ralph. Teeth weren’t the same as…

Liam closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he knew he wasn’t going to refuse the other man anything he wanted. But, as more of the vampire’s words forced their way through the fog of pain and sank properly into his mind, Liam began to frown. “No.” He looked up and met the other man’s eyes with all the determination he could muster. “Not if you’ll feel my pain when you…”

Marcus shook his head and Liam’s words faded away. “That’s not the way it works.”

After three years in a hospital bed, Marcus had thought he understood everything there was to know about feeling helpless. He’d been wrong. Wide awake and out of his bed, all he could do was sit there and watch the emotions flicker through Liam’s eyes.

Knowing exactly how to help his prey, but not being able to do so without Liam’s permission, made every muscle in Marcus’ body tense. But at the same time, to demand the right to help him, to take away the choice to accept or refuse his offer—it would have made him no better than that bastard, Ralph, or whatever people who didn’t know he was a complete bastard referred to him as.

An acrid taste flooded Marcus’ mouth reminding him how bitter an experience being awake and back in the real world could be, but he took care to keep his expression completely impassive.

No pressure, no judgment, just complete acceptance of whatever it was Liam needed from him. If that was a feeding, fine. If it was not to feed, that had to be fine, too. As those thoughts circled around and around in Marcus’ mind, he lost track of whom he was trying to convince.

As unnatural as it felt, as unvampire-like as it felt, Marcus remained perfectly still and simply waited, with more patience than he’d ever known he possessed.

Finally, Liam met his eyes. Their gazes only locked for a second, but that was all the time Marcus needed in order to realize that Liam had made his decision. Reaching out to him, he took Liam’s hand in his once more, taking great care not to accidently crush the fragile bones as his anxiety levels doubled over and over again.

For a fully grown vampire to be nervous about a feeding…

Marcus knew he should have been ashamed of himself. It was pathetic! But at the same time it wasn’t just any feeding. It wasn’t even about it being his first feeding in three very, very long years. Liam wasn’t some anonymous submissive in a human leather bar. The boy wasn’t just looking to get whipped and screwed and bitten.

“It has to be a vein?” Liam asked, very softly.

Marcus nodded, forcing his mind to simplify the whole task down to its most basic components. “Yes.”

“My neck?” Liam’s free hand went up to his jugular.

Marcus’ mouth watered at the prospect, but he forced himself to shake his head. “Any vein. Your wrist would be fine.”

Liam’s attention immediately went to the pulse on the inside of his wrist. Marcus didn’t follow his gaze; his focus remained all on the boy’s face. He seemed to relax somewhat as he realized Marcus wasn’t going to jump on his bed and pin him to the mattress as he bit.

“There’s a natural anesthetic in the bite which will ease your pain,” Marcus explained again. “And it will release endorphins and help you feel calmer too.”

Liam swallowed. His teeth nibbled at his bottom lip as he seemed to give the whole matter careful thought. Then, very slowly, he took his hand from Marcus’ hold.

Holding back his disappointment, determined that Liam should see no hint of how much it hurt to know that the other man was too shaken to accept the only help he could give him, Marcus leaned back a fraction in his chair, letting the canvas behind him support his weight, allowing his muscles to relax.

In that same slow way, Liam turned over his hand and offered it back to Marcus, palm up—vein up.

For an incredibly long time, Marcus sat like a fool, while the other man offered him everything he had ever wanted. His own movements were even slower than Liam’s had been when Marcus finally reached out to him.

Marcus ran his thumb very gently over the spot where he could see Liam’s vein pulsating. “You’re sure?” he asked.

Liam nodded. “As long as you’re sure it won’t hurt you,” he whispered.

Marcus shook his head. “Let me worry about me, okay?”

Liam didn’t nod the way he usually did when anyone asked him a question. That particular response had always seemed to be as instinctive as his habit of agreeing with everyone, but there was something in him that wasn’t willing to accede to that request.

He wasn’t willing not to care about someone—even about someone who’d never given him the slightest reason to give a damn about him.

“If you say stop, I will.” It was the first time Marcus ever remembered saying such a thing—the first time it had ever occurred to him that a prey might change its mind and want him to stop.

Liam did nod his acceptance of that point, a jerky little bob of the head, but Marcus’ words seemed to do little to really reassure the boy. Helpless to do anything else to help him, Marcus didn’t give Liam any extra time to get increasingly nervous about it before he bowed his head over the offered wrist.

It took all the strength Marcus had been aware he possessed, and more, to make sure he didn’t kiss the skin before he let his teeth scrape across the pale creamy surface.

He had permission to
bite
, not to make the feeding about anything other than that.

For the first time in three years, Marcus’ teeth sliced cleanly through human skin. The first drop of blood exploded across his tongue, setting fire to every taste bud it touched. It was ambrosia after so long spent barely surviving on a meager diet of animal blood. Marcus’ veins accepted Liam’s offering without the slightest hint of discomfort.

Marcus longed to simply let his eyes drift closed and savor it, but he kept his gaze up and on Liam’s face searching for any hint that his prey had changed his mind, that this wasn’t what he wanted.

For a moment, the only expression on Liam’s face was shock. His hand tightened into a fist. Then, very slowly his expression changed. A touch of something that looked suspiciously like serenity crept across Liam’s features, his hand unfurled, offering the open palm to him once more.

At the same time, the taste in Marcus’ mouth changed. Yes, it was human blood and it was exactly what he had longed for over the months. To a sadist it would have no doubt tasted like the most exquisite vintage. To Marcus, it quickly turned sour.

He was almost willing to swear that he could taste each blow that had landed on the other man’s skin, that he could sense the way each bruise had formed and the way each nerve ending had relayed its distress through Liam’s body.

Within moments, all Marcus could taste was Liam’s pain and fear. He swallowed it down regardless; his body in frantic need of the blood, his soul even more desperate to do whatever it took to ease the other man’s anguish.

Above his bowed head, Marcus heard Liam’s breaths even out, as if they were no longer inhibited by his damaged ribs and his lungs were now able to work however they wished.

Marcus ran his tongue over the wounds penetrating Liam’s veins. Blood still seeped steadily into his mouth. Liam had plenty to spare. He wouldn’t miss what his lover was—