With a Kiss (7 page)

Sometimes meat was so rotten all anyone could do was dispose of it and make sure it didn’t contaminate anything else.

Marcus looked down at Liam for a moment. As the boy slumbered against his chest, it was hard to imagine that anyone could ever want to do anything other than protect and cherish him.

It was strange to think back to a time when he hadn’t wanted to be the one to do it. Marcus took a deep breath. He might not know how to look after a human pet, but he was bloody well going to learn.

As determined as he was to never sleep again, when his anger drained away, it was impossible for him to keep his eyes open for another second. For the first time in three years, he slid into real slumber.

* * * *

“It says here that they flew in one of the best chef’s in the country to cater for the wedding party. There’s a picture of the meal. It looks so amazing!”

Marcus let his mind wander around the boy’s words, picking up on the interesting ones while all the boring details of that silly woman’s wedding floated straight past him.

He was quite willing to bet that Liam tasted fantastic. Without anything to go on but the sound of his voice, Marcus still had no doubt he’d taste wonderfully sweet.

Marcus’ teeth ached with the need to feed, just as they had for more than two years—but not just from anyone. The need was specific now. He wanted to feed from Liam. Just one drop of the boy’s blood…it would be worth selling his soul, if vampires even had souls, to get a taste of him.

He could make a better banquet of Liam than any chef could from paltry human food. A picture sprung up in Marcus’ mind of the boy stretched out on a fine white tablecloth, wrists and ankles bound, candlelight flickering over his skin. Liam’s cock would be hard and flushed with blood, rising up from his body, begging for his lover’s touch. He’d be desperate, aching to come after being kept chaste and frustrated for weeks on end… Yes, Marcus could see it all so clearly.

A faint tingling sensation danced down Marcus’ spine, heading for his cock. Of course, nothing actually happened when the sensation reached his shaft. Movement was as impossible there as it was in every other part of his body. There was no chance of relief for him—just as there would be no way that his pet would be able to come.

The boy wouldn’t be able to move far, bound to a vampire’s dining table like that, but he’d be able to squirm, just enough to show off a hot young body. He’d be able to make his chains rattle a little. It had been so long since Marcus had heard a submissive’s chains sing for him.

Liam would sing beautifully, with chains and whimpers, and no doubt with pleasure filled screams when that time came. As far as Marcus could work out, the guy didn’t have a clue how much of a natural submissive he was, but it wouldn’t take long to bring him up to speed on that fact. In Marcus’ experience, most humans caught on quickly once they were in chains and on the verge of climaxing without permission.

The door leading into Marcus’ hospital room squeaked as it was pushed open. Liam fell silent. Within the confines of his own mind, Marcus cursed. It wasn’t as if he enjoyed listening to the boy babble, but that was still no excuse for people to keep interrupting him for no good reason.

“Hello, Liam.” That was the anti-vampire bitch. Marcus added an extra curse to those scrolling through his head. The less time she spent around his pet the better. Untrained humans were far too impressionable. It wouldn’t do for the boy to be picking up those sorts of habits.

“Hi.” Liam’s voice had moved away from the chair by the side of Marcus’ bed. He was over by the window now. He’d moved away from her. She’d called him by name and he hadn’t done the same. Marcus mentally nodded his approval.

“Can you pass me the packet from the trolley?”

Tell her to do her own damn job, Liam! Marcus ordered. It wasn’t really fair to the boy for anyone to blame him for disobeying his master when there was no way he could have heard the command, but Marcus still wished Liam had more sense than to give in to the obvious ploy to bring him across the room and get closer to him.

“Bloody hell—what happened to your eye?”

“Nothing…”

For the first time since she’d come to work at the hospital, Marcus actually wanted that particular nurse to speak. As blind as he had been for two years and more, he needed her to say out loud exactly what was wrong with Liam’s eye.

“I walked into—”

“Someone’s fist,” the nurse finished for him.

“No. I was trying to fix the hinges on one of the cabinets in the kitchen. It swung back and…”

And Liam was a bloody awful liar. While Marcus lay there helpless, his brain whirled faster and faster. Mugging? Homophobic bastards?

“It’s nothing,” Liam said.

“According to who?” the nurse asked.

“According to me.” Liam was back over by the window now. Marcus could so easily picture him backing away in his mind’s eye. “Can we just drop this?”

“What’s his name?” the nurse pushed.

“Who?”

“In my experience, when a man lets another guy get away with hitting him, it’s more than a one night stand. I’m guessing you know his name.”

The words punched Marcus in the stomach. Unable to move, there was no way he could defend himself. He just had to take it.

“I…” Liam whispered.

“There are places you can go, places you can get help,” the nurse cut in, when it became obvious to her, as well as to Marcus, that Liam wasn’t going to get any further than that one word. “There are shelters specifically for gay men who—”

“I’m not…” Liam began, but even without being able to see the boy, Marcus knew that Liam had already realized that there was no point denying it.

“Would you assume I was getting beaten up by my girlfriend if I was straight?” Liam demanded, now as far onto the other side of the room as he could get.

“Yes. That happens more often than you’d think. You can be straight, gay or into whatever the hell rocks your boat. I’d think the same about anyone who reacted to my questions the way you just did.” The nurse’s tone of voice was matter of fact. “I worked in accident and emergency for years. I’ve seen people go home with partners who they know damn well are going to give them another hammering the moment the front door closes behind them.”

Marcus would have held his breath as he waited for Liam’s answer, but he couldn’t even do that. His chest continued to rise and fall with the same rhythm as it had maintained ever since his downfall.

“It’s not like that…”

“It never is,” the nurse muttered.

Marcus felt a sharp scrape across the inside of his elbow as another bag of animal blood was hung besides his bed. Pain immediately swept through his veins as the poor substitute for human blood made its way through his body.

Fighting back a wave of nausea, Marcus kept all his attention on Liam.

The boy hadn’t said anything about a black eye.

He’d sat there for all that time babbling on about weddings, worrying about the happiness of a woman he’d never met, telling Marcus a million different things he had no interest in hearing, and it hadn’t occurred to him to mention something Marcus would have actually wanted to know.

The nurse finally left them alone again. Silence fell over the room. Marcus waited for the other man to speak up, but he didn’t. Marcus sensed Liam cross the room to sit on the chair by the side of the bed, but the other man still didn’t say a single word.

Marcus desperately tried to open his eyes, to lift an arm to reach out to the boy, to move muscles that hadn’t been his to control for over two years and—

* * * *

Bright light blinded Marcus as his lids fluttered open. It took him several panic filled seconds to realize that he was actually able to open his eyes. It had been the God-awful memory of that oh-so-informative visit that had been the nightmare, the memory of waking up and finally being able to reach out to his prey hadn’t been a dream after all.

He took a deep breath and let the relief sink into his brain, but he refused to give himself any longer than that.

Blinking his eyes very rapidly in an effort to focus, Marcus extended his arm across the narrow hospital bed wondering how the hell the boy could have managed to move so far away from him without falling off the thin, uncomfortable mattress.

Marcus turned his head. The rest of the tiny bed was empty. Levering himself awkwardly up onto one elbow, Marcus pushed his hair back from his face with his other hand. He peered over the side of the bed, then into every corner of the room and through the open door into the en-suite.

He was gone. Liam was gone.

Marcus tried to sit up, only to collapse back. He looked at the bag of blood on the stand by his bed. It was empty. His veins weren’t much better. He could almost feel his arteries collapsing in on themselves.

Reaching up to the headboard, for the first time since he arrived in the hospital, Marcus pressed the buzzer and summoned one of the nurses to his side.

Chapter Four

Liam carefully unlocked and pushed open the front door to 21 Oak Drive. Straining his hearing, he lurked on the doorstep trying to work out if Ralph was in the house. Even though it felt as if several lifetimes had passed since he ran to the hospital, it was still only New Year’s Day. Ralph wouldn’t be at work. But maybe he could have gone to a friend’s house or, more likely, to a pub?

Not a sound came from inside the placid looking semi-detached house, but it still seemed like finding Ralph had gone out was too much to hope for. Taking a deep breath, Liam finally stepped inside. Closing the door softly behind him, he crept along the hallway. An old oak floorboard creaked beneath his foot. Liam froze; closing his eyes, waiting for the angry words that he was sure would fill the air. Nothing. Liam began to breathe again.

Opening his eyes, he moved forward once more, until he was able to peer past the open living room door.

A fist full of panic caught Liam around the throat, threatening to choke the air out of him. It was a full minute before Liam was able to take in the fact Ralph was asleep. Liam managed to pull a little oxygen into his lungs as panic eased its grip on him.

Ralph lay sprawled out on the sofa, one arm thrown over his eyes to block out the light pouring in through the big bay window. His other hand still gripped a bottle of whiskey. There didn’t appear to be much liquor left in it now. Liam studied Ralph’s shirt, just above where the bottle lay against his chest. There was no telltale whiskey stain. It had been silly to hope that most of the content was simply spilt.

“Asleep,” Liam whispered to himself. Ralph was asleep. He was safe, for now at least. Ralph probably didn’t even know he’d been away all night. There was no reason why he should suspect that Liam had only crept home after dawn.

Liam’s fingers nervously fiddled with the hem on his T-shirt. He was wearing exactly the same as he’d been wearing the previous day. The fabric was still damp around the edges, but there was no evidence to suggest that he’d spent the night in borrowed scrubs, that he’d slept in another man’s arms.

Taking a deep breath, Liam forced his mind back to the present. Whatever insanity had overtaken his little bit of the world last night, it was over now. Marcus was awake. No doubt he had a life to get back to. There would probably be a family waiting for him, maybe even a wife…

Dropping his gaze, Liam stared at the broken glass scattered across the carpet. He had no reason to think Marcus was actually interested in someone like him. Hell, he probably wasn’t even gay. The only reason he hadn’t beaten the hell out of him for that kiss was because he was grateful for being woken up. Then, he’d just wanted someone who was familiar to hang around for a little while, that was all.