This made him... love her.
Fingering a blue-black contusion on the inside of his forearm, he smiled. He had to go to his father's tonight to confirm the induction, but first he would spend some QT with his female and add to his collection of scrapes. And before he took off, he would leave some food for her.
Like all prized animals, she needed to be provided for.
Reaching out to the doorknob, he frowned as he thought about the larger feeding issue. She was only half symphath and that vampire side of her worried him. Sooner or later, she was going to require something that couldn't be bought at the local Hannaford... and wasn't something he could give her.
Vampires needed to take the vein of the opposite sex. It was immutable. If you had that biology in you, you died unless you put the hardware in your mouth to use and swallowed fresh blood. And she couldn't have what was in his body--everything in him ran black now. As a result, his men, what few he had left, were searching for a male of good age, but they'd been coming up with nothing. Caldwell was close to empty when it came to civilian vampires.
Although... he did have that one in deep freeze.
Trouble was, he'd known that motherfucker in his old life, and the idea of her taking the vein of someone he'd been friends with just cranked his shit right out.
Plus the bastard was Qhuinn's brother--so yeah, not a bloodline he wanted her to have anything to do with.
Whatever. Sooner or later, his men were going to come up with something--they just had to. Because his new favorite toy was the kind of thing he wanted to have around for a very long time.
As he opened the door, he started to smile. "Hi, honey, I'm home."
Across town, in the tat shop, Blay stayed mostly focused on what was doing on John's back. There was just something hypnotic about watching that needle trace over the blue transfer lines. Then from time to time, the artist paused to swipe the skin with a white paper towel before resuming his work, the whirring sound of the gun filling the silence once again.
Unfortunately, as captivating as it all was, he still had enough attention span left over to be very aware of when Qhuinn decided to f**k that human woman: After the pair chatted softly and swapped a lot of casual stroking down arms and shoulders, those astounding, mismatched eyes drifted over to the front door.
And a moment later, Qhuinn strolled across and checked to make sure it was locked.
That green-and-blue stare didn't meet Blay's as he came back to the tat station.
"You doing good?" he asked John.
When John glanced up and nodded, Qhuinn quickly signed, You mind if I get a little exercise behind that curtain?
Please say yes, you do mind, Blay thought. Please tell him he has to stay here.
Not at all, John signed. You take care of yourself.
I'll be on it if you need me. Even if I have to come out with my c**k out.
Yeah, if we could avoid that, I'd appreciate it.
Qhuinn laughed a little. "Fair enough." There was a heartbeat of a pause; then he turned away without looking at Blay.
The woman went into the other room first, and given the way she was working her hips, she was as ready for what was going to happen as Qhuinn was. Then Qhuinn's big shoulders shifted as he ducked out of sight and the veil fell back into place.
The overhead light in the room and the curtain's anorexic fibers provided plenty of get-a-load-of-this, so Blay got a distilled picture of Qhuinn reaching out and pulling her by the neck against him.
Blay redirected his eyes to John's tattoo, but the refocusing didn't last. Two seconds later he was locked on that peep show, not so much watching it happen as absorbing the details. In typical Qhuinn fashion, the woman was now on her knees and the guy had his hands bunched into her hair. He was working her head, his hips flexing and releasing as he drilled her mouth.
The muted sounds were as incredible as the visual and Blay had to shift in his seat, his body hardening. He wanted to be in there, on his knees, led by Qhuinn's hands. He wanted to be the one whose mouth was full. He wanted to be responsible for making Qhuinn pant and strain.
Not going to be in the cards.
Man, what the hell? The guy had f**ked people in clubs and bathrooms and cars and alleys and occasionally in beds. He'd done ten thousand strangers, men and women and males and females alike... he was Wilt Chamberlain with fangs. To be denied was like getting shut out of a public park.
Blay took another shot at looking away, but the ripple of a deep moan once again brought his eyes to the--
Qhuinn's head had turned so that he was staring out of the curtain. And as their eyes met, his mismatched stare flashed... almost like he was turned on more by who was watching him, than who he was hooking up with.
Blay's heart stopped. Especially as Qhuinn dragged the woman up, spun her around, and bent her over the desk. One yank and her jeans were to her knees. And then it was...
Jesus Christ. Was it possible his best friend was thinking like he was?
Except then Qhuinn pulled the woman's upper body against his chest. After he whispered something in her ear, she laughed and turned her head to the side so he could kiss her. Which he did.
You stupid f**k, Blay thought to himself. You stupid motherfucker.
The guy knows precisely who he's doing... and who he's not.
Shaking his head, he muttered, "John, you mind if I go have a cigarette outside?"
When John shook his head, Blay got to his feet and put the clothes on the seat. To the tattoo guy he said, "I just flip the lock?"
"Yup, and you can leave it open if you're just outside the door."
"Thanks, man."
"No prob."
Blay walked away from the buzz of the tattoo gun and the symphony of groans behind that curtain, slipping out of the shop and leaning against the building right next to the entrance. Palming up a flat pack of Dunhill reds, he withdrew a cigarette, put it between his lips, and lit the thing with his black lighter.
The first drag was heaven. Always the best out of all that followed.
As he exhaled, he hated that he read into things, saw connections that weren't there, misinterpreted actions and stares and casual touches.
Pathetic, really.
Qhuinn hadn't been looking up as he'd been getting blown to meet Blay's eyes. He'd been checking on John Matthew. And he'd spun that woman around and taken her from behind because that was how he liked it.
Fuckin' A... hope didn't so much spring eternal as it drowned out common sense and self-preservation.
Inhaling hard, he was so tangled in his own thoughts that he failed to notice the shadow at the head of the alley across the street. Unaware he was being watched, he smoked along, the chilly spring night eating up the puffs that rose from his lips.
The realization that he couldn't keep going like this anymore was a deep freeze that went right into his bones.
Chapter Four
"Okay, I think we're done."
John felt a last dragging pull across his shoulder and then the Otattoo gun went silent. Sitting up from the rest he'd been curled against for the last two hours, he stretched his arms over his head and pulled his torso back into shape.
"Gimme a sec and I'll clean you up."
As the human male sprayed some paper towels with antibacterial wash, John settled his weight on his spine once again, and let the tingling hum from the needle's work reverberate through his whole body.
In the lull, an odd memory came to him, one he hadn't thought of for years. It was from his days of living at Our Lady's orphanage, back when he hadn't known what he truly was.
One of the church's benefactors had been a rich man who owned a big house on the shores of Saranac Lake. Every summer, the orphans had been invited to go up for a day and play on his football- field-size lawn and go for rides on his beautiful wooden boat and eat sandwiches and watermelon.
John had always gotten a sunburn. No matter how much goo they slathered on him, his skin had always burned to a crisp--until they finally relegated him to staying in the shade on the porch. Forced to wait things out on the sidelines, he'd watched the other boys and girls do their thing, listening to the laughter roll across the bright green grass, having his food brought to him and eating alone, playing witness instead of being a part of it.
Funny, his back felt now as his skin had then: tight and prickly, especially as the tattoo artist hit the raw spots with the wet cloth and made circles over the fresh ink.
Man, John could remember dreading that annual ordeal at the lake. He'd wanted so badly to be with the others... although if he was honest, that had been less about what they were doing, and more because he was desperate simply to fit in. For f**k's sake, they could have been chewing on glass shards and bleeding down the front of their shirts and he still would have been all sign-me-up.