“Stay with me,” Phillip said unexpectedly. “Stay with me through this. We don’t have to fuck all the time, and I’ll feed from whoever you want, but…. Never mind.”
He’d firmed up his voice with the last, and Marcus’s heart hurt a little.
“Of course,” he said softly. “I’ll stay with you. Let’s get up and start cleaning up, okay? The next time a shape-shifter comes in, it doesn’t have to be so brutal, okay?”
Marcus could actually hear Phillip swallow. Goddess, did the humanness ever really leave them?
“Good,” Phillip agreed. “In a minute. We’ll get up in a minute.”
In a minute would be dawn, Marcus realized, feeling the terrible weakness rushing in on him.
“Adrian?”
“You going to live, mate?”
“Yeah—could we get some cleanup in here when the sun comes up, while we sleep? I think he’s ready to be civilized about this.”
“Think you’re right. Good job, mate.”
“You know what the bad news is, don’t you?”
It was only fair he be honest about it.
“I knew before you went in,”
Adrian replied gently.
“It’s okay. We’ll be here to pick up the pieces, right?”
“Right. Thanks, Adrian.”
“Anytime.”
Marcus kept stroking Phillip’s hair until the dawn claimed them both.
PHILLIP NEVER
did tell Marcus about his interview with Green. But just like with Marcus, shortly after it happened, Phillip woke up ensconced in Marcus’s bedroom in the other king-size bed.
And proceeded to fuck anything with
out
a cock that lived under the hill.
“They’ll do
anything!
”
Phillip marveled one night, after two werekitties (sort of a shape-shifting giant tabby cat) left the room all but purring in their human forms. “I mean, when I was human, I had to do some fast talking to get two girls into my bed—and into each other—but these girls? Man… just
suggest
something, and if it’s not physically possible for
them
,
they’ll find something here that has the equipment for it or can make it out of oak trees and spit and polish!”
Well, maybe not exactly, but since most everything that lived under the hill was allergic to latex, he was damned close.
“Well, sensual and consensual
is
the rule,” Marcus said dryly. Dawn was fast approaching, and he’d returned to his bed in the darkling for the same reason humans went to their beds at night—it was a comfortable place to lie down for a while.
“Why do they all leave before dawn?” Phillip asked on a yawn. He’d been out of the vault for about two weeks, and already he was comfortable enough to sleep naked. They didn’t really get cold unless they were in a snow cave and it was below freezing, so he was turned over on his side, his lean body perfect and marble in the dark.
“Our souls go somewhere,” Marcus told him, just as Adrian had told
him
nearly ten years before. “If we’re with someone living when the sun comes up, and our souls leave us, it’s possible we could pass through them and mark them. It’s sort of a frightening thing for a mortal, and it gives the living power over us, so that’s not good either.” Marcus sighed and swallowed. “And we freak people out, you know? I mean, we’re
dead.
Anyway, it’s just safer that way, you know?”
“Mmm….” Phillip nodded. Dawn must have been close, because that still-as-death lethargy was upon them both. “What happens if vampires are close together?”
Marcus didn’t quite have the energy to shrug. “Probably nothing. I think the closest we have to that is the maker’s bond. But you’ve got that with Adrian—”
“And you,” Phillip yawned, and although Marcus knew perfectly well that Phillip hadn’t connected with Marcus that way, the sun picked that moment to rise, so he was unable to say so.
But apparently Phillip wasn’t done with the conversation. They were still lying exactly where they had been when Marcus’s eyes popped open with the sunset and Phillip said, “Why aren’t
you
having sex?”
Marcus blinked and turned and then blinked again, because Phillip had moved in that time and was kneeling by his bed, still naked, and was peering at Marcus curiously now that they were both awake and ready to face the darkness.
“I’ve had sex,” Marcus said dryly. “I’ve had lots of sex. I’m just between girlfriends right now.”
“Scoot over,” Phillip grumbled, “and let me get under the covers.”
Marcus blinked again. “We’re doing this now?” he asked, a little befuddled. “I thought you hated having a roommate.”
Phillip had bitched copiously the minute he found he wasn’t in the room alone, and Marcus had grimly explained about Green’s power protecting the hill to make sure no one came and bothered the vampires while they were sleeping, and that the weather stayed in the range that suited the sidhe, and that the shape-shifters weren’t vulnerable to the hunters who were still all over the area at the time.
“There’s just not enough room for us all to have our own place. At least the darkling is underground, okay? Even if the sun takes you in the hallway, as long as you’re in the darkling, you’re safe.”
Phillip had subsided and had seemed to enjoy Marcus’s company when he wasn’t out and about chatting up girls or flying straight up as far as he could just to look at the world from that high.
But now he was crawling into Marcus’s bed as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and Marcus was a little annoyed.
He’d gotten used to the idea that he and Phillip would never be lovers again. It hurt. It hurt a
lot.
But he knew that risk, had
known
it would come to that, the minute he’d walked into the vault to calm the guy down. He’d been through the change. No one who had been through the change could be that straight, and Marcus already liked the guy, albeit reluctantly. Risking his heart was inevitable, like the dawn stealing his soul.
“I like having
you
as a roommate,” Phillip confessed. “I just want to know why you’re not getting any.”
Marcus shrugged. “I told you—between girlfriends at the moment.” He’d actually been seeing Gina yet again when they’d gone skiing, and Marcus had come home with a whole new emotional facet.
“You have
girlfriends
?”
Phillip boggled, and Marcus shook his head.
“Just because a lot of people here
aren’t
monogamous doesn’t mean you
can’t
be.”
“Yeah, but why would you
want
to be?”
He was really sort of adorable. “For the same reason you would want to be as a human, Phillip. A body in a bed is just that. A partner—that’s something else.”
Phillip grunted. “I wasn’t good at relationships as a human. My best relationships were with my coworkers or my clients.” He’d confessed to being a stockbroker, and Green had enlisted his help with the collective’s finances. Phillip was good at it, and he’d told Marcus that it made him feel useful. He liked that, and he also liked having all of Green’s money to play with, as long as he did so safely. Which was why it was no surprise at all when he added, “I’m really sort of an asshole, you know?”
Marcus looked at him, his brown eyes taking on that unexpected shyness in the dark of the room. They had enhanced sight, so they left the lights off a lot, and Marcus liked the way Phillip’s face looked in the dark—it was like they hid a secret part of him that only Marcus got to see.
“Well, we’re sort of stuck with each other for a while,” Marcus said now, letting some humor sneak into his voice. “I suggest you try not to be too much of an asshole, because our lives could be really fucking miserable if we get on each other’s nerves too much.”
Phillip’s shy smile grew even shyer. “I like you. I’m not good with people—you all might have had to put me down if you hadn’t walked in the vault, you know.”
Marcus blushed and looked away. He didn’t want to wear his heart on his sleeve. He didn’t want to burden Phillip with this inappropriate crush. He just wanted Phillip to keep talking to him, keep being his friend.
“Well, if I hadn’t liked you, you’d be dead,” he admitted wryly, and he was rewarded with Phillip’s loud guffaw. He turned his head and pillowed it on his arm, resigning himself to the intimacy of the situation, without the promise of even a kiss.
“What are you doing tonight?” Phillip asked unexpectedly.
“Going round the gas ’n’ sips with Adrian. There are some werecreatures he wants to check on, make sure they’re okay. I’m sort of his right-hand man for that.”
Phillip grunted. “You’re good with ’em,” he said reluctantly. “Green doesn’t have anything for me to do—”
“You could come with us.” Marcus hoped his voice didn’t sound as needy to Phillip’s ears as it did to his own.
Phillip looked both hopeful and regretful. “I scare the shit out of them,” he said hesitantly. He’d gone with them once before, but the werecreature they were going to visit had helped care for one of the men Phillip had savaged in his first two weeks, and one look at Phillip had sent the little werefox hauling tail through the underbrush in front of the gas station.
“Well, not in the last month!” Marcus looked at him through the same eyes that saw the hidden shyness, and the same heart that had heard that embarrassed confession of
I’m an asshole.
“Look, man, you want to hang out, I’m good with that. Come with us. Adrian’s a good guy—you’ll have fun.”
Again that shy smile, and Marcus started thinking he’d walk through sunshine for it.
“Don’t get so fucking needy,” Phillip said, rolling his eyes. The smile remained, though. “Give me a minute, and I’ll go shower.”
Marcus frowned. “A minute? What do you need a minute for?”
“This!”
Without warning, Phillip lifted up and closed his mouth over Marcus’s, and Marcus actually gasped.
And then he responded, and Phillip plundered, hard and strong, and invaded and took. Marcus gave without thought and without reservation, kissing back, following, allowing himself to be led. His whole body went on high alert. He’d gone to sleep in his jeans the night before. (Vampires did not “sleep.” They died. There was no comfort consideration until the sun set the next day, and usually they were alert and ready to go. Pajamas weren’t really necessary.) His cock was hard and ready underneath the button fly, and he was helpless in Phillip’s arms.
Phillip pulled back, hauling air through lungs that didn’t need it, and looked at him in surprise. “It was a test,” he mumbled, arching his hips unconsciously under the comforter. Marcus could feel his hard-on through the covers, against his thigh. “I wondered if I could kiss a man, if I had changed enough and…. Goddess—God—whoever….” He passed his hand in front of his lean, kiss-swollen lips in an unconsciously vulnerable gesture, and Marcus had to swallow hard on his own hurt.
Marcus pulled back abruptly and popped off the bed. “Sensual and consensual,” he rasped. “Toying with someone as an experiment is just cruel!”
Phillip looked at him—puzzled, still, and in a state of wonder. “I had no idea it would be that way,” he muttered, and Marcus couldn’t look at him anymore. He ran for the shower, clasping his aching cock in the onslaught of hot water and squeezing until white cascaded through his vision and spat out over his fist.
Phillip’s surprised wonder was behind his eyes the entire time.
Phillip had apparently skipped his own shower and was dressed (black slacks, a V-neck sweater—very sharp) when he got out, and Marcus very studiously ignored him as he pulled his jeans and sweater (plain brown crewneck) on, along with plain boxers. They had an allowance—more than any of them used, actually—and he could afford anything he liked. He liked worn jeans, he thought resentfully. Phillip could keep his slick stockbroker’s shit. He looked good in it.
He looked wonderful in it.
“That girl, Beverly, one of the werekitties—she’s coming back this morning,” Phillip said into the strained quiet.
“Good for her.”
“We’ll probably go out for a while, have sex, be a couple. I’ve noticed that it works to have a shape-shifter in your bed.”
“It does,” Marcus said neutrally. It was true. Gourmet food and uninhibited, sensual sex, all in one package. He’d dated his fair share of fragile-seeming, tough-bodied shape-shifters as well.
“When that runs its course, I think I may want to kiss you again.”
Marcus looked at him, puzzled. “When it runs its course?”
“Hey—I was a serial monogamist when I was breathing. Don’t ask me to change that now!”
Marcus laughed and shook his head, unable at this point to do anything else.
“Well, for all you know, I’ll be dating someone else by then too, so don’t do me any favors.”
Phillip grunted, as though he hadn’t thought of that. “Well, we’ve got time, I guess.”
Time for this inconvenient, horrible, aching crush to stop pressing against his chest?
“Fucking awesome.”
IT NEVER
went away. They did the rounds with Adrian that night, and after that,
every
night. Phillip continued to help Green with the finances, and Marcus would spend that time tutoring the young shape-shifters or vampires so they could gain skills that would help the collective, but they always, girl or no girl, other errands or no other errands, spent at least a couple of hours a night in each other’s company.
It started to feel like sunset to Marcus. It was the time he was truly alive.
True to his word, Phillip kept dating little Beverly, and Marcus took up with Gina again. Marcus wasn’t sure how Beverly felt, but in her room one early morning, Gina looked at him as their bodies lay still on the sheets and said, “Who the hell are you pining for, Marcus? Because the only thing engaged in what we just did was your dick.”
Marcus tried a smile and kissed her cheek. “Sorry. I was distracted.”
“No shit.” Gina stood and stretched, comfortable in her nakedness, and threw on a T-shirt for form. When Marcus had known her alive, her hair had been hacked and spiked and dyed and a general disaster. In death, her hair was shoulder length, dark blonde, and curly. She didn’t do anything to it—no dye, no spray—and Marcus liked that. He liked the smell of her skin just after she’d fed. He liked that she cared for the new vampires and shape-shifters like he did, and that together, they were Adrian’s backup line when he was bringing new ones over.