A Shadow of Wings (18 page)

Dylan swung his legs over the wall and patted the spot beside him. Cam followed, sitting close so their body heat would keep them warm and so Dylan could put his hand on Cam’s thigh and lean against him. For as long as he lived, he’d never forget this night, or even this moment.

“Nice view, yeah?” Dylan tightened his hand on Cam’s thigh and spoke softly, as if he’d break the spell if he said anything too loud.

Cam gazed out at the water. “Beautiful.”

“You could try taking off your glasses now. I mean, it’s night, ain’t nobody around to see, and you’d get a better look.”

Cam lifted his hand but hesitated. Idiot. Dylan reached up and took the shades off, then stuck them on the top of his own head. “See? Nothing awful happened.”

Cam’s whole body sagged. “I hate that I have to wear them,” he admitted quietly.

“Not around me you don’t. I been thinking about it, and the only time it bothered me was when you were angry. Other than that, I liked looking in your eyes. I don’t want you to worry about it, okay? I don’t want any bad mojo between us, no regrets.”

Cam said nothing, but Dylan wasn’t going to let him retreat again. “Look at me. C’mon.” With his fingertips, he turned Cam’s head, and in truth, because it was so dark, he could just about see Cam’s downturned eyes catching the faint light from the streetlamp a few yards behind them. A shudder of memory from the power of that gaze did skid down his spine, but only for a second before he said, “When I looked in your eyes before, I felt great. Peaceful. It was nice.”

“Really?” Cam worried one side of his lower lip.

“For sure. Now look at me.” 

Finally, Cam did. Prickles of gooseflesh broke out all over Dylan’s body as if he’d gone suddenly from hot to cold, but nothing worse happened, and he let himself breathe again. Hadn’t even known he’d been holding his breath. Then that warmth oozed through him. Despite the darkness, he felt the magic of Cam’s gaze, and fuck all if he didn’t like it. Without blinking, he leaned in and kissed Cam’s lips. 

A stuttering exhale escaped Cam. “I don’t know how you can do that,” he whispered against Dylan’s mouth. Then he drew back a few inches. “It shouldn’t be possible. I’ve been told, taught…”

Dylan touched Cam’s lips, silencing him. “Maybe you been taught wrong. You said yourself they didn’t want you getting involved with no one. What better way to scare you off than telling you it was dangerous?”

“It’s not that. I’ve tried before, and it never worked. I mean…I’m not…natural.”

As if that explained everything. Maybe, hopefully, that was the wine talking, but it pissed Dylan off, telling a kid they weren’t natural. He’d heard that line himself from his stupid stepfather. “They teach you that too? That you’re some kind of freak ’cause of your eyes? And your…your wings or whatever?” He ran his hand up Cam’s back as if he could feel them, which he couldn’t.

Cam startled. “You can’t see them now, can you?”

So, they
were
wings.
Da fuck…
But Dylan stayed calm and shook his head. “No, nothing. Not since that one time.” He rubbed his hand in circles over Cam’s tense back. The kid was nervous and stiff. Dylan murmured, “Show me ’em.”

A sharp inhale and Cam pulled away. Before Dylan could press, though, because he was sure Cam would refuse, Cam looked out toward the river again and yeah, there, fuck, a swirl of darkness materialized behind his shoulders.

Awestruck, Dylan floated his hand through the oily dark shapes but felt nothing. “They’re not there. Not really.”

“It’s just a shadow. An illusion.”

“I see ’em better if I don’t look right at ’em. Yeah, like… Shit, they’re pretty.”

Cam snorted and turned to glance at him. “I’m sure you’re the first to think so.”

They disappeared like smoke, and Cam rubbed his forehead with the heel of his palm, his expression troubled. Would he have showed them if he hadn’t been a little buzzed? Maybe not. Dylan asked, “So, I gotta ask, can you fly?”

“No. They’re useless, like the rest of me.”

“Aw, don’t be a sad mawnster,” Dylan teased, causing Cam to twist his eyebrows.

“Are you surely joking about this? About me being a freak?”

“Ah, stop feeling sorry for yourself. So you’re some kind of half-baked angel. Who cares?” 

“I told you, I’m not an angel.”

“Demon?” He crossed his fingers the answer was—

“No.” Thank fuck. Swinging his legs, Cam shook his head. “Not even a demon.”

“Don’t tell me…” Dylan snapped his fingers. “Unicorn!”

Despite his gloomy mood, Cam flicked a smile. “Hardly.”

“Pegasus?”

“Don’t be daft.”

Dylan ran back through his memories of mythical animals and couldn’t think of many. He hadn’t paid much attention in school. “A flyin’ lion, like that one in
Rudolph
.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but no.”

Though Cam was still smiling, he didn’t offer up the answer, and Dylan was having too good a time to ask him outright. His identity was becoming some kind of secret game between them, like Rumplestiltskin’s name, and Dylan was up for going along with it. 

“Mothra,” he guessed. When Cam said he didn’t know what that was, Dylan said, “Giant moth, you know? Two creepy little Japanese girls ride around with it?”

“Do you see any creepy girls with me?” 

He made a show of looking behind Cam. “Guess not. Shoot. Hmm… A dragon? Like Bruce Lee?”

Something about dragons made Cam sad, and he said, “I wish. And what are you talking about? Bruce Lee wasn’t a dragon.”

“
Enter the Dragon
, ain’t you never seen that movie?”

Cam slid him a withering gaze, then started to speak.

Dylan put his hand over Cam’s mouth. “Shush. I don’t wanna know.” 

He dropped his hand so Cam could say, “But…why?”

“’Cause you really don’t want to say. I can tell.” He turned closer into Cam’s side and drew his palm over Cam’s thigh. “Then you’d have to live with knowing you told someone your secret identity, and every time you were with your brother, you’d be worried about it. That’s why superheroes don’t tell no one who they really are. It’s easier that way. That’s why Lois Lane didn’t ask Clark Kent why he was never anywhere Superman was. She knew, but she also knew not to ask, you know?”

He shook his head slowly. “I…guess so.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know who Superman is, or we got a whole ’nother big problem.”

He smiled again at last. “I do know who that is.”

“Good.” He said it with emphasis and rolled his eyes. “Thought I was gonna have to teach you everything.”

The smile faded, and Cam dropped his gaze. “I’m not Superman either.”

“Oh fuck, don’t you get it?” He gave Cam’s leg a shake. “I don’t give a flying crap what you are. You’re Cam, and that’s good enough for me. And I swear to fuck, if you keep trying to look the other way and not look me in the eye, I’m gonna smack you. Now stop it. You think I’m Lois Lane? Do I look like Lois Lane?” He spread his arms, inviting a good scrutiny.

Cam laughed and shook his head. “I suppose not.”

“None of that shit matters.” Gripping him by the back of his neck, Dylan pulled him in for a kiss that got wet and hot fast. While Dylan plundered Cam’s mouth, Cam got bold enough to push his fingers under Dylan’s T-shirt to find bare skin and a tight nipple, which he rubbed over with his thumb. The shivery sensation made Dylan groan, then whisper, “We’re just a couple of fuckups, but at least we got each other, right?”

“Right.” Breathless. Groping his way up Dylan’s thigh, Cam said, “Dylan?”

Dylan relaxed his legs apart and let Cam get a solid feel of him. “Yeah? Mmm…”

“There is something you could teach me…”

Chapter Thirteen

There was nothing like walking with a hard-on for a quarter mile to make a guy grateful to get home.
Home…
As Cam followed Dylan into his rented room and resisted not at all when Dylan shoved him up against the closed door for a voracious kiss, he spared a thought for the pleasure of being welcomed into Dylan’s place, into his life. Into his bed. Or at least onto his air mattress, toward which Dylan was pulling Cam with his fingers hooked in the waistband of Cam’s jeans.

“C’mere, baby,” Dylan growled. 

“Dylan, I…” His brain was coming back down to earth, leaving him suddenly, coldly aware of the enormity of what he was doing. Having sex with a human. Forbidden, wrong, dangerous. He stopped, then held Dylan apart from him for a moment to catch his breath. Cam’s lips were wet and swollen; the head of his cock felt wet and swollen too, and he throbbed with need from head to toe, but still…

Dylan, bless him, didn’t push. Just stared at him as he pulled his arms out of his jacket and tossed it aside onto the floor, then seemed to reassess. “Shit. You getting cold feet? You’re getting cold feet, aren’t you?” He stepped back, just one step, and hooked his thumbs in his waistband. Despite his strained expression, he said, “Don’t worry. We’ll take it slow. Or nowhere at all.” He held up a hand as if Cam had given him some excuse, when in fact Cam was too twisted up inside to do anything but shift from foot to foot. “Whatever you want. It’s cool.”

“I…I want this. I do.” Cam licked his lips, tasting Dylan’s kisses. His body ached from the memory of having Dylan pressed against him, and his dick, that very human appendage with which God had graced his guise as if to taunt him, had never been harder. “Do you?” he finished lamely.

“Hell, yeah.” Dylan’s gaze ran over him with gratifying appreciation. He came closer, slowly reached out, slid his hands inside Cam’s jacket and eased it over Cam’s shoulders. “Listen, no matter what, you want to stop, we’ll stop.”

Even the light glide of his palms over Cam’s shoulders was enough to make Cam shudder with longing. Truly, this guise was a curse. A curse and a blessing. Did other cockatrices suffer with these feelings? He’d only ever heard them whine about being bound in human flesh. Did they not know how the pressure of a lover’s hand sliding down your chest, cupping your erection, could focus your world with pinpoint brilliance? Did they never realize that the heat of another man’s breath and the stroke of his tongue across yours could make you want to give and give until there was nothing left?

Dylan lifted his mouth from the kiss, and Cam swayed forward into his arms. Comforting hands slid over his back and into his hair, then cradled his face for another kiss, softer this time. Truly, Cam was tamed. Like the last surviving cockatrice who surrendered to the knight, Alistair, and wore the first collar, he was enslaved to this man’s touch.

“That’s better,” Dylan murmured as Cam gave in to his caresses and pushed his erection into Dylan’s palm. “I’ll take care of you. You don’t got nothing to worry about.”

When Dylan took his hand this time, Cam went with him to the air mattress. There was no graceful way to sit on it, and its wheeze made him laugh nervously. Standing over him, Dylan grinned as he pulled his hoodie over his head and threw that on top of his jacket. “Sorry it ain’t exactly five-star accommodations around here.”

“It’s fine.” He shuffled back farther onto the mattress and stared at Dylan while he continued undressing. When Dylan thrust his thumbs into his jeans and pushed them down, of course his erection sprang free, unencumbered by underwear. He kicked off his sneakers and threw everything off to the side, then stood, proud and tattooed and glorious. 

The question of whether Cam should also undress got shoved aside for a moment when Dylan closed the space between them, one hand around the base of his cock, and said, “Suck it.”

Without hesitation, Cam leaned forward and slid his mouth around the offered dick. He dug his fingers into Dylan’s thighs as his lover rocked forward and back, fucking his mouth slowly, controlling the movement with fingers clenched in Cam’s hair. Cam hummed low in his chest. This was good. This he could do. 

Dylan’s grunts gave him confidence, and he felt himself starting to relax. Feeling ambitious, he took Dylan in as far as he could, pressing his nose into Dylan’s pubes, inhaling earthy musk. His bestial soul liked that very much, and by his lover’s sharp inhale, he guessed his wings had come out to play. This time, he did nothing to repress them. The freedom was exhilarating.

“So fucking pretty,” Dylan murmured, stroking his fingers through Cam’s hair now. Long training had taught Cam that kind hands on his head were a sign of approval, and he nearly wept from the joy of it. From pleasing his lover, from doing
something
right.

“That’s good for now, baby.” With hands on either side of Cam’s face, Dylan lifted his mouth from his cock. “Now it’s your turn. You got that bag?”

He licked his tired lips. “It’s in my backpack, over there.”

He started to get up, but Dylan went instead, his sizeable erection bobbing as he walked. The idea of that
inside
him, possessing him, motivated Cam to strip off his own shirt and toss it in the pile with Dylan’s clothes.

“Nice.” Dylan’s eyes darkened with approval when he turned and saw Cam undressing. He came back to the air mattress, then knelt with the infamous paper bag in his hand, which he put aside to help pull off Cam’s shoes and jeans. “Well, aren’t we fancy, wearing plaid boxers?” he teased.

Cam snorted.

“Didn’t know this was a formal affair.” With a slanting grin and a hand in the center of Cam’s chest, Dylan pushed him down onto his back on the mattress. Once Cam was spread out before him, Dylan peeled off Cam’s boxers and tossed them. He lay over Cam’s body, all that hot, delicious skin and muscle covering Cam from chest to thighs, his lips on Cam’s again and their stiff dicks pressed against each other. 

Cam wrapped a leg around the back of one of Dylan’s and couldn’t help rolling his hips back and forth so their cocks rubbed. “This is so good, Dylan. I feel like I’m going to boil right out of my skin, I want you so much.” Was such honesty expected between lovers? He didn’t know, hardly cared. He ran his hands all over Dylan’s back and butt, shuddering when Dylan slid back a little onto his knees and forced Cam’s thighs apart. He slid a hand between them and slid it down to play with Cam’s balls.