Deep Deliverance: The Deep Series, Book 3 (12 page)

He stroked the side of Adin’s face, followed the curve of his cheek to his neck, his shoulder. Just that whisper of touch tightened the peaks of Adin’s nipples into pale raspberries.

“So sensitive.”

Adin reached out and brushed Donte’s hair from his face. “Your hair is getting long. I think I like it this way.”

Donte kissed each of Adin’s eyelids. His nose. The deliberate pace he set was the greatest luxury imaginable. He could kiss every inch of Adin’s skin if he chose, because at last, at last, Adin lay wholly relaxed in his arms. He was no longer a whirlwind of anger and need. He wasn’t trying to forget what Donte had done to him, he was no longer trying to block out reality with impatient desire.

Donte kissed his leisurely way down Adin’s neck and chest. He spent time with Adin’s nipples, laving them, loving each one in turn, teasing them until the pink buds darkened and tightened and then moving on, following the soft golden trail to the greatest treasure he’d ever known. A kiss on the tip of Adin’s cock drenched his tongue with the slick, sweet fluid of Adin’s arousal.

“Ah…” Adin arched beneath his mouth. “God, Donte.”

Before he took Adin’s cock into his mouth, he breathed him in, noting the difference in Adin scent since he’d been turned. He had at one time smelled virile and musky. Heady and human and male. Now, there was an indefinable earthen note, a slightly medicinal tang to his skin. He smelled of ether, of books. Of alcohol and the woman Sahar’s perfume. And raisins, again. Like the concentrated sweetness of fruit sugar.

The cool marble of his skin heated under Donte’s fingers, and the alabaster length of him quickened until the tip glistened purple and damp.

Adin let out a soft grunt when Donte reached for his balls, for the soft, hidden skin behind them and the pucker of flesh behind that. His legs fell open and his hips moved restlessly. Fingers dug through Donte’s hair.

Donte dove into Adin’s heat, his center. He brushed his lips over the velvet of Adin’s balls, and licked and suckled each in turn. He gripped Adin’s hips and held him fast, while he licked at Adin’s hole, then speared his tongue to taste the very deepest center of him.

“Christ—” Adin gripped his hands. “Oh…Christ. Donte, if you do that, I’m going to come.”

Donte closed his eyes and gave in to his basest desires. Tonguing, tasting, teasing Adin’s entrance. The heady richness of it, the way Adin clenched around him, the way he gripped Donte’s head, the way he writhed and moaned, all added to the glorious freedom of it.

Adin was his. Adin belonged to him in a way Auselmo, God rest him, never had.

The crushing loneliness of whole lifetimes spent missing Auselmo made him doubly grateful for this, for Adin in the here and now. Doubly aware of how lucky he was to have such a man beside him. Beneath him.

“May I?” Donte slipped a single finger deep into Adin’s body even as he sucked Adin deeply.

“Yes.” Adin rocked between Donte’s fingers and his mouth. “Anything.”

Donte brought him to the edge time and again. As Donte took his fill with both his mouth and fingers, he felt those tight balls pull up. Adin couldn’t keep still. His legs pulled up, or they fell, or they wrapped around Donte’s neck and tightened almost painfully. His toes, curved like silly shrimp, clutched at Donte’s skin. Several times, Donte had to stop, had to smile or suppress a happy laugh, and then Adin would pull his hair or give his shoulders a squeeze, impatient as ever…

“Donte,” Adin cried desperately. “God damn it. Fuck me already.”

“Shh.” Donte let his breath hiss across Adin’s hot, damp skin. “Patience is a virtue.”

“Fuck virtue. Fuck everything.” Adin lifted his head to grin down at him. He fisted both his hands in his hair as if he had to hold on to something. “Especially fuck me.”

Donte shook his head, pulling Adin’s cock from side to side with his mouth.

“Oh…Christ that’s sweet.” A few drops of bitter pre-come washed over Donte’s tongue. He loved the flavor of it. Better than blood. Better than the most expensive whiskey or the priciest meal. Better than anything he’d ever tasted, Adin’s flavor was ambrosia, and when he dipped his head again, when he made Adin rock and writhe with pleasure beneath him, he was a god.

Adin arched and stretched and keened.

At last, Donte let go of Adin’s cock with a soft
pop
to crawl up his body. He took the time to kiss Adin again. To share his lover’s flavor, to share that exquisite intimacy between them. And then he lined himself up to push into Adin’s body…

“Let me in, caro.” He groaned a few curses as he seated himself in Adin’s tight sheath.

Adin’s gripped his hips. “Go slow, lover. It’s been—”

“Yes.” Donte nodded between kisses. It had been a while since they’d made love like this. “Shh. This is ours, Adin? Yes?”

“Donte—”

“Am I the only one who needs to hear the words spoken aloud?”

“You’re not.” Adin’s expression registered surprise, and then sorrow. “I just don’t know what you need to hear.”

Donte’s hips slowed. “Tell me you love me.”

“I do love you.” The smile that blossomed on Adin’s lips was breathtaking. “That was easy.”

“I love you, Adin.” Donte shot his hips forward. Adin’s eyes darkened, and closed over an expression Donte hoped to wear inside his eyelids. He needed to draw that look, to capture it, because it was the most beautiful, the most abandoned, wanton look Adin had ever given him. “Caro. In this moment, you’re holding nothing back. We’re one flesh. One blood—”

“I swear it.” Adin proved it by nicking the skin of his arm and holding it to Donte’s lips. Donte lapped at the few drops to be had before the wound closed, and then he nicked his own arm, even as Adin repeated the gesture. “Together this time. One flesh. One blood.”

Donte took Adin’s offering and gave his own. The mechanics of the exchange were awkward for a moment. Then Donte let himself succumb to the undertow of lust, and each deep, insistent thrust of his cock met a surge of Adin’s. Blood flowed. Spines arched. Muscles wrenched and clenched, desperate to drive them together. The heady rush of pleasure carried Donte along a current of passion where kisses were food and they exchanged cries instead of air.

The first faint frost of climax iced its way down Donte’s back to hold him spellbound.

“Adin.” Donte barely breathed the word as his world came apart. His hips surged and surged and surged one last time. Heat lightning seemed to gather behind his closed eyelids. “Caro.”

Adin’s lips moved, but he didn’t make a sound. He reached up and pressed a searing, open-mouthed kiss to Donte’s lips. Their tongues twined, their teeth clacked lightly together. He delved so deeply, Donte felt Adin’s eyelashes brush his skin, and the trace, the drop, of moisture trailed from them.

“Caro?”

Adin shook his head. Pressed his forehead to Donte’s. He managed to say, “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” Donte peered at him. “Tell me. Have I done something wrong? Said—”

“No.” As he shook his head, Adin swallowed deeply. “I think—I think I’m happy.”

“Sweetheart.” Donte pulled free of Adin’s body with all the tenderness he possessed before gathering Adin up to hold him close. “I have only ever wanted you to be happy. I know I’ve failed you in the past. Made the grossest errors in judgment. But I feel—I’d do anything for you. Anything.”

“Would you?” Adin’s gaze rested on him. Donte felt the change when it came. From passion to something deeper. Something deadly earnest. “Is that true, Donte? Would you really do anything for me?”

A frisson of fear crossed Donte’s heart. “What are you asking?”

“You once told me you couldn’t destroy yourself.” He looked away. “I know I can’t walk out into the sun, or starve myself. I know I can’t end this if I need to.”

“I tried to end my existence in the beginning. I always rose again. Is that what you would ask of me?” Donte’s voice rose, his tone, pleading. “Of
me
, Adin?”

“If I can’t adjust to the way things have to be now—”

Donte pulled away. “It’s only been a few months. You were unconscious for several weeks and then, I admit the transition isn’t easy, but you’ve only just fed for the first time. Is your existence—is being with me so miserable that you’d ask this of me now?”

“Yes.” Adin shook his head. “No. It’s not that simple. It’s not because I’m miserable. It’s because you took away my right to choose. And I want that back, Donte. I want to decide for myself if this life is for me or not. And if you really, really loved me—”

“I would end things for you if you asked me to,” Donte concluded for him.

“Would you?”

“I—” God.
Give me impossible odds. Herculean tasks. Ask anything of me… Anything but that…
“What you ask is—”

“You said you’d do anything for me. You said you love me.”

“Can you not ask someone else? Must you make me give up the only thing that’s mattered to me since—”

“Auselmo?”

“I was going to say, since I lived a normal human life.”

“Sometimes your love for Auselmo is right here, in bed with us.”

“I know,” Donte admitted. “I can’t quite leave him behind. I never could. And since I cannot let go of a lover who died half a millennium ago, it’s richly ironic you should ask this of me.”

“I know.” Tears dotted Adin’s lashes. “I know it, Donte. But it has to be you, don’t you see? That’s fair, isn’t it?” Adin’s hand cupped the side of Donte’s face. “I’m like this because of you. I need it to be you that ends things for me if I can’t bear it.”

Donte had nothing to say to that.

Could he do it? He’d said he’d do anything. Could that
anything
include taking the life of the man he loved above all others?

He hadn’t listened to Adin’s wishes about being turned. Knowing Adin—knowing how important autonomy was to his lover—turning him had been a betrayal of the worst kind.
Could
he do what Adin asked, if Adin asked him to end his suffering?

Would that expiate his sins?

He couldn’t calculate the odds, and something told him now was not the time to ask Adin if he knew how likely that particular outcome would be. Yet something hopeful, something optimistic had been winding its way around his heart since Adin had talked about feeding from Sahar.

Adin had sounded as though he might not mind having been turned after all.

Adin had sounded—for the first time—as if he might be at ease with his fate.

It was even possible Donte could help him to become at peace, given the detente they’d forged.

Donte had gambled on people he’d had far less faith in than he had in Adin Tredeger.

“I will do what you ask of me. I swear on my honor. On Auselmo’s grave. I love you with my whole heart, Adin. I would hold nothing back from you.”

“Thank you,” Adin whispered. He pressed his forehead to Donte’s. “Thank you.”

“Wh
ere are you going?” Donte caught Adin’s hand as he slipped from the bed.

“I thought I’d get a shower and go out for a while.” Adin still couldn’t look Donte in the eye when it came to his needs. “I have to feed.”

Donte threw the covers off his long legs. “All right.”

Adin pressed his hand to Donte’s chest. He was momentarily distracted by the crisp hair curling beneath his fingers. Donte’s skin was still damp with sweat. Slightly warm. It was tempting—very tempting—to stay in bed. There was no real reason he had to go out by himself, except suddenly, and for no apparent reason, he was feeling closed in. He’d always been driven to distance himself from his lovers. Maybe because doing the opposite was so goddamn enticing.

It would be so easy to disappear into a life with Donte. To accept his love. His protection. To give up and let Donte lead in every aspect of their lives. To let him control and nurture until Adin was dependent on him for everything. It would be easy to become so much a part of Donte that Adin lost himself entirely.

But it would be like his nightly fall into oblivion.

No matter how much Adin loved Donte, he simply wasn’t made that way.

“You don’t have to go with me. I’ll find Sean.”

Donte stilled. He appeared to want to argue, but he hesitated before speaking. Maybe he understood. Maybe he just didn’t want to ruin whatever accord they’d achieved. “Are you certain?”

“I’ve done it twice now.” Adin nodded. “It’s like riding a bike, right?”

Donte gave him a playful shove. “Be careful.”

“I will.” As Adin headed for the bathroom, his body still sang from their lovemaking. His skin was flushed, his knees were a little weak, and his ass ached. He stepped into the shower and let the hot water course over his back and shoulders, loving the feel of the warmth on his skin.

Donte’s tenderness, his confessions, his promises still hung in Adin’s heart. They could make this work. As long as Donte respected his boundaries, they could make this work. He felt happier than he had in such a long time. He was optimistic about the future in a way he hadn’t been for months, until he remembered Harwiche’s bequest and all that laughter. He’d hated Ned Harwiche when he’d been alive, and after that last humiliation he ought to dig up his corpse, tear it to shreds, and hide it in a butcher’s garbage bin with whatever other vile waste was there.

When he was done showering, he toweled off quickly and dressed in jeans and a sweater. He found a pair of clean socks, pulled them on, and then slipped into his shoes. If he was going to stay in L.A. much longer, he’d have to send his clothes to be cleaned. Or go shopping. He’d always liked shopping, but since he’d been turned, he hadn’t done any. Not once. It was a true barometer of how much his mood had improved that he looked forward to it now.

Perhaps he was getting a little of the old Adin back after all.

“You’re smiling,” Donte observed as Adin clasped on the second of his watches. “It’s heartening to see you smile again.”

Adin leaned over to kiss Donte goodbye. “I feel good for a change.”

“Do you?” Donte cupped his jaw, held him there just long enough to rub their cheeks together. “Was I at least partially instrumental in your change of mood?”

“I love you.” Adin pressed his lips to Donte’s palm. “Never doubt it.”