Perilous Partnership (30 page)

Jean held out his hand, a perfectly healthy shade of pink. “It‟s been too long since I fed. I‟m afraid I won‟t make it through waiting for everyone to arrive if I don‟t feed first. Your protection is wearing off.”

Raymond could see no sign of graying on Jean‟s skin, but he was not about to take any risks with his partner. “Come on. Madame Naizot prepared a room for us in the Hostellerie. It‟s not quite our room at home, but it‟s nearly perfect.”

Winking at Thierry and Sebastien as he passed, Jean followed Raymond inside and up to the top floor of the building. He had to admit that Raymond was right. The room Raymond led him into was everything a vampire could ask for. Raymond drew the drapes over the windows and switched on a lamp.

“Why didn‟t you feed last night or this morning?” Raymond asked, shedding his coat and beginning to unbutton his shirt.

“Because we‟ve both been so busy that I lost track of time,” Jean lied, his hands catching Raymond‟s and pushing them aside so he could finish the job of baring his lover to the waist. “If I weren‟t worried about standing outside in the sun, I could have waited until tonight, but I want to be at your side.”

“I want you at my side,” Raymond agreed, kicking off his shoes so he could stretch out on the bed. Jean joined him immediately, straddling him and lowering his head to Raymond‟s neck. Raymond almost protested, but everyone coming to l‟Institut would be a candidate for the same kind of partnership he and Jean shared. If they could not accept a bite mark on his neck, they would never be able to accept the rest. Even so, he caught his lover‟s face in his hands.

“The bite on my chest is almost healed.”

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Jean grinned. “Then I‟ll have to make sure I take my time, won‟t I?”

Raymond groaned, his body tightening at the thought. They did not have time to make love. He had things he needed to do.

His libido, though, had no interest in anything outside the bed.

Hearing the sound of surrender, Jean lowered his head to Raymond‟s chest, licking at the healing bite mark right above his lover‟s heart. Other marks came and went depending on how they made love, but Raymond had refused to let this one heal completely since the night they had admitted their feelings for each other. Jean told himself he was imagining things, but he swore Raymond‟s blood tasted the richest from that spot, so he had no problem acceding to his lover‟s desire in this case.

Deciding he had time to tease his lover a little, Jean licked his way lower, across Raymond‟s left nipple.

“I thought you needed to feed,” Raymond gasped in protest.

“I thought you‟d grown tired of rushed, impersonal feedings a year ago,”

Jean retorted, licking the tightening nub again. “No one will be here for at least an hour. Lie back and let me help you relax.”

As he spoke, he loosened Raymond‟s belt and undid his trousers. “These will get wrinkled if you don‟t take them off.”

Raymond suspected that was a ploy to get him naked, but he was not entirely sure the entire setup was any more legitimate. It no longer mattered.

Jean had sparked his desire and nothing would do but to sate it with his lover‟s eager cooperation. He lifted his hips and helped Jean push his trousers down and off, leaving him dressed only in his open shirt. He started to pull it off, but Jean stopped him.

“You look completely wanton lying in bed that way, with your shirt still half on. Let me imagine I‟ve dragged you off to bed to ravish you.”

“Isn‟t that exactly what you did?” Raymond asked, but he smiled as he said it, subsiding onto the bed in tacit acceptance of whatever else Jean had planned.

“Who, me?” Jean teased. “I just told you I needed you. Not at all the same thing.”

Raymond could not see any difference, but rather than discuss a moot point, he pulled Jean‟s head down to his to kiss his lover. Jean lingered on the kiss, drinking in the sweetness of Raymond‟s breath, twining their tongues together intimately. Before long, the simple contact was not enough. Jean kissed his way down Raymond‟s neck, pausing to nip at the smooth skin, letting the tension build until Raymond writhed beneath him in anticipation.

Smiling, Jean licked swiftly at the patch of flesh he had chosen and bit down hard, letting his fangs penetrate deeply enough to draw fresh blood to the

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surface and to leave a lovely bruise around the incisions from his fangs. He sucked hard, taking what he needed to sustain himself, powerfully aware of Raymond‟s growing desire in the taste of his blood and in the press of his arousal against Jean‟s belly.

Suddenly the barrier of clothes between them was too much. Jean reared back, pushing off his own garments. He hovered over Raymond for a moment, eyes drinking in the vision of utter debauchery beneath him: the dilated pupils, the darkening bruise on his neck, the short, panting breaths that made Raymond‟s chest heave between the open plackets of his shirt, the shiny puddle of fluid on his stomach that leaked from the tip of his hard and reddened cock, the shameless spread of his legs parted wide in invitation. Jean‟s mouth watered with anticipation as he tried to decide what part of his lover to devour first.

The spot directly above Raymond‟s heart tempted him, as it always did, but he could bite his lover there when he slipped inside him later. If he started that now, he would not be able to pull himself away, and the thick, dripping erection lured him in with nearly the same power. Lowering his head, he licked along the shaft, relishing every sound that escaped Raymond‟s lips as Jean lavished attention on him. Pushing back the foreskin, Jean lingered over the mushroomed head, licking and sucking until Raymond was writhing beneath him and bucking into his mouth. “If I let you come down my throat, will you come again when I‟m inside you?”

Raymond whimpered. “I want to, but I‟m not eighteen anymore, Jean.”

Jean grinned and wet a finger before sliding it between Raymond‟s cheeks to probe at his entrance. “Then perhaps I should stop. I want to feel you clenching around me, pulling me deeper and deeper inside you like you never intend to let me go.”

“Then you‟d better hurry,” Raymond groaned, “or you‟ll miss it. And I don‟t intend to ever let you go.”

Jean cursed under his breath as he realized the lube was in his trouser pocket on the other side of the room. He started to get up, but Raymond‟s legs went around his hips, stopping him. “Don‟t make me wait.”

Jean spit in his hand, wetting his cock and hoping he would not hurt his lover too much. As often as they made love, Raymond would adjust quickly, he hoped. He rocked slowly against his lover‟s entrance, scooping up the fluid anointing Raymond‟s abdomen and using that as additional lubrication to ease his way. Raymond‟s body opened eagerly for him, calming his fears about hurting his wizard. When he was fully seated, he blanketed Raymond‟s body with his own, staying deep inside as he bent his head to find the spot above his lover‟s heart that begged for his attention. He teased Raymond a little more, licking across the puckered nipple several times before biting down directly

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above it. Raymond‟s desire hit Jean hard as he sucked blood into his mouth, leaving his own control shaky.

“Jean!” Raymond begged. “Harder… please… need….”

Raymond‟s broken pleas shattered what was left of Jean‟s control. He released Raymond‟s chest, pushing up on his elbows so he could pound into the eager body beneath him, giving Raymond what he needed. Within moments, Jean felt his lover‟s climax begin, the spasming muscles tugging at his cock, deep in the welcoming sheath, milking him for all he had. He gave it willingly, spilling inside the wizard‟s body, another silent claim on the man who held his heart.

When Raymond collapsed beneath him, Jean lowered his weight carefully onto his lover, licking tenderly at the two marks his fangs had left behind. He could feel the stickiness of Raymond‟s release between them, but he ignored it for the moment, preferring to concentrate on the thrill of being the one to reduce the most controlled wizard in Paris to this state.

Eventually Raymond stirred beneath him, turning his head to look at the clock. “I had work I wanted to get done before the first group of wizards arrived,” he grumbled.

“You were driving everyone crazy with your „work‟,” Jean disagreed.

“Now you‟re relaxed and in a far better mood and you don‟t have time to do anything more than get dressed and go down to greet the first arrivals.”

“I don‟t even have time for a shower,” Raymond complained.

“I know,” Jean replied smugly, even though he knew Raymond would do a cleansing spell to erase the worst of the mess and the smell before he went downstairs. “I like the idea of you feeling me inside you all day.”

Raymond shivered. “It totally isn‟t fair to say things like that when I have to go out and deal with people for the next five hours at least before I can drag you back in here and do wicked things to you to make you pay for it.”

Jean smiled and rolled to the side. “I‟m looking forward to it already. I‟ll join you downstairs in a few minutes. It will take me a little longer to get cleaned up than it will you.”

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DESPITE the continuing distractions of his lover, Raymond managed to arrive back in the cloister at two minutes before three, in time to welcome the first of the wizards to arrive. He offered a quick welcome, an overview of where everything was, and an invitation to cocktails at six in the réfectoire before turning the first arrival over to madame Naizot to be escorted to her room so she could settle in.

Over the course of the next hour, the other six wizards arrived as well.

Raymond watched in amusement at the varying reactions they had to the marks on his neck and the rather possessive way Jean hovered at his shoulder the entire time. They would have to get used to both if they had any hope of forming a successful partnership. Not every vampire hovered the way Jean did, but Raymond suspected that was more a question of practicality than preference given the way all the partnered vampires he knew hovered when they could.

Once the wizards had all arrived, Raymond started toward the kitchens to make sure everything was ready for the evening. The vampires would not begin arriving until after sunset, around five fifteen, giving Raymond an hour to make sure the amuse-bouche were ready for the cocktail reception and dinner was ready for later. He made it as far as the réfectoire before Jean caught his arm, pulling him into a dark corner. “Am I going to have to hijack you again? You have to let people do their jobs. They all know what needs to be done, they all know this is important, and they all know to come find you if there‟s a problem.

Come back to the office with me and tell me about the wizards who signed up for the seminar, and then I‟ll tell you what I know about the vampires.”

Raymond gave in, knowing Jean was probably right. He followed his lover through the corridors to the office they had claimed as their own. It was not the director‟s office yet because Raymond was not quite ready to claim that position as his own, though with each day that passed, he felt more and more certain he would reach that decision before long. Alain had taken over almost all the day-to-day business at l‟ANS, leaving only the public appearances to Raymond, since the brand on Alain‟s neck and all it represented kept him from being a good spokesman for the association. Raymond would have no qualms about leaving l‟ANS with Alain and Thierry until a new president could be found after the way they had handled things over the past month. Raymond did

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not want to open himself to accusations of taking a position that was not his, though, so the director‟s office and the director‟s quarters in the abbot‟s lodge still stood empty.

“So tell me about the vampires,” Raymond said when they closed the door behind them. “I don‟t think I‟ve met any of them yet.”

“No, you probably haven‟t,” Jean agreed. “Two of them are from Paris, so you might have caught a glimpse of them when we had the first assembly at the gare de Lyon, but since they didn‟t find partners, they weren‟t around much after that. Three of them are from Amiens, recruited by Luc, so I don‟t know them as well, and the other two are from Tours. They got word of l‟Institut from friends, they said, and wanted to know more about the partnerships. I didn‟t ask which friends because it doesn‟t really matter and having vampires coming from elsewhere in the country strengthens our position should Renaud and Céline try to make trouble later. The chef de la Cour in Tours seems perfectly willing to have people participating in the seminars, although if they pair with wizards from elsewhere in the country, they might be changing Cours before long. Either way, they‟re here, and that‟s a good start.”

Raymond nodded. He had left it to Alain to arrange for wizards to go to each vampire‟s home to arrange an escort to l‟Institut so the vampires would not have to worry about sunrise and sunset or making arrangements to travel after dark. They would start arriving in the scriptorium around five thirty, long enough after sunset for the vampires to be able to move outside, even if there was still some daylight left. “How many men and how many women?”

Raymond asked.