Secrets (The Forever series, Book 8) (12 page)

“Feel me slide down your cock. Wet and ready for you,” Liv
murmurs. “I want you inside me so I can ride you until you can’t hold on any
longer.”

“Oh, Liv,” he cries out louder than he should have. “Oh,
baby,” he says quieter.

“Take your other hand and gently squeeze your balls,” she
says and he does.

“Oh god that feels good,” he says. “Fuck I need you.”

“Keep stroking yourself,” she says and he is seconds away
from letting go. “Shit, Drake’s here, I have to go.”

Cole’s eyes fly open. “No!” he shouts. “Don’t go, Liv,
please.”

“I’m sorry, my love, I’ve got to go. I’ll contact you later.
Don’t stray too far from the house, I need a visualization to be able to reach
you.”

His hand is still pumping away at himself, he can’t stop,
but he doesn’t want her to go. “Stay, Liv, please,” he begs her.

“I love you,” she whispers and then he can’t see her in his
head anymore. She’s gone.

“Liv?” he calls her, but she doesn’t answer. “Liv, I love
you.” He groans loudly as he comes for the second time that night all over her
side of the bed.

“Cole?” There’s knocking on the door. “You okay?” Devon
pushes the door open and Cole sighs.

“Yeah,” he says and pulls the sheets up over the stains and
himself.

“Ah, crap. Sorry,” Devon says. “I heard you talking to
yourself. I didn’t realize you were…” He waves his hand about.

“I was talking to Liv,” Cole says.

“Come again?” Devon says, now stepping into the room.

“She was here, in my head talking to me,” Cole explains.

“Telepathy?” Devon asks. “Neat trick.”

“Yeah, she was just, you know, making sure I was okay.” Cole
flushes slightly as he looks away.

“Is she okay?” Devon asks quickly.

“Fine. I’ll tell everyone together so I’m not repeating
myself.”

“Fair enough,” Devon says and hovers for a moment.

“Something I can help you with?” Cole asks him.

“Uh,” he says hesitantly. “I just want to know if you are
okay? I know you must be missing her. I’d like to talk to you about it.”

“I’m fine. Better now that she has come to me.” Cole shrugs.

“And other things,” Devon murmurs. “Still I’d like to talk
to you.” He walks over to Liv’s side of the bed and is about to sit down, but
Cole holds a hand up.

“I wouldn’t sit there if I were you,” he says.

Devon looks down quickly and then looks back up in a flash.
“Gotcha. Erm, maybe we could talk outside then?” he asks.

“Sure.” Cole flicks the sheet off and stands to pull his
sweats on. He’s not embarrassed for Devon to see him naked. He’s seen it plenty
of times in the last seven months. A guy tends to lose all his shyness when he
has frequent three-ways with someone. Things get seen and touched even, however
inadvertently. It helps that Devon isn’t bigger than him.

They sit on the balcony and Devon starts, “Please don’t be
mad, but Jess spoke to me about the conversation you and she had in the kitchen
earlier. She’s worried and only looking out for you.”

“She told you we spoke?” Cole asks, surprised. He would have
thought that might be something she would want to keep to herself considering
what she did.

“Yes. She said that you are hiding your true feelings about
Liv being away from you for so much of the time. You shouldn’t do that. You
should tell her,” Devon says.

“No,” Cole says, a bit miffed that Jess told him that. “She
will only fret about it and she has enough to worry about.”

“It is her job to worry about you. If you go around acting
like everything is fine, she will assume it is,” Devon insists.

“Everything is fine,” Cole says and Devon shakes his head at
him.

“No, Cole, it isn’t. It’s a long time ago for me, but I do
remember how it feels, that deep-seated need to be around her all the time.
That it feels like you are going to wither away if you aren’t next to her,” he
says it quietly, and a flare of resentment goes up in Cole. He pushes it away
as it is unfounded. “You need to find another focus,” he adds carefully.

“Another lover you mean,” Cole says bitterly.

“Yes,” he says bluntly.

“Why does everyone keep telling me that?” He sighs.

“Because it will help.”

“She says that all new male Vampires have high sex drives.
Is that true?” Cole asks.

Devon laughs and says. “Oh fuck yes. I remember I couldn’t
keep it in my pants.”

“When did you, you know?”

“Take another lover? Not long after I was turned. I couldn’t
say for sure. Time had a different meaning back then. Lizzie didn’t encourage
it as she was, erm…” He hesitates and Cole knows what he’s going to say.

“Because she wasn’t sleeping with anyone else but you.” He
finishes Devon’s sentence for him with more ire than he would have liked.

“Yeah. It’s not that I didn’t love her or want her any less.
In fact, I wanted her more as no one ever lived up to what she could do, but I
sought out other women, just because I could,” Devon says.

“Was she mad when she found out?” Cole asks with a slight
smile.

“She was furious,” Devon says with his own smile. “She said
‘Devon! If that’s how this is going to be, then when you are finished here you
shall find me with my legs wrapped around the innkeeper.’” He laughs loudly at
the memory, and Cole does too at his perfect imitation of Liv’s posh British
accent.

“And?” he prods.

“True to her word, that is exactly how I found her,” Devon
says with a faraway look in his eye.

Cole snickers in spite of himself. It is just very her.

“You should find someone else. Just to be here when she
isn’t. Nothing more than that,” Devon says.

“Well, I might have a problem with that, being as how I have
a type and I know she has issue with that kind of thing,” Cole says cautiously.

“Steer clear of the word ‘Substitute’ and I’m sure it won’t
be a problem,” Devon advises.

“Did you think of Jess as a Substitute when you first met
her?” he asks. It’s a question he has been dying to know the answer to.

Devon’s eyes flash briefly, but he avoids Cole’s gaze as he
shrugs. “Maybe, in a way, at first,” he says carefully. “I mean she does look a
lot like Elizabeth. But it’s not like that now. I love her because of her.”

“Sire time aside, are you faithful to her?” Cole asks.

“No,” he admits. “Sire time aside, I have three other women
I see regularly.”

Really? Now that he didn’t know. “Oh,” he says. “Does she
know?”

“Yes. Stop changing the subject,” Devon snaps.

Busted. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he sulks.

“Fine, but think about it.”

“Do you think there is something more going on with
Constantine and Sebastian?” Cole asks, now full of curiosity about what he saw
earlier.

“How do you mean?” Devon asks and frowns at him, accepting
the change in subject.

“Like you know…I mean, how does he show his affection to a
male charge?” He curses himself as he blushes, but he wants to know.

Devon lets out a loud guffaw that startles the early morning
birds off the grounds below and says, “The same way as he would to a female
charge.”

“What?” he spits out the gulp of water that he had just
taken. To hear it said out loud is a different thing than just thinking it.

“You turn people because you feel something for them,
usually,” he adds wryly. “It’s no surprise that there is something deeper
there. I know it's different with him. He has that many charges, he probably
lost count centuries ago and he certainly doesn’t feel love for them. Sebastian
is different though, I think. His first charge. It’s special. Someone he sought
out at the beginning to be like him, that he could be with forever.”

“Yeah, I guess. Do you feel that way about Jess?” Cole asks.

“No, I have no bond with her. I love her, but that’s all
there is,” he states indifferently.

“Harsh,” Cole mutters and he shrugs. “I hate thinking about
him and Liv,” he adds. “That he turned her to be with him.”

“I know,” Devon says. “You have it hard with him wanting her
back. I was lucky that I never even met him for a hundred and eighty plus
years.”

“Seems like I always end up with the short straw,” Cole says
in a mood.

“Don’t say that. She loves you,” Devon rebukes.

“I know.”

“She was so smitten with you that first night she met you. I
have never seen her that way,” he says and Cole looks up in surprise.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. She adores you. She was so nervous the night she
wanted to tell you what she was. She was so scared that you wouldn’t understand
and leave her,” Devon admits this on his sire’s behalf.

“Nervous?” Cole says. “I can’t say that I have even thought
she knew the meaning of the word.”

“Tell me about it,” Devon agrees.

“I was so mad with her that night. Even though we had only
just met, I knew she was keeping secrets. I just had no idea how huge it really
was.”

“She told me how perceptive you were. She found it a bit
scary that you could see into her essence,” Devon says.

“I almost didn’t go after her,” Cole admits, looking away,
and he can feel Devon’s intense gaze on him.

“What changed your mind?” he asks after a minute or two.

Cole laughs nervously. “Initially because I had the keys to
her Veyron in my pocket. I’m a lot of things but I’m not a thief,” he says. “I
had just intended to give them back to her and leave. But the second I saw her
in the parking lot, kicking the tire as she realized I had the keys and how
upset she was that she thought I had rejected her, I knew I couldn’t leave her.
I was so in love with her. I had to hear more and to see if she was…” He trails
off, not knowing if Devon will understand what he was going to say.

“She was what? Delusional?” he snickers.

Cole smiles weakly at him. “Still the woman I thought she
was, the one I had been dreaming about, the one I fell in love with at first
sight.”

“Ah, I see. You hear Vampire, you hear mass murderer. I get
it.” He bobs his head in understanding and then adds with a quizzical look,
“Dreaming about?”

Cole shrugs off his question. “Something like that. It
sounds so hypocritical now. I’m the one who wants to Hunt and kill and she is
the moral one.”

“I know, it’s bloody ridiculous,” he says and sighs in
frustration at the change in topic. “Anyway, we’d better round up the troops so
you can tell them what Liv said. Think about everything I’ve said, okay?”

“Give me Jess,” Cole blurts out suddenly and Devon halts mid
stand.

“Excuse me?” he asks as he sits heavily again.

Cole fidgets, but then says again, “Give me Jess.”

“You want me to give you my girlfriend?” Devon asks in
suspicion.

“Yes. Just for when Liv isn’t here,” he says desperately.

“You want me to give you my girlfriend for you to fuck when
Liv isn’t here?” Devon repeats in disbelief.

“Don’t be so shocked, you fuck my wife. You fucking owe me.”
Cole stands up then and turns away before he throws a punch--at the wall, not
at Devon, as he would probably toss him over the balcony.

“That’s different,” Devon says stiffly. “She is my sire. She
was my sire hundreds of years before you were born.”

“Yes, I know,” he spits out. “I don’t ever get to forget
that.”

Devon’s tension goes up a few notches, but then drops just
as quickly and he sighs. “We can find you someone else. Someone of your own.
You’re a good-looking guy, a famous actor to boot. You must be beating them
off.”

“Yeah, I have hundreds of women throw themselves at me on a
daily basis. I get underwear sent to me in the post, and naked pictures, and
propositions about all the things they will do for me. But they are crazy,
Devon. I don’t want a crazy stalker. If I can’t have my wife, I need someone
nice and normal and, above all, discreet.”

“Underwear?” Devon asks with a raised eyebrow, but then says,
“Well, yeah, I get the discreet part. You don’t want your business plastered
all over Twitter. But Jess? Come on, dude. That’s not cool.”

“Look, it’s hard for you to understand, but we have things
in common. Not the least of all that she is also new, like me. We are two
floundering goldfish in an ocean full of Great Whites,” he says to try and make
him understand.

“I didn’t realize you were that close with her,” he snaps.

“We aren’t, but our conversation this morning has made me
see that we can help each other,” Cole says with a sigh. He has no idea what he
is saying, he is so tired.

“I will help her. All she has to do is ask,” Devon says,
beyond annoyed.

“She doesn’t want to. She feels stupid for asking and I get
that because I do too. Look, I didn’t set out to blindside you with this. I
never even thought about it that way until it came out of my mouth.”

Devon stays silent as he glares at him. He doesn’t blame
him. He has no idea why he even said that. The thought hadn’t even crossed his
mind until this morning. Man, he had wanted her, but for all the reasons he
backed away before, they are still there. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.
Just forget it.” He sighs and turns away.

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you
want to fuck the woman I want to marry,” Devon says.

“Well, like I said, tit for tat,” Cole says nastily and
Devon flinches.

“Is that what this is about? You want to get back at me?”
Devon says it so sadly, Cole feels like a complete bastard.

“No, of course not,” he says apologetically. “I’m just being
mean. The idea just came into my head and I spoke without thinking about it.”

“I understand that you think this idea has merit. She is
close and a Vampire younger than you and will be discreet…but I don’t know,” he
says and looks at Cole at a loss.

They both go silent.

“I’ll think about it,” Devon says then, quietly.