Shadows in Savannah (5 page)

Jorge wanted to ask him to continue, but wasn’t sure how. There was such sadness and despair in Roberto’s story that Jorge wasn’t even sure he wanted to know the ending which was so obviously unhappy. He’d started down this road, though, and selfishly, if there was something in Roberto’s past that could help Jorge with Dane, he would put them both through the finishing.

“You can see why I’ve never talked about this,” Roberto said with a sad smile.

“I am truly sorry.”

“No. It is time I talk of it. It was so many lifetimes ago that I should be able to speak of love and the loss of it. I didn’t know, you see… I didn’t know what happened, the torture it was for an unwilling vampire to exist in that kind of darkness. Had William not been there for Elana, to fill in the empty spaces of her mind… You say Dane wants to die. You can’t stop him. He needs peace. Elana never found it, not even with William by her side. Not even with the both of us. And there is consequence if you interfere and fail. It is imprinted on you to relive their death on the anniversary. Time and natural law are different for the unnatural creatures we are. I see her death and it torments me.”

“What happened to William?”

“I don’t know. Once Elana was gone, he vanished. I looked for him and never found a trace. I hope they are together. I loved them so. I still do love them. If Dane has the potential to be that for you, all you can do is tell him.”

Jorge sighed and leaned his head back against the chair. He didn’t know what Dane could come to mean if they were given time. He only knew he wasn’t ready to give Dane up yet. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Just love him,
mi amico
. Just love him and be there for him if he chooses to go.”

Chapter Seven

Dane stood outside the bookshop, but Jorge was nowhere in sight, though he’d said he’d be back to walk Dane home. The gesture was sweet, or the idea of it was, at least. The intensity between them was too much too soon and it was only right to end things before they even started.

And with his birthday beginning in less than six hours? He smiled sadly and walked slowly in the direction of the hotel.

There weren’t many people out walking through downtown and for that he was grateful. After Jorge had left him earlier, he’d retreated to the back of the store to finish cataloging his work. Being around people had been a slow torture, especially after Jorge. Dane was torn more than ever between his continued existence and the peace he sought, that he hoped he’d find in death. He’d contacted his attorney and was assured his will and his businesses were all in order. The angels who handled his human transactions had been assigned to him many years before. As his turning had been involuntary, he wasn’t as much an abhorrence as those who had eagerly succumbed to immortality and a living death.

One such as Jorge.

“So, that is how you will get to heaven? Angels are on your side while demons are on mine.”

Dane smiled in spite of himself. “You should really try not reading anyone’s mind. One day you may find you don’t like what you overhear,” he said as Jorge once again, just as in London, fell into step beside him. This time, Jorge linked their fingers together and this time, Dane found an unusual comfort in the gesture.

“Your mind is the only one I’ve ever cared to read.”

The solemn words had Dane turning his gaze to look at his lover. Yes, Jorge was his lover. The thought had him smiling even bigger. And the whole mess was a disaster. “Why mine?”

“Why a disaster? I like to think I’m not that awful in bed. Granted, I could probably learn a few new moves, but give a vampire a break. I am old.”

“That is not what I meant and you well know it.”

“
Sim
. I do.”

“
Sim
?”

“It means yes in Portuguese.”

“Is that what you’ve been speaking to me every so often?”

“It is. You haven’t asked before.”

“I wasn’t sure how to. It’s so beautiful, your language. Roberto often curses in Italian and I enjoy just listening to the cadence of his voice when he does.” Jorge laughed and Dane realized he could get lost in that sound as well.

“He does curse a lot and it is always in Italian,” Jorge agreed. “Perhaps he thinks it’s not so bad as if he were to do so in English.”

“I don’t really think Roberto cares.”

“You’re probably right about that.” Jorge brought their joined hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of Dane’s. “So, what are our plans for the evening?”

“You plan to stay?”

“Nowhere else I want to be.”

“I didn’t get that impression from you earlier today.”

“Forgive me for leaving you that way. I needed to clear my head.”

“And did you?”

“Yes.”

“Then the plan for the evening is us. Naked. In my bed.”

“Never let it be said that I left a beautiful man disappointed.”

“I was not disappointed last night.”

“Nor will you be tonight.”

“No, I don’t expect I will be. You did say I could have you.” Truth be told, Dane was nervous. He hadn’t taken the top position in sex for several decades, at least. But with Jorge, just once, he wanted that all encompassing feeling of being surrounded in warmth and tightness. To be cradled in the most intimate way possible.

“
Sim
, and you shall. Do you need to check in with your restaurant before we go upstairs?”

“No. I called before I left the bookstore. My manager is paid handsomely to not need my nightly interference.”

“Why did you open a restaurant and pub?”

“Humans need to eat. I have learned a lot about a lot of things over the centuries and that is one constant. They enjoy good food, good drinks, and good company. I owned a cafe once upon a time in Paris along with a patisserie. I owned a small tea shop in London as well as one in New York for a time. Indulging the appetites of humans for food or the singular pleasure of reading scandalous books has always been a goal for me. There is so much pain they suffer.”

“Most of it is brought on by their own actions.”

Dane couldn’t argue that point. “But they should have simple things that bring them happiness. I have found food as a way to do that. Good food.”

“You’ve been all over the world, why did you settle in Savannah?”

“It’s quaint, parts of it are still in touch with its past and it’s respected. She’s a wonderful little city with an elegance that I don’t tire of the way I did Paris and London after a time. Perhaps because they were so large, but Savannah made me happy, if happy can be achieved for one such as me.”

“Happy can be, Dane. Happy most definitely can be.”

“You sound so sure of that,” Dane said, his voice taking on a wistful quality even he couldn’t mistake hearing.

“I am.”

Dane fought the urge to look at Jorge. He knew the other vampire believed everything he was saying, but Dane had doubts. Their experiences with being immortal creatures were too different. “I have found satisfaction from time to time, but I can’t say I’ve ever experienced happiness. I’m not even sure what it would feel like and if I’d recognize it.”

“What do you feel when you look at me?”

Dane smiled. His eyes grew heavy and his cock filled. “Lust,” he answered immediately.

“Do you not think lust can lead to happiness?”

“I think it can lead to a great many things. I’m not certain I could distinguish between them.”

“I should work on that.” Jorge opened the door to the hotel lobby and ushered Dane inside. “Come,
meu amor
.”

Dane hadn’t been paying attention to where they were. He’d been caught up being with Jorge, their conversation moving between seriousness and playful teasing, that everything around them had ceased to exist. “You speak with barely an accent,” he observed. “Unless you speak in your native tongue.”

“I have been in America long enough that it has dissipated as it does when humans are here through generations.”

“Your accent is beautiful, your language is as well.”

“Have you visited Portugal?”

“No.” And he suddenly regretted it. Not having visited more countries, more continents. He had stayed in places where he felt comfortable and he had never strayed far.

“It’s a beautiful country. Delicious coffee. How old are you, Dane?”

“I was turned in eighteen-eighty nine.”

“Why do you take the elevator?”

“Same reason I take the stairs. It’s to blend in.”

“Have you ever made out in the elevator?”

“Made out?” Dane laughed. “Are we human teenagers?”

“
Meu amor
, we can be anything we want.” Jorge’s whispered words ghosted over Dane just before Jorge took his lips in a kiss. Their bodies clashed together in the corner of the small elevator car. Tongues twined, teeth nipped, hands groped, ripping at clothes in an effort to get as close as possible. Time was short and yet, time was all they had.

The chime of the bell filtered into the kiss and the roaring hunger in Dane’s ears and he lifted his head. The doors slid open and he tugged his lover into the penthouse.

He should be nervous, but he wasn’t. He should be uncertain, but he wasn’t. He should be running as far from Jorge as he could get, banishing them from each other, but he knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t do that, either. He needed this. He needed Jorge.

As they walked through his apartment Dane tore at his clothes. Where last night he’d been careful and meticulous with his suit, tonight he didn’t care. He wanted and craved being naked again. Jorge was his lover and he wanted nothing separating them.

Jorge remarked on this. “You are eager.”

“And you are not?”

“I am.”

“Then why are you still dressed?”

“I was distracted by you. I like seeing you in the nude too much to take my eyes off the show.”

Dane laughed and settled on the end of his bed, legs wide, cock hard and standing erect. “Show is over now. Your turn.”

Jorge inclined his head and planted his feet between Dane’s. “Demanding. I think I like that on you.”

“And I think you’re going too slow.” Dane reached for Jorge’s pants. “On purpose.”

“Prolonging the pleasure.”

“I doubt that.” With deft fingers and a flick of the wrist, the belt, the button, and the zipper were handled in quick succession. Dane enjoyed the fact that Jorge dressed smart and classy, the same as he did. He remembered Jorge saying his family had been some sort of landed gentry, but there was also a roughness to the vampire that was carryover from the man he’d once been. There was always carryover from their human lives and there was manual labor in Jorge’s past as well as ease.

Dane marveled at the muscles in Jorge’s thighs and arms, at the tautness of his stomach and width of his chest as his body was once again revealed. “What did you do as a human to have this much tone and definition when you were turned?”

“After my family… I took jobs where I could find them. I worked on farms during planting and harvesting. I walked from one to another and there were often many miles between them. I hadn’t grown up completely soft, but I had never worked as hard as I did in the months before I met up with the gypsies.”

“You’re beautiful. Sculpted.”

“Hard working. Truth be told, I missed the work. I did miss the sun on my back, the use of my muscles.”

“Have you ever regretted it? Becoming a vampire?”

“No.” Jorge dropped to his knees and met Dane’s golden gaze. “I would not have met you had I not become what I am.”

“I was not seeking a declaration,” Dane whispered, touched at the tender words.

“I was not giving more than the truth. You are special and I would have regretted not meeting you, not knowing you.”

“Jorge, I…” But his words were lost as Jorge dropped his mouth over Dane’s erection. The pleasure was muted, or what he assumed was muted. He didn’t have the same sensations he’d read in book descriptions, but he felt something. The wetness against his skin. The graze of Jorge’s teeth along his length. The tight barrier that didn’t seem to be there when Jorge took him into his throat.

He wanted to feel this as a human and if he could gather the courage to ask for it after midnight, he would. He wanted to feel sex as a human, something he’d always avoided. He wanted to feel things he’d denied himself since being turned for fear it would drive him mad not to feel it again for a year.

But tomorrow… He could feel tomorrow if he wished, if he wanted, if he asked.

For now though, he wanted Jorge, as close as he could get him.

Dane slid his fingers through Jorge’s dark waves and tugged, lifting Jorge’s mouth off him. “I want you on my lap. You know where the oil is from last night if you —”

“I don’t need it,” he said, straddling Dane’s thighs.

“Brave, vampire.”

“The bravest of them all,” Jorge whispered into Dane’s mouth. He took both cocks in one hand and stroked them together, making Dane moan. He was at that stage of arousal where he could go for hours, for days without stopping.

He scooted back onto the bed more. One thing he gave to being a vampire was the strength it afforded him. He could lift anything, throw anything or anyone. Even two vampires at the same time.

Jorge got to his knees, bore down on Dane’s shoulders with his hands as Dane parted Jorge’s ass cheeks.

“Look at me,
meu amor
.”

Dane immediately looked up and caught sight of bliss as Jorge sank down, taking Dane’s erection deep inside. Jorge’s fangs glistened as he bit into his own lip, his eyes lighting like blue fire from within. Dane couldn’t imagine a more beautiful memory. He was supposed to be the one doing the taking, but he was the one being taken. Again. Only this time, it was different. It was more than he could have ever dared imagine. It reached inside him, into his soul and made him fly.

“
Deus
.”

“Another beautiful word,” Dane said, pulling Jorge’s head down to lick at the lip Jorge had bitten.

“Means God.”

“Is it good or bad?”

“It is more than either could be. The sensation of fullness, of completeness… There is no other word to use that will express it.”