With a Kiss (25 page)

Liam cautiously approached the morning room. The door was slightly ajar. Liam peeked inside. Jenny was gone. Only Marcus remained in there. The vampire stood at the window, overlooking the empty drive.

“I…” Liam cleared his throat and tried again. “I thought you might like some coffee.”

Marcus glanced toward him. His expression was very serious. He didn’t say a single word as Liam stepped into the room and set the tray down on the coffee table.

Liam perched on the edge of the sofa, just where Jenny had sat a little while before. He struggled to keep his hands steady as he began to fuss with the coffee things. Marcus slowly crossed the room and sat down in the chair opposite him. Liam could feel the vampire’s gaze on him, but he didn’t have it in him to look up and meet Marcus’ eyes.

The atmosphere in the room was somewhere between chilly and downright frigid. It was all Liam could do not to shiver.

Two coffees poured, Liam wrapped his hands around his cup, and tried to force a little warmth into his body. It didn’t help. He took one hand away and picked up a biscuit.

“Did you—?” Liam finally began.

“It’s time for you to start thinking about going back to work,” Marcus cut in.

Liam’s coffee didn’t spill across the tray as he set down his cup. He didn’t drop the biscuit either. Liam sat very still and very quiet for a few seconds without showing any outward reaction. He was quite proud of himself for that.

Closing his eyes for just a moment, he swallowed down the tiny bite of biscuit, but not before it completed its transformation into ash inside his mouth. “I think that’s a good idea, too,” he whispered.

His appetite was gone. Sure he wouldn’t be able to swallow another bite, Liam set the biscuit down on the saucer next to his cup and straightened up the various items on the tray—anything to avoid having to look up and meet Marcus’ eyes.

He supposed that’s what he got for letting himself daydream. If he’d had any sense at all, he’d have stuck to reading about other people’s fairy tale endings in the magazines. Believing that he could really get something like that for himself had been asking for trouble.

“Liam?”

“Yes?” he managed to whisper.

“Are you going to look up at me at any point this evening?” Marcus asked.

Liam hadn’t actually planned to do anything of the sort, but he couldn’t refuse, either. He dragged his gaze slowly up the other man’s shirt. Marcus had been very kind to him over the last few weeks, doing anything else would have been tantamount to throwing everything back in his face.

The vampire’s frown was deeper than ever.

Somehow, Liam forced a smile to his own lips. “It’s fine,” he said.

Marcus seemed to be waiting for him to add something else. Liam scrambled for a few extra words.

“It’s better this way. Quit while the going is good and all that.”

Marcus’ eyes narrowed. He put down the cup of coffee he’d been sipping from. “Quit?” he repeated.

Liam nodded. “I think maybe if Ralph and I had walked away from each other when things were still good, then—”

“I won’t hit you if you stay,” Marcus cut in.

“I know,” Liam said, softly. “I…I’ve been thinking about that a lot. And I think…I think some men hit their lovers and some men don’t. You’re one of the ones that doesn’t, not unless you’re in the playroom and someone likes it, anyway.” He tried to smile at his own joke and failed completely.

Marcus’ lips didn’t even twitch. “So why are you talking about leaving?”

Liam blinked at him, not sure what was going on. “As soon I get a job, I can start saving up enough to—”

Marcus held up a hand. “Jenny pointed out that, as much as I would like to keep you inside these four walls twenty-four hours a day, humans have some sort of need to interact with a variety of other humans,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I won’t expect you to come back to this house the moment you finish work each day.”

Liam nibbled at his bottom lip.

“Permission to go to work and be,” Marcus waved a hand, obviously trying to remember a term Jenny had used, “
financially independent
, is not permission to wander off whenever the hell you feel like it. It’s not permission to leave!”

By the time he finished, Marcus was sitting on the very edge of his seat, as if ready to jump up and tackle Liam to the ground if he tried to run toward the door.

For the first time he could remember, the idea of someone doing that didn’t scare Liam. It gave him hope. “You want me to stay?”

“Yes.” Marcus sounded so certain about everything.

“As your…?” Liam couldn’t have sounded less like the other man if he’d tried. He wasn’t even sure how to finish a damn sentence.

Marcus seemed to think about the half asked question very carefully. “Vampires have traditionally called the human companions they care about to be their submissives, their pets.”

Liam looked up and met the other man’s gaze. He had no doubt that those were the most polite words they used for them.

“But a human might call himself a vampire’s lover, or his boyfriend,” Marcus offered.

Liam swallowed rapidly as all sorts of different scenarios played through his mind. He tried to tell himself he was only interested in the human terms, but he knew it was a lie. His mind kept swinging back to the vampire’s first words, desperate to latch onto them and make them an intrinsic part of himself.

“A human definition of a submissive would be someone who wanted to commit himself to pleasing one person, to belonging to one man,” Marcus said. “There’s nothing wrong with that—with wanting to put your complete trust in someone the way you do when you’re in bondage.”

“Are all vampires mind readers?” Liam asked.

“Dominants understand submissives,” Marcus said. “Even human ones.”

“And what do dominants want?” Liam whispered.

“To take another man under their protection, to keep him safe, to provide for him, to help him feel safe and secure in his ownership, to teach him, to help him find his confidence again, to…” Marcus trailed off.

Liam frowned slightly, wondering why.

Marcus smiled, his expression more than a little rueful. “To do more things than I could possibly list.”

Liam nodded. “Okay.”

“And to give you back the right to take on a job after Ralph insisted you leave your last employment,” Marcus added.

Liam looked down at the table for several long seconds. “I’d like that,” he finally whispered. In that moment, even he wasn’t sure if he was talking about just the idea of going back to work or the whole way of life Marcus seemed to be offering him.

“Jenny mentioned a suitable vacancy at an animal shelter run by one of her friends. She assures me that you would be perfectly safe there. Your main task will be to help socialize the animals before they are re-homed.” Marcus nodded to himself. “It will be exactly the same as you did when you visited me at the hospital, but with animals. You can start tomorrow.”

Liam bit back a smile. Apparently, it was all settled. The decisions had all been made. He glanced up at the vampire through his lashes.

He wanted him. Marcus wanted him. He wasn’t going to be thrown out onto the street; he was just going to get to visit some streets now and again.

“Thank you.” The vampire dutifully drained the last of the coffee from his cup. “That was good.”

Liam smiled. Maybe it was just relief at being wanted, but he couldn’t help but find Marcus’ attempts to be polite, made him even easier to fall in love with than ever.

* * * *

Liam took a deep breath as he looked in the mirror above the dressing table. There wasn’t a mark on him—no bruises to hide, no sore joints to disguise. He didn’t have to worry about that anymore. He was fine. And he was going to work. He nodded to himself. He could do this.

“Ready?”

Liam glanced at Marcus’ reflection in the mirror. The other man stood in the doorway leading into his bedroom, his image no different than any humans would be. He was dressed just as casually as Liam in nothing more exciting than blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt. But that didn’t change the fact he was stunning.

Hoping he didn’t look even half as nervous as he felt, Liam wiped his damp palms on his jeans and walked across to the vampire.

“You know, you really don’t need to give me a ride into work. I can—”

Marcus’ fingertip came to rest on his lips.

Liam couldn’t help but smile in response. He was really falling in love with that gentle little gesture. There were no angry shouts or backhanders when Marcus wanted him to shut up.

Without thinking, Liam pressed a kiss against the other man’s fingers. Marcus did nothing worse than smile at his silliness. Stepping forward, he even offered up a proper kiss, just as Liam had hoped he would.

Their lips fitted together so perfectly, Liam would have given almost anything in the world to be able to stay there all day, to curl up with Marcus in the other man’s bed and simply wile away the day with more and more kisses. Liam’s cock grew heavy with increased blood flow. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to mix a few other activities with those kisses…

Liam whimpered as Marcus pulled back, but his protest had no effect on the other man. “Come on,” the vampire ordered. “It would hardly do for you to be late on your first day.”

Early, late or right on time, it took every ounce of courage Liam had just to step out of the house and onto the drive. Neither the limo nor Mr. Jenson or the chauffeur were there to greet them. Liam blinked at the sleek black sports car as Marcus’ folded his tall frame into the low slung driver’s seat.

“I didn’t know you could drive,” Liam blurted out as he clumsily scrambled into the passenger seat. “I mean, I assumed with the limo and the chauffeur and everything…”

Marcus turned the key in the ignition. The engine purred into life. The sound of it rushed straight to Liam’s cock. The vampire smiled, and it was impossible for Liam to believe that he didn’t like the noise just as much as his…as his submissive.

Liam smiled back at him.

“If you have to work, we should at least be able to enjoy the journey there and back each day,” Marcus said, as he pulled away.

The car was a wet dream on wheels. That just made the fact that the drive to the animal sanctuary only seemed to take seconds, crueler than ever. All too soon, Marcus was pulling into a parking space outside a low gray building complete with cartoon animals covering the brightly painted sign above the door.

“So, I guess I’ll, um…see you when I get home?” Liam mumbled. He forced himself to reach for the car door, knowing he’d still be sitting there in an hour’s time if he let himself linger any longer.

Marcus undid his seatbelt and calmly unfolded his long limbs from the cramped space behind the wheel. Liam looked over the car at him, surprise opening his eyes very wide, as if he really thought there was any way in hell Marcus was going to let his pet walk in there on his own. That would have been an even worse fate than having to get out of the car and walk into an unknown open space himself.

Marcus raised an eyebrow at his submissive, desperately trying to resist the temptation to grab the boy and rush into the building as quickly as his legs would carry them. Liam blushed, but it seemed to be more about pleasure at someone making a fuss over him than any sort of real embarrassment. Still, Marcus kept a careful eye on the other man as they both stepped inside, watching for any sign of distress.