Vigil (17 page)

tone of voice. “Just now I remembered what a foul temper my

older brother had if I moved any pieces of a game he planned

to finish later.”

“That must have been quite a temper, to be worried about it

five centuries later.” Adin sat back down. “You scared the hell

out of me, bolting up like that. Donte…Tell me what’s wrong.

I’m beginning to think—”

“I’m sorry, caro. It’s really nothing you need to worry about.

Your heart
is
beating very fast.” Donte’s smile widened.

Adin sighed. Apparently Donte felt like playing the tease. “I’ll

bet you could make it beat faster.”

Donte didn’t reply but the way his gaze slid over Adin’s body

while he sipped his tea told its own story. Adin returned the favor

and catalogued the many things he found attractive about his

lover. Donte’s face held a deep kind of beauty. Hooded dark

brown eyes under uniquely handsome brows. Prominent bones

in his cheeks and jaw, a cleft chin and dimples when he smiled.

His lips were full and luscious. Adin could lose himself in the

contemplation of that face, and had, on many occasions. There

was something mysterious about Donte beyond being inhuman,

a part of himself he always held back that showed up as a

conundrum on his familiar countenance. Each individual feature

was attractive yet unremarkable on its own. The alchemy that

brought them all together and the man behind it were captivating.

Adin would never tire of looking at him.

“You’re fascinating,” Adin told Donte. “Did you know that?

112 Z.A. Maxfield

I wish I could draw you. Maybe you’ll let me have the journal

tonight and you can model for a change.”

Donte’s lips curved up in an enigmatic smile. “That would

please me, caro.”

Adin drank the rest of his tea and they went up the stairs

together hand-in-hand. Adin sketched Donte for close to an

hour, trying to get the face just right. He drew Donte’s hands

as well, capturing the long fingers with their slightly square tips,

drawing them palm up and open, powerful and gentle at the same

time. He would never pose a serious challenge to Donte’s artistic

ability, yet he felt absurdly pleased when Donte remarked more

than once that he was quite good.

Every so often he stroked Donte’s palm to let him know he

wasn’t too immersed in his task, just as Donte had often reached

for him when he worked. It wasn’t hard for Adin to imagine at

times like this one that whatever their differences, they could

overcome them with silence and mutual physical attraction.

Adin shaded the hollows of Donte’s cheeks and the area

under his eyes, wondering again what it was that made him seem

drawn. Had he always been vaguely gaunt? Perhaps it was the

color of the bed linens. Adin was frowning at the sketchpad

when a mischievous thought pushed into his mind.

Donte tried to look innocent.

Image after image of Donte without clothing on appeared

inside Adin’s head like a lascivious slideshow. Donte posed and

preened in impressions like snapshots, ranging from flexing his

pecs to riding a mechanical bull.

Adin’s dick showed more than a passing interest, but he wasn’t

finished drawing Donte’s left hand. Playfully, he shoved Donte

backward hard enough that he tumbled to the floor. How had he

caught Donte unaware?

“Are you all right? I’m so sorry.” Adin leaned over to make

sure he was unharmed and glared at him a little. “How am I going

to draw you if you keep that up?”

Donte’s laughing face appeared as he crawled back up onto

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113

the small bed. “Keep what up?”

“You know your vampire mind games don’t work on me.”

Adin gasped when Donte grabbed his growing cock.

“It seems this one is working perfectly.”

Adin tossed Donte’s journal onto the floor next to bed and

gave in to the pleasure swamping his brain. “Come here, you.”

“Pleasure yourself on me,” Donte drawled, placing his hands

behind his head. Donte whispered the suggestion, accompanying

it with a dizzying visual image of Adin astride him, riding his

cock.

“Well.” Adin rose to the occasion and reached to the bedside

table for lube. “Aren’t we just a perfectly convenient and fuckable

vampire this evening?”

“I live to serve.” Donte gasped when Adin dropped a line of

cold gel on his cock like icing.

“Except the living and serving part, I completely agree.” Adin

looped a dollop of lube onto his hand and readied himself. When

he closed his eyes, he got a bright picture of how he looked. He

could see himself as Donte saw him, complete with a stupefied

fingers-up-my-own-ass facial expression, and he nearly collapsed

with embarrassed laughter.

“Ah
shit
, Donte. Is that what I really look like?”

Donte threw him the same image, but with a ridiculous

bronze-age helmet on his head. It framed his eyes, and had a piece

that covered and protected his nose. He resembled Alexander the

Great in a cheesy porn flick.

“Now, that has possibilities.” Adin sighed with pleasure as he

sank onto Donte’s cock, filling himself until his balls rested onto

the nest of hair that crowned it.

“
Adin
.” Donte’s voice sounded like he’d been swallowing

gravel.

Bracing his hands behind him on Donte’s thighs, Adin leaned

back into a full, mind-blowing stretch. Heat suffused him. “Oh,

lover…
So good
.”

114 Z.A. Maxfield

Donte’s eyes seemed to both widen and darken. His tongue

darted out to wet his lips, but he didn’t move his hands from

behind his head. Adin slipped his hand between Donte’s legs,

fondling his balls and sneaking behind them to circle a finger

around more private places. He could feel every twitch of

Donte’s cock inside him. Adin rocked his hips and his vision

blurred a little.

“What shall I show you, Adin?” Donte asked. “Shall I pelt

you with the world’s greatest art? Fireworks? Stars? Film noir

movie classics?”

“Shut. Up.” Adin sucked in a deep breath, then leaned forward

and braced his hands on Donte’s chest. His hips began to move,

undulating, scooping and lifting, as he rubbed his cock along

Donte’s firm abdomen. Sweat and a glistening trail of precome

slicked his way, and hair tickled his skin until he hummed with

pleasure.

“I want to see us like this. Show me how I look riding your

cock.”

The images in his mind crystallized until he could see himself

leaning over Donte, hips rising and falling like pistons in a

machine. His jaw hung slack, his eyes rolled nearly back in his

head with pleasure. Adin shifted his hips until Donte’s cock was

hitting his sweet spot and he shivered with pleasure. Every single

stroke was a deep, twisting pleasure under his skin that spread to

his heart. He flushed all over, but it still wasn’t enough.

“Touch me,” he begged Donte. “I need you to put your hands

on me.”

“
Adin
.” Donte pulled his hands from under his head and

complied, first gliding his hands softly up and down Adin’s arms,

then rubbing his chest. “Like this?” Donte stroked Adin’s nipples

to stiff peaks, thumbing them in a way that drew invisible lines

taut between them and Adin’s dick.

“Yes,” Adin hissed. “
Yes
. Let me feel your touch.”

Donte’s muscles bunched beneath Adin as he used the strength

he rarely displayed to push himself up to a sitting position with

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115

Adin still riding his cock. He turned so his legs dangled off the

side of the bed. Adin locked his ankles behind Donte’s back in an

intimate full-body embrace, kissing him passionately.

Adin panted as they strained together, dizzy until his hands

found purchase on Donte’s strong shoulders. From there, he slid

them up to wrap around the back of Donte’s neck, under the

slightly too long hair.

Donte held him tight and surged within him, rising and

subsiding in waves, going again before Adin could catch his

breath. Adin felt the first tight flutterings of orgasm in his balls,

the electrifying zing, which traveled up his spine and down his

legs. He wanted to kiss Donte, needed to connect to him before

his whole body jerked like a puppet in Donte’s arms and he flew

apart, before he lost his words and the ability to share what he

was feeling in his heart. He pressed his lips to Donte’s, then drew

back to meet his eyes.

“Caro
.” Donte’s smile warmed him.

Adin swallowed hard and pressed his mouth to Donte’s

again and again. He surrendered to light kisses, nips and soulful,

thrilling explorations of Donte’s teeth and tongue. The sweetness

of those kisses spread warmth to his toes as his body dissolved

around him, flying apart, held to earth by Donte’s strong arms,

pinned by his cock. Adin lost himself completely to his senses.

Donte clutched at Adin’s ass and stiffened with his own release.

Adin clung to Donte, who pulsed deep within him.

Donte represented strength and love and
home
. Adin brushed

his lips over Donte’s face and murmured endearments. “Ah,

lover.”

“
Cuore mio
.”

Adin leaned into him, spent and shivering. “Always yours.

Sempre, amore mio.”

Donte held him close. Silent and still. Adin gave in to nagging

doubt and looked at Donte’s face. His eyes met deeply brown

irises, which looked almost purple in the dimly lit bedroom.

“Tell me again,” Donte implored.

116 Z.A. Maxfield

“Always yours, Donte.” Adin took his lover’s face gently

between his hands, even as the evidence of Donte’s passion

softened and slid from his body. “Always yours. As long as I have

breath.”

In an odd reversal of roles, Donte laid his head on Adin’s

shoulder and allowed himself to be cradled in his arms. Adin was

touched and humbled by it. “Good vampire.” Adin rubbed his

cheek against Donte’s. “Good, good vampire.”

Donte went boneless in Adin’s arms, limp and sated, and for

the first time since Adin met him, he slept like a simple human

man.

Adin lay on the single bed in his Holder Hall dorm room and allowed

the answering machine to pick up. His own voice came over the speaker,

his outgoing message, and it startled him. His voice was always higher on a

recording device, and he seemed younger on tape than he sounded inside his

head. When he heard it he wanted to hurl the machine into the wall.

“Adin, pick up if you’re there please.” Charles’s voice broke the silence.

“I’ve not seen you for a few days, and I’m concerned. Surely you’re not going

to let some vague sense of personal outrage get in the way of the work? That’s

not like you. You believe in what we do here, Adin. The work needs you. I

need you. I need the translations on those last three Mary letters, and I’m

going to need you to test the inks…There isn’t anyone else, and if you don’t

step up we’ll be late with the paper.”

Adin held his breath, swirling his roommate’s favorite red wine around

in a plastic tumbler. His roommate might be old enough to buy wine, and

therefore had an advantage over Adin, who had just turned eighteen and

wasn’t even supposed to be contemplating drinking it, but he had a terrible

palate, the wine was thick and too sweet for a red. Something about it spoke

to Adin of turnips, and it was going to give him a headache.

“Adin, I know you’re young but you’re not naïve and I didn’t take you

for a prude. I thought you were far more sophisticated than that. You’re

acting like some freshman coed who lost her virginity to a drunken prank.

Where’s the intelligent boy I fell in love with?”

Fell in love. So Charles could pass him around like a party favor? There

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117

wasn’t enough cheap red wine in the world.

“Shit,” Charles hissed. “I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen.

I don’t know what you want from me but you can’t seriously expect some

1950s idealized version of happy families. I’m a man, I’m highly intelligent,

and I can have anything I want. I do whatever I like. I thought you were

mature enough and smart enough to see that the archaic notion of monogamy

simply for it’s own sake is useless to people like us, Adin. I thought you were

more like me. I should think you’d want a relationship where your lover feels

free to leave or to explore what someone else has to offer. I should think you’d

want to be chosen, and not live like an anchor around someone’s neck. There

are no fairy tales. Why would you even want one?

“I have my work to do, and then Shep and I are heading to Vermont.

You could come with us; we could ski during the day, and work on Shep’s