Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
“All on George’s orders.”
“Patrick was told to steal an hourglass. Not kill you.”
“He panicked. He recognized that I was … what I am.”
“A nice and patient guy who took a bullet in the face for a kid whose birthday we just left? Jeremy could be dead right now. What would you even say to Patrick?”
Kyle wonders the same thing. Is it guilt that drives him to want to talk to him? Pity? Does he even have a good reason?
“I would tell him …” Kyle feels a pinch of doubt. “Lies.”
“You’d what?”
“Lies,” he repeats, quieter. “I’d say his family’s okay. I’d say they’re somewhere safe. That I hope he gets to see them soon.”
“Why would you say all that?”
“Because I know what it’s like. To lose your family. To lose the love of your life. To think … nothing is going to be okay again. Is it such a crime to want him to have a little peace? If it wasn’t for my kind, he would be home right now, happy, with his wife and …” Kyle swallows, ashamed suddenly. “I don’t know what I’m thinking. Forget it.”
Kyle grows still when Elias caresses his face unexpectedly, gently stroking his cheek with a soft thumb. “You are beautiful, you know that?”
“Elias …”
“And it wasn’t your kind who did this to Patrick. It was the other guys, the assholes who think they run things around here. You’re not one of them. Look at me.” Kyle turns, guided by the gentle pull of Elias’s grip. “You’ve got a heart that’s as deep as the ocean. It’s no coincidence why you’ve got the gift you do, being able to feel what others feel. And you know what else is interesting about the ocean? No one’s ever been deep enough to truly know it.” He leans over to put a kiss on Kyle’s lips. A fever takes him over—a fever Kyle senses immediately. Elias’s mouth drags down Kyle’s neck, places another kiss, then lower, breath shattering as his passion ignites. “Little bit of mystery, I gotta admit, makes you pretty damned sexy, too.”
Kyle sighs with a sort of exasperated delight, half a laugh. “If you can’t turn every situation into something sexual …”
“You make me crazy,” groans Elias.
Kyle takes hold of his man by the face, peers into his eyes. “That was really sweet, by the way … what you said about the ocean and my heart and all that.”
“My love for you is boundless.” He grins in Kyle’s face, the kind of grin revealing more playful thoughts. “For now, let’s go home and … pick up where we left off before the party.”
An assault of happy anticipation rushes up Kyle’s neck—all of it belonging to Elias. Sometimes, the Reach can be a bit too helpful, exhausting Kyle. “Babe …”
“You can visit Patrick tomorrow, if it’s still bugging you.” He kisses again. Then again. He is unstoppable. “I was thinking we could … be more … creative tonight. Like what we talked about that one time, when I was … well …”
Kyle lifts an eyebrow, already connecting to the thought. “Really? The personal blood bank thing?”
“Call me a freak, whatever you want … I’m not gonna deny it, all of it turns me on.” He leans in closer and puts the softest kiss on Kyle’s neck, another on his cheek, working his way back to his lips. “Isn’t it obvious … how much I want you to just … own me?”
It’s difficult to resist Elias when all of his desire surges into Kyle so powerfully, as persuasive as if it’s his own. Even Kyle’s cock responds, pressing against the confines of his pants, like it only obeys and listens to the beating of Elias’s hungry heart.
“I think we …” Kyle struggles to maintain composure. “It’s important that we don’t …” Elias is diving for more kisses in his neck. As Elias’s heart races, so does Kyle’s, feeling entirely out of his control. “We need to try and—”
Kyle spots something in the road ahead, standing beneath the streetlight—a featureless shadow in the shape of a person.
Kyle leans forward, alarmed.
But the figure is gone.
Did he see anything at all? Or was it just a trick of his eyes?
Elias, clueless, still searches for places to put kisses. He has peeled back the neck of Kyle’s shirt meanwhile, pressing warm lips to his cool chest. Kyle, distractedly enjoying it, lets out his Reach to capture anything nearby, to sense someone there.
It finds nothing.
No one but them.
Elias’s face appears in front of his, eyes narrowed and deep. “I’m driving us back home right now, we’re going in the house, you’re gonna tie me down to that new bed of ours so tightly I don’t even have a dream of escaping, and my body is gonna be your juicy piece of meat to suck and nibble on all night long.”