After Dawn, What Came Next

Blond and pale as he was, he barely had but one or two stray chest hairs to brag about. Cat played with the straggly hairs circling his nipples. Killing him slowly and sweetly with nothing more than a brush of her fingertips, before continuing her path down to his belt. Her fingers were deft, freeing the buckle, loosening the button, and unzipping the fly to lower his jeans down his hips.

Every man felt inadequate below the belt. There was always some bastard boasting a bigger cock. He was swollen and his groin heavy from the strain of it. There were means of enhancing what God gave you. Surgeries meant to give you the finest cock money could buy. Christian had never considered such a thing. He was a hair above average and before now had always been content with it. He had always believed his enthusiasm well made up for what any woman might find lacking. With Cat gently touching him, curious and exploring and him about to burst from such innocent, unknowingly sinful contact. He, for the first time ever, wished he had dropped the ten grand or so on a bit of help in that department.

Cat ran her fingers over Christian’s most intimate parts amazed at the contrasting hardness beneath the velvety softness of his skin. His toes cracked as he curled them and his belly contracted at the slightest most gentle of touches. She had never dreamed of the effect something as innocent as a brush of her fingertips might have on a man. His erection twitched beneath her palm and a drop of moisture beaded at the tip. She swabbed the drop away with the pad of her thumb extracting a whimper and a hitched intake of breath from him.

Christian stilled Cat’s hand with a firm grip on her wrist. This whole thing was going to be over before it ever began if she didn’t stop and give him some time to catch his breath. Cat eyed him curiously, wiggling her fingers and smiling at the way he groaned from the contact. “What does it feel like?” she asked.

What did it feel like? He couldn’t form a cohesive thought let alone begin to put into words the sensations she brought rising to a heated boil within him. He was supposed to be teaching her what it was like to be human. The idea of such a lesson was as insane as trying to put into words the pleasure and pain, the heaven and hell of a kiss on your lips or a hand tracing up and down, stroking your most intimate parts to a fevered pitch. Experience was a far better teacher. “Lay back, Cat. Lay back and let me show you.”

























Chapter 53

Tom reacted to the locked bedroom door the way any red blooded, American male with even the remotest sense of self-preservation would. He got good and shit faced drunk. Being half-blooded did have its perks. It took a hell of a lot of the finest whiskey Carter’s money could buy to get him there, but by the end of the third bottle he was numb enough not to spare a thought as to what might or might not be happening in Cat’s bed. His head spun dizzily and the hallway leading to his own bed…his cold, lonely bed… seemed to be miles long.

Leaning heavily against the wall, using it as a support he ambled down the hallway. Thank God their host had put the boys and the girls on separate floors. The only peer he had to worry about running into was R.J. and he wasn’t all that concerned about what his best friend might think about him at the moment. The girls were off somewhere…doing girl things…probably gossiping about Cat and Christian. Biting their polished nails eager to get all the gory details. He didn’t want to know anything…not one damn thing about Cat’s first time. It should be him taking care of her. His cock in her sweet, warm…It was best not to go there before he made an ass of himself.

Shaking off the thought on a curse and a deep draw from the bottle, Tom bumped his shin on a library table and sent an expensive, glitzy collection of knickknacks tumbling to the floor in a spray of shattered glass. Who in the fuck put a library table in a hallway anyway? A vampire. An immortal freak of nature not needing to worry about getting too drunk to avoid it in the first place, that was who. He crouched clumsily, scrabbling to keep from spilling the precious contents of his bottle while he scooped up the mess and ended up cutting the shit out of his fingers in the process. Probably wasn’t a smart thing to do, being partly human and bleeding in a building filled with vampires. But, who gave a shit? Let ‘em try to take a bite out of him.

Ray had been watching Tom drink himself into a stupor for the better part of two hours. He thought Tom might have the good sense to put down the bottle and climb into bed. But no, that wasn’t how this was going to go down.

Cursing and falling on his ass in the middle of the shattered mess he had made out of a very expensive collection of vases Tom sucked his wounded finger and dizzily tried to focus his eyes.

Tom looked like shit. His eyes blood shot and bleary, dripping blood down his chin, so fucking helplessly sitting in the middle of so much broken finery, drunk, and heartbroken without a clue of what to do about it. Ray sighed in resignation, crouched beside Tom, and got down to business trying to set his best friend to rights again. Tom would heal the cuts on his fingers, not as quickly as a wolf, but quick enough that all he needed was a little first aid in the meantime.

The Guardians surrounded themselves with finery. A few broken vases, no matter how expensive they probably were, wouldn’t matter. The blood though might be a different story. No matter how civilized or reformed, bleeding in front of a vampire was a little like uncorking a bottle of fine wine at an alcoholic’s anonymous meeting. It just wasn’t a good idea.

Finding himself without anything to staunch the flow, Ray pulled his t-shirt over his head and wrapped it around Tom’s fingers. He grunted from the effort of pulling Tom up off the floor and the burden of keeping his best friend on his feet. Tom reeked of blood, expensive whiskey, and the stink of bitter emotions. “You’re a sorry son of a bitch. You know that?”

“Yeah, well, fuck you too, buddy.” Tom scrabbled for the bottle Ray wrestled from his grip. His stomach pitched and rolled, the contents bubbling dangerously up his esophagus in a wave of nausea. He leaned on Ray and battled to keep the bile rising in the back of his throat from spewing all over his best friend’s shoes. If he weren’t as drunk as he was, the pressure Ray held on his fingers would have hurt. Well, fuck that too. He didn’t care if he bled out. A little physical pain was nothing compared to what he felt on the inside.

Ray grunted from the effort of keeping them both upright as Tom made a sudden lunge for the bottle of whiskey. Weaving on his rubbery legs Tom cast a glance to the ceiling and the floor above it. “It should be me with her, you know. Me. I should be her first. I’ve loved her long enough to earn that right.”

Ray set the half empty bottle down on the hall table with a loud smack that sent the legs of the table wobbling. “Well it isn’t,” he gritted. Grabbing Tom by the belt, he hauled him down the hall, crunching the shrapnel left over from the broken vases to bits beneath his boots. He’d come back and clean up that mess later. After he cleaned up the disaster that was his best friend. “We all love Cat.”

“Not like I do. None of you love her like I do.” Tom shook off the ambulatory version of the Triple AAA club and bounced off a wall. Nearly landing on his ass again as Ray gripped him by the belt.

Tom made a horrible drunk. He was moody and brooding and itching for a good fight. In his current drunken state, Tom couldn’t have managed to swat a fly let alone hold his own in a brawl. A good ass pounding might do him some good and knock some sense into his thick skull. Determined to get Tom into bed before he tossed his cookies all over Carter’s antique Persian rugs. Ray dragged GT down the hall to their shared bedroom. “You think you’ve got the market on broken hearts? You think you’re the only person who wants somebody he can’t have?”

The walking must have helped a little. Tom was still drunk off his ass. The world wobbly and out of focus, and Ray was miraculously still managing the task of keeping them both upright. But, his head, at least some part of it, was beginning to come back on line. “What the fuck are you talking about? Who is she? I’ll go get her for you. Danni? Barbara? Who? You ever screw a female, Ray?”

“No.” Ray deposited Tom unceremoniously on the bed. Cursing under his breath he loosened the laces on Tom’s boots and tugged Tom’s feet free. Dropping the boots with a loud clunk onto the floor, he threw Tom’s feet onto the bed and questioned his own common sense. He should have left Tom bleeding and drunk in the hallway for the vampires to deal with.

“You a virgin, Ray Ray, R.J., Ramon Junior Esquire?”

“Christ Tom, give it a rest ok?” Questioning not only his common sense but his sanity as well, he spread a blanket over Tom’s prostrate body. Maybe, he should prop him on his side, just in case? Tom grinned up at him with the cockiest smile he could manage in his current drunken state. Ray could see the wheels in his best friend’s mind turning and turning. God, he hoped Tom was too drunk to remember this conversation in the morning. He prayed the gods of hangovers would strike Tom down and incapacitate him for a week. The dumb asshole deserved it.

Tom chuckled and studied his best friend. The truth was written all over Ray’s face. Ray had never had sex before and he wanted to, badly. “I bet if some hot chick came in here right now and flashed her tits at you, you’d be all over that, wouldn’t you? You’d be all ah! OH! UMMMM! YEAH! GIVE IT TO ME HONEY!” Tom thrust his hips off the bed, demonstrating exactly how it was done, just in case Ray hadn’t figured it out yet. “That’s exactly what you need some hot piece of female ass to convert you. Straight as an arrow, Ray my boy. Straight as a mother fucking arrow you’d be by the time she got done with you.”

“Convert me!” Ray hauled Tom up off the bed by the shirt collar and gave him a hard shake. “You’d better be thanking God you’re too piss drunk to realize what you’re saying. God damn, Tom,” Ray huffed in disgust. Tom’s head bobbed like a bobble head from his shoulders. “I like people, Tom. People. But, I’ll tell you something right now. I’m beginning to reevaluate my sentiments about one of them.”

Tom laughed in Ray’s face. The fact that he had always known about Ray and never been able to say something about it had bothered him for years. Ray was pissed, more pissed off than Tom had ever seen him. But, with his current sense of self-preservation floating in the bottom of a whiskey bottle he couldn’t seem to manage to shut his mouth. “We could do her together, if it’d make it easier. I want you in my court, Ray. I want us to be friends, best friends, but I’m not sure how much longer we can be friends at all. Ray, fuck a woman, just one time. Do it for me, buddy. Just so I know.”

“Know what?”

“That you don’t want to fuck me. That you’re not waiting for me, because Ray, I can’t. I just can’t go there. It’s not you…damn, Ray, you’re the most fuckable guy I know. If I were going to fuck a guy, it would be you. But, I can’t. I just can’t.”

Ray dropped Tom on the bed, curling and uncurling his hands into fists. His breath stilled in his chest. A hot flush flooded his face. He hadn’t realized he was so transparent. Tom had been pretending ignorance for years because of their friendship. Ray believed he was being so slick. That Tom truly didn’t have a clue. He had wanted Tom since his first wet dream at the age of twelve in which Tom had a starring role. And here it was all these years later, spoken in slurred, whiskey soaked truth. “Are you sure about that, Tom? I’m pretty fucking hot, you know.”

Tom chuckled. Yeah, Ray was good looking. Tom wasn’t so homophobic that he couldn’t admit it. Ray had a chiseled, angular face and squared jaw and dark, wide set eyes veiled by long, thick lashes, curling at the tips. He wore his shaggy hair styled in a haphazard devil may care style Tom had tried, but had never quite managed to duplicate. Ray was the classically rugged looking type of handsome male that made women swoon and pant. Unfortunately, Ray wasn’t interested in making women swoon.

Ray was blessed in all ways, from his towering height to his broad shoulders, lean hips and long powerful legs, and he was gifted with the capacity to see people past their gender deep into the very heart of who they were. Tom would never possess such good looks, ease with himself… with having nothing to prove to anybody, or the ability to see past a person’s sex to what might possibly lie underneath. Boys were boys and girls were girls and there was nothing more to it beyond that one simple fact. He couldn’t blur the boundaries they way Ray could and looking at him, at the hurt etched in his face. He wished, just one time, he could.

Reaching up to cup Ray’s angular jaw, Tom scraped his thumbnails over the rough dark stubble covering Ray’s cheek. Ray’s eyes flicked away and refused to meet his. Seeing his best friend clearly, his inhibitions drowned in whiskey, Tom slid his fingers around to the knotted muscles at the back of Ray’s neck. Ray’s hair, curling around his fingers, was softer than Tom would have thought. His skin warmer and heated with a flush. Tom probably reeked of aged sour mash and the sticky blood that had dried on his fingers. Ray smelled of spice and pine, of wolf and the earthen aroma of deep woods in autumn.

His thumbs traced Ray’s impossibly long lashes, wiping at the beads of moisture that had formed at the tips. Tears. Ray was crying, not like a girl. Ray would never cry like a girl. He was perhaps, braver than Tom could ever be. He cried the tears of a man denied. Tom drew Ray closer and extended his neck, thrusting his head up at an awkward angle. Maybe, he did it to give Ray peace. Perhaps, it was out of curiosity to know exactly how it felt to be kissed by someone who loved you enough to let you be whoever it was you were instead of what he wanted you to be.

Ray’s hands were gentle on his shoulders, controlled in their grip. Trembling and wanting to grab hold and never let him go. The tickle of a man’s whiskers on his cheek was a bit disconcerting, unfamiliar when compared to the familiar smoothness of a woman’s soft skin. But, Ray’s lips were exactly how Tom imagined they would be, yielding, and hesitant, warm, and passionate, and nice, very nice against his.

Tom’s kiss was the realization…the embodiment… the fantasy come to life…everything Ray had ever wanted since the tender age of twelve and had thought he would never, ever get. Maybe, it was the whiskey that gave Tom the courage to do it. Maybe, it was simply a pity kiss or one of pure curiosity. Whatever the reason, Ray took it, all of it, all of its intentions, every bit of the feeling behind it, and savored it for all it was worth.

Tom tasted of fine whiskey and man. Sharp and pungent, the sour mash coated the tip of his tongue. Ray was careful with his hands. Planting his palms in the thickness of Tom’s sandy brownish-blonde hair, lest they travel down to explore what possibilities lay behind Tom’s motives for the kiss. Motives didn’t matter to Ray. The kiss did. The man kissing him did. This moment, this perhaps only intimate moment they would ever have together and the trust Tom had placed in him, mattered more than anything else.

Ray would be lying if he didn’t admit to enjoying the kiss. He enjoyed the hell out of feeling Tom’s lips pressed to his and the eager swabbing of Tom’s tongue in and out of the depths of his mouth. Tom kissed like he did most things, with careless wild abandon. Ray wanted more. He would always want more. But, this one kiss was the sum of everything he had or would ever want.

Tom was beautiful in a way that went beyond masculine or feminine. His soul was young and eager to explore the fullness of life. The flame inside of him burned too hot and with too much passion. A light in the darkness and a beacon in the night was the true beauty of Tom. Tom was handsome, the better out of the two of them. He was so haphazard and always running too fast full steam ahead to think much about his looks or the affect they had one anyone.

Tom sometimes couldn’t manage to match two socks together out of sheer eagerness to move onto the next thing life threw at him. He didn’t care what he wore. Sometimes, Ray wondered if Tom would bother to dress at all if it weren’t for the necessity behind it. Tom’s mixed blood hinged his Native American lineage with the finer traces of his European ancestry. He had high cheekbones and a sinful, full mouth, made for kissing. His hazel eyes drew you to them like moths to a flame and held you there helplessly trapped, burning in the heat of his stare. His hair shimmered with blond highlights and traces of gold and red. Ray had stared at that dizzying combination of colors for hours watching the sun play off the shadows of light and dark. Tom hadn’t bothered to cut his hair in months. He simply hadn’t found the time to sit still long enough to let anyone snip the ends. The long strands tangled between Ray’s fingers, impossibly sleek and soft as a whispered endearment uttered by an impassioned lover.

Tom was light framed and compact. Something he hated. He was sinewy and rugged, very trim, built for the sprint and not the distance of the long haul. His muscles were lean and firm. Flexing beneath Ray’s fingers in reflex to his touch. To his surprise, Tom kissed him and kissed him thoroughly, delving deep into the recesses of his mouth and taking complete possession of him. Drunk and confessing his unending love for Cat, Tom kissed as if the woman was nothing more than a passing fancy instead of the heart wrenching love of his life. The kiss, if it was nothing else, was absolutely and undoubtedly believable and it had Ray dizzy, desperately kissing him back, and craving more than a small taste of the rare gift he had been given.

Ray tasted salt mingling with the sour essence of the whiskey. Tears? He hadn’t realized he was crying. Tom had. Breaking the kiss with amazing gentleness, still cupping Ray’s jaw, Tom wiped away the tears with the pads of his thumbs and stared intently into his eyes. Tom rested his forehead against Ray’s, leaning the weight of his head and perhaps of the world Tom could never admit he could possibly be a part of on Ray’s shoulders. Ray was happy to bear it for him.

Tom stole one more kiss, a reluctant, hesitant peck on the lips before releasing him and falling back onto the stack of pillows Ray had placed under his head. Stretched out on the bed and looking so damned adorably helpless and flushed with the heat of an arousal he shouldn’t feel but did. Tom closed his eyes. Ray pulled the blankets over his best friend. Perhaps, he should feel flattered or angry that Tom had forced him to confront feelings he wished to God he didn’t have. He sat on the floor watching Tom for a long while after Tom had fallen into the deep sleep of a drunken stupor.

Ray wanted so badly to touch him. Reach out and brush away the hair that had fallen into Tom’s eyes. He sat there not hazarding to take a deep breath let alone touch him out of fear of breaking the spell.

Tomorrow, Tom might not remember a thing. The kiss might be something Tom convinced himself hadn’t happened. Ray had no doubt of that. Ray wished he could have it so easy. That he could convince himself the kiss hadn’t happened. Would he rather go on pretending or remember, even if he couldn’t tell another living soul, especially not his best friend, a thing about it?

He would rather remember, not Tom’s insults, but his kindness and his tenderness. Maybe, Tom loved him differently than he loved Cat. But, he loved him. And that was truly saying something. That Tom for a few brief moments had loved him enough to see beyond his exterior and to the pureness of his heart.