Bloodline Clause
NICO
New York looked the same until I knew how to look at it.
I had lived in the city my whole life. I knew the timing of the lights, the mood of the trains, the way certain streets changed after dark. I knew the back of my own shop better than I knew most people.
What I had not known was how much the city was hiding in plain sight.
Now I noticed the doorways that shimmered at the edge of my vision, tucked between restaurants and laundromats where no door had any business being.
I noticed the shadows moving a moment too late, as if the light had forgotten to bring them along.
I noticed the people standing too still at the crossings, their eyes fixed on things the rest of us could not see.
Once you saw the layer underneath, the city did not become stranger. It became harder to pretend it had ever been ordinary.
Draco had been on his phone since we left Blackthorne. To anyone else, he would have looked like a man handling business from the back of a car.
I knew better now.
“What happened?” I asked.
He glanced at me without turning his head. “Another attack. A property on the Lower West Side. It functions as a neutral meeting site.”
“Bodies?”
“Two. A vampire and a witch. Both on our side of the political line.”
“Sabine?”
“Her hand is in it.” He looked back at his phone, his thumb still over the screen. “Or near enough.”
Mateo shifted beside me and reached forward to adjust the heat vent, though the car was already warm.
Everyone was waiting for Draco to break the surface of whatever had gone still inside him.
I watched the city slide past the window, then turned toward him.
“Nico,” he said, without looking up.
“You are wound so tight I can feel it from here.”
“This is not the time.”
“That is why I am offering.”
His thumb stopped moving.
I leaned closer, enough that my voice would not carry far even in the closed car. “Let me do something about it.”
The car moved through an intersection. Mateo went very still in my peripheral vision and began pretending with heroic dedication that the window had become fascinating.
Draco finally looked at me.
For a second, neither of us moved. His face gave nothing away, but his eyes did.
“You do not have to manage me,” he said.
“I know.”
“This will not change what is waiting for us.”
“I know that too.”
His gaze moved over my face. “Then why?”
Because you are going to tear yourself apart if you keep sitting there with your teeth clenched around it, I thought.
What I said was, “Because I want to.”
Draco looked at me for another long moment, then set his phone face-down on the seat beside him.
“Rowan,” he said.
“Yes, boss.”
“Drive.”
The privacy glass rose between the front and back seats with a soft mechanical hum.
Mateo cleared his throat. “I am going to keep looking out the window now.”
“Wise,” Draco said.
I unclipped my seatbelt.
Draco’s eyes followed the movement, dark and fixed on me. “Be certain.”
“I am.”
“You say stop, I stop.”
“I know.”
Only then did I slide from the seat to my knees on the floor of the car. There was more room than I expected, because of course there was. Draco owned the kind of vehicle designed to make bad decisions feel expensive.
His hand came to the back of my neck, not pushing, just resting there. His other hand gripped the seat beside his thigh.
I worked his belt open, then his trousers, and when I took him into my mouth, he made a sound that was quiet, controlled, and expensive in what it cost him to contain.
I felt the cost of it like a small victory in my chest.
He was already getting hard, had been before I'd gone to my knees, which told me how long he'd been running hot underneath the controlled stillness of the morning, and I took my time with him.
Mateo shifted beside where I'd been sitting. I heard the quality of his breath change, the way it had a habit of changing in proximity to anything involving me and Draco, and I heard the quiet slide of fabric that told me he'd stopped pretending he was unaffected.
Draco's hand spread at the back of my neck. The grip on the seat beside him tightened.
“Nico.” My name in his mouth like that was exactly what I'd been aiming for.
I took him deeper, and the hand at my neck tensed once.
I swirled my tongue around the slit, lapping it up, before sinking down again, taking as much of his impossible length as my throat would allow.
Draco’s thighs were braced on either side of my head, the dark wool of his expensive suit trousers pushed down just far enough to free him, the crisp white of his dress shirt still perfectly tucked in. He was a portrait of ruined elegance, his hand buried in my hair, anchoring me to his rhythm.
I pulled back, my lips popping wetly over the head of his cock, and dragged my tongue up the underside of his shaft.
To my left, the quiet slide of fabric happened again.
I shifted my angle slightly, keeping my mouth occupied with Draco, and let my eyes flick toward Mateo.
He hadn't moved from his seat, his posture still rigidly upright, but the pretense of looking out the window was entirely gone.
His head was turned toward us, his golden-amber eyes blown wide and dark with feral heat.
His breathing was heavy that filled the quiet space.
But it was what was happening below his waist that caught my attention.
Mateo had shifted his legs, spreading his thighs slightly.
The tailored fabric of his suit pants was pulled taut across his groin, highlighting a thick, heavy bulge that jutted aggressively against the zipper.
He was rock hard, his hands gripping his own knees so tightly his knuckles were white, completely captivated by the wet, sloppy sounds my mouth was making on his boss.
Draco felt the shift in my attention and his fingers tightened in my hair that forced my gaze back up to him.
“Look at me,” Draco commanded.
I looked up into his pitch-black eyes, my mouth still stretched wide around his girth.
“You like having an audience, Nico?” Draco murmured, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw, feeling the frantic pulse hammering there. He glanced sideways at his enforcer, his expression a mask of dark, aristocratic cruelty. “You like knowing you're making him ache while you serve me?”
I couldn't answer, but I moaned around his cock. My own erection was a painful, throbbing pressure against the zipper of my jeans, completely ignored but desperate for release.
“Show him,” Draco ordered smoothly, his hips snapping forward, driving himself deeper into my throat. “Show him exactly how well you take it.”
I abandoned any remaining shred of dignity.
I leaned into the movement, opening my throat and swallowing him down to the hilt.
My nose pressed into the dark, coarse hair at the base of his cock, the scent of him overwhelming.
I bobbed my head in a steady, rhythmic motion, my lips slicking his shaft with saliva, making loud, obscene slurping noises that echoed in the confined space.
Mateo let out a harsh, bitten-off curse in Spanish. I saw his hand twitch, lifting off his knee as if to reach for his own straining zipper, before he forced it back down. The restraint was agonizing to watch, and it fueled the fire burning in my gut.
“Yeah, that's it,” Draco breathed, his control finally beginning to fracture.
The hand in my hair turned punishing, holding my head exactly where he wanted it, setting a brutal, relentless pace.
He began to fuck my mouth, his hips snapping upward off the leather seat, driving his thick, weeping cock past my lips with a force that made my eyes water.
I gagged and my hands gripped his muscular thighs to anchor myself. The car hit a bump, the suspension absorbing the shock, but the slight jostle sent Draco deeper into my throat.
“Fuck,” Draco growled, his entire body going rigid.
Mateo groaned and his hips bucked involuntarily against the seat as he watched me take his master apart.
Draco’s thrusts turned violent. He held my head in a vice grip, his fingers digging into my scalp, and I felt the sudden, heavy pulse of his climax building. But right as his hips locked, Draco suddenly ripped himself out of my mouth.
I gasped, falling forward against his thigh, a thick string of saliva connecting my lips to his weeping, flushed head. My lungs burned as I looked up at him in pure, frantic confusion.
Draco’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, his black eyes blazing with a cruel, controlled fire. He looked down at me, then shifted his gaze to Mateo, who was practically vibrating on the seat beside us, his golden eyes blown wide, his suit pants tented so fiercely the seam looked ready to tear.
“You're starving him, Nico,” Draco murmured, his voice a dark, velvet scrape that sent a fresh shiver straight to my groin. He reached out and traced my swollen lower lip with his thumb. “And you know I expect my enforcers to be well-fed. Take it out.”
I didn't need to be told twice. I scrambled over the center console, my knees sinking into the plush leather of Mateo’s seat. Mateo let out a ragged, feral growl as I crowded into his space. His hands came down instantly, gripping my hips with bruising, possessive force.
I reached for his belt, my fingers trembling slightly as I undid the heavy metal buckle. The zipper hissed loudly in the quiet cabin. I grabbed the waistband of his tailored trousers and the thick cotton of his boxer briefs, dragging them down his muscular thighs.
Mateo’s cock sprang free with a heavy, wet slap against his stomach.
I leaned in and opened my mouth, taking him deep in one smooth, desperate slide.
Mateo’s back arched violently, his head snapping back against the headrest. “Fuck,” he hissed, his hands flying from my hips to tangle in my hair.
I sucked him hard, my tongue swirling around his staggering girth. He tasted like pure, feral heat. I bobbed my head, using the suction to drag the slick pre-come up and down his shaft, my hands gripping his thick, hairy thighs.
But Draco wasn't done with me.