CHAPTER TEN || MICHAEL
“ G et out your gun and press it to my chest,” Danny told me, twenty minutes later. We had moved to the living room of the abandoned farmhouse, and we sat side by side on the dumpy sofa the original owners had left behind. The bottom support beam was busted, so the whole thing kind of sagged in the middle.
Danny looked far more nervous than I felt, though at least he’d stopped arguing with me and agreed to bite me. For some reason, telling him I wanted to do this had silenced all of his objections, much more quickly than I would have believed.
But he was still being extremely Danny about the whole thing.
I ground my teeth together and did as he asked, putting my gun to his chest and holding the barrel there. It took every ounce of willpower I had in me, and there was no way in hell I ever would’ve pulled the trigger. Not unless it meant saving Danny from himself by stopping him from killing me.
Which didn’t exactly seem like it was going to be the issue we faced.
He glanced down at the gun pressed to his chest. “Silver, right?”
“Silver,” I agreed. “It would drop you on your ass if I pulled the trigger, but it wouldn’t kill you.”
He nodded. But when he looked up at me, the expression on his face wasn’t hungry. It was anxious. “I have no idea what I’m doing. What if I hurt you?”
“If you don’t stop when I tell you to, I’ll pull the trigger.”
Almost certainly a lie. But he didn’t need to know that.
“You’d better . But no, I meant—what if the bite hurts? Even if I don’t try to drain you dry? What if it isn’t… good ?”
“I want to do this,” I reminded him. “And I’m pretty sure I can handle it.”
Which might have been another lie—it was hard to say for sure. I’d never been bitten by a vampire before. But if it meant Danny wouldn’t be in excruciating pain, I’d risk a little pain. It was a small fucking price to pay to make sure he was okay.
“Right,” Danny agreed. He cast me another nervous look. “And yeah… uh, what if I can’t stop?”
“You’ll be able to stop,” I assured him.
I’m an idiot sometimes, but I’m not dumb. I knew exactly what Danny and I were now. I could feel it between us. It was something so tangible it was almost physical, like gravity was somehow working differently all of a sudden. Instead of keeping me on the ground, it had now decided that its primary job was shoving me toward Danny.
Danny and I were connected. The same way that Bryan and Tobias were. Danny and I belonged together. I could feel it with a calm certainty. It was supremely gentle and inexorable, impossible to fight against.
And somehow, that calm, quiet part of me knew that Danny would never hurt me. Not just that he wouldn’t want to, but that he literally couldn’t. Just like it also knew I’d never, in a million years, be able to pull the trigger on him. Not unless it was to save the parts of him that were still Danny. Then I’d empty the clip if I had to.
“Right,” he said, grimacing. He cast a doubtful look at my throat. “So. Um. How… err, how are we doing this?”
I held my wrist out to him. I almost wanted to offer my neck, but I was pretty sure that would’ve freaked him out even more. Plus, if I was wrong and his vampiric instincts were stronger than the bond between us—whether it was potentially supernatural or not—it would be way easier on both of us if he was at my wrist.
But the neck soon, probably. We’d both ease into it.
Danny took my wrist in his hand so gingerly that I would’ve been able to pull it back, no problem. He stared down at it, looking unhappy.
“Are you sure you want this?” he asked.
“Yup. But there’s one more thing,” I told him, realizing I couldn’t just do this without telling him. “Look, I feel really… connected… to you. It’s different now than it ever has been. I can feel it, like a physical thing.”
Danny swallowed. “Me too.”
“And I don’t know if Bryan has talked about this with you, but Tobias explained how the psychic bond between him and Bryan formed. It happens with blood sharing.”
“Sure. But Tobias and Bryan are destined to be together.”
“Yup,” I replied, popping the ‘p’ and letting it hang out there between us.
Danny looked up from my wrist and met my eyes, understanding dawning in his expression. “And you think…?”
He trailed off, looking more baffled than alarmed.
“You just told me you can feel a connection.”
“We’re obviously connected,” Danny grumbled. “We’ve been together for five fucking years, Michael. And I’ve been a vampire for a couple hours at this point—my emotions are probably all over the place. And so are yours.”
I glared at him. “Don’t be an asshole. I’m talking about something else. It’s something… new. It’s like a physical sensation between us, a pull. Like part of me doesn’t belong to me anymore.” I swallowed hard, realizing how true my words were and what they really meant. “It’s completely yours now.”
“I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be more romantic or less romantic with a Glock pressed up against my chest.”
“More,” I informed him solemnly. “Definitely more.”
Danny still looked a little miserable, but he laughed. “You’re such an idiot.”
“You can’t tell me you don’t feel it.”
“No, I do,” Danny looked back up at me and met my gaze. “I get what you’re saying. But what if I feed on you and I can’t stop myself from going too far? And then you’d have to shoot me.”
“It’s a risk,” I agreed.
“Or what if I can stop, but nothing happens? And then that proves that we’re not connected or fated or whatever?”
“You’d have to give me your blood, too. To seal the bond, I mean. We wouldn’t know for sure until then.”
“Right,” Danny replied. “But what if that just ends up being kind of weird and kinky and doesn’t do much else?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
Danny grimaced, flashing another wary glance down at my wrist, like it might turn the tables and bite him at any moment. Enough of an answer.
“Then I’d still love you. I don’t need some mystical destiny bullshit to tell me how I feel.”
Danny nodded, a bit of tension relaxing in his shoulders.
“But just in case… I thought you should know. If I’m right, then this means there’s no going back. I’m all in, if you are.”
“I’m all in, too,” Danny replied, looking back up at me. He didn’t seem as nervous anymore. Instead, when he fixed me with his dark eyes, there was a naked need in them I’d never seen before. “I don’t want anything else. You’re already in my head in all the ways that matter.”
“Then quit being an asshole and bite me,” I told him.
Our exchange had chased away any lingering traces of fear I might’ve otherwise felt at the prospect of offering my blood to him. And it seemed that it had for him too. Because Danny didn’t need any more encouragement.
His fangs came back out, and my breath hitched a bit, watching his canines sharpen and elongate. I’d spent years feeling nothing but fear and hatred for vampires, but I could barely even remember the reasons why at this point. He was so fucking beautiful. And somehow, the fangs seemed like a part of him—like they always must’ve been there. It made him more Danny, not less.
He pulled my wrist up to his lips. We locked gazes. Then he sank his needlepoint-sharp fangs into me, so delicately that he just barely broke the skin.
There was a flash of pain. I’d expected that and I’d taken far worse over the last five years. I didn’t even flinch.
Danny hesitated, watching my expression like a hawk, as though he was fully prepared to stop at any moment, even with fresh blood welling in front of his face. Whatever he saw in my expression when I gazed back at him seemed to banish the last traces of his doubt. Because he put his lips over the wound and began to drink.
Tobias had explained that being fed on can be pleasurable, but he’d undersold the experience by fucking country mile. I was prepared for it to be—at most—perhaps a little bit pleasant. I would’ve gladly settled for not excruciatingly awful, too.
So I wasn’t prepared for the rushing jolts of tingly pleasure that went straight from my wrist to my cock. Abruptly, with his soft lips on my wrist, gently swallowing gulp after gulp of my blood, it felt like every single nerve ending in my body was being caressed by him.
I blinked in surprise and let out a soft gasp.
More electricity shot through me, and my gasp became a groan of pleasure. My cock became so hard it ached.
Danny pulled back, his gaze smoldering. There was a thin trickle of blood on his chin. My blood—the very stuff that beat through my heart, giving me life—was inside of him now, sustaining him. Filling every part of him completely.
“You don’t need to stop,” I rasped out. “You can keep going.”
“I don’t want any more of your blood right now,” Danny’s voice was husky, and his fangs were gone. “I want—I mean—I’m—”
He swallowed, glancing down. I followed his gaze and saw that he was taking in the bulge in my jeans. I let my gaze travel and saw that he was suffering from a very, very similar problem.
“I want to—um—” He glanced back up at me, as though he was gauging my reaction. Trying to see if I was on the same page. “Look, I want to. But I’ve never—”
He broke off again, looking a little flustered, like he wasn’t sure what to do next. “Erm. How do we…?”
“I’m going to kiss you again,” I told him, very deliberately setting the gun down. “And then we’ll go from there. Deal?”
He nodded enthusiastically, his eyes lighting up. “Yeah, okay. That works.”
I grabbed him by the belt with one hand and pulled him against me. With my other hand, I circled his waist protectively. His body, slimmer than mine, but still hard with muscle, felt perfect pressed up against me. Like he’d always belonged there, in my arms.
He let out a soft sigh, his lips parting ever so slightly.
I leaned down and kissed him. He tasted of copper, but it wasn’t a turn-off. The opposite, in fact. A reminder that I was already inside of him in the most quintessential way possible. His lips parted further, and I swept his mouth with my tongue.
He returned the kiss, making it dirtier, needier.
One handed, I undid my belt first, then I unbuttoned my jeans, sliding the zipper down. And then I did the same for him. I slid my hand under his underwear and found his cock, which was hard and hooded with foreskin, leaking like crazy. I began to stroke him.
He let out a soft moan, melting against me.
Then he copied me, letting his hand find my cock in exactly the same way I held his. His skin was slightly cooler than mine, but it felt nice when he wrapped his hand around my hardness and began to stroke me. He was more tentative than me, a little unsure, but only for a few moments. I knew he’d never touched another man like this before.
But he relaxed into a rhythm that matched mine. And it felt so good to have him touching me, stroking me, his body pressed against mine.
“I want to try something,” Danny whispered, right in my ear.
I nodded. Whatever he wanted to do was fine by me. Maybe he was going to bite me again? I wouldn’t have minded.
Instead, he drew back, and with both hands, he gently pulled my pants down, freeing my cock.
His lips parted again, and he blinked rapidly, as though startled at the sight of it. But then he flashed me a wicked grin and dropped to his knees.
Without any hesitation at all, he took me in his mouth, all the way down to the hilt.
“Fuck,” I breathed, startled at how little hesitation he now had.
And then the sensation of Danny’s wet lips around my hot, hard cock took over. And it was almost too much. I fought the animalistic urge to grab his head and rut into his mouth. Maybe later, with his permission, we could try something like that. But not for his first time.
Instead, I held perfectly still while Danny let his lips slide up my shaft, his tongue swirling my tip, before he swallowed me down again. Then he began sucking me off in earnest, like he’d been doing it his whole life.
He tore groans from my lips. And I swore under my breath, too, hardly even aware of what I was saying. I was transfixed, watching his head bob up and down on my cock as he took me eagerly, as deep in his throat as he could manage, practically choking himself on my length.
It wasn’t like the times when he’d been blackout drunk and trying to force himself to touch me. I had been able to tell that he hadn’t wanted it then. But now, he seemed focused on nothing else except giving me pleasure.
He seemed, for the first time, to be all in.
And it wasn’t long until I felt a tingling pleasure sweep through me, sweeping down my spine and tightening my balls.
“I’m getting close,” I warned him. It was one thing to try sucking me off. Swallowing my load was a whole other level.
He didn’t even slow down. He kept exactly the same pace.
And then I did rut once into his mouth, letting out a cry of pleasure as I shot rope after rope of my hot cum down his throat.
He eagerly swallowed it all.
Then he climbed to his feet and kissed me again, slow and deep this time, letting me taste the saltiness of my own seed in his mouth.
I pushed his pants down as we kissed and began to stroke him with one hand. With my other hand, I caressed his smooth, firm ass cheek. Goddamn, why did he feel so good? So perfect?
The moment I touched his ass, Danny let out a soft, surprised sound, his breath cool against my lips. And then his whole body tightened against me as he shot his load into my hand with a strangled-sounding groan.
He apparently liked being touched there.
When he pulled back, we just grinned at each other stupidly, like idiots in love.
“That was…” Danny let out a surprised-sounding laugh. “Uh—that was really—”
“Yeah, me too.”
“I didn’t realize it would be like that.”
I kissed him again, smiling against his lips. “It isn’t, usually.”
When Danny pulled back, he took my wrist in his hand again, peering down at it. “It’s stopped bleeding—but we should get you a bandage.”
“We could do that,” I agreed. “Or you could give me a little of your blood. That ought to heal it, too.”
Danny blinked at me, startled. “You’re really suggesting that?”
I shrugged. “I mean, why not?”
Danny bit his lip. “Look, Michael… I—I don’t feel any different now. Drinking your blood, it didn’t—the thing is, I don’t—” He broke off, grimacing. He dropped his gaze to the ground. “The thing is, I can’t hear you in my head or anything like that.”
“That’s okay.”
And it was. That didn’t matter. Danny and I were already connected, and we always would be. I would never willingly leave his side. Not unless he asked me to.
“Are you sure?”
I cupped his face with my hand, bringing his gaze up to meet mine.
“I’m sure. That was the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire fucking life. I don’t give a shit about a blood bond— you’re the only thing that matters. And if I hadn’t been such an idiot, I would’ve told you that way before now.”
Relief flooded into his expression, and he snorted, shaking his head in amazement at me. “Right. I keep forgetting. If it helps, we’re both complete idiots.”
“Idiots in love,” I reminded him. “The best kind.”
He rolled his eyes a little at that, but he smiled too. And his fangs dropped again—he must’ve been getting better control of it now, because it seemed like he did it on purpose—and he bit the palm of his hand with his fangs.
Then he held it up to me.
“I guess we’re into bloodplay now,” I joked, hoping to draw at least a laugh from him.
But all I got was a small, tense smile. He looked almost unhappy.
“I just wish…” He grimaced. “For a second, I thought that maybe we were—”
“It’s okay. Seriously.”
I brought his palm up to my lips with both hands. His blood was pooled there, so dark it was nearly black.
“Michael, wait,” Danny said, stopping me. “If this doesn’t work, I need to know—are you going to leave?”
I could feel my whole face scrunch with confusion. His question was ridiculous. “You’re asking me this now?”
Years of vulnerability that I’d always sensed but had never really seen all bubbled to the surface in his expression. “Look, I just need to know, okay?”
Something went soft and molten in my chest.
“I’m all in,” I reminded him. “I was, from the moment I realized you were going to come back to me. That I hadn’t lost you for good. Nothing else matters to me right now, except making sure you’re going to be okay. And an entire fucking nest of ravenous vampires couldn’t drag me away from you, Danny.”
The strength of my feelings must’ve been visible, because his lips parted in surprise when his gaze searched mine. Something relaxed in him, and he blinked sudden wetness from his eyes.
“Yeah, okay. Go for it. Bloodplay for the win.”
And with that, I put my lips over his palm, like drinking his blood was the most ordinary thing in the whole wide world. I expected to feel a flash of hesitancy or doubt or something, but there was nothing. It had always been him and me, for years and years, and it still would be. Fate could go fuck itself.
I swallowed his blood, startled to find that it wasn’t coppery, like mine had been. It was thick and syrupy, like a sweet red wine. My eyes widened with surprise, and I was about to look up and tell him exactly that, but I never got the chance.
Because that was the exact moment when the floor fell out from under me, and the world went completely black.