Chapter 11 Kit
ELEVEN
Kit
Other than serving Quin a type of tea he’d hated at first, the night had gone better than Kit hoped.
He’d enjoyed doing the tea taster menu. It wasn’t often that he was around anyone eating and drinking actual food, so he’d taken an odd satisfaction in watching Quin dunking each of his biscuits before gobbling them up.
As he cleaned the mugs out in the sink, Kit wondered if he’d get the chance to cook a meal for Quin on day. He’d never really done it before, but it couldn’t be that hard.
“It’s time I headed off,” Quin said, coming back from the bathroom. No wonder he’d gone twice already, given the sheer amount of tea he’d drunk.
Kit finished drying his hands on the towel beside the sink. “Okay,” he agreed. It was rather late, and Quin needed to get back to Mabel, Kit reasoned. Not that Quin was running away; he was just giving Kit space—a good thing.
Except, the sight of Quin getting his coat and pulling on his boots pushed Kit off balance.
He leaned against the wall as he wondered what to say.
Did he invite Quin over again? Did he wait for Quin to suggest something?
Kit didn’t know how people did this. He liked Quin; he’d admit that much.
But putting himself out there terrified him.
“Thanks for a great night,” Quin said, hovering close to the door.
“Anytime,” Kit said.
“Yeah?” Quin gave him a cheeky grin. “So I can pop around for a cuppa whenever I want now?”
Kit considered it. “Nobody else is going to drink the tea. And the biscuits will go soft if you don’t eat them. In the interest of ensuring they don’t go to waste, then I suppose you’ll have to come over again.”
“Ah, yes. The environmental impact of a few Hobnobs going off will be what melts the rest of the polar ice caps.”
“It’s a genuine worry!” Kit protested. “I’m going to be on this planet for a long time. I’d like not to be living underwater with the mer, thank you very much.”
“Not into the partial fish thing?”
Kit made a face. “Don’t even make me think about how that all works.”
“Well, now I’m imagining it.” Quin let himself out of Kit’s front door, then stood on the stoop with a contemplative look on his face.
“You really are thinking about mer anatomy, aren’t you?” Kit said.
Quin shook his head. “No. I was thinking about something else.”
“Fancy sharing?”
“I’m going to say it.” Quin took a deep breath, like he was steadying himself. “Can I kiss you?”
The words took a few seconds to sink in as Kit blinked up uncomprehendingly at Quin. Even when Kit thought he understood, he couldn’t quite believe his own ears. “What?” he squeaked.
“Well, you served me all of that tea, so I figured I should give you something in return.” Quin’s face contorted into a grimace. “Right, well, that makes me sound like someone who gives out kisses as payment for hot drinks, but you know what I mean.”
Kit might have reacted to Quin’s inane babbling if he hadn’t been stuck on the initial question. “You want to kiss me?”
“Yeah,” Quin said. “Obviously.”
“Not obvious to me.” Kit had imagined that Quin might want to fuck him, but his mind had ignored the prospect of a kiss.
“Sorry if I’ve been sending you mixed signals. I want to be your friend.”
Friend. Kit hadn’t expected to have such a visceral reaction to the word, but it hurt to hear that Quin wanted only that.
“I mean, I’d like to be more than friends, if I’m honest,” Quin continued, however, immediately allaying Kit’s worst fears. “But I’ll settle for friends if that’s all that you want. I’ll take what I can get with you, Kit. Whatever you’re willing to give me.”
Kit didn’t wait for Quin to continue. He took a few fast steps, closing the short distance between them. He reached up, getting onto his tiptoes, and grabbed hold of Quin’s face. Their lips met in a violent crush that made physical all that Kit felt for Quin.
Kit worried for a scant second that his inexperience would be obvious, but then Quin wrapped one arm around Kit’s middle and placed the other at the back of his head, holding him in place.
Quin took control, and Kit let himself relax into him, let himself willingly surrender to someone for the first time.
And it was everything Kit hoped a first kiss should be.
Undeniable.
Overwhelming.
Intoxicating.
Quin’s tongue dived into Kit’s mouth, the tea flavours on his breath unexpectedly pleasant. Quin gently stepped them back inside. A moment of panic hit when Quin pressed him against the wall and Kit felt trapped, but Quin pulled back, hands cupping Kit’s face.
“Is this okay?” Quin asked.
Kit’s panic dissipated like smoke from a blown-out matchstick. He didn’t answer Quin’s question with words alone, surging up to catch Quin’s lower lip between his teeth, nipping at it. “Yes. More than.”
Quin had been holding back. Their next kiss felt like a claiming, Quin dominating Kit’s body. But Quin wasn’t taking anything from Kit, and instead giving him everything he had, like Quin would go to any length to get a taste of Kit’s lips.
Kit let himself explore Quin’s mouth. It was all new, but they fell quickly into a steady rhythm. The hint of blood burst onto Kit’s tongue when his fangs caught on Quin’s lips, but Quin didn’t so much as flinch at what must have stung. If anything, it spurred him on.
In that moment, Kit decided he enjoyed kissing. He wanted to kiss Quin forever, held in his strong arms.
But Quin broke them apart with a ragged breath. Kit stared up at him, concerned that he’d done something wrong.
“Just needed a proper oxygen break,” Quin said, taking another deep breath. “Otherwise, I’d have kept going.”
Kit smiled. “Oops.”
Quin held Kit’s face tenderly, thumbs rubbing over his cheeks. “How was that for you?”
Kit let his head fall back onto the wall. “The real question is, when can we do it again?”
“Soon,” Quin promised. “As much as you want. But I want to take you on a proper date.”
Kit swallowed. “I’ve never been on one before.”
Quin’s face creased in confusion. “Was that…?”
Kit didn’t need him to spell it out. “My first kiss? Not quite. The first I wanted, though.” He lowered his gaze, unsure if he should have said that out loud.
Quin lifted Kit’s face with a gentle hand until their eyes met. “Hey,” Quin said. “It’s okay. No pressure, right? I’d want to kiss you, whether I was the first or the thousandth person who got the chance to do so.”
“Who on earth has kissed a thousand people? Not you, surely?” They were joking around, but a small part of Kit felt inadequate in the face of Quin’s experience.
“I had my wild uni days. Kissed a few frogs, and a few princes, too. But,” Quin hesitated before something in his expression resolved and he continued, “I was in a long-term relationship for most of my twenties. It ended earlier this year. It’s part of why I moved up here. New start, and all that.”
“Who was he?”
“Not someone who matters enough to discuss right now, unless you need me to explain.”
Kit burned with jealousy at the idea of Quin with someone else. Quin was right, though. The interrogation could happen another time.
“I’d rather get back to more kissing now,” Kit said decisively.
Quin obliged. And then obliged him some more. And then obliged Kit again, even as he was leaving the house. By the time Quin eventually left, Kit’s lips felt swollen, and he had the beginnings of beard burn on his face.
It was worth it. Quin was worth it. When Kit slid into bed early that morning, he curled under the sheets and fell asleep with a smile on his face.
He hadn’t stopped smiling all night, even as he lay there looking on his phone for tips on caring for his new cactus.
He’d been in such a good mood he’d also ended up sending off a few emails to Shaun, Rake, and DJ, who he’d been ignoring for weeks.
Kit didn’t feed that night. Quin had offered before he left, but Kit hadn’t wanted to ruin the evening. He was running so high on his emotions that he might have lost himself to the taste.
It didn’t matter. Kit didn’t need blood when he had Quin’s kisses to sustain him.
Waking up wet and naked in the bathtub was not something that Kit had predicted.
He came to abrupt consciousness as his body expelled the bathwater he’d swallowed, leaving him shaking with the force of the expulsion.
Disgust and confusion warred inside of him.
He didn’t know whether to scream or to cry.
It took a few long moments before he decided on both, releasing an animalistic wail before sobbing until his tears ran dry. He didn’t know how much time passed until he was all cried out.
He rose on wobbly legs, holding onto the sides of the bath to keep himself from crashing back down.
Frigid water dripped down his body and pooled around his feet as he reached for the towel, wetting the bathroom floor.
He made slow work of drying himself off, rubbing his skin so hard that it turned pink from the friction.
After brushing his teeth to rid himself of the taste of the bathwater, he climbed right back into bed. The empty space stretched out as he lay in the middle, looking up at the ceiling.
He didn’t want to interrogate what had happened, but it couldn’t have been a coincidence that his sleeping mind did what he’d remembered Lawrence having done to him.
It was a form of self-flagellation he hadn’t thought himself capable of.
But this was just another night—in an endless string of nights—where he’d woken up with his nightmares having become a reality.
That was if he could even call them nightmares. Every one of them occurred in the bright light of day.
Kit traced a finger around his right wrist, where the redness had faded thanks to Quin’s blood.
Quin’s expression upon seeing the marks, one of indignant rage, had made Kit’s insides twist. A secret part of Kit revelled in Quin’s anger.
The beast beneath the man had shown itself, and all because Quin thought that someone had hurt Kit.
Kit hadn’t wanted Quin to see what he’d done to himself. It wasn’t only tiresome to be one’s own worst enemy. It was also embarrassing.
Drowning himself might be a new low. It had been one of Lawrence’s favourite punishments; watching Kit thrash as his body rejected the water he inhaled. It had been effective in the early days, right after Lawrence had recreated him, as Kit’s body hadn’t realised that he’d survive it.
Kit thought back to what he’d been dreaming before he’d awoken.
He could have sworn he’d felt harsh fingers knotted in his hair, pushing his head down.
He wondered, not for the first time, if his dreams were more than dreams. Echoes of a previous life, perhaps, manifesting every worst experience he’d ever had.
He knew one thing for certain, however. Reliving them night after night was going to drive him insane.