Chapter 19
NINETEEN
Kit
It turned out that Kit didn’t have a great deal to pick up from his flat.
A few outfit changes. His laptop. His cutest underwear made the cut, even if only so Quin could tear them off.
Not like he wore much else at Quin’s, anyway.
He’d discovered that he was comfortable channelling his inner naturist.
Kit had never realised that sex was fun. He should have been doing it for years. But then, it wouldn’t have been with Quin. And Quin was the one who made it so fun. Hot, too, but Kit laughed more during sex than he ever expected.
Despite his eagerness to get back, Kit took his car instead of running, as it had started to spit.
The tiny cactus Quin had given him rattled in the cupholder as he drove.
Given that Shaun, Rake, and DJ would stay at Kit’s house, he wasn’t about to risk leaving the gift in their care. One could never be too careful.
Kit hadn’t known it was possible to miss someone after mere hours. And yet, he ached for Quin already, his excitement ratcheting up as he approached the house and parked down the street. He walked at a normal, human pace to ensure that he didn’t disturb his cactus any further.
As he walked towards Quin’s, Kit contemplated whether he should feed. The notion of drinking from anyone other than Quin tied his stomach in knots. He’d have to revisit the idea at some point, but not right then. He was hungry, sure, but he could wait.
Quin had tried to give him the spare set of keys to the house, but Kit had refused. For now. They were already acting like he’d moved in, and keys seemed…too big, too weighty, too permanent for something that had only started so recently.
And yet, Kit had wanted to take them for that reason alone.
He soon regretted not taking the spare keys as he pressed the doorbell for the second time.
Maybe Quin had fallen asleep—it was nighttime after all—but Kit didn’t enjoy standing on the stoop as the rain pitter-pattered on his coat.
One more try of the doorbell and, if nothing happened, he’d break in.
After he rang for the third time, however, he heard footsteps coming down the hall. Kit tried to look mad, but when he saw Quin, it melted away.
“Hi,” Kit said, stepping inside and pushing his hood back. “What took you so long?” Okay, so maybe he was still annoyed at being left waiting.
“Bathroom,” Quin said.
“Oh.” Kit didn’t want to think too hard about that. He lifted the cactus up to show Quin. “Brought this to hang out with the others.”
Quin smiled, taking the cactus and placing it on the little ledge above the coat pegs. “Come here.” He pulled Kit closer.
“I’ll get you all wet!”
“I don’t mind.” Quin bent down and took Kit’s lips in a sweet, soft kiss. It was almost chaste. Kit had expected the by now usual ravaging, so it was a bit of a shock when Quin drew away after only a couple of seconds. Still, it made Kit squirm with need.
He pressed his forehead to Quin’s chest. “Can we go to bed?”
“Whatever you desire.”
Kit took his rucksack and jacket off. “Brought my stuff.”
“I’m glad.”
Kit hung his jacket up, worrying that he was running out of conversation. It hadn’t happened before with Quin, but they had just spent days together with no break. It was probably natural.
Quin turned and started walking upstairs without a word, so Kit scurried after him, hugging his rucksack to his chest. “How’s Mabel?”
“She’s fine.”
“Is she enjoying her beef knuckle? Have to say that the smell kinda made me retch, but she seemed excited.”
“She is.”
Now, Kit wasn’t a scintillating conversationalist, but he wanted more than two-word answers. “Is something wrong?”
Quin turned to face him from where he stood in the upstairs hallway. “Not at all. Why would you believe that?”
Kit pressed his lips together. Something wasn’t quite right. “What happened while I was away?”
Quin’s head tilted to the side. “Nothing happened. What do you mean?”
“I-I don’t know,” Kit said. As he got to the top of the stairs, he studied Quin’s expression, trying to discern the answer from his face. Quin wore an amused smile, but nothing about this situation was amusing. There was something else, too.
Quin wasn’t holding himself like Quin.
There was a cocky jut to his chin. His chest puffed out a little too proudly. Kit saw too many of Quin’s teeth when he smiled. And his heart took calm, even beats, not Quin’s usual quick pulses that sang to Kit like a siren, reeling him in.
Everything about Quin felt off.
Kit’s stomach lurched. His rucksack thudded to the floor as his arms ceased to hold any strength.
“Kit?” Quin asked, voice unduly light.
“What’s going on?”
“Whatever do you mean by that?”
Kit waved a hand in Quin’s direction. “You’re not acting like…” He swallowed down the last word of his sentence. It might cease to be true if he didn’t voice it.
Quin’s head tilted further to the side. “Ah. I always did underestimate your intelligence, darling.”
Darling.
The pet name echoed in Kit’s mind. “What?” he whispered.
A slash of a smile split Quin’s face. “Or perhaps not?”
“No.” Kit shook his head, vehement. “No.”
Quin stepped closer to him. Kit took an answering step backwards, pressing himself against the wall at the top of the stairs.
“You can’t get away from me this time, darling.”
Pressure built in Kit’s chest. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it. This had to be some sort of sick joke. “Stop.”
“I shan’t.”
Kit screwed his eyes shut. He wanted to run, but his feet didn’t move.
He felt small and breakable, like he’d been all those decades ago as a fragile human.
One touch would have him shattering into a million pieces.
Words slipped from his mouth, unbidden. “Please stop this. You’re scaring me, Daddy. ”
Quin’s body was so close that Kit felt the heat pouring off it. “Aw, darling.” The voice coming from Quin was saccharine. “Your Daddy’s not here right now.”
Kit had to be dreaming, trapped in another nightmare of his own making. “Quin,” he sobbed. “I don’t like this.”
“Open your eyes, darling. I’ve missed the sight of them so much.”
Kit’s fingers dug into the wall behind him. The snap of a nail breaking rang in the air as he pressed a claw too hard into the plaster.
“You shouldn’t hurt yourself. That’s my job.” The self-satisfied chuckle that came out of Quin’s mouth was miles away from his normal laugh, and yet Kit was all too familiar with the sound.
He needed to be certain. Kit cracked his eyes open, his wet eyelashes sticking together.
One of Quin’s hands rose towards him, a gentle finger rubbing under his eye. Only, Quin didn’t clean the bloody tears from Kit’s face: he collected them.
Through blurry vision, Kit watched as Quin put the finger in his mouth, sucking noisily before removing it with a pop. “Tasty.”
“How?” Kit whispered, getting up the courage to ask.
“All because of you, darling. I’m only as strong as I am, thanks to you feeding for me.”
“But you’re dead.” The statement didn’t hold the same relief as before.
“So are you,” Quin said. Not Quin, Kit told himself.
“I’m not dead the way you are,” Kit said, as if pointing it out would change what stood in front of him.
Quin made an irritated noise. “Go back to being scared—you’re less argumentative.”
“I—What?”
A fist flew into the wall right beside Kit’s head, cracking the plaster and sending flakes of it dusting into the air. Kit flinched, but a hand gripped his arm to keep him in place. He looked down at it. In his imagination, the touch would have seared his skin. But the grasp only felt firm.
He pulled away, but Quin spoke up, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t even think about running.”
At that moment, Kit realised this wouldn’t end. He wasn’t about to wake up screaming. He wasn’t imagining it.
This was happening.
And he was the only one able to stop it.
“I won’t run. I’m not leaving without him. Give him back,” Kit demanded, his voice wavering.
“I’ll consider it on one condition.”
Kit gritted his teeth. “What do you want?”
“You.”
It should have been obvious, but it caught Kit off guard. He shook his head. “No.”
The fingers holding Kit’s arm tightened, digging in so hard they’d leave bruises. “Do you understand what I’ll do if you don’t comply?”
“Nothing you can do will make me—”
Kit’s words ceased when another punch flew.
Instead of hitting the wall again or Kit, like he’d expected, Quin’s fist collided with his own face.
Blood sprayed from his open mouth, landing on Kit’s lips.
That it tasted the same as usual was a shock.
He’d expected it to be infected, like the rest of Quin.
Kit surged forward and caught Quin’s wrist to stop him from throwing another punch. “Don’t,” he begged.
Quin’s face, even with his reddened jaw and swollen mouth, looked inordinately happy. His smile showed teeth stained pink with blood. “Do you understand now, darling?”
Kit didn’t want to say it. But he did. “I understand.”
“Actually, I quite like the ‘Daddy’ moniker. I’m annoyed that I never came across it before. You should keep calling me that.”
“I won’t ever do that,” Kit spat. His statement was as good as admitting out loud that Quin’s body was no longer his own.
“Call me Daddy, Christopher.” It was a command, not a request, and it made Kit sick to his stomach. His fingers twitched where he held Quin’s wrist.
However, one crucial fact occurred to Kit: he was stronger than Quin.
When Kit submitted to Quin, when he played as Quin’s boy, he wasn’t doing it because he was the weaker one. He chose to do that. And he could fight him off at any point. Even now, he could sense how easy it was to halt Quin’s movement.
“You’re not deserving of that title,” Kit said, before twisting Quin’s arm behind his back and reversing their positions. Quin’s body went rigid as Kit pinned him against the wall.