Chapter 21 #2
Soon, all Kit could do was let out a series of high-pitched ahs and ohs and uhs as Quin manipulated his body. Kit had drunk enough that he was hard, his cock bobbing in front of him and slapping against his stomach.
Quin moved his hands down to Kit’s arse, fingers digging into his cheeks and spreading him open wider. Kit gasped.
“Too much?” Quin asked.
“No, Daddy.”
Quin kneaded one arse cheek with his hand. “What about a little spank?”
Kit rolled the idea around in his head, then nodded. “One little spank.”
Quin smiled. He drew back his hand—the heat of it leaving Kit’s skin—and then, without further warning, brought it down on Kit’s arse. Far. Too. Softly.
“Harder,” Kit said.
Quin spanked him again, this time with a bit more force. There was the faintest stinging sensation, but it was gone before Kit could decide if he liked it.
“Another.”
Quin gave Kit’s arse a resounding smack, the sound reverberating in the air.
Electricity ran up his spine, and Kit gasped and came over both of them without further warning.
He clenched down on Quin’s cock as he fucked him through his orgasm, and it didn’t take long for Quin to follow.
Kit closed his eyes as Quin filled him and then stilled, keeping himself buried in Kit’s body.
“Holy shit,” Quin said.
Kit let loose a laugh that edged on hysterical.
“You came from a spank,” Quin said, lips trembling with the effort of keeping his smirk from breaking out all over his face.
“Three,” Kit argued weakly.
“Three spanks,” Quin agreed. His hands smoothed over Kit’s bare back until they rested once again on his arse. Gentle fingers traced his skin. “Can you still feel it?”
Kit shook his head, then hooked his chin over Quin’s shoulder.
“If I don’t move soon, we’re going to be stuck together,” Quin said.
Kit’s hands fisted in Quin’s T-shirt. “Not yet.”
“Okay.”
When they did move, it wasn’t the most pleasant experience. The shower afterwards more than made up for it, however.
As the early dawn approached, they got settled back in bed, Kit resting his head on Quin’s chest and listening to the steady beat of his heart. Quin yawned, loud and long, but kept up his petting of Kit’s hair as they lay in comfortable silence.
Kit opened and closed his mouth several times before he could get out the words that he’d been wanting to say for the past few days. “I should tell you more about Lawrence.”
Quin tensed. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said carefully. “But I’ll listen to anything you say.”
“I think it’s time.”
Quin turned Kit’s face towards him with a gentle hand. “Only you can decide that. Don’t let what’s happened force you into it if you don’t feel ready.”
Kit gave him a tremulous smile. “I’m ready.”
Quin craned his neck to give Kit a soft kiss on the lips, then settled his head on the pillow. Kit moved his face back to Quin’s chest, choosing to stare at the blank wall. He didn’t think he could get through everything if he had to watch Quin’s expressions.
“He took me when I was seventeen.”
Quin sucked in a sharp breath but didn’t interrupt.
Kit continued, hating how his voice already shook.
“He compelled me into the car with him and then drove me down south. I barely noticed the drive because he kept layering these commands over me. You know, to obey him and not to fight and to stay quiet. It was… Confusing. Scary. I hated him on sight.”
Quin’s fingers trailed over Kit’s back and shoulders, assuring him he was there and listening without saying a word.
“I won’t go into every detail of what happened that night when we got to the manor house. I’m sure you can imagine.”
Quin made a wounded noise in the back of his throat, a remarkably similar sound to the whine of his wolf.
“Okay, so maybe imagining might be worse in this case.” Kit stalled, digging his fingers into Quin’s arm where he held him. “Um. He fed from me. He broke my finger. And he…”
“You don’t need to say it if it’ll hurt too much,” Quin whispered.
Because Kit could, because nobody was telling him—compelling him—to keep them open, he closed his eyes. “Lawrence raped me.”
The words seemed inadequate to describe the hurt and pain and degradation of the act, but they still rang in the air as if shouted from a mountaintop.
“I lost count of how many times he did it in the months that I remained human.” He’d attempted to in the beginning, but he was under compulsion so often that it became futile.
He’d miss days at a time, and then wake up sore in places that he didn’t want to think too much about.
“The worst part about him recreating me was that I had to remember.”
Quin let out a shuddered gust of breath, and Kit turned to look at him. Unshed tears filled Quin’s eyes.
Kit felt horrible for causing them. “I tried to kill him for it,” he said, hoping it would cheer Quin up. “We did in the end. Apparently not permanently enough, however.”
“How long were you with him?”
“Twenty years.”
“Fuck.”
Kit hummed his acknowledgement. “He grew bored with me towards the end, when I became wise to his games and stopped reacting in a way that pleased him. He wanted someone who would enjoy what he did, to an extent. Lawrence liked the fight—he wouldn’t have chosen me otherwise—but he always desired submission more. ”
“You know what? I’m glad he’s back, if it means I get to kill him for everything he did.” Quin’s furious eyes glinted in the low light as he made the vow.
“Killing him was satisfying.”
“We’ll make sure that he never hurts you again.”
The lump in Kit’s throat grew, and he allowed the tears that had been building to fall down his face.
Quin pressed kisses into his hair and made soothing sounds.
Kit let himself go lax in Quin’s hold, the tension uncoiling from his body, like a cat uncurling from sleep and stretching out into its full length.
There was, however, a kernel of worry lodged deep within him that threatened to grow into despair.
“You can’t be sure of anything,” Kit said.
Quin took Kit’s face in his hands, meeting his eyes. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep my word.”
Kit held his gaze, then nodded.
“And this changes nothing between us, you hear me? I love you. So, so much. Your past will never make me feel any differently about you, okay?”
Kit let out a sob that was more animal than human.
Quin grasped at him, pulling him further up his body so that they were face to face. “Hey, hey, I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m never leaving—not unless you want me to.”
“I don’t want you to.” Ever, he didn’t add. Because talk of forever might just break him at that moment.
The corners of Quin’s eyes crinkled with tenderness. “Good. Because I’d struggle to stay away.”
“You’d totally stalk me like a creep,” Kit said with a wobbly smile.
Quin nodded, his eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “My beast wouldn’t be controlled.”
Kit took the opening Quin had offered, needing the lighter turn in the conversation. “Kinda sounds like you’re talking about your penis.”
“And here I thought you considered dick jokes beneath you.”
Kit shrugged one shoulder. “What can I say? You’ve corrupted me.”
Quin nuzzled his nose against Kit’s. “You’re perfectly corruptible.”
Kit kissed him, long and deep. They only broke apart when Quin reminded Kit that he needed to breathe. Such a pesky requirement.
Kit curled into Quin’s side, grasping hold of him and tangling their legs together so that not an inch of space lay between them. With the summer here, the nights were short and their hours limited. He stayed awake until the sun was up, even though unconsciousness beckoned.
He wanted every hard-won minute with Quin that he could get.
Kit woke up the following night to a passed-out Quin lying next to him, snoring. It really was a good thing Kit went into a coma when he slept, because there’s no way he could’ve fallen asleep naturally beside the chainsawing of Quin’s snores.
Kit pushed himself up on one arm, studying Quin. His eyes appeared puffy. Kit stroked a couple of fingers down Quin’s face, tracing a line down from the outside corner of his right eye and down his cheek.
Quin’s eyes cracked open, a sleepy smile appearing on his face when he saw Kit. “Morn-uh-night, baby boy,” he said around a yawn.
Kit hummed a low response, continuing his physical exploration of Quin’s face. Between the tips of two fingers, he plucked at one of Quin’s grey beard hairs. There weren’t many greys, but they stood out starkly against the black.
Quin’s half-lidded eyes shot wide open. “Ow!”
“You’re ageing,” Kit observed.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Me neither, but I can’t do much about it.”
Kit narrowed his eyes. “Can I recreate you as a vampire?”
“Theoretically? Or do you actually want to do it?”
“Both.”
“Kit, I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but I’m a werewolf.”
It hit Kit all at once. That he’d finally found someone, and in the blink of an eye he’d be ripped away from him. Through the red haze that filled his eyes, he could see the alarm on Quin’s face.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Quin’s thumbs cleared the tears off Kit’s face the second they fell.
“You’re going to die.”
“Not anytime soon!”
“You already appear so much older than me.”
“Hey!”
Kit pulled at another grey hair. “Grey!”
“I’m in my thirties—it happens!” Quin batted at Kit’s hand. “Don’t pull it out, for fuck’s sake. Two more will grow back in its place.”
“But you’re going grey and you’re going to die and I love you and I can’t recreate you as a vampire and it’s not fair.” The words spilled out of Kit before he had the wherewithal to contain them.
“I—oh,” Quin said, blinking.
“What?” Kit asked, feeling flustered.
“You love me.”
“Yes, obviously.”
“You realise you just said that? That you love me?”
Kit hadn’t. Not at all. “Yes?”
“I love you too.”
“You’ve said.”
“Kit.”
Now that the words were out there, saying it again was easy. “I love you. Now please, can we stop talking about emotional shit and lie in silence?”
“Of course, my cute-little-vampire-boyfriend-who-loves-me.”
“Stop it.”
“Never.”
Kit rubbed at his face, his hand coming away smeared with blood. “Fuck.”
Quin’s arms banded around him. “Don’t worry about the mess. I want to hold you right now.”
Kit sniffled. He also might have surreptitiously rubbed his face—blood and all—over Quin’s cheek, marking him up. If Quin noticed, which he most likely did, he didn’t voice a complaint.
Eventually, Quin slid out from under him. “Stay there. I’ll get a cloth for your face.”
“I’m going to end up ruining every set of sheets you own,” Kit said with a snort.
Quin grinned down at him before turning and heading to the bathroom. “Good thing you’re mega-rich and can buy me more. Look at us, subverting the Daddy/boy expectations. We’re trailblazers.”
“Sure, you tell yourself that,” Kit muttered.
“And you’re the older one,” Quin called through from the en-suite.
“I look two decades younger than you.”
Quin came out of the bathroom, cloth in hand and perturbed look on his face. “Stop exaggerating my age. I look maybe fifteen years older than you. Ten if you’re being generous.”
“I’m going to buy you so much expensive anti-ageing cream.”
Quin took Kit’s chin in his hand. Quin had run the towel under the hot water, and it was easy for Kit to close his eyes and let Quin swipe the warm material over his skin.
When he was done, Quin laid a soft kiss on Kit’s forehead. “All clean. Need anything else?”
Kit shook his head, but then immediately changed his mind and nodded instead. “Yes, actually.”
“Mm-hmm?”
Kit pointed to his forehead. “Another kiss, Daddy.”
Quin’s lips brushed gently across his skin.
Kit let a smile spread over his face as warmth filled him, both at the sweet gesture, and also at the knowledge that Quin really would do anything for him.
Whether it be as simple as another kiss, or as serious as listening to him speak about his worst moments, Quin had proved it.
That devotion, that protectiveness, that love was so new to Kit.
Every small gesture had him falling deeper and deeper, and he didn’t want to stop the fall.
He didn’t think he ever would.