Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Quin
After the rush of the previous night, the drive down south was more subdued.
Even the eighties disco music Kit favoured didn’t improve the mood.
They’d taken two cars, Shaun, Rake, and DJ taking their own wheels for ease.
It wasn’t a long drive, but the nights were short and the vampires required shelter.
Quin had spent the day researching properties, and he’d booked a place for a few nights around an hour from the manor house. The owners called the expensive three-bed rental a cottage, but it was big enough to host the five of them in comfort. It even had a room with a super king bed for the triad.
Now that Quin wore Xavier’s ring, he’d been able to relax a tad.
Even though the metal had looked unnaturally tarnished after he woke up from a deep sleep, they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Lawrence.
It also meant that Quin could drive without fear of looking in the wing mirror and seeing eyes that weren’t his own staring back at him.
He didn’t enjoy being a passenger. He preferred to be the one in control, no matter the situation.
The possession had been horrible on many counts, but losing his autonomy had been the worst of all.
Heading to the place where Lawrence had recreated Kit was just another thing that Quin didn’t want to be doing.
But they had to.
As the night crawled forward, Quin hummed along to the music and provided the occasional comment on the song choice, but Kit didn’t seem in a chatty mood. It made Quin feel useless.
“We’re close,” Kit said, breaking a lengthy stretch of silence.
Quin reached over and squeezed his knee. “How are you doing? And you’re not allowed to say that you’re fine.”
Kit managed a small smile. “Well, damn, because that was going to be my answer. Don’t say I’m already predictable. At this rate, I’ll bore you before the year’s out, let alone last an eternity.”
“Kit, if you think you’ll dissuade me from getting tethered to you, you’re way off the mark. Now, tell me your feelings,” Quin demanded in his most commanding Daddy voice, which he rarely used outside of the bedroom. Regardless, he wasn’t above using it to get Kit to open up.
“I…have mixed emotions, I suppose,” Kit admitted. “Some of the worst things in my life happened there. But if they hadn’t, then I wouldn’t be here with you.” His gaze flitted over to Quin’s. “The honest answer is that I don’t know how I feel, but I’m not about to have an emotional breakdown.”
Quin nodded along, staring straight ahead. It had started to drizzle, the white lights of the motorway blurring as the windscreen wipers swept across the glass. “Nobody would blame you if you needed a breakdown. It’s difficult, what you’re facing.”
“Stop being so sweet and understanding or you’ll make me cry. So, be quiet and focus on driving.”
Quin mimed zipping his mouth shut, but then mimed reopening it and said, “Just a reminder that I love you.” He closed the zip again as Kit laughed.
“You’re such a sap.”
Quin waited, silent. Kit tapped his fingers on his knees, pretending not to notice Quin looking at him out of the corner of his eye. When Kit still didn’t speak, Quin coughed pointedly.
“Oh, would you like me to say something?” Kit asked, all faux innocence.
Quin shrugged, making a show of indifference.
Kit relented. “I love you too.” There was no mistaking how his voice softened whilst saying the words.
With the initial tension eased, little time passed before they were pulling into the driveway of the rental. The others had fallen a few cars behind, so Kit and Quin located the lock box that had the keys and had let themselves into the cottage before Rake, Shaun, and DJ piled out of their vehicle.
“I need to test the beds,” DJ said as he rushed past them all into the house, Shaun chasing after him. Kit then sped into another room, disappearing before Quin’s eyes. Quin and Rake followed—both saddled with carrying the luggage for their respective boyfriends—at a more human pace.
The bedroom Kit nabbed was pleasant, if bland; done up in whites and neutrals, a few flower motifs thrown in.
But then Kit pulled back the grey curtains, exposing the multi-paned windows and, even in the darkness, Quin could see the view of the fields and hills would be spectacular in the daylight.
His chest clenched at the knowledge that Kit wouldn’t be able to see it like he did. He’d take a picture for him.
“So, what are we doing for the rest of our night?” Kit asked.
“I fancy stretching my legs,” Quin said. He also wanted to sniff around the area. Literally. He thought that might sound a bit unhinged to Kit, so he kept that part to himself.
“I don’t want to go out in the rain,” Kit said, pouting as he looked out of the window.
“You stay here, catch up with the guys.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. Spend some time with them. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”
“Don’t go far.”
“I won’t.” After a quick kiss goodbye, Quin headed for the door and went out into the night.
Rake caught up with him moments later. “I’m coming with you,” he announced, leaving no room for argument.
“All right.”
They strode in silence for a while, ambling down the small driveway and onto the nearest street.
There weren’t many nearby houses, given how remote they were, and Quin couldn’t detect any scents that stood out to him as abnormal.
They circled around towards the back of the cottage, following the well-trodden path across the grounds.
It had stopped raining, the grass giving off that petrichor smell as Quin’s boots squelched in the mud.
“You seem to make Kit happy,” Rake said out of nowhere.
“I’d like to think so.”
“It’s good. He wasn’t happy when I met him.”
“In Brighton,” Quin said.
“We first met in Haywards Heath, but yes. I can’t say that I know Kit well even after all these years, but he and Shaun have a shared experience.
I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m protective of him, despite the distance.
It’s nice that he has someone.” It was the most that Quin had heard Rake speak in one go, and the sentiment floored him.
“I like knowing that he has you all, too,” Quin said.
Rake shot him a small smile. “He does. We have his back. Now,” he added abruptly, “can I ask you some questions?”
“Sure,” Quin said easily.
“Your dynamic—does it go beyond the bedroom?”
Quin blinked at the sudden turn in conversation. “Okay. I wasn’t expecting that. Um, sometimes, but not really? We’re figuring it out.”
“Would you want it to?”
“If Kit wanted it.” Quin didn’t know if this was a normal topic of discussion for Rake, but he himself rarely spoke about this to anyone.
He’d stumbled onto Daddy kink via porn and realised he liked it, but he hadn’t ever been in a truly twenty-four seven dynamic.
Quin resolved that once they had a moment to breathe, he’d sit Kit down and have a discussion to ensure he was doing right by his boy in addressing his needs.
Rake had a thoughtful expression on his face. “Do you ever go to kink clubs or play in front of others?”
Maybe Quin should have found it stranger to speak to Rake so openly about this when he barely knew the vampire, but Rake’s straightforward line of questioning had any self-consciousness he held dissipating.
“Not so far,” he responded. “We’re not high protocol or anything like that.
Less about rules, more about…” he trailed off, struggling to come up with the exact words to describe it.
“A power exchange?” Rake suggested.
“Sort of. He trusts me to give him what he needs, and I get off on showering him with attention. It’s working out for us so far.”
“It seems that way to me, too.” Rake paused, the silence a considering one, before he continued. “The reason I’m asking all this is because I wanted to see if you two would like to watch us have sex?”
“Watch you fuck? The three of you?” Quin’s voice only went a tad higher than his normal register, which he was glad of. His brain briefly went offline as he processed what Rake was suggesting. “Are DJ and Shaun all right with that?” he asked when he could string two thoughts together.
“They’re more than fine with it. Neither of them would shut up about it in the car once I suggested it. And we often do it in front of others,” Rake confirmed. “DJ’s even more of an exhibitionist these days. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”
“Of course not,” Quin said weakly. He still wasn’t quite over the initial question.
Rake raised one of his thick, dark eyebrows. “So?”
Quin floundered. “I’ll need to check with Kit,” he said.
“Kit’s…experienced listening in on Shaun and I before,” Rake said.
“Seriously?” Kit hadn’t informed Quin of that nugget of information.
Rake nodded, a knowing smile on his face. “He could have drowned out the noise, but chose not to. Personally, I’d say he has some voyeuristic tendencies. I think everyone would enjoy it, and of course you’d both be welcome to participate and get off yourselves.”
Quin didn’t know what to say to that. Rake seemed to be done with his proposition, stopping and turning to stare up at the night sky.
Quin left Rake to it. He didn’t quite run back to the cottage, but it wouldn’t be fair to call it a walk, either.
He hurried through the front door and into the living room, where Kit was playing a boisterous card game with Shaun and DJ, all three of them yelling at each other and slamming cards down on the table with inhuman speed.
Kit’s head whipped up when Quin came in. “What’s wrong?” Kit asked. “Your heart is beating far too fast.”
Shaun and DJ both looked up too, seeing Quin’s no-doubt-reddened face. Twin grins spread across their faces, though Shaun tried to hide his smile by covering his mouth with a hand.
“Everything’s fine—can I talk to you in the bedroom?” Quin said before leading the way, Kit scurrying after him. The second Kit shut the door, Quin blurted out, “Do you want to see sex?”