Dying for Death (Vegas Immortals: Death and the Last Vampire #5)

Chapter One Night with a God

ONE NIGHT WITH A GOD

AARON

Iwas taking my barista Perkatory apron off, rolling my broad shoulders back as I half listened to my coworker talk about some guy who had tipped her a hundred bucks yesterday, when heat prickled across the back of my neck.

The sensation spread down my arms, tightening the muscles there, an automatic response to whenever he was near.

I glanced up, and sure enough, there he was but as I’d never seen him.

Timothy stood at the counter as if he’d just walked through a storm.

Tie loose. Top buttons undone. Textured black hair raked out of place.

His Chinese features were carved by exhaustion—cheekbones sharper than usual, eyes hard, jaw set with some emotion I couldn’t identify.

The clean-cut precision of him was fraying at the edges.

Timothy’s dark eyes locked onto mine and the Sinopolis hotel vanished around us, the clink of cups and the distant casino noise dropping out like a switch had flipped.

His pupils expanded, and a punch rammed straight through my ribs.

I sucked in a breath, feeling my heartbeat thrum through my entire body with a new force.

I hated how hard it hit me. How fast it sank low in my gut, then climbed higher, then spread everywhere. Want. Need. The kind of pull I had spent years swallowing because he’d always kept me at arm’s length.

But something had happened. Something bad. And now he was here to see me, and I couldn’t resist the urge to catch him in whatever free fall this was. Though of all days, today was the exact day I should resist his pull.

Timothy was always so contained, lacquered over with impossible grace, that seeing him this unkempt felt forbidden. My chest tightened and lust hit hard enough to short circuit the rest of my brain.

I wanted, fuck, I wanted something I had no right to want.

Not just his attention, but to be the reason for the mess. To be the reason for that wild look, like someone had knocked the wind out of him and he still hadn’t caught his breath.

My coworker’s voice trailed off as I stepped around the cafe stand. I kept the balled-up apron in my hand, hiding the stiffness pressing behind my board shorts.

I stopped barely a foot away. Close enough that his heat bled into my space. Close enough to see the shadows under his eyes, the tension in his jaw.

“A-are you okay?” The question came out rougher than I’d intended. My stutter caught as my emotions neared a boiling point with him so close. Normally my speech impediment calmed when he was around, but right now I felt as on edge as he looked.

I’d finished my shift already, but I’d gladly walk back there and make another drink if it gave me another couple minutes with him.

Damn, I was desperate.

My fingers tingled in anticipation of sneaking in a touch, as I passed him his drink.

It’d be the last time I ever got to sneak one in.

He pursed his lips and gave me a stiff nod. Finally, he spoke. “Godly business.”

Right.

The fact Timothy was so far out of my league he was in a different stratosphere never stopped me from wanting to scale those heights.

Learning he was a literal god who not only dealt with coordinating the ongoings of this entire hotel but also faced down supernatural threats I hadn’t known existed until a year ago should have put me back in my place.

It didn’t.

When I first came to Vegas, I was just a surfer boy from California chasing the next high.

While the partying had been a bonus, it had mainly been about rock climbing and seeking the next adrenaline rush.

Now the only high I was interested in was climbing onto Timothy’s pedestal and bringing him to his knees until he forgot his own damn name.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

This would usually be the end of it. A polite check-in, a cappuccino, a safe distance, the usual. But the way his gaze dragged down my throat and back up, told me none of this was the usual. Not tonight.

Right now, he was staring at me like all the rules had been swept off the board.

He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a raw husk. “Come with me.”

Timothy’s private floor at Sinopolis was silent, the kind of quiet money buys. Inside his apartment, the door clicked shut and the darkness swallowed us.

Timothy’s mouth crashed into mine. His tongue forced sweet heat into my mouth, rasping over my teeth.

I ripped my shirt off. He thrust his hands through my sun-bleached hair, possessively yanking my head back to lick and suck at my neck, sending a burst of excited sparks down my spine and straight to my groin.

Wet, ugly gasps filled the air as he bit down, the only other sound the blood rushing in my ears.

Of all days for him to lose control, it had to be this one.

I got his clothes off in quick, rough motions, until he was stripped down.His lips parted as if he couldn’t decide between a command and a plea.

Those long fingers slid through my hair and along my jaw.

His thumb paused at the corner of my mouth.

His eyes shut hard for a beat, jaw locking as he swallowed.

When he opened them again there was pain there, like touching me hurt.

In his eyes I found that quiet, enduring loneliness that made my chest ache.

He didn’t know I’d finished my last shift tonight. That a ticket sat in my inbox with my name on it.

My heart beat hard, loud, stupid. To an immortal like him, it probably sounded like a countdown.

If there was a way to make this body last, I would take it. I wouldn’t ask what it cost.

Even as he leaned in, kissing me again, his lips trembled with the effort of restraint. Like he was afraid of breaking me. Behind his kiss lurked something powerful. I wanted him to let go completely, to let that all he was flay the skin from my bones, so the morning wouldn’t come.

Tomorrow the rules would snap back into place, not because he didn’t want me, but because he did. Timothy lived with a loneliness that never left him, even when he looked untouchable. If he let himself love me, he’d lose me.

That was the only ending a god got with a human. And I would be the one who made that loneliness a hundred times sharper.

I wanted to hate him for it. Tried to. But each time fury rose in me, it collapsed under the weight of understanding. I'd scream at him in my mind. Take a chance, Timothy, squeeze every drop from my short life.

Then I'd envision him a century from now, carrying my memory like another ghost he couldn’t shake. And that hurt worse than his rejection.

His defenses were down right now, but this night changed nothing. So, I would take what he was offering while I could.

Scraps.

I drove him into the wall and dropped to my knees.

The first taste of him hit hot and intimate, too much and not enough. Timothy hissed and grabbed my hair. His breath broke, then broke again, and it thrilled me in the worst way.

I worked him with a hunger that had been building for years. I took what he gave and asked for more with my mouth, with my hands, with the steady pressure of my grip. My fingers slid lower and toyed with him, then cupped him, controlled the rhythm. His body tightened under my hand. His hips bucked.

“If you don’t stop, I’ll…” His voice fractured on the edge of it.

I didn’t stop.

He may be a god, but I was in control right now. He’d handed it over to me, for once.

“Aaron.” He dragged my name out.

His orgasm hit fast. His knees went unsteady. I stayed there and swallowed everything, feeling each pulse against my tongue. Salt, hot desert sand, and time itself flooded my mouth. Ancient power pressed in, and I took every last bit.

I held him until the tremors eased, until his grip loosened in my hair like the fight drained out of him.

Then I stood.

He came to me without resistance. We hit the bed and kissed hard, grabbing and groping to keep reality away. Timothy tasted like everything I never knew I needed.

I lived for adrenaline. The drop, the rush, the moment right before impact when the body decided it would survive or it wouldn’t. This was worse. Better. The biggest high I’d ever touched, and I already knew the biggest crash was coming.

His legs went up not long after, his need obvious in every tight breath. I nudged against him and he made a sound that tightened my grip on him. He handed me lube with hands that weren’t quite steady. His eyes tracked my face, searching, measuring, as if he could control this by watching it.

I slicked us up and pushed in.

We both groaned at the first slide. I worked deeper slowly, watching him the whole time, reading every shift in his expression, every catch of breath. He didn’t look away. He took more, demanded more with the tension in his body and the hunger in his eyes.

He wanted this.

He wanted me.

And I took it, because I couldn’t do anything else. Because the moment was here, because he was here, because tomorrow would bring reality back, and I would be left with nothing but the taste of him and the ache.

I rode the high. I took everything he gave, knowing it wouldn’t be enough.

By morning, I’d be gone. And Timothy would still be here in a hundred years, exactly where I left him.