21 | Roscoe
Ishove fluffy roasted potatoes into my mouth during family dinner a couple of nights later and groan in delight.
“Compliments to the chef, this is fucking delicious.”
“You’re the chef, dude. You can’t do ‘compliments to chef’ when you’re the one who cooked,” Zeph says, always wanting to stifle my buzz.
“Why the hell not? This is a great fucking meal. And it’s made even more delicious by the beautiful sight I see before me. Zeph Stormrider himself, breaking bread and making kissy faces with a vampire.”
“Fuck off.”
Dante just chuckles softly, shaking his head at my words. It’s the second time he’s accepted an invitation to what I now consider our family dinners. And the vamp has spent most of the evening sitting kind of quietly, observing the absolute chaos around him. Ten people talking all at once and having three different conversations all across each other. People switch up the conversion they’re engaging in midway through a damn sentence and it’s confusing as all hell.
But he’s putting up with it like a champ, letting the noise just roll over him.
I hold my hand up, forgetting I’ve got a fork laden with chicken piled on top so the food goes flying. Oops.
“All I’m saying, it’s a damn miracle to see you getting along. A holiday miracle.”
My own words pull me up short. Sometimes it’s like one part of my brain makes connections it doesn’t inform the rest of me about.
One word stands out like a beacon.
Holiday.
“Howee schitt, ee fborgot da howidays,” I exclaim through a mouthful of food.
“Can you try that again, but be less disgusting?” Zeph asks, stabbing a carrot with more force than necessary.
I swallow and take a big gulp of water. “We forgot the holidays. The Solstice happened weeks ago, and we forgot to celebrate it. Yule time, baby.” I stare around the table, noticing that no one seems to share my dismay. “We forgot about it. Too busy saving the world and getting stabbed to remember about presents and pretty lights and eating until you can barely walk.”
Una giggles, and I beam at her.
“Oh, we didn’t forget,” Hanna replies. She’s also got her mouth jam-packed with food, but Z doesn’t tell her off. He just grunts and shakes his head, all prim and proper prissy manners man. Dante and he share a long-suffering look.
This alternative reality we’re in is a damn trippy place.
“He-ey, we don’t need two of you judgey judgersons making comments about our table manners.” I wave a finger at the two of them and Zeph responds by flipping me off.
Rude.
“We don’t really do holidays,” Hanna continues. “Silver always buys a cake or at least some muffins for our birthdays, but we never really had the spare cash to do the whole fancy meals and pretty lights. We’d probably have picked them out of the trash somewhere and they’d have wound up setting the warehouse on fire.”
“Can’t tell you how glad I am you’re out of that deathtrap,” Zeph grumbles.
“Oh.”
I glance at Dante to see if he’s another poor maligned soul that doesn’t ‘do’ holidays.
He shrugs and then breaks my damn heart with his next words. “I live alone. I’ve been living alone longer than most of you have been alive, combined.”
If he thought that would convince me we don’t need to bother with celebrating this year, he’s dead wrong.
Even Silver is frowning in sympathy for this poor vamp who just reminded us about how sad and lonely he must have been.
Fucking decades alone. I barely survived the past few weeks, and I still had people around me.
I guess I’m just a slut for attention from people I care about.
But he’s not gonna be lonely anymore, not on my watch.
“We’ll cook all the best stuff. Sing until our ears bleed and maybe you’ll even get lucky and get a holiday smooch, D-man.”
“Are you sure—” Silver starts to say, but I cut her off.
“If you’re gonna talk about how injured and weak I am, you can stop right there. I’m fully healed and back to normal. And I would love nothing more than to do a holiday dinner for all of us, sweetheart. We don’t have to do presents, but a big family meal with everyone together is happening. This week.”
There’s a lull in conversation after my grand declaration. I guess I’ve amazed everyone that much. They’ve fallen silent.
I realize pretty quickly that not everyone will be here, since Ember is still presumably at the vamp’s place in Arcanum Heights. Silver’s magic, and all of us religiously wearing the Pretty Princess jewelry, has been doing a good job blocking his telepathy, meaning we haven’t had any unwanted voices in our heads for a couple of weeks now.
Ember’s not the only one missing, though. The Big Cheese himself who has enough sway to veto the idea isn’t here either. That’s Fabian, by the way. He’s working again, instead of spending time with his family and his gorgeous sweetheart.
The fucker better pull his head out of his ass soon. Maybe I should have lobbed a stapler at his head instead of at the wall and it might have knocked some sense into him.
“Attendance will be mandatory,” I tell them all.
Una giggles again, then Mona joins in until I cross my arms and stick out my tongue at them.
“I’m not kidding. Day after tomorrow, seven PM. I expect you all to be here and I’ll drag Fabian up here if I have to knock him out first. The idiot’s eyes are gonna fall out if he doesn’t take a break soon.”
As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I want to shove them right back in. Reminding everyone that Fabian isn’t here is not my smartest move. It’s also something that clearly hurts Silver, if the look of barely disguised pain around her eyes is anything to go by.
Dammit.
I know Fabian has a lot going on in the district, and Z and I haven’t exactly been around to help him out since Felix snuffed it. But that doesn’t mean he should ignore everything else in the world aside from work.
All those weeks where he’d forgotten Silver, and she stood there and acted like it wasn’t a knife stabbing into her chest.
Now it’s like he’s forgotten her all over again, with work being the only thing at the forefront of his mind.
No way, Nelly. Not on my watch.
I’m gonna make Silver happy if I have to tear the world apart to make it happen.
“You think it’s a good time to have a jolly family dinner?” Zeph asks.
“Yep. Of course, it is. I can’t see the Bad Vamps giving up soon, so we should all suck up and enjoy the good moments, since we don’t exactly know how many more we’re gonna get.”
Fuck. That came out way more depressing than I meant it to.
“Sorry guys, my near death experience has clearly turned me into a sage mage.”
So damn wise.
Silver gets up from her chair and comes around to where I’m sitting. I push my chair back from the table and cock my head to one side to look up at her, since I’m not entirely sure what to expect from her. My insides go all warm and gooey when she plops down on my lap and gently tucks a loose piece of my hair behind my ear, and I shiver at her gentle touch.
“You’re wiser than you know,” she whispers in my ear.
“Fine,” Zeph grumbles. “You can’t milk getting stabbed forever though, man.”
I ignore him, snuggling into Silver and breathing in the scent of her as I bury my face in her neck. When I glance up to flip Z off, I spot Dante staring at the tabletop, his eyes darting up to rest on Silver for a moment before shooting away again.
He looks hungry.
Lusty.
Ooh, something tells me things are gonna get interesting around here.
First, though, I need to drag a stubborn control freak away from his desk and force him into bed.
“You’re a fucking moron, you know that, right?” I tell Fabian as I sweep into his office a couple of hours later.
His eyes flick up from the laptop in front of him and he rubs his face, looking about as lively as a reanimated corpse.
“Shit, man, you’ve got ink on your face.”
“What? I have? How did that get there? I haven’t even been using a pen,” he grumbles, scrubbing at his face with his hands.
I step closer and peer at him. “Ah, nah, sorry, it’s not ink. It’s just you look like someone’s punched you in the face. The circles under your eyes are that dark.”
He huffs and slumps back in his chair. “I’ve not exactly been sleeping well.”
“Pretty sure you’ve not been sleeping at all. What time did you get in last night?” I sound like his damn mother. Or someone’s mother, not Fab’s, since his mom is a stone-cold bitch he hasn’t seen or heard from in years.
“I don’t know. Probably three or four in the morning.”
I lean against the wall and cross my arms over my chest, giving him my best disapproving look. “What the fuck are you doing down here for all these hours, man? It’s not good for you.”
He sighs, and it’s a soul-weary sound and makes my damn chest hurt. “Trying to make things right. It’s gonna take months of work to make a dent in things, especially after Felix had his fingers in so many of the businesses in the district, bleeding them dry.”
I perch on the edge of the desk, eyeing him curiously. He actually looks worse than he did when he had the blood curse sucking the life out of him. I reckon he’s only gotten about twenty hours of sleep in the past week combined.
“Look, bud, I know that this place is supposed to be your legacy and all that shit. I know your dad made you think you’re only worthwhile if you’re working on the fucking family business and all that, but it’s not worth killing yourself over.”
Fabian lets out another sigh and sits back in his chair, letting his head hang down like he can’t muster the energy to raise it. “Just because things are tough right now, doesn’t mean I should give it all up. This is what we’ve been working towards for years.”
I gesture at the window, which shows the twinkling lights of the city, but a few days ago, the still burning sections of the district were lighting up the sky. “I’m just saying, Felix is dead. Your dad seems more interested in fucking his girlfriend than having anything to do with the business. And you’re here, working yourself to death. You don’t have to do this, man.”
Over the years, I don’t think we’ve ever had this conversation. The one where I ask if this whole stupid legacy is actually something he wants, or his asshole father and his sense of duty have brainwashed him.
He’s not listening, though. His attention returns to the laptop in front of him and he blinks slowly as he types away at the keyboard.
I decide to try a different tack. “How’s Seb doing?”
“He’s fine. Seems in better spirits recently. Now he has so many people around all the time.”
Dammit, that’s true. I figured maybe Seb was his weak point and I could pile on the brotherly guilt.
“And what about Silver?”
“What about her? She’s been busy these past weeks, as far as I know. And part of what I’m doing here is trying to make the district a safe place for her to walk around again without being afraid of getting jumped.”
Ah. “Is that why you’re so obsessed with fixing things in the district? You’re still feeling bad about what happened the morning after the Solstice?”
He doesn’t reply, but the look on his face tells me enough.
“But you’ve barely seen her since, bro. You haven’t spent more than ten minutes together since your brain stopped glitching.”
He stares at me, his face drawn tight with tension. “I’m trying, man,” he rasps. “Trying to fix things.”
I can see it now. He’s so lost in his own guilt that she could have gotten hurt. He’s lost sight of what’s going on right in front of him.
“I get it, man. I do. Just... don’t assume you can dip out and that things’ll be the same when you finally resurface,” I warn him.
Roscoe, the sage mage, strikes again.
He nods, sighing again. “I’ll head up soon, man.”
I guess that’s enough for now. He’s not exactly charging out the door to make things up to Silver, and I think that’s a fucking mistake.
More snuggles for me, I guess.
I shut the door behind me, but on my way out I catch Fabian with his head in his hands, looking so damn forlorn my heart hurts for him.
But I’ve done my part. I’ve shared my wisdom with him. Now, he’s the one that’s gotta make his own decisions.
When I let myself into the apartment a few minutes later, I’m quiet as a little mouse, expecting everyone to be fast asleep.
I may or may not let out a manly squawk when I walk into the kitchen and find Silver sitting on the counter with her legs crossed, sipping a cup of tea.
“Oah, hello.” My voice comes out higher pitched than I would like. Can’t have Silver thinking I’m not cool. Or sexy. Definitely can’t have that.
“You okay?” she asks quietly, a small smile on her face.
“Sure am. Fine and dandy. One hundred percent good and recovered,” I add, just in case she’s still obsessing over my recovery from the stab wound and whether I’m fit to return to usual activities.
It’s been ages and my balls are so blue, they’re practically giant plums by this point.
Her legs uncross and my mouth waters. My cock hardens at the thought of burying myself inside her wet pussy, and I stride closer until I’m right in front of her. I then cup her jaw and press my lips to hers, hoping to express all the things I’m feeling in my chest, all the overwhelming love I have for her in one kiss. I lick the seam of her lips just as she widens her legs and I step between them until I can feel her soaked center against my now rock hard cock.
She opens for me and my tongue tangles with hers, tasting and fucking into her mouth as I swivel my hips and press harder against her.
“It’s been too damn long since I’ve tasted you, Silver. Are you gonna stay quiet for me while I tongue fuck you until you come?”
“Ye-es. I mean, yes.” She clears her throat. “Are you sure you—”
“Don’t insult me by questioning my ability to make you come, sweetheart. I’m good as new.”
“Not here, though,” she squeaks. “We make food here, Ro!”
“We’ll wipe it down after,” I assure her, tugging her forward so I can drop to my knees and bury my face between her legs with a helpless groan.
“Your smell, Silver. You always smell so fucking good.”
It’s not the perfect height, but it’ll do. I pull up the oversized t-shirt she’s wearing and let out another moan.
“Not wearing underwear, Silver? How naughty. And here I thought you were worried about hygiene.”
“I didn’t have my bare ass on the counter before,” she mumbles, clutching the countertop on either side of her.
Pushing her legs further apart to make room for my bulky shoulders, I then moan directly against her pussy as I get my first taste of her in forever. She’s already wet for me and I lap at her clit and then bury myself there and begin to devour her. I’m a man starved and I need to eat.
“Oh, oh fuck,” she moans.
How can someone’s pussy taste so much like my favorite dessert? I could live here, live off her pussy if I could.
“Sweetheart, you taste even better than I remember,” I mumble against her flesh, causing her to shiver and clutch the counter harder until her fingers are blanched white.
I push one finger into her slick pussy, fucking it into her as I massage her clit with my tongue.
The sound of her dripping pussy as I fuck her with my fingers is obscene and makes my cock like an iron rod, threatening to punch its way out of my pants. She gets wetter and impossibly wetter as I continue to fuck her and then suck on her clit.
She grips my hair with one tight fist and I almost come there and then. There’s something about Silver pulling on my hair that drives me fucking wild and makes me close to coming in my pants without warning.
If she was to pull my hair and call me a good boy at the same time, I think I’d lose my fucking mind.
“You look so fucking hot like this, splayed out on the counter, about to come all over my tongue,” I mumble.
“Don’t stop, Roscoe. Feels... so... good.”
I twist my hand slightly, angling my fingers and sucking on her clit as she pulses around me, her legs twitching wildly as she lets out a soundless scream. Her legs clench around my head and she tugs my hair again.
I can barely breathe, but I don’t care. I’ll suffocate right here and die a happy man.
“Holy. Shit,” she pants. “You’re too damn good at that.” She smooths my hair back and tugs me up for a kiss. I press my cock against her soaking pussy and she murmurs in my ear, licking at the shell.
“Such a good boy, Roscoe. I love you so damn much.”
And that’s the point I lose it. My hips jerk uncontrollably as my balls tighten and I come my fucking brains out, black spots forming in my vision.
Fuck.
I just came hard, without my cock ever getting close to being inside her.
“I love you too, you dangerous woman.”