Part 5 (1/2)
”Did you believe it?”
He captured Slake's fingers with his, letting himself play with them as he spoke. The intimacy in such a small thing was stunning, warming him even more than Slake's body plastered against his back.
”I didn't have any reason not to,” he said. ”Plus, it was kind of cool. All the other kids thought I was a total bada.s.s.”
Slake s.h.i.+fted, losing the connection between them, and Raze experienced the strangest twinge of disappointment.
”When did the ball drop?” The mattress bounced as Slake rolled out of it. ”Because you know it did.”
”Oh yeah. It dropped.” Raze salivated at the sight of Slake's muscular a.s.s flexing as he disappeared into the bathroom. ”Seminus demons don't have any special powers or abilities until they go through the first of two maturation cycles. So everything was cool until I turned twenty and the first one hit.”
f.u.c.k, that had been crazy. He'd graduated from high school at sixteen, so he'd been in his fourth year of college, preparing for a career in medicine like his father, when he'd gotten sick. Real sick.
”My vision started blurring, and I was getting these splitting headaches. They got so bad that I couldn't go to any of my college cla.s.ses, so I went home. My dad ran a free clinic in Los Angeles, so I helped out until the sickness became so debilitating that I couldn't even walk. My mom used her Aegis background to research my symptoms, and she figured out that I was a s.e.x demon of some sort.”
Slake spoke over the rush of water in the sink. ”She knew you needed s.e.x.”
He snorted. ”Talk about awkward, huh?” He tucked his arm behind his head and gazed up at the ceiling, not giving a s.h.i.+t that he was naked and sprawled out on the bed. ”She was cool, though. She and some of her former Aegis buddies crashed a demon brothel and got a female for me. That female was Fayle.”
”And she's been with you ever since?”
”Yup.”
The water shut off. ”What happens if you go too long?”
”Fever. Agony. Death.”
”Well, that's not cool,” Slake called out. ”So where are your parents now?”
A heavy ache centered in Raze's chest, and it took a moment before he could choke out one simple, yet devastating word. ”Dead.”
Slake appeared in the doorway, his magnificent body still glistening with sweat. ”I'm sorry,” he said. ”What happened?”
Raze studied the ceiling again. It was pretty unremarkable as far as ceilings went. ”The apocalypse s.h.i.+t that went down a couple of years ago.”
”Aw, f.u.c.k.” Slake stepped out of the bathroom, and Raze figured he was heading for his clothes, so he was surprised as h.e.l.l when Slake stretched out next to him on the bed again. They weren't touching, but this was still the most private, most intimate moment he'd ever shared with anyone, including Fayle.
The knowledge left him off-balance, would probably have freaked him out if they hadn't been chin-deep in conversation about the worst period in Raze's life. He wasn't used to sharing, not because he was an overly private person, but because, besides Lexi, he'd really not had anyone to talk to. His life was work and s.e.x. s.e.x and work.
Keeping busy kept him from wis.h.i.+ng for things he couldn't have. Like a male partner.
Like Slake.
”They were killed during the upheaval. I tried to save them . . .” Raze trailed off, the memory of finding their remains, scattered all over their house, still too fresh to open that wound. He looked over at Slake, who was lying on his side, propped up by one elbow. ”What about you? Where's your family?”
Slake's dark eyes iced over. ”As far as I know, they're alive and kicking in their special little isolated compound in Sheoul.”
”I'm guessing there's a long story and some bad blood there?”
”You could say that.”
Yawning, Raze closed his eyes, content to bask in the afterglow of the s.e.x and the surprisingly . . . pleasant conversation. ”What do you do for a living, anyway?”
”I work for a law firm.”
Raze cracked his lids just enough to eyeball his bedmate. ”You're a lawyer?”
Slake barked out a laugh. ”h.e.l.l no. My species, Duosos, are weapons specialists. We make and control weapons no one else can, like my handy little sinispheres. I work for Dire & Dyre, using my skills however they need me to. Mainly because, like an idiot, I signed a contract decades ago that ties me to them until the end of next week.”
”What happens at the end of next week?”
”I'm a free agent.” There was a note of hesitation in his voice, but Raze didn't want to pry. Not into that, anyway. He was too curious about something else.
”So . . . when you say you're a free agent . . .” He trailed off, gave himself a heartbeat to get his head in the right place, the way he always did before making the first cut of a delicate operation. ”Does that apply to relations.h.i.+ps?”
Slake sucked in a harsh breath, and Raze immediately regretted the question. He wasn't sure why he'd even asked. It wasn't as if he was available, not when Fayle made being with anyone difficult.
”I'm not with anyone,” Slake said slowly, ”if that's what you mean.” He turned his head to stare at Raze. ”What about you? I mean, I know you've got this thing with Fayle, but have you ever tried being with a male without her?”
Raze sighed. ”Right after I went through the maturation phase I told you about, I tried to come with a guy. It didn't work.”
He'd hoped, had prayed to a hundred different deities he didn't even believe in, but right when his climax had been imminent, so hot it burned, pleasure had abruptly s.h.i.+fted to bone-searing agony. Fayle had been there to help, and she'd never let him forget it.
”But if you found the right guy, could you, I don't know, do a threesome kind of thing? Have you ever tried?”
Raze nearly laughed. Once, he'd been hopeful that somehow he and Fayle could work something out. That somewhere out there was a guy who could accept his arrangement with Fayle, and that she could accept Raze's desire for someone else.
He'd been such a fool.
”We've done the threesome thing a handful of times, but it was all casual. I've never found a male worth trying to break through her jealousy for a real relations.h.i.+p.” He glanced at Slake, wondering if maybe, just maybe, he could be the first. Yeah, it was way too soon to start thinking about the future, but d.a.m.n it, he'd never experienced this kind of intimacy with anyone, and while it wasn't like him to share all of this s.h.i.+t, it felt . . . right.
Slake scowled. ”How can she be jealous if she doesn't want you for more than s.e.x?”
”She says her species focuses on owners.h.i.+p.” He was surprised by the bitterness in his voice, but then, he was getting tired of playing her games. ”They're possessive of everything they consider theirs. They won't even give a friend a meal if they're starving. Sharing some things is punishable by death.”
”Why the h.e.l.l do you put up with it? Why don't you tell her to take a hike?”
”I've tried to leave her,” Raze admitted. ”I made it a month before I nearly died.” His body tightened as if it too remembered being in extraordinary pain and misery. ”Most of my kind are natural charmers. They love females and can talk one out of their panties in about ten seconds. But I'm not like that. I spent every waking second trying to figure out how I was going to get s.e.x when I needed it, and I hated f.u.c.king strange females. I hated myself, and the stress was killing me. I'd go too long between releases, and then I'd get violent and sick . . . until I took it too far one night and collapsed in a filthy alley behind a hound-hump.” He shuddered at the memory of waking up outside the werewolf brothel, his body burning with fever, his eyes bleeding, and Fayle sucking his c.o.c.k. Somehow, she'd found him and saved his life once again. ”My life with Fayle isn't ideal, but it's better than the alternative.”
”I guess I can see that.” Slake's expression was troubled. ”But she's keeping you from being happy.”
”Happy?” Raze snorted. ”I gave up wis.h.i.+ng for that a long time ago. I take what I can get.”
Something flickered in Slake's dark eyes. Sadness, maybe? ”That doesn't sound like any way to live.”
Raze looked up at the ceiling again. ”I've accepted my lot in life.”
Very slowly, Slake reached over and brushed his knuckle over Raze's personal glyph on his neck. A burst of electric pleasure exploded from the thin raised lines of the mark Raze had never been able to identify.
”Is that why your personal symbol is an ancient Lydian symbol for acceptance?”