Lover Reborn

Crisco? Spackle?

As nothing came to him, he began to worry that his Food Network channel was not only incompetent, but wasn’t going to do shit for his dumb handle.

He gave it another shot. And could only remember how to open the goddamn bag of chips.

Stalled, stiff at the hips, and despaired, he closed his eyes… and thought of his Wellsie, naked and in their bed. Of how she tasted and felt, of all the ways they’d been together, of all the days spent interlocked and panting.

Gripping himself, he pinned the pictures of his mate to the forefront of his mind, plastering them over anything that had to do with No’One. He didn’t want that other female in this space; he might have to take care of business, which he didn’t want to do, but he could damn well set boundaries.

He sure as hell couldn’t pick his fate, but his fantasies were totally up for grabs.

Stroking his shaft, he tried to remember everything about his red-haired beauty: the way her hair had looked across his chest, the gleam of her bare sex, how her breasts had peaked when she was on her back.

It was just part of a history book, though, and the illustrations had faded—as if his mind had lifted the ink from the pages.

His concentration lost, he popped open his lids and got a hi-how’re-ya of his hand wrapped around that stupid-ass arousal, trying to pump off something, anything.

It was like milking a Coke machine—getting him nowhere. Well, except for a vague sting where the skin got pinched at the head.

“Goddamn it.”

Dropping the whole bad idea, he got busy with the soap, running the bar over his chest and under his armpits.

“Sire?” Fritz called out from the other room. “Would you require aught else?”

He was not asking the doggen for porn. That was blech on so many levels. “Ah, no, thanks, my man.”

“Very good. Have a blessed sleep.”

Yeah. Right. “You, too.”

After the outside door was shut again, Tohr shampooed his head like he supposed all males did: Squeeze out a crapload, rub it into your hair like you were trying to get a stain out of a carpet, and then stand under the spray forever because you’d used too much of whatever Fritz had bought you.

Later, he would decide it would have been best to keep his eyes open.

As soon as he shut his lids to keep the suds out, the warm rush down his torso turned into hands, and the urge to orgasm came back even stronger than before, his cock throbbing, his balls getting tight—

Instantly, he was downstairs in the pantry again, his mouth locked on No’One’s smooth throat, his suction and swallowing filling his belly, his arms squeezing her hard against his body.…

Your shellan is welcome here.

He shook his head at the sound of her voice in his inner ear. But then he realized that was the answer.

Regripping himself, he told his brain that the images were of his Wellsie. That the feeling, the sensation, the scent, the taste… it was his Wellsie, not another female.

It was not a memory.

It was his mate back to him—

The release was so sudden, he actually recoiled, his eyes going wide, his body jerking not from the orgasm but the surprise that, yes, in fact, he was actually having one in RL, not in some dreamscape.

As he stroked himself and rode the crest, he watched himself come, his sex doing what it was supposed to, kicking out jets that hit the wet marble wall and the glass pane of the door.

The sight was less erotic than biological.

It was just a function, he realized. Like breathing and eating. Yeah, it felt good, but so did a deep breath: in this vacuum of emotion, in this lonely shower, it was really just a series of ejaculations that coughed through his prostate.

Feelings gave sex meaning, whether it was in a fantasy or with your mate… or if you were with someone you didn’t like all that much, for that matter.

Or didn’t want to want, an inner voice pointed out.

When his body was done, he feared it was just a round-one situation, because he was still every bit as erect as he had been when this had started. But at least he didn’t feel like he had cheated on his mate. In fact, he didn’t feel anything at all, and that was good.

Rinsing off, he got out, dried himself with a towel… and took the stretch of terry cloth with him into the bedroom.

He was pretty certain that after he ate, things were going to get messy when he lay down, and not from any kind of indigestion.

But it was… okay. As okay as he could ever get, he supposed.

The sex he’d had with his mate had been monumental, shattering, fireworks-making—transformative.

This shit was about as sexy as a head cold.

As long as he didn’t think of…

He stopped himself and cleared his throat, even though he wasn’t speaking out loud.

As long as he didn’t think of anyone else of the female persuasion, he was good.

TWENTY-FIVE

The following evening, Xcor stood in the recessed doorway of a brick building in the heart of downtown. Set back by nearly three feet, the space formed a coffin of sorts, providing him shadows to conceal himself with, as well as cover from stray bullets.

On his own, he was utterly and completely pissed off as he surveyed the area and kept an eye on the sleek black car he had followed.

Lifting his forearm, he checked his watch. Again. Where were his soldiers?

Splitting off from the group to follow Assail had brought him here, but before he had departed, he’d told the others to find him after they had finished their first round of fighting—a locating task that shouldn’t have been difficult. All they had to do was rooftop-to-rooftop surveillance in the part of the city where drug dealing was at its most prevalent.

Not hard a’tall.

And yet here he was, alone.

Assail was still inside the building opposite, likely consorting with more of the ilk that he had killed the night before. The place of business he’d entered was ostensibly an art gallery, but Xcor was old-fashioned, not naive. All manner of goods and services could be contracted out of any sort of “legitimate” establishment.

It was nearly an hour later when the other vampire finally reemerged, and the light over the back exit caught his densely black hair and his predatorlike features. That low-slung car he ambulated in was parked off to the side, and as he walked around it, a pinkie ring of some sort flashed.

Moving as he did, dressed in black as he was, he looked… exactly like a vampire, actually. Dark, sensuous, dangerous.

Pausing at the car’s door, he put his hand inside his jacket to get his keys—

And turned around to face Xcor with a gun. “Do you honestly think I don’t know you’re watching me?”

That pronunciation was so old-world and so very thick, the accent turning the words into practically a foreign language—or what would have been one if Xcor wasn’t so intimately familiar with the original dialect.

Where were his fucking soldiers?

As Xcor stepped out, he had an autoloader of his own, and it was not without satisfaction that he watched the other male recoil slightly as recognition dawned.

“Did you expect a Brother, mayhap?” Xcor drawled.

Assail did not lower his muzzle. “My business is my own. You have no right to shadow me.”