Page 32 of The Vampire's Werewolf Bodyguard

Cody

Safety and comfort gradually pull Cody from sleep. He wakes human and naked, curled up on stone—except his cheek, which is pillowed on denim. Slim fingers stroke through his hair. Cody inhales, savoring Simon’s scent and touch.

Then he remembers everything.

Simon’s fingers fall away as Cody forces himself to sit. He aches, reflexes slow and mind groggy. The surrounding stone chamber is creepy. Prison-like. But everything smells reassuringly of Simon—who sits with his back to a coffin and pedestal.

Cody drinks in the sight of him. No apparent injuries. Simon has changed into a tank top, and his feet are bare, but he’s wearing the same jeans as earlier. So, Cody’s been asleep for a while, but not too long .

Simon’s face holds the calm that waits beyond panic’s far border. He leans forward slowly, as if Cody’s a skittish animal, and traces a cool line from temple to jaw. “Are you all right?”

Cody shudders through the rush of memories. The first whiff of poison. His teeth mere inches from Simon’s throat. Recognition. Control. The taste of blood, and the violence of flame.

And afterwards, quiet words Cody hardly dares believe.

“Are you all right?” Cody counters, his voice rough.

“I think I am, thanks to you.” Simon’s smile is weak. “Dima is… well, the threat on my life is gone.”

Shit. Cody tries pulling himself together. He has responsibilities to Simon and his job. “I need to call this in.”

Simon grabs his wrist before he can stand. “I called Tobias already and told him what happened. He remembered the enthrallment as soon as Dima died. I called the treaty council, too. A representative will be here tomorrow night to begin the inquiry.”

Cody’s gut wrenches. He still needs to call Tobias—as a friend, not an employee. But Tobias has Aditi and the rest of his family right now. Cody is needed here. He flips their grip, so he’s holding Simon’s hand. He wants to stroke away his lover’s miserable expression. “How do you think that will go? We can still abscond to a remote location to keep you out of trouble.”

Another weak smile brightens Simon’s gloom. “Tobias can corroborate that Dima enthralled him. That and Kimiko’s testimony about Lawrence should keep us out of hot water.”

“Good.” Cody feels insufficient. Words alone aren’t enough, but he has to try. “Simon, I know Dima meant a lot to you. Are you really okay? ”

Simon looks away, frozen. Then he softens. “I will be. I need time, and I have plenty of it. Tonight, I just want to think about us both being here.”

Cody’s heart flips. “I can work with that.”

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Simon says. “What happened when you shifted?”

The memory grates painfully. “That was some sort of poison. Dima blocked his scent, so I wouldn’t go after him. Simon, I’m so sorry, I couldn’t—”

“Obviously.” Simon rolls his eyes. The brattiness is reassuring. “He was trying to force a treaty crisis. Werewolf bodyguard kills vampire. The story writes itself.”

Guilt shudders through Cody. It was too close a call. “You have it all worked out. What don’t you understand?”

“Why didn’t it work?” Simon asks. “That wasn’t a normal shift. You were out of your mind. Why didn’t you kill me?”

The threat is gone. The job is over. It’s still too soon for an honest conversation, but Simon’s quiet patience pulls the words from Cody anyway. “I’ve had trouble controlling my wolf, ever since I got kicked out. But even drugged, I knew who you were.” Cody swallows. There’s no going back from this. “I knew what you were. Or at least, what I want you to be.”

Simon tilts his head. He’s entrancing as always, flimsy tank top hanging over death-white shoulders. “What is that?”

“My mate,” Cody says.

Simon’s eyes widen.

Cody can’t stop talking now that he’s started. “I knew you were mine. I couldn’t hurt you. I’ve never been able to take control like that, and I remember everything. No blank spots. No matter what you want to do next, thank you for that.”

Simon adjusts his posture, up onto his knees. A masklike expression hides his thoughts once more. “What do you mean, what I want to do next?”

Cody has to force the words out. His desire to do the right thing for Simon conflicts with his instinct to claim him. Simon spent centuries bonded to a monster. He can’t be eager to tie himself to someone new. “Neither of us expected this job to end how it did. I’ll understand if you never want to see me again. Even if you do… you agreed to let me take you out for a drink. We can just date like normal people.”

“Because we’re such normal people.” Simon leans forward, tank top dropping past his collar bones, one hand braced next to Cody’s thigh. His gaze is piercing. “You say it’s up to me, which means you’ve decided what you want already.”

Cody’s bare skin prickles with Simon’s nearness. He can’t resist covering Simon’s cold hand in his. With the jolt of touch, Cody isn’t afraid of his own honesty anymore.

Settling his wolf used to be his deepest desire, but it’s a side effect now. Cody wants to mind-speak with Simon while he’s shifted. He wants to always know where Simon is. He wants every other werewolf to smell that Simon belongs to him.

He never dreamed of immortality until it meant night after night, year after year, forever with his mate.

“I want you,” Cody says, and each word feels right. “For as long as you’ll have me. You’re the only pack I’ve ever wanted. I don’t expect you to say yes, with what happened to your brother. But if you ever ask, I want to claim you as mine.”

Cody’s heartbeat is the only sound in a breathless moment .

Then Simon lights up in a wicked smile. “Does tonight work for you?”

“Tonight?” Cody repeats, certain he’s misheard.

“Tonight.” Simon’s knee rests between Cody’s thighs, mere inches from his stirring cock. “I’ve spent over four centuries waiting for you.” Cool hands wind around Cody’s neck, and a slight weight rests on his thigh. “Why should I wait any longer?”

Each word heats Cody’s blood. He struggles for reason—but is it truly reasonable to resist? “I don’t want you to regret anything. I’m moving fast by anyone’s standards, normal or not, but especially from your perspective.”

Simon shrugs. Which is distracting, because one side of his tank top completely gives up on clinging to his shoulder. “A year is scarcely longer than a month. A decade is more substantial, but anything could happen. Even though you’d look very attractive at thirty-eight.” His cockiness wavers. “We can still wait, though. Immortality is a lot to process, and I don’t want to—”

“We’re not waiting on my account,” Cody growls, and yanks Simon closer. His blood rushes hotter with the flush on Simon’s porcelain face. He affects Simon just as deeply as Simon affects him. “I remember everything from my shift tonight. Including what you said.”

Simon’s gaze darts away. “You’re imagining things. You were deranged.”

A foolish grin splits Cody’s face. Simon’s denial means Cody remembers correctly. And that Simon meant it.

Weeks before, even days before, Cody might have balked at binding himself to a vampire. The mating bond is for life, which means something entirely different when immortality is involved.

Tonight, a hundred lifetimes with Simon don’t sound like enough.

“I’m sober now.” Cody gently turns Simon to face him. “I love you, too, you beautiful brat.”

Simon’s bashfulness melts into a smirk. “You have excellent taste, wolf. Does the mating bond involve fucking?”

Impossible heat grips Cody by the balls. “That can be arranged.”

Cody’s hands tighten on Simon’s waist, and Simon rocks down. Friction on his bare cock sparks a moan, quickly swallowed by Simon’s lips. Simon kisses ravenously, rough and wet. Cody drinks just as deeply, meeting the sharp edges of teeth in kind.

Something like magic swirls beneath his skin, a building storm, but it has nothing to do with the mating bond or the moon’s call. This is more primal than that. Instinctive, mundane need.

Cody grabs Simon by the hair. At the first tug, Simon melts, opening up to let Cody take control. Very much letting him. Simon’s choice of submission fuels Cody’s surging possessiveness. All his years of loneliness are worth it because they led him here.

Panting for breath, Cody breaks away to look at his vampire. Simon is still too poised, even with his hair mussed and his tank riding up his stomach. Cody needs to take him apart.

“Do you have lube down here?” Cody asks. Otherwise, he’ll need to run upstairs, and thankfully he has the whole supernatural speed thing, but —

“Dresser in the closet, top drawer,” Simon says, and leaps to his feet in a blur.

“Great.” Cody jumps up and steals one more kiss. “I want you naked by the time I’m back.”

“Don’t dally,” Simon murmurs, then shoves him towards the closet.

Cody moves faster than ever before.

This is his first time in Simon’s bedroom—sorry, coffin room—but he can look around later. The closet is the size of Cody’s apartment kitchen, but otherwise normal. A moment’s search turns up the lube.

He pauses involuntarily. There’s something surreal about holding a plastic bottle he could have bought at any drugstore. So modern and ordinary, when he’s on the verge of something life changing.

His neck throbs sweetly with the memory of Simon’s teeth. Cody’s about to bite Simon in return. To bind Simon to him, forever. Any sensible man would have doubts, but Cody has never been more certain. Simon belongs to him.

Cody has to pause again in the doorway, struck by the sight waiting for him.

Sitting on his coffin, Simon is more beautiful than ever. One foot props on the edge, exposing everything to Cody’s hungry eyes. His blue-green eyes are darker, his hair a tousled mess across his pale forehead. Arousal radiates, the heady scent as obvious as the pink, hard cock jutting from its nest of curls.

Cody feels huge and animalistic in comparison, but the contrast is deceptive. Beneath Simon’s pretty face is a ferocious strength. Simon threw him into a wall earlier tonight. Like it was easy.

Didn’t feel great at the time. But Cody wouldn’t mind a repeat under better circumstances.

“Took you long enough.” Simon traces a finger from collar bone to hip, down the topography of slim muscles and flesh, and grasps his cock. “How do you want me, mate?”

The single syllable jolts Cody from his reverie. Three quick strides place him between Simon’s cold thighs, and he seizes Simon by the chin. “Bent over your coffin,” Cody growls. “So I can claim your neck as I fuck you.”

“Delightful,” Simon says, pushing his throat into Cody’s grip. Then he shoves Cody away, making space to flip around.

The pedestal lifts the coffin not quite to waist height. When Simon bends over, his elbows rest on the dark wood. His back arches, and Cody moves as if magnetically pulled to the perfect, pale curves of Simon’s ass.

Cody kneads into the muscle, squeezing, spreading. His thumb dips inward to nudge Simon’s hole. At the touch, Simon tenses in palpable excitement. Cody pushes harder, his thumb huge against such a small pink furl, and a stronger tremor runs through Simon’s body. So cold, but so responsive. Cody’s the one sparking these reactions.

He’s desperate to spark even more. To leave his mark on Simon, inside and out.

“Need you,” Cody murmurs, fumbling with the bottle of lube.

“Of course you do,” Simon says, with well-deserved arrogance.

Cody’s fingers return dripping wet. He doesn’t wait to push the first in, savoring the slick feel. Crowding closer as Simon pushes back, Cody’s thighs press flush with Simon’s. He braces one hand on the coffin lid and valiantly ignores the friction of his cock against Simon’s ass. One more finger .

“Tell me when you’re ready,” Cody says, crooking downward, looking for—

“Now,” Simon demands, clenching in reaction. “I can take your stupidly huge cock, so get on with it.”

Cody’s fingers are already out. “Going to take that as a compliment,” he says, lining himself up.

Sliding in slowly takes every ounce of willpower. Simon can take him so well, but Cody needs to savor this moment. The way Simon’s body warms around him, gripping him tighter, dragging him in. Cody inhales their combined scents and exhales in ragged pleasure. He revels in the tense line of Simon’s neck, where the hair falls away.

Fully sheathed in his mate, Cody feels almost complete. He drops to his elbow to kiss the crest of Simon’s spine.

“You’re amazing,” Cody says, lips brushing cold skin. “I’m so damned lucky.”

Simon shivers. “You don’t have to try so hard to seduce me.”

Vulnerability lurks beneath the lightness. For all his age and experience, in some ways Simon has never gotten to grow past his frozen youth. He’s too accustomed to empty praise and broken promises.

That ends tonight.

“Amazing and easy,” Cody says, and starts to move. “Now I’m really lucky.”

Fucking his mate soon unravels any semblance of control. Cody isn’t a man holding his animal instincts on a leash. He’s simply himself. Tight, precise movements devolve into a roughness that Simon meets with every thrust. Like they aren’t separate beings anymore—except the perfect bond comes from their differences. Cody was born to fill Simon up with adoration.

He’s so close already. Anticipation coils in his balls, winding throughout his body. His vision blurs until all he sees is Simon. Thin hands splintering the edge of the coffin. Head bowed, baring the back of his neck. All Cody hears is Simon’s undead pulse quickening, almost a living pace.

Simon’s scent is gorgeous. Old blood, new blood, cold and clean, ashes and moonlight. Intoxicating. Cody’s jaw aches as his teeth grow in. No more fighting his wolf. Cody curls over Simon, down on one elbow, barely holding himself up. His clawed fingers gently wind through Simon’s hair.

“Last chance to back out,” Cody says, unafraid of his instincts. He needs Simon to want this.

“That should be my line.” Simon leans into Cody’s grasp, stretching his neck in invitation. “Yes, Cody, please.”

Cody’s teeth sink in easily, where Simon’s left shoulder meets his neck. Two voices rise in a shared moan of pleasure.

“Yes,” Simon breathes again, and Cody’s jaws tighten in response. Simon’s rich, dark blood fills his mouth.

Eyes closed, shrouded in darkness but far from lost, Cody calls on his wolf. This is a transformation, too—of the spirit instead of the body. A sliver of moonlight dances between Cody and Simon, lacing them together.

A ribbon of red shadow follows, twisting ever tighter. The power of Simon’s blood, granting its own gifts. Strength. Immortality. None of them as precious as the smallest hair on Simon’s head .

When the bond settles, Cody will have everything he ever dreamed of. A pack to take refuge with. A mate to protect.

Most importantly, he’ll have Simon, who’s better than any dream. And he’ll have him forever.