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Luc’s lips quirked, and he gave Jamie’s hair a little tug, as if he knew Jamie’s intentions with his line of questioning. “Cinnamon first. Sharp and bright. But then underneath”—he lifted the peach again, turning it in his hand—“a certain…sweetness.”

The peach fixation was making sense now.

“So you’re trying to get me to taste myself?” Jamie asked, more than a little delighted. “How kinky of you. But I can think of a few other, more, um…orgasmy ways we could manage that.”

Luc scowled at him, although Jamie could feel his vampire’s cock twitching in interest underneath him. “If you don’t want it…”

It was adorable how irritated he was by Jamie’s reluctance. He decided he’d teased his vampire enough, swinging his body around in one smooth motion until he was straddling Luc’s thighs and facing him head-on. “I’ll eat it if you feed it to me,” he offered.

Luc’s black eyes lit up, and a little rumbly purr left his chest. He brought the peach forward to Jamie’s mouth, and Jamie leaned forward to take his first taste, deciding if he was going in, he was going all in.

No delicate nibbles for him. Jamie took the largest bite he could manage—locking eyes with his vampire the whole time—and hummed in surprise at the burst of flavor on his tongue.

Oh . That was actually pretty nice.

Luc was right. The peach was perfectly ripe.

Luc was watching him chew with intense fascination, his heated focus fascinating Jamie in turn. What was it exactly that Luc got out of this?

He was so distracted by the rapt attention Luc was paying his every move that it took Jamie a second to register the juice dripping down his chin. He lifted his hand to brush it off, but Luc’s mouth got there first.

Jamie sighed in pleasure as his vampire licked along the trail of juice before sucking a multitude of kisses along his jawline, up to his lips. “Your monster okay with peach juice?”

“If it’s on your skin, my monster is okay with just about anything,” Luc murmured, pressing another kiss to the corner of Jamie’s mouth.

Jamie breathed a laugh, but it was cut off as Luc captured his lips more firmly, his tongue sweeping into Jamie’s mouth, licking out the taste of peaches and taking it for his own.

He loved the way Luc kissed him. Like he was devouring him.

Jamie squirmed in delight as Luc’s fingers dug into his ass, drawing him in until their clothed cocks were rubbing against each other.

“I want to be inside you,” Luc said, his voice huskier than before.

Jamie was 100 percent on board with that plan. “Wanna carry me to my room again?”

Luc squeezed his ass with strong hands, grinding Jamie’s hips down repeatedly on his hard length. “No, flower. I want you here. Now.”

Jamie tried to think through the lustful fog invading his brain. “M-Monique.” She wasn’t there at the moment, but Jamie had no idea when she would be returning, and he didn’t think she’d appreciate coming home to his boyfriend bending him over the kitchen table.

Luc paused his manhandling, cocking his head in consideration. “Mm. It will be much better when we live on our own. No distractions, no interruptions.”

Jamie couldn’t help it. His muscles tensed. Luc, predator that he was, noticed the change immediately, his own muscles stiffening. “You don’t like that, flower?”

“I do,” Jamie reassured him, petting a placating hand along Luc’s chest. “Very much. It’s just…”

He thought back on his conversation with Monique. The people in his life. The cost of leaving. The past five years with one foot out the door.

Luc used his grip on Jamie to push him back along his thighs, creating just the tiniest bit of distance, enough that their eyes could meet more easily. “What weighs on your mind, flower? You were…pensive…when I returned.”

And here Jamie had thought Luc was so focused on Mission: Jamie Eats a Peach he hadn’t noticed. Jamie toyed with the buttons on Luc’s shirt, trying to sort through the muddle of his feelings and put them into words.

“It’s just— My dad left my mom when she was pregnant with Izzy.

” Jamie paused to appreciate the gorgeous scowl on Luc’s face at the mention of his father.

Was it wrong of him to love how much his vampire clearly hated his dad?

“She and Eric got together pretty quickly afterward though. I guess he’d had a thing for her for a long time and didn’t want to waste his chance.

They were both social workers, knew each other from the same circles.

He didn’t seem to mind the ready-made family either. ”

Because, unlike Jamie’s dad, Eric wasn’t a self-centered asshole. He’d walked into their lives with space in his heart for all of them, treating Jamie’s mother like a queen. As he fucking should.

Nonetheless…

Jamie undid button after button on Luc’s shirt only to resecure them right after. The fiddling was soothing him, and Luc didn’t seem to mind it, holding himself still under Jamie’s ministrations, all his concentration on Jamie’s words.

After a minute, Jamie cleared his throat and continued.

“But— Well— It was easier for him to bond with a newborn baby, I think. I was already eleven, a fully formed person, and um…different. He was nice about it, but I still think it freaked him out a little. I was young enough that I’d forget what I was supposed to know about him or not. ”

The first time Jamie had done it—had told Eric about a promotion he was getting before it happened—Eric had brought it up at the dinner table, clearly bemused by the whole situation.

He’d asked Jamie where he had come up with it.

Jamie had frozen at the table, looking to his mom for comfort because that usually would have been when his dad would have started yelling at him, telling Jamie he was freaking everyone out, saying the weird things he did.

Jamie’s mom had brushed past it, refocused the conversation, then pulled Eric aside after dinner. Jamie never knew what she told him exactly, but he’d never asked about Jamie knowing things again.

But that was neither here nor there.

Jamie tried to make his way to some sort of point.

“My mom’s family is still mostly in Mexico, and my dad’s family was never really part of the picture, so I just felt—I dunno, I felt like a leftover sometimes.

Like I didn’t belong anywhere in particular.

I knew I was loved. But…” His fingers paused over Luc’s top button, and he lifted his eyes to meet the vampire’s black gaze.

“When I saw you for the first time, I had this sense of rightness. I could see where I belonged. By your side. And maybe that’s unhealthy, and maybe it’s stupid.

But I don’t care. I want it. I want you . I always have.”

Luc’s hands moved from his hips to cover Jamie’s hands over his chest, pressing them against his heart. “Yes,” Luc rasped. “ Yes. ”

Jamie bit at his lip, unsure of what the response to his next statement would be. “But…can I have both? I don’t want to lose all this. My family. My friends. You. I want it all. Is that too greedy?”

He waited for disappointment. Anger, even.

But Luc only smiled at him, tender and sincere, his fangs glinting in the kitchen light, and rubbed Jamie’s nose with his own.

“You can have it all, Jamie. Whatever you want, I’ll find a way to make it happen.

I won’t hold you back. If— If you stay human, if that’s the path you choose, I won’t leave you.

I’ll be here, always. Our souls are bound, whether the mate bond is ever solidified or not. We’ll stay here however long you like.”

Jamie sagged with relief, resting his weight into the solid comfort of Luc’s chest.

What a nice promise. What a nice monster.

It wasn’t that Jamie didn’t want to turn, but he wanted a little more time to grapple with the consequences. And he didn’t want Luc to feel rejected by his hesitation. “So good to me, aren’t you, monster?”

Luc started petting his hair, murmuring French words Jamie didn’t understand but liked the sound of. Jamie felt like for once maybe he’d be the one to start purring.

“Isn’t this a pretty picture?”

Jamie only had a second to register the new, unfamiliar voice before a fierce growl rang out, and he found himself somehow standing, swaying slightly on his feet, pushed behind Luc’s broad back by a strong, protective arm.

“Sickeningly sweet,” a second voice, weirdly similar to the first, agreed.

Who the fuck was in his house?

Jamie poked his head out from behind Luc to see, ignoring the warning growl from his vampire.

Oh. Huh.

He knew those faces.

The twins from his vision.