Page 93

It was short, and yeah, he’d been laughing at Dane, but it still did something to Dane’s chest. It was just so lovely, that surprisingly light, happy sound.

His offense dissolved in an instant. He leaned infinitesimally closer.

“You like comics, right?” He’d seen Colin unpacking them when he’d moved in.

“That’s the standard? Everything over-the-top, exaggerated? ”

Colin turned back to his drawing. “You get it. Subtlety doesn’t work as well. Well, I guess it depends on the style you’re going for.”

Touch.

Dane tensed on the couch, shocked at the word reverberating in his head. He’d known vampires whose inner devil spoke to them regularly, but Dane’s had hardly ever. It had never needed to.

No , he replied in his head.

Want to touch the human.

Dane had a vision, as if planted there from some external source, of them reaching out, wrapping a hand around that slender neck, and pulling Colin back toward them. Delving into his mouth with their tongue. Tasting every bit of him.

It was tempting as hell. But…skittish cat, remember?

No. Dane repeated. We’re getting to know him. As if that was going to make any sense to his inner vampire urges. Dane tried again. If we get to know him, and he likes us, he might let us touch him a lot more, later on. Taste him everywhere.

His devil grumbled its displeasure, but it settled back down, sulking in the back of Dane’s mind.

Dane tried to settle as well, leaning back into the couch to create some distance between himself and temptation. He was watching the back of Colin’s head more than the movie now.

Eventually Colin spoke again. “When were you two turned?” he asked.

Dane hesitated. He was so used to keeping secrets from the humans around him that it felt weird to say it out loud. But what harm could it do? “In the sixties.”

“The sixties?” Colin whirled around to stare at him. “The nineteen sixties?”

Dane blinked at him. “Yeah, 1967. Why?”

Colin was looking him over, studying him like he’d never seen him before. “So you’re not even ancient. You’re just like…old men?”

What the fuck?

“I mean, we’ll be ancient one day.” Dane could hear the defensiveness in his own voice. But holy hell—first his vampire face wasn’t cool enough, and now he and Fox weren’t old enough to be impressive?

He cleared his throat, determined to change the subject. He couldn’t handle this critique of his vampireness without Fox to back him up. “Hey. Did you come down here because it was just me? Is it too much with the both of us?”

Dane didn’t really want to ask. What would Colin’s answer do, other than illustrate the obvious?

Who wanted to be hounded by the two of them, especially someone like Colin, who wasn’t clear on his own sexuality in the first place?

But it would be better to know now than find out later, after they’d gotten…

attached. Dane couldn’t touch this human—couldn’t hold him, couldn’t taste him—if Colin didn’t want the both of them. If he didn’t want Fox.

For better or for worse, it was just how he and his brother worked. They came as a package. A fucked-up, bloodsucking package.

Colin’s eyes softened, just a little, like somehow he knew it was a sensitive subject. “I came down here because I was ready to. I didn’t know it was just you until I was here.”

Relief coursed through Dane, unsettling in its intensity.

“Sometimes I need time to process stuff, without any external chatter,” Colin continued, cocking his head, as if to study Dane’s reaction to his words. “I needed a little more time than usual.”

“So you’re not planning to disappear for four days regularly?” Dane dared to tease.

“Nah. What would be the point of living here if I was just gonna hide away? I have all sorts of questions.”

“You can ask all the questions you want.” You can have anything you want were the words that wanted to come out of Dane’s mouth. He bit them back.

Colin’s lips twitched, and then he was turning back to his drawing, charcoal in hand. “I’ll wait for Fox to come back. Two perspectives are better than one.”

“Our perspectives are pretty similar.”

“Yeah. You guys are close as hell, huh?”

Dane’s muscles tensed. “Is that a problem?”

Colin turned toward him again, eyebrows raised, his piercing glinting in the light. “Why the fuck would that be a problem?”

Because someone always seemed to want to make it one. Because they were freaks, even among the paranormal. Because people loved to belittle what they didn’t understand.

“No reason,” Dane muttered, turning his attention pointedly back to the movie.

They watched in silence for a while, but eventually Dane caught the telltale signs of fatigue: the dropped charcoal, the drooping head. “Hey.” He nudged Colin gently with his foot. “You wanna go to sleep?”

Colin jerked upright, as if he hadn’t realized he was slouching down to practically lie on top of the coffee table. He shook his head dazedly. “I want to, but I’ll just end up lying in bed, awake.”

Their little insomniac.

Dane patted the couch. “You can come up here. Lie down.”

Colin cocked his head skeptically. “There’s not enough room.” His nose scrunched adorably, his expressions less guarded in his fatigue. “You’re too massive.”

He wasn’t even. And the couch was huge. But it was the rare softness in his sleepy face that had Dane daring to offer, “There’s room if you put your head on my lap.”

Colin stared. Oh fuck, Dane had scared the cat off, hadn’t he? Too eager by far.

But eventually Colin nodded, straightening off the floor and brushing his blackened fingers off against his shorts.

Dane barely dared to breathe.

Colin slid onto the couch and stretched out on his side, facing the TV, placing his head on Dane’s thigh.

Holy fuck.

Dane didn’t know where to put his hands. After a not insignificant amount of deliberation, he set one on the armrest and one on Colin’s head, finally petting the mussed hair he’d been eyeing for the past hour. It was surprisingly soft, given the amount of hair dye the guy must use.

Colin tensed against him with the first touch. Dane braced himself—he was going to get slapped, wasn’t he? But within thirty seconds, the human’s muscles had relaxed again. “That’s nice,” he mumbled, voice thick with approaching sleep.

Dane was grateful Colin couldn’t see his face, the stupid grin he knew he’d find there if he could. “Yeah?” he breathed.

“Yeah.”

Dane kept his hand where it was.