Gray barely contained the tenderness in his heart. Instead of putting his arm around Shadow and pulling him in, he paid the waitress, who thankfully chose this moment to approach them with their beers. Her presence gave him a few precious moments to rethink what he was going to say.
“No… it’s not bad, unless it’s unpleasant for you.”
“Being stuck in a basement without seeing your face for what feels like forever is unpleasant. Not being able to come without you just means I can never lose you.”
Gray swallowed the tightness in his throat and held himself back from squeezing Shadow’s knee. With his eyes once again pinned to the flesh on show, he sipped the watered-down beer, frantically thinking of things he should say. Shadow’s absolute dependence on him was a sad thing, and he felt like the worst person alive for kind of enjoying the notion that this man would never leave, never get bored of him.
“I promise there will be many opportunities for you to come from now on. But I don’t think you should tell this to anyone.”
Shadow blinked. “Why not?”
Once again, Shadow’s innocence slapped Gray in the face. No matter how physically strong Shadow was, he was Gray’s to protect. Unaffected by theories on how men should and shouldn’t be, Shadow could unwittingly provide bullets to those willing to harm him.
“Because they might laugh at you.”
“Why?”
Gray sighed, keeping his hands away from his lover with pure willpower. “Because men are precious about their erections. And it’s not like anyone needs to know what we do in private.”
A toothy grin erupted on Shadow’s face. “We can do many private things now. I love you so much,” he whispered, but Gray noticed Shadow’s hand hovering all too close to him, so it was time to cut the cotton candy sweet moment and implement stage two of their plan.
“I’d rather go home soon than spend the night here. How about we do the work now? I’ll take care of your body.”
Shadow nodded, but he must have been thinking about a different kind of ‘taking care’ because for a while he just sat there until Gray raised his eyebrows expectantly.
“Ah, yes. The plan.”
Shadow crossed his forearms on the counter around the stage and laid his head on them so that it would look like he was taking a brief nap.
In the pink glow that filled in the club, he barely spotted the darkness gliding down the side of the podium and into the shadows below his feet. He was speechless when something warm briefly slid under his jeans and tickled his calf, but the discreet touch was gone before he would have been forced to react.
He took a deep breath and smiled at the dancer, who now stopped between the two poles and faced away from him, rolling her hips in a way that he’d never considered seductive but which was clearly meant to be that way. Gray was a master of stealth, surprise attacks and stalking his prey. Acting had never been his strong suit.
He briefly glanced at the lifeless body next to him, trying to stay relaxed and not let his eyes wander too much. Despite Shadow technically sitting right next to him, Gray was already getting goosebumps over his cooling skin. They were on their own in someone else’s territory, and being left behind while Shadow went off into the unknown was making Gray more nervous than he imagined it would.
Shadow’s job was simple reconnaissance, but just minutes into their parting Gray’s imagination started whispering about potential dangers. About demonic traps, nets set up to catch shadows, or innocent UV lights hurting Shadow and blowing his cover.
Fuck. What if Shadow really was sensitive not to sunlight itself but to the waves it carried? What if he needed help somewhere out there and couldn’t call on Gray?
Despite sweat rapidly beading on his back, he watched out for the tar-black color of Shadow’s true form, but it was no use—in the dim light even he couldn’t spot his lover. If he was still in the room.
Acutely aware of the lifeless body at his side, he remained vigilant in case it became unstable and started rolling to the floor.
“Mike? Oh. My. God.”
Gray wasn’t sure if it was his brother’s name spoken in this alien place, the female voice coming from right behind him, of the scratch of long nails against his shoulder, but all the nerve endings in his body froze.
He made himself turn and face a pretty woman with long black braids, who stared at him as if she’d seen a ghost.
He had not expected any of this here, far from home, in one of the seediest places he’d been to in a while. Why now?
“I—who?” he uttered, quickly turning his attention to the dancing woman, because his body was already boiling over.