Rare Vigilance (Whitethorn Agency)

Cristian pulled away from his forearm. He licked his lips and tilted his head back so he could watch Atlas. “How was that?”

“Was that another memory?” he asked, still dazed from how real it had felt.

“One of them. Thought you might like something calm.” Cristian’s eyes were dark and fond. “That’s what the bond is supposed to be like.”

Ioana was right. This wasn’t like the attack, wasn’t lik

e that fucked up moment at Hahn Lake. He’d never felt anything this powerful. He wasn’t just seeing Cristian’s past...he was diving into it headfirst, immersing himself in it so fully it took time to pull himself back to reality. It was the ultimate escape. No wonder vampires had donors falling at their feet.

Though it seemed he wasn’t the only one affected by their shared intimacy. Atlas slid his fingers along the edge of the cotton towel wrapped at Cristian’s waist that did nothing to hide his erection. Cristian hissed with want when Atlas squeezed him gently through the fabric.

“Please, Atlas,” Cristian groaned.

The towel fell to the ground a half second later, revealing Cristian’s uncut cock. It jutted up from coarse, dark hair, the glans partially exposed. A bead of precome glistened at the tip and Atlas wanted to lean down and lick it away. But that could come later, when they had more time. For now, he wrapped his hand around the length and gave an experimental stroke, enjoying the easy glide of foreskin over the shaft.

Cristian’s abs flexed, his hips pushed, and he whimpered as he bit down on his lip. The tips of his fangs poked into the flesh there, drawing twin pinpricks of dark blood. Fascinated by his sensitivity, Atlas stroked again, trailing his free hand up Cristian’s ribs, careful to avoid the nearly closed injuries.

“You too,” Cristian panted, reaching to try to free Atlas from his jeans.

He smiled and pushed Cristian’s hand away. The memory shared from the feeding, along with the soft impressions of the scene, had faded, but the sense of peace and awe lingered and bled into the current moment. Cristian’s temple was damp from the shower and Atlas nuzzled closer, mesmerized by how different his shampoo smelled when it was on Cristian’s hair, how the sublime shone through the mundane.

Every touch, every whimpered sound Cristian offered him burned into Atlas’s memory, and he groaned when he realized Cristian might hold on to this moment in all its imperfect glory too. He might someday offer it back during a feeding. That nearly undid Atlas.

He wanted to claim a place in Cristian’s life. He wanted to bring Cristian pleasure, bury it so deeply into this moment that anyone who brushed against the memory in the future would be as lost as Atlas was now.

He adjusted his grip and stroked down again, harder and faster this time. Cristian keened, the sound cut off when Atlas claimed his mouth in a bruising kiss. He parted their lips just enough to murmur, “Want you to come.”

“Then don’t stop,” Cristian begged.

It was an order he obeyed happily, focusing on Cristian until nothing else existed, until he made Cristian spill with a grunt of surprise. Come spattered his abs and Atlas’s hand.

Atlas took a moment to admire the sight, the proof of the pleasure he could coax from Cristian’s body. Maybe next time he could spread him out on an actual bed, take the time to learn what else he liked.

Next time?

“Fuck,” Cristian breathed, his face pressed into the crook of Atlas’s neck. “You’re too damn good at that.”

Atlas gave himself a mental shake. There wouldn’t be a next time. This wasn’t anything more than a one-off stress reliever. Neither of them could afford it becoming something more.

“Learned how to get off fast when I was enlisted,” Atlas said gruffly. He should have moved away, but his selfishness won out. He let Cristian stay there against him as he turned on the sink. If the other man noticed how his hand shook as he wiped them clean with a warm washcloth, he chose not to mention it.

Once he felt a bit more controlled, he eyed the bandage left askew on Cristian’s shoulder. The wound underneath had closed up the rest of the way and was now covered with a thin, nearly translucent layer of fresh, pink skin.

“Almost healed,” Atlas informed Cristian and put the bandage back to rights. “Be careful so you don’t reopen it, but you should be able to travel without trouble.”

“Travel... Damn it. Is my phone still out in the other room?”

“I think so?”

Cristian huffed and stepped away to pull on his borrowed clothes. His movements were just shy of their normal state of grace, and Atlas guessed he’d be fully recovered soon. “I need to see if our guest has arrived yet.”

“Right,” Atlas agreed. He slid on his hoodie and zipped it up to cover his scars again. “We should pack our bags.”

By the time he rejoined Cristian in the living room, the man was sitting cross-legged on the floor near one of the bookshelves. His phone sat beside him on the carpet, but he was more focused on flipping through one of the photo albums Bea had put together years ago. Atlas had never been brave enough to crack it open.

“No messages,” Cristian told him.

“Anything interesting in there?” Atlas asked, setting some clothes and toiletries on the piles they needed to finish going through.