Now Comes the Night (13 page)

“Yeah, I thought that was you.” The boy’s tone matched his walk. Cocky. Confident. Sure of himself. “I got thrown at first ’cause you look so much younger than I remembered.”

“Do I?” Damian frowned. “How very odd.” Relief mingled with confusion. It wasn’t often that he found himself at such a disadvantage. He studied the young man as he sauntered closer, seemingly unmindful of the rain that had begun to fall a little more earnestly now. Within a handful of seconds they were face to face once more, with barely a foot between them. The boy continued to smile at Damian as though they were old friends and Damian still could not place him. Perhaps he could trick the young man into giving him a hint? “And here I was, thinking that you look very much the same as you did the last time I saw you.”

“What?” The young man’s eyes widened in an expression of surprised dismay. “Oh, God, no. Fuck, don’t say that! I mean, it’s been a few years. I must’ve changed a little, right?”

“Mmm. I suppose it’s possible. Refresh my memory. How long has it been?”

“I dunno. Five or six years, isn’t it? Or, you know, maybe a little more.”

“How much more?”

“I dunno. Eight? Or, you know, something like that.”

“Ah. I see. Well, what I meant was you hadn’t changed since I last saw you in the bar a few minutes ago,” Damian lied, busily trying to calculate where he’d been and who he’d been doing it with five or six—or eight—years ago. “It was a joke.”

“Oh.” For an instant, a confused frown creased the young man’s forehead, then his eyes narrowed. “Wait. No, it wasn’t. You’re just saying that. You really don’t remember me at all. Do you?”

But, all at once, Damian did and he couldn’t help but smile at the irony. “Quite the contrary.” Maybe it was due to the rain having darkened the other man’s hair to a shade closer to its natural color. Maybe it was the slightly crestfallen look he now wore. Replacing his earlier cocky self-assurance, his current expression gave him the appearance of a much younger, much less confident man. Or maybe it was nothing so mysterious. Perhaps it was due to nothing more than the fact that Damian finally had a timeframe in which to place the boy. “As it happens, I remember you very well, Paul.”

“Well, all right then.” Triumph gleamed in Paul’s blue eyes as he returned Damian’s smile and moved a half-step closer. “I told you we’d see each other again, didn’t I?”

“
Sí
,
Pablito
. I believe you did.”

“Ohhh.” A low moan broke from Paul’s lips. For a moment it seemed as though his knees were about to give out. “
Sí,
” he repeated the word in throaty tones. “Oh, God, yes. I’d almost forgotten how sexy you sound when you start speaking Spanish.”

Damian chuckled. “What is it about you Americans that you find all foreign tongues so alluring?”

Paul shook his head. His eyes were dark with heat, his gaze focused on Damian’s mouth. “No. Not all tongues. Just yours.”

Damian stood his ground—though it took more of an effort than he would have expected not to back up. He was shocked to find that his breathing had grown just the slightest bit unsteady. Paul’s words and the look in his eyes were stirring up a surprising surge of heat.
Sí
.
Sí
.
Look at me like that. Look at me just like that.
It had been so long, so
very
long since anyone had.

Damian couldn’t stop himself from remembering how delicious this man had tasted, couldn’t stop himself from wanting to taste him again. And not just his blood, either, but his mouth, his lips, his tongue…

Oh, this was
not
good. For a moment, Damian revisited his earlier assumption that Paul was a lesser evil. Perhaps he’d been wrong about that too. There was no hiding the fact that Paul retained far too clear a memory of their time together. The death of a single, stray vampire—even had it been one of Conrad’s favorites—while lamentable, to be sure, would still have been much easier to explain away than this evidence that Damian had disobeyed a direct order. “So you’re living here now, are you, Paul?” What were the odds?

Paul nodded. “Yeah. You?”

“I’m not yet certain.” Damian sighed. They’d barely gotten settled in their new home—a home he loved and had pushed Conrad into purchasing because it reminded him so much of Conrad’s primary residence in San Francisco. It had been foolish to hope that the similarity in the two structures would be enough to prompt Conrad into taking Damian back to California with him when their stay here was ended but, apparently, foolish hopes were the only ones Damian had left. He couldn’t very well insist on their relocating again already without giving up on that hope, without claiming to have made a critical error in choosing this town in the first place. Or without sufficient groveling. He was really going to hate that.

On the other hand, what choice did he have? This was far too small a town to hope he could avoid running into Paul again and again…and it didn’t seem likely the boy had grown any less stubbornly persistent with the passing of a few years. “You really haven’t changed very much at all, have you? Other than the hair and the makeup and the clothes…” Nothing that would distract Conrad from the truth for very long. Nothing that would suggest to Damian that he was facing anything other than an unmitigated disaster.

Paul bit his lip and smiled flirtatiously. “Oh, now, that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve actually changed quite a lot. We could talk about how much, but don’t you think it’d be better if I showed you?”

“I don’t think that will be necessary.” Damian cast a quick glance up and down the block, relieved to see it was still deserted. Good. A quick bite, a double shot of venom, and at least Paul would remember nothing of
tonight’s
encounter. It was a shame he’d have to leave the boy lying unconscious out here in the rain, but better that than any of the alternatives he could think of.

Paul’s smile dimmed. “Oh, c’mon. Don’t be like that. At least come back to the bar with me and let me buy you a drink.”

“Like this?” Damian shook his head. “I doubt the bartender would appreciate our dripping water all over the place.”

“What?” Paul blinked in surprise then glanced up at the sky, as if he only now had noticed it was raining. “Oh.” When his gaze again met Damian’s his eyes were stormy with heat. The look within them was twice as determined as before. “You’re right. So maybe what you should do is come back to my apartment with me instead. That way, we can both get out of these wet clothes while we get…reacquainted.” He glided another step closer as he spoke. This time, Damian took a step back in response, the action so instinctive, so automatic, that he didn’t even notice until his back made contact with one of the wrought iron fences that edged the sidewalk. “Please?”

Damian’s head reeled when he realized what he’d done. He’d given up his advantage. He’d backed down. And to a human! The shock sent a thrill of desire rocketing through him. Heat flared, low and deep, and his cock hardened. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt this way. He only knew it had been entirely too long.

Paul edged even closer, caging him in. His erection nudged Damian’s, bringing another surprising blast of heat. Satisfaction blazed in Paul’s eyes. His cocky smile returned. “Is that a yes I’m feeling?”

Damian considered the matter. “Perhaps it is,” he replied, after regaining a little of his common sense. Or so he told himself. “I’m sure we’d both find your apartment much more comfortable.” Why not take the boy up on his offer? Damian could hardly find himself in any
more
trouble with Conrad than he was in already. And, afterwards, he could wipe Paul’s mind just as easily in his apartment as he could here. More easily, probably.

Chapter Seven

By the time they’d arrived at their destination Paul’s mind was just about the last part of him in which Damian was interested. The minute the apartment door closed behind them, they came together in a clash of hot mouths and groping hands—and stumbling footsteps that ended with Damian’s back connecting with the door. Paul pressed closer. Damian made no effort to resist. All those lovely hard muscles, aligning so perfectly with his own, was just what he had been imagining ever since he’d first laid eyes on Paul in the bar tonight. They were just what he wanted to feel right now. What he needed to feel. It really had been
much
too long. If Conrad would only…

But no, Damian would not allow himself to think about that tonight. With Paul’s lips hard and insistent on his, devouring his mouth with one bruising kiss after another, it was easy not to think too much. Damian tasted tequila, some sort of fruit juice and Paul himself. It was an intoxicating combination.

Here was another way in which young Paul had not changed with the passing of a few years. Damian remembered the boy’s enthusiasm very well and he was enjoying it every bit as much now as he had on the night they’d first met.

But not yet as much as he was planning to.

This was a part of himself Damian had kept locked securely away for more years than he cared to remember. Tonight he was suddenly in the mood to let it out to play.

It was Paul who finally broke contact, pulling away with a shattered groan, a desperate whisper. “Damian. Need you. Now.” His face was bleak with need. His breath was ragged, his eyes black with lust. When he fisted his hands at the neck of Damian’s shirt, as though he intended to rip it open, Damian stopped him. There were yet a few things Damian had rather not have to explain to Conrad, coming home with his clothes in tatters being chief among them at the moment.

“Allow me,” Damian murmured, easily breaking Paul’s grasp on his shirt. Holding the boy by the forearms, he turned them both until it was Paul’s back against the door. The minute Damian released him, Paul reached for him again. Damian pressed him back in place. “No. Stay there. Don’t move.”

Paul subsided with a rebellious growl as Damian took a step back and began to strip off his shirt, but his eyes tracked his every move, just as Damian had anticipated.

His shirt gone, Damian closed the distance between them once again and started to undo Paul’s shirt as well. Paul’s expression turned unexpectedly somber. He put out a hand and gingerly touched the scars on Damian’s shoulder. “How’d this happen?” he asked softly. “Were you in ’Nam or something?”

Damian made a face. He rarely thought about the injury now. It was not something he chose to think about very often and nothing he
ever
wished to discuss. “It’s a long story.”

“I want to hear it.”

“No.”

A frown creased Paul’s brow. He looked ready to argue, so Damian silenced him with a kiss. But the touch of the boy’s fingers, tracing over the scars on his shoulder startled him.

“Stop that,” Damian growled. It wasn’t that the scarred flesh was sensitive. On the contrary, the area was largely without feeling. Up until tonight no hand other than his own had ever explored the damage there. Very few people had ever even seen it. Over the last ten years he’d made a particular point of keeping it covered up, especially when Conrad was anywhere around.

There was no way Conrad could have forgotten that night, any more than Damian ever would. But that didn’t mean Damian wanted to remind him of it, either. In fact, one of Damian’s greatest fears was that the sight of his scars might cause Conrad to remember, all too clearly, how furious he’d been with Damian the night he’d given them to him.

Furious enough to permanently mark Damian in the most painful fashion possible. So furious that nothing else had mattered.

Not even the centuries they’d spent together, as lovers, as friends, had been enough to save Damian from Conrad’s rage. Four hundred years, and on that night it had counted as nothing. Even now, Damian couldn’t be certain that Conrad had forgiven him—or that he ever truly could—for having driven him to such extremes.

Thanks to the twins, Conrad needed him. That was only temporary, however. Not once in the eleven years since they’d been reunited had Conrad ever given any indication that he intended to keep Damian around for a minute longer than necessary. Damian could hope all he liked that things might change in the next few years, but only fools and dreamers put all their faith in empty wishes.

“Tell me what happened to you,” Paul murmured, still fingering the ravaged flesh, ignoring Damian’s protests.

“No.”

“Please?”

Biting back a snarl, Damian shoved Paul aside. “If you’re going to continue this discussion, I’m leaving.” No meal was worth this. No fuck was worth this. Nothing was worth this.

“Oh, c’mon, don’t be like that.”

Paul put out a hand to pull Damian back. Damian shrugged it off. “I mean it, Paul.”

Paul heaved a tired-sounding sigh. “Okay, look, I’m sorry, all right? I won’t ask again. It’s just… I can’t help thinking, what if it had been worse, what if you’d died? I wouldn’t even have known! You’d be dead and…I might have spent my whole life wondering what had happened to you, looking for you, hoping we’d meet again.”

Damian stared at the boy. “Have you really been spending
that much
time thinking about that night?” Obviously, Conrad had been right again. Damian really
should
have made sure the boy remembered nothing.

Paul shrugged. “Not
that much
time, no. And it wasn’t the night so much. It was…
you
. You didn’t think I’d forget you that easily, did you?”

“Foolish boy. That’s precisely what you ought to have done. What I told you to do. You should have gone on with your life.”