Walk among us (5 page)

“And you’re saying you did?”

“I’m saying…” His voice drifted away, his gaze softening as he weighed his words. Matthew took a deep breath and looked off into the darkness, focused on something else, something that wasn’t Calvin. “I see things that aren’t human. Demons. Almost every time I get in a crowd of more than a handful of people.

Like yesterday.”

Calvin shook his head. “I don’t believe in demons.”

“No, of course you don’t.” The eyes that swiveled back to meet his were soft and sad. “You’re an artist.

You see shapes. Forms. Color. You believe in beauty, not the blackness that walks among us. You’re lucky that way.”

“You make your own luck.”

“Really? You don’t think what you have is a gift?”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with luck.”

“But it does. How many people do you think see the world the way you do? You look around, and you see your own art.” A smile haunted his mouth. “I’d bet you even look at me and don’t see what’s real.”

Calvin swallowed against the tightness of his throat. That sense of being transparent Matthew had evoked at the diner was back. Added to the flush of desire that refused to go away, it left him struggling to maintain his composure.

“Can you even imagine something not nearly as pleasant?” Matthew continued. “What if you saw evil coalesce into something tangible, something that looked real but wasn’t? Something that wore a human face but fed on our grief until it destroyed everything it touched. Hatred. Death. The destruction of WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory

everything good and decent about the world we walk in. When I talk about monsters, about evil, that’s what I mean. Demons.” He sucked in a deep breath. “You might see a blank canvas, waiting for you to fill it, but that’s what
I
see, every single day.”

He spoke with the low, fervent passion of a believer. Calvin had heard many such speeches from others, though the topic might vary. Two days earlier, he would have walked away from the crazy and not looked back.

He still should. Because crazy had a way of infecting when you least expected it to.

Two days ago, he’d been a different man. He hadn’t been touched by this murder/not a murder. He hadn’t yet watched his father get lowered into the ground. He hadn’t stared into eyes that looked like they’d witnessed hell itself.

Hell itself. Demons. Walking among us.

A man who didn’t see shapes and forms and colors that might not be there wouldn’t believe him.

This man wasn’t sure that he did anyway.

But he wanted to.

Calvin stepped closer, stealing more of the distance between them. Negative space. Outlines. For the first time, he wasn’t subjected to Matthew’s silhouette against the porch light. He saw the etchings time had started to leave around his eyes, though now he thought he understood just what kind of ghosts tortured the man. He saw the glisten of moisture on his lower lip from where he’d just licked it. He saw a new warm shade of amber reflected in his dark eyes.

Slowly, Matthew tilted his head. “You’re not running away.”

“No.”

“You should.”

“I know.”

“Even I think I’m crazy sometimes.”

“Try growing up gay with a homophobic father and a deep-seated need to put everything you see on canvas,” Calvin joked. Or tried to. Matthew didn’t smile. “Crazy’s relative.”

His body ached for contact, more than the hold on Matthew’s arm he still had, but when Calvin let go to touch him elsewhere, Matthew retreated up the porch stairs, enforcing distance again.

“I was just finishing up dinner,” he said. “Would you like to join me?”

When it came to options, Calvin knew he had some. Stay and have dinner with Matthew. Go and kill time in Watson Park before gathering up the nerve to go back to Ted’s house for the night.

Ultimately, it wasn’t even close. Because getting answers hadn’t satisfied his curiosity about the man. It had stoked it higher.

“I’d love to.”

WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory

Calvin didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t the beef stew and dumplings Matthew served to him at the tiny table in his kitchen. He didn’t expect the lack of pressure as the other man bustled to feed him, or the easy conversation about the disadvantages to old farmhouses. He kept waiting for more oblique references—or maybe even overt ones—to monsters parading around cemeteries in search of victims, but Matthew never veered in the neighborhood of that particular topic again.

Instead, once Matthew sat down opposite him, he asked questions about New York. Calvin’s art. Growing up in Watson Park. Nearly every word that came out of his mouth was aimed at drawing information from Calvin, rather than the other way around.

So Calvin talked. A lot. And learned two very important facts.

Eli had been right about the man being a good listener. Matthew responded in ways that meant he’d actually heard what Calvin said, taking old information to learn new. That was a trick most people never mastered.

But more importantly, Calvin discovered just how lonely Matthew really was.

He never came out and said anything. He didn’t have to. It was written in the way he leaned toward Calvin, as if every word to come out of his mouth was worth catching. It was etched in the way Matthew predicted his needs, refilling coffee cups before they were empty, fetching a napkin seconds before Calvin needed one. Calvin supposed it could have been explained away as just a man who was very aware of being a host, but that dismissed nuances Calvin could barely describe. That negated small touches and fleeting glances, smiles and chuckles that filled the space between them.

When his phone rang during dessert, Calvin almost ignored it. It was only when he saw Detective Griesler’s number on the display that he decided not to.

“I have to take this,” he said, rising from his seat. “I’ll be right back.”

Matthew nodded. Calvin walked out to the front porch before answering.

“Please tell me you don’t need me to stick around anymore,” he said after Griesler’s greeting.

“We don’t need you to stick around anymore. You’re free to go whenever you like.”

Yes.
“Do I have to come back to testify or anything?”

“That’s unlikely. The case is being kicked to a different department until we have more definitive information on the deceased.”

That meant there was still no body. Calvin glanced back at the house and the light filtering through the closed curtains. He mumbled through thanks and salutations, his thoughts going back to the conversation he’d had hours earlier on this very porch. When the front door opened and Matthew stepped out, Calvin was still turning it over in his head.

“Are you leaving now?”

The quiet query came with no recriminations. It was almost as if Matthew anticipated his departure and had already braced himself for loneliness again.

WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory

“That was the police.” Calvin pocketed his phone. “They still haven’t found the body.”

Matthew didn’t speak.

“I don’t get it,” Calvin continued. “How can you kill something that isn’t really there?”

“But it was.”

“But it’s gone now.”

Matthew shrugged. “That’s what happens. I don’t know why I see them. I don’t know why others don’t. I just know that if I can kill them, they disappear, and nobody else has to die.”

Nobody else has to die.

Which meant someone had.

He hadn’t answered Matthew’s question yet. Venturing a step closer, he said, “Do you want me to go?”

“No. But I’ll understand if you want to.”

Calvin didn’t. And not because he didn’t want to go back to Ted’s house.

Carefully, he slid his arm around Matthew’s waist and brought their hips together. It was touch he’d desired since dinner at Krauss’s, even earlier from the cemetery if he was being truly honest with himself.

Matthew stiffened, his gaze unsure, but within seconds, he closed the embrace, pulling Calvin in to a body warmer than he expected, as solid as he could ever want.

Lips softer than a whisper brushed over the corner of Calvin’s mouth. “Thank you for believing in me,”

Matthew murmured.

The faint tinge of coffee on his breath made Calvin suddenly crave the comfort of a deep couch and a firm chest to lean back against. Squeezing his eyes shut, he quelled his racing nerves as Matthew stepped back, leading him into the house again. The pounding in his ears didn’t stop, not as they ascended the wide stairs, not even when they slipped into a darkened room.

It only occurred to Calvin after crossing the threshold that this could have come straight out of some true-crime reenactment, the victim entering willingly into the psycho killer’s domain. “You don’t see a demon in me, do you?” he joked.

An almost smile curved Matthew’s mouth. “You’re as far from a demon as I’ve ever seen.”

His heart twisted. No longer able to resist, Calvin smoothed his hands up Matthew’s arms, over his broad shoulders, allowing his palms to linger along the tight sculpture. A shiver ran through Matthew, and his head bent for only a moment before he enveloped Calvin in a hold that left no doubt how badly he wanted this.

In the split second before their mouths crashed together, Calvin realized their mutual need eclipsed all of it.

The kiss was demanding and awkward, teeth clashing with teeth as they learned the other’s shape.

Matthew slid up, this side, then that, in search of the perfect niche with which to devour Calvin’s lips.

When it came, both men shuddered and sank into the caress.

Calvin clung to his shoulders. He didn’t lack for attention in New York, but he couldn’t remember the last WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory

time he’d fit so well against another man’s body. Matthew had an inch and thirty pounds of muscle on him, weight that promised pleasure in all the best places. He folded himself around Calvin, and the almost desperate quivering in his fingertips as they dug into Calvin’s flesh made Calvin tremble as well.

He didn’t remember losing his shirt. He wasn’t aware of a lot of things except the scrape of teeth and stubble over his skin, the heat soaking through his clothes. He felt every shade of red permeating Matthew’s fevered kisses, the flashes of white when he’d suck Calvin’s tongue into his mouth, the licks of orange where his hands finally skimmed over his bare chest.

Matthew turned him into a living canvas. He couldn’t help but wonder what it was Matthew saw when he looked at Calvin.

Only when Matthew slipped his fingertips inside the back of Calvin’s pants did reason pierce the fog settling around them.

“Wait, wait,” Calvin panted. He gripped Matthew’s suddenly tense shoulders and separated their torsos, the single hardest thing he’d done all day. “Slow down a sec.”

Matthew’s pupils had devoured the dark irises, black pools gleaming with desire and confusion and a stroke of trepidation. “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t plan on anything like this.” He swallowed, hating that he had to be smart when everything about this day was so surreal. “I don’t have anything.”

“Oh.” Relief replaced the worst of the emotions reflected in his eyes. Letting him go, Matthew turned to the nightstand and opened the top drawer. “You’re welcome to spend the night, you know.” He pulled out an unopened box of condoms and a bottle of lube. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

He couldn’t help but smile. All of a sudden, Matthew seemed incredibly solicitous. “You don’t have to bribe me.”

“I’m not—” He slit the box open, unable to meet Calvin’s eyes. “This isn’t something I usually do. It’s been…it’s been a while for me.”

The confession drew Calvin to his side. He wrapped his hand around Matthew’s larger one and guided the box to the nightstand.

“I would love to stay.” He stood at right angles to the man, leaning in and grazing his mouth along his neck. “It’s just a shame I didn’t meet you two days ago.”

Matthew sighed. Calvin expected him to move away, tilt closer, do something, but Matthew just stood there while Calvin mapped the terrain of his jaw, learning where the stubble came thickest, which spots drew a whimper when he nipped at the salty skin. Calvin caressed the broad chest, going lower and lower until he found the narrow strip exposed at Matthew’s waist.

“What is it you want?” In the dark room, Calvin’s hushed query expanded to encompass both of them.

“Name it.”

“You.”

WalkAmongUs:ACallingofSoulsstory

He chuckled. “I figured that was a given. How?”

This answer wasn’t quite so quick.

“On your back.” The delicious bob of Matthew’s Adam’s apple made Calvin want to bite at it. “I need to be inside you.”

He’d changed the script. Not want. Need. An instinct more primal than simple lust. Calvin hadn’t had specific plans or desires other than
Matthew
when he’d posed the question, but hearing that ragged voice sharpened everything he thought he could ever want into exactly what Matthew answered.

Calvin eased his hand beneath Matthew’s shirt, his cock jerking at the tickle of hair that trailed both up and down. “I think that can be arranged. More than once, if that’s what you want.”

Another tremor went through him. When Calvin ran his palm over the lightly furred chest, Matthew finally stepped away. He didn’t go far. He whipped his shirt over his head, then returned to push Calvin’s off his shoulders.

“I almost didn’t kill the demon yesterday.” Matthew focused on undressing him, but even if he couldn’t quite look up to his eyes, the attention he gave to each freshly exposed inch of skin more than made up for it. “I couldn’t stop watching you.”

“So why did you?”

“The man standing next to you…his grief was greater than anybody else’s there. The demon would have killed him if I hadn’t intervened.”

Calvin didn’t know if the fact Eli mourned Ted more than he did colored Matthew’s opinion of him, but as Matthew scratched his thumbs over Calvin’s taut nipples, he decided he didn’t care. Matthew felt too good, and Calvin was tired of being a hypocrite. Matthew knew enough not to be fooled. And there were other, more urgent matters to focus on.