Just One Bite Volume 6 Read online

  James continued his slow exploration of my foreskin, wriggling his tongue to tease my slit. My cock grew harder than I thought possible and felt as though it would burst if I didn’t come soon. I was riding the edge between pain and pleasure and rocked my hips again.

  This time I slid into James’ hot mouth and couldn’t stop myself looking down to watch my cock move in and out of his glistening lips. I loved the way his pale pink lips turned red when he was aroused, and his nipples would turn into rubies when I sucked them -- not that I’d had chance to even touch them yet.

  Watching his head bob and his lips stretch around my shaft was too much when coupled with the sensations of him sucking and licking. It only took a few seconds for me to come. James pulled off and let the last of my release splash across his face as I had imagined. My body clenched and another jet hit his cheek.

  My knees gave way and I collapsed onto the settee in an ungainly sprawl. James grinned and stood up moving between my splayed legs to rub his prick against my lips. I opened and let him thrust into my mouth. He had one arm braced against the back of the settee and the other guided his cock.

  I found enough energy to suck and move my tongue, but I was still too far gone to be an active participant. James didn’t seem to mind doing all the work and it wasn’t long before he filled my mouth with his own bitter, salty come.

  He collapsed onto me by degrees and we lay tangled together on the settee for several minutes as we both recovered. I groped for one of the abandoned towels and wiped the worst of the stickiness from our skins.

  “I need another shower,” James muttered when I dropped the towel back on the floor.

  “No you don’t.” I didn’t want him washing off my scent. I wasn’t sure if it was a fox thing or a human kink, but I liked him smelling of my come.

  “Can we at least move to the bedroom?”

  “Bedroom sounds good. Can you walk yet?”

  James waved an arm. “Shit. Wrong form,” he groused and tried to sit up which made us fall off the settee.

  I landed first with James on top of me so I was mashed onto the cold boards with a damp towel under my left shoulder and another under my right thigh. James’ knee came rather too close to ending my fun for the evening and jabbed my left inner thigh. His elbow caught me under the chin and snapped my teeth together.

  “Let’s do this carefully,” I suggested. “Bed’ll be much safer.”

  “Maybe. We fell off the bed the other night.”

  “We’ll just have to be careful in bed as well, once we get there.”

  Untangling took a little while as James insisted on checking me for bruises and kissing them better. The trip to the bedroom was quicker than I’d originally intended, but neither of us fell over on the way. We’d both recovered enough to make full use of the comfortable flat surface of the bed.

  “You’ve been eating pickles,” James complained as I was dozing off.

  “You ate my mouse, what did you think I was going to eat?”

  “Stupid furball.”

  “Thief.”

  I was nearly asleep when James burped loudly and reached for the tissues on the bedside table.

  “Did you want your mouse back?” James asked.

  “Not after you’ve had all the good bits.” I shuddered at the thought. My fox form mightn’t have been as picky, but I was almost fully into my human form by now and not the slightest bit interested in an owl pellet even if it was the remains of my mouse.

  “Don’t say I didn’t offer. I’m going to brush my teeth again.”

  “I might be up for a counter-offer by the time you get back.”

  “Hah! We’ll see about that.” James crawled out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

  Even in my human form there was enough light for me to watch him walk across the room and as a shifter my powers of recuperation were excellent. I was up for round three before I heard the bathroom door close.

  My fox form might still be sulking about the lost mouse, but my human form was enjoying the benefits of the apology and was more than willing to lose every mouse my fox form could find. James was worth a lot more than any mouse and I should let him know that.

  Or maybe I’d just enjoy the apologies tonight and let him know how much I loved and appreciated him tomorrow when we were both thinking in human terms.

  Sometimes our relationship was complicated by our other forms and sometimes not. James bought me a white sugar mouse the next day to make up for the furry one and I ate it all, except the string tail.

  This owl and fox have more than mice in common.

  I Promise by Cardeno C.

  Jeremiah Hawthorne opened his front door to stop the incessant banging and glared at his visitor.

  “You’re going out tonight, Jeremiah.” Keith didn’t bother with the usual niceties like “hello” or “how are you”.

  Jeremiah towered over his friend and let his imposing size send a “don’t fuck with me” message.

  “I don’t hurt humans for ethical reasons, none of which apply to vamps. Talk to me that way again, Keith, and you might not be around tonight at all. Ya’ feel me?”

  Keith sighed and seemed to shrink in on himself. “You’re pale as a ghost and your hands are shaking. Do you think I can’t see that?” Keith rubbed his palms over his eyes and tried to keep calm. “Listen, I’m not trying to be an asshole here, but you need fresh blood. The banked stuff isn’t enough to keep you going this long. But you already know this, so why don’t we cut the argument short and you go get dressed.”

  Yeah, he did know. Banked blood seemed to meet most of his day-to-day needs, but over the past decade, Jeremiah had learned that if he didn’t drink directly from a human at least every couple of months, his body would start to shut down.

  The first time it’d happened, he’d refused to seek out a human, deciding that death would be a better fate than existing as a monster. But when he’d reached a critical level of need, his brain had been the first organ to go, at which point his body had taken over and sought out a source of nutrition. It was sheer luck that he’d regained enough presence of mind to stop feeding before he’d killed that human, so he’d promised himself to never take that kind of risk again.

  Jeremiah grunted his agreement and dragged himself to his bedroom. “I’ll go, but only to the Plasma Club. At least they prescreen the donors to make sure they’ve got enough iron to participate without dropping dead in the middle of dinner.” He combed his fingers through his thick, black hair and finished talking under his breath. “Not that it helps if a vamp drains them completely.”

  “That happened once, Jeremiah. And it was eight years ago. Fuck! You’ve gotta learn to let things go,” Keith shouted after him.

  A decade as a vampire and Jeremiah still forgot about the heightened senses and preternatural strength. It was hard to muster up excitement about those super powers when they accompanied a sun allergy and blood lust. He showered and pulled an old pair of jeans and a black T-shirt onto his tall, muscular frame.

  “Let’s go,” he grumbled to Keith as soon as we walked out of the bedroom.

  His friend raked his eyes over Jeremiah’s body, pausing at his crotch. “Very nice,” Keith said. “You gonna let the human who provides your dinner sample the goods tonight, or are you gonna stick with your usual MO and leave him hanging?”

  Jeremiah rolled his eyes. “I always leave them satisfied. They don’t need to touch me to get off.”

  It was amazing, really, how aroused humans got from nothing more than the feeling of a bite to their necks and their blood being sucked out. Throw in a thigh for them to rub off against, and they’d have an orgasm before Jeremiah was done eating. Of course, they weren’t the only ones who got aroused from the feeding. Vamps felt it too. The heat and power pouring into their bodies turned them on and elevated their already higher-than-normal sex drives.

  So feeding almost always equated to fucking with their kind, except with Jeremiah. He grudgingly drank live bl
ood because he had no other choice, but that didn’t mean he’d break his promise. He had been another man then, it had been a different life. But a promise was a promise and Jeremiah always kept his word. As he walked toward the club, Jeremiah’s mind traveled back to that other life ten years prior, back to the person he’d never forget.

  “So you’re eating dinner with Alexander tonight?”

  Jeremiah propped the phone between his ear and his shoulder and began shutting down his computer.

  “Uh huh. I’m just finishing up at work now. I’ll go home and change, and then I’ll pick him up. How’s life on the beach treating you, Mike?”

  Mike had been Jeremiah’s best friend all through high school, college, and graduate school. He’d moved away three years earlier, but the friendship hadn’t faded thanks to frequent telephone calls and even more frequent e-mails. The other thing that hadn’t diminished was Jeremiah’s relationship with Mike’s little brother.

  Alexander Smith was a dozen years younger than Jeremiah and Mike, “an unexpected surprise” was what his parents called him. He’d always been around, first as a little pipsqueak getting in their way and later as an admiring fan, trying to emulate everything they did. After Mike moved away, Alexander still called Jeremiah, still dropped by his apartment to raid the fridge or watch TV. Over the past year, they’d spent even more time together, eating dinner together most nights. And lately, Alexander had taken to crashing on Jeremiah’s couch on the weekends.

  If anything, Jeremiah saw more of Alexander now than he had when Mike was still around. And he’d grown very fond of the young man. At eighteen years old and six and a half feet tall, Alexander could no longer be considered a little boy, a fact that was becoming increasingly more difficult for Jeremiah to ignore.

  After chatting with Mike for a few minutes, Jeremiah headed home. When he heard the TV blaring through the door, he knew there’d be no reason for him to go pick up Alexander.

  “Hey, Xander,” he shouted at the back of the blond-haired head as he walked into his apartment.

  Alexander jumped up and turned around, a broad smile taking over his angelic face.

  “Hey, Jeremy. How was work today? Did you miss me?”

  Jeremiah laughed as he took off his jacket and walked toward the bedroom. It was Alexander’s standard question at the end of every day. He almost tripped when he processed that thought.

  He saw Alexander every single day. Was that weird?

  “So, did you?” Alexander asked again as he walked into Jeremiah’s bedroom and flopped down on the bed.

  “Every single minute,” Jeremiah replied with a hand to his heart and exaggerated drama in his voice.

  He removed his shirt, kicked off his shoes, and dropped his pants. Then he picked them all up and stuffed them into the laundry basket. He was bent over, peeling off his socks, when he realized that Alexander had been quiet for at least sixty seconds. That was a lifetime record.

  Jeremiah glanced over his shoulder and caught an intense gaze aimed in his direction. Alexander’s blue eyes seemed darker than usual, somehow making him look even sexier.

  Oh, damn. A hard-on in boxer briefs was so not a good idea. He turned his back on the bed and began rustling through the dresser, pulling out a pair of sweatpants and an old T-shirt.

  “Um, Jeremy, can I ask you something?” Alexander’s voice was softer than usual.

  Jeremiah turned around and saw shaggy blond hair covering Alexander’s eyes. The younger man was chewing on his bottom lip and cracking his knuckles. Jeremiah’s instinctive reaction was to comfort Alexander. His clothes forgotten, he sat down on the bed and wrapped his arm around Alexander’s shoulder, noticing that it was surprisingly muscular. It seemed as if the past year had been one long growth spurt for Alexander.

  “Of course you can talk to me, Xander. About anything. What’s going on?”

  Big blue eyes looked at him through the strands of hair.

  “Anything?”

  Jeremiah nodded and brushed Alexander’s hair off his face. “Anything. I promise not to judge you, whatever it is.”

  That was enough to visibly relax Alexander.

  “I need to ask you a favor.” Each word was drawn out slowly. Jeremiah didn’t respond verbally, he just nodded and waited for Alexander to continue. “Iwantyoutohavesexwithme.”

  The last part tumbled out in a mumbled rush. Jeremiah was sure he’d misheard.

  “What?” He asked.

  Alexander dipped his head, once again causing his hair to drop back over his eyes.

  “Don’t make me say it again.” He resumed the nervous lip chewing. “Please?”

  “You want to have sex with me? But, wait… you’re gay?”

  Alexander jerked his head up and sighed dramatically. “Oh, please. Like you haven’t noticed all my come-ons.”

  Jeremiah didn’t argue because he had noticed, but he’d also immediately dismissed them from his mind. Falling for his best friend’s brother, strike that, his best friend’s much younger brother was a recipe for disaster. So he hadn’t allowed himself the luxury of thinking of Alexander as anything other than a friend.

  “You’re only eighteen, Xander, and I’m thirty. You should really be with guys your own age.”

  Something changed in Alexander’s expression at that moment. With a determined glint in his eyes, he turned toward Jeremiah and straddled the other man’s lap, pressing their bodies together and making sure his erection couldn’t be missed.

  “I want to be with you. If I’m no good, I promise, I won’t ask you to do it again.”

  If he were being honest, Jeremiah would have to admit that the opposite issue was his real fear. Once he took that step with Alexander, he’d no longer be able to keep his feelings for the younger man under lock and key. And he knew that’d ultimately result in a broken heart, because Alexander was way too young to settle down. He’d go off to college at the end of the summer, meet other guys, and forget all about Jeremiah. The thought caused a sharp pain in Jeremiah’s chest.

  “Have you ever done anything before?” He asked.

  Alexander shook his head. “No. I wanted my first time to be with you.” He rolled his hips, grinding himself against Jeremiah. “Please, Jeremy. I’m not a kid anymore. Don’t make me beg.”

  Jeremiah groaned at the exquisite feeling of Alexander’s weight in his lap, Alexander’s cock rubbing against his stomach, Alexander’s warm breath tickling his face. His heart was in his throat as he leaned forward and took his first taste of those plump red lips.

  Alexander whimpered and melted against Jeremiah’s chest, circling his arms around the other man and holding on like he never wanted to let go. When Jeremiah darted his tongue out and slid it over the seam of Alexander’s lips, the younger man sighed and opened to him. He explored Alexander’s mouth, sought out his flavor, and eventually twirled their tongues together.

  Before long, caressing touches joined the kisses, until eventually Alexander was lying naked on the bed looking up at Jeremiah with trust and desire clear in his expression. Jeremiah dropped his forehead on Alexander’s and tried to catch his breath. He looked into those crystal blue eyes and gave his most reassuring smile.

  “We don’t have to do this, Xander. If you want to stop, it’s okay.”

  “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” Alexander practically growled. He thrust his hips up. “Does it feel like I wanna stop, Jeremy? Now quit trying to give me an out and fuck me already.”

  Jeremiah laughed. He couldn’t help it.

  “Your wish is my command, Casanova.”

  Jeremiah had been right in his prediction that one night with Alexander wouldn’t be enough for him. What he hadn’t anticipated was that Alexander would be just as eager to form a relationship. That summer was filled with passionate nights and long talks. And by the time Alexander had to leave for college, they’d strengthened their already remarkably strong bond.

  “Don’t meet another guy and forget about me when I’m gone, ‘
K?” Alexander whispered into Jeremiah’s ear on their last day together.

  Jeremiah cupped Alexander’s face in his hands and kissed his forehead. “I promise, no other guys. And I’ll never forget about you.”

  Two weeks later, Jeremiah had seen a woman being mugged on the street. He came to her defense only to realize what he’d thought was a mugging was actually an attack by unscrupulous vampires taking an involuntary meal. He might have stood a chance if there hadn’t been three of them. As it was, he’d managed to fight them off long enough for the woman to get away before he’d passed out. He’d woken up in Keith’s apartment and life as he knew it had changed forever.

  Jeremiah clenched his black trench coat tighter around his body trying to keep the cold out. The chill always seemed to permeate his bones more acutely when he hadn’t fed from a live donor in too long. He wished, not for the first time, that Keith had let him die that night rather than turning him.

  “You gonna be okay on your own or do I need to keep my eye on you to make sure you eat tonight?” Keith asked once they were inside the club.

  Jeremiah waved his friend off. “I’m fine. Go find your dinner and have fun with him. I’ll see you later.”

  He let his eyes wander over the crowd, trying to muster some level of enthusiasm for what he was about to do when saw the top of a blond head in the corner. As if he was drawn by a magnetic force, Jeremiah walked toward the man. His heightened night vision allowed him to glimpse a face before he was detected.

  The hair was shorter, the face more lean and rugged, but there was no mistaking the guy in the corner. It was Xander. His Xander.

  Jeremiah swallowed down the lump in his throat and blinked back tears. He should walk away, leave the club, and find somewhere else to eat. He’d never be able to explain himself to Alexander if the man saw him. And losing the love of his life all over again would be more than he could bear.

  But like a puppet on a string, Jeremiah seemed to have no control over his limbs. He walked up behind Alexander and wrapped his arms around that muscular chest. Alexander stiffened, but then quickly relaxed.