[Content warning: explicit 🙈]

~ Jaxon ~

I'm in the middle of a modeling session for Ava Blackwell's portrait series when it hits me like a punch: Sylas.

He needs me. Like a physical urge I can't deny, it has me on my feet before I'm even aware I've moved.

"Jason?" Ava peers around her canvas, brush in hand. "Where are you going? We've another half hour, at least."

Today she wears a white blouse with a high collar. Unfortunately, it's thin enough I can see the peaks of her nipples through the fabric. She's piled her hair into a high, messy bun, and loose strands of it frame her face. She'd gone light on the makeup, too, leaving her lips a plump, flushed nude, like she just rolled out of bed, effortlessly beautiful.

If I had to give her look a name, I'd call it 'fuckable.' And I'm not even straight.

"I just remembered something I gotta do," I say, pulling on my shirt. She'd talked me out of it, even though I didn't like people seeing my scars and ink. She said it was art. "I'll make it up to you."

She pouts. "Is it really that important?"

More important than her, she means. I feel a wave of sympathetic pity for all the men (and I'm sure there have been plenty) who've fallen into that snare.

"Yeah, it is," I say, heading for the door. "I'll call you later."

I escape her office without waiting for her to say more, barely restraining myself from breaking into a run.

For one thing, I don't even know where I'm running to.

Sylas's need for me, strong as a Siren's call, will lead me right to him; but whether he's on the other side of campus, or the other side of the city, I can't tell.

All I know is that I need to get to him, and fast.

Pulling out my cheap phone, I flip it open and press the button (yeah, it has buttons) programmed to Sylas's number. It goes straight to voicemail, and I swear loudly and kick a trashcan, drawing the attention of a group of students walking past in the hall. They glance at me uneasily, and I paste on an apologetic smile.

"Sorry. Lost a bet," I say, shrugging, and thankfully they laugh. Still, I can tell it's only the jacket that identifies me as Security that will keep them from calling Security.

Outside, I struggle to form a coherent plan. The need to find Sylas is like a constant scream in my head, volume turned up to the max, and it's making it hard to hear myself think. Suppressing my better instincts, I call Aurelio.

He answers, and after catching the gist of my dilemma, he offers to trace Sylas through the signature of his own Craft—the 'invisibility' tincture he'd given him. Meanwhile, he tells me to get in my car and wait for him to call me back.

Fortunately, my car is in the same general direction as Sylas's summons; otherwise, I'm not sure I'd have the willpower to reach it.

Locating it, I get in, and fight with myself not to start the engine. Obeying traffic laws is not my top priority in this state, and I really don't want to kill anyone. Still, Sylas's 'call' echoes in my head, a whisper that screams my name, and all kinds of terrible fears play out in my imagination.

I try to shut if off, to put up the mental walls I spent years building, but it's no use. Nothing keeps it out, because it's coming from inside.

Just when I'm about to give in and take my chances on the road, my phone rings. Aurelio tells me he's got Sylas, that he's safe and unhurt, and that he'll meet me back in Covey Bend. At home.

With my worst fears assuaged, my mind clears—at least enough that I can focus on things like stoplights and pedestrians.

Still, I ignore the speed limit most of the way, and arrive in about half the usual time.

Aurelio must have driven fast, too, because his shiny-ass car is already parked before our plain little nondescript house, seemingly arrived only moments before.

I park beside it, fling myself from my vehicle, and then feel my heart skip a beat and my breath catch as his passenger side door opens and Sylas steps out.

My whole world is concentrated on this one, perfect being. Maybe that's how obsession works; I don't know. All I know is, in a few quick strides, I've got him in my arms, and my torment becomes bliss.

I hold him, and touch the sides of his face, and murmur the same questions on repeat, until Aurelio comes around the front of his sleek vehicle and frowns.

"Have some decorum, Jaxon. Don't you have neighbors?" he asks, brushing imaginary dust from his fastidiously neat clothes.

I scowl, but Sylas shifts away, wide-eyed. He's still wearing his brown contact-lenses, but I know that behind them his eyes are red as blood.

"I'm alright now, Jaxon—really. Let's go inside."

My attention recaptured, I nod. He could have said, 'let's go jump off a cliff together,' and I'd have agreed, which some corner of my brain points out might not be on the checklist for a healthy relationship.

Aurelio glances at the house, then leans against the hood of his car and pulls a packet of slim cigarettes and a silver lighter from his pocket. "I'll wait out here," he says. "Take your time."

Sylas leads the way inside, and I follow with his hand tight in mine, not daring to let him go.

The door has barely shut behind us when I grab him and shove him against it, my hand at his throat and my mouth meeting his in a rough, desperate kiss.

He yields to me, parting his lips and offering no resistance to my invasion, and my blood runs hot at that intimate taste.

He's all mine. But first...

"I want to see you as you really are," I say, my voice coming out rough and strangely deep. "My beautiful darkness; my angel of desire."

He shivers, eyes wide, but nods. "Alright," he breathes. "I need a shower, anyway."

He starts to draw away from me, but I don't let him go.

I can't.

And when he doesn't object, I feel like the luckiest man on earth.

In the bathroom, he removes his colored contacts, and then I help him out of his clothes, lifting his shirt over his head. My breath catches as my hands slide over his back and sides; over his smooth, warm skin; reassuring myself he's real, and safe, and here, and mine.

He sheds the rest of his clothes, and so do I, so there's nothing but air between us; I get the shower running hot, filling the room with steam, and we step in, and then there isn't even that.

Beneath the spray, skin to skin, I kiss him again; and I can tell by the way he yields, gasping softly against my lips as my mouth possesses his, that he's feeling the pull of my desire and drinking it in.

I feel it too—as if he takes my exhalations as his own breath, and as if the beat of my heart is tied to his.

"What the hell happened?" I ask around a breathless kiss. "Where were you?"

"Later," he whispers. "First, this."

His hand slides down between us to stroke my stiffening length, and I shiver at the unexpected and exquisite shock of his touch.

"Sylas..." Just saying his name heats my blood with pleasure, and I bite back a moan as I grow hot and hard in his hand.

"You can touch me, too," he says, and looks up at me with blood-red eyes.

I glance down and feel my cock twitch as my heartbeat accelerates.

He doesn't have much body hair, but a neat little nest of dark curls leads my eyes to the prize.

His penis is a flush, pale pink, perfectly shaped and the perfect size for him—neither large nor small—and somehow more delicate than mine.

It makes me want to tease him with my tongue, and taste him as he comes.

"Can I?" I ask, just to be sure.

I know he's explained it—that it's not like he can't feel arousal and pleasure; it's not like his body won't respond. It's just that he only wants it when he's like this—when his hunger awakens, like a vampire who feeds on lust instead of blood.

He nods his consent, and I'm happy to oblige.

Carefully, I lower myself to my knees in front of him. He's facing the shower-head, and water streams down over his milk-pale skin in little rivulets. I lick them from the smooth, flat area below his navel, and a little tremor passes through the taut muscles there.

Gripping his hips, I lower my head and nuzzle the base of his cock. Tracing the raised vein along one side with my tongue, I delight in the hitches in his breath, and the way his fingers curl in my hair as I kiss his sensitive tip. Then I take him deep, feeling him slide over my tongue, before slowly pulling off and sucking him in again.

I work at him like that, delighting in every noise he makes, and the way he starts to tremble as I bring him to the edge and then back off—again and again—until he begs.

"Jaxon... Gods... please..."

Pulling off, I see clear precum oozing from his lushly reddened tip. I'm just as ready, and I work him with one hand while seeing to myself with the other.

He comes with a half strangled cry, falling against the shower wall as his muscles fail him, his pretty cock pulsing in my hand.

A few seconds later I follow him, letting my head drop back as I climax in a wave of bliss.

For a half minute or so, the only sound is the rush of the shower and the rasp of our uneven breath, and then I get to my feet and help Sylas up from where he's still slumped against the wall.

"Was that okay?" I ask, smoothing my hands over his wet face and running a thumb across his flushed lips. His eyes are bright crimson, but as I watch they fade slowly to a darker shade of blackish red.

He nods. "Yeah. Are you okay? That felt... kind of intense."

I smile. "So it was good for you, too, huh?"

He flushes, but nods again, leaning into me and resting his head on my shoulder. "Yes. Though... maybe not quite the way you're thinking. It was good that way, too, but..."

Feeling strangely playful, I squeeze his buns and kiss his forehead at the same time. "Come on," I say, "let's get clean. Now that I can think with my big head again, maybe we can talk."

✧ ✧ ✧

Over the next quarter hour, though, the light, happy feeling in my chest slowly fades, like a cheerful fire burning low, then going out, until all that remains is cold ash and a memory of warmth.

Sylas's mood darkens, too, and I can tell that although his magic is fully recharged, he's physically and emotionally drained.

We rejoin Aurelio outside, and he glances between us with a sardonic quirk to his brow, but thankfully makes no comment.

Grudgingly, I invite him inside, and he and Sylas sit at the plain little kitchen table—Aurelio looking shockingly out of place in our modest home—while I make Sylas and I some grilled sandwiches.

Then, as we sit and eat, Sylas tells me how he Crafted for Linden Edwards during his 'student assistant' hours, and how the work left him unprepared to encounter his sister where he least expected her. He explains how he took a chance, and how it didn't go as he'd hoped.

Still, at the end of it, something isn't adding up.

"She Spelled me," he says, explaining the lace Lyssa had placed on him.

"She cursed you," I correct. "Spells are consensual. Curses are imposed."

"She didn't mean to hurt me, though."

"But she did."

He looks down at his half-eaten sandwich, but doesn't argue.

I'm doing my best not to find fault with him—fault for failing to keep his phone charged, for taking a risk like that, and most of all for Crafting and draining himself to the point he'd turned me into a mindless lust monster.

I'm trying not to fault him for Crafting for someone else.

"This 'Edwards,' dude. What exactly is it he's having you do for him?" I ask.

To my further consternation, Sylas's face shows a mix of shame and fear, and he glances at Aurelio, who nods.

Then Sylas gets up and crosses the room to where he'd left his backpack near the door. He takes something out of it and comes back holding a small, antique-looking book.

He hands it to me, and I examine it.

"I can explain," he says.

"You better."

He sits back down and takes a deep breath. As he releases it I shiver, and the last of the warmth in my heart goes out, as the last trace of summer before winter's first chill.

I suppress a sudden, insane urge to reach across the table and clamp my hand over his beautiful mouth. Because something tells me I'm not going to like what I'm about to hear.