Chapter 12

I stoodunder the hot water, washing bits of Copernicus out of my hair, in Reynard's posh private jet. How many times did you have to wash bits of body off you before it indicated some poor life choices? Was twice in two weeks too much? I'd worn bits of vampire duke, and now a demon general. It was probably best not to think about it. Hopefully, Zee and Reynard weren't thinking about it at all, or they'd start asking questions, the answers to which would get them killed.

"Adam?" Zee rapped on the door.

"Yeah?"

"May I come in?"

"Erm..." I swept my soaked hair back. I was naked in the shower, obviously, but the glass screens were all steamed up, and he'd seen all of me multiple times, so it wasn't a big deal. "Sure?"

He entered the bathroom, wings hidden, propped his ass against the washbasin, and folded his arms. "I was going to wait until you'd finished, but didn't, because you're taking ages. What happened back there—you don't need to worry, okay? It wasn't your fault. The general had it coming."

"He was going to put humans in pies." I lathered up Reynard's lovely soap and swept it all over me, determined to get every trace of grossness off. I'd been telling myself the humans-in-pies thing had justified my turning the general into mincemeat, but a part of me remained unconvinced. Probably because, deep inside, I'd wanted to kill him.

"He would have, too. In his mind, humans were no different from pets. I just want you to know, it's fine, okay? I don't care that you pulverized him. I was so fucking close to turning him into sushi after he knocked you into that machinery anyway. Would have, if Fuck-Hard hadn't needed saving. Again." Zee rolled his eyes. "He's such a damsel."

I rinsed the suds off, rotating under the hot water. "I didn't plan for it to happen that way though. It just sort fell into place."

"Fell into place?" Zee snorted. "You got that right. And hey, listen, I know I've been a dick. It fucks me up when you get involved with my shit. You're you, and that shit is that shit. It's wrong when it mixes."

"I know. I'm sorry. I should have left it all alone, but didn't."

We fell into a soft quiet, with the only sound being the hissing shower. I rinsed off some more, ruffling my hair, fairly certain I'd washed all the chunky bits out.

"Are we okay?" Zee asked in a small voice.

I turned around again and found him pressed against the steamed-up glass, his eyes all big and pining.

"Always, Zee."

"It's just that, Reynard hugged you, and I didn't. You were dripping bits of intestines. He didn't care, and I shouldn't have cared either. But I really like these pants, and blood stains are a bitch to get out?—"

"It's okay." I pressed my hands against his, with just the glass between us. "I'm not sticky now?"

His gaze grew heavy with intent. "If I come in there, we're both coming in there. Just so you know."

I shrugged a shoulder, and stepped back. "That's the plan."

He whipped off his favorite pants, tore off his top, and was in the shower in three seconds flat. Water splashed over his horns and face, then he was crowding around me, suddenly everywhere, filling the cubicle with his Zeeness. Purple eyes blinked slowly. Water dripped from his lashes and wet his hair, darkening its two-tone shades of black and purple. He shifted a few inches closer, and his warm, firm body pressed against mine in all the right places. A purr rumbled up his throat. "Kitten, when you look up at me like this, I understand how fucked I am."

Seb's words, about everyone thinking they loved Zodiac, decided to slap me around the face. Ben, the Razorsedge barman, had tried to tell me the same. Zodiac had millions of fans. They all thought they loved him. Was I just like them? Did any of this really mean anything? Could it, when he had no idea who or what I was?

"Hey." He tucked a nail under my chin and lifted my head. "There's no room for sads in this shower."

I dropped my head back against the hard tiles, and Zee shifted closer. Water dashed his face, painting his hair down his cheeks. His lips nudged mine, asking permission to venture further, to open me up and dive in. That was always a risk—that I'd open up too much, let him get too close.

"Take me like you mean it," I told him, then bit my bottom lip.

His hot hands clasped my face. "I always mean it, Kitten. Every time."

Did he though? Could he, truly?

He slammed a kiss on my lips, and I opened, taking him in, needing to swallow him into my soul. Sparks zinged. Tiny little static shocks, like needles dancing over our lips. He gasped, pulling back, and more sparks fell between us, raining to the shower floor. "The fuck?" he exclaimed, watching their glitter dance around our bare feet.

I flung my arms around his shoulders, and kissed him harder—kissed all the questions away. His hands dropped down my back, cupping my ass. Closer. I needed more. He lifted me off my feet. I wrapped my legs around his waist, clamping on, my hard dick crushed between us. His hung lower, and rode up behind my balls, finding a way in.

He pinned me to the wall, spread my ass, and angled the tip of his cock over my hole.

"You're tight," he muttered against my neck. "And I'm real big."

I grabbed at a convenient bottle of conditioner. Zee performed a balancing act—with me perched on one hand, he spun the bottle in his right hand, tipped it upside down, facing his palm, dribbled a squirt out, tossed it aside, then swept the cool conditioner right where it was needed. This time, when his cock nudged my hole, it lodged in place—I gulped—and he steadily pushed in.

He lowered me down and filled me up.

A gasp hissed between Zee's gritted teeth, and his expression grew even more intense. "I'll never get enough of you." His hips rocked, slow-pumping his cock, stroking in and out. I clutched at his hot back, getting off on my dick rubbing his rippled abs while his hit the spot.

Hot water poured over us, filling the air with steam and sex. Zee was under my skin, under more than that. Inside me. It was visceral, real, and exactly what I craved.

His panting sawed against my ear, our bodies rocked, and neither of us was far from coming.

"I don't care what you are," Zee growled, working a rhythm that had me climbing toward bliss. "I know you. Inside. And I—" He swallowed the rest of that sentence, cutting himself off.

I kissed him, thrusting my tongue in, tasting what I thought he'd been about to say. "Deeper," I growled, after pulling from the kiss.

He set me down on my feet, spun me around, spread my ass, and speared his cock so deep I gasped, my toes curling.

"Deep enough, lover?"

I dug my blunt nails into the tiles. "Deeper." I needed Zee to find the real me.

He thrust again, his thighs slapping my ass. Water pattered against my back, and ran down my chest. His nails dug into my ass cheeks, holding me open, and he pounded. My leaking dick bounced with every impact, and electric pleasure rode my spine, lighting me up. I stopped thinking, and became a creature of sensation, relishing every second.

Zee's hand snaked around my chest, skimmed a hard nipple, then eased me against him, switching his dick's angle downward as I arched. The new position drove me higher with every thrust of his cock. His tail tightened around my balls, giving them a firm squeeze, and his hand found my dick, capturing it in his grip. He pumped, attacking front and back without mercy. I was taken in every way, inside and out. And loved it. "Yes, Zee!"

He clamped a hand over my mouth, chuckling. "Vampires have good hearing."

Vampires? Reynard?! He could hear?—

I came hard, sputtering, gasping, losing my mind, and with my head still abuzz, Zee dropped my dick, grabbed my thighs, and pumped harder. In a few savage thrusts, he came too, growling each breath as his rhythm stuttered.

He caught me in his arms again, and fluttered kisses down the back of my neck, going from brutal and hard, to sweet and soft in a few dizzying seconds. Or maybe I was about to pass out, because everything got really dreamy and dappled after every time we did this.

"I've got you. Stay with me," he whispered, then nibbled on my ear, bringing me sharply back into the moment. "I can't fuckin' help it. I take too much of you, every time. You're more than me, more than I can contain. You blow my mind, and my load."

Yeah, I sort of already knew that from everything Madame Matase had said, about the wards swelling every time Zee and I were intimate. "It's alright, it's... fine. I mean. We're a lot. It's nothing."

"We're a lot and nothing? Okay, sure. Adam Vex logic." Chuckling, he drew me to him and pecked a chaste kiss on the top of my head, then freed me and opened the shower door.

"We should find our clothes before Reynard comes looking." That thought stopped Zee halfway out the door. "Do you think he'd like seeing us naked?"

I switched off the water and gave him a playful shove. "Maybe. Do you think he heard?"

"Maybe."

He'd have definitely heard something. We hadn't been quiet. Maybe he'd heard and liked it? Tiny shivers ran through me—those breathless, stuttering ones that assaulted me every time I thought of getting personal with Reynard.

"I doubt Lord Fuck-Hard even knows what his dick is for," Zee said, grabbing a huge fluffy towel from the rack.

I grabbed my own towel, but as I turned, Zee's towel lassoed over my head, dropped around my waist, and hooked me almost off my feet. He roughly rubbed the towel all over me, jiggling me on my feet from the friction. "W-what is h-happening?"

"I'm dryin' you."

"O-oh. O-ok-ay." It was kinda vigorous, and weirdly invigorating.

He stopped, blinked, and turned around. "Now, do me," he said, spreading his arms.

"Erm..." I eyed my small towel, then his generous dimensions, and rolled my lips together. Where to even start?

"Don't humans dry each other after bathing?" he asked, head tilted, as though puzzled.

"Oh yeah, sure." Probably. "All the time." I dove in, and patted his firm thighs, with their taut muscles. His tail swished back and forth, mostly dry already, so I switched to jiggle-drying his ass, then quickly looped the towel around his front, trying not to enjoy it too much. "After every shower, humans dry each other. Sometimes we like to dry strangers in public restrooms. It's definitely a normal human thing to do."

"I thought so. It's a bonding thing."

I dried his back, wings still hidden, then circled around and dried up his gorgeous abs, slowly collecting glistening droplets of water, until reaching his nipple. Just a little tongue flick, maybe a suck?

"So, the sparks?" he asked, while I gazed at his nipple. "What was that?"

"What?"

"The kiss?" He tipped my chin up, peeling my gaze off his chest. "And it's happened before, when we touch."

Oh, those sparks. "It's nothing. Just erm . . . static. From all the uh . . . friction."

"Right." He took the towel from me, since I'd forgotten how to use it, and wiped himself down. "So it's not dangerous? It's not like the wards firing up?"

"Erm, no?" I didn't think it was dangerous, but four ward weavers had died trying to get a look at my curse, and although Zee wasn't technically trying to undo the cursework, he was, in a way, getting inside me.

Perhaps the sparks were like the wards? "Does it hurt?" I asked.

"Kinda. Not much."

Daisy, the vampire princess, had said glamor was a type of ward we carried with us. But a curse was more like chains. What if one of the times we got all fired up and intimate, my control slipped, and I accidentally hurt Zee?

Oh no. I really needed to fix my curse. "It's nothing,"

Zee frowned, stepped into his pants, and tugged them on. "Your face says your mouth is talking bullshit."

I instinctively grinned. "It's fine. Everything is fine."

"Adam, you know you can talk to me, right? I know there's a lot you can't say, and you probably think I'm just good for sex—which I am—but I'm not just here for cock. You can tell me anything, you know? Talk to me?"

"Uh-huh." Not about my curse, I couldn't. I threw on the change of clothes Reynard had left out. The dress shirt was too lean, and the length of pants collected around my ankles, but the clothes would do until we got back to the hotel.

I headed for the door, hoping to escape Zee's questions. I'd cursed myself once. I could do it again. I'd look into it when we got back.

Zee's fingers snagged my wrist. "Adam?"

"I can't, Zee." I looked at his hand, looped around my wrist. I wanted to tell him everything. That's what made this worse. It would be easier to tell him. "I just... I can't." Raising my gaze, I found the questions all over his face. Sometime soon, he'd ask, and he wouldn't stop asking. Then he'd try and put the pieces together—he was too curious not too. And that day would be our last day together. "Please, don't ask."

"Okay." He let go, and backed off a single step, wings drooping. "I won't."

We left the hot, damp air of the bathroom. Reynard was engrossed in his phone, and didn't appear to have heard or suspected anything x-rated had been happening in his bathroom.

A tiny jab of guilt poked at my insides, when I considered that we hadn't invited him. Was he even into that? He'd seemed sort of into it in Razorsedge's red room. But that had been then, with me. Not with Zee. Still, I knew he liked Zee, so perhaps he might like to get a bit more personal with both of us one day?

By the stars, it was getting complicated.

I settled opposite Reynard. Zee draped himself in the seat across from us. He grinned, exuding smug confidence.

But Reynard wasn't scowling. There, this was fine.

Not awkward at all.

Nobody needed to know we'd enjoyed some vigorous personal time.

Reynard's teacup clacked. He looked up, spearing those intense eyes into me. "Now you are both thoroughly reacquainted, what do we intend to do about Sebastien?"

Oh, then he had heard.

Heat flushed my face.

He leaned back, legs and arms crossed, poised and stern, and clearly not in any way interested in also becoming thoroughly acquainted with either of us.

"I think I know what to do about Sebastien," I said, equally as businesslike, so I didn't have to think about how I'd told Zodiac to go deeper, and Reynard had heard. "As Zee is cursed with beauty, he'll be the perfect distraction."

"Fuck yes! My time has come." He preened, flicked his hair, and flashed a photoshoot grin. "Who am I distracting?"

I looked at them both—at Reynard's keenly interested, arched eyebrow, and Zee's cocky grin.

It was time Sebastien learned what the San Francisco vampires and Gideon Cain had already discovered: Provoke the SOS Hotel management, and we'd bite back.