Page 69 of Forbidden

“I want to know what the surprise is, come on!” Ira insistently tugged him out of the car. He barely had enough time to close it and hit the button to lock it before Ira was pulling him across the street and inside their building.

In the elevator, Ira leaned against him. “Am I going to like it?”

“I… hope so.”

Ira cast a cheeky look up at him. “Is it your dick?”

Wolf had never heard himself laugh as high and bright as he did now. “No! I mean, later, maybe. But that’s not the surprise. That’s not a surprise at all. You see that all the time.” He grinned suddenly. “You really don’t know?”

Ira smiled lopsidedly. “No. No visions about this.”

That explained his excitement, then. Ira was a hard man to surprise. He was usually three steps ahead of everyone else. Even when he wasn’t, he’d seen pieces of the distant future well enough to learn the steps most of the time. The only time he ever faltered was with personal decisions. Wolf didn’t know if that was because personal stakes were less fixed in time or simply because he saw his personal life less in visions than the big moments.

The elevator door dinged open on their floor.

“Come on, come on, come on!” Ira said, skipping from the elevator with Wolf’s hand grasped firmly in his.

Ira opened the door with his own key—Wolf had made him one right after Ira returned to him—and dragged Wolf inside. He took his time once Ira let him go, closing and locking the door, going into the kitchen for a beer from the fridge and twisting the top off. Ira watched him intently the whole time, practically vibrating with eagerness.

Wolf couldn’t resist teasing. He affected a grimace. “You know what? Maybe we should wait. Now might not be the best time.”

Ira gaped. “What? No way! You’ve already got me excited. My hopes are up. I’ve got to know what it is now.”

Wolf rocked his head in aso-sogesture and took a longpull from the beer. He drank and drank, watching Ira grow more and more frustrated as the silence between them extended.

“Would you just tell me what it is already!” Ira exploded.

Some liquid escaped Wolf’s lips as he tried not to laugh, grabbing a hand towel to sop it up off his chin.

Ira took the bottle from him and set it on the counter behind him, then fisted his hands in Wolf’s shirt and reeled him in. “Don’t tease me, Wolf, please?” His plaintive, breathy voice rolled right down Wolf’s spine to pool in his belly.

He ducked his head and kissed him. Ira hummed into it, threading his hands into Wolf’s hair. Kissing Ira never got old. It wasn’t a perfunctory thing he did before the main event with him. He could kiss Ira for hours, until Ira’s lips were swollen and he was panting and begging. Had, on occasion, as a treat. But not tonight. Tonight, he lifted Ira onto the counter and stepped between his legs, bringing their bodies flush and rocking against Ira’s core.

“Are you sure the surprise isn’t your dick?” Ira asked between toe curling kisses. “Because that seems like where we’re headed.”

Wolf nipped his bottom lip and pulled away. “I got you something.”

“Is it your?—”

“Stop asking if it’s my dick,” he said through a chuckle.

Ira grinned shamelessly.

Wolf reached into his pocket and withdrew the small black box. Ira went still, his hands falling from Wolf’s hair to his wrists. Wolf couldn’t resist kissing his bent head as he opened the box.

“Oh my God,” Ira breathed.

Unlike Alex’s ring, which was silver and crusted with diamonds, Ira’s ring was warm, yellow gold with two rows of tiny black opals that ran parallel to the hidden blade. The black opal reminded him of Ira, how he related his visions to a small light in the darkness. Snippets of color within the dark.

“Wolf, it’sbeautiful,” Ira said.

Wolf carefully lifted the ring from the box and slid it onto Ira’s left ring finger. When he tightened his fingers into a fist, it activated the button on the side, and the tiny blade swung out.

“That’s… wow,” he murmured. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” Wolf said, toying with Ira’s fingers. “I want you to know for sure that I want this—I wantyou—for all time. I want to give you my blood and share eternity with you. And if you don’t want to live forever, I’ll be yours for as long as you draw breath, and when you’re gone, I’ll find some way to join you in the afterlife.”

Ira’s chocolate brown eyes filled with tears. “Don’t say that. Neither of us is going to die, because we’re going to live forever. Together.”

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