Page 17 of Roman

Roman followed Danny up the stairs to the boy’s bedroom. He stood to the side, waiting in the corner as Danny slid under the covers of his bed.

How close would the boy let him get?

Danny eyed him from the bed. “Do you sleep?”

“Yes, I sleep. Although, my kind do not need as much as you do.”

“And will you burst into flames if the curtains are open in the morning?”

Roman gave a small laugh. “No, that is another myth. Sunlight does not harm me. It is only slightly irritating to my demon.”

“All right then.” Danny patted the bed. “You can crash here with me. Keep the other baddies away. Just no biting.”

His demon was offended at the implication, that it would hurt this boy it had decided to claim, a fact Roman found almost hilarious considering its recent bloodthirsty inclinations.

He crossed the room and lay down on top of the covers, forcing himself to keep a few inches’ distance between their bodies. He was worried if he started touching Danny, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

And he wasn’t going to let himself scare this boy away.

Not even an hour later, Danny had inched himself not just next to Roman but all the way on top of him, arm thrown over Roman’s chest, leg thrown over his hip. As if the boy hadn’t been able to resist the pull between them in his sleep.

Roman’s cock was achingly hard at Danny’s proximity, the boy’s delicious scent surrounding him, but he was able to ignore his own arousal after all, soothed by the boy’s unconscious trust in him.

Roman tightened his arms around Danny’s back, and his demon let out a contented purr as he allowed himself to close his eyes.

And then his demon said what they had both been edging around, voicing it whether Roman was ready for it or not.

Mate, it purred.Our mate.

Goddamn it.

five

Danny

Dannymoaned.Somethingsmelledso good.

It was that delicious Mr. Handsome scent surrounding him—had he let Danny borrow his cologne to douse his pillow after all?

He turned his face into his pillow and took a deep breath in.Heaven. The scent made him feel safe, and cozy, and…turned on?

Yep. Definite yep. His morning wood twitched as he inhaled again. Except…

“Not pillow,” Danny mumbled, his voice garbled by cloth and…chest. That was definitely a hard male chest his head was resting on—one that was starting to shake as its owner let out a soft laugh, all gloriously smooth and deep and rumbly. Oh no. That was definitely not helping Danny’s morning wood situation at all.

He lifted his head and found himself gazing into familiar bright-blue eyes. Had Danny thought they were cold and predatory before? Now they were warm and soft, with a heat building in them that had Danny’s toes curling.

“Awake already, lovely? It has only been a few hours.” That smooth, deep voice sent a shiver down Danny’s spine.

He let out a grumble-snort that was supposed to translate into, “Awake is a relative term.” Hopefully Roman got the gist. Mornings were not Danny’s thing, even at the best of times.

As the sleep fog slowly left his brain, he realized with some amount of mortification that he was wrapped around Roman like some kind of horny octopus. At some point in his sleep, Danny had apparently kicked off the covers and decided the man—thevampire—was his personal life-size teddy bear.

Which—double mortification—meant Danny’s hard-on was currently pressed right into Roman’s hip.

He let out an embarrassed groan and tried to untangle his limbs from Roman’s body. “I’m so sorry, I—”

He was cut off by a low growl as Roman’s arms tightened around him, keeping Danny firmly in place, without an inch of space between them.

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