Page 23 of Roman

Well, clearly not all of it, but that was all Danny could share. “Yep, that’s the gist.”

“I don’t know, Danny. All signs point to a guy that’s super into you. You met him at the hospital. Maybe he’s expecting to see you again there?”

“But I don’t even work the next two nights.” Danny could hear the petulant whine in his voice, but he couldn’t help it.

“Ohhh.” Chloe sounded delighted. “I hear it. You’ve got acrush.”

“Mmph.” Maybe this phone call was a mistake.

“This is just such a lovely mix of heartwarming and pathetic.” Chloe laughed. “All right, solution time. I’ve got you. The key is distraction. I’m coming over tonight with trash movies and trash junk food. Then tomorrow night you’re coming out with me. It’s Marcus’s birthday celebration, and I know he would be both shocked and delighted if you actually came out. We’ll distract you until work, and if you see him, you see him, and if you don’t, we throw an ‘all men are trash’ pity party.”

“You can’t say all men are trash when you have a perfect husband, Chloe.”

“I can, and I will. Marcus would even bake us cookies for it.” Marcus was Chloe’s incredibly sweet, incredibly loving husband. He probably would too.

Okay. Distraction. That would work, right? He couldn’t obsess over unreachable vampire lovers if he was being sociable for once in his life.

After they had the details sorted, he ended the call, feeling unbearably appreciative of his friendship with Chloe. He knew he could be an absentee friend, not around enough to hang out regularly or be a consistent presence—a fact that had prevented him from befriending the majority of his coworkers in any meaningful way—but Chloe met him where he was at, rejoicing when he was available and being incredibly understanding when he wasn’t.

Spending the next two nights with her would be the perfect distraction.

Now he just had to make it through the next five hours without obsessing over a certain vampire. He could handle that, right?

six

Roman

Romanwasobsessing.

He’d forced himself to stay away from Danny for one night. To give the boy time to think, time to process everything he’d found out. Time to processRoman, really. It was torture, but he knew it was the right thing to do for Danny.

Roman’s demon had raged at the distance, insisting they be close to their mate. One taste of Danny, and its obsession had only grown.

They had compromised by stalking the boy.

He’d watched Danny’s house the night before, seen another nurse from the hospital come over with what looked like bags of junk food. A female nurse, luckily—Roman wasn’t sure his demon would have stood by on the sidelines while another male was alone with their mate. Especially considering the other nurse hadn’t left until morning.

But he had reminded the demon—and himself—that it was a good thing Danny had friends, had support. They were not going to be jealous brutes who resented their mate having close ties beyond themselves.

And Dannywastheir mate.

He was sure of it now, after the morning before. Touching the boy, hearing his moans, tasting his release—Roman had never experienced anything like it in his two centuries of living. His cock hardened at just remembering the look on Danny’s face when the boy came, cheeks flushed with pleasure.

And then there was the moment right before Danny had fallen back asleep, when he had seen the demon in Roman’s eyes and not only tolerated it butreached for it. Greeted it with warm, sated eyes and a sweet smile.

In that moment, Roman had felt something in his demon release—a tension that had been present since the moment he had turned, suddenly gone.

He had been planning to show himself again tonight (one night away seemed to be his limit at the moment). But then he’d been surprised to see Danny leave the house, looking beyond delicious in tight black jeans and a baby-blue hoodie under a long dark coat. Roman had been tempted to intercept him at the doorway, push him up against the wall, and have his wicked way with the boy.

But that would probably not be in the spirit of “giving space,” so instead, he had followed discreetly as Danny made his way to a bar in town. Roman hadn’t thought his mate the type to go out much—he had that look of exhaustion about himself that stemmed from overwork, not overpartying—but then again, he didn’t actually know much about the boy he and his demon were obsessing over.

That thought raised his demon’s hackles immediately.Know enough. Know he’s sweet, soft, ours, ours, ours.

He brushed his demon off.Yes, I get it, you’re hooked. Now hush.

It grumbled some more at him but ultimately backed down. It seemed to trust now that Roman wasn’t going to run off and leave Danny behind. Trust that he was just as addicted to the boy as it was.

Roman grew impatient lurking in the parking lot of the bar. What was he even doing? Not for the first time, he chided himself for not giving Danny his phone number. Such a simple, obvious step he’d forgotten. But the thing was, he hadn’t really ever, in all his decades, tried to date anyone—tokeepanyone. He had never needed to leave his contact information with a lover, because he’d never intended to return to one.

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