Page 40 of Missing Piece
“I’m so tired,” Adam mumbled.
Vincent leaned forward. “Put your head on my shoulder, Luka won’t take too long.” Without another word, Adam placed his forehead against Vincent’s shoulder, still holding both of his hands, though his grip had relaxed.
A warm tingle spread through Vincent’s body. He wasn’t expecting Adam to do it so quickly or willingly.And even through the blood and the rot sticking on his skin from that house, he smelled so fucking good. Vincent shut his eyes, trying to fight the warmth as it burrowed through him and melted away his lingering anger and calmed the beast. This was everything he wanted. The closeness, the unrelenting warmth of a human body against him, the silent simplicity of the situation.
Adam was everything.
* * *
“Do you need another blanket?” Vincent asked while pulling the blanket up to cover Adam’s exposed back. The human laid flat on his stomach in bed, arms at his side as though he were trying to move as little as possible. Even with the tingling warmth still buzzing through his body, part of him wondered if it had been a mistake to carry Adam up to his bedroom, but he felt uneasy not being able to keep watch over him.
And even if he had convinced himself to let Adam recover alone, he was certain his beast would pick a fight.
Plus he really liked the thought of just lying there with Adam, just able to stare at his face while he slept and stroke his hair as he had done every night since taking the young man into his house, without the prying eyes of the brothers wondering why he slipped into the spare room again.
He still couldn’t figure out why he was doing that.
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
“I can stop if it bothers you.” Vincent stuffed his hands in his pockets, bristling at the question. How could he answerthat? He didn’t even know why. But then he remembered what Luka said.Stop looking for the why. Just let it be what it is.
“No,” Adam said quickly, shaking his head. Fear flashed across his face without a hint of the calm and cool machismo he usually displayed. “I just…this is all so fucked up man. I don’t understand why this is happening.”
Vincent sat down on the other side of the bed, trying to figure out where to start in a way that wasn’t overwhelming. “I seem to have pissed off the wrong people,” he said, sitting back against the headboard and kicking his feet up onto the bed. He half expected Adam to say something to him for being so close, but the wounded human relaxed a little, tracing his finger on the seam of the pillowcase. “Vampires tend to be territorial, and normally we don’t intrude in each other’s towns, but we’ve integrated a little too well with this population. Some others are trying to move in.”
“How many of you live here?” Adam asked while resting his head back on the pillow, still looking up at Vincent.
Something vibrated in his gut at the sight. Looking past the injuries on his face, those green eyes gazing up at him flooded his body with heat. Those same eyes already boiled his blood once while looking down at him when Vincent had his cock in his mouth, but now they were looking up at him and filling his mind with different ideas.Now is not the time to get horny. What is wrong with you?
“Twenty.”
“Fuck.”
Vincent chuckled, absentmindedly reaching out to brush the dark bangs away from Adam’s forehead again. He really did have such a lovely face, oddly tired looking and a bit gaunt. He hadn’t even found Adam attractive when he firstsaw him, but the more he saw that face, the more he craved the sight of it. Asleep, awake, angry, sarcastic. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he got to look at him.
“Why did you pick this town? It sucks here. I’ve been here my whole life and nothing ever happens here.”
“Like I said, we integrated. Up north, everything is controlled by the old ones, the vampires who are five-hundred and older who dictated everything we could do. How we hunted, where we lived, what areas of the city to avoid because they weren’t the ones in control. It was all bullshit,” Vincent explained. “One of my best friends, Ophelia’s father, he got tired of living that way, and I did too. Being the nightmares of River North was fun for the first thirty or so years, but living by someone else’s rules isn’t really in my nature, so we said screw it and left. Brought a few friends with us, bought some property, and we’ve been here ever since.”
The man’s eyelids were fluttering closed as Vincent stroked his hair. He needed to rest, and if his little tale was putting him to sleep, so be it. Vincent continued, “Plus, I like it here. It’s quiet. Not a lot of noise, you can still see the stars out here at night. I have a business, my friends have jobs all over. As long as we don’t mess it up, we can do whatever we want. And I like doing whatever I want.”
“Like the occasional kidnapping?”
Vincent smirked. “Yes, like the occasional kidnapping.” Those eyes stayed closed, and as badly as Vincent wanted to lay down beside him and watch him sleep, the traumatized human would probably sleep better knowing he was not beside the same type of beast that tried to tear him to shreds earlier in the evening. “Get some sleep, we can talk morelater if you like,” he said while pulling his hand away.
Adam grabbed his wrist, eyes still closed. “Can you stay until I fall asleep?” he murmured into the pillow as his body slumped further into the mattress. “Please…I don’t want to be alone.”
Vincent’s throat tightened. Adam wanted him to stay? The cage around his heart rusted further as the words lingered in his mind. “Okay,” Vincent said, his throat dry and voice hoarse. “I’ll stay.”
* * *
“He likes peaches.” That was the only thing written on the note Ophelia left him inside the grocery bag filled with cans and the single burner phone she brought back from the Whitman’s farmhouse. He should have busied himself with going through the device to figure out why exactly it was left behind, but he found himself distracted by the memory of how Adam smelled that first night in his house. Like alcohol and sweat and blood and peaches.
He wished he could go back and do that entire night differently. He should have killed Beth. He should have tried a different approach with Adam. How could he have thought that emulating his old self would bring that sense of control back into his life? Perhaps Marcus was right. Changing wasn’t a bad thing.
The phone began vibrating in his hand, the screen displaying only an unsaved number. “Who is this?” Vincent answered.
“Ah, Mr. Bellenger, wonderful to finally get to speak with you.” The man on the other end of the phone sounded softand jovial with a heavy Cajun accent, as though the phone he was calling hadn’t been found in a blood-soaked den of murder. “I’ve been looking forward to this moment.”
