Page 42 of Close Quarter
Silas's fingers tightening in his hair as he urged Rhys on. The hard length of Silas's dick sliding between his lips, the scent of his balls, and Silas's sublime shout of abandonment.
That cry he wanted to hear again, preferably with his cock as deep into Silas as he could drive it. With that thought, the scent of the garden grew more intense. His pulse thudded in his hands, his ears; his dick strained against his jeans.
Silas's jeans.
Rhys wrapped his hands around the edge of the bench and shifted forward. Had he a glamour like a fae's, he'd slip farther into the garden and jack off to the fantasy of Silas mouthing his balls or to Silas sucking the head of Rhys's dick into his hot mouth.
A rush, like pricks of static electricity, passed through his body. A fern swayed and bent toward him. Leaves rustled as if in a breeze, though the air around him barely moved. A plant to his left that hadn't had any blossoms on it now had lush white blooms. Their sweet scent washed over Rhys. Ivy snaked over the edge of the bed, straining toward him.
Holy shit.
Rhys sat back. That had never happened before. He'd run off into the woods to masturbate as a teen but had never made plants grow. Or bloom.
Quarter-fae. Being with Silas must have unlocked something in him. God only knew what.
When he cornered Silas again, there would be a long conversation, this time with his rules.
He touched the nearest plant and felt that same buzz of tiny shocks. An elemental reservoir, Silas had said. What did that mean? Silas had said Rhys couldn't use the energy, just collect it. Except his collecting of energy--and that must have been what had happened--hadn't caused any of the plants around him to die, as they had when Silas had taken their element.
Every green thing around him had grown, increased in health.
Each time they'd been together, he hadn't drained Silas. Nor had Silas drained him. Far from it. Every encounter but the one after the vampires had left him spinning with energy and feeling more alive than he ever had before.
Silas implied he was a battery, something to be tapped and drained. But the plants, leaning toward him as they were, suggested something else. Amplifier? Transformer?
For the first time in his life, he regretted sleeping through physics in college. Not that science would help much with magic.
Magic. Rhys raked his hands through his hair.
That was worse than physics. Magic wasn't real.
This can't be real.
Except it was. Silas, the vampires, the flower-laden plant next to him. All real.
So now what? He still had forty-five minutes before he could speak to Vasil. Daydreaming about a certain fae was out, unless he wanted to cause the whole damn garden to overgrow. Too bad Silas wasn't here. With all his element floating about, Silas's wounds would heal up pretty much instantly, he bet.
Rhys touched the striped leaf of some kind of vine. Now there was a thought. He had a connection to Silas, one that worked across a room. But across a ship?
A tingling flowed up his arm. The scent of sweet blossoms filled the air.
Worth a try. Rhys closed his eyes and thought of Silas--his voice, the color of his eyes. The feather touch of Silas's hand against his own. The warmth of Silas's body next to his as they stood at the bar. The bell-like sound of Silas's laugh.
Silas. I want you to be well.The buzz in his body increased, stretched, flowed out. Two things existed in the world. The garden. Silas. Nothing else.
"Mr. Matherton?"
Rhys started and opened his eyes.Shit!How long had he been out?
Vasil peered at him from a few feet away.
Rhys followed the waiter's gaze to his own wrist.
The vine he had been touching had wrapped itself around his hand and trailed up his arm. "Oh.
Um..."
"You're like him, aren't you? Like Mr. Quint?" The waiter's accent made him seem calm --at least a damn lot calmer than Rhys felt.
