Blood Howl (6 page)

They pulled back, Redford’s lips ghosting over his, neither one of them quite able to let go. Eventually though, Jed rocked back on his heels, reluctantly letting his hands drop away. “Okay,” he murmured, ducking his head to hide a grin. “Let me, uh, let me get you that stuff.”

Maybe it was still idiotic. Redford wasn’t anything Jed normally went for, but damn it all if that hadn’t been the best kiss he’d ever had. If he wasn’t so sure this was going to end in a whole lot of tears, then he’d consider pushing for more. Good kisser or not though, eventually Jed would get his common sense back, and then it’d just be awkward. And despite his history, he really didn’t want to use Redford for a quick fuck. Somehow, he thought the guy deserved more. He definitely should find someone better than Jed. So Jed would just do his best to shake off the bad guys, do the whole Bond routine, and ride off into the sunset. It was better that way.

He didn’t sleep that night. Not that that was unusual, really, but it felt different. This wasn’t nightmares. This wasn’t a brain running too fast to shut down. It was that he could hear every breath from Redford, who’d curled up under his covers and dropped off easily, Knievel curled up around his feet. It was that he could still taste the man on his lips, could still feel his hair through his fingers.

Someday, Jed swore, he really was going to start thinking with his other head. His life would be a hell of a lot easier.

Chapter Five

Redford

R
EDFORD
dreamed.

He dreamed he was sixteen again, his grandmother still alive, still puttering around the kitchen. In his dream, she was unchanged, still standing tall. The time before the cancer had hit her, withering her so rapidly.

“Stop lurking, boy, you know this baking isn’t for you,” she was saying, and Redford peeked around the wall, guilty. She baked all the time, but all of it was given to the neighbors, and he still wasn’t sure why. “You’re making too much noise, Redford. Go to your room.”

He did. Except his room wasn’t
his
room, yet it seemed fine to his dream self. It was smaller. The furniture was missing, the toy horse sitting lonely in the middle of the floor. He sank down to sit next to it, and when a hand reached down to help lift him up, it didn’t seem all that strange. Redford took it.

The dream world spun, blurred like a kaleidoscope of colors. Jed was there, smiling at him, and Redford felt safe. They were in Jed’s apartment. Jed was reaching forward, smirking, to jostle the little bell around Redford’s neck. “See? This way you can’t get lost.”

It spun again.

The full moon was hovering outside the window, pale and ominous. Redford looked down at his hands, knowing that he should be feeling pain from the transformation, but there was nothing. Jed was standing in front of him, and he was begging Jed to leave, to run, to lock him away, but Jed stayed. He was a wolf then, leaping forward, sinking his fangs into Jed’s neck. There was blood, and screaming, and—

—a paw on his face, and rumbling purring.

The cat.

Redford shuddered out a long breath, opening his eyes. Knievel was staring at him, perched on his chest, and when Redford didn’t jump to attend her every whim, she glowered at him, stalking off to go find Jed. A glance at the window confirmed that it was early morning, and he definitely wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep now. With a quiet sigh, Redford rolled out of bed, tugging at the shirt Jed had loaned him. He wasn’t quite sure what the words on the shirt actually meant.
Special Ops Do It in the Dark
wasn’t a saying that he was familiar with. Both the shirt and the pants were a little loose on him, but he appreciated the gesture.

When he emerged from behind the screen Jed had set up to separate the bed and the rest of the place, Jed was sitting at the table, immersed in a cigarette, coffee, and the newspaper. Redford would swear that Jed had very quickly looked away when Redford had come out.

“Morning,” he mumbled, a little lost, standing in the middle of the place, unsure what to do. If he were back home, he’d shower, have some breakfast, and then settle down on his couch to do some reading. Maybe, if he were feeling very brave, he’d venture outside for food. Redford wasn’t sure if Jed needed to do that, or if he procured his necessary items in some other way. Online ordering, for one. He’d heard of that.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Jed drawled, stubbing out the cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. “Sweet dreams?”

Redford wasn’t quite sure how to answer that, so he just sat down next to Jed at the table, glancing curiously over the paper. He still received the local newspaper, but he didn’t read it much. Honestly, it depressed him. The newspaper seemed to be all bad news—murders, theft, corrupt politicians—and they never discussed any of the good news. It wasn’t very balanced. “Yes,” he eventually answered, even though they both knew it was a lie.

“You drink coffee? I don’t have milk. Or sugar.” Redford wondered if that was slight embarrassment he saw on Jed’s face. “But you’re welcome to it if you like it black. How about breakfast?”

The interesting thing about Jed, Redford had to conclude, was that he lied. A lot. If they weren’t direct vocal lies, they were lies with his body language, lies with his expression. He put on this air of being completely confident in everything he was doing, and maybe that was true, but he was also sitting there trying not to look concerned about the fact that he’d obviously heard Redford having a nightmare. He covered up that concern with inhaling his coffee, and Redford supposed that if Jed was concealing things, so should he. Nightmares were never a pleasant topic.

“I think I’ll just… do you mind if I use your shower?” Redford knew it was polite to ask. He didn’t miss the quick leer that crossed Jed’s expression, and it reminded him that they’d kissed last night. His first kiss, actually.

“I have a rule in this apartment. Water conservation is sacred,” Jed remarked. The leer almost came back. Redford wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.

“I’ll be quick, then,” he assured Jed, heading toward the bathroom. The kiss had been very nice. Redford wasn’t entirely sure if he had the right words to describe it. For someone who hadn’t spent a great deal of time considering his sexuality, he sure was thinking about that kiss more than he’d imagined he would. Jed had practically run away afterwards, and Redford had gone to bed and fallen asleep, feeling warmer and safer than he ever had in his life. It was an unusual feeling. One he wanted to hold on to for as long as he could.

There was a problem with the bathroom door, he discovered. In that there wasn’t one. Redford stood for a moment, contemplating this, a little confused, because every bathroom had doors. He honestly hadn’t noticed the lack of one in Jed’s bathroom last night when he’d gone to brush his teeth; as stressed out and tired as he was, he’d barely comprehended anything at all. His bathroom at home definitely had a door, because he was sure that the rules of society included “the bathroom is a sacred, private place.” He supposed Jed lived alone, though, so a door on the bathroom wasn’t absolutely necessary. At least there was a shower curtain.

Remembering Jed’s rule about water conservation, he showered quickly. The water pressure, as promised earlier, was amazing. It was highly tempting just to stay there for a while, letting the hot water beat down on his shoulders and erase the memory of the confusing dream. There was an odd noise coming from the apartment, something like the sound of a chair being leaned on its back legs. When Redford got out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist, Jed’s chair was leaned so far back that he gracelessly tipped it right over, falling onto the floor.

“I wasn’t attempting to watch you
at all
,” Jed announced, picking himself up like he’d meant to fall over.

Redford blinked at him, mystified. “Are you okay?”

Jed grumbled something under his breath, stalking into the kitchen—Knievel on his heels—but Redford was pretty sure that, as he turned his back, Jed was still staring. Quick glances over his shoulder, like he was afraid to be caught, but there was a
want
there Redford hadn’t seen before. Nobody, as far as Redford was aware, had ever looked at him like that, and he certainly hadn’t experienced the resulting reaction before, either.

As soon as Redford left the bathroom, Jed stalked in, unbuckling his belt as he went. He was muttering something about a cold shower, and Redford stared at him, baffled, as clothes were shucked off, and Jed disappeared behind the curtain. He was left to ponder the new heat that had settled low in his stomach and the strange urge to copy Jed and attempt to look around the curtain.

Sexual arousal was a whole new world for him. Not
entirely
new, he supposed, because Redford—like every other man on the planet—had gone through the teenage years. Lacking the benefit of the Internet though, he’d had to resort to the old fashion magazines his grandmother had brought decades ago. Experiencing arousal because of another person, however—that was new.

Shaking off his reaction, Redford dried himself off and got dressed. He didn’t miss the sounds of what Jed was obviously doing in the shower. He wasn’t quiet. Listening to him was making ignoring the heat a lot more difficult, but Redford was determined. Jed had probably saved his life, and he was being kind enough to take him into his home to make sure he was safe. He didn’t need Redford lusting after him like some awkward teenager with a first crush.

He left Jed to his shower, settling down at the table to sip at the coffee, leaving the towel hung over the back of the chair opposite him. Redford was not a big coffee drinker, but the bitter taste left him with something else to focus on. Anything that wasn’t Jed and what he was doing behind that shower curtain. Instead, Redford made plans. If he was going to stay at Jed’s place, he’d need to buy clothes. A toothbrush. Things like that, so that he wasn’t relying on Jed for everything.

Redford was almost relaxing into the plan making when Jed came out of the shower. Naked.

Wide eyed, Redford watched as he walked closer, his mind racing with possibilities. What was Jed going to do? Was he going to kiss him again? Redford would really enjoy that, actually. But all he did was steal the towel and start to dry off, standing very close. With certain parts of his body at eye level. “So, usually on a weekend, I sleep in from a night of blatant debauchery.” He was smirking, back to sounding completely confident and in control. “But since yesterday was unusually alcohol free, I was thinking we could go blow off some steam at the gym. I feel like getting some energy out or something, you know? Maybe some one on one?”

Redford managed to tear his eyes away from Jed’s lower body and look up at his face. It was an equally pleasant sight. Redford knew he shouldn’t be staring, he
knew
, but there was a droplet of water winding its way down Jed’s chest, nestling in the cut of muscle near his hip. “You had beer last night,” he felt the need to point out. “One on one?”

“Beer and a couple’a shots aren’t enough to knock me out the next morning,” Jed responded with a grin, bending over to rub his hair dry, ending up tousled and damp and smiling right at him. “Basketball. You and me, running around, throwing balls, whatever. Might be nice to work up a sweat. I think I’ve been sitting for too long. You up for it?”

Redford knew what basketball was. He’d never participated, but he’d seen some other kids playing it on the street—he’d watched from his window. He knew the rules, he thought. He was a fairly intelligent guy; he grasped concepts quickly. Conversations may not be his strong suit, but Redford was fairly proud that he’d managed to not make an utter fool of himself in front of Jed yet.

Until right now, when his voice came out sounding suspiciously like a squeak, “Playing with balls?”

Yes, he could see those. That. Er. He could see what Jed was talking about. Redford promptly turned his head and looked away. That was just safer for everyone. He was not staring. He was not going to stare more. He was going to be a nice, courteous guest.

“Yes. Basketball,” Redford continued after he’d cleared his throat. “I don’t… I’ve never played.” He didn’t even go outside all that much. “But I’m up for it.”

There was a pause, and Redford could almost hear the grin in Jed’s voice, that slow one that spread like honey over hot toast. “Yeah. You like balls, Fido?” Before he could summon up a proper response or work out why such a silly sounding question sent little sparks popping up and down his spine, Jed had sauntered away, still entirely naked, towel thrown over his shoulder. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn Jed
wanted
him to look. “Great. I’ve got some sweats and tank tops in the bottom drawer. Help yourself. After, we’ll stop and pick up some things. Maybe get breakfast.”

Redford released a slow, controlled exhale, trying to get himself under control. At Jed’s direction, he found the clothes in the drawer and got dressed quickly, noticing that Jed actually had a basketball stashed away near the dresser. He picked it up and tucked it under his arm, trying not to think about the fact that he was wearing clothes that smelled like Jed. It was a redundant observation, actually, considering the entire place smelled like Jed, but there was something a lot more intimate about the clothing.