Eternal Hearts (2 page)

“I’ve fed enough to last me for the
next few weeks. Do you need to? Or do you just want to come back to my place
and fuck to insanity for the night?”

Michael rearranged his own clothes,
his cheeks pale.

“I do need blood, but I’ll wait ‘til
tomorrow.”

Nathaniel shrugged and slung his arm
over Michael’s shoulders.

“Follow me.”

Nathaniel took his long time lover
and friend home where they sucked each other dry before passing out in each
other’s arms to rest for the daylight hours.

****

Michael woke first, his eyes still
slightly blurry from fatigue and hunger. He had refused to feed on any of the starving
people aboard the ship that had travelled from France, wanting nothing more
than to see Nathaniel.

Why did it feel so perfect to be
together when that elusive missing piece was always there? It was cruel really.

“Are you here for long?” Nathaniel’s
voice surprised him. Michael hadn’t realized his lover was awake.

He turned onto his side and faced
the man he had loved for almost five hundred years. Nathaniel was as dark as he
was fair, but Nathaniel was far more beautiful.
Big brown
eyes, solid jaw, and thick, full lips.

Michael leaned forward, kissing the
mouth that had brought him untold pleasure for centuries. It was time for him
to be brave. Being honest about how he felt was something that did not come
easily or naturally to him. But if he wanted a future with Nathaniel, then he
would need to find the courage to say aloud how he felt.

“I’m here for as long as you want
me.”

Nathaniel’s eyes widened in
surprise, and Michael understood why. It no longer gave him any power or
pleasure to hold back on his lover. Paris had changed him.

Nathaniel spoke casually, but his
brown eyes were watching Michael’s face with an unnerving intensity.

“You haven’t been here for a year,
Michael, and you were missing for a decade before that.
Why
would you stay indefinitely now?”

Nathaniel’s answer pleased him, and
he smiled. Did his mate wish for him to stay forever?
Despite
everything?

“You wish for me to stay forever?”

Nathaniel clucked in his throat,
rolled onto his back and pulled Michael into his arms.

Michael licked the tiny pink nipple
closest to him,
then
laid his head on his mate’s
chest. Love flowed through him, over him, and around him, but there was the
cold, empty place beside them. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore
it.

“You know I love you, Michael, I
always have. But I don’t think I can handle another hundred years of passion
and pain only to have you leave me again.”

Michael sighed, and his eyes slid
open again. Nathaniel and he had lived together on and off for their whole
existence. They had met within five years after being turned and had been in
love for the whole time since then.

 
Unfortunately they both knew they weren’t
complete as a couple. Something was always missing, and they had both tried to
find it in other things. Humans, vampires, women, men, it didn’t matter. They
couldn’t find a way of filling the hole they both felt. It drove them both
insane.

Michael knew he was the generally
the one to start the fights, and he was the one to shut down emotionally. He
had barely told Nathaniel how he felt over their time together, yet he relied
on his mate’s easy tongue to keep him content and satisfied.

It was time for more honesty. It was
Nathaniel’s time to feel that happiness.

“Nathaniel, I can’t be apart
anymore. The older I get the harder it’s getting. I will stay forever, with
you.
No matter what.”

Nathaniel gasped and gripped
Michael, forcing him up so they could look at one another in the eye.

“You love me?”

Nathaniel’s words bit into Michael’s
soul, demanding more. Those words brought so much pleasure to him when
Nathaniel said them to him, but how could he return them?

He dropped his eyes, and Nathaniel’s
hand tipped his chin back up.

Nathaniel’s brown eyes burned into
his, wanting the love Michael always gave but was reluctant to name. He had
always thought actions were enough, but evidently not.

“Of course I love you, Nathaniel. We
can continue to look for whatever is missing if you like, but I’m happy with
you.
Now and forever.”

Nathaniel launched himself at
Michael, knocking him onto his back. Michael tried to laugh, but felt the wet
tears upon his neck.

He stroked Nathaniel’s lovely thick
brown hair and ran a hand down his smooth back. He had missed this so much.

“Nathaniel, my lover,
stop
. Do not lose all that lovely blood you consumed last
night.”

Nathaniel made a noise between a sob
and a laugh. He then moved slowly down Michael’s chest, kissing each inch by
inch as he went. Michael watched as his mate sucked a nipple into his mouth,
the pressure perfect.

Michael sighed and opened his mouth
to voice what was in his heart.

“I have missed you so much.”

Nathaniel looked up, his eyebrows
drawing together. It would take a few years before Nathaniel got used to
Michael speaking his feelings aloud, but he was willing to put in the time.

“What has happened, my love?”
Nathaniel looked up from Michael’s belly, his concern palpable.

Michael shifted, uncomfortable with
the level of understanding his mate had. He wanted to make Nathaniel happy, but
he wasn’t ready to reveal all, right away.

 
“Just love me, Nathaniel. No one feels like
you.”

Nathaniel’s brown eyes looked at him
for one more assessing minute, before he moved down.

Nathaniel’s tongue flicked the slit
on Michael’s cock, and he thrust up, wanting more. Nathaniel laughed and
avoided him, licking the head lightly again.

Michael gripped his lover’s thick
brown hair and forced him over his cock. Thrusting up, Michael gasped as
Nathaniel opened his mouth and slid Michael’s cock straight in. Wet, silky
suction enclosed him. Nathaniel had a mouth like no other.

Michael lifted his hips higher and
thrust up over and over again, ready to come straight down his lover’s throat.

His balls were tightening, his cock
about to explode, and the suction was gone. He was flipped over, and
Nathaniel’s hands pulled him back onto his knees.

Michael chuckled, shocked and
frustrated. He had been so ready to come, to take without thought, as he often
did.

Nathaniel wasn’t taking any shit
this time, and the message was clear.

 
Oiled fingers circled his arse and pushed into
him.

Michael gasped and consciously
relaxed his muscles. He’d accept Nathaniel, everything about him.
Even Nathaniel’s need to top occasionally.

Nathaniel wasted no time kneeling
behind him and sliding his well oiled, thick cock, straight into Michael’s
arse. Michael moaned and threw his head back as Nathaniel slid in and out,
slowly building up in rhythm.

It was there, that missing piece.
Michael closed his eyes and focused on Nathaniel’s breathing, his mate’s hard
cock filling him and pushing him towards a massive climax.

Michael reached up to his hip with
one hand and linked his fingers with Nathaniel’s.

His mate moaned, tightened his hold
and thrust harder, panting.

“I know
Michael,
I can feel it, too. We’ll find them one day I promise.”

Two tears slid down Michael’s cheeks
as his other hand dug into the mattress, seeking out the other part of him.

Michael tilted his pelvis and cried
out. His balls tightened. His cock thickened even further, and he came all over
his belly and the bed.

He fell forward, Nathaniel still
riding him hard, pounding him into the mattress.

“Say it, Michael. Say we will find
them.”

Nathaniel’s desperate words broke
through his post orgasm daze, ricochets of pleasure still bouncing along his
legs and belly.

“Of course we will, Nathaniel.
Whatever it takes.”

Nathaniel moaned loudly, readying
himself to pull away.

This was something neither of them
particularly enjoyed whilst being the bottom.
The mess, the
extra intimacy and the feeling of being totally possessed.
Well, Michael
was putting an end to that. It was time for him to commit to Nathaniel. In
every way he could.

Michael smiled into the mattress and
gripped the hand he still held, hard. “It’s all right. I want you to. Come
inside me.”

Nathaniel stilled in surprise,
thrust once more, moaned and shuddered. Warm seed flooded Michael, and he
gasped at the renewed heat, his cock hardening beneath him again.

Nathaniel collapsed on top of him,
his weight welcome and perfect.

Michael slid further down so that he
was lying on his belly and raised his free hand to run through Nathaniel’s
hair.

He loved this man more than his own
life, and nothing was going to impinge on that. He repeated the vows they had
just taken.

“Whatever it
takes.”

Chapter Two

Lady
Tonnington
could not be more bored. She had spent the first sixteen years of her life
preparing for her marriage to the horrible and ancient Lord
Tonnington
.
Now sixteen years later she was a wealthy widow who didn’t know what she wanted
out of her life.

“Do you think you will marry again,
Lady
Tonnington
?”

Margaret turned to Teresa Osborne,
the woman standing on her right. She’d known and disliked the older lady for
almost a decade.

“No, I don’t think so, Lady
Osborne.”

The stupid and pompous woman lifted
her chin a fraction.

“You may be too old to conceive a
child now, but that doesn’t mean you should be alone for the rest of your
life.”

Margaret clenched her teeth and
forced a smile to her lips. Her tolerance for these women was little to none
these days.

“Lady Osborne, I have no husband to
curtail my spending whilst he spends all his money on his mistress. I will not
give up my freedom for anything less than perfection now.”

She looked pointedly at Lady Teresa
Osborne, a lady whose husband regularly spent all their money on frivolous
activities.

“There’s no reason to be rude, Lady
Tonnington
.”

Margaret laughed and curtseyed.

“See you another time then, Lady
Osborne.”

Margaret made her way over to the
hostess and made her excuses. She had come to the afternoon tea because she
needed a diversion from the dreary off Season winter months in London. Events
were few and far between anyway, and now that it was cold and getting dark, she
wanted to go home.

Her carriage was waiting for her by
the time she had put on her pelisse, gloves, coat, and hat. Bloody winter
clothes were a bother. Perhaps she should just stay home in front of the fire.

The coachman helped her into her
closed carriage and laid a blanket across her lap.

She smiled at the thoughtful young
man. He nodded and climbed up onto the top of the carriage.

Margaret looked out at the vacant
streets and wondered about her choice to stay in London over the off Season,
including Christmas. She should have gone back to the country estate as was the
custom, but there had been too many memories there. Her invalid husband had
died there, and she’d been severely unhappy for over a decade at that estate.
For her, they were good enough reasons to stay in London.

The sun set low over the city, and
Margaret tapped the roof. Now that she was on her way home, to a warm fire and
fewer clothes, she didn’t want to be there either.

The same coachman who had helped her
into the carriage stuck his head in a window.

“Yes, my lady?”

“I wish to continue driving around
the city for a little longer. Will you be all right if we do?”

The young man smiled at her.
“Of course, my lady.”

Margaret sat back and opened up the
curtains on her carriage. She was restless and uncertain, two things she had
never been. She didn’t know which way to face, which way to go. If her whole
life felt pointless, how was she going to rectify it?

She opened the windows as far as
they would go, welcoming the chill to awaken her further. She had been dead
inside for so long, she needed to feel alive again.

Two men stood by the road, talking
and laughing. Something about them called out to her. They turned as though
they shared the same thought, and two pairs of eyes connected with hers at the
same time.