*timidly opens door and pokes head in*

Hi, I’m still alive. I’m here. I’ve even been writing a little bit though I haven’t been posting about it on this website, which is a massive oversight from me. Maybe I’ll catch up on posts I should have posted. Maybe.

In the meantime, I did want to say I’m trying to work on and finish Profane #3 for release this year. It’s been languishing at around 13000 words for the past two years, actually since I published A Sanguine Solution, and I WANT to finish it. I WANT you guys, the few of you still out there who gaf about these characters (hopefully there’s a few of you? uwu) to finally get some answers.

For now, here’s the first chapter. It’s smut. It’s almost happy smut. How often does that happen?

BAD BLOOD – CHAPTER ONE

January 2013 – Capitol Hill – Lachlan

“You and Ethan were talking for a long time tonight,” Vector said in a soft voice.

The werewolf had stripped out of his nice clothes until he stood next to the bed in only his tight boxer briefs, bare chest glowing softly with the warm yellow lamplight bathing that half of the bedroom. The sight made Lachlan’s mouth dry—so dry that he had to remind himself not to swallow. The last thing he wanted tonight was to aggravate his throat and send himself into a coughing fit.

He covered his reaction to Vector’s sheer physicality by kicking his shoes under the bed and pulling his own sweater off over his head. The soft wool snagged on the buttons of his button down shirt, and Lachlan swore under his breath.

Two big hands encircled his wrists, guiding them down to his sides before tackling the shirt with enviable nimbleness that did nothing for the moisture content of his mouth. He was like the desert over here. Lachlan felt ridiculous at how every little thing Vector did could make his blood thunder through his veins and send the back of his head through the roof at the same time as all the muscles in his body tried to simultaneously draw tight and melt into a puddle of goo on the floor. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the werewolf were doing it on purpose, but this was just Vector going about his normal day. If he’d been trying then Lachlan was certain that he wouldn’t have survived the experience.

But despite months passing while he recovered from his assault, Vector had been nothing but a gentleman, mincing around Lachlan’s new physical restrictions and helping to take care of him without crossing the line into smothering territory. Lachlan was grateful, but it also made his cock throb painfully in his shorts. He knew Vector was aware of the effect he had on him too, werewolf nose and all, it would be impossible for Vector not to be able to hear and smell every biological response, but still he’d kept his hands to himself.

Except for right now, except in this perfect tease he administered as he smoothly pushed each shirt button through its hole, his skin burning hot through the delicate cotton, his touch lingering for what felt to Lachlan like a second too long after each button had been seen too. Until the shirt hung open between them, Lachlan’s bare chest pale and narrower than it had been before the attack—it was hard to stay fit when most days you woke up struggling just to draw in enough air to sit up without getting dizzy.

He felt dizzy now but for entirely different reasons.

Lachlan glanced up and met the werewolf’s eyes, surprised to catch him swallowing, pupils dilated pitch black in his endless dark brown eyes. It made a warm flush shiver across the top of Lachlan’s chest. Vector wasn’t as unaffected by him as he’d thought.

The last thing he wanted to do was talk about Ethan Ellison when he had all this tightly coiled possibility hanging just at the edges of his fingertips.

Lachlan tipped his head, chin angled just so, so that when their lips touched they aligned seamlessly, so that when Vector gasped quietly into the damp space between them he was able to swallow that noise down, taking it into himself with a shiver of pleased anticipation.

He ran his hands up Vector’s bare arms, enjoying the feel of soft skin moving over strong muscle as the werewolf shifted in his grasp, until he had Vector’s shoulders framed between his palms, digging in with his fingers just a little to make sure Vector knew that he wanted him to stay put.

Shaking fingers brushed so softly against the rough scaring on his throat that if his entire body hadn’t been overtuned in this precise moment, Lachlan wouldn’t have even noticed them. There was fear embedded deeply into that brush of contact, fear that Lachlan understood but resented in the moment. He gripped Vector tighter and pushed his own body against the wolf’s, seeking out his supernatural warmth and reveling in the feel of all that strength under his hands. He wanted to press Vector against his bed and lay both of them down full length, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, and just feel the way they’d fit together even with all of the changes he’d undergone.

He’d been dreaming about that feeling for weeks.

He needed it.

Lachlan bit gently at the wolf’s narrow lips, feeling lightheaded as the kiss went on without a break, until his grip on Vector’s shoulders was more about keeping himself upright than keeping Vector in place.

Vector’s big hands cradled his hips, thumbs hooked under the line of his belt, in the hallows there.

“Shh, shh, shh,” the wolf rumbled in his low voice, the noise echoing through both of their chests, and it was only with those words that Lachlan finally heard himself, the high pitched and broken whine that had begun to wend its way out of his ragged throat, desperation in every note.

Vector’s hands slid up the planes of his back to cradle his head, and with a gentle touch Vector guided their mouths apart. They swayed, foreheads pressed together as Lachlan tried to modulate his breathing, Vector’s dark eyes like a physical caress across his face, watching each struggling inhalation. Three months ago, Lachlan would have wanted to try and hide from that look, but now he tolerated it, there was no point being upset about showing this weakness in front of the wolf. It hadn’t gone away yet and according to his doctors it was unlikely to in the near future. He had to either accept the concern it engendered in his boyfriend or drive the both of them crazy trying to deny it.

“I’m right here,” Vector said.

“I know,” Lachlan replied, petulant. His palms tried to span the width of Vector’s chest. The werewolf was built tall and narrow with shockingly large shoulders and thighs, supernatural strength in every carved out muscle. All of it wrapped up in skin that still held on to a hint of his summer tan here in the middle of the Pacific Northwest’s dreary winter.

“I know,” he repeated, digging his fingers into the back of Vector’s neck as he met the wolf’s gaze, his words thready and hoarse through his ragged windpipe.

The doctors would tell him that it was important for his recovery not to get worked up, to rest, but Lachlan was so fucking sick of resting and taking it easy and holding himself back and even worse, watching Vector hold himself back. Watching the werewolf watching him, those dark endless eyes tracking his every move not because he wanted him—which, Christ, Lachlan hoped the wolf still wanted him—but because he knew Vector worried that if he took his eyes away, even for a moment, Lachlan would break, crumbling into dust. He was so fucking sick of being this porcelain figurine, chipped now and weak around the neck joint. One rough jostle and he’d shatter. That’s what Vector’s eyes on him said, and that’s not what he wanted. Not then, not now, not ever again.

So he stood there, digging his fingers into the back Vector’s neck while his head spun and adrenaline pumped through veins, heart hammering loud enough that if he could hear it, he knew the wolf could too. Digging his fingernails into the skin so that even a werewolf could feel it, making a mark that wasn’t on himself. That Vector would feel. That he hoped Vector would feel even after this moment was over.

“I don’t want to—”

“Shut up,” Lachlan interrupted. He pulled Vector down—it hurt too much to bend his head back as far as he’d need to to make up for the differences in their heights—and took his mouth in another demanding kiss. He wasn’t any God damned porcelain figurine, and he was going to take what he wanted, and hope to hell that Vector still wanted it too.

Under his hands the wolf made a noise, low and primal, that rumbled through his chest and seemed to vibrate between both of their bodies. It warmed Lachlan, where fear had made him cold. And when he pressed his hips into Vector’s he could feel interest stirring in his trim fitting boxer briefs. The thin fabric stretched tight over Vector’s cock, unable to hide a single one of his reactions.

“Oh, fuck,” Lachlan whispered, pressing harder against the length. The wolf was definitely interested.

In response, the rumble from Vector turned into a snatched off little growl. His hands grabbed at Lachlan’s hips hard enough there would definitely be bruises on his skin tomorrow, and thrust their hips together, rubbing in short little jerks like he couldn’t even stop himself. It made something hot flush all the way through Lachlan’s systems.

It felt like it had been ages since he felt anything other than aches or pains. His recovery from the attack had been touch and go for so long, they’d had to keep him in a medicated comma for several weeks just to ensure he didn’t aggravate his airways and damage himself further. And then it had been weeks confined to the hospital bed while he underwent a series of reconstructive surgeries and the hospital pumped him full of antibiotics and painkillers, the threat of his developing a dependency or allergic reaction to either a constant threat. And that was just the inconvenience, it didn’t say anything for the pain. You have no idea how much space in your body your lungs take up until they’ve been burned from the inside out by a form of aspirated acid. You have no idea how many times per day you take a breath, until every single breath feels like swallowing Mordor.

To say that the last couple months of his life had been a living hell would be to put it lightly.

Between the meds, the pain, the depression he was still struggling with over Alan’s murder and betrayal, and working through the effects the attack would have on the rest of his life, Lachlan hadn’t exactly been in any state of mind to nurse an erection.

But he did now. The tension in his lower body coiling like a sleeping tiger just beginning to wake. He wanted to feel it; he wanted to press it against Vector’s body until neither of them could hold themselves back.

Big, warm hands let go of his hips to spread themselves across the planes of his back, fingers spread wide so that Lachlan knew if the wolf tried, he probably could have spanned the entire width of his narrow waist. It made him feel small in Vector’s hands, and he didn’t want to feel small right now.

Lachlan let go of Vector’s mouth just long enough to rip the buttons out of the cuffs at his sleeves and discard the button-down shirt. For a beat, he thought about feeling self-conscious standing half naked in front of the werewolf, all of his scars on full display, but fear wouldn’t get him what he wanted, and if the slightly raised incision and burn marks turned Vector off, he made no outward sign of it. He reached for Lachlan, working at his belt and pants to get them off.

Vector’s tongue slipped out of his mouth, an unconscious action, as his rolled it over his thin bottom lip. Lachlan reached up to taste the flesh, biting hard at the slickness until Vector whimpered and curled into him, arms wrapping around to haul him against the werewolf’s muscled thigh. Lachlan felt his body stiffen at the sensation of warm skin through his own underwear, firm but somehow still gentle as it pressed against him, feeling out where his cock had begun to take an interest in the proceedings.

“I want to do so many things to you,” Vector whispered in a low voice—lower and darker even than his usual tone. Lachlan shivered at the sound, full of promise.

“Like what?” he asked, or tried to, but two slender fingers came up to tap against his mouth.

“No, you shouldn’t overexert yourself.”

“I—”

“Just let me—” a thumb stroked softly at his lower lip, and Lachlan was relieved that this did not hurt either, though the sensation was somewhat muted from what he would have felt before. “I want to make you feel good. It’s been driving me nuts not being able to touch you. Living here. Sleeping next to you. And I’ve been trying so hard to be good,” Vector’s voice dipped another octave, rumbling full of the wolf. “Smelling you. My whole damned body feels like it’s done nothing but ache for you. But if you’re sure, now, that we can…?”

Lachlan nodded rather than speak his approval out loud.

“I want to wreck you, but I think we’ll have to work up to that.”

He wanted that too: to be wrecked, to be possessed by every inch of Vector’s body, to feel the wolf surging through him until he’d be sure to feel it in every sore muscle tomorrow, but Vector wanted to take care of him so Lachlan would let him. He knew he’d enjoy that as well.

Lachlan grabbed Vector’s gaze, holding it until he knew he had the werewolf’s full attention, and then he hooked his hands in the waistband of his boxers and pulled them over his hips, letting them fall to the floor. Naked, he spread his arms to indicate that it was up to Vector what happened next.

Vector surged into him, but gently, running his tongue over Lachlan’s skin like a man dying of thirst and Lachlan was the last oasis for one hundred miles. Vector had a large, flexible tongue—a bi-product of his being a werewolf, Lachlan assumed—and he used it enthusiastically to trace every inch of his chest and neck, warm and wet and firm enough not to tickle. He pressed the gentlest kisses over scars, not avoiding them but not lingering either. And all the while, his hands roved restlessly over Lachlan’s back and sides, never quite settling, and never quite traveling down to where he wanted them. But he needn’t have worried, because once the wolf had worked his way back up to Lachlan’s mouth, pressing his tongue between his lips to twine damply with tongue in his own mouth, flicking over his teeth, the wolf inhaled sharply through his nose and grabbed Lachlan’s ass in both hands. He bent his knee a little so that the angle against Lachlan’s flushed cock felt even better.

Lachlan shivered and stuttered, thrusting himself into Vector, tracing the sizzle of pleasure that came every time he rubbed the rigid underside of his cock head against coarse hair and warm skin. It had been so long since anyone, even himself, had touched him that Lachlan worried he might come just from this.

Maybe Vector sensed that, maybe he was just inpatient, because he didn’t give Lachlan the chance to find out. He used the grip on Lachlan’s ass to haul him up even higher. Lachlan hiked one knee up and over the cut of the wolf’s hip, trusting himself entirely in werewolf strength, and let Vector maneuver them over to the bed.

It smelled like the two of them. Vector had been staying with him since the attack, first in the hospital and then at his condo once he’d been released. All of his stuff had been waiting here already when Lachlan got out of the hospital, as though the wolf had moved in weeks ahead of time. He hadn’t asked, but Lachlan had just felt relief knowing that the wolf wasn’t going to go anywhere—he’d lived in low-grade fear of that happening all through his convalescence in the hospital, no matter how unlikely. At first Vector had insisted on sleeping on the couch, but he was a tall man and Lachlan’s furniture had been purchased originally more for style than comfort. It hadn’t taken much convincing, once he was stable, to get the werewolf to move into the bedroom with him. They’d been sleeping side-by-side for over a month now, and he could only imagine how strong the combined scents must have been to a werewolf nose.

This was the first time he’d ever been naked in this bed with Vector since the shit hit the fan, and Lachlan couldn’t stop the little shakes vibrating through his muscles—part anxiety and part anticipation bubbling up in him. The adrenaline coursing through his body was either going to make him pop off too soon or puke, Lachlan wasn’t sure which.

“I’ve got you,” Vector rasped out against his temple, breathing hard.

Lachlan looked at him finally and saw that the wolf lurked closer to the surface than he’d ever seen it outside of the full moon or a full shift. He shivered with pleasure just to know that this was affecting Vector as much as it affected him.

“Then take me,” he murmured under his breath, loud enough for wolf ears.

Vector’s jaw worked as he reared back on his knees. He tried to take off his boxers but they proved troublesome, and there was some amount of snarling and ripping fabric before he came back, temple wrinkled in consternation that made a smile bloom across Lachlan’s mouth. He grabbed Vector by both ears and hauled him down for another kiss.

They were both too worked up by this point to do anything fancy, a thread of desperation running through every touch as Vector lowered his body to press against Lachlan’s. He would have given a lot to feel the wolf inside himself, but Lachlan also knew that there was no way he’d be able to sit patiently through all the prep it would take to get there. Instead he wrapped one leg around the wolf’s hips and let him wrap one large hand around Lachlan’s cock, teasing the length of it, squeezing and rubbing at the delicate skin as it continued to plump up in Vector’s hand, growing even harder.

It felt amazing just to have Vector touching him, but it wasn’t enough, and Lachlan whined soundlessly, forcing himself not to strain his throat, as he tried to press the tip of his cock, where it was most sensitive, into Vector’s palm. The wolf’s own cock bumped sporadically against him, leaking sticky-sweet precome across his skin in a show of forbearance that Lachlan didn’t envy. He wanted to come and he felt greedy for it. He kept rubbing his hands over Vector’s shoulders, enjoying the smooth slide of skin against his fingertips, and flexing his hips into the wolf’s hand, over and over and over until he thought he’d go mad with it, the perfect feeling as Vector curled his body down and around Lachlan’s, caging him in against the bed.

“I want to taste your come,” Vector whispered into the shell of his ear, finally—fucking finally—curling his fingers over the head of Lachlan’s cock.

He squeezed his eyes shut as his whole body tightened up and jerked.

“More. I need—please, Vector, please.”

“Shh, shh, shh, I’ve got you.”

“Please.”

The wolf angled his hips so that he could encompass both of them with his grip, long fingers wrapped around the heads of their cocks, squeezing them tight together. His hips started thrusting against Lachlan’s in a sharp counterpoint to the motion of his hands, massaging all of the nerves in Lachlan’s cock until it felt like his whole groin was on fire and ready to come.

He dug his nails into the wolf’s arm, just trying to hold on as his cock exploded between them, shooting gob after gob of sticky semen over Vector’s knuckles and his own belly. So much of it, more than usual because it had been so fucking long since he’d come. And it took everything in Lachlan to stay silent, to not strain his throat; it took Vector’s tongue plunging back into his mouth, fucking against his tongue over and over again as the wolf let his sloppy cock slide out of his hands and settled in on all fours above Lachlan, his still hard dick large and red and almost furious looking between them. Vector huffed and growled into Lachlan’s mouth as he started pumping his hips through the mess on his skin.

Lachlan’s breath skittered through his chest in painful jags as he came down, eyes glued to the sight of Vector working himself to completion.

“You’re so pretty,” he said, reaching just to rub the tip of his thumb over the fat head of the wolf’s cock.

Vector snarled, a noise that only a wolf could make, curled down and pressed Lachlan into the bed as he shoved his hips once, twice into his belly and came, the space between them going slick all over again with his release.

They lay there for a few minutes while Vector kept himself braced over Lachlan, not quite resting his complete weight on the human, muscles standing out trembling under his skin as he caught his breath. When he was able, Vector slid off to one side, still curled possessively around Lachlan’s body, his nose tucked up against Lachlan’s damp hairline.

“Moon,” the wolf murmured in a soft, lost voice.

“I know right,” Lachlan whispered. He throat felt rough, and he’d probably regret exerting it tomorrow, but his orgasm had left his body tingling with pleasure even down to the roots of his hair. He thought he might have floated right up off the bed if he hadn’t had Vector there to anchor him down. “Good job,” he said, patting the werewolf on the back.

Vector snorted softly and pressed a closed-mouth kiss to his temple. “Thanks, love.”