STORY EXCERPT

Dante Moore just wanted a fucking coffee without the noise of traffic, too many pushy and crowding people, and some whining kid screaming in front of him at his mother while he threw a tantrum over some stupid and insignificant thing. He just wished the stupid light would change so he could cross the street and get away from all the screeching.

Dante would never have been allowed to throw a fit like that with his father. If he had, the old bastard might have tried to kill him.

Tried to kill him much sooner than he already had, that is.

Dante rubbed the pulsing pain at his temple. It was only ten in the morning. He’d gone into work feeling good, no abnormal sights to see, no voices in his ear. He’d prepped his staff for the coming meeting, and everything was moving ahead of schedule.

Except for right now. It was like the second he left the office all hell broke loose inside of his mind.

He told himself that the little green, yellow, and black gremlin things he was seeing weren’t real. The tiny demons that jumped into people’s hair and made faces at them, sticking out their forked tongues and trying to get attention, they weren’t actually there. Years and years of therapy told him so, and when the tiny creatures turned their attention onto him, their snake-slit eyes narrowed, their grins showing off their perfectly yellowed, perfectly sharp teeth, he ignored them to the best of his ability.

Somehow, maybe because they were a figment of his imagination, they still knew he could see them, and they tried to take advantage of that to drive him insane.

Unlike the general public, whenever the fist-sized creatures jumped on him, shouted into his ears, and clawed their fingers into his hair, he could feel them. Their touch alone was enough to make his body itch and to make him want to scream and rage and just push them all off of him.

All he could do was grit his teeth and scowl. It was the only outward sign he gave that something was wrong with him. Anyone who looked at him would just think he was on the verge of a meltdown of his own, brought on by noisy and shoving people, the stink of car fumes, and the noise of that damn kid who was still bitching at his mother.

The shrieking had gone up several decibels, and the pulsing in his head turned into a full-blown migraine.

He wanted to kill something.

That thought made all the noise around him just stop. Everything had suddenly gone quiet as the strange panic fisted his insides, and he looked around at the crowd of people.

They’d all stopped moving. All of them were frozen in whatever position they’d been in, whether it was chewing gum, faces scrunched in the midst of a sneeze, or, in the case of that boy, spittle flying from his mouth as he shouted down his weary-looking mother.

Oddly enough, this wasn’t the part that he found scary. What was most frightening to him was the fact that he’d thought he wanted to kill someone, and he’d meant it.

Looking behind the boy, he noticed that the kid’s back was to the street. Traffic had also stopped, but there was a bus coming up just behind him. All it would take would be one shove. No one would see him, they were frozen, and no one would―

Dante stumbled back, hardly able to believe that thought had just gone through his head. Jesus Christ! Did he really just consider shoving some little kid into an oncoming bus?

“You know you want to,” a low voice whispered into his ear.

Looking down, Dante could see all the little demons staring up at him expectantly, and all had those same grins on their faces. The ones that showed off their teeth.

He did want to. Dante clenched his fists. God help him, but he did want to kill that boy. He wanted to push him in front of that bus and watch as his body made impact once the world went back to normal and started moving again.

What the hell kind of monster was he?

He could actually picture it in his mind. Shoving the kid, and when his blood spattered, covering the crowd of people in it, he imagined the satisfaction he would feel, and he imagined himself licking the blood up from his fingers and face while the others screamed.

The worst part of it was when he stepped forward toward the boy. He tried to stop himself. He tried to plant his feet, but he just kept right on moving.

He’d imagined himself doing horrible things before, and had horrible nightmares about himself and everything he could do to other people that made him cringe when he woke up, but he hadn’t felt a pull like this in so long, and never before had it been as strong as this.

He kept on walking toward the boy. He could already feel how hot his hands would be when he wrapped them around the kid’s neck and how satisfying the smack of his body would sound when he was thrown in front of the bus.

Closer and closer still. No one in the crowd moved. Dante didn’t think he could stop himself from stepping forward even if the world wasn’t frozen like this.

Almost there. He was just about there, and the tiny demons behind him cheered him on, raising their skinny little arms high up and shouting and jumping as he neared his target.

His hand was inches away from the child before Dante finally managed to breathe and pull back.

Jesus Christ! What the fuck was he doing?

Sweat beaded on his forehead and poured down the back of his neck. The little demons behind him were shouting their disappointment now and still trying to get him to push the child.

ADULT EXCERPT

Dante was going to get his answers, one way or another, about just who, or what, Jeremy was and how he was able to do this, but right now his cock was firmly in the pilot’s seat. That was going to have to wait until much later.

The other man rubbed their cocks together like it was the only thing he knew how to do, and if he wasn’t careful, they were both going to come in their briefs again, and Dante wasn’t sure if he would be able to do this for a third time in one night.

Still, he couldn’t help but let himself be tortured, and he ran his fingers up and along the smooth muscles of Jeremy’s stomach, his sides, and his chest. He found the small, hard nipples and pinched them.

The responding buck and cry nearly undid him, and Dante scrambled for his belt.

“Take those off,” he commanded the other man whilst he was busy trying to get himself naked.

Jeremy’s bright eyes were clouded with lust, but after blinking some of that away, he did as he was told and started undoing his belt and fly with a much calmer grace than Dante was pulling off.

Jeremy lifted his hips and then eased himself off of Dante just long enough to get his pants off. Dante followed suit, kicking them away before pulling at the buttons of his shirt.

He watched as Jeremy was shrugging out of his own jacket and button-down.

“Wait, leave that on.”

Jeremy blinked at him, more of that lusty haze making his eyes huge. It kind of reminded Dante of an owl. “Don’t you want me naked?”

Christ, what kind of question was that? “Of course I do, but you look sexy like that. Leave it on.”

Again, Jeremy blushed at the compliment. It was beyond cute, and when Dante looked down at the perfect swell of his ass, he knew this was definitely happening.

He reached over and grabbed the box of condoms, practically ripping the thing open and taking one of the little packets before tossing the rest onto the nightstand. Dante set the condom aside for now, and he grabbed the bottle of lube, as well as Jeremy.

He pulled the other man back on top of him, but made sure that he stayed on his knees instead of sitting on his lap again. Jeremy just looked at Dante and the lube in his hands, as though waiting for him to do something with it.

Dante grinned and kissed the man, feeling the tightness in his mouth melt away as his tongue slid across Jeremy’s perfectly plump lips.

Jeremy’s hands were on his neck again, and soon he was kissing back with all the zeal he’d used when they’d humped each other’s brains out on his kitchen stool.

He couldn’t help but slide his eyes closed, and he clumsily opened the cap and slathered some of the lube onto his fingers. Jeremy jumped and made a cute noise when Dante’s fingers touched his asshole.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” Dante asked. Never before had he been the kind of guy to give a partner, especially right before sex, a way out, especially considering the hard time Dante had with getting and keeping his bed partners.

This was somehow different.

“Yes, it’s nice. You just surprised me.”

That had been the only chance Jeremy was about to get, and Dante wasn’t about to stop and ask again.

They resumed their kiss, and Dante adored Jeremy’s mouth so much, the flick of his warm and wet tongue, the tingle he felt, and just the newness of having a lover here with him. He’d almost forgotten to get back to the part where they were supposed to be fucking.

He rubbed the tips of his fingers around Jeremy’s pucker, again and again, enjoying how the man felt and how hot his body became as they held each other.

The second Jeremy’s muscles relaxed, Dante slid his middle finger inside of him.

Jeremy made a sound between a moan and a gasp, and soon he was humping back against Dante’s finger as they kissed, much more frantically than before.

There, that was what he wanted, for Jeremy to stop being so nervous and to just go with it.

He slipped a second finger inside of him, and then a third, stretching him out and pushing inside of him as far as his fingers could go. His arm started to cramp up with their positions and what they were doing, but he didn’t stop.

His fingers pressed against the smooth lump inside of Jeremy’s body, and the other man bucked against him, hard and fast, and those amber eyes of his flew almost as wide as his mouth as he moaned.

This was it, Dante couldn’t wait anymore.

He continued playing around with that spot, pressing kisses that he was pretty sure Jeremy didn’t notice against the hollow at his throat as he fumbled for the lube and condom with his other hand.

He had to take his fingers out of Jeremy’s ass to get everything in its proper order, and the sound of Jeremy’s disappointed moan when he did that made his stomach go tight with want and desire.

“Love the sounds you make,” Dante said, stroking the lube onto his cock before lining it up with Jeremy’s hole.

“I love this,” Jeremy said. The red flush on his face was absolutely exquisite.

Dante pushed into him just as Jeremy sat down, and he nearly came as Jeremy began riding him hard and fast right away.

“Oh, fuck!” he shouted, throwing his head back and gripping Jeremy’s hips with tight fingers.

Jeremy’s eyes were squeezed shut, his mouth parted just enough for the little moans and gasps to escape that he was no doubt trying to hold back.