Chapter 3: Under Orders
© sadierosebermingham 2004/5
"I am 'not' givin' you a key, that is my last word on the subject!" Rayne Wylde did not look up from the broadsheet newspaper spread out in front of him. His dark hair tumbled forward obscuring his pale features and he ran long fingers though it absently, resting his cheekbone against the palm of his hand and propping his elbow against the lip of the table. Sunlight glanced off the fine, silvery frames of the sunglasses perched within the nest of his mane and shimmered off the ripples of his black silk shirt, casually open at the neck, the sleeves rolled back to his elbows. His slim, black denim-clad legs were crossed lightly at the knee and he tapped the tapered toe of one boot to an inaudible soundtrack in his head as he pretended to read.
Across the café table, Kevan Delaney sighed gustily and tugged on the collar of his pale blue shirt, wishing he had elected to wear something cooler than the charcoal coloured wool suit to work today. Even with his jacket off and hanging over the back of the chair, he could feel the sweat beginning to run down his back. Of course, the sight of Ray looking so fucking delectable was enough to make any hot-blooded man perspire. He loosened his second best tie and unfastened one button, reaching for the condensation beaded pint glass by his right hand.
"I still 'aven't forgiven you for last time!"
Kev shifted at the memory this roused; a gorgeous mental image of his Vampiric lover stretched out on the bed between himself and the young Vampire's hot, blond-haired sire, Jabez Evermann. Rayne had refused to speak to him for two weeks afterwards. He even had the locks changed and the alarm code altered on his inner-city crash pad.
"I can't help how I feel about you," Kev protested weakly. "You do something to me, Ray. I can't fight it."
"Try!" the Vampire suggested without lifting his head. "I'm not your bloody girlfriend. I wish you'd stop treating me as if I was eighteen years old!"
"I just want to spoil you," Kevan muttered, taking a pull on his pint and scowling along the relative quiet of sun-kissed Canal Street. It was still early morning, but he had been working since four am and it 'felt' like lunchtime. Rayne took a sip from the cup of cooling black coffee beyond the edge of his paper and set it back in its saucer without moving his eyes from the page in front of him.
"You've been 'not reading' that article for ten minutes now," Kev pointed out. "Are you gonna carry on punishing me until I have to go back to the office?"
"I'm not doing anything. You're punishing yourself," the Vampire told him crisply. His soft, husky, Kentish accented voice made Kev ache to taste the lips that spilled those casually cruel words.
"I want to take you out for dinner," he declared more adamantly. "To apologise."
"I thought that was what you were doing now." Rayne exhaled the words wearily.
"Tonight, I mean. Properly." Kevan leaned forward on the table and rustled the corner of his lover's newspaper. "To a restaurant, me and you. Together."
Rayne's head came up slowly and he peered through his sable forelock at the mortal almost sleepily. Long, black lashes framed a stare like green ice. The tip of his upturned nose protruded through the silk of his hair and Kev resisted the urge to kiss it.
"I miss you," he said instead.
"Don't be ridiculous!" A mildly cynical smile twisted Rayne's full, seductive lips briefly.
"I want to take you home right now and make love to you," Kevan breathed, refusing to avert his own cloudy blue eyes. "I've got a present for you. A surprise."
"If it involves dressing up, I'm not playing," Rayne's lips parted. There were fangs behind that smile, just in case his mortal companion had forgotten what he was messing with.
Kev sat back slightly, but he did not look away. Sometimes it was easy to put out of his mind just what Ray was. His tiny, slender frame and apparent vulnerability were powerfully deceptive. Kevan Delaney had watched him kill. It was not a pretty sight.
Sometimes, however, when the other man was curled up in his arms and he could touch his lips to the smooth, cool skin at the nape of his neck and bury his face in that sleek, black hair, he allowed himself to believe that Rayne Wylde actually needed him for more than blood and sex. He even convinced himself.
"You're such a fox, Wylde!" he said, with a shake of his head. Sitting back from the table he lifted the glass to his lips and drained it steadily. "I've got to go. I'll come by for you at seven, okay?"
"You're presuming I've said yes." The Vampire looked up at him as he rose, that odd little smile still quirking his mouth upward at the corners. His heart-shaped face was porcelain-pale in the sunlight and those astonishing eyes glittered dangerously.
"You can't resist me," Kev told him, winking knowingly.
"Seven's early." Rayne sat back and folded his arms. The light glittered off the silver ring on his index finger and the heavy curb chain around his left wrist.
"You won't be ready, you never are. The table's booked for nine-fifteen. Chiaroscuro. You like Italian, don't you?" He was already moving off, if he lingered, the urge to go back and kiss Ray hard would completely ruin his efforts to remain casual about this whole proposal. And Ray would not be impressed, which defeated the object of his coming here. "I'll see you then."
"I suppose so," the Vampire sighed, and returned to his newspaper.
He pretended to read until he could be sure that the big fellow was out of sight, then folded the paper up and sat back with a little frown on his handsome face. Saying 'no' to Kev Delaney was like putting a Labrador puppy into a bag with several large rocks and throwing it into the canal. He could not understand it for the Unlife of him. He was Undead. He did not feel 'sorry' for mortals. As time went by and more of his friends passed away or slipped out of his acquaintance, he had hardened his heart against such things. Once, when Jabez had told him that this was how it would be, he had argued strenuously against the older, more experienced Vampire but now he wondered at himself.
Killing would never easy, but he could do it without throwing up afterwards these days. And there were plenty of people out there for whom death was simply too merciful. Kev was a different matter. He was a big, warm-hearted, bumbling idiot of a man and, for the first time in many years, Rayne felt protective towards another soul. More than that; he felt cherished.
It should have been a good feeling, but Rayne Wylde was only disturbed by it.
THE EVENING>
He changed his clothes several times between six and seven o' clock, posing in front of the full-length wardrobe mirror like a teenager on her first date. The first attempt felt too formal, he was not accustomed to wearing a suit and the material was stiff and restrictive. The loose, flowing neckline of the shirt he replaced it with was too feminine. Kev would love it but Rayne was less comfortable. The black elastane-lace tee-shirt was see through and he dismissed it after a few moments of posing as inappropriate for a restaurant environment. He was wearing sable satin trousers that hugged his skinny hips and lean thighs, and a gauzy, muslin shirt in smoke-grey when the intercom buzzed through from the hallway.
