Ignorant of Shadow staying behind, Gray continued down the corridor, but with the hazel eyes no longer assessing his every move, Shadow’s curiosity got the better of him. Stopping by the gap allowing a peek into the red room, he held his breath and peeked inside.
The sharp glow hurt his eyes, but the discomfort only lasted a moment, and he was left speechless in the face of a reality he didn’t understand. People swarmed on sofas and beds while the music buzzed, creating a rhythm for their strange dances. Naked skin shimmered with sweat, and Shadow could physically sense the energy trickling from their bodies, to be harvested by Baal on the Other Side. Initially, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, but the twisting figures that moved so erratically, pressed together in pairs or tangles of limbs, reminded him of home.
He stepped inside, longing to discover how the humans connected their bodies by slapping them together. They emulated the unachievable closeness he’d shared with his swarm on the Other Side. It had been the kind of attachment where he didn’t know where he ended and where others began. He would have liked to feel that with Gray. To make him understand that this was good, that this was how a shadow and his human could connect.
His mouth went dry, his cock throbbed harder, and sweat beaded on his forehead. Now he knew exactly what he wanted to do with Gray.
Chapter 5
In and out. In and out.
Still as if his bare feet had been nailed to the floor, Shadow stared at a couple that curled up on a small sofa right in front of the door. They moved in sharp jerks that buried the man’s cock in an opening between his partner’s thighs over and over. Sweat shone on the surface of their bodies, lubricating the glide of hands over flesh. The person receiving the penetration kept twisting, held down with strong hands. Teeth pulled over plump lips, cheeks flushed, balls slapped against smooth skin every time the dick disappeared inside that glistening hole.
Did Gray have one like that?
Shadow wouldn’t even blink, afraid he’d miss an important detail, and he walked into the room that buzzed with energy like the most evocative of dreams. Step by tentative step, he headed for the couple that had grabbed his attention, needing to understand the mechanics behind their connection.
The hand curling around his wrist kept him in place even when he tried to tug, fascinated by the fast, unrelenting rhythm the two humans had fallen into. His cock was once more throbbing with heat as images of Gray pinned under him just like that flashed through his mind.
“What did I tell you? Let’s go,” Gray said, pulling him back to the door.
Gray’s touch on Shadow’s skin was like a flood of heat washing all over him, but instead of ebbing away, it settled in his crotch, driving him wild with the need to tug down his pants and do the same rapid movements as the people gathered in this room that smelled of sweat and raw energy. To press his cock deep into any opening in Gray’s body.
“But… I just wanted to see.”
“But you can’t. Come,” Gray said and yanked on Shadow’s hand so hard the impetus made Shadow stumble. Shadow was still breathing the scent of intimate connection when they burst into the empty corridor, and his ears thudded with the loud rhythm of the music. Or was it just his own heartbeat?
“No. You should come in there. With me.” Shadow twisted his wrist and grabbed Gray’s hand, pulling him back.
Gray’s eyes opened wide, as if he couldn’t believe that Shadow made his boots slide over the floor. “What are you—?”
“Gray!” someone barked, walking straight out of the red room and slamming the door behind him.
Shadow stared at the red slit of light under the door that divided him from the place of dreams where he and Gray could again become one. His heart oozed disappointment when he glanced at the newcomer, but the sight before him had him backing into Gray with a loud yelp.
The stranger was nothing like the humans Shadow had met so far. While he had four limbs, and a head, he was also huge, taller even than Shadow, with a chest so broad he resembled an animal rather than a man, and ink patterns covering every inch of skin.
Shadow swallowed a gulp of air and stepped in front of Gray, ready to shield him with his own body if the massive stranger decided to attack them. “Stay back!”
The man-beast frowned. “Gray?”
Gray wrestled his arm out of Shadow’s grip and faced the man without fear. “I’m sorry, Beast. Did someone tell you already?”
“Tell me what?”
Gray’s hair glistened in the weak light of the lamp above their heads so beautifully that with the threat gone, Shadow took the opportunity to feel the strands falling to Gray’s back.