Grim hated fancy shit.
He was a jeans and t-shirts, cheap beer at seedy dives type of guy.
No one would ever be more surprised than him that he had wound up with Prince Charming. Every time he looked at Johnnie, he forgot how to breathe. Every time Johnnie sought him out, smirked at him, smiled at him, just looked at him, Grim could barely remember his own stupid name. He kept sort of hoping that would change, and he would go back to being himself again—solitary, in control, unflappable, unbeatable—
But going back to being himself would mean not having Johnnie, and the thought of life without Johnnie was more painful than he could endure. He knew it for a fact, when Johnnie had thrown him out. He never wanted to go through that again.
All the same, he could do without the fancy parties.
He leaned over the railing, folding his arms on it, and stared down at the nightmare below. Lords and ladies of supernatural society were attending some fundraiser thing that Jesse Adelardi hosted every year. Johnnie didn’t bother to attend many social functions, rarely any that was not strictly necessary as a Desrosiers, but Grim still dreaded it every single time he did.
They always meant he spent the evening watching everyone admire Johnnie, and their looks of shock and dismay when Johnnie introduced Grim as his lover. It had almost been amusing, at first, but rapidly grew merely annoying.
Grim was well aware he was the ugly duckling, the toad, whatever, and that none of those ever actually wound up with Prince Charming. But he had, and they could all go to hell, and he really wished he could tell them that.
Tired of his thoughts, he skimmed the room, calling up enough of his power to shift through the auras, the energies, easily picking out who was with whom, where they had been, what they did. Energies gave away so much more than people ever realized. He broke off, letting the colors fade, not willing to induce a headache by pushing it too hard on the mortal plane.
Instead, he switched to his favorite pastime of Admiring Johnnie, who was standing with three vampires and an imp in human shape, avidly discussing something—books, by the way his hands moved—and completely oblivious to the fact that every last one of his rapt listeners would accept any and all offers Johnnie cared to extend.
Grim should have arrived with Johnnie, but the pull of a lost soul was impossible to ignore for long and he had preferred to find it and be finished early, than put it off until he had no choice and lose out on the after party hours. Heat curled low in his gut, thinking of later. Whatever his issues, whatever other people thought, it would be none of those admirers below who would be taking Prince Charming home.
Another vampire joined the little group, presenting Johnnie with a glass of champagne. Grim smirked, knowing that for all Johnnie offered the man a polite thanks, he wouldn’t drink a sip of it. Champagne was not Johnnie’s drink.
Pushing away from the railing, pissed that someone else was giving his lover drinks, Grim vanished. He reappeared near the bar and strode up to it, asking the bartender, “Could you get me a vodka rocks? Double. Best you’ve got.”
“Yes, sir,” the bartender said, and poured the drink, pushing it across the counter. Thanking him, leaving a tip, Grim pushed his way through the crowd of hoity-toity and finally reached the gathering.
Johnnie half-turned as he approached, beautiful and haughty. His diamond jewelry glittered, but they were a pale imitation of Johnnie’s splendor. He regarded Grim coolly, tilting his chin up in that lordly way that made Grim want to grab his hair and yank him close for a rough kiss. “So you finally deigned to show, did you?”
Grim merely smirked and presented the vodka, taking away the champagne flute and handing it off to a passing server. “I’m impressed you’re alive and unharmed, Prince. I was certain you would have managed to get yourself into trouble by now.”
Narrowing his eyes, Johnnie merely turned away and replied, “So now that you are finally here, are you going to simply stand there and skulk or are you going to make yourself useful?”
“Well, seeing as you’re doing such a marvelous job of behaving for once, I thought I might go get myself a beer and relax—” He rubbed his arm where Johnnie had struck it, absently relieved Johnnie was not at present affecting his damned cane. “Stop hitting me, Highness.”
Johnnie scoffed. “Pathetic. Go on, then, babysitter. Go drink your beer. I will fetch you when I need you, which I will not.” He nodded to the others, who seemed to realize they had been completely and utterly forgotten with Grim’s arrival, and made to walk away.
Grinning, Grim yanked him back, steadying the hand which still held the vodka so it wouldn’t spill, and murmured in Johnnie’s ear, letting his power slip a bit because he knew exactly how much Johnnie loved what it did to his voice. “I can’t decide if I want to dance with you, or take you upstairs and fuck you.”
“You are two hours late,” Johnnie said tartly. “I do not think you get to do either.” He tried to pull free of Grim’s hold, but his efforts were half-hearted at best—they always were. When Johnnie didn’t want to be somewhere, he damn good and well did not stay.
And they both knew he liked it when Grim pinned him. Laughing, Grim let him go and smirked. “Then I guess I’ll just enjoy a beer. Try to stay out of trouble, Highness.” Johnnie just glared at him, all but puffed up like an angry cat, and it was all Grim could do not to just grin and lean forward and kiss him.
“Fine,” Johnnie said, drawing himself up, going so Desrosiers that Grim didn’t want to settle for kissing, he wanted to go straight to throwing Johnnie on his bed and making him beg. “Enjoy your beer, then.” Turning sharply away, he stalked off, leaving the ballroom.
He didn’t know why, and it drove him crazy, but Grim loved that icy, haughty demeanor. He loved cracking it even more. Following the path Johnnie had taken, he spotted Johnnie by the elevators—and vanished as Johnnie slipped inside one, reappearing inside it just behind him, grabbing Johnnie and shoving him against the back just as the doors dinged shut.
Johnnie glared at him, and said in freezing tones, “I do not believe this is enjoying your beer, and I certainly did not give you permission to—”
Grim cut him off with a kiss, grunting as Johnnie bit his lip but not breaking the kiss until Johnnie finally gave in and relaxed in his arms. He drew back, keeping firm hold of Johnnie’s wrists because spoiled brat or no, Johnnie could throw a punch when he felt it, Grim said, “Sorry I’m late.”
“Good for you,” Johnnie replied.
Biting sharply on Johnnie’s ear, Grim murmured, “I’m the one who should be angry, you know. I show up after hours of hard work to find you’ve surrounded yourself with beautiful, flirtatious vampires.”
Johnnie turned his head sharply, causing their heads to knock together painfully. Grim swore and drew back, rubbing at his abused nose. “No one was flirting with me,” Johnnie snapped. “We were discussing Shakespeare. All this babysitting has gone straight to your head and turned you paranoid.”
Grim made a rough, growling noise and shoved him back again, taking his mouth hard enough he knew Johnnie’s lips would bruise. “It’s not the babysitting that makes me paranoid.”
“Shut up,” Johnnie muttered, sinking his freed hands into Grim’s hair. “If you do not stop saying such stupid things, you are not going to get anything but that beer tonight. You did not ask me to dance.”
“You’re the one who walked off in a princess snit,” Grim pointed out—and grunted when that only got him hit. “Such a violent princess. Ow!”
Johnnie cast him a scathing look. “Pathetic. Some grim shepherd you are, whining at every little thing.”
Grim snorted at that, but chose not to point out that Johnnie was the high maintenance one, simply kissed him again. The elevator dinged, and he reluctantly let Johnnie go. “Would you prefer to go back downstairs and dance?”
Johnnie ignored him, pushing Grim aside to leave the elevator. Halfway down the hall, he turned and looked over his shoulder. “I would have thought, stalker, that you would like to be allowed in the room where you started your crass behavior. But if you would rather go back downstairs and—”
Grim kissed him hard, held him close, and how could he have let that slip his mind? This stupid suite was where he had first gotten himself in trouble. He’d seen Johnnie in the ballroom and been transfixed. He’d been stupidly hurt and angry that Johnnie had looked at him, and dismissed him.
He had only intended to mess with the cold, proud Desrosiers princeling. Come upon him the dark, render all that haughty, superior behavior useless. Really, he should have known how spectacularly such behavior would backfire. But he had no complaints with the ultimate results—Prince Charming clinging to him, kissing him, moaning for him, belonging to him.
Johnnie tore away and strode down the rest of the hallway, opening the door and slipping inside. Grim was hot on his heels, following as Johnnie led the way through the sitting room where Grim had first kissed him in the dark, into Johnnie’s bedroom in the Desrosiers private suite.
Then Grim had enough of following. He pushed Johnnie down on the bed, climbed up behind him, keeping him pinned on his stomach.
“If you ruin this tuxedo—”
Grim only laughed, and shoved a hand beneath Johnnie, into his fancy pants, grabbing his cock. Johnnie jerked in his touch, hips moving— He swore as Grim pulled away just as suddenly, swearing still more as Grim roughly divested him of the expensive tuxedo and cast it carelessly aside. Johnnie glared at him, though it was not nearly as frosty with his hair already mussed, his cheeks flushed, and his cock hard. “You are the one always complaining about how much I spend on my clothes. I would spend a lot less if you would stop—”
“Like you hate buying more,” Grim broke in, smirking. “I don’t know any women who buy clothes like you.”
Narrowing his eyes, Johnnie abruptly sat up and shoved, sending Grim tumbling off the end of the bed. When he looked over the edge to brag about his triumph, Grim grabbed him and yanked—and realized the error of his ways when Johnnie landed on top of him in a way that very nearly ruined their night.
Johnnie glared at him.
Grim opted for kissing Johnnie until he was too distracted to keep thinking of revenge, then broke away and moved them back onto the bed. “Do I need to tie you up, Highness? Because if you were storing up your trouble making tendencies for now I think I may just have to beat you.”
“If you do not do something to me soon, you will not be doing anything to me for a very long time,” Johnnie said, eyes flashing.
“As you wish, Highness,” Grim said, and spread Johnnie’s legs, settling between them. He stroked Johnnie’s cock teasingly, and bent to kiss him to muffle the threats already forming on that too-pretty mouth.
Breaking the kiss, he nibbled along Johnnie’s jaw, then shifted to lick and suck at his throat, making Johnnie hiss. He kissed his way down Johnnie’s chest next, mouth lingering briefly on a small bruise he had left the day before.
“I am going to kill you,” Johnnie swore.
Smirking, Grim replied, “Not before I fuck you, and you haven’t followed through on that threat yet.” Johnnie just looked at him witheringly. Grim withdrew, causing more swearing, and stood up to finally strip off his own clothes and retrieve the small tube in his jacket. He tossed it on the bed, and made to crawl back to Johnnie—and drew up short as Johnnie crawled toward him, utterly caught by the hot look in his eyes.
Everyone who knew about Johnnie swore up and down that only his exceptional beauty transferred to the mortal plane. But Grim knew better than anyone just how much power could cross the planes, and he swore privately that more of Johnnie’s incubus nature came through here than anyone realized. He just—Grim knew people who would offer entire kingdoms if they had an inkling what it was like to be in Johnnie’s bed for just one night.
Johnnie’s just…took to it, like no one else Grim had ever met. One taste of Johnnie’s mouth had sealed his fate, and everything after that… Grim groaned as Johnnie’s mouth closed over his cock, sinking a hand into Johnnie’s soft, dark hair, encouraging, pushing slightly, all his thoughts skittering away because it was impossible to think of anything but Johnnie when he was in the room, never mind when Johnnie was sucking him off. “Johnnie—” Grim barely bit out his name before he came, spilling in Johnnie’s mouth, shuddering, barely able to stand—
He pushed Johnnie down on the bed as soon as he could function again, wrapping one hand around Johnnie’s cock, wetting two fingers in his mouth and then pushing them inside Johnnie, teasing, tormenting, making him gasp and writhe and beg in that way that Grim loved, loved that no one else would ever see.
Johnnie shouted loudly as he came, messy and sticky over both of them. Grim slowly let go of his cock, and bent to take another kiss, tasting himself in Johnnie’s mouth, loving it, thriving on it. “Sorry I was late,” he whispered.
“See that it does not happen again,” Johnnie said tartly.
“Yes, Highness,” Grim replied, smiling as Johnnie tugged him down for another kiss.