[D is really out here joining the list of people trying to send Liem to an early grave, not by injury, but by stress-induced heart attack. This would be a real achievement given that Liem’s normal pulse rests somewhere at a cool several beats per minute, but it gets distinctly livelier as D’s mouth slides up the trail of blood descending towards his chest. He doubts any amount of repression can prevent the other dhampir from noticing.

As D licks up his throat, Liem swallows, his hands clutching tight at his sides as if to prevent them from clutching at D instead. The handkerchief is now ruthlessly scrunched in his fist.]

I’m not in the habit of letting men put their mouth all over me in the street, [he says with breathless, suppressed irritation as D continues to loom over him. Liem lifts his hand again to grab D’s wrist, as if to move his hand away from his collar. (As if he were capable of doing this.) But he only holds it fast as his pale blue eyes stare into D’s carnelian ones.

At least this situation is so inescapably, frustratingly intimate that the contact must surely be reducing their discord.]

For my own sanity, if nothing else.