Present Tense: Pleasure Times Four (Out of the Fire Book 3)

by Candace Blevins

  “No,” Eunice countered. “He agreed to that night because of politics. Rumor has it, his brothers told him to fix it, since he’d fucked it up. Whether that’s the case, or whether he chose to do it because he realized how bad things could get if he didn’t, we’ll never know. The bikers always put on a united front, no matter what.” He shrugged. “Their women usually do as well, but they banded around their newest ol’lady.”

  “Who was ironically a man,” Fabio said. “Completely fucked up. But the point is, the bikers have more power than one would expect. I thought they’d lose some of it when Randall — the old wolf alpha — died. He and the MC president were twins. However, the new wolf alpha decreed that any lone wolf who fought in the big battle can use magic, and they’re usually forbidden if they aren’t Pack, so in a way, she’s made them more powerful than they were before.”

  Clearly, Kelsey needed a meeting with a vampire who could lay all this out on a flowchart. Until then, she felt it best to change the subject. “Etta wants to come in one night and oversee me feeding lust directly from one of you. She says as long as there’s someone to time me and make sure I stop before I take too much, it should be safe. She had to force me to keep drinking from the shifter they made me kill. Normally, once a vampire new to this power starts feeding from the new thing, they can’t stop. I did. Many times. She feels that now that I’ve been absorbing it from the air, that I’d be okay with short sips directly from the source.”

  “I’m game,” Fabio said.

  She turned to face him, and looked at him, deciding. What made him anxious to volunteer? She assumed he wanted to give blood because of the orgasms, but this wouldn’t give him that. She needed to know, so she peeked in his head.

  When she’d first met the three men, she’d thought Eunice and James tied for bad-ass, though for different reasons. She’d assumed Fabio was the least bad-ass — not a wimp by any means, but not the warriors the other two are.

  But she’d begun to understand the flaw in that thinking. Fabio offered for two reasons — the first was because it scared him a little, and because he felt he needed to face anything that scared him. Face it head-on. It wasn’t a death wish, he wouldn’t step in front of a speeding semi-truck, for instance, but things like this, where there was a reasonable belief he’d be fine, meant he needed to do it because he was scared.

  But there was more. He’d died and been brought back when he was tortured. Several times. He’d expected to die for good in that hellhole, and the things he regretted most, when he thought his life was over, were the things he’d backed away from, not the things he’d done. So now, he didn’t back away from much. The next time he was at death’s door, he didn’t want to have those regrets.

  She’d seen some of the fights he’d been in, and granted, she’d seen them from inside his head, and thus from his point of view, but still — there was no doubt the three of them tied for bad-ass, but in completely different ways. She imagined that when they worked together, they were a formidable team.

  “Okay. You first. Etta tells me I can give stronger orgasms if I wait to take it when you’re coming. I won’t be able to do that the first time, because she wants me to practice, but we’ll see how it goes the second time.”

  “Who trained you before?” Eunice asked. “Did you have the second most powerful vampire in Australia personally training you?”

  She started to argue that Etta wasn’t that powerful, but then realized that once Marco officially took over this territory, it wasn’t far off. And considering the territory he currently held — New York State and several New England states, he held power over more people than anyone in Australia.

  “No. I was trained by a number of people, but none of them even close to Etta’s power.”

  “She was pretty high up in Europe’s hierarchy, before she came here,” Eunice pointed out. “She’s a powerhouse. Most vampires are terrified of her. Shapeshifters don’t know about her, so we don’t know any better.”

  “And you think it’s odd she’s spending so much time with me.” It was a statement. No need in asking, because he did, and now that he’d pointed it out, she agreed with him.

  “Rumor has it she feeds off more than blood,” Eunice said.

  Kelsey knew this was true, but she couldn’t confirm it. Etta had forbidden her.

  “Which, if the rumor is true, would give her more insight to training me, I suppose.”

  “It’s also possible they know how powerful you may one day become,” James pointed out. “New vampires who exhibit this kind of power are either brought on board early, or killed before they’re too powerful to take out.”

  “Do you think your old Master knew how powerful you could one day be?” Fabio asked.

  “Ya’ll have talked about this,” Kelsey noted.

  “Of course,” Fabio said. “You’re one of us now. We’re security specialists. If any of us sees a potential security issue, we talk about it.”

  “And you think... what? She might kill me?”

  Eunice had been leaned against the wall, and he stepped away from it. “The question is, do you?”

  “If I fuck up, maybe.” She shook her head. “I’m a long way from being so powerful they can’t put me in my place. I’ve seen the packet that went to Marco. I know my old master told him I have the possible capability of one day being a powerhouse, and that with my intelligence and control, they need to keep a close eye on me. He was against me coming here — not against coming to Chattanooga, but to this house. He felt I needed the supervision of the coterie, but he acknowledged this would be my new Master’s decision.”

  “How did you see the packet?” James asked, but she could tell by his expression he already knew the answer.

  “I respect other people’s privacy, but this was about me. I had no moral dilemma about taking a peek into the mind of a vampire I knew had seen it. If I hadn’t been able to do so, I’d have hacked a computer to get the information.” She eyed Eunice a moment, weighing one decision over another. “It’s also occurred to me they’ve put you I charge of my training so I’m not pissed off at the vampires for putting me in my place while I’m being brought up and trained.”

  He nodded. “Possibly, but I believe it’s a non-issue. Are you angry with me for punishing you?”

  “No.” The answer came out too quickly, so she analyzed why she wasn’t upset with him. “You haven’t been unfair. You’ve talked to me about it, even had me agree with the consequences before you doled them out.”

  Fabio lifted a box and walked to the grand staircase. “In the past, we’ve used the fake strands of greenery on the railing, and supplemented with some real sprigs.” He put the box down in front of the steps and turned back to Kelsey. “The designer we brought in to help us the first year, when our decorating was a total disaster, had us settle on a color scheme for each room. Since then, we’ve changed it up a little. We have a gold theme, a red and green theme, a blue theme, a solid red theme, and a silly Lego theme that’s all different colors but it still works.”

  “We did the white theme in here last year,” James said. “I’d just as soon not do that in any room this year.”

  Kelsey looked around the living room in Italian earth tones. “The gold seems a good fit for this room.”

  “It’s what the designer put in here the first year. We haven’t done it since, and we’ve added to it a little,” Fabio said. “I think it’s time to do it in here again.”

  “I’d like to do the blue in the den,” said James.

  “Maybe the white and red in the kitchen?” Kelsey asked. “Like a candy cane?”

  “We’d need to buy some stuff with both white and red,” Eunice said. “We asked the designer a million questions, trying to figure out how she put stuff up and it looked great, but we’d put similar stuff up and it’d been a nightmare. Turns out, if you have a two-color theme, some of the stuff has to have both colors, to pull the rest of the room together.”

  Kelsey looked ar
ound the room at these three large alpha men, and tried to put it together with what she was hearing. “Ya’ll learned about design? On purpose?”

  “We thought we’d decorate the house for Christmas,” James explained. “We honestly thought it was just a matter of going to the store, finding stuff we liked, and then coming home and scattering it around the house.”

  “It looked like an elf threw up,” Fabio said.

  “So we hired a designer I know from the scene,” Eunice said. “And she used what we bought, without buying much more, but moved it around. All the gold stuff in here, the red and green decorations in the kitchen, and the darker red stuff in the den. We had to buy more gold for the living room, and the next year we did gold in the den and added even more.”

  “If your solid red is a burgundy, it won’t work with the white. Might do red and gold in the kitchen, if that’s the case. Move some of the gold from in here in there. I can probably pull it off without having to buy too much, especially if you’ve been adding to the gold.” She slipped a ponytail holder off her wrist and pulled her hair back. “I had a pearl and gold theme in my personal space at the coterie house in Sydney, but I didn’t bring any of it with me. I’d like to go shopping before I figure out what color theme to buy for my suite.”

  “We used the Lego theme in the den last year,” said Fabio. “It probably won’t be used this year, if you want to use it.”

  She didn’t want to hurt their feelings, but no way did she want a Lego theme in her suite. She closed her eyes and considered the best way to make use of what they had. “How about red and gold in here, red and green in the kitchen, blue in your den, and I’ll look at what’s leftover to see if I can put it together in my suite, or whether I’ll need to go on a shopping trip. Your Target is open at night, yes? I’m told they will have much of what I need, excluding clothes and shoes. The vampires have a trip planned in a few weeks to go to a designer shop in Atlanta, for high end clothing. It’ll open at night just for us.”

  “Works for me,” Fabio said. “You sound like you know what you’re doing, so it’ll be fun to watch you mix up what we have and make it work.”

  24

  The year Fabio and Collosa had decided to decorate, Eunice had made fun of them when they left to go shopping.

  But then they’d spent most of two days working, and Eunice understood why they were frustrated. They used all of the same shit he saw in the pictures they pulled up, but what they did looked like — as Fabio pointed out — a whole host of elves had gotten sick and puked all over the place.

  They’d had a designer come in to buy furniture and curtains and shit originally, so Collosa had called Dana back and set up an appointment for her to come back and help.

  She’d been surprised the three wanted to learn, but it was a matter of figuring out where they’d gone wrong. If they’d never tried to do it in the first place, it would’ve been fine to hire her to do it without knowing why it looked right when she did it.

  So he listened to his housemates quiz Kelsey on why she took that bow off of what it came on and put it on the hearth, and another similar one above it, and listened to her explain about focal points and tying things together, and planning where someone’s eyes would land first. And she pointed out the bow was red with gold, so it helped tie their color theme together.

  In a way, it was a bit like security — look here, not there. You see this, not that.

  Fabio had a Christmas playlist, and it was on in the background. He’d also made cookies. Eunice had made a pineapple upside down cake and drenched it in rum.

  And Collosa had stopped by the deli and bought a half-dozen apple pies and two gallons of ice cream.

  Four hours after they started, the living room and grand staircase were finished. Also, the dining room, which they always did in the same theme as the living room. It only needed some decoration around the windows and on the chandelier — the same greenery with different decorations. Kelsey had put together a centerpiece for the table though, and had told them this meant they had to put less on the chandelier. She’d even slapped Collosa’s hand when he tried to add to it, took the tiny gold presents from him, and put them on her centerpiece. “You can’t have two pieces battling for the focal point. This year, the centerpiece is the focal point.”

  And Collosa had rubbed his hand and let her get away with it — a giant of a man beside a vampire a third his size.

  Eunice wasn’t that much taller than Kelsey — just a few inches. He was probably only about fifty pounds heavier, too. He looked small next to Collosa, but not as small as Kelsey did.

  Later, when they’d moved to the den, he saw her hand coming down to slap his away, and he grabbed her wrist. “Not a good idea. Why can’t this go here.”

  She ran her other hand down her ponytail, but didn’t try to yank her wrist out of his grasp. “It’s the wrong color of blue. Most of what you have in here is a deep blue. Some of it has silver accents, so when you look at the big picture, it doesn’t come off as deep, but it is. This is the wrong shade. There’s some ribbon in this shade, too. It’s possible we can use this box of decorations with the ribbon on the other side of the room, by itself, but it’d be best to just not use this in here at all.”

  He hadn’t seen it until she pointed it out, but now he did. He took his box, walked to the unused boxes, grabbed the ribbon he was certain she’d been talking about, a two-foot tall tree, and walked to the table in the hallway just outside the den.

  She didn’t tell him not to set it all up out there, so he went to work.

  “There has to be a story here,” she said, standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her adorable hips.

  “What kind of story?” Collosa asked.

  “I assumed I’d have to ask nicely to be allowed to decorate, and then it would be me doing it on my own. Ya’ll go all out with it.”

  “I’m a bear,” said Collosa. “I come from a large family unit. Christmas was a big part of my life. Family from all over the globe returned home. I go back once every three or four years, but just for a day or two. My life is here now. Still, the first year I lived here, with just a tree and nothing else, it seemed sad.”

  “My family went all out as well,” said Fabio. “Maybe not as much as we’re doing here, but the house wasn’t as big. When Collosa wanted to buy stuff to decorate multiple rooms, it sounded good to me.”

  She’d tried to ask Eunice about his family once, and he’d changed the subject. He knew so much about her — it was probably a good idea for him to share a little. If he didn’t, she might go looking.

  “I’m on the other end of the scale,” Eunice told her. “Christmas wasn’t...” He shrugged. “I lived in what you’d probably call a commune. Hundreds of us in a gated community — mongoose shifters. Family was huge, but not Christmas. We abjured anything commercial. Lived off the land, made our own clothes, raised pigs and sheep and chickens, enough to feed ourselves and trade for grain to make bread with, and for the few vegetables we brought in.” He looked around at the decorations and liked the way they made him feel. It got him ready for Christmas morning, and Christmas day. “I didn’t think I’d like this, but it helps us feel like family.” Another shrug. “I’ve gone out in the world and become part of it, so I’m not fully accepted when I go back. My family still loves me, but I’m... suspect, I guess. This is my family now. Turns out, I like Christmas.”

  “Cats are loners,” Fabio said. “But the family came together at Christmas. It was always special for me. I got to see grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. Also, there was lots of presents, and food. What wasn’t to love?”

  “We do tons of food here,” Collosa told her. “I’m told some vampires grow to love the way their daywalkers’ blood tastes after Thanksgiving, and after Christmas.”

  Eunice didn’t want to go there, but his thoughts jumped to it anyway. What would it be like to feed her Christmas dinner through his blood?

  Fuck, what was wrong with him?
He wasn’t feeding a damned vampire.

  But this wasn’t a damned vampire. This was Kelsey.

  He’d killed the vampire who’d mind-raped him. No vampire would ever take over his mind and turn him into a motherfucking marionette again.

  Eunice was working on the tree when he felt the energy in the room change behind him, and he smelled arousal shortly before lust filled the room.

  And somehow, he knew Kelsey was drinking in the lust he smelled. Again, he had to wonder why he was so keyed into her, but he set it aside. He was, and that was fine. He liked knowing when she rose, when she fed, when she felt weak.

  He turned to see what was going on, and he couldn’t help his smile. Collosa was behind Kelsey, playing with her ass with one hand, the side of her neck with the other. Fabio was in front, kissing her and pinching the fuck out of her right nipple to hold her still. His knee was between her legs, and she was humping his thigh.

  The three of them had gone from zero to a hundred in a matter of seconds, and he liked knowing Kelsey could put everything aside and sink into sex so easily.

  He finished the box of ornaments he’d been working on, and sat in a chair in the corner to watch. Usually, the three of them would be all over a woman who was fine with it, but he was the official spotter, so he couldn’t join even if he wanted to.

  As soon as the thought went through his mind, he realized he was using that as an excuse to not have to face facts.

  He wanted to join them.

  Twenty minutes later, when Collosa was fucking her doggie style and Fabio was fucking her throat, he was tempted to grab some nipple clamps and add them, but he was the spotter. It wasn’t an excuse today. It was his responsibility.

  Anther twenty minutes, and Fabio was in her ass while Collosa pounded her cunt, and she begged them to let her come.

  Eunice realized he needed to have a discussion with Etta about whether she trusted either of the other men to act as spotter if he wanted to have sex with Kelsey.