by J. L. McCoy
“Hi, baby,” I cooed as I sat down on the bed and let her attack me with kisses. She stopped suddenly and began to sniff me. After a few whiffs, she backed up, sat down, and looked up at me confused; her head tilting questioningly side to side.
“I think she just realized you’re a vampire now,” Jameson said and I glanced over my shoulder at him.
“It’s okay, super star,” I voiced gently as I held my hand out to her. She whined a few times and looked from my hand back to my eyes. It seemed she was unsure of me and it broke my heart. “It’s still me, baby. I’m just like Jameson and Trey now, though. Come say hi and give me sugar.” I patted my hands on my lap, emphasizing that I wanted her to come to me.
She looked at Jameson for a second and then back to me again. Whimpering one last time, she slowly inched her way to me on her belly. “Oh, honey,” I whispered, my voice trembling with emotion. It seemed she was reluctant to come, but would because I had asked her to. She always listened to her mommy. “You don’t have to be afraid, baby girl. I’m not going to hurt you.” I slowly inched my hand to her face and let her smell it. She sniffed at it for a good thirty seconds before she decided to lick it.
Once she did, it seemed to break her fear and she sat up and pounced on me. I fell back on the bed and allowed her to lick and nuzzle my face and neck. “Oh my good girl,” I laughed, “I’ve missed you too, baby; more than you can imagine.”
Her stubby little tail wiggled a mile a minute as she covered me in kisses and rolled with me on the bed. Jameson’s laughter rang out behind us and I looked up to realize we’d forced him off the bed with all our tumbling around. Gazing into his eyes, I smiled and thanked him for bringing Styvi back to me.
“We’ve been thick as thieves ever since she came home,” he smiled fondly down at her. “We played ball and Frisbee for a good hour this afternoon.”
“I bet that made her day,” I laughed, hugging Styvi to my chest and scratching behind her ears.
“No, I think the T-bone Trey picked up for her earlier made her day.”
“Oh my goodness,” I chuckled. “Already getting spoiled, huh Styvi?” She barked once and licked my face before wiggling out of my hold and bounding across the bed to sit in front of Jameson. “I think she wants you to get back in bed.”
Jameson smiled and dove over her onto the bed; the force of it causing me to bounce. I chuckled and sat beside him, our backs to the headboard. Silently, I watched them play together and thought back to the last time Jameson and I had been in this exact position. It was the morning after I’d learned they were vampires and had spent the night in Archer’s bed. Jameson and I’d had breakfast together the next morning and he wrote a song for me that eventually became our token song. I felt the happy smile slide off my face as the memory haunted me.
Jameson took notice of my change in mood and asked me if I was okay as he gently bumped his shoulder against mine.
“Do you remember the last time we sat in Archer’s bed like this?” I asked softly as I clutched the bottle of whiskey to my chest.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his brow furrow as he studied my face. “Of course I do,” he whispered, his voice serious. “That’s still the best breakfast I’ve ever had.”
I swallowed thickly and uncapped the liquor, taking in a huge mouthful. Memories of our time together swam through my mind and I was inexplicably sad all of the sudden.
“I owe you a huge apology,” he said with a sigh.
“No. You don’t owe me anything, honey,” I shook my head, glancing over at him, then handing off the bottle. “I made that bed.”
“No,” he argued before taking a long drink. “I treated you like absolute shit, Skye. You didn’t deserve it, and you sure as hell didn’t deserve what I did to you at my concert in Boston.”
“Okay, that did suck a little,” I conceded wryly as I stroked Styvi’s now snuggled form. She was sandwiched in-between Jameson and me and looked like she was settling in for round two of her naptime.
Jameson handed me back the bottle and I took another deep pull. “Can I be honest with you?” he asked after a silent minute.
“Always,” I answered as I looked over at him. He was studying his hands, his face betraying his trepidation.
“I was so hurt when you ended things with me,” he started, his eyes still down. “I really thought what we had was good and that we’d be together for a long time. That’s why it was kind of shocking to me.”
“I’m really sorry about the way I handled that. I broke up with you for the wrong reason, honey,” I said, picking at the paper label on the bottle, desperate to occupy my eyes so I wouldn’t look up at him. If I saw pain in his eyes, I knew I’d cry. “But…if I can be honest with you, our relationship would have ended eventually anyway. My feelings were torn.”
“I know,” he sighed, taking the bottle from me and slugging back a few gulps. “I saw the way you and Archer were together. I knew the attraction and desire was there, I just thought it would eventually go away.”
“I did love you, Jameson,” I whispered as I slowly slid my eyes to his. “And I still do. It’s a different kind of love now, but that doesn’t lessen it. When you came home to heal me, I was so happy to see you; I’d missed you so much.”
“And I treated you horribly then, too,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Fuck, I’m such a prick sometimes.”
“You had every right to be angry with me,” I frowned as I leaned my head over on his shoulder. He lifted his arm and pulled me into the crook as I moved my head to his chest and hugged him. “I think my relationship with Archer was inevitable, but we could have gone about it differently; we could have tried to wait longer…we could have talked to you first.”
“Archer told me you finally admitted your feelings when you thought An Dilis was going to kill you,” he said gently, whispering into my hair as he rested his lips on the top of my head.
“Yes, before the tests,” I nodded, swallowing thickly. “I honestly didn’t think I’d walk out of that basement alive and I needed him to know that I cared about him.”
“I wish I had been there for you,” he sighed. “I wish I had known what was happening.”
“Archer didn’t want to take you away from your dream, Jameson. He said you guys were close to landing a record deal. No one wanted to jeopardize that for you and the band. You worked too hard.”
I felt him shake his head as he tightened his arms around me, squeezing me to him. “You were my dream, Skye,” he whispered so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.
I swallowed hard as I clenched my eyes closed; his words running through me like a dull knife. Everything I wanted to say to him sounded so trite in my head, so I changed the subject. “Syd mentioned that you’ve been getting drunk every night before your shows.”
“Syd should mind his own business,” Jameson said with a scowl as he uncapped the bottle of whiskey and took another slug.
“What are you doing, Jameson? You’ve got a good thing going with The Manky Langer. Don’t throw it away because you’re hurting.”
“What do you know of my pain?” he scoffed softly, not unkindly, and handed me back the bottle. I tilted my head back against his shoulder and looked up into his eyes; the pain there barely masked.
“I know that your pain is my pain, brother,” I whispered as I lightly stroked his chin with my thumb. “I’ve suffered as you have, just in my own way. Losing you, in any capacity, was heartbreaking for me. You’re my friend, Jameson, and you’ll always be my family. I have to have you in my life. I’ve tried living without you and it feels like part of me is missing. I need you here. I’ve really missed my friend.”
“How can you forgive me for the things I said to you, the things I did in front of you?” he asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. “You didn’t deserve a lot of it and you definitely didn’t deserve what I did to you backstage in Boston.”
Flashes of Jameson with his pants lowered around his hips and the groupie sucking hi
m off flitted through my mind and I squeezed my eyes closed in an attempt to shut them out. It was a relatively painful memory for me. It wasn’t the act that bothered me the most; it was his state of mind at the time. Jameson showed me a darker side of himself and I wasn’t used to seeing him in that light. I sighed and smoothed his shirt against his chest. “Everybody needs to get laid, honey,” I shrugged one shoulder.
He was silent for a long time as we passed the bottle back and forth; we were lost in our own thoughts. Finally, he broke it with a dry, humorless chuckle. “You know, I only fucked redheads. How sick is that? Every night I’d pick a girl who looked most like you and take her backstage. I just wanted that connection with you again, I think. And every night it was the same, me fucking the girl or watching her suck me off and daydreaming it was you in front of me and not someone else.”
“That’s not very healthy, honey,” I frowned as I gazed up at him. “Please tell me you don’t still feel that way.”
“Sometimes,” he admitted honestly as he looked down at me and brushed the hair from my forehead. “I miss the connection we once had; it was absolutely electric…the best sex I’ve ever had.”
I groaned uncomfortably and buried my head in his chest as he continued. “Do you know what my biggest regret is?” he asked softly as he held me to him. I reluctantly tilted my head up to look at him and saw moisture beginning to pool in his eyes. My brow furrowed a little in confusion as I shook my head. “My biggest regret is that I didn’t kiss you goodbye.”
“Jameson,” I sighed as I started to pull away from him. The look in his eyes told me how desperately he wanted to do it. I’d thought we’d made progress in rebuilding our friendship, but obviously not if he was still having those desires about me. I was in a relationship with Archer and hearing him talk that way was a bit too intimate for me.
Leaning back against the headboard, I took another big swig of whiskey as I glanced at him uncomfortably out of the corner of my eye. “You shouldn’t say those things.”
“I know. I’m working on it, okay?” he said, running his fingers through his long brown hair. “I know it’s fucked up but getting over you is going to take time, Skye. You can’t just expect me to turn my heart off.”
“I don’t expect that,” I explained as I turned to him. “What I expect is you to take all those feelings of love you have for me and turn them into something we can work with. Jesus, Jameson…call me selfish, but I want you in my life. Nothing good is going to come from your current feelings. You need to channel them into the love you have for me as a sister.” I stared down at the bottle in my hands and felt my eyes tear up. “We were good together,” I admitted faintly, barely above a whisper, “and I’ll always cherish the time we spent together, but I meant what I said. You deserve someone so much better than me. You deserve to be worshiped, Jameson; you deserve to be the whole world for some lucky woman. I wasn’t it…I wish I could have been the person you needed.” I looked back into his eyes as the tears fell from mine. “Archer is my forever, honey, and that means that yours is still out there somewhere waiting for you to find her. But I’ll tell you one thing…whoever she is, she’s one lucky bitch.”
Jameson slowly lifted his hand to brush away my tears; his face sad. “He’s your forever?” he asked in a whisper. I just nodded my head and watched as my words sank in.
“Fuck,” he sighed, leaning back and rubbing his face with his hands. “I had no idea you felt that way. That’s serious shit, Skye.”
“I know,” I shrugged a shoulder meekly, “but it’s true. There’s no question that Archer is the man for me. It just…clicks with him. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. It’s like…fate or something.”
“Soul mates,” Jameson said seriously, lowering his hands to study me.
“I don’t know if I believe in that, but I guess Archer is the closest thing I would have to one.”
Jameson chuckled dryly as he took the bottle from me. “This is wild. Part of me is shockingly sad, but the other is deliriously happy for my brother. Does he know how you feel? Have you told him?”
“I-I don’t know if I’ve said it in so many words,” my brow furrowed.
Jameson’s eyes carefully watched me as he asked his next question. “Would you marry him if he asked?”
“Jesus,” I breathed out in a whoosh of air. “I’m barely twenty-three and we’ve only been dating for a few weeks. I can’t even think about something like that right now.”
He stowed the bottle between his legs and turned to me, taking both my hands in his; his face strangely serious and intense. “Don’t think about any of that, just think about the way you feel about him. If he asked you today, all other crap aside, would you say yes?”
I stared down at our hands and thought about it. Archer was the love of my life. I’d never been with someone like him before. Our lovemaking was passionate, perfect, and my heart was fully invested. I knew I’d want him and no other man for the rest of my life and I knew that my life would be nothing without him in it.
Gazing back up at Jameson, I dropped my mental shield and tuned into his emotions. Surprisingly, all the things I felt were positive. Jameson seemed genuinely happy for his brother. I felt the love he had for me, and shockingly, his lack of animosity towards us. Maybe Jameson was finally making positive steps toward turning his feelings around. The thought made me smile inwardly.
“Well?” he prompted me.
I sighed and closed my eyes briefly before I opened them and answered. “Yes…I’d probably say yes.”
“Ifreann na Fola,” he whispered with a tiny, satisfied smirk.
“That’s not exactly how I envisioned your response,” I raised my eyebrows at him in surprise.
“If you marry Archer, no one anywhere could ever lay a hand on you, Skye,” he said, looking deeply into my eyes. “You’d be completely safe…you’d belong to Archer. Atticus could never try to take you from us again.”
“But I thought I was already Archer’s,” I frowned. “He’s my maker and my mate.”
“True, but you haven’t taken the blood oath,” he explained. “Doing that is irrefutable…you’d be married to him.”
“You’re talking crazy,” I shook my head. “I’m not going to marry someone just for protection. Besides, I can take care of myself. You haven’t seen what I can do yet. I heal almost instantly; no blade can kill me…even if you stab me in the heart. I’m not scared of Atticus, Jameson.”
We heard the door to the apartment open and watched Archer stroll in. I saw his eyes take in Jameson and me and I smiled up at him. “Hey, honey,” I held my hand out to him. “Come sit with us.”
He took off his jacket and laid it across the pool table before coming over and sitting beside me. Jameson and I sat back against the headboard again, all three of us in a neat row.
“How was your meeting with the Castile’s?” Jameson asked as he passed the half empty bottle of whiskey down to Archer.
He took it and drank deeply before passing it back to me. “It wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped,” he sighed, reaching up to loosen his tie. “What have you two been up to?”
Jameson and I looked over at each other and chuckled. “Apologizing,” we said at the same time.
“About bualadh craicinn time,” Archer smiled. “You two weren’t fooling me in Boston, you know. I could read how pissed at each other you were. Why do you think I made you hold hands at Les Oubliette?”
“I told you I’d try,” I shrugged a shoulder innocently. “It wasn’t my fault your son was being so difficult.”
“I’ll show you difficult,” Jameson scoffed and put me in a head lock. I squealed as we playfully tumbled over the bed; Archer’s laughter and Styvi’s playful bark sweet melody to my ears.
Chapter Twenty
My cell phone alarm woke me up at eight and I disentangled myself from Archer’s arms to roll over and cut it off. Since I had to be back at Drop Kick Dan’s at ten, I asked Archer if we could sp
end the night at the club since it was a lot closer to Dan’s; of course he agreed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he purred sexily as he pulled me on top of him.
“I have to get ready for work, baby,” I whispered, straddling his hips and bending down to lightly kiss his lips.
“No,” he moaned, growing hard against me as he buried his face in my neck. “Stay with me a little longer. I want to make love to you again.”
“Again?” I breathed as he gripped my ass tightly to him. “We went four rounds last night. Haven’t you had enough?”
“I will never get enough of you,” he whispered, licking and biting my neck. “Even if we had eternity together, it wouldn’t be near long enough.”
“Oh, Archer,” I moaned. “How can I say no to that?”
“You can’t baby,” he looked up at me, smiling, before flipping us over. He reached between us and positioned himself at my opening, rubbing the hard head against my wetness; coating it. I lifted my hips eagerly and gasped as he began to push inside. He was rock hard, thick, and it took my body a few strokes to fully open for him.
“Fuck, Skye,” he growled, looking down at me hungrily. “You’re always so tight.”
“No,” I smiled up at him, “you’re just hung like a horse.”
Finally able to fully sheath himself, he growled as his body trembled with need. “Hard and fast or soft and slow, baby?” he spoke against my lips as he nipped and nibbled at them.
“Hard and fast,” I answered with anticipation as I ran my fingers through his hair and fisted it tightly.
“Fuck yeah, baby,” he growled and really started to move. Reaching under me to grab my shoulders, he drilled deeply into me; the pain well worth the reward.
My first orgasm hit me hard and I saw stars when I finally came down again. Archer wasted no time flipping me over on my knees as one hand gripped my hip and the other my shoulder. The loud slapping sound of skin against skin made me moan and beg for more. Being the generous lover he was, Archer let go of my shoulder to lavish attention on my nerve center with two thick fingers as he pounded harder into me from behind.