by Holly Ryan
“Or...choice three,” Eddie said, rubbing his chin.
“What happened to the second choice?” Yes, I was keeping strict count since this whole choosing thing was so new to me.
The three vamps shared a look.
Sawyer took his hand from my thigh, slowly and with great care. “Eddie’s book said this slayer was associating with several different vampires, though it could already be enough that you’ve...associated with Eddie.”
“So you and Jacek can’t just bite me?” I asked.
Eddie smirked. “There is no just. Biting another always involves sex or death as a precursor to vampirism. But since you can’t easily be changed into a vampire...”
“So basically, the third choice is”—Jacek leaned in and pressed his lips to my neck with a hint of fang grazing my skin—“let the associating continue.”
Chapter Eight
“Whatever you decide, that will be the right choice,” Sawyer said and stood. The other two followed him out of the kitchen.
So in other words, why choose just one vamp when I could have all three? Damn. Had I died and gone to horny slayer heaven?
But were the three of them really okay with this? They hadn’t given me a chance to ask them, and now I was alone with my thoughts. Was I okay with this? Regular society would declare me a slut, but like it or not, I wasn’t part of regular society. Besides, I needed the three of them, and not just on a sexual level. And I suspected they needed me too.
And it wasn’t as if they turned me off. Far from it. My body had practically caught fire at the thought of having sex with all three of them, at once and individually. Even now, the echoes of Sawyer’s touch on my thigh made me squirm in my chair and stuttered the air in my lungs until I was a panting mess. Jacek’s lips on my neck had soaked my panties. And Eddie’s genius was always a turn-on, no touching required. I was sure all three of them could smell my desire even now.
Did I need to sleep with all three of them so the demon would think I was tainted enough to leave me alone? Maybe. Maybe not. It was my choice. My choice. That alone made me almost giddy.
The sounds of Jacek pushing the furniture out of the way and rolling out his mats drifted from the living room.
I gathered my biology homework, stashed it in my duffel bag at my feet, then rose from the table while attempting to steady my breathing so I could walk past him out the door with minimal drooling. He was just a vampire, a hot, sexy vampire who loathed shirts and who could take me out in a fight. So far, at least. That was one thing I’d like to change.
He stood stretching on the mats as I came in, his stacks of muscle flexing underneath the scarred flesh on his back. I admired that he didn’t try to hide them, maybe as a reminder of his survival through whatever horror had caused them, or maybe as a reminder that they were simply one part of his whole being, one chapter in his whole story. Whatever the reason, it must’ve taken great courage.
He turned, flashing me that alluring grin. “Want to learn how to disarm someone in two seconds tops?”
I arched an eyebrow. “Definitely, but don’t you have students coming?”
“In half an hour.” He made a gimme motion toward my duffel bag. “Hand me a stake.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. A vampire wielding a stake? What if you stab yourself like I did or accidentally fall on it or...?” I stopped as his grin faded somewhat, as something shifted behind his eyes. Surprise, it seemed.
“Are you worried about me, Slayer?” His good humor sparked back over his face like he was joking around, but I guessed otherwise. He didn’t think I would be? That thought twisted a knife in my heart.
“Well, yeah...”
“I promise I’ll be careful. With you and the stake.” There was a solemn note in his voice I hadn’t heard before, and it fluttered my insides to hear him say it like a vow. I believed every word. Besides, careful didn’t mean gentle.
I fished in my duffel for a stake and then handed it to him. He took it, not seeming to mind I’d used it to dispatch quite a few of his kind, and flipped it again and again in his hand.
“Let’s brawl, earth scum!” he warned, his voice pitched high like a cartoon villain.
I burst into laughter.
“Sorry. I’ve always wanted to say that, but it never seemed appropriate with paying students.” He widened his feet into a fighting stance, his orange-yellow eyes still crinkling at the corners. “Okay, so keeping your palms flat, knock one against my hand, and the other against my wrist at the same time, as fast as you can like you’re about to catch a hot potato.” He held the stake in front of him like a dagger. “Ready?”
“Umm, that’s not how you hold a stake.”
“It’s a weapon, Slayer. It can be held a lot of different ways.”
Okay, then. I visualized my actions before I moved, then I struck my palms on either side of his hand. The stake popped out of his grip and hit the mat.
“Nicely done.” He bent to retrieve it while I gave myself a pat on the back, then he held it like a normal stake—in the air near his ear. “I’m going to do a running attack now, but do exactly what you just did, rolling the weapon toward the thumb. It loosens the grip just enough, and that combined with the initial shock of you disarming them will make them drop the weapon more times than not. Okay?”
“And if I’m the one who needs to be disarmed?” After last night, I couldn’t even trust myself. Not a good feeling in my line of work.
“Same thing applies if you’re able. Roll the weapon toward your thumb. I also put a Kevlar vest next to the door for you to wear on patrol. Let’s not put any more holes in that beautiful body of yours.”
My eyes widened, but before I knew it, he was tearing toward me, stake raised high. I held my ground, my whole body twitching in preparation to defend myself. When he was almost upon me, I flashed out my arms and forced him to drop the stake. He whipped to my side, but I read his movements, knowing what he was going to do before he did it. I dodged out of the way of his tripping feet and kicked his legs out from underneath him before he did it to me. He landed with a ridiculously satisfying smack.
Cue the Rocky theme song because I felt like a badass.
I straddled his hips and squatted low, and because I was such a polite sparring partner, I stuck my finger in his face and said, “Ha!”
He laughed, the sound itself a delight. “Ha is right. You did good, Slayer.”
“Thanks.” Even though I had a long way to go before I moved as gracefully as he did, it felt good to finally be on an actual path that might eventually lead me to that point. To Jacek, I probably looked like I was dancing with bees while I fought, but I doubted he’d ever admit to that. I flicked my gaze to the black vest lying just inside the front door, and warmth thrummed underneath my skin. If I had to wear body armor to keep from staking myself, then so be it. I was a work in progress, and through this shitstorm of a week, there was progress. “And thank you for the Kevlar vest too. That’s more than I could ever ask for.”
“You deserve a lot more than a vest, Slayer.” He reached up and tucked a stray hair from my bun behind my ear. “Sometimes I wish humans could see us just so they’d know about you and everything you do for them.”
Whoa. That might’ve been the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me. For ten long years, I’d been fighting the big fight with zero acknowledgement. Not like I needed a constant spotlight and praise every damn day, but a little less frothing at the mouth from thirsty customers at The Bean Dream and fewer catcalls when I walked down the street would be really nice. Actually, everyone deserved fewer of those things, so I supposed all I really wanted was the slightest recognition for what I did. And it had come in spades from three lickable vampires.
I smiled down at Jacek, and his answering one held a devious curl that flared all sorts of wicked thoughts through my head. Like a breaking dam, we sprang together. I dipped my head to his. He captured my lips with a hungry growl, parting my mouth with his tongue to explo
re deeper, to taste more. The fingers of one hand speared to the back of my head so he could kiss me harder. His other hand tracked lower down my spine and over the swell of my ass to press me against the hard length of his cock. I moaned into his kiss as I ground against him, letting my body reign.
Eddie’s bite on my inner thigh tingled, not painfully but as if urging me on somehow. Yet I wondered what he would do if he saw Jacek and me right then, devouring each other on the living room floor. Would he be jealous? Would he really be okay with this?
Even as I thought these things, I couldn’t stop myself or the intense pleasure zinging through me. My hips thrust into Jacek’s, and somehow I was even wetter than I’d been while in the kitchen. I grazed my fingers through the short stubble of his dark hair to grip him tight.
With one arm braced against my back, he flipped me around so he was on top and settled between my legs again. His kisses were ravenous and left me breathless. His hands slipped under my shirt, trailing goose bumps behind his fingertips. He palmed my breasts over my bra, his cool touch instantly pebbling my nipples into hard, aching points. I pressed myself into him, a plea to touch me, to take me, and hard.
A split second later, a tearing sounded. My breasts spilled free underneath my Spongebob T-shirt, and then he peeled both the broken fabric of my bra and my shirt up my rib cage and over my head.
A devious sparkle glinted in his now-red eyes after he’d lifted the shirt over my head. “No sponges were harmed while getting you naked.”
“I’m not naked yet,” I breathed.
He grinned. “I knew I forgot something.” One of his hands sank down the back of my yoga pants and panties, chilling my skin with a delightful shiver, and he worked both down my legs.
I lay spread out for him, completely naked, and Jacek swept all of me with a look like adoration. My body heated, not just with want but with awe. What had I stumbled into with these vampires? Something totally unexpected, but exactly what I needed.
“You’re gorgeous,” he said.
“You’re not naked.” I smiled and twirled my finger as if to speed his undressing up.
He growled, and in a flash, he hauled us both to our feet and flew us across the living room. Somehow while carrying me, his pants snaked out behind his feet. Then a wall behind me caught me by surprise, my breath whooshing out, and Jacek’s chest pressed into my front. With my back braced against the wall, he lifted my legs around his waist, stepping his gloriously naked body closer, and sank his cock inside me.
I cried out at the sensation, caught between pain and pleasure, while I accustomed myself to his size.
He moaned into my mouth, his hips stilled, the barest prick of a fang honing every nerve in my body to his touch. Then he started moving, driving all thoughts off a cliff. I gazed down over his shoulder at the muscles flexing in his ass and beautifully scarred back, hypnotized by the power rolling over him like ocean waves. He was a thing of beauty.
And he knew how to fuck. Every thrust tightened my pussy almost to the brink, dragged my aching nipples against his chiseled chest, and chased our kisses deeper and faster.
I dropped my head back to the wall when one of his hands found my breasts and rolled my nipples between his fingers.
“Jacek,” I breathed. “Don’t forget to bite me.” I needed him to do it, to mark me as his, just like I’d been marked by Eddie. As proof to the demon that I was tainted.
He pressed his smile to my mouth. “Oh, I won’t forget.”
I laughed and then crushed him to me again. He gripped me hard around the waist, his hips moving like a piston. His kisses grew rougher. He sank his hand down my ribs to my thigh and then between my legs to my clit. I gasped as electrical currents zipped outward from my core. I moved my hand there, too, stroking his cock, slick with my juices, as he thrust into me. A shudder rolled through him, and I knew he was close.
“Fuck, Slayer. You feel so good.” He pressed harder against my clit, massaging it with his thumb.
With a breathless moan, my back bowed against the wall, as if my body were hurling itself at this vampire who knew exactly how to bring my orgasm crashing down. One more flick of his thumb and I was there, clinging to him and soaring to the night sky at the same time. I cried out into his kiss, and my pussy squeezed around his cock.
He brought my wrist to his mouth and bit down hard as he came inside me.
I moaned at the feel of him sucking my blood while the aftershocks of my orgasm still shot through my body. My hips rolled against his, still riding that high. Then when the living room lights grew impossibly bright, he withdrew his fangs and his cock, his signature grin in place.
“So that’s part of my version of slayer training,” he said.
“I like your version way better than mine.” I pushed myself away from the wall on shaky legs, glad that it was still there behind me in case I lost the ability to stand. Or walk. A good fuck would do that to you, apparently, a lesson I’d first learned with Eddie. Vampires were damn good lovers.
Jacek trailed a finger down my jaw, his touch so gentle when minutes before it had been anything but. Not that I was complaining. I liked both, so much it made my heart ache.
He grazed his thumb across my lower lip, watching my mouth intently. “My bite linked me to you. If you need help, just say so and I’ll come running. Or I could just come with you tonight.”
“Patrolling?” I shook my head. “Paul is my problem. I can’t let him think he’s gotten to me. Besides, that could send the wrong message. I can’t have vampires thinking I’ll open my legs for all of them. I only save myself for the devastatingly hot ones.”
“Devastating, huh?” He stepped close, glided his hand to the back of my head, and then kissed me with as much passion as he’d just fucked me.
A slayer could really get used to this.
My body awakened once again to his expert tongue and mouth, and I almost whimpered with pleasure. When he released me, I staggered away breathlessly toward the front door.
“Belle?”
“Huh?”
“Are you forgetting something before you head out?”
I stopped, unscrambled, and snapped my fingers. “I need the stake that’s around here somewhere. And maybe some clothes.”
He laughed. “Or maybe not. I doubt anyone would complain.”
I found the stake, weaved it into my bun, and quickly dressed while Jacek did, too, and then we both strapped me into the Kevlar vest. It was time for me to go. Past time, actually. I could feel it in the itch in the bottoms of my feet and the slight cramping in my gut. This was the first night I’d ever purposefully stalled, though to be fair it was also my first night wearing the Kevlar vest. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, Paul had shaken me.
“Slayer?” Jacek said softly behind me while I faced off with the door.
“Yeah?”
“Good luck.”
His words seeped into my spine, hardening it against my creeping doubts that I could do this. I dipped my head in acknowledgement, and with a rickety inhale, I opened the door to the night.
Chapter Nine
A cold wind whipped past my ears, muffling all sound except for the banging shutters on a house across the street. Clouds devoured most of the light from the moon. Bursts of lightning pulsed reflections over the sidewalk leading to the cemetery, making the ground come alive with movement where there wasn’t supposed to be any, and then thickened the shadows once the lightning faded.
I didn’t much like patrolling during storms. My senses were too overwhelmed with all the trickery in the light and sounds. Pair that with three hot vamps, a marriage proposal, and a dark unknown tangling up my mind, and it took every ounce of focus to discern the mundane from a threat. But now more than ever, my life depended on it.
Jacek’s bite on my neck tingled with slight pain when I turned my head just right, and an answering twinge echoed from Eddie’s bite between my legs, a gentle reminder that they could be here with me if needed. The thought
both soothed and roughened my nerves, because I shouldn’t have to need them. Yet I wasn’t stupid enough to admit I could do this on my own, either.
I was only slightly less clueless about my slayer abilities as I was when I was nine, so if this Paul shitstorm was going to happen, I was glad it was now, not then. I’d been terrified then, a kid with zero guidance except for the few lines within the golden letter. It seemed like ages ago when I would tiptoe past Mom’s bedroom, unable to resist this compulsion scratching underneath my skin and cramping my stomach, slip out the front door, and wander through the dark streets until I’d arrived at the graveyard. That first night, my heart had tattooed my ribs the whole way until I grew used to it, completed my first kill, and settled into my new role. That kind of gripping fear had taken months to subside, and now it had come back. Tenfold. Twentyfold, even. It felt like my role as slayer was slipping from my grasp, on a steady timer toward my death and the selection of a new slayer. On a normal day, I might not have minded giving up my slayer duties. Minus the death part, of course. But these were not normal days. I was the slayer, which I’d learned to take very seriously, except, you know, when I was staking myself and screwing two vampires.
Those were details, though. Jacek had said the older vampires gave me a wide berth, and not just because I would stake them. Most of them feared me. Paul should fear me, too, be quaking in his stolen bowling shoes, not the other way around. I just hadn’t given him a reason to yet.
I swung the unlocked gate open, keeping a tight grip on it so the wind wouldn’t tear it from my fingers, and stepped inside. Somehow it seemed less familiar to me tonight, the shadows thicker, the statues’ eyes more aware. I fought back a shiver as I closed the gate to the graveyard and to my overactive imagination. This was a test, only with higher stakes than I was used to. Like every other test I’d taken, I would make it my bitch and ace it. End of story. Time to throw down. I turned, and just about lost all control of my bladder.