Mia's Return

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Alexander rested his hand on the man’s shoulder. “It’ll be all right,” he said. “Eat.” He picked up the package of zabaglione and a fork and gave it to Mia. “Go ahead.” He kissed her and cupped her breast, before leaning against the counter. “You don’t mind if I watch, do you? I miss eating.”

  Wyatt shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. He pulled out a prepared foot-long deli sub and took a huge bite out of it. “Your loss.”

  Mia began to eat, suddenly ravenous. Alexander was gazing at her and she swallowed her mouthful. “Alex, you never got to come.” It bothered her.

  He smiled. “I did. You just didn’t notice.”

  Wyatt grinned and took another bite of his sub.

  “We feel what you feel,” Alex told her. “It’s part of the bonding and will intensify as time goes on. You watched me and Wyatt and we both felt how you responded to that.”

  Wyatt had stopped eating and was watching her with an intense expression. She could feel her heart beating harder, her pulse racing, just remembering Alexander’s mouth on Wyatt’s cock. She licked her lips.

  “Then when we made you come just now, we both got to feel that to. That was very intense for us both.”

  “You both came? Just from me climaxing?”

  “Almost,” Alex said simply.

  “Oh…” Understanding came to her. She squeezed her thighs together as her clitoris throbbed. In the few moments she had recovered on the sofa, they had brought each other to mutual climax.

  Mia was almost panting, her chest rising and falling as her arousal sought to encompass the mental image.

  “She likes that idea,” Wyatt murmured, putting down the remains of the sub. His cock was stirring, lifting.

  Alexander straightened up from the counter. “I told you she would.”

  “Hand or mouth?” Mia asked, her throat dry.

  Alexander smiled. He moved behind Wyatt. He was taller by a bare inch. “Does the idea of my hand on his cock excite you, Mia?” He put his hand on Wyatt’s muscular thigh, a bare inch or two from the jutting shaft of his waking cock and Mia’s heart leapt. She pushed her tub of zabaglione aside.

  “You know it does!” She pressed her damp hands over her knees.

  “What about Wyatt’s mouth on my cock?” Alexander crooned. He was testing her, to see if she could accept this side of his sensual nature as easily as she had accepted everything else so far. But the mental image merely made her clit throb harder and made her breath catch in her throat. “Now?” she whispered.

  “God, I can feel her,” Wyatt groaned, his cock thrusting, deep red and flaring to purple.

  Alexander pressed on Wyatt’s shoulder, turning him and bringing him to his knees. Mia clutched at the counter, her excitement profound, as Alexander brought his cock up against Wyatt’s lips, nudging them, demanding entry. Wyatt licked the pre-cum from the tip of Alexander’s cock, tasting it. Then, with a groan, he opened his lips and let Alex push his cock inside.

  Alexander began to thrust, carefully not pushing too deep, his hand on the back of Wyatt’s head. Wyatt’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked. His throat worked and Alexander groaned.

  Mia moaned in reaction. She crossed her legs and thrust her hand between her thighs to keep herself from masturbating to a fast climax as she watched the two men. She was burning with the need to come.

  Alexander reached out for the nearest support—a kitchen cabinet. His knuckles whitened as he gripped it and his muscles bunched, as he stared down at Wyatt working on his cock. His hips gave little involuntary thrusts as his climax neared.

  Wyatt’s body was sheened in sweat, his cock rearing from between the mighty thighs in response to what he was doing to Alexander and Mia’s channeled arousal.

  “Come for me, Alex,” Mia whispered.

  Alexander threw back his head and came with a cry and a jerk of his hips, pumping into Wyatt’s mouth in heavy spasms that made Wyatt’s throat work hard.

  Mia was gasping for breath.

  Alexander helped Wyatt to his feet and murmured in his ear. Wyatt nodded and patted Alexander’s shoulder, before Alexander moved to Mia’s stool and picked her up. His eyes were very blue in the dull kitchen light. “Put your legs around my waist,” he said, as he carried her out of the kitchen.

  She was trembling and so weak she was unsure she could have walked on her own anyway, so she obeyed and let him wrap his arms around her. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To be pampered,” he replied, his voice rumbling against her. “As you deserve.”

  She looked over his shoulder to where Wyatt remained in the kitchen. “And Wyatt?”

  “To sleep,” Alexander told her. “He had been tracking that demon for three days straight. He must sleep for a few hours for what comes next.”

  For the bonding.

  She shivered.

  “I’ll have you warm in a moment,” Alexander murmured.

  “I’m not cold.”

  His arms tightened. “The bonding process worries you?” She could feel his voice against her chest, a physical vibration that warmed her, like a hug.

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  She bit his neck. “You have been lying to me for a decade. Longer than that, I think. I’m entitled to a secret or two.”

  He carried her into a bathroom, small but luxurious. It featured a sunken tub. She was put her on her feet.

  “You and Diego share this apartment, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes but Diego won’t be back for a while. We won’t be interrupted.” Alexander glanced at her with a small furrow between his brows before turning to draw a bath.

  “You don’t like me having secrets?” she teased.

  He turned and stripped her stockings from her. “Your secrets are yours. I let you go, Mia. I can’t protest now.”

  “Then why do you seem wary of me?”

  “Because now the act of speaking my mind changes at least three lives, if not more.” He picked her up and lowered her into the warm water beside him and kissed her lips. “You said you loved me, once.” She saw the flare of hope and vulnerability in his eyes and understood what drove him to speak of it now. He doubted she loved him still—not now that she knew he was a vampire and had lied to her about his death all these years. Possibly not now that she had seen the true nature of his sensuality, even though she had responded positively. Not now that she had lived a decade without him.

  “It was Zachariah who turned you, wasn’t it?” she asked, as he washed her. “He made you a vampire and you came here to New York. Away from San Diego.” She wanted to say “Away from me,” but didn’t dare be that direct.

  She could feel Alexander’s wariness. “I had no choice,” he said simply.

  “You came to the trailer and said you were going to leave town. There was time.” Tears burned in her eyes. “There was time to make different choices.”

  “Like what?” he said simply.

  “Like, I don’t know, what about not letting me think you were dead for ten fucking years?”

  His gaze wouldn’t let her go, even as her vision swam and blurred. As she could see were twin pools of blue.

  “I’m sorry,” he said at last.

  She laughed miserably. “That’s going to fix it.” She surged through the water and beat at his chest with her fists, feeling all the fury and pain of those first days after the news of Alexander’s death had circulated through the community. “I mourned you! Like a widow!”

  “Christ, Alexander, what are you doing to her?” Wyatt demanded from the doorway. “I can’t sleep for the agony.”

  Mia blinked the tears from her eyes. Wyatt moved into the bathroom, still naked. He slid into the tub, which was big enough for all three of them and plucked her away from Alexander. “I heard ‘mourning’ and ‘widow’. Are you giving him shit about when he died?”

  She nodded, her eyes stinging again. “He wants to know if I love him still. After all that.”

  Alexander let out
a deep breath. “Wyatt—”

  “If you’re about to say anything other than ‘welcome to the discussion, Wyatt’, then just shut the fuck up for a moment. I figure I’ve got as much of a stake in this as you, now. I’m going to be changed by the bonding into something beyond my control, for the good of humankind. If you agree on that much, then you have to agree I have a right to stay here and your next words had better be ‘welcome’.”

  For several long heartbeats Alexander was silent. Then he said mildly, “Welcome.”

  Mia felt Wyatt draw a breath. “Thank you.”

  “I was saying—” Alexander began.

  Wyatt lifted a hand. “Wait a second. Can’t you feel how wound up Mia is?” He cuddled her closer.

  Mia blinked, surprised. Even she had not realized how hard her heart had been racing, or that her fists were clenched so tightly. She made an effort to loosen them and relax her muscles. These two men responded to how she felt at all times. She had to control her reactions better. She had just woken Wyatt.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured to Wyatt.

  “It seems to me,” Wyatt continued, “That you two have been hiding behind a lot of bullshit for far too long. I don’t know all the details but I can guess a lot of it. Mia, ten years ago, you had big brothers, right? Protective, overbearing and probably gun-toting? Alexander, you were clearly into something illegal that eventually got you executed Mafia style. Both of you were sneaking around, keeping your mouths shut. You’re still speaking in euphemisms and driving each other crazy. Plain speaking would cut through a lot of it in about sixty seconds. So how about it?”

  “I don’t know if I’m capable of plain speaking anymore,” Alexander said.

  “I want that more than anything,” Mia said longingly. “But only if you speak plainly too, Wyatt.”

  He blinked, surprised.

  Alexander laughed. “Do not ever underestimate Mia, my friend.”

  “Okay, fine.” Wyatt pointed at Alexander. “Why didn’t you let Mia know you were alive after Zachariah made you?”

  Alexander sobered. “It was the price for turning me. We are forbidden from revealing ourselves to humans unless the human is to become a vampire, or is one of select criteria, including hunters like yourself. The penalty is death of the vampire and death of the human.”

  Mia drew in an unsteady breath. Wyatt had told her this within minutes of meeting her and she had forgotten.

  “Did you know this the night when you came to see me, Alex?” she asked. The night he had taken her virginity and proposed to her. She felt her clit throb. The memory had stayed with her for a decade and influenced her heart and her life.

  Alexander shook his head. “I only knew that Zachariah was a businessman in New York who spoke of new opportunities and of starting over. He hadn’t revealed himself that night. But gut instinct told him something was wrong and he came to find me. He got there in time.”

  Mia sat up. “You mean that was the night you were…you died?” She felt Wyatt’s hands on her shoulders, steadying her.

  Alex nodded. “They picked me up on my way back to the apartment from seeing you.” His gaze was unwavering. “I knelt in that basement believing it was game over. I didn’t know about Zachariah’s option then. All I could think about with that gun against my head was you.” He drew a breath. “Then they fired the gun and I woke a vampire and Zachariah explained that I had a second chance to put things right…but that second chance included never seeing you again.”

  Mia knew she was crying but didn’t care. What had it cost him to turn away from her this afternoon, outside the elevator? Now she knew why he had asked his question.

  “Now you want to know if I still love you,” she said, finishing the thought out loud.

  “She does love you still,” Wyatt said.

  Alexander looked at him, his brow lifting.

  “While you were with Zachariah, Mia told me she saw this bonding as a way to be with you forever. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.” Wyatt shrugged. “Of the three of us, Mia is the only one who hasn’t hesitated or questioned whether she is going ahead with this. She knew as soon as she saw you this afternoon that if there was any way to keep you in her life, she was going to take it. This is the way. That makes her one of the bravest people I’ve ever met, because I heard what Zack, Lindál and Seaveth described tonight as well as she did and I’m scared spitless.”

  Mia turned to him. “Wyatt, no, don’t be.” She cupped his face.

  “Truth?” He looked at her and Alexander. “The only thing that stops me from running into the night screaming is you two, which is the scariest part of it.”

  Alexander said quietly, “That it happened so quickly?”

  Wyatt nodded. “I know part of it is the bonding. But not all of it. Mia, you’re so fucking beautiful it makes my heart break. Alexander, I know you understand that, at least.”

  “At the very least,” Alexander agreed. “Do you love her, Wyatt?”

  “I’m already there, yes. Impossible as it seems.” Wyatt’s black eyes were smoky with emotion. “It started to happen when you held me while I was telling you about Julie. Those two things have never happened, the telling and the holding.”

  “Finish the rest of your original thought,” Alexander prompted.

  “The rest of it?” Wyatt took a breath. “That would be you.”

  Mia’s heart pounded with the sudden tension in the room.

  Alexander’s gaze was steady, provoking Wyatt into speaking again.

  “I’ve never felt this way before. It’s confusing. Especially with Mia.”

  “You’ve never had male lovers before,” Alex said calmly.

  “No.” Wyatt sighed and relaxed. “Up until now I considered myself aggressively heterosexual.”

  “Sensuality is a broad subject,” Alexander returned. “The bonding is making you more sensitive to its wider aspects. Why worry about definitions? Just enjoy the pleasure. I learned a long time ago—even before I became a vampire—that people tend to slap labels on things and categorize in order to feel better about themselves. So I stopped giving people the information that allowed them to put the labels on me.” He grinned. “Oh, some of the information leaked out. Women, men, ménages, toys. But not enough to confirm anything and what did slip out just confused things.”

  Mia nodded. “I could never pin anything down. The rumors I heard were vague. Dark.” She smiled. “Exciting.”

  Alexander’s smile broadened. “You see, Wyatt? Don’t trouble yourself with labels. Has anything I’ve done to you felt bad? Have you objected to any of it?”

  Wyatt licked his lips. “No,” he croaked.

  “Then what happened—what will happen—between the three of us is of our concern and no one else’s.”

  Wyatt nodded. “I can live with that.”

  “It’s how Zack and Lindál live with it, I’m sure.”

  “They’re lovers?”

  “Not openly but I believe the bonding has made them so, yes.” Alexander shrugged. “The signs are there if you know what to look for but they don’t declare it publicly, so I’ve never said anything. I doubt Diego, for instance, has noticed.”

  “Vampires and elves were mortal enemies,” Wyatt breathed.

  “And you thought all vampires were worth less than spit,” Alexander reminded him. “I think the forces that work behind this bonding process turn our weaknesses against us and make them our strengths.”

  “What’s your weakness then?” Wyatt asked.

  Alexander shrugged, as if the answer was self-evident. “Mia. She got me killed once. I’d die for her again, if I could. Once this bonding process is done, Wyatt, I have a feeling that you will be part of that equation too.”

  Wyatt drew a deep breath.

  “Too much truth for you?” Mia asked him.

  He glanced at her. “Yes,” he admitted. “After being alone for so long, being suddenly included and so deeply….” He stood, streaming water and rea
ched for a towel. “Let’s finish this,” he said roughly.

  “Are you sure?” Alexander asked, sitting up.

  Mia’s heart raced and her pulse leapt. She stood too. “I’m ready,” she said, although she wasn’t entirely sure she spoke the truth. But then she looked at Alexander and knew she was ready to stay with him for as long as fate would let her, no matter what it took. She took a breath. “Let’s do this.”

  * * * * *

  Mia’s heart began to hammer as she climbed the stairs to the big loft that was Alexander’s bedroom, wrapped in Alexander’s bathrobe. The room he used to store clothes and personal possessions but not for sleeping, for Alexander did not sleep.

  There was a king-sized bed with a mussed cover in a deep russet color and tossed pillows. Wyatt had been there. She was about to ask why Alexander had a bed at all but realized that the bed was the same as all the other human props—it allowed him to blend in with humans and go unremarked among them.

  Alexander was behind her and her pace must have slowed, for his hands fell on her hips. Then he scooped her up from behind as she took her second pace into the room. “Wedding jitters?” he asked.

  “Didn’t we just do the wedding?” she asked. “This feels more like honeymoon nerves.”

  “Let’s fix that.” He laid her on the bed and kissed her, then drew the oversized robe open. “I’m buying you a robe in your size. You look like Orphan Annie in mine and the closest I’ve ever seen you to looking like a genuine sixteen-year-old.”

  Wyatt chuckled as he climbed onto the bed. “All you’re missing is a pout.”

  “I’ve never pouted in my life.” Mia was already responding to the two men poised on either side of her. Her breasts were heavy with promise, the tips swollen and sensitive. Her pussy pulsed.

  “Mia just loses her temper and throws things. Learn Spanish, Wyatt. You’ll have need of it,” Alexander said. He eased the robe from her and tossed it to the floor. Now they were all naked, Alex and Wyatt would see her erect nipples and that her pussy already gleamed with excess juices.

  Then she remembered that Alexander could have smelled her arousal from across the room and both men could feel her responses. She could hide nothing from them.