“I’d say you two are the amazing ones.” She patted Luke’s cheek. “But there was one disappointment.” Kellan’s shaft gave a nervous twitch when she whipped her head around to glare at him. “You didn’t bite me, dammit.”
Sydney chuckled inwardly. Could there be anything more adorable than seeing her sexy vampire anxious? Especially when he and his best friend had just treated her to the best lovemaking of her life?
“You wanted me to bite you?”
“Well, you said you’re a vampire. Assuming I believe that, then biting kinda goes along with it, right? And it feels really good when you drink from me while I’m coming. The sensation goes on and on.”
“You seemed unsure earlier.” He stroked her tangled hair. “Asking so many questions, and worried about your own urges.”
She swallowed the sudden bitterness in her throat. My own urges. Yes, how could she have forgotten those? “It was probably just some weird transference thing. It passed.”
“So you believe we are vampires, Syd?” Luke shifted her weight so he could cradle her more comfortably against his chest. “Do you understand what it means?”
“I know the stories.” She smiled faintly. “Though some things don’t seem the same as I’ve read. There are windows all over this place. Even a skylight over the Jacuzzi. Obviously, you can handle sunlight.”
Kellan retreated from her body and she frowned at the overwhelming sense of emptiness he left behind. “In limited doses.”
“How limited?”
“In indirect sunlight at non-peak times, we’re good for an hour or two. In direct, in the middle of the day? Minutes, at most.”
“Yeah, Kellan knows all about that.” Lucas grinned at his friend. “Since he almost turned into a crispy critter a couple years ago. Fell asleep on the beach and woke up with a third-degree burn over most of his body.”
Sydney gasped. “What happened? Did you go to the hospital?”
“No, darlin’. I fed. Blood is what heals us. Our kind only goes to the hospital if we want to be caged permanently. Rumors exist about us, but most of us are smart enough to keep a low profile. Still, any doctor worth his stethoscope would suspect he had a special situation on his hands once he tested our vitals. A resting pulse rate of thirty beats per minute usually causes alarm. Add in the lack of regular respiration and you’ve got a mass panic on your hands if word spreads. And it always spreads.”
Kellan leaned around her to grab a tissue from the box on the counter. He wet it with warm water from the faucet, then turned back to stroke the cloth between her ass cheeks. She let out a soft moan. His fingers pressed harder against her sensitive tissues, setting off a delicious hum that traveled deep into her core.
“Does that feel good, sweetheart?”
“Really good.” So good she was pretty sure she could come from just the pressure of the tissue alone.
He wet another and turned to give her front the same treatment. From the way his brows lowered, she could tell he was surprised to discover the moisture coating her mound.
“What the hell?”
“Luke pulled out at the last minute.” She shivered at the erotic memory of his warm fluid pumping onto her lower belly.
Luke shrugged. “She’s your girl, right? Gotta show some respect.”
Kellan only inclined his chin as he gave her front the same wipe-and-wash treatment. She sighed as she watched him clean her, tilting up her hips to give him more access. “Sometimes you boys take such wonderful care of me.”
“Yeah, sometimes.” Luke teasingly laved her lower lip. “In between tantrums and arguments, you mean?”
“Yeah, and almost draining me of blood and tying me to the bed without telling me where you’ve taken me.”
She glanced around her surroundings, really seeing them for the first time. She’d looked at the room before, of course, but hadn’t really noted the details. Her incessant need to mate with these gorgeous men tended to dull the importance of categorizing the precise shade of the bedroom wallpaper.
She bit her lip. It was puce, she decided, which went nicely with the pale cream curtains and heavy gold drapes. The huge king-sized bed had ornate posts that were gold, as well, and thin sheets of the same rich color pooled on the floor.
And those sheets were stained with blood.
Sydney swallowed again. Her throat was so dry. Look at the room, she told herself, only dimly aware that Kellan had stopped washing her.
That the bedroom was bordered by the galley kitchen and spacious bathroom didn’t strike her as too odd, though she’d never encountered a floor plan quite like it before. No, what was odd was that she’d repeatedly screwed two men who claimed to be vampires. Well, Kellan claimed, and Lucas had yet to answer the question straight.
“You live here together?”
Lucas answered. “Yes.”
“Just the two of you?”
Kellan nodded. “You haven’t seen the rest of the place, but there’s a combination living room/game room at the front of the ranch and one more bathroom. Lucas’s bedroom is on the opposite side of the bathroom you were in.”
“Interesting layout.”
Lucas shrugged. “It fits our needs. We knew we didn’t need much of a kitchen, so we stationed it between the bedrooms.”
“Why? You don’t eat, right?” Her lips curved. “Except for Kellan’s Pop-Tarts.”
“No. But this is where we keep the cleaning supplies.” He swept a hand up at the cabinets he’d filled with his purchases. “Lots of cabinets here, and as you saw, the bathroom is mostly tub. No room for bottles of Pine-Sol and bleach.”
“But why not just have cabinets then? Why have a kitchen at all, if you don’t use it?” She gestured at the freezer. “Why do you even need a refrigerator?”
“We keep a supply of bagged blood for when we can’t get to a human source. And sometimes our…guests need to eat, so we keep food on hand.”
“You don’t need to kill to feed.”
“No. We’re not murderers, Sydney. We take what we need. If we take a small enough amount, the human won’t even know what happened. It’ll be like a blip on their radar, a lapse in consciousness. Rarely do we take enough that it’s necessary to wipe the memories from their minds.”
“How do you do that?”
“A vampire’s blood contains certain chemicals that react potently with human blood. The key is knowing how much to give, and when. During the brief moments after a transfusion of our blood, a human is held in our thrall and we have access to their thoughts and perceptions. Altering them can suppress their memories.”
“You couldn’t wipe mine. Just like Alysia couldn’t wipe Luke’s.”
“No. But I didn’t try too hard. The plan was to wait until our blood revived you from my bite, then try again.” He gave a thin smile. “You recuperated much faster than we anticipated.”
“But still,” she pressed. “Have there been other women you couldn’t wipe?”
“No,” he said again, casting his gaze briefly at Luke. “You are the only one.”
“And you’ve been with many women?”
“Are you asking how many I’ve bitten or how many I’ve had sex with?”
“Both.” Tell me everything. Even if I can’t stand to hear the truth.
“Yes.” He met her eyes squarely. “There have been many, though not many I’ve tried to wipe. I normally have control. With you, I had none.”
Her heart tumbled as images flew through her mind. The two of them touching other women as they’d touched her. Making love to them, sharing them, drinking from their throats as they’d drunk from her.
Lucas had mentioned their freaky vampire orgies. Maybe he hadn’t been kidding. After all, they’d picked her up on the side of the road, hadn’t they? Even if she’d known Kellan, sort of, their behavior—and hers, she realized, heat staining her cheeks—didn’t bode well for their sexual responsibility.
God, what had she done? Multiple times?
She t
ook a step back. She knew nothing about these men, but here she was having unprotected sex with them. They’d said they didn’t need to use condoms, but she was still human. Maybe they could carry diseases, even if those diseases didn’t affect them. Who knew how many lovers they’d had? Many could be a thousand or ten times that. Hell, maybe they even screwed each other, though the vibe she’d picked up from them suggested otherwise.
“Do you have company over a lot?”
“Only when necessary.” Kellan bent to pick up his jeans. To her shock, he was almost as hard as he’d been before they’d had sex. “We have needs, sweetheart. We can’t deny them even if we try.”
“But you don’t try.”
“No.” Lucas looked at her steadily when Kellan didn’t answer. “He doesn’t. He had no reason to, because he was still looking for his mate. The only way to find her is to search. That’s how he found you.”
Sydney shivered as the butterflies in her chest divebombed into her belly. As much as she liked them—and she was beginning to wonder if her feelings for Kellan already went beyond like—she wasn’t sure if she was ready to be anyone’s “mate.” Especially not a horny vampire’s. Sure, the last day had been exciting, but could she really keep up this pace long-term? She had a job. Two, actually, if she counted her mystical duties, but only the coffee shop had set hours. Still, any kind of job would interfere with what these two seemed to require.
“You’ve found yours,” she said to Lucas, sidestepping his comment about Kellan.
His features tautened. “Yes.”
“But you haven’t slept with her?”
“No. She doesn’t want me. So when I can hold out no longer, I do what I must. The urge for sex is nearly as strong as the thirst for blood.”
“I’ve noticed,” she said dryly, lifting her brows at the two unflagging erections in front of her. At least Kellan had put on his jeans, but Luke stood happily nude. “You’ve said you don’t use condoms, so vampires must not be able to get sexually transmitted diseases? And I’ve gathered you can’t impregnate me.”
When they remained silent, staring at each other without meeting her gaze, she tried again. “Right?”
“No.” Lucas glanced at her briefly before returning his attention to Kellan. “Unless you truly are latent. Normally vamps can’t impregnate humans or vamps, because our semen is incompatible with human eggs and the eggs of female vamps die upon the change. But if you’re latent, the changeover wouldn’t require drinking you to the brink of death, as it normally does when making a vampire. Your heart would still beat at the rate of a human’s, yet you’d be one of us, for all intents and purposes. As soon as vampire blood was introduced into your bloodstream at a sufficient rate, the change would begin. Eventually, all reproductive activity would cease, including things like menstrual cycles. But for a brief time, until your eggs died, technically you’d be both human and vamp and possibly susceptible to the conditions of either group.”
The words hit her fuzzy brain in a rushed, nonsensical jumble. She wasn’t a latent. She couldn’t be, even though she didn’t know what that really meant.
So why was she so afraid?
It was just this situation. Who wouldn’t be fearful after a night like she’d had? She’d had two threesomes with two guys who were convinced they were vampires, and hell, they’d even mostly convinced her. But that didn’t mean she was like them.
No, she, Sydney Louise Langdon, was normal. Maybe she was overly horny, with questionable decision-making skills, but she wasn’t any kind of vampire, and therefore, certainly couldn’t be pregnant with a vampire’s baby if her birth control had somehow failed.
If that was even what Luke had tried to suggest. She wasn’t sure.
Then the taunts at the back of her mind overtook her momentary calm. So why did you want to bite Kellan? And why do you want him to bite you again? That’s hardly normal human behavior.
Kellan’s roar swiftly cut through her fog.
“What? You’re telling me she could be pregnant? That you could have impregnated her just now?” He gripped Luke’s shoulders, shaking him hard enough to pop the fillings out of his teeth, had he had any. “Goddamn you, how could you?”
“I pulled out. You saw that for yourself. She also said last night that she was on the Pill. Besides, even if she were to get pregnant, there’s no reason to think she could carry the baby to term. Vampire blood would likely kill any part-human child, which explains why there are no known cases of a vampire birth that we could find.”
“You knew the possibility existed and said nothing? You know how unreliable the rhythm method is, you bastard. And birth control is no guarantee.” Kellan seethed with fury. “One sperm. That’s all it takes.”
Her ears buzzed, her vision blurred. Suddenly, she was so cold, as if the heat of her body had simply drained out of the soles of her feet, leaving her frozen in place.
I could be pregnant. And I wouldn’t even know who the father is.
It was the last thought she had before she surrendered to the black.
A low moan roused Kellan from his restless doze.
He rushed over to the bed and motioned to Luke, who paced by the windows. “She’s coming to.”
Luke joined him and stared at Sydney. She lay as motionless as a mummy in the center of the bed. They’d swaddled her in every sheet they owned to try to warm her frigid skin, but she had shaken uncontrollably until she’d finally lapsed into full unconsciousness.
“Finally. She’s been out for hours.”
“Hours?” Kellan’s head whipped toward his friend. His dolt of a friend. The man he’d wished umpteen times he could slay without benefit of a silver stake or silver-edged axe, neither of which he had handy at the moment. “Try a day and a half!”
Luke shrugged. “Time’s relative, man. The important thing is, she’s waking. They mentioned this in the book. Latents need a lot of sleep to complete the change, since they don’t require the traditional excessive infusion of blood. She probably scared herself into fainting. Then her body’s craving for rest took over.”
“And when were you planning on telling me this?”
He shrugged again. “You haven’t exactly been in a talking mood.”
“I’ve been frantic over her. And what you might have done to her, you thoughtless bastard.”
“She’s not pregnant.”
Luke’s certainty would have made Kellan feel better, had he been able to trust a word that came out of his mouth. Now everything the blasted mate-thief said was suspect.
Sydney stirred, loosening the sheets around her with her thrashing. She was mumbling something, though she’d yet to open her eyes.
“Baby, take it easy,” Kellan said soothingly, sitting down on the side of the bed to gather her into his arms. He lowered his face to hers, staying put though her cheek blazed like hot asphalt. “You’re weak. You shouldn’t be moving so much.”
“The morning after.” She rolled her head back and forth, nearly smashing her nose into Kellan’s jaw. As strong as he was, he had some difficulty restraining her. Two days ago, he’d had no trouble at all. “Need it. Give me a pill!”
“Give me a hand here, Luke?” He gritted his teeth as he fought to keep her still. “And what the hell is she talking about? She needs some sort of pill?”
“You’re the one who would know if she’s on medication.”
“And how would I know that? We met at a coffee shop. All our conversations consisted of pleasantries about coffee, you ridiculous excuse for a vampire!”
Lucas cocked a brow as Sydney continued to twist in Kellan’s hold. “Looks like you’ll be handling your mate—” he said the word icily “—all by yourself.”
Kellan abandoned his gentle tactics of restraint and flipped Sydney onto the bed, pinning her down with his weight. He expected her to continue to fight him, but her fingers curled around his and her eyes filled with tears.
“The morning-after pill,” she whispered. “If I take it,
I won’t be pregnant. I can stop this now. My purse.”
Kellan glanced at Luke, who’d dropped one knee on the bed. Despite his blasé countenance, Kellan knew he cared for Sydney. “What is she talking about?”
“Seems like I heard something about it on one of those shows that comes on before The Bold and The Beautiful.”
“Oh, Christ. Not Springer.”
Luke ignored him and rubbed his jaw. “I’m not sure about all the science crap, but I think it keeps an egg from implanting. Or something. Might be a good idea.”
It took all of Kellan’s control to keep his voice down. Last thing he wanted to do was frighten Sydney more. “I thought you said she wasn’t pregnant.”
“Doesn’t hurt to do whatever we can. Honestly, I don’t know. You drank from her twice, and in the car we both gave her our blood. She drank a hell of a lot from us, which is what I thought explained how quickly her pain passed when she awoke. Usually humans suffer a lot more than that while their bodies struggle to accept our blood. But after what Emily told me, now I’m not sure. Maybe she really is latent, which means she’s both human and vampire. Temporarily, at least.”
“Thanks a ton for all your help.”
“How the hell should I know? Do I look like a goddamned vamp med to you?”
“Next question. What’s this crap about Emily telling you anything? I thought you said you looked in a book.”
“Well, yeah, but she directed me to the right ones.” His blue eyes softened and he flashed a smile full of love. Puppy love, far as Kellan was concerned. “She’s amazingly smart. She can find anything she sets her mind to in minutes. That’s what one of the other librarians told me while we were waiting for her.”
“And she didn’t think it odd that you were so curious about vamps?”
Luke glanced down at Sydney, who’d gone silent and still though her eyes remained wide open. “Well, no. Because she knows I have reason to be curious.”
A trail of heat blazed up Kellan’s spine. “Does she now?” he asked, very softly.
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