Vampire's Companion (13 page)

He released his grip on Israel, grunted with the separation of their bodies, though lust roared through him at watching Israel crawl up Cia’s body and shudder with the hard slam of his cock into the same wet, tight heat he’d experienced.

Their pleasure reverberated through Terach. His buttocks tightened when she locked her legs around Israel’s waist, driving him deeper.

He fought against mimicking Israel’s movement, slow thrusts becoming faster and faster, sight and sound and scent triggering a far more primal craving.

His fangs slid downward at Cia’s cry of release.

Israel’s grunted orgasm created a possessive undertow that threatened to pull him under with the need to reestablish his claim and strengthen the blood bond.

Terach escaped to the bathroom. Entering the shower, he told Israel,
Get her out of the bedroom. Hunger rides me.

Cia sighed in contentment, smiled when Israel nuzzled her neck then nibbled along her jaw on his way to her ear. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I could use a drink.”

She ran her hands down his back, fingertips tracing muscle and bone. It took pure willpower to drop her legs from around his waist. “Your move.”

It bolstered feminine pride that he didn’t immediately disengage. He returned to her mouth for a slow, very through kiss.

Their lips clung when it ended. She couldn’t stop herself from tracing his mouth. “You’re beautiful.”

He bit her fingertips. “Handsome. Just because I take it in the ass doesn’t mean I want that girly word applied.”

She laughed.

He grunted and rolled onto his back, lying there for a long moment before leaving the bed.

She stood, face heating when semen and arousal rushed down her inner thighs. For a split second she considered joining Terach in the shower, but she knew how that would end. “The other bathroom is mine.”

“Go for it.” He pulled on his jeans.

She picked up her shirt. Frowned at the panties and realized her bag was still in the car.

Apparently he’d realized the same thing. He lifted her khakis and fished the car key out. “I’ll grab your bag when I get mine. Maybe you can raid Tessa’s cabinets and see if she’s got anything besides soda and lemonade.”

“Deal.”

She washed in the half bath next to the kitchen and put on the shirt before searching the cabinets. She hit gold in the pantry, finding rum and whiskey bottles next to a card deck and chip-filled rack.

Terach joined her, smelling of soap and him. “Do you play poker?” he asked, lips against her neck.

“Not strip poker.”

His hands slid under the shirt to cup her breasts. “That’d hardly be a challenge when we’re each wearing only a single garment.”

Warmth blossomed in her chest from more than his hands on her. She picked up the cards and chips instead of the bottles.

Israel abandoned three suitcases at the kitchen door and joined them. He snagged the whiskey. “Straight or on the rocks?”

“Nothing for me unless Tessa happens to have the makings for a frozen strawberry daiquiri.”

For some reason that caused both men to laugh. “What?” she asked.

Israel shook his head. “That’s not exactly a tough cop’s drink.”

“I’m not always on duty.”

Terach gave her a sucking bite on the neck, his fingertips brushing over her nipples. “For which we’re very glad.”

Israel lifted the rum bottle off the shelf. “One frozen strawberry daiquiri coming up, even if I have to run to the store.”

As it turned out, he didn’t.

They sat at the same table where she and Israel had eaten lunch in what seemed like a lifetime ago. “Texas Hold’em?” Terach asked.

Israel cracked his knuckles. “That works for me. Be warned, I intend to win.”

They assigned values to the chips. Several hands in, Terach asked, “So what did you and Israel get up to today? Besides foreplay?”

She ducked her head. But between the two of them they caught him up on the search for Kadence, and the surfing lesson.

She glowed from Israel’s praise. Heated from the memories of lying on the beach with him.

She went bust first, well after midnight. Terach lost shortly before sunrise.

Israel leaned forward, hugging the chips to his chest. “Winner says, it’s time to go to bed, and I don’t mean to sleep.”

Moments later, he flopped naked on the bed, arms outstretched, his cock jutting away from his body. “Winner says you get to do all the work.”

“All of it?” Terach asked, stripping Cia out of her shirt then dropping his jeans.

No. Not all of it.
He knew what Terach wanted. What they both needed.

Anticipation had Israel’s cock bobbing. He grasped it, could have come from just looking at Cia’s pussy when she straddled him.

“Let me,” she said, her voice and touch painting his skin with heat.

He moaned when she guided him to her opening and sheathed him in ecstasy. Their eyes met and held. “Come here,” he said, beckoning her lips to his.

It felt like they’d been lovers for years. His mouth slid against hers. His tongue rubbed hers in greeting.

He combed through her hair, traced the line of her spine, smoothed over satiny ass cheeks. His cock throbbed in anticipation. Something already exquisite was just about to get better.

Terach joined them, lubricant from the suitcase in hand. He knelt behind Cia.

She tensed when Israel’s hands cupped her buttocks, parting them. But a tiny shiver betrayed that she’d expected this. Maybe even fantasized about it, though color flared across her cheeks when Terach began preparing her.

Tenderness filled Israel. He deepened the kiss.

His tongue delved, stroked, distracted. And then Terach was there, easing in, joining his body to theirs.

Israel shuddered, hips lifting off the mattress, his cock sliding along Terach’s.

He hadn’t captured even a tenth of the pleasure in his imaginings.

Cia’s mouth left his, allowing him to turn his head slightly. His gaze collided with Terach’s, the clash of their eyes vibrating through him like a struck gong. For an instant he was in LA behind the bar, looking up as the door opened and his future walked in.

Terach moved and that moment was lost to the current one. His hips worked in counterpoint to Terach’s, the slide of cocks putting the three of them on a collision course with mindlessness.

Cia’s breathless sounds of pleasure escalated. The need to come built, though they claimed victory with her orgasm before yielding to their own, breath heaving and blood humming.

She was asleep before they left her body.

Terach slid off and Israel eased Cia onto her back, her mumbled protest creating a renewed swell of tenderness. His chest expanded, his world felt complete in a way it never had.

In minutes it would be daylight and he’d greet the sun. He was free as he hadn’t been since Estelle.

Sitting he said, “You’re hungry.”

Terach leaned across Cia. He cupped the back of Israel’s head, lips touched to offered neck.

Fangs slid through flesh and Israel was immediately lost in an agony of pleasure.

He gave himself up to it, surrendered will and body, heart nearly bursting with happiness until the very end, when the illusion of freedom shattered with a master’s whispered command.
Sleep
.

Chapter Seven

Terach left the bed, showered and then returned to it, using washcloths to clean Cia and Israel before going to stand at the window. His skin pricked, heartbeat accelerating with the approach of dawn. Centuries of survival instinct warred with what he knew to be true.

He
believed
he had received the gift he’d dreamed of from that first nightfall waking as vampire. But still, his muscles went taut. His breath shortened until it remained frozen in his chest.

Darkness retreated in the sun’s onslaught. And then that ice melted with the first touch of daylight to his skin. Tears streaked down his cheeks. They dripped onto his chest like drops of sunshine.

He lifted his face and bathed in the light. The pale colors of earliest morning brightened with the sun’s ascent. But with the extension of day came the awareness of being alone.

Longing crept in, solidifying into ache with a glance at Cia and Terach. He wanted them with him, awake and aware, sharing the glorious sunshine, sharing this sublime triumph.

Soon
, he silently promised, grasping the heavy curtains on either side of him. But arms spread and sunlight striking his skin, he couldn’t bring himself to close them, to deny himself the sun’s caress. And there was no reason to. It would be dark outside when he freed Cia and Israel from the compulsion to sleep.

Tonight they’d put the business of the runaway behind them so they could focus on their future together.

He returned to the bed, placing himself between them. Hours passed before centuries of conditioning finally defeated exhilaration and his heart ceased beating.

At nightfall he woke hard and hungry, cock fully engorged and fangs ready to descend. Turning toward Israel, he kicked the bedding downward to reveal Israel’s erection, and the sight sharpened his need for both sex and blood.

He wrapped his hand around Israel’s cock, thumb rubbing the soft head. Satisfaction surged through him with Israel’s moan.

The slightest mental touch lifted the compulsion to sleep. Israel woke, hips leaving the mattress as he pumped upward.

For a heartbeat they were in accord. Then anger and pain slammed into him with Israel’s harsh-voiced accusation, “You forced me to sleep through the day.”

The charge vibrated between them and he had no answer for it. No way to undo the damage by giving Israel the reason for the compulsion, and without that, no way to apologize or promise not to do it again.

Israel rolled out of bed. “The freedom and trust were nice while they lasted. But apparently I’ve just traded one master for another.” He wheeled and stormed toward the door.

“Stop.”

The word was ripped from Terach, an unintentional command that rocked Israel to a halt.

The blood-bond between them filled with seething emotion. A fury edging toward hate that Terach remembered too well, though it had been centuries since another’s will had been forced on him.

“I’m sorry. Go if you wish.”

And Israel did, leaving the room without a backward glance.

Ache spread like a chasm in Terach’s chest. He and Israel should have talked about the future immediately after leaving Wyldfyres. Now he was as trapped by Syndelle’s gift as he was freed by it.

In the other room, the front door shut with a firm snap. Cia woke without his lifting the compulsion and he turned his attention to his companion.

A ripple of desire moved through Cia at opening her eyes and finding Terach’s face inches from her own, his hair a silky curtain brushing against her shoulders.

He cupped her breast. His thumb rubbed over a tight nipple, sending a rush of heat downward to become slick arousal and swollen labia.

Hungry. Possessive. No man had ever looked at her the way Terach did.

She parted her lips, conscious of her tongue darting out to tempt him.

He dipped his head, claimed what she offered with the thrust of his tongue, the hard, heavy press of his body on hers.

She welcomed his weight. Spread her legs for him, bliss coming with the slide of his cock into her channel.

It felt so good. Too good.

Her fingers tangled in his hair, hips lifting to meet his thrusts, to take him deeper into her body.

When she tried to hurry him, he slowed, trapping her in each exquisite moment before allowing her the next one.

The surrender to ecstasy left her breathless, clinging. The tender kisses that followed like the butterfly touch of souls made her realize that what she once felt for Rico paled in comparison to this.

She made a sound of protest when he lifted his mouth from hers. Tightened her arms around him to prevent his leaving.

“Do you still think yourself in love with Rico?”

Her heart tripped then raced. “Are you reading my mind?”

“Should I be?”

She shied from what he might have read in her thoughts, or what she might have said that night he healed her. But she forced herself to face the question, to answer it honestly.

She understood now what was at the heart of her earlier attraction to Rico. He represented what she longed for, to belong, to be part of an extensive family who got together frequently, who ate meals together and played poker, celebrating good news and unifying against bad.

“No, I’m not in love with Rico. Not even close.” She rubbed her nose against Terach’s, brushed a kiss across his lips.

A halo of yellow outlined him, the color of happiness, there and gone in a blink but leaving her smiling until she glanced at the window and noticed the darkness outside. It spooked her that she’d slept through the day.

Her gaze snapped back to his, her heart rabbiting at the sight of his dilated pupils, the heat and hunger in them flashing her back to his bedroom at Fangs and filling her mouth with a metallic taste.

“Ask and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

His offer catapulted her further into the past, when there’d been so many things to be frightened of, including the colors she saw around people, and her fear of revealing that to her mother.

She’d never watched a horror movie. Never read a Stephen King book.

Coward.

Not about everything
, she countered.

She’d accepted Israel and Terach. She’d shared a bed with them.

Couldn’t that be good enough for now?

The front door opened. A moment later the smell of Chinese food drifted in.

Her stomach rumbled.

“A reprieve,” Terach said, rolling off her.

She escaped to the bathroom. Counted on Israel’s presence serving as a buffer. But when she joined them at the table after a quick shower, silence reigned, tense. Uncomfortable.

Terach’s eyes were hooded, brooding. Israel’s head remained ducked, the lift of his fork a steady mechanical refueling instead of a shared meal.