Present Tense: Pleasure Times Four (Out of the Fire Book 3)

by Candace Blevins

  And sensed all of them breathed easier when the ring went on and fit.

  James was to her left, and she lifted the largest ring and turned to him. “Will you let me put yours on? And then, if you put Fabio’s on, and he puts Eunice’s on, it’ll kind of be like closing the circle.”

  James held his hand out, and she slid the ring onto his finger. He lifted both rings, looked inside, and put one of them down. She must’ve looked puzzled, because Eunice said, “All four of our names are engraved inside each ring, with the owner of that ring’s name in all-caps.”

  Kelsey smiled again. “Closing the circle, again.”

  When Fabio put Eunice’s ring on him, Kelsey once again felt blood magic, which wasn’t right, since she hadn’t fed blood from all of them, but it didn’t matter. The little ring ceremony had strengthened the blood-bond already in place.

  “Can we try something?” she asked, and before they could refuse her, or ask questions, she took Eunice and Collosa’s hands in hers. “Everyone hold hands, please.”

  For once, the men did as she asked, and she closed her eyes and focused — and felt her weight coming off the table. She opened her eyes, and all four of them were levitated.

  “Excellent, Cupcake,” Fabio said. “I can feel how it’s done. It’s like, reverse magnetism, but not quite. Reverse something.”

  “Can ya’ll hold onto it, if we release our hands?”

  “One way to find out,” James said, and he let go of her hand.

  The other mean followed, and then they wobbled and fought to control their equilibrium, but they all stayed a foot over the table. Kelsey rose two feet over them, and Fabio smiled and went up to join her a few seconds later.

  It took a little longer, but the other two men eventually rose to meet them. Kelsey straightened her legs beneath her and let her own magic fade, so she was standing on the table. “It looks like we all have some work to do, learning new tricks.”

  38

  Kelsey hadn’t thought Christmas morning would ever arrive. Her men had gone upstairs to their own bedrooms at one in the morning, and she’d had four hours alone before she was allowed to wake them so everyone could open their presents.

  The men had napped during the day, so four hours would be more than enough to get them through what promised to be a long day for them. For all of them, since they’d take her with them up on the mountain today.

  She twirled in front of the mirror and looked at herself in the little Santa minidress. The red heels and red gloves set it off, but the black belt was too much, so she took it off. Yes, the lines were better without it. Her fingernails and toenails were painted in a red-and-white diagonal candy-cane stripe, and the red bow at her chest could be undone to show acres of cleavage — but that could wait. She touched her lipstick up, grabbed the small but powerful speaker, and levitated up the steps so she wouldn’t wake them until she was upstairs.

  The music was already broadcasting via Bluetooth, so all she had to do was unmute the speaker, which she did outside of Collosa’s room. She loved dancing to Rocking around the Christmas Tree.

  She danced through all of their rooms, laughing and smiling and avoiding their hands, and then danced her way back down the steps to the living room. Everything was ready for the fire, someone only needed to light it. Vampires are more flammable than shapeshifters, so she was only allowed to play with fire in an emergency. She knew not to even try to argue that setting the scene for Christmas morning was an emergency, but she was tempted.

  She couldn’t wait for them to open their gifts. She’d peeked into their heads to see what they’d bought each other in previous years, to get an idea of a price range, and she was pleased to discover the men went all out for Christmas when it came to gift giving, too.

  And was thankful she’d earned enough to be able to afford to buy her men kinds of gifts she wanted to give. Once she’d gained access to the ‘bonus’ list at Drake Security, she’d no longer had to worry about a nice nest egg to begin investing.

  She’d fed a little from all three of her men the evening before, after they’d gorged on sweets. It’d been a long time since she’d cooked, but she had once been quite good at it, so she’d made cookies and pies and even a pineapple-upside-down-rum-cake, which was apparently a big favorite of all three men. And she’d used honey instead of sugar for the cookies and pies, because she’d learned the honey stereotype for bears isn’t just a myth.

  But now, she was only focused on the magic of Christmas morning. Eunice came down first and lit the fire. He wore worn, faded jeans that molded to him in all the right places, and he was shirtless. She couldn’t help but admire his sleek, muscled legs, butt, back, and arms as he bent to put flame to tinder.

  And when the flames licked the logs, he turned to her, took her into the heat of his arms, leaned her back, and kissed her breathless. Lips. Tongue. Hands. He grasped the back of her head and held her where he wanted her, and she gave him her complete submission. His fingers found her bare pussy under her skirt — because underwear wasn’t allowed when she wore a dress or skirt or nightie — and brushed across her bare outer pussy lips.

  “I’m thinking,” he murmured into her neck, is lips and tongue just below her ear, “we might need to fuck the Santa-vampire-cutie, three on one, after we open presents.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Fabio said as he came down the stairs in sexy Santa pajama bottoms and no shirt. Eunice let her stand again, and she turned to the floating staircase. As always, Kelsey was struck by Fabio’s beauty, those carved cheeks, brilliant blue eyes, and hair she wanted to run her hands through.

  “Jeezus,” James said when he followed Fabio down thirty seconds later. “Can’t we get through Christmas morning without—” He cut himself off when he saw Kelsey, and rolled his eyes. “Well, fuck. If you’re gonna dress like that for Christmas morning, I guess it’s only natural we’re gonna want to fuck you before we even get to the presents. Damn. I know Fabio’s the one who calls you Cupcake, but this morning, I kind of want to eat you up and lick you all over, too.” He’d made it to her halfway through his little speech, and she found herself in his arms, now, his lips at her temple, and he’d undone the little bow holding her shirt together to hide her cleavage. She gasped when he tweaked and twisted a nipple, and gasped again when Fabio held her hands behind her back.

  “Work her up, guys,” Fabio said from behind her. “She needs to be as horny as we are while we open presents.”

  Eunice’s hand went back to her pussy, then pulled away to slap the insides of her thighs. She obediently spread her legs, and he ran his finger between her lips this time, and then into her pussy. She gasped and squirmed, and then moaned when he circled her clit with his wet finger.

  Another gasp when her nipple was pinched harder, and with nails.

  “Fuck, Guys. I need to come.”

  “But you don’t have permission,” Fabio said from behind her. “Find a nice edge for us, Cupcake. No sense in three of us being horny while we do this.”

  “You’d have been horny no matter what I wore.”

  Fabio kissed the side of her neck from behind with a chuckle. “True, but this little number makes you part of our Christmas present, I think.”

  As promised, they worked her right to the edge of an orgasm and then stopped everything. She knew better than to touch her own clit to try to put herself over, but damn, she wanted to.

  The men made sure she had her balance, and then moved to the presents.

  There was a special set of Christmas dice, one red and one green, with little wreaths and reindeer and stockings and ornaments in place of the dots. They all rolled the dice — highest went first, lowest went last.

  Eunice won the toss, and he opened Fabio’s gift first, and then stared at what he was seeing. A custom sniper rifle from a company he’d have never indulged himself with. One of the best custom manufacturers in the world. And on top of that, Fabio had included a scope that wasn’t available to the civilian market ye
t. It would be in about eight months, but it wasn’t yet. He’d probably had to ask Aaron or Nathan to help him buy it, and it’d likely cost more than the rifle. He looked up, speechless for a moment. It was all he could do to get out, “Thank you.”

  Fabio smiled. “As soon as I read the changes they’ve made, and the reviews for them, I knew you needed this weapon. The scope kicks ass, too, but the changes in the springs and...” he shrugged. “I shot one when I went to the manufacturer to design the rifle I wanted them to make for you. It’s sweet. Trigger pull is smoother than anything I’ve ever shot.”

  “Okay,” Collosa told them. “Awesome gift. Now open Kelsey’s.”

  Right, they opened the gifts now, and then they played with them later, or they’d never finish before sunrise.

  Kelsey handed him a flat box. Heavy. He eyed her a few seconds before ripping the paper away and then sticking the red bow over the top of where he judged her nipple to be, under the sexy little Santa dress.

  It was a fancy box. Some might call it Medieval, but he recognized it as being from Middle-earth, and he could read the Elven. Renewed shall be blade that was broken.

  He stared at her a few seconds, not daring to hope, and then looked down and lifted the heavy top.

  His lungs stopped working. This wasn’t a reproduction. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. This was the Shards of Narsil from the movie. He had no idea how she’d pulled it off, and he wasn’t comfortable with the amount she’d likely paid for it, but he didn’t care.

  “Is that the pieces of the broken sword from Lord of the Rings?” Collosa asked.

  Eunice nodded and met Kelsey’s gaze. “It is. Renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.” He took a breath. “All that is gold does not glitter. You know how much...” He stopped, took two breaths, and organized his thoughts. “Thank you. I have no idea how you pulled this off. Nothing big from the movie has been on the market for years. I’ll need to make a display case for it.”

  Eunice remembered her tears when she’d rose and seen the game room he’d installed downstairs a month before, and then how, a few hours later, she’d solved a problem that Drake Security had been offering a hundred thousand dollar reward for years, to the hacker who could hack their way to the information. She was brilliant, and emotional, but also strong, in her own way. Best of all, she was theirs, and he tried his hardest to put all of that into the kiss he gave her, bent over backwards in his arms.

  Kelsey took a few minutes to catch her breath when Eunice let her up from his thank-you kiss. Never mind vampires don’t need to breathe, she was breathless.

  James had told Eunice he was giving them a group gift, which meant Fabio would be opening the present, and this meant it was Kelsey’s turn to open her presents, since she’d had the second highest roll of the dice.

  Kelsey had seen a few group gifts in the past. Eunice had contracted for a huge, room-sized safe to be brought into the basement, and it had been his gift for all of them, since the total cost for the safe, construction, and extra mechanical and electronic security was nearly sixty grand. She tried to guess what James might have bought for all of them, but was careful not to look in his head to see.

  Both of the wrapped gifts addressed to her were small. Fabio’s was the size of a ring or perhaps a watch, and Eunice’s gift was the size of a nice necklace or fancy tennis bracelet. Fabio’s was lighter, so she tore into it first. No logical reason to go with the lightest first, but it felt right. The box didn’t give any clues, and it took her a moment to realize what she was looking at.

  A Dodge key fob, and a note to go to the garage. She looked at Fabio in question, and he grinned. “You do remember how to get to the garage, yes?”

  She nodded, stood, and made her way downstairs with her men following her. She’d lusted after the Dodge Chargers, but had decided she needed something practical. She hadn’t decided what to buy yet, so she hadn’t bought anything. What had Fabio done?

  Less than a minute later, she had her answer in the form of a deep blue brand-spanking-new Dodge Charger. She clicked the unlock button on her key fob, opened the door, and slid into the driver’s seat.

  “The trunk has been modified a little,” Fabio told her, “so it’s reinforced and light-tight. If you happen to find yourself out past sunrise, you can take refuge in the trunk. Once you’re in, it’s nearly impossible to open from the outside. There’s an access to do it, but it’s a hidden mechanism. If someone knows about the mechanism, they’ll also know not to open the trunk unless the car is out of the daylight.”

  “You can open it easily enough from the inside,” Eunice added. “Oh, and there’s a gun safe hidden under the dash, to the right of the steering wheel.”

  James leaned down so he could meet her gaze. “Playtime’s over. Kiss him and thank him and then we go back inside so you can open your next gift.”

  She’d put the key fob in her bra, and she checked to make sure it was there before she closed the door. It wouldn’t do to lock her key in her new car before she’d even driven it. She jumped into Fabio’s arms and wrapped her legs and arms around him. “Thank you so much. I love it! I’d been debating between that color and the deep red, and I’m glad you picked the dark blue. It’s perfect.”

  When everyone had taken their seat in the living room again, she looked around at the room, and at them. “Guys, my heart is so full right now. This room, all of you. I never expected to find a family when I came to America.”

  Before she got too terribly emotional, she tore into Eunice’s gift, which turned out to be two boxes wrapped together — and then sucked air in when she recognized one of the boxes. Middle-earth. Had Eunice bought her something from the movie as well? The other box was clearly jewelry, but she focused on the ancient looking one first, with a picture of a mallorn tree on the outside. She looked up to Eunice, much as he’d done when he’d read the Elven script on his gift, and then looked back down and opened the smaller box.

  And held her breath as she took the brooch out. In the movie, the Fellowship were gifted with cloaks and brooches by the elves of Lothlorien. The brooches were in the shape of the leaves of a mallorn tree, and they were beautiful. The movie versions weren’t made exactly as they’d been described in the book, but she didn’t care. It was perfect.

  “That one is from the movie,” Eunice told her. “Your other gift is not. It’s a custom piece I had a jeweler make.”

  She set the brooch aside and looked at the box. It was the size of a ring box, and she now paid attention to the gold writing on the white box. In Elvish, large and bold, Nenya, and then below, as if a signature, Celebrimbor.

  Nenya was the Ring of Adamant, one of the three elven rings — the one worn by The Lady Galadriel, in Lothlorien. The elven rings were made by Celebrimbor.

  She opened the box and lifted the ring. It looked silver, but she knew it wouldn’t be. It was probably titanium, and she focused on the fact the diamond setting looked both like a flower and a star. Then she focused on the diamond, and her vampire eyes told her it was nearly flawless, and that — somehow — he’d infused power into it.

  She looked up to him in wonder. “What have you done?”

  He grinned. “Blood magic, done in sunshine. My blood. Kirsten helped me with it, so it’s a ring of power for real. Kind of.”

  She put it on and had honest-to-goodness goose bumps. She smelled the sunshine, the green of the forest, and she felt the cycle of life as it pertained to trees, growing from the nutrients in the soil, water, and sunlight. Reaching for the sky, putting out seeds in whatever form — flower or cone or nut — and then eventually falling, rotting into the ground, becoming earth again, so another tree could grow from those nutrients. Vampires are taken out of the circle of life, but she had it on her finger, in the form of a circle, and she was speechless. All she could do was hug him and hope he understood. Her heart beat in time to his, and she finally managed to say, “Thank you. I’ll treasure it always.�
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  Fabio wasn’t sure any gift could come close to the ring. It fed to Kelsey’s nerd side, her girly side, and the parts of her that missed being human. For the most part, he knew she was thrilled to be a vampire, but she missed the sun, and she had some regrets over never giving birth to a child. Somehow, the ring had spoken to those parts of her as well.

  He shook his head and focused on his own gifts.

  From Kelsey, there was a small-ish watch-sized gift, and from Eunice, a heavy box that practically screamed handgun.

  And then the gift he’d open from Collosa, which was the size of a shirt box, and about as heavy.

  He decided to open Kelsey’s first, but he didn’t rip at the paper like a savage beast. He carefully opened one end and then pulled the box out of the paper, and he stopped breathing when he saw the Audemars logo. He looked up and shook his head. He couldn’t let her spend two hundred grand on a watch for him, no matter how badly he wanted the Royal Oak. And he knew that’s what it would be, because it was the one watch he assumed he’d never add to his pretentious watch collection.

  “Open it,” she told him. “No shaking your head.”

  He opened it and stared. It was the Royal Oak, and this one cost more than his first estimate. A good bit more. Again, he shook his head. It’s too much. I can’t let you spend so much on me.

  I didn’t. It’s preowned and factory recertified. At a guess, I’d say it costs about as much as a brand-new Charger, so hush up about the cost and put it on.

  “That’s the one that costs more than the Rolex and the Phillippe one combined, isn’t it?” Eunice asked.

  “It is,” Fabio told them. “I’m pretty sure this means she loves me more than you.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Kelsey said. “I can’t believe...” She made a growling noise. “Tell them the rest, Fabio.”

  He grinned. “Factory certified preowned. Perfect condition. It’s perfect.”