A flood of flavor burst upon my tongue and my eyes widened. I slid the fork out and chewed slowly. The lettuce was slightly bitter, the dressing both oily and tangy, flavored with herbs, something… I searched my memory. Pine and something else, like the marinara my grandmother used to make. I could almost taste it alongside the dressing.
I swallowed, tried another bite and another as the memories of foods past washed over me. A rosemary bush planted in a protected nook beside my parent’s house, huge and ancient and fragrant, its spiked leaves sliding along the tender skin of my palm. I’d gathered that for my mother, for the vases of flowers filling our home, for bread and pork roast…
(…carrots and potatoes and onions with the rosemary, the laughter in Daddy’s eyes…)
And oregano. Italy in the summer, salty air, and Nonni’s cries calling us in for the meal, family crowded around a teeniny table, elbow to elbow as heaping plates of pasta were passed from hand to hand.
And the blood, always the blood.
The fork dropped from my fingers and clattered onto my empty plate.
Blood, so much blood, coating me, throbbing in short bursts out of my throat, its metallic stench thick in my nostrils…
(…teeth ripping, gnawing, skin shredding under clawed fingers…)
My breath panted in and out of my lungs as my mind scrambled away from the Before. No no no. I couldn’t go back there, couldn’t live there, couldn’t save them. I bowed my head under the weight of it, the futility of leading her away, away from my family. Too late, too late, they were already gone…
(…Mama, sweet mama, where are you, God please no, Daddy no God no Emilyrunbabyrunfast, the baby…)
I gasped and popped into the Now, my hands curled protectively over my stomach. Around me, the soft clink of silverware on china continued unabated among hushed conversation.
Air squeezed itself out of my lungs in a rush. They hadn’t heard. Thank goodness no one had heard.
I glanced at Eric, then Jason, and was startled to discover them sitting silently next to me, their eyes focused on their plates, their hands pushing their forks mechanically through the remains of their salads. As one, they turned and fixed equally steady stares on me, one hazel, the other blue, and I knew then that they’d somehow protected everyone from the horror in my mind.
Protecting you, always, came they, and I smiled. Fate had, indeed, honored me with these two men.
Chapter Five
Grandmother excused the three of us from the after-meal activities. “You have much catching up to do, dear Gianna, and your men are eager to be alone with you.”
I dutifully kissed her cheek, repeated the gesture with Marco, who grinned when Eric scowled, and then allowed Eric and Jason to take my hands, one on either side, and lead me to the room Alice had claimed was mine.
As soon as we reached the top of the stairs, Jason swept me into his arms, curling me close to his broad, muscled chest. I slid a hand under the jacket of his suit, resting it over the warm beat of his heart. “Am I never to walk anywhere?”
“You’re tired.” He pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead. “Don’t deny it, Gigi. I can feel how weak you are.”
I dropped my head to his firm shoulder and sighed. No wonder Raquelle had threatened to take him and Eric from me. I was weak, probably too weak to hold them, and too new to this strange world to know how to fight for them anyway.
“We’re not leaving you, sweetheart,” Eric said from his position in front of us. The lead position, as if he were the vampire and not I. “Not like that, anyway. We can’t always be here, but that doesn’t mean we’ve left.”
I turned the idea over in my head, twisting it around, examining it from every angle. “How can you be with me if you’re not here?”
“Yeah, Eric. How does your little geek mind account for that reality?”
“Says the pea-brained jock whose little mind rests below his waist.” Eric grinned at me over his shoulder as he unlatched the door to my new room. “You might wanna watch that one’s hands, Gigi.”
Jason pulled a wry, playful grimace at Eric.
“Is Eric’s mind really that small?” I whispered.
Jason snorted. “Hardly, but I gotta keep his ego in check somehow, right? It’s my sacred duty as his favorite.”
He set me carefully on the edge of the bed and knelt in front of me while Eric shrugged out of his suit jacket and hung it in my closet. Jason’s hands were nimble, unfastening the straps of my heels quickly. When he’d finished, he snagged them with two fingers and moved away, toward the closet.
Eric stepped in front of me. “Let me undo your dress.”
I slid off the edge of the bed and gave him my back, waiting patiently as his fingers unfastened the row of tiny buttons down my spine. His breath feathered along my neck, raising shivery goose bumps on my skin. I could hear his heart beating in his chest, the blood pumping through it in gentle swishes. Thwoosh, thwoosh. His fingertips caressed my skin in brief glances, a stroke along my spine, another at my waist. They slid up my back, leaving behind a trail of heat, hooked under the spaghetti straps of my dress, and slipped it off my shoulders.
The thwoosh of his heart sped up a fraction as I stepped out of the dress, bare except for the matching bikini briefs I wore. Alice had picked them out, saying only that the boys would love seeing me in them.
“Jesus God, Jason,” Eric breathed. “Get her a shirt or something.”
I turned around and boosted myself onto the edge of the bed, facing him. “Alice said you’d like these panties.”
“Uh, yeah. Maybe a little too much.” He blew out a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Jason, for the love of God, hurry up.”
Jason strolled out of the closet wearing boxer briefs and holding a t-shirt. “Yeah, yeah, don’t get your knickers in a…” The breath whooshed out of him and his eyes went wide. “Holy mother of God.”
I glanced between them, then down at my body. It appeared fine to me, the skin smooth and flawless, my breasts firm and round. A bit scrawny, Alice had said when she’d helped me bathe, but nothing a few solid meals wouldn’t cure. “Did I do something wrong again?”
“Not a blessed thing.” Eric pivoted on his heel, stalking toward the closet. “You get her dressed. Use some of that iron discipline of yours.”
Jason blinked several times. “Yeah, think it just evaporated, man. Shit.”
I crossed my arms over my breasts and fixed my gaze on the floor. “I was trying to be good.”
“You were, baby, you were. That’s…” Jason’s breath rushed out of his chest the way Eric’s had, nearly the same in its hurry to escape. “Thing is, we haven’t seen you like this in a long time, and you’re so beautiful, so real and perfect and, God, I’m not really saying this right.”
His footsteps fell gently on the area rug protecting the hardwood floor. A moment later, his hands were in front of me, stretching the neck of the t-shirt, tugging it over my head. I lifted my arms, slid them dutifully through the sleeves, held still as he pulled the bouncy curls out and smoothed them back.
He cupped my face between his massive palms and tilted it up until our eyes met. “We missed you so much.”
I was here, I wanted to say. I’d been here the whole time, locked in a cage waiting for them to find me. The words remained pinned behind my lips, kept there by the haunting pain lingering in his eyes, by the need pressing against me. Need for what, I didn’t know. Something important to him, something that would bind us together.
Eric padded into the bedroom wearing loose boxers low on his hips. “That’s not much better,” he said with a wry smile. “Guess it’ll get the job done, though, huh?”
Jason smiled. “Dibs.”
Eric groaned as he climbed onto the bed and sat with his legs to either side of mine, his bare chest to my back. He wrapped his arms around my midriff and tugged me backward, urging me to lean into him, to draw from his strength. “You’re always doing that to me
.”
I cuddled into the warmth of Eric’s embrace, soothed by the simple feel of his skin on mine where our arms touched, oddly comforted by his stiff erection jutting into my lower back. “What’s he doing to you?”
“This,” Jason said, and then his mouth touched mine softly. He drew back almost immediately, before I’d even decided if I liked it or not. “We’re gonna play for a little while, nothing serious. We can stop any time you like, ok?”
I thought back to the moment when they’d found me, saving me from the shadows I’d come to despise. “I’ll do anything you want.”
His eyebrows snapped down over the intense blue of his eyes. “No, Gigi. You do what you want. Don’t try to please us just because you think we want you to do something.”
“I don’t know what I want.” And I was heartily tired of trying to figure everything out to boot. “Couldn’t you tell me what I’m supposed to do?”
Eric breathed out a laugh, then nuzzled his face into the side of my neck. “I never thought I’d hear my feminist wife say that.”
I twisted around to face him, cradled in the solid strength of his arms. Eric wasn’t as big as Jason. Few men were, judging by the ones I’d met earlier. Only Marco had come close, and though Grandmother’s man was huge and broad, Jason was at least two inches taller. Eric was my height, maybe a bit bigger, but he was just as strong as either of the other men. Not physically, necessarily, though his muscles were firm and toned. I frowned as I probed for the seat of his strength, and stumbled over the cold weight of his otherness.
I shrank from him with a hiss. “You’re a vampire.”
“No, wait, it’s not like that.” His hands grappled with me as I struggled to get away, and then Jason’s came down, hard and heavy and insistent. They pinned me firmly between their bodies, holding me tightly in check, easily quelling my struggles. “I’m close to turning, yeah, but I’m not there yet. We’ve been waiting on you, waiting to see if you’d come all the way back before Elizabet helped me cross the line.”
“It’s ok, baby. Look at me. Look at me.” Jason’s voice held a harsh snap, lashing over me with the same sharp flicks as Grandmother’s whip. “We’re no threat to you. Remember? We’re your husbands, your friends. We love you. Do you understand?”
Tension eased from my muscles. “He won’t hurt me?”
“No, baby, no. We wouldn’t hurt you, not for anything.” Jason’s eyes slipped from mine and met Eric’s over my shoulder. “Let’s try this again.”
Eric’s grip on me slipped gradually away as he scooted backward, freeing me. I turned and watched warily as he pulled back the covers and slid under them, resting on his side with his head propped up by one hand. He patted the mattress in front of him with the other. “You said you wanted to feed from us.”
“That’s what we’re doing here?” My gaze bounced between them before falling to the t-shirt Jason had dressed me in. “Why am I wearing this?”
“All that lovely vampire flesh. So tempting, so bite-worthy.” Jason grinned and placed his hands on my thighs. His thumbs bit into the tender flesh between them, inches below my pussy. “Your first time with us as a vampire, we wanted to go slow, make it special.”
I spread my thighs, enticed by the heated circles emanating from where his skin connected with mine. It slid through me, tugging at my nerves, jangling them deliciously. “Marco never makes me go slow.”
“Jesus Christ, I’m gonna kill him,” Eric said, his voice nearly a growl, heavy with savage anger.
“Ignore him. He’s jealous. Never learned to share.” Jason dipped his head and touched the flat of his tongue to the pulse at my throat. “That’s where I’m gonna bite you later, when you’re ready.”
He dragged his lips over the spot, teasing me, and nipped with sharp teeth. I gasped and let my head drop back, skimmed my hands up over the smooth, muscled skin of his arms and dug my fingernails into his shoulders, hard. A sharp, spicy scent washed over me, stoking the heat running under my skin, and his mind touched mine fuckyousohardgodyes and then his arms came around me and his mouth latched onto my throat, sucking gently. Fire rolled over me, burning beautiful bright, and I was ready for him, sweet Heaven, I was so ready for him.
“Rein it in, Jase.”
Eric’s calm voice splashed across the heat like ice water. I jerked away from Jason, out of those strong arms, away from the temptation of his mouth and blood.
He leaned over me, bracing his palms on the mattress to either side of my thighs. His eyes were even with mine, their vibrant blue glowing hot and wild. “I’m gonna make you come so hard you scream.”
I moved slowly away from him, scooting backward along the bed, not from fear. Jason would never hurt me, not deliberately. I believed it because he said so, yes, but also because I knew it somewhere deep, instinctively, just as I’d recognized my name when Eric had called me Gianna the first time. No, something else flickered in me, something sensual and coy and knowing. Seduction. I bumped into Eric and fell back onto the mattress next to him, holding Jason’s gaze with mine as he followed me across the bed.
Eric curled around me and tucked his hand under my shirt, resting it over my lower stomach. Jason settled on my other side and rested his hand over Eric’s. Their eyes met, and then they did the strangest thing. Jason leaned forward and touched his lips to Eric’s. Three at last, he thought, and Eric answered, Almost one.
“Why are you kissing?”
They broke apart slowly, reluctantly, it seemed.
“Because we love each other, like we love you.” Eric brushed his lips across my forehead. “We’re married, remember?”
That was the thing. I didn’t remember. A tight edginess shifted through me. Why didn’t anything make sense? “Is this the husband thing again?”
Jason laughed, soft and low. “You say that like you’re not sure if it’s good or bad.”
“I just don’t know what it means.” I huffed out a breath and glanced between them. “Nobody’s really explained it to me yet.”
Eric tugged his hand out from under Jason’s and cupped my jaw. “It means you’re ours and we’re yours, forever.”
I covered his hand, measured the fine, elegant bones beneath my own. “Will we have the happy light, too?”
Another glance passed between them. “The happy light?” Eric said.
“Yes, you know. The happy light.” I touched the spot between my breasts where I felt the happy light when they were around. Its buoyant beauty lifted me out of the shadows that had, for far too long, consumed me in a futile attempt to fill their own emptiness. No more, though, not with Eric and Jason at my side. With them, I no longer feared the darkness, no longer endured the ache of being alone, so alone. “Right here. I think you called it love before, in my mind?”
“That’s it, baby. That’s it exactly.” Jason’s mouth came down on mine in a hard, quick kiss. “God, I missed you.”
I took their hands in mine, clinging to them and their love like the rare gifts they were. “I think I missed you, too.”
Chapter Six
We stayed like that for a long time, touching gently, whispering soft words, laughing together over nothing and everything. It was…pleasant. I rolled the feeling along my tongue, savoring its sweetness. This pleasantness felt like something we’d done before many times, though I couldn’t recall a single one, not from the Now.
If this is what they’d been doing without me in the Before, I truly had missed out.
A sharp pang stabbed at my temple and another below my ribs. I hissed in a breath and rubbed shaky fingers over the pain in my head.
Eric’s brows furrowed. “She’s hungry.”
“No,” I said. “We just ate.”
“You need blood, not food.” Jason’s lips twitched. “Guess playtime’s over, huh. No more going slow.”
“The bond first. Just enough to begin the foundation.” Eric raised my hand to his lips and pressed a tender kiss to my palm. “We need a small sip of your blood
, ok?”
I nodded and watched avidly as they each gripped one of my thumbs. At nearly the same time, they pricked the pads with their canines, raising small drops of blood, and then my thumbs were sucked into their mouths and their tongues lapped over the tiny wounds they’d made and my skin tingled and woke.
Jason grimaced. Bitter.
The word swept over my mind, much stronger than anything else I’d caught since I’d left the cage.
Eric lifted his eyes to Jason. She’s still new. Her blood needs to dilute.
My eyes went wide, the sensuality of the blood-taking pushed aside by the clarity of their thoughts. I could feel them in my mind, skimming along the edge, close, closer. Come closer, I wanted to scream at them, be with me, but they were enjoying the meager bits of blood and it was enough.
Eric’s canine pressed into my thumb again, pinching the skin, and I gasped as my blood trickled out. I could feel it overflowing into his mouth, lost under the rasp of his tongue along my skin, a miniscule part of me absorbed into him, so good, so right…
(…like the finest wine and the richest chocolate. A feminine voice, light, carefree, sated. Do they make cheesecake like that? Jason laughing, his beautiful body shaking with it. You might be out of luck there…)
Jason’s hand tapped my cheek, a light, insistent pat. “Come back, Gigi. Come on back now.”
I opened my eyes and blinked at him. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop?”
“You kinda spaced out on us there,” Eric said. “What happened?”
“I saw…memory? Jason laughing. Wine and chocolate.” I compressed my lips into a firm line as I sorted through the brief glimpse of the Before. “Someone was asking about cheesecake.”
The New Vampire Page 4
