by Desiree Holt
“Just like the bite,” she whispered again. “It shouldn’t feel good, but God, it does!”
She pressed back against Hayden. He ran his free hand over her shoulder and then along her waist. He tried to think the way Stafford seemed to, but in simple truth, he knew he didn’t want to do anything more than stroke her body. There was no technique, no plan. He just liked touching her and feeling her skin under his hands.
He rocked a bit inside her again, letting pleasure run through them.
A chain rattled. The handcuff moved around Hayden’s wrist. Stafford moved closer to Jasmine and put his hand on her hip. Hayden looked across at him. He was watching their lover very intently, studying every moment of pleasure as it passed across her face.
Before long, Hayden couldn’t stop his movements inside her from quickening. He couldn’t hide how eagerly his hands moved against her skin, as he desperately tried to touch every part of her, all at once. Any idea of doing anything other than what came completely naturally to him faded away.
He put his hand on her hip to steady her as he rocked harder and faster inside her. His hand landed over Stafford’s trapping the other man’s hand against her skin as he felt his pleasure peak one final time and he came inside her.
His jerky movements rubbed his cock against her pleasure spot, just as he knew it would and Jasmine came at the same moment he did, gasping for breath and pushing back against him until he fell still behind her.
Stafford reclaimed his hand from under Hayden’s palm and stroked her hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. He leaned in and brushed their lips together. Hayden, temporarily sleepy and sated, was still not at all willing to be left out. He nuzzled at her neck and turned her face to him, for his lips to be kissed too.
He snuggled into her, pulling her closer into his arms as she closed her eyes and rested her head against the pillow.
“You should sleep now, Jas,” he whispered.
“And you should give her some space,” Stafford told him.
Hayden shook his head. “Connected,” he reminded him.
Stafford didn’t appear impressed.
Jasmine reached out for the other man. “Rest with us, sir?” she asked.
“Vampires do not require to rest in this manner,” he said coldly, even though Hayden could already see the other man was looking at the way they were wrapped around each other and working out where he would fit into such an arrangement.
“Rest with us anyway,” she asked. “Please, sir?”
Stafford looked unenthusiastically at Hayden, but he moved a little closer across the bed, seemingly willing to humour Jas, regardless of his presence. Resting his head on the pillow in front of her, he stroked her cheek and pressed a delicate kiss against her lips.
“It won’t be much longer,” he reassured her. “I won’t let him keep you connected like this all night.”
“She’s happy where she is,” Hayden told him, a note of growl making its way into his voice.
Jasmine smiled and turned her head so it was clear she was addressing them both. “I’m fine, sir.”
She certainly sounded fine, all tired and content with her world.
Stafford nodded his understanding.
Hayden murmured his agreement too, and snuggled closer to her as his erection began to slowly soften inside her.
———
Hayden lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. The more he tried to ignore it, the more impossible it became. Jas was curled in close to his side, which was very right, and just as it should be. Stafford had migrated toward the other side of the bed, which wasn’t really proper pack behaviour, but which was fine with Hayden right then.
Taking a deep breath, the wolf smelt all of their pleasure mingled in the air above the bed. Jasmine smelt like him now. Stafford’s scent was still there, but it had faded away when he put his scent over it. Jasmine was his. She smelt like her alpha male.
The only problem was Stafford. He smelt like Stafford, which was to be expected and tolerated, but his cock still smelt like Jasmine’s pleasure. There was no use trying to ignore it. The vampire smelling like Jasmine’s scent was wrong—it made it smell like her pleasure only came from the other man. Carefully moving out of Jasmine’s sleepy embrace, Hayden negotiated his way past her slumbering form.
Stafford moved his arm in his sleep, allowing the handcuffs to guide where he rested his arm as Hayden made his way closer to him.
Sitting on the bed, in the gap between Jasmine’s body and Stafford’s side, he leaned over and slowly began to wash Jasmine’s scent off the vampire’s body.
———
Stafford shifted in his sleep. He rocked his hips as a hot, moist tongue caressed his shaft. He blinked his eyes open and stared at the ceiling. What he’d assumed was an amazingly realistic dream became an obvious reality and the tongue didn’t leave him for a moment.
Jasmine…
Stafford smiled to himself. He let her carry on for a few more minutes before he was willing to admit he was awake. Lifting his head and looked down his body.
Suddenly wide awake, Stafford scrambled back on the bed, jerking away from the mouth hovering over his cock. “What the—“
“Hush,” Hayden whispered reproachfully. “You’ll wake Jas.”
Stafford stared wide eyed down the bed. He looked at Jasmine still sleeping next to them. She stirred, reaching out across the bed for the warmth of another body and failing to find one, but she didn’t wake up.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Stafford hissed as quietly as his anger would allow, pulling the blanket he’d cast aside during the night back over his body and almost up to his chin.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Hayden said.
Stafford opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. He really couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He ran a hand through his hair, putting the strands into some sort of order. He tugged the blanket even further up his body and cast a very suspicious glare at the werewolf. “And what? Fellatio is a traditional werewolf cure for insomnia?” he demanded.
Hayden tilted his head on the side. “What’s that?”
“What?” Damn, the man didn’t even have a vocabulary! “Fellatio—it means sucking another man’s cock.”
“I wasn’t sucking, I was licking,” Hayden corrected mildly.
“You should wait for an invitation before you do either!” Stafford snapped.
“You were sleeping.”
“And that gives you the right to do whatever you want?” Stafford demanded.
Hayden shrugged. “I didn’t think you would mind.”
“Well, I do!” He looked across to Jasmine as he realised his voice was getting louder again.
Hayden tilted his head on the side. “Why?” He genuinely seemed curious.
“Because I’m not bloody well gay!” Stafford snapped.
Hayden looked more confused than ever by the declaration. Stafford studied the werewolf. He really didn’t seem to understand why he was pissed off with him.
Stafford took a deep breath and tried to think rationally. “Not all men like having sex with other men,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with it if a guy happens to like other guys, but I don’t. I only like women. Understand?”
Hayden blinked at him. “We weren’t having sex.”
“You were licking my cock,” Stafford pointed out as patiently as he could.
“Your cock still smelled like Jasmine,” Hayden offered in explanation.
Stafford tried to follow the logic. “And you were attracted to her scent?”
“I couldn’t sleep when you still smelt like her.”
Bizarre though it was, Stafford found himself doing his very best to follow the other man’s logic. “Doesn’t she smell like me anyway?”
Hayden shook his head. “She smells like me now.”
Stafford looked across at her.
“You picked to go first,” Hayden reminded him, as if he believed Stafford had any
reason to regret that.
Stafford tried to look at the situation from the werewolf’s point of view. “That’s why you were willing to wait, so you would be the last man to put his scent on her?”
Hayden nodded.
Stafford ran a hand through his hair again. Hayden’s messy blond mop was sticking up in all directions. Some stupid part of him wanted to reach out and put the other man’s hair into some sort of order, but he resisted that temptation.
“For the rest of the night,” Stafford said. “You don’t do anything unless I specifically give you my permission.” He decided not to point out that would happen around about the same time the devil started building snowmen.
Hayden nodded. “Okay.”
Stafford echoed the gesture. “And you don’t do anything, anything at all,” he stressed, “when I’m asleep.”
Hayden nodded again. He seemed to understand the situation.
Stafford looked at Jasmine, still somehow sleeping soundly through the whole thing. “Neither of us will mention this incident to Jasmine.”
“Why not?” Hayden asked. “It’s wrong to keep secrets from other members of the pack.”
“Because… it will only confuse matters,” Stafford said. It would make it far harder for him to implement the plans he had for Jasmine and himself in the future if she got the idea that he was gay into her head.
“You don’t think she would like me licking you?”
“I don’t know,” Stafford said. “And I don’t particularly care. We are not telling her.”
Hayden tilted his head on the side in that funny way he had which always seemed to indicate he was thinking. “Okay.”
“Right,” Stafford said. “Now, go back to your side of the bed. Go back to sleep.”
Hayden nodded, calmly enough.
Stafford cautiously lay back down on his side of the bed. As Hayden moved back onto the other side of Jasmine, Stafford placed his hand on the pillow above Jasmine’s head. It wasn’t exactly comfortable to sleep with his arm stretched out to accommodate the handcuffs, but it was a damn sight better than having Hayden on his side of the bed with him—especially if the guy couldn’t keep his tongue, or any other part of his body, to himself while he was asleep.
The vampire shook his head and stared up at the shadowy outline of the ceiling. Running their conversation over in his head, he wasn’t sure exactly what the hell Hayden had thought he’d been doing.
Stafford sighed quietly to himself and tried to find a comfortable position on the bed. Really, it only went to prove what he had always expected, werewolves were just weird.
———
“We’re ordering breakfast.”
Stafford blinked his eyes open. His first thought on hearing Hayden’s voice was to pull away from the hand resting on his cheek. God only knew what the damn pup was up to now—or what he intended to lap up for breakfast.
He stopped himself from brushing the hand away just in time, realising it was Jasmine’s and not the wolf’s. He smiled up at her. “Good morning.”
She offered him a shy smile as she took her hand away. “Good morning, sir.”
She looked behind her, to where Hayden was sitting on the bed, reading from the hotel menu.
“I didn’t know werewolves could read,” Stafford observed as he sat up.
“And I didn’t know vampires could sleep so damn long. I thought you’d never wake up,” Hayden shot back at him.
Stafford looked, blurry eyed, at his watch. “It’s seven am.”
“He’s been awake since dawn, sir,” Jasmine told him, with something like amused affection in her voice.
Stafford rolled his eyes. “Bloody dogs.”
“Do you eat real food?” Hayden asked him.
“Yes,” Stafford told him. “Real food, not kibble.”
“Kibble?”
“It’s a food people feed pet dogs, sir,” Jasmine explained when Stafford didn’t bother.
Hayden shook his head. “No kibble,” he said. “Steak. And chicken. And bacon.”
“I hope for your sake you’re not a vegetarian,” Stafford muttered under his breath.
Jasmine smiled at him and shook her head.
“What do you want?” Hayden asked her.
“I’ll eat whatever you choose to give me, sir.”
Hayden frowned. “We don’t know what you like to eat.”
Stafford took the menu from the wolf and glanced down the various options. “What do you usually eat for breakfast?” he rephrased, wondering if that would get them a real answer.
“Whatever my master chooses to give me, sir.”
Stafford glanced at her. “Have you been told not to give us any information?”
“The council think it is for the best if you two make the decisions as you both see fit, sir,” she offered.
“And you get caught in the middle?” Stafford asked.
She smiled. “And I submit to whatever my masters desire, sir.”
There was something about her tone of voice which made him wonder if she was just following the council’s orders or if rules like that were part of her whole life. Either way, it would have to change once she was properly under his protection. A submissive was one thing, he had no interest in owning a slave.
“May I go and freshen up before breakfast, sir?” she asked, glancing toward the en suite.
Stafford nodded. “Of course, you don’t need anyone’s permission to go to the bathroom.”
He pushed down his annoyance as she looked to Hayden to confirm his order.
The werewolf nodded. “You don’t need my permission either,” he agreed, frowning his lack of understanding.
Jasmine nodded and offered a small smile to each of them before she left the room. She looked happier today than she had when they first met her, there was a lightness in her manner which made him sure she didn’t regret anything any of them had done the night before.
When the door closed behind her, Hayden looked across to him. “What do humans normally eat?” he asked.
“I don’t normally eat with humans,” Stafford said. Humans were for blood and sex, not socialising, but somehow, the statement he would have said without hesitation at any other time, stuck in his throat while thoughts of Jasmine were still fresh in his mind. Not willing to confess complete ignorance, Stafford looked at the menu and guessed. “It’s a human hotel. She probably eats something from the breakfast menu.”
Hayden took the menu back from him and looked it over. “We’ll get one of everything then.”
Stafford nodded.
He looked across at Hayden.
Hayden looked back.
One of them obviously had to say something.
Stafford cleared his throat. “Last night, the part of last night before we went to sleep,” Stafford stressed. “Didn’t go as badly as I thought it would.”
As peace offerings went, it was at least something, and at that time in the morning Stafford was actually quite proud of himself for managing that much of a token step towards not hating the other man outright.
Hayden nodded. “I like her.”
Stafford studied him very carefully, wondering what the wolf was plotting now. “So do I,” he informed him.
Hayden put the menu to one side. “You are to be the alpha of your pack, aren’t you?” he asked.
“The head of my clan,” Stafford corrected with a nod.
Hayden considered the matter further. “And there is only ever one head.”
“Yes.”
“There is only ever one alpha pair in our packs too,” Hayden informed him. “An alpha male and an alpha female.”
“Vampires aren’t good at sharing power, even with their lovers. There is one head of the clan.”
“So who do you mate with?”
“Submissives,” Stafford said. “Humans usually.”
“Omegas?”
Stafford half smiled. “To the head of a vampire clan, everyone who isn’t him is a considered a su
bmissive.”
Hayden frowned. “No pack?”
“We aren’t pack animals.”
“You should have a pack,” Hayden told him firmly. “Packs are good. I’m going to have a pack.”
“You don’t have one now?”
Hayden shrugged. “I have my parents’ pack, but I’m going to have one of my own soon. First, I must find an appropriate alpha female.”
Stafford raised an eyebrow at him, suddenly realising where this conversation was going. “Oh?”
“Jas would make a good alpha female,” Hayden said.
“You’re not good enough at subtlety to make this sort of conversation to work—you’d best stick to simpler forms of communication,” Stafford said.
Hayden didn’t seem to perceive the intended insult. He nodded. “You would make a good beta,” he said simply.
“No, I wouldn’t. However, you might make a competent submissive—with a lot of training.”
The wolf’s eyes narrowed. He shook his head as his hackles rose. “Alphas do not submit to betas.”
“I guess you’re not really an alpha then,” Stafford said with a dismissive shrug as he reached for the phone. “I’ll order breakfast.”
Hayden reached for the phone receiver at the same time. His hand landed on top of Stafford’s. “I am the alpha—I will provide for the pack.”
Stafford’s grip tightened on the phone.
The bathroom door opened. Jasmine stepped back into the room. Hayden didn’t break eye contact, he didn’t look down. Stafford tracked Jasmine’s progress across the room out of the corner of his field of vision, but he would be damned before he looked away first.
Jasmine glanced back and forth between the two young men. They obviously weren’t at the point where they could be left safely on their own yet.
She walked slowly across to the bottom of the bed and knelt down well within both their fields of vision. Neither of them looked away from the other man, but she could feel the subtle change in the atmosphere as part of their attention transferred to her.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to speak without first looking to one or both the men for permission. “How may I serve you sir?” she asked softly.
Both men turned their complete attention towards her at exactly the same time.
