by Lauren Smith
Zoey blushed all the way to her toes. The idea had a little too much appeal, and she was sure she’d happily get herself deep into debt.
“Let’s go inside and warm up,” Conner said. “Well, those of us who need to. We’ll finish the lights tomorrow.” He and Ian stood up and brushed snow off their clothes.
The house was warm and merry. The tree by the window was lit up and covered with shiny balls and various ornaments that the three of them had hung before going outside to put up the Christmas lights. Music drifted through the air along with the scent of nutmeg and gingerbread.
It was everything she loved about the holidays, and even though she missed her parents, being here with Ian and Connor somehow felt just as special. A new memory to add to the old. Never in a thousand years would she have guessed she’d be spending Christmas with two handsome immortals, each determined to seduce her and care for her at the same time. She doubted any other woman would be as lucky as she was tonight.
A naughty idea tiptoed feather light into her mind. She bit her bottom lip to hide the smile it gave her. Was she brave enough to do it? Was she ready? She shot a glance at Ian and Connor. Connor was stretched out, feet propped up over one arm of the couch, hands clasped behind his head, looking relaxed for perhaps the first time as he watched A Christmas Story on the TV. Ian was busy in the kitchen putting away the leftovers from their dinner in the fridge.
A stirring of hope filled her chest. She wanted to fit into their world, to be a part of both their lives, and sharing them was one way to start. It had worked with them once before, and did she really mind the idea of having them both? Was that somehow being greedy? Perhaps after having nothing, a little greed wasn’t such a bad thing.
With a grin and a touch of nerves, she went to find the red babydoll.
Chapter Nine
Zoey checked her appearance in the bathroom mirror. Nervousness fluttered inside her with the chaos of a swarm of butterflies trapped inside a net. She could do this. She wanted to do this. She just prayed things would work out. Choosing between Ian and Connor was not an option. It was so clear how close these two men had always been, like brothers. Loving one without loving the other would drive a wedge between them and ultimately drive them apart.
Please let them both want me enough to share me. They’d shared Lara, after all. Could they be the same with her? Even if she wasn’t a true mate, she wanted to prove to them she could love them both equally, because she did. How it was possible in just a few days she didn’t know, but she did.
She loved the way Connor hid his sweetness beneath a gruff demeanor, and how he never restrained his passion when he was with her. And she loved Ian’s tender-hearted smiles and irresistibly seductive kisses. Both had an adorable way of trying to give her everything she wanted and needed, like it was coded in their ancient DNA to care for their woman. It was time she showed them how much they meant to her.
She stepped out of the bathroom and walked down the hall, all too aware of the carpet beneath her bare feet. The two men, her two men, stood in the kitchen sipping coffee, studying the small village of gingerbread houses they’d made earlier that evening. Much to her dismay, Ian and Connor had made an elaborate castle with a moat being attacked by a dragon, while she’d opted for a traditional little house that looked pathetically plain next to it.
Connor said something, pointing to her house, and Ian burst into a rich laugh. They seemed so comfortable with each other now, so different from that first night when they were ready to rip each other’s throats out. The strain between them was gone, that tension reduced to a bad memory.
Ian was the first to catch sight of her. His coffee mug crashed onto the floor. Connor turned and caught his breath, then grinned.
“It looks so much better on you than the hanger.” Even though his words were quiet, they struck her like a shot of warm brandy.
Zoey smoothed her hands over the red babydoll and tried to will away her self-consciousness. She’d been naked around both of them, had kissed them and done much more with much less on than this piece of lingerie. She wanted to be sexy and wild with them. Maybe it wouldn’t matter if she had only a little sexual experience compared to these men who’d lived for two centuries. They’d probably slept with hundreds of beautiful perfect woman in that time. She hoped she could measure up. There was so much passion in her right now she felt ready to burst.
Ian nudged the remnants of the coffee mug aside with the toe of his boot. “Do I get to collect my kisses now?”
“Don’t frighten her,” Connor whispered as he started to prowl toward her.
Ian also approached, but in a far more casual way. “You’re doing a good enough job of that yourself. You’re not on a nature documentary, you know. She’s not a wildebeest.”
For the first time since meeting them, Zoey truly felt like the prey she always knew she was to the vampires. A walking Happy Meal. The hungry looks they gave her were evidence that they’d eat her up if given half the chance. In a good way, of that she had not doubt, but she also knew that she might end up getting bitten again. She had to trust they could control their natures with her in the height of their passion.
Ian reached her first, his palms cupping her shoulders. His skin felt cool against her heated flesh, but not as cool as before. His green eyes were warm and bright, like grass on a summer’s day.
“Tell me you won’t choose just one of us.” Ian’s tone was urgent and barely above a growl. “You can handle us both, can’t you?” She knew he didn’t just mean physically, but emotionally as well.
A second set of hands, Connor’s, slid around her hips from behind as they trapped her between their tall, firm bodies. Zoey shut her eyes and nodded, more to herself than either of them.
“Yes. I want to be with you. Both of you.” There. She’d said it. Now what was she supposed to do?
She turned to look over her shoulder at Connor. Some silent communication seemed to pass between them.
“My bed or yours?” he asked at last.
“Mine tonight, yours the next.” Ian gave Zoey a look so scorching she wondered how she didn’t get burned.
“Is that okay with you, Zoey?” Ian cupped her cheek and watched her reaction closely.
“Yes…”
Connor slid his hand around hers, the grip comforting as he led her down the hall, Ian following behind them. Once inside, Connor shut the door and leaned back against it. Zoey looked between the two and wrapped her arms around her waist nervously.
“Look, I don’t know how to start this. Will somebody just kiss me?” She felt like an idiot asking like that, but it was what she needed.
Ian’s voice became a deep, honeyed rumble. “As you wish.”
He grasped her face in his hands and leaned in until his lips touched hers. Every worry, every fear faded away. Ian could do that to her—ease her anxiety and yet still melt her inside with his touch. His lips moved over hers, delicate, teasing, tasting. She responded, lost in the rhythm of their mouths. Ian’s tongue sought a playful dance with hers. Zoey moaned with pleasure. A single kiss, long and sensual, was all she needed to come alive. She opened her eyes long enough to see Connor still leaning against the closed doors, arms crossed.
“Show him your passion, Zoey.” Connor’s whisper betrayed his own hunger to join them. A wicked smile flirted with the edges of his lips.
“Yes, show me, love.” Ian forced her back a few steps until she bumped into the bed.
His hips pinned hers against the mattress. He smoothed his hands down her back, over the swell of her backside, the bikini bottom barely a barrier to the cool skin of his palms. Her flesh burned with his erotic touch. He gripped her ass, jerking her up against him so her feet left the ground. She wrapped her arms around his neck, hanging on as he raised her up to set her on the edge of the bed. Ian urged her to crawl back toward the headboard and he followed, coming down ove
r her body. His hands gently pried her shaking knees apart as he settled into the cradle of her thighs.
“You all right?” he whispered before kissing her. It was a soft brush, a little caress of reassurance, and it relaxed her instantly.
“I’m fine. It’s just been a few years since I…” She bit her lip and looked in Connor’s direction. She saw him push away from the door and step toward her.
“You’ll be fine, love. We’re here to please you, aren’t we, Connor?” Ian kissed the corner of her mouth and then trailed his mouth up to her ear, licking inside.
A sharp pang of lust hit her womb and traveled like lightning up her spine back to her ear. She arched with a hiss as he repeated the erotic licking, and the folds of her sex throbbed with hot desire. Ian continued the wicked torture of her ear, rocking his still clothed body against hers, until she’d dissolved into a puddle of incoherent desire.
Then he relented, just as she was on the verge of coming. He sat back on the bed and removed his sweater, tossing it aside. Zoey gazed up at him, trembling with vulnerability and hunger as he loomed over her, his palms settling into the comforter on either side of her head. She shivered and watched as he slid down her body until his face hovered above her mound. When he hooked his thumbs in her bikini bottoms and tugged them down her legs, she clamped her eyes shut, suddenly shy. What would he think of her? She’d never had a man go down on her before.
“Open your eyes, Zoey.” It was Connor’s voice next to her ear. Her lashes fanned up and saw him on the edge of the bed next to her, watching her. His dark eyes glittered, wild and savage.
Ian pulled her legs apart, tapping behind her knees and she bent them without thinking, setting her heels in the bed, allowing Ian to stare down at her. She tore her gaze away from Connor only to see Ian’s green eyes flash with a strange sheen of crimson.
“I’m dying to taste you,” Ian growled in a voice so low that she felt its vibration more than she heard the words. His palms slid down her inner thighs and she threw her head back against the pillow. Her body convulsed when Ian’s thumbs rubbed slow patterns along the skin of her legs, just inches from her core.
Connor now demanded her attention, cupping her cheek and turning her to face him.
“Kiss me,” he purred, then stoked her lips with a mind-numbing kiss—the sort that stole a woman’s heart and soul. Like a first and last kiss and every one in between. It had a certain magic that could hold a woman frozen in time, bound by a mix of love and passion. Zoey’s eyes singed with tears as she tried to return the power of the moment, reflect some of that intensity back to Connor, to show him she felt the same as he did.
She never got the chance, because Ian kissed the top of her mound and nibbled his way down. Her hands flailed as she tried to find his shoulders, his hair, anything to grasp on to as he licked her slit.
Connor swallowed her scream of riotous pleasure as Ian continued to taste her. Something jerked her arms above her head, pinning them firmly out of the way. Zoey forced her eyes open again. Connor had captured her wrists and was keeping her distracted while Ian played between her legs.
Thoughts couldn’t form, words wouldn’t come, there was only wave after wave of building, aching pleasure as she strained to reach the climax she desperately needed. She was helpless against the two of them, only able to accept whatever they gave her. Years of anxiety had wound her tighter than a cork in a bottle and she was so close to bursting free.
“Please…Ian…let me come. God…just let me come!” she begged, breathless between Connor’s kisses.
Ian’s breath tickled her inner thigh as he licked and nibbled his way to her knee. She wanted to scream in frustration as the desire inside her continued to be left unfulfilled.
“What do you think, Connor? Should we grant her wish?” He smoothed his hands up and down her thighs, rubbing her sensitive skin, but she needed his mouth back on her clit, or better yet, his cock deep inside her.
“Connor…” she whispered, meeting his eyes with a desperate look.
There was a wildness in his gaze, and she glimpsed the predator he’d tried to hide tonight. He seemed to revel in her echoing need for release. His grip on her wrists tightened and he dropped his head to nip her lower lip. She arched in his arms, and both men chuckled.
“Take her slow, Ian. Make her work for it.” His dark voice stirred her senses and made her heady with anticipation.
Ian sat back and Zoey was treated to a fresh view of his chest and the way his muscles flexed as he shrugged out of his jeans. His cock sprang forward and she wanted to stroke the massive length of it.
He came forward again, cupped her ass, lifted her up and then with one hand guided the tip of his shaft into her. Zoey held still, even though she wanted more than anything to squirm in eagerness.
While Ian began to press into her an inch at a time, Connor tore the spaghetti straps of the babydoll’s top and ripped open the sheer bodice, baring her breasts. He filled his hand with one, pinching and rolling the beaded nipple between his thumb and forefinger while his mouth settled over the other peak.
Her body flushed, then she screamed as Ian thrust into her. He stretched her to the breaking point and she thought she might die from the sudden mix of pleasure and pain. Ian withdrew, leaving an awful empty feeling in its wake. Seconds later, he was driving back into her, surging deeper. He groaned at the same moment she did when he thrust to the hilt.
“Christ, you’re so tight,” Ian’s accent grew thicker than she’d ever heard before and it made her inner walls clench around him. A wildness filled her.
“Harder!”
Connor lifted his head, shared a cat-like smile with Ian. “She’s been a good lass, give it to her.”
And he did. Ian gripped her hips as he took Zoey to the edge at a pounding pace. Connor moved back, his palms cupping her face as he gazed down at her. Zoey looked back and forth between the two. Beneath the hunger, the desire, their eyes were filled with softer emotions, ones she felt as well, and she was mesmerized by it.
Finally it was too much. She surrendered, her back bowing up off the bed as her climax took her. Stars dotted her vision—the white hot intensity of her union with Ian shaking her to the very foundation of her soul as she came. She was barely aware of Ian’s own roar of satisfaction. Her fell body limp and sated as she felt Ian withdraw from her.
“Ian?” she asked, trying to keep her eyes open.
“Shhh…” he whispered from somewhere beside her. “Rest a bit.”
Even wanting to stay awake, her body craved sleep and she obeyed and immediately slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.
* * *
Zoey woke a few hours later to Connor’s teasing kisses. Her eyes opened briefly as she returned his kiss, curling her arms around his neck.
“Are you ready for me now?” he asked, his accent thick yet soft, making her body shiver.
“Mmmm,” she moaned in answer, kissing him again. The blankets were pulled from her body and he was moving between her thighs, right where she wanted him.
“Zoey, lass,” he groaned as he raised her hips, taking him inside her. “Christ, woman!” he hissed and thrust harder, burying himself completely. Once again she was filled to a near breaking point, but it felt wonderful.
“She feels good, doesn’t she?” Ian chuckled from the nearby darkness.
Connor’s laugh turned to a curse as he sank into her again. Zoey loved having all of him inside her, possessing her in a way she hadn’t thought possible. Knowing Ian was watching only made her blood run hotter, her own arousal spike. Connor gripped her knee, pulling it tight to his hip, molding them together.
She thrashed her head against the pillow as he took her, body and soul. “Connor…God…that feels so good…” Both of them had her, all of her. She could only pray they’d be merciful and remember she was just a mortal. She screamed in pleasure. Co
nnor collapsed on top of her, panting against her neck. He licked her skin even as her inner muscles clamped around his cock.
He nibbled her ear. “Hmm. Mind if I have a wee bite?”
She giggled.
Ian shoved Connor’s shoulder. “Now, Connor, you greedy bastard, I’ve not had the chance to taste her yet.” Conner rolled dramatically off Zoey and then Ian was pulling her over his body. She rested her chin to his chest, boneless, shutting her eyes. She was vaguely aware of Ian lifting one of her arms to his mouth and nibbled playfully.
“One taste?” he asked. “I want to know you, Zoey. Please let me taste you.” She opened one eye and stared at him. “Drinking from you will let me see inside your heart, your mind.”
“Will it hurt?” she asked. The last time she’d been bitten it had been when she was beyond aroused, but now she was sated, and more aware of herself. She didn’t mind that this would let him see into her. She had nothing to hide from him.
Connor leaned over beside her and kissed her shoulder. It felt so good to lie there with them both, exploring, delighting in their appetites.
“It might sting at first, but if you relax, it will ease.”
Zoey wasn’t frightened, but the intimacy of giving her blood was something she’d never expected to face.
“Okay.” She drew a breath as his fangs slid out and he bit into her wrist. She tensed as the sting sharpened.
Connor touched her cheek. “Relax, pet,” he said, turning her face toward him.
Sharing blood with Ian, just as when Connor had tasted her, formed some mystical connection between them. Invisible strings seemed to weave her and Ian together—two souls, nearly merged.
“Tell me something about you, Zoey,” said Conner. “Before the accident, what were your plans?”
Zoey rested her face against Connor’s cool palm, watching his lips move as he spoke. Ian sucked at her wrist a second longer then licked the wound closed. He stroked her hair, the gentleness of the motion making her feel warm and safe.
