by Alicia Ryan
Of course, they’d had to take her car, which, after getting over his shock at the invention itself and examining the others on the freeway, Darren had also pronounced unacceptable.
Upon checking in, Darren and Phillip stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows for almost an hour, admiring the view and pointing things out and asking her annoying questions like—“why’s that balloon covered in lights?”
Finally, they ordered room service because Phillip was starving. And then Darren was starving, and he took turns feeding lightly from cuts on Roxanna and giving each of them minuscule amounts of his blood, but no more.
Roxanna finally called a halt and virtually threw Phillip onto the king-sized bed. She made short work of his shirt and trousers, vowing that tomorrow would be a shopping spree, and then got rid of her own jeans and blouse that she’d picked up in her apartment.
He rolled over her, and she marveled at how good it felt to be naked against him again. The fear that he would leave them finally left her as she felt him solid against her—not in the past, but in the now.
With the last two days spent with all of them running around visiting banks and solicitors and Darren dispatching missives and telegrams, and Andrew preparing for the spell, it seemed like it had been ages since they’d been together, and the want of them was driving her mad. She was only too willing when Phillip kissed her and then slid inside. She caught her breath, his size giving her the barest twinge of pain. When he moved within her, her muscles stretched to accommodate him, to sheath him within her, and she felt faint with delight.
“Want to feel her come, Phillip?” Darren whispered.
“God, yes,” Phillip said on a panting breath, waiting for Darren to put his slit wrist to her mouth before he began to thrust into her in earnest.
In seconds, she was flying, born aloft by the sweet flow of all that was Darren and grounded by the throbbing earnestness of Phillip. She stopped drinking to cry out—she wasn’t sure whose name—and arch up off the bed.
Phillip lowered his head to her neck and thrust a few more times before the ripples coursing through her body brought him to his own climax. He shuddered and then held himself still for a few moments before rolling to her side.
Darren moved to Roxanna’s inner thigh—where he’d bitten her that first night—and sank his teeth into the old wound. It was an almost constant reminder of him now, a subsisting ache. And she welcomed the pain because she welcomed him. Even now, when she didn’t need the pain to wipe away her anguish, she welcomed every sensation that came with loving Darren.
And it was in that moment she realized she did indeed love them both—and needed them both. They were helping her in ways she’d not even noticed—helping her become more herself. Her best self.
While they lay in bed, the fireworks began.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s New Year’s Eve. I completely forgot. I should have taken you out.”
Darren got up and walked to the window. “I’d rather be here,” he said. “We did have fireworks, you know.”
Then he let out a very un-Darren-like “ooh”.
“Though I do admit,” he conceded, “they weren’t as colorful and didn’t come in the shapes of flowers or smiling faces.”
“Smiley faces,” she corrected. “That’s what they’re called. And you’re going to see a lot more of them. Just wait till I show you the Internet.”
He turned around. “We may have to take this slow, dearest. Phillip and I have a lot of homework to do.” He jumped back in bed with them. “Though I immediately want one of those cars.”
Roxanna threw her arm across her eyes. They’d been passed by a Ferrari on the way over, and Darren had been smitten.
“They’re not very practical,” she tried.
“I’m a vampire,” he said. “I’m not very practical. I’m practically impossible.” He thought for a moment. “And I want to see some of those vampire plays and shows you talked about.”
This brought a grimace. “Eh...no, you really don’t.”
“How about we make our list tomorrow,” Phillip suggested, moving close enough to Roxanna for her to feel his arousal. “I think the future has rather energized me.”
“So it would seem,” she teased. “I hadn’t realized how time-consuming this arrangement was going to be.”
He laughed. “You’d complain if we never got out of bed again?”
“Not over much. Though we’d rack up a fortune in room service.” She looked over. “Except for Darren.”
Phillip also looked in his direction. “I’ve been meaning to mention something in that regard,” he said, causing Darren to frown and raise a brow.
“Just what is your concern?”
“No concern. I just wondered if you might like to feed from both of us?” he asked. “Not just Roxanna.”
Darren shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t like to cause pain. Roxanna welcomes it. But you wouldn’t.”
“You have done it once,” he reminded him.
“And I heard you cry out.” He shook his head again. “No, I won’t do that.”
Phillip looked down at Roxanna. “Switch places with me?”
Curious, she did as she was bid, leaving Phillip lying next to Darren, the two of them on bent elbows, facing one another.
Phillip ran his thumb across the vampire’s lips. She could see Darren’s eyes darken, but he didn’t otherwise react. Until Phillip’s thumb was followed by his tongue, and that got a gasp.
“Do you like that we’re warm against you?” Phillip asked
“Yes.” Darren’s voice was level, but Phillip scooted closer.
“And is it true that you can smell blood, that you can hear our heartbeats?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve had lots of offers like this in the past, I suppose—people who love you serving themselves up for your enjoyment?”
“No. Only two.”
“Then how can you not take what you need when it’s freely offered?”
Darren met Roxanna’s gaze. “Apparently I can,” he said, just before he plunged his fangs into Phillip’s skin. Phillip jerked but moved his hand to hold Darren in place when he would have drawn back.
Giving in, Darren closed his eyes and drank. When he lifted his head, his only words before he sank into sleep were “God, you really are good”.
***
Phillip had decided to see if his luck with slot machines was any better than his luck with cards, so she and Darren found themselves back a night later at her unacceptable apartment. The first thing she noticed when she flipped on the bare overhead light was an envelope on her coffee table that hadn’t been there before.
Walking over, she picked it up and saw, to her surprise, it had Darren’s name on it. She handed it to him, and he read it over twice before handing it back to her.
Dear Darren,
By now you’ve been in the future for several days, and I have finished making arrangements on your behalf. You should still have title to the several accounts we discussed. The account for young Lance’s education has also been funded.
I know we agreed I would join you if I could, but I’ve decided, after all these years at your side, to strike out on my own. For, in truth, you no longer need me. You’ve been a good man for some time now, even without my influence, and you’ll do fine with Roxanna and Phillip to guide you (especially Phillip).
I am your past. They are your future. Enjoy them and the many marvels you were so eager to see. As for me, I intend to find out where it is your soul is destined to be. I feel as if I’ve fulfilled my purpose in you, and, for both of us, a new adventure is beginning.
May the future be all that you hope.
Yours,
Andrew
“Your soul never liked me,” she said.
Darren laughed. “You were the competition.”
“Looks like I’ve won, but are you okay with this? Maybe there’s something we can do.”
Darren shook his head. �
��I know when Andrew’s made up his mind, and, though it pains me, I think he’s right. As much as I needed him when I broke away from Pietro, I haven’t really needed him for moral guidance for quite a while. At least I like to think I haven’t. He didn’t want to leave me alone, but there were times I could sense he was restless.”
“What will happen to him?”
Darren shrugged. “Who knows what will happen to any of us? Like he said—it’s a new adventure.”
He walked over and pulled her close. “Now tell me about this city that never sleeps.”
“You’ll love it. It has opera, theater, musicals, dance—and about eight million people jammed into a few square blocks. You’ll certainly never go hungry.”
“Could you sing there?” he asked. “I know you don’t want to give it up.”
She nodded. “I could find something. Either place is okay for that. If we go to Malibu, I can maybe find something in L.A. But New York might even be better. I have a confidence now I never had before; a singing career doesn’t seem as far-fetched as it once did.”
“Then I want to see this wondrous city New York has become. I didn’t travel two hundred years to look at the ocean.”
She laughed. “I see your point. I think we can talk Phillip into making Malibu a vacation spot.”
“What about your mother?” Darren asked. “Won’t you need to tell her something?”
She nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. For now, I’m going to tell her I have a new boyfriend and we’re moving to New York. I’ll tell her his family has money. She’ll be satisfied with that.”
“Does she care so little for you?”
“It’s not that she doesn’t care. She’s just too wrapped up in her own life to notice much else. She’s still dreaming her own dreams.”
“Will you eventually tell her about us? The three of us?”
Roxanna nodded. “I will, but not just yet.”
He put a finger under her chin and raised her eyes to his. “You do know Phillip and I care deeply for you.”
She nodded, not quite able to speak.
“He loves you. From the bottom of his soul, he loves you. It’s almost all I can taste when I drink from him.”
“And you?”
“I’m learning that what I feel is more than just appetite and obsession.” He chuckled. “As Andrew said, I have Phillip to guide me.”
He waited without saying more, and Roxanna nodded. “When you can say it, I’ll be ready to say it back,” she told him. “And I won’t say it to Phillip until then.”
“Maybe he deserves to hear it sooner.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that simple. I won’t be ready to love him until I know you can love me even then.”
“You already love him. And you love me. Your blood says it over and over.”
“And yours says you love me, Darren. You’re the one who’s still too reticent to acknowledge it.”
One side of his mouth turned up. “I’ve spent a very long time without it. I’m not used to love.”
“Who is? But the three of us have gotten very lucky, and I don’t want to muck it up talking about love. We all know where we stand.” She smiled. “Phillip certainly seems to. It will be said when it needs to be said, and it doesn’t matter how long that takes.”
“I love you,” he whispered, as if he were trying the words on for size.
When she said nothing, he repeated himself.
“And I love you. Truly and always.”
A heated kiss was her reward, until she felt Darren’s lips part into a smile.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Phillip may have said it first, but I got to hear it first.”
Roxanna dropped her head onto his chest. “Men. Remind me again why I have two of them?”
He took her hand. “Let’s go home, and I think I speak for Phillip when I say I believe we can remind you.”
“What about my stuff we came to get?”
Darren looked scornfully around the place. “Please tell me we can just buy you new ‘stuff’, as you put it.”
“Alright,” she agreed, “if you’ll take me home right now, I’ll let you buy me all new stuff.”
Darren grinned. “We have a deal, Miss Collins.”
Back at the hotel, they found Phillip sitting on the long sofa in front of the windows of the suite’s living room. Beside him was an ice bucket holding an open bottle of champagne.
“I thought we should celebrate,” he said, turning and tipping his half-full flute toward them. “It is a new year, after all.”
She laughed and ran to grab a glass from the shiny silver tray now sitting on their end table. Phillip reached over and poured.
Darren surprised them by taking a glass for himself as well.
Then they took their seats, side by side with the proper gentleman on one side, Roxanna in the middle, and the vampire on the other. And so they sipped their champagne and watched the glittering, gaudy lights of the Las Vegas Strip.
Roxanna wondered if there’d ever been a stranger happening in this city of secrets.
“New York will be prettier,” she predicted.
“So New York it is, then?” Phillip asked.
Darren murmured in the affirmative.
“Doesn’t matter,” Phillip said. “We’re in the future. We can live anywhere—anywhere we can be together, you know—really together.”
She laughed. “I still can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s as strange to me as it is to you.”
“It was fate,” Darren said. “Fate brought you to us, and fate has brought us here. Together. And it will keep us together, always. I’m sure of it.”
“I don’t know how long always is,” Roxanna said, “but I like the sound of it.”
“Our always is going to be a very long time,” he replied.
Which earned him quizzical looks from both his lovers.
“I guess you’ll think I should have mentioned this,” he replied, suddenly looking a bit sheepish. “Vampire blood isn’t just pleasurable. It also heals. You two drink from me every night, and every night it does its work.”
He looked at Roxanna. “You don’t seem to have noticed, but the scars on your leg are much less visible now than they were when I first saw them.”
“Huh,” she said. “I thought I was imagining it—or that I just couldn’t see in all that damn dim candlelight.”
“The future is bright,” Phillip said, laughing. “I’ll give you that.”
“And it will be a long one for us,” Darren said. “All of us.”
“A long, happy one,” Roxanna said, smiling and stretching against the back of the couch. “I like the sound of that.”
“As do I,” Phillip said. Then he looked over at Darren. “You do realize you’re drinking that, don’t you?”
Darren looked at the glass now paused halfway to his lips. “You know, I actually hadn’t. But it’s not repulsive.”
Roxanna raised her brows. “That must be some expensive champagne.”
Darren studied his glass. “Pietro could eat,” he reported.
“Hey,” Phillip said, “if this keeps up, we could actually go out to dinner together.”
“And not have Darren just sit and watch us eat. Wouldn’t that be nice?” She grinned at him.
Darren smiled back. “Like I said, it’s going to be a long future. There’s no telling what could happen.”
Roxanna turned from Darren to Phillip. “I know you already know what you mean to me,” she said. “But I should tell you I love you, that I loved you before this whole thing started, before we made love. I didn’t think it could be permanent, so I didn’t want it to be love.”
“And you had Darren to figure out,” he reminded her.
“And I had my love for Darren to figure out.”
Smiling, he quirked a brow at them. “It seems I missed a few things during my turn at the slot machines, but if we’re all done declaring our love, perhaps
we could get into bed?”
He waggled his eyebrows at them and downed his champagne with a satisfied smack of his lips, which promptly sent both Darren and Roxanna into peals of laughter.
“What?” he asked, eyes once again wide and innocent.
Roxanna got up, grabbed his hand and pulled him after her into the bedroom. Darren followed, still laughing, and Roxanna felt her heart might burst at any moment. If the future was this good, she wanted it to be long indeed.
Epilogue
The next morning, Roxanna was the only one awake when the knock sounded on the door. She hadn’t yet ordered breakfast, so she opened it with curiosity.
“Roxanna Collins?” a uniformed steward asked.
“That’s me,” she confirmed.
“Package for you,” he said, handing her a large, flat, cardboard box.
“Uh...thank you.”
She set the box down long enough to scrounge in her purse for a tip and then carefully opened the top after the steward had gone on his way.
Something gleamed inside, and she reached in and pulled out a painting in a gilded frame. The goddess Fortuna smiled back at her, her hand still raised to disperse gold coins at a whim.
There was no note on the box, so she turned the painting around and discovered one taped to the back of the picture.
“Fortune has favored you, my dear. Keep her safe, and she always will.”
Taking one more look, she gingerly lay the painting against a wall to one side, out of the way of any accidental collisions.
Her Corolla was going, she already knew that; Vegas was going; her apartment, her entire life was being left behind. Everything except what fortune had blessed her with—her voice and the men who loved her and whom she loved in return. So if keeping a close eye on old palm reader’s painting would safeguard against losing them, Fortuna was going to hang in a prominent place in their new home for however long “always” turned out to be.
###
