Part 30 (1/2)

”Yes, it unsettles you. And arouses you. And makes you glad to belong to us, no matter how that also discomforts you. We're glad you belong to us, Gideon. Tell me.”

Gideon looked down, then made himself meet Daegan's gaze again. ”It makes me feel like you were looking out for me, even then. Like my dad, or older brother, or . . . s.h.i.+t. I don't know what to call it. I wish it could have been me, but you made sure he wouldn't take anyone else's Laura. Thank you.”

Daegan paused a long moment, and Anwyn felt her own throat tighten at what she read in both of their faces. ”While it was not my motive then, I think I might do anything for you, Gideon Green. You and Anwyn.”

It was a powerful admission, a quid pro quo, and Daegan did it with unwavering resolve, making it clear how significant a statement it was. Gideon tightened his jaw, lifted his hand and closed it over Daegan's forearm again.

”Same goes. Well, except maybe s.h.i.+ning those fancy shoes you have. Or ironing your s.h.i.+rts, or wiping your-”

”I'd let you stake me first.”

Gideon gave a half chuckle, then mortified himself further when his voice broke. This time it was Daegan who embraced him, palming his head to hold him against his heart.

Anwyn had seen the vampire be tender with her before, but it moved her more than she could say, to see him use that gentleness on Gideon now. Knowing it was likely to be gone in a matter of seconds, she filed the picture away in her heart to savor as only a woman could.

”For so long you felt alone, watching out for others,” the vampire murmured into the crown of his head. ”Now you have both of us. Just as we have you.”

Then Daegan pulled back, made Gideon look at him with two immovable hands on either side of his head. ”As far as what I am to you, you know exactly what to call me.”

”Let go, you bullying a.s.shole,” Gideon muttered weakly.

Daegan ignored him. ”I have been alone most of my life as well, Gideon, until you and Anwyn made me feel like I belonged to a family. You both give me that. Now give me the greatest gift of all. Let me hear you say it, and then you can touch us, take your fill of both of us, the way you wish, with no condemnation of yourself.”

”I don't know . . .” Gideon cleared his throat, put his eyes back on the ground at their feet, because his cheeks were burning. ”I do better when it's the two of you taking your fill of me.”

Everything about this was a dreamlike haze, something that had overwhelmed him in imagination for so long, and here he was. In this whole new place, scared s.h.i.+tless as he said. But also thinking maybe something better than his miserable existence was possible, was truly being offered to him. He'd come here, not sure he believed it, but he hadn't been able to forget Daegan's words in the warehouse, or how they connected to Anwyn's, the day she sent him away.

Now the charged pause was enough to cloak him with the heat of their responding l.u.s.t, possession and desire. If they didn't start touching him, or letting him touch them, he was going to go crazy. He should have known they wouldn't make it that easy.

”So you're saying you're ours, to do with as we will. You serve us.” Anwyn's voice, a Mistress's voice.

”Yes,” Gideon managed in a low voice. ”I belong to you. Both of you.”

”Then call us by name.” Daegan repeated it, that most difficult of all demands. At least they didn't make him look at them, though he had a feeling one day he could, if he could say it now.

He was a vampire hunter, a soldier, a loner. A man who'd always said he wouldn't respond to any authority greater than his own. And he'd given up on G.o.d a long time ago.

”Mistress,” he managed in a throat that rasped. Drawing in a deep breath, he lifted his gaze after all to meet Daegan's dark eyes. ”Master.” It tore something inside him to say it, but it was a good pain.

Anwyn slid the tie of her robe free, drawing his attention. When it opened, her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s were level with his avid gaze. ”Suckle me, Gideon,” she murmured. ”Show me your devotion.”

He seized the opportunity. If he had to express any more of his feelings, which were as painful as wounds, he might lose it. He latched onto her brutally in the first moment, as unthinking as a starving infant. However, the press of Daegan's fingers into his shoulders recalled him. He eased his bite, turned it into an urgent laving. He would have used his hands, crept up to her hips, but Daegan's firm grip was already on one of his wrists, Anwyn's on the other, drawing them back until Daegan took over both of them, making him clasp his opposite elbows, boxing his arms behind him. Then Daegan began to wrap him with Anwyn's sash, starting at one wrist and working across until it reached the other, binding his forearms together at the center of his back.

A deep shudder started somewhere in his knees, rammed up through his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and lower belly, accelerating his heart. Always before, when one or both of them had tried to dominate him, the internal struggle had been one of resistance. This moment, the willing surrender, was far fiercer than that, and it shook him to his foundations, the overwhelming, paralyzing power of it. It was something close to divine bliss, a tranquility painful in its truth, tearing him away from the violence and turmoil with which he'd framed his life. It put him somewhere where he floated, unsure of anything, having to trust them both in a way he'd never trusted anyone, not even himself.

He remembered that night long ago, when he and Jacob had shared Lyssa. It had taken him a while to recognize the key difference in dealing with his two Dominant vampires. The one being shared between the twosome of their particular threesome wasn't Anwyn, but him. Like everything else, it had been initially hard to accept, but now, letting go, it overwhelmed him to be so desired by the two of them, rendering him helpless, mindless. He wanted to feed them both, wanted that light-headed feeling of giving his blood to them, and how crazy was that? He wanted the different feel of their hands, Daegan's stronger, broader grip, Anwyn's slim fingers, her polished nails digging into his flesh.

A long time ago, a much younger, far more innocent version of himself thought he'd be saying forever to the woman he asked to be his wife. Yet when Anwyn had put him in her collar, the one he'd left behind and yet wanted to wear again, he remembered wondering if that was what marriage felt like, that commitment to forever. He thought it was. To both of them.

Anwyn sucked in a breath, overtaken by his thoughts as much as by the sensual hunger he was exercising on her nipple. While Daegan was binding him, Gideon hadn't let up, leaving a trail of wet heat as he switched to the other one. She made a soft moan on his first contact with each of them, acknowledging how very much she'd missed his mouth, his body, those callused hands. She ran her hands over the broad shoulders, now taut with his arms drawn back in restraints.

Opening the windows of her mind wide so Daegan could feel everything their servant was feeling, see what images were flas.h.i.+ng through his mind, she knew from the emotion in Daegan's eyes that this was a defining moment for him as well. He'd understood it, and so had she, though she'd let her worries blind her. This was the link they needed to fully belong to each other, what they'd always needed. Three tears of blood, forever marked on Gideon, proved it.

”Second mark, vampire hunter,” Daegan breathed against his flesh, hearing her desire and answering it. His hands came around, curled in the front of Gideon's s.h.i.+rt. With an ironic flash in his dark eyes, he ripped it free like paper, taking it behind the vampire hunter and down his arms so it added to the bindings on him, baring those beautiful shoulders, the wide, scarred chest that bore her mark. Daegan brought his mouth to Gideon's throat as Anwyn held Gideon's head to her breast, her hips pressing urgently closer to his body. Both of them could smell her arousal, hot and needy. Under the press of her leg, Gideon's c.o.c.k was enormous against the jeans, struggling for escape. When Daegan pressed his own erection against the vampire hunter's muscular a.s.s, there was a flex of acknowledgment, of apprehension and pure l.u.s.t, that seared through Anwyn's awareness, because Daegan's mind was open to her as well. A trinity in truth.

As Daegan's fangs sank in, he exulted in Gideon's guttural response, an animal cry he made against Anwyn's generous curves. Her servant bit her in reaction, marking her breast with a red imprint of his teeth. Her hand tightened on his hair as Daegan released the serum that would give him direct access to Gideon's mind, no longer only through the lovely conduit of Anwyn's. It unfolded inside Daegan like a gift, two entwined sets of thoughts of l.u.s.t and longing, of sanctuary and need.

It was a welcoming circle, giving him a sense of home he'd never realized he needed until he felt it now. One touch and he knew he'd never want to be without it, that he would defend both of them with every deadly skill and vulnerable emotion he had to keep them safe and bound to his heart.

Sliding his mouth free, he turned Gideon's head again, capturing his lips to make him taste his own blood and the residual of that serum, and spoke for the first time, mind to mind. It's time to pleasure your Mistress, vampire hunter. Then we'll finish it, make sure you both belong to me. It's time to pleasure your Mistress, vampire hunter. Then we'll finish it, make sure you both belong to me.

Gideon opened his eyes, the first time he'd ever dared to do it while their mouths were so intimately involved. Daegan saw that warrior's response in their depths that stirred and drew him at once. As you belong to both of us. Ours to protect as well. As you belong to both of us. Ours to protect as well.

It was a startling challenge and offer at once. At Anwyn's soft, determined agreement, Daegan realized his life was likely to change in ways he had not antic.i.p.ated. But he'd lived on the unpredictable edge of violence; he wouldn't mind indulging the unpredictable edges of love, freely given.

He gave Gideon another hard kiss to remind him who was in charge, his hand tightening over the marks on his throat. I think we'll need another collar, Anwyn. One with a bit more bite to it, to keep our servant aware of who he answers to. I think we'll need another collar, Anwyn. One with a bit more bite to it, to keep our servant aware of who he answers to.

She gave them both that mysterious female smile she did so well. Her thoughts, though open to them, tumbled like the mystery of clouds and rain, suns.h.i.+ne and rainbows, perfect, simple and yet too beautifully complex to ever unravel. Reaching down, she unbuckled Gideon's belt, slid it free, then brought the tongue up in a caress over his nipples that had his muscles tensing all along Daegan's torso where their bodies touched. She wound the belt around Gideon's throat, threaded it, drew up the slack and then began to tug, making it clear she wanted him to follow her.

”You can get to your feet, Gideon,” she said, in that sultry voice that could coax a man's c.o.c.k to jet with the velvet caress alone. ”I don't need a man to walk on his knees to prove I own him.”

With a wry smile, Gideon rose, though Daegan knew the man's usually strong thighs were trembling. It moved his heart and got him harder at once, so that he rose with him, putting a steadying hand low on his hip, his thumb caressing his b.u.t.tock. He's overdressed, He's overdressed, cher cher.

So he is. Would you take care of that for me?

Daegan knew that Gideon was offering him their trust, but he also understood the instincts of a street fighter, as Gideon had been for so long. Therefore, he moved that rea.s.suring hand to his shoulder, drawing his eye to what he was doing before he did it. His switchblade flipped out in his hand, and with swift, light pressure, he cut through the side of the denim, moving from the waist down to his ankle, letting the tip touch the flesh so there was a faint sting that Gideon registered, the edge of danger. Then Daegan moved to the other side and pulled the now-ruined jeans away from the snug briefs beneath. The thin fabric was straining, unable to contain his c.o.c.k, the crotch showing dampness where he'd already spilled some of himself there.

”You know, clothes don't have to be ripped or cut off.” Gideon spoke offhandedly, though there was a crack in his voice. ”Most people don't buy new wardrobes every time they have s.e.x.”

”You have stayed away from me for months,” Anwyn noted, that steely glint coming to her eye that Gideon recognized. His c.o.c.k jumped in immediate response, even as his fingers dug into his forearms under the wraps of the robe sash. Daegan closed his own hand over them, enjoying the taut resistance, as well as the tone of Anwyn's voice and Gideon's reaction to her words.

”I'm exacting a biblical retribution,” she continued. ”For the next forty days and forty nights, when you're in these rooms, you'll wear no clothes at all. My punishment, and my pleasure, as well as Daegan's.” Her fingers trailed down Gideon's chest, across to the nipple, her nails sc.r.a.ping hard enough he sucked in a breath, a response that Daegan felt in his own t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. G.o.d, he loved to watch her work. And he loved watching Gideon surrender to it, all that fierce pa.s.sion rising up to meet her, fire for fire. ”We'll have the joy of seeing your beautiful body from any angle we wish, and you'll be readily accessible whenever either one of us wishes to f.u.c.k you. Or enjoy your response when we f.u.c.k one another and force you to do nothing but watch.”

Anwyn went to her toes, sliding her body oh-so-lightly against his almost bare one, her thighs playing with the hard organ beneath the briefs. Gideon made a low, needy growl in his throat, trying to surge forward, and found himself unable to do so. Daegan had moved his grip to Gideon's biceps, antic.i.p.ating him.

”You have put me through h.e.l.l, Gideon Green. You deserve the punishment. But it's not only about that.” Her touch gentled unexpectedly, tracing the line of his face, and Daegan watched the way her eyes and mouth softened. Could Gideon see the sheer adoration in her eyes, how she wanted to cherish him, torment him, love him beyond all sense and reason?

”I see in your mind how badly you want to surrender to us, and tonight you'll do that. But tomorrow, you'll resist, because that's your way, because you're a long way from healing, trusting us completely and giving up your anger. So for those forty days, you will be brought to climax, over and over. You'll wear a plug and a c.o.c.k harness more often than not. You will do things for me and Daegan that you've never contemplated, that you would have refused without a second thought. I am going to train you to surrender to our pleasure, in whatever form we wish it. And when I'm done, you may find yourself begging for forty more days of the same punishments.”

She stretched up on her toes, brushed his mouth, wouldn't let him have more than that brief taste. He seemed frozen by her words, however, held in a stasis of apprehension and antic.i.p.ation. ”Somewhere along the way, you'll learn that letting yourself completely go like that will take you to a place of perfect balance. Where wounds will heal, where pain will no longer be feared. Where you will never doubt my love or Daegan's, or your own capacity to return it in full measure.”

She was a sorceress, and every word wove its magic. Not just around Gideon. It wove around all three of them as she backed up another step, the robe still open to show the firm quiver of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the jut of her aroused nipples, well suckled by Gideon's mouth so the damp imprint remained. Her hand was wrapped in the belt collaring him. Perfect to her desires, and to Gideon's, the vampire hunter didn't immediately come when she started to pull. He forced her to give it a sharp tug, drawing it tighter around his throat so that he resisted her as they moved forward.