“I would’ve called out a warning, but it was more fun watching them surprise you again.” Grace was smiling widely as she came outside, sat on the edge of the pool and slipped her bare feet into the cool water.
“Great. Now you’re siding with them. Caitlin still at the hospital?”
“Yes, but she promised she’d return before dusk and I believed her. She’s still pretty shook up over her friend’s attack.” Grace could sympathize with the guilt portrayed on Caitlin’s face when she told them what happened this morning after returning from the hospital. She had been brief, her face etched with weariness as she went upstairs to sleep for a few hours before returning to the hospital. Even though things were great between her and Jacob, she still had bad moments over how close she had come to losing him. She hoped Caitlin didn’t make the same mistake she had by ignoring her growing feelings for Jon and Luc instead of dealing with them before it was too late.
“I wish she would’ve let us go with her, for moral support if nothing else.”
“I think she’s still struggling with not only Bobby’s close call, but what to do about her connection to the twins. I can sympathize with her on that score.” Rubbing her neck, Grace shuddered as she recalled the pleasure of Jacob’s bite, the ecstasy of mating with him and how her own stubbornness had almost made her miss out on those experiences.
“What’s it like?” Abby asked wistfully, trying desperately not to be jealous of her new friend’s happiness.
“The whole bite me, suck my blood thing? Awesome.” Seeing Abby’s crestfallen look, Grace added, “Don’t give up, Abby. We’ve all seen the way Damien is with you. There’s no doubt he wants you.”
“Not bad enough. I don’t suppose Jacob knows why he’s holding back?” Abby wrapped her arm around Micah’s neck as he settled next to her on the pool steps, his lip curling in a snarl when Tasha tried to join them. “Quit being a bully, Micah,” Abby admonished him then patted the spot on her other side for Tasha.
Smiling at the way the cats vied for Abby’s attention, Grace said, “No, he swears Damien has always been closed mouthed about his time with Isabelle and what happened that sent him fleeing away from her.”
Whatever it was, obviously Damien thought she couldn’t handle it, or maybe it was he who was still having trouble coping with whatever he had done. Regardless, she hadn’t held out much hope for their future until this morning. Now, she was not only looking forward to seeing some of her new friends again, but she was hoping Damien’s plans included taking that final step with her.
Caitlin made it back to the plantation a good hour before dusk, feeling much better about Bobby’s condition. This morning she had followed the ambulance in her car, still too afraid for him to hope for a full recovery. But this afternoon he had looked much better, his color normal, the bruising and swelling on his face already healing as was the now small wound on his neck. The biggest relief was his belief that he was mugged and that Jon and Luc had already left when she heard the gunshot and had run downstairs in time to see the back of a hooded man fleeing down the alley. The police had also believed her story, much to her relief, even though she knew there was no evidence to the contrary.
“How is he?” Abby asked as they came in from the pool just as Caitlin was about to come outside.
Caitlin blinked, swearing she could see a tiger’s tail before it disappeared into the trees at the edge of the lawn. “He’s going to be fine,” she answered, thinking her short three hour nap before heading back to the hospital hadn’t been nearly long enough. “I told him I’m closing the bar this week to give him time to recover. Truth is I’m hoping these guys will have neutralized this threat by next week. I’m not going to endanger my friends or any of my patrons, but I’m also not going to give up my livelihood. Somebody better do something, and quick,” she stated with a scowl.
“I’m pretty sure that’s what the big meeting’s about next weekend,” Grace told her. She too was ready for the threat of more attacks to be over.
While Abby agreed she was more than ready for the guys to band together and rid them all of these rogues as well as their maker, she was also hoping Damien will seal their bond that night.
Caitlin spent the next hour fixing something to eat with Abby and Grace, enjoying her time with them as well as the chance to get to know them better. They compared their sexual experiences with the guys, Caitlin and Abby getting a kick out of how easy it was to make Grace blush. Both women wanted a firsthand account of what it was like being with two men, and much to Caitlin’s chagrin, she found herself wanting to relive that experience as she told them. Since meeting Jon and Luc, she hadn’t spent time on the futile effort of denying the attraction, but until she was ready to give them the commitment they wanted, she wasn’t going to have sex with them again. Of course, if they kept coming up with creative, inventive ways to get her off, like driving her into sexual orbit with an old fashioned, over the knee spanking, she could put off making that decision indefinitely.
“Uh oh, what’re you thinking?” Abby asked with a grin as she scooped up her last bite of pasta. From the glazed look that just came over Caitlin’s face, Abby suspected she was thinking of the twins.
“How much fun a little discipline can be.” Caitlin wanted to surprise them, but from the knowing smirks on her friend’s faces, she guessed they already had firsthand knowledge of what she was talking about. Raising a brow, she questioned, “You too?”
With another vivid blush, Grace admitted with a side look toward Abby, “My first time was in front of Abby and Damien, after watching them.”
Abby’s cheeky grin was accompanied with the obvious shifting on her chair as she told them, “Last night, with the wood side of my hairbrush.”
“Ouch.” Caitlin could only imagine what that would feel like, her imagination good enough to have her squirming in both sympathy and arousal.
“Yeah,” Grace sighed dreamily.
The three of them giggled like teenagers before Abby admitted, “It would’ve been awesome if Damien had allowed me to come. The jerk actually said I didn’t deserve an orgasm for blatantly going against his orders. If I didn’t love him so much, I’d resent him for that. As it is, the next time he touches me, I know I’m going to explode right then and there.”
“We’ll put that to the test shortly,” Damien said as he entered the kitchen, the sound of the three women laughing drawing him downstairs before the others had even woken. “How is your friend, Caitlin?”
“He’s going to be okay.” Standing, Caitlin put her plate in the dishwasher before excusing herself. “I think I’ll go upstairs and read some more of that book Abby gave me.”
Damien raised a dark brow, giving her a knowing look, but it was Grace who bravely said, “Take it from me, Caitlin, avoiding them won’t work.”
“It’ll have to for now.” She didn’t mean to snap at her, but Caitlin wasn’t going to be pushed into anything permanent, especially something as life altering as mating with two vampires.
She managed to get to the room they had given her without seeing Jon or Luc and spent the next ninety minutes reading the Book of the Crescent Cr
eed that held a wealth of information. Unfortunately, it gave her more than she wanted to think about, like how she would stay almost thirty as long as she was sexually involved with her mates, how taking her blood would enable them to achieve their full strength instead of just ramping it up like sex with another would and how their bond would only grow stronger as time progressed. Tossing it aside, she paced the large, more than comfortable room, unsure of what to do with herself or her growing feelings for both brothers. Apparently, avoiding Jon and Luc didn’t appease her body as her edginess made her feel as if she was going to come right out of her skin. She hated this out of control feeling, hated the way her life has been tossed into turmoil, and simply didn’t know what to do with these slowly emerging feelings she had never expected, or wanted, to feel for anyone.
Looking at the clock, she saw it was after ten. She was a night person, used to sleeping all day and working all night. Sundays were her only days off, so she didn’t change her schedule, and even though she only had three hours sleep today, she wasn’t ready to call it a night. Plenty of time had passed for Jon and Luc to have given up on her making an appearance downstairs and, hopefully, had left to search for any more of those creepy looking feral beings. Descending the stairs, she heard laughter and splashing coming from outside and thought joining the others for a nighttime swim might help clear her head of the cobwebs filling it.