| |
“YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT it...him?”
Tatiana turned from the patio doors of her penthouse condo to consider the male sprawled on her custom-made, white leather sofa.
The tailor-made blue sweats he wore complimented his coloring. The product of an interracial union, his café au lait skin tone provided a startling contrast to what her friend Dacoda called his “make me come early and often” blue eyes. His silky dark hair, worn short in a vain effort to curb its tendency to curl, provided a perfect frame for what Tatiana fondly thought of as one of the most attractive faces she’d seen in a lifetime that spanned well over three hundred years.
Although she and her twin were close, as only vampire twins who had shared centuries of each other’s good and bad times could be, sometimes, like now, she felt the need for some personal space. Noting the look of concern on Drei’s face, she bit back the urge to ask him to leave her alone with her thoughts. Besides, if she were going to meddle in his love life, she could hardly tell him to butt out of hers.
She thought of the fem with whom he had been intermittently keeping company for some thirty years. Within the last five years or so, both she and Drei had been getting serious. Damn if she’d sit back and watch while the scheming she-devil who called herself Veelee sank her claws permanently into her little brother. After her talk with Katie, she knew she had to find a way to permanently separate him from Veelee. So, despite what their older brother Aleksei said about allowing Drei to choose his own woman, she was definitely going to meddle.
Besides, if Drei left, he might be inclined to go in search of Mike “Tim” Timbersmith, the former lover he held responsible for Tat’s present unhappiness. Former lover? Her pussy pulsed as she recalled the hours they’d spent together...less than a week earlier. He’d arrived unannounced with flowers and pleas for forgiveness for having left her when she confessed she was not human.
She supposed she’d been a fool to allow him to touch her...especially since she suspected Timbersmith was no longer fully human. She frowned, recalling the unique tattoo that now adorned his shaved groin. It was a tattoo that had enraged the overprotective brother stretched out on her sofa. He hated Tim for hurting her. What would he think or feel if he knew of her brief but sexually explosive interlude with Eric Jason? As a rogue vampire hunter, he was a legendary enemy of her species. Yet she had allowed him to fuck her twice and had been unable to banish wistful, lustful thoughts of him from her mind since she’d fled from him.
She was torn between a male who she suspected was no longer fully human and one who hunted her kind. And if Katie were right, one of them would prove to be dangerous. But which one?
“Tat?”
She shook her head, turning her thoughts back to Drei. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look like it.”
She smiled. “Well, I am. I just need some time to adjust to all that’s going on in the family.”
“It’s that damned Timbersmith, isn’t it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about Tim or anything else to do with me.” She tilted her head. “I want to talk about you.”
She hid a smile as he stiffened and bolted into a sitting position, a wary look in his eyes. “Me? What about me? I’m fine. There’s nothing to discuss.”
“I’m delighted to hear you’re fine.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Why? We’re twins. Remember?”
“Vaguely. So what’s your point?”
She laughed. “You are entirely too suspicious, Andrei.”
He shrugged. “What do you expect from a vampire?”
Moving across her living room floor, she sat next to him on the sofa, slipping her arm through his. “I need a favor that only you can do for me. Will you do it?”
He pulled away from her and rose to his feet. She watched him stalk over to the patio doors, tension clear in every step he took. He turned to face her, his long, dark lashes sweeping down to conceal the look in his blue eyes. “That rather depends on what you want, doesn’t it?”
“It’s nothing of any great consequence.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. What’s the favor?”
She shrugged. “A friend of mine has a very important engagement coming up and she needs an escort—”
“No!” He shook his head, leveling a pointed finger in her direction. “And no again, Tatiana.”
She arched a brow. “You haven’t allowed me to finish.”
“I don’t need to. I can tell you right now that I am not escorting your plain-Jane friend anywhere. So don’t waste your time or mine finishing.”
“By refusing to meet Coda, you are missing out on a woman I know could be the best thing that ever happened to you!”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll be the one who decides what’s best for me. And I can tell you here and now, that is not your plain—”
She sucked in an angry breath. “That’s enough with the plain-Jane comments, Andrei! If I thought for one moment that you meant to be unkind, I’d backhand some manners into you.”
He bared his incisors. “Since when do you duck the truth, Tat?”
“It’s not the truth!”
“Then why the hell can’t she get her own date?”
For all his charm and innate kindness, Drei was still stuck on looks. Why else would he refuse to meet Dacoda while jumping to do the bidding of the bony, flat-assed, titless Veelee? “Okay, so she’s not supermodel gorgeous, but then most women aren’t. That doesn’t make them any less desirable or worthy of love and affection.”
“Worthy of whose love? Whose affection?” His gaze narrowed. “No matter how much you go out of your way to imply I’m fickle because I like pretty women, I will not be shamed into dating your friend. If she can’t land her own dates, let her hire a professional escort. With the overblown salary you pay her, she should be able to afford it.”
She tightened her lips. “Andrei, you are being totally impossible! Dacoda is executive editor of two of my most popular magazines. Do you know how much work that job demands of her? Do you know how much of herself and her time she pours into each and every issue? She earns every penny I pay her.”
“Then let her use some of her well-earned salary to get herself a date for her damned reunion!”
She tossed her head, sending her hair cascading around her shoulders. “It’s not as if I’m asking you to become her lover.”
“Not yet, you’re not,” he shot back. “But I know you. If I give in and agree to escort her, the next thing I know, you’ll be tossing her in my face every chance you get. And I am not having that, Tatiana. I will pick my own woman.”
“I’ve given up trying to get you to stop judging women by their looks, Andrei. I’m not asking anything except that you help the person who helped me when I needed the understanding and comfort only a woman can provide. You were there for me when Tim and I broke up and I love you for that, but having never had your heart broken, you couldn’t understand my pain. Even if you had...women feel things differently than men do. She crawled into my pit of despair with me and lessened my hurt by assuming some of it herself. Even in hundreds of years, friendship that deep happens rarely and needs to be cherished.”
She paused, taking a moment to overcome a wave of pain at the memory of being rejected by her lover of three years when she confessed that instead of being a wealthy thirty-something publishing magnet, she was an over-three-hundred-year-old full-blood vampire. Despite Tim’s recent pleas for forgiveness, she was uncertain if she was prepared to entrust her heart to him again. Even if she did, the sweet memory of her encounter several weeks earlier with Eric Jason taunted and teased her. How could she want them both at the same time?
“So she’s a great friend, why does that follow that I have to accompany her anywhere?”
Andrei’s brusque question interrupted her morose thoughts. She blinked. “From the moment I told Coda what I was, she accepted me. Of course she was surprised...” She shrugged. “Shocked and a little disbelieving, but never disgusted. She fully accepts me. When I needed her, she was there for me. How can I not try to return the favor and help her? If you knew how much grief that family of hers gives her, you’d understand why she can’t show up without a handsome man on her arm.”
“If her family treats her badly, then she’s better off telling them to fuck off and washing her hands of them. Why should she go out of her way to give herself grief by trying to placate a bunch of idiots?”
“Because they are her family! You, of all vampires, know the importance of family. Remember how miserable we both were when we were trying to deny who we really were because that meant distancing ourselves from Sei and Vlad?
“When all is said and done, family is all there is. It doesn’t matter if you are vampire or human, it all comes down to the importance of family.”
“Really?” He gave her a long, probing look.
She steeled herself, certain he was going to come back at her with a question she’d find difficult to answer. “Yes,” she said slowly, only just resisting the urge to probe his thoughts.
“Then why didn’t you forgive Mother at the celebration of the birth of Sei’s daughters?”
The question, totally unexpected, caused her to suck in a quick, painful breath. Days earlier, she and Drei, along with the rest of the family and close friends, had gathered at Aleksei’s mansion to celebrate the birth of his twin daughters Pali and Lexi.
Because those with vampire blood, whether full, half-blood or latent, rarely had the privilege of having children, each birth was a cause for great celebration. All available family and friends gathered to watch the birthing. Afterwards, those gathered engaged in a sexual fest that her younger siblings quaintly called a family fuck fest. Each person attending usually had the pleasure of fucking and ingesting the blood of their own partner as well as that of their siblings’ bloodlusts.
Although the thought of fucking her younger sister Katie’s bloodlust Mark and maybe Vlad’s bloodlust Adam had intrigued Tat, she had been in too much turmoil to remain for the sexual festivities. She had recently learned her belief that her mother had deserted them, held for well over three hundred years, had been incorrect.
She gave Drei a cold look. “What’s the matter, Drei, annoyed because you couldn’t stay and fuck Erica and Derri until they walked bowlegged for weeks?” The women were the bloodlusts of their younger siblings, Mikhel and Serge Dumont. Both baby vamps were fortunate enough to have a human latent father, Matthew Dumont, who showered them with all the love and protection that Tat, Drei, Aleksei and his twin Vlad had been denied when their father had been murdered some three hundred and fifty plus years earlier.
The annoyance in Andrei’s blue eyes vanished. A lecherous smile touched his handsome face as he reached down to fondle the outline of his cock lying along the inside of one leg. “Erica is a pretty, fertile young blonde honey. She got pregnant almost immediately after Mikhel fucked her for the first time.” His smile widened. “Derri doesn’t appear nearly as fertile, but damn, she’s a hot vixen. No wonder Mikhel is halfway in love with her.”
She frowned. “Mikhel is in bloodlust with Erica.”
He shrugged. “Did I say he wasn’t?”
“Then what are you implying?”
“Hey, you’re old enough to know that love and bloodlust are not the same creature, Tat. He’s in bloodlust with Erica, but I’ll be damned if he’s not more than a little in love with Derri. Didn’t you see the way he looked at her, as if he could eat her up? I’ll bet he’s fucked her almost as much as Serge has. You can just look at her and know she has some delicious pussy. Little brother Serge has a hot mama in his Derri.”
“And Dani?” She asked, thinking of Aleksei’s bloodlust.
“Oh, I won’t neglect her. Vlad tells me she’s a sweet fuck.”
“And Adam?” Adam was Vlad’s bloodlust.
He gave her an annoyed look. “I don’t do men, but you haven’t answered my question. If family is so important, why didn’t you forgive Mother?”
Her lips quivered. “I should have. She didn’t abandon us.” She sighed. “But after allowing myself to almost hate her for so long...it’s difficult to feel anything...real for her.”
“It wouldn’t be if you hadn’t left so quickly.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “She looked so small and so...hopelessly sad after you left...and since she didn’t actually abandon us, there’s no reason to prolong her agony. Is there?”
“No.”
“So I think I’ll go see her...soon.”
She studied him in silence. Several months earlier when Vlad had wanted to kill Palea Dumont, their mother, Tat had been hard-pressed to get Andrei to agree to accompany her on a search for Vlad to try to dissuade him from killing her. “What brings on this change in attitude?”
“She touched me and cried when she asked me to stay and allow her to hug me. She called me her little Andrei...” He swallowed several times, raking both hands through his hair. “That’s what she used to call me. When she looked into my eyes...I remembered how safe and loved I felt with her and Father...when we were all together as a family. That’s a feeling I haven’t felt in a very long time.”
He sighed, staring at her. “Do you remember those times, Tat?”
She swallowed hard to dislodge a lump as she recalled sitting on her father’s lap as he held her and told her how lucky he was to have such a pretty little girl. A memory of her mother tucking her in and kissing her cheek and telling her daddy would be in to say good night to his “treasure” made breathing difficult. “Yes,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes. “I remember Father...and I miss him so much—even after all this time.”
He nodded. “As do I. I think we’re always going to miss him, Tat.”
The thought of the hurt and anguish she’d felt at losing her beloved father and mother in one night never abating filled her with dismay. The only time in her life when she had come close to being happy and not dwelling on her loss had been the three years she’d spent in love with Tim.
“Yes, I suppose we will.”
“We have our memories, bittersweet though they are.” He closed his eyes briefly. “He’s lost to us forever—but she’s not. We can recapture part of what we lost.”
“Can we? Can we really go back?”
He nodded. “I think so. When she touched me, I felt like a little lost boy—her lost little boy, her Andrei.”
She crossed the room and embraced him. “Then do what you need to do, Andrei. Meet her...get to know her again.”
“What about you? You need to resolve your issues with her as well.”
“I know, and I will.”
“How and when?”
“I’ll meet with her soon. I just need a little more time to adjust.”
He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face against her hair. “It’s been so long since I felt that way...so helpless and needy. She’s so small and fragile-looking and yet...I always felt safe with her around.”
As had they all. Even before they realized their mother was a full-blood vampire, they had known there was a wealth of power invested in her diminutive frame. Tat eased away and stroked his cheek. “Then make peace with her...after you accompany Coda to her family reunion.”
He narrowed his gaze. “I haven’t said I would.”
She stroked his cheek again. “But you will do this one thing for me. Yes?”
He blinked. “You sound like her when you do that.”
“Like who when I do what?”
“When you say yes like that...Mother used to do that all the time.”
“Did she?” She shrugged. “Perhaps I’m like her in ways I hadn’t imagined.”
He tilted his head. “You look like her. Granted, your skin is darker and your eyes are blue and you’re much taller...but your features are like hers—especially now that your hair is long.”
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be like their mother. She crossed the room to the patio doors. “So you’ll go with Coda?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “I’ve heard from Veelee.”
Damn, why wouldn’t the bitch leave him alone? “And?”
“She’s on her way home.”
She turned to stare out onto the patio. “Is she?” She’d hoped the other fem would like Paris so much she’d want to stay there—permanently.
“Yes.”
“Look, Drei, you and Veelee have been dancing around each other for what...at least thirty years? She can spare you for a few days.”
“I’m not about to be off playing with your...friend when I could be playing another type of game with Veelee.”
“Andrei! Please. Do this one thing for me.”
She heard him sigh. “Damn it, Tat, one of these days I’m going to stop allowing you to wind me around your fingers.”
Turning to face him, she smiled slightly. “If she wasn’t such a great friend, I wouldn’t ask this of you, Andrei.”
He sighed again. “Fine. I’ll go, but you’d better warn her not to expect me to behave like a happy little camper. And I am not sleeping with her. If she’s hoping for a fuck, she’s going to be disappointed.”
She frowned. “For God’s sake, Andrei, not every woman you meet wants to have her pussy stretched out of shape by that monster you call a cock!”
He grinned. “Yeah? Well, I’ve never had any complaints. Screams of absolute bliss and sobs for me not to stop? Yes. But never a single complaint.”
Recalling the bemused look on Coda’s face the first time she saw Andrei’s picture on her desk, Tat sighed. “That being the case, what would it hurt?”
“What would what hurt?”
“Your giving her a quick fuck or two?”
His eyes glowed and he bared his incisors, his nostrils flaring. “Hell, no, Tat! I’ll accompany her and I will pretend to be her man, but heaven and hell will dissolve before I’m reduced to fucking her.”
She tightened her lips. “Oh, Drei, I know she’s not a beauty in the traditional sense, but she’s a sweet, beautiful person who deserves a little happiness. If you’re going to reinforce her family’s jabs about her lack of traditional beauty, do me a favor and don’t go!”
He gave her a cool look.
She stared back. “I mean it, Drei. Her friendship means too much to me for you to go and only succeed in hurting her. I will not have that. Is that clear?”
He threw up his hands. “Fine. I’ll do her proud in front of her family, but I will not be sharing a room with her. Forget fucking her. Take it or leave it, Tat.”
Dacoda was a warm, sweet woman with a case of the big-time hots for Drei. Like most vampires, he was horny as hell. She was confident that if he and Coda were alone long enough, nature would take its course. She smiled. “I’ll take it, Andrei.”
“Why are you smiling like that? What are you plotting?”
“When have I ever plotted against you?”
“I know that smile, Tat.”
She dismissed his concern with a wave of her hand. “Stop being so paranoid.”
His blue gaze caught and held hers. “While I’m gone...you’ll be all right? I mean, if you need to talk to someone and I’m not here...”
“I’ll talk to Sei.”
“Sei’s away.”
“They do have telephones in Arizona, Drei. I’ll be fine.”
“If Timbersmith comes around again—”
“I can handle him.” She crossed the room to slip her hand through his arm. “Now let’s talk about our plan to do Coda proud.”
He groaned. “Must we?”
She laughed and pressed a kiss against his cheek. “I’ll owe you for this, Andrei.”
“Damn straight, you will.”