The corridor was quiet and dark except for the red glow of emergency lights. The guards had switched off normal illumination already. Ahead, the gallery was lit by small spotlights that shone on the displays, but the main gallery lights that bathed the big room in merciless white glare had all been doused. Nick moved ahead, Riley behind him. He had the vision that could see infrared beams and signals, not her, and had to take point.
Nevertheless, they moved fast, almost at a run. The timing was hurried by the sunset, which crowded too close on the heels of the closing of the gallery and the departure of the guards after their security shutdown round.
“Nothing,” Nick said softly as they emerged into the gallery proper. “For a display of rocks that no mortal can lift on their own, perhaps they feel nothing more sophisticated is warranted. He moved over to the flat black square lounge pad, picked it up in one hand and shifted it over to sit underneath the skylight. Then he stood on it and threaded his hands together.
Riley stepped onto the lounge, then onto his threaded hands, then onto his shoulders as Nicholas boosted her up to that level. He gripped her boots, holding her steady, as she examined the alarm wires the way Nick had taught her.
“The circuit is broken,” she told him. “Although you really have to look hard to see it.”
“Hurry,” he warned her.
She lifted the skylight. It was heavy and she strained to move the large pane, but she managed to hoist it high enough to reach over the lip and grab the duffel bag sitting next to the frame. She and Nicholas had placed it there earlier in the day.
As soon as she lowered the pane, Nicholas lowered her down to the pad. She dropped the duffel bag next to her and he opened the long zip, shoving the United Airlines tags out of the way with an impatient sound. Riley realized that this was Damian’s bag, the one he had brought with him from Greece. Her heart did a funny misstep, but she hurried. Nicholas had turned into the hard taskmaster. She could almost feel time ticking away in her own head.
He pulled out her sword first and handed it to her. The message was clear. Lirgon was the priority. He was about to wake.
She pulled the sword from the scabbard and hurried over to Lirgon. The gargoyle was still just a lump of rock to her eyes, crouched on a flat low stone pedestal, his clawed feet curled over the edges, his wings bent around him protectively while he snarled permanently as some unseen foe. The sculpture looked completely unchanged from the day she and Damian had studied it, and if she had not seen the creatures climbing from the skylight herself that night, she would have said this was just a lump of stone.
But something was beating in the air around her. Invisible, rushing past her skin like cool water or an electric charge, but neither of those things. It almost prickled.
Magic.
She bent into the primary ready posture, bringing her sword over her head, both hands on the hilt. She kept her eyes on Lirgon. There were five other gargoyles, but they were for Nicholas to keep at bay, and the threat to their leader would halt them at first.
“I’m here,” Nicholas said softly, from behind and just to her left, which was her unprotected side. “Keep watch. It’s about to begin.”
“I know,” she agreed. “I can feel it.”
“As soon as his eyes glow, he’s vulnerable,” Nicholas added.
She didn’t point out that he had told her this many times already. This was Nick’s way of worrying. She brought the sword farther overhead so that the point was in her range of vision, and directly lined up on Lirgon’s muzzle.
Her heart was hurting. She was shaking, but knew it would pass when she began to move. She was terrified, but knew that the terror would pass, too.
Then she saw it. Lirgon was changing right in front of her. If she tried to watch it happening she couldn’t see it. If she focused on any one part of him, nothing appeared to be moving, but if she looked over all, then she saw it. It was like watching a really big mound of snow during the spring thaw. You could watch it all day long and it didn’t seem to change at all, but in two days the mound would completely disappear under the heat of the spring sunshine. The stone-like quality of Lirgon’s hide was changing. Becoming more like leather.
When the creature’s wing moved, Riley snapped her gaze back to the gargoyle’s eyes. They were no longer stone. But they weren’t glowing yet.
Yet the wings were moving. The toes were stretching. The claws extending.
She gripped her sword with her sweaty hands as the eyes rolled in their sockets and the creature began to straighten up from his daytime hunch. Not until the eyes glow. It was Nick’s voice, from all the training sessions, calm in her mind. If you bury your sword in his brain before the tissues are converted properly from stone sleep, he won’t be vulnerable, and you won’t kill him. You’ll just piss him off, and you’ll break your blade, both very bad things.
“Nick!” she breathed softly, trying to contain her panic.
“Wait.” He was so calm.
Lirgon at full height had to stand at fifteen feet. How in hell was she even going to reach up to his head? Nick had overlooked that tiny detail. Full panic gripped her chest, locked her breathing. The creature was moving. Slowly, it was true. And so were the other five.
“You. A bloodsucking abomination and your meat-sack woman. You are not welcome here!” The cry came from her left.
Do not let anything distract you, Nick had warned her.
But she knew that voice, and knew who spoke with such venom. It could only be Azazel, come to protect his beasts, and he had a weapon that could kill Nick.
“Don’t turn around,” Nick told her flatly. Quickly. “Deal with Lirgon. He’s the greater threat.”
“Azazel will kill you just to get at me,” Riley cried.
“I will,” Azazel confirmed. “I will kill your other blood-sucking lover, you perverted bitch. He will die in agony at your feet.”
“Don’t look at him,” Nick said quickly. “He’s trying to provoke you.”
“No! You must not do this!” The thin voice came from behind them. From the stairs. Fábio Natan. She knew the voice even without turning. The beseeching quality was distinct.
She caught a glimpse of movement to her left, and turned her head just enough to spot it. Azazel, still looking like her father, was moving slowly into her range of vision. Closer to Lirgon.
Nick was tracking him. The tip of his broadsword came into her view, as well. Azazel wore a full-length raw brown leather coat that was scuffed and torn in places. Anything could be under it, including the gun that fired the concentrated gargoyle toxin pellets.
Natan rushed toward Azazel and actually stepped in front of Nick. “You can’t do this,” he told Azazel. “You can’t.”
Riley switched her attention back to Lirgon. The beast was stretching, the wings lifting out to their full span. Perhaps thirty feet across from tip to tip. Azazel stood inside that radius.
A sour stable smell washed over Riley as the wings beat back a little, fanning air in her direction. Beast smell. She studied the eyes. They were not glowing. There was no intelligence there yet. Lirgon was still waking. This was just rolling over and scratching himself as he got out of bed.
Natan wrung his hands as he stared at Azazel. “For god’s sake,” he said. “Where’s your sense of decency?”
Azazel threw his head back and laughed. “Little man, you have no idea what you’re dealing with.” He reached into his coat and pulled out the thick, ugly gun, the one that had killed Damian. Gargoyle toxin.
Only, he didn’t bring the gun to bear on Nicholas. Natan was in the way. Riley realized the barrel was swinging around to point at her, the real target of Azazel’s plans.
Time jumped out of its rails and slowed down to a crawl.
There was nowhere she could run that Azazel could not track her with the gun and shoot anyway—and Lirgon was right there and waking. He would kill her if Azazel did not manage to hit her first.
Lirgon. The gargoyle’s eyes were beginning to gleam as he reared back, stretching his wings, looking down at the dramatic tableau beneath him.
How much did Azazel want to protect his pets? How instinctive was it?
Riley recalled from the very first day she had trained with Nick the moment she had caught him off guard by jumping inside his defenses instead of farther away. The unexpected move from the smaller opponent using the stabbing sword.
She surged hard to her right, toward Lirgon, moving as fast as she could. She slapped her foot onto the creature’s bent thigh, using it as a stepping stone, then pushed herself upward with a hard thrust of her leg. She threw her left arm around Lirgon’s massive neck, hooking herself there.
Lirgon reared back even harder. His wings flapped forward and around in front of him protectively. It was instinctive, as he tried to grab at the woman clinging to his neck.
Azazel’s gargoyle toxin pellet struck Lirgon’s leathery wings and whined away harmlessly.
Riley had the katana in her right hand, down low, in a stabbing grip. She looked into Lirgon’s eye from about six inches away. There was intelligence there. And fear.
“Remember me?” she asked. She thrust the sword up under the muzzle, and kept pushing deeper, higher, until the hilt rammed home. Then she twisted.
Lirgon screamed. He staggered backward, flailing at her and the thing in his head, trying to reach her. But she pulled the sword out and dropped to the ground and let herself roll safely out of reach of the staggering monster.
She looked around for Nick.
Azazel stood with his gun to Nick’s chest. His face was writhing with fury. “I will have your flesh for my walls for this!” he screamed at her.
“Kiss my ass,” she told him.
Nick smiled.
Natan tugged at her arm. “The others! The others!” he wailed.
There was a crash and the musical notes of breaking glass as the other skylight was thrown aside. The five leaderless gargoyles were clambering out and taking off into the night air. “I cannot tackle more than one a night, Natan,” she told him. “I was lucky with Lirgon, as it was.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Nick said.
Lirgon lay still and silent on the gallery floor. Black, oily stuff oozed from his body. Gargoyle blood? Riley presumed so. She stared down at the creature, her heart pounding, listening to the sudden silence.
Her parents’ killer lay dead at her feet. She had achieved what her mother and father had been unable to do.
Her body began to shake. Riley looked at Nick. “It shouldn’t have been so easy.” Even her voice wobbled.
“It wasn’t,” he said flatly. “You don’t see it, do you?”
“See what?” She hugged herself, as cold seemed to seep into her bones. Ice shards were pricking her skin.
Nick’s eyes were that of the master swordsman. The hunter who had seen it all. “Your speed. Your agility.” He spoke with the flat tone of sincerity she had come to rely upon as the rock bottom truth. “You have inherited the greatest talents your parents could have given you, and tonight you used them all. I gave you the one advantage I could never give your mother, Riley. For the first time in the history of their species, I was able to give you the gargoyles’ nesting location. But you used it in a way she could never have.” He waved towards Lirgon. “Natalia would not have thought to move closer to her enemy. If she had, fear would have stopped her from executing the move.”
He dropped his hand and the corner of his mouth lifted. “Your courage is probably your greatest asset and I had nothing to do with that at all.”
Azazel made a noise in the back of his throat, a disgusted sound. “If you’re done with the hearts and flowers?”
Natan moved to Azazel. “Let them go. You have nothing left to punish them for.”
“Natan, shut up,” Riley said sharply.
“Yes, and exactly who helped them bypass security so this disaster happened, I wonder?” Azazel asked, studying Natan.
Natan swallowed and took a step back.
“I see you’ve had a change of heart, Natan,” Azazel said. “Fame and fortune no longer your cup of tea?”
“Not at the price you ask for it,” Natan told him, lifting his chin.
“Okay.” Azazel turned the gun on Natan and fired, and the little man went down clutching his gut.
At the same time, a dark shape dropped through the skylight above them, landing right behind Azazel. Azazel’s arm, the one holding the gun, was wrenched back. Azazel cried out, his whole body arching as the black tip of an oddly-shaped sword punched out through his chest from behind. The sword ripped upward in a series of jerks that tore the chest apart and lifted him completely off his feet.
Azazel didn’t burst apart in blood and guts as Riley thought he would. He began to scream like a man on fire, clutching at the sword point.
“Iron through the heart,” Nicholas said softly.
Then the demon disintegrated like a paper-stuffed effigy on a bonfire, soaked in gas. He went up in silent flames that burnt blue and green, until there was nothing left but bright images dancing on Riley’s retina, blurring her vision. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes.
Damian stood holding the ancient-looking sword, watching them both warily. He was in black. Black jeans, black sweater, black sneakers. He was very alive. “Yes, it’s me. I know it’s a shock. I can explain.”
Nicholas dropped his broadsword, took three steps forward and drove his hand in a short, sharp upper cut to Damian’s chin. It was a sucker-punch. The exact same one Riley had given Nick not so very long ago. It rocked Damian back on his feet and made him stagger.
Nick rubbed his knuckles and looked at Riley. “You’ve got something there. It does help,” he told her.
Damian was flexing his jaw with his free hand. “I suppose I deserve that.”
Nicholas rounded on him. “You can explain?” Fury was etching lines beside his mouth.
Riley wanted to keep listening, but couldn’t. She sank onto the lounge pad as her knees seemed to suddenly give out. Noise was beating at her. The world seemed to be rushing around her with too much noise and speed. She held up her hand to try to make it stop.
“You need food, and quickly. Why didn’t you say something? Damn it, Riley, you have to give me a chance to get used to these things again.” It was Nick. His arm around her. Trying to lift her to her feet. Trying to cope. Sounding worried.
But Damian was there, too. She could feel him. His hand on the back of her neck. She nearly wept at the touch. “I did this,” he said softly. “Let’s get her home.”
“Someone take care of Natan,” she whispered.
* * * * *
In the end they all took care of Natan’s body. Riley’s momentary shock passed. So did Nick’s fury, when he saw her back on her feet. Damian stowed his new iron sword in the duffel with Nick’s and Riley’s and they put the gallery back the way it was supposed to be. There was nothing they could do about the broken glass in the second skylight, so they left it as it had fallen, to make it look as much like an accident as possible. They worked in almost wordless concert, holding off any discussion of Damian’s reappearance until they were back at the apartment and safe once more.
They weighted Natan’s body and lowered it into the East River. With the gargoyle toxin spread throughout his system, his remains could not be left for human authorities to autopsy.
On the taxi ride home, Nick drew Riley into his arms. She went willingly and resting her head against his shoulder. He kissed her. “You did it,” he said. “Do you know how proud I am of you?”
“Are you playing games, Nick?” she asked softly. “Because Damian is here?”
He smiled. “I don’t have to, do I?”
She threw her arm around his neck. “No.”
But she caught him glancing at Damian.
Troubled, she found she couldn’t look at Damian directly herself.
It was a long, silent trip home after that.
* * * * *
Nicholas barely waited for the door to shut before rounding on Damian a second time. He grabbed two handfuls of Damian’s sweater and pulled him closer. “How dare you let us think you were dead? For five fucking days!”
Damian didn’t resist the manhandling. “For two of them, I pretty much was. When Azazel shot me, I thought it was the end, too.”
Nick stared at him, clearly trying to make sense of it. “Fuck!” he said finally, disgusted. He let Damian go and walked away, frustration pouring off him in waves.
Riley curled up on the couch, hugging her knees. Abruptly, with both of them in the room once more, she felt like the mortal in the middle again. The only one without an agenda. The Nick she had fallen in love with had gone. There was just the old Nick, squaring off with Damian.
Damian was the key. She looked up at him. He was watching her. “I told you to trust me, remember?”
“You planned this?” She sat up.
“Not this exactly, no. But it helped.” He came and sat on the sofa next to her. Not close enough to touch. But close enough that she felt small. She could remember being in his arms. Remember his cock sliding into her. His kisses.
“Damian, you don’t just get to just shrug off leaving us thinking you were dead for five days,” Nicholas said, his voice dangerously soft and calm.
Damian reached into his pocket and pulled out a small glass vial with a black plastic lid, about two inches high. It held a brown colored liquid. He tossed it to Nicholas. “Remember that? I found it in the casket with the house wards, when I was placing them on the windows and doors after Azazel made his appearance. When we went to see Natan that day, I took some.”
“What is it?” Riley asked.
“Gargoyle anti-toxin,” Damian told her.
Nicholas held up the bottle. “This has to be thirty, forty years old.”
“At least,” Damian agreed. “I didn’t know if it would work. It was sheer happenstance that I took it. We were heading into gargoyle territory and the last time we did that I got my guts ripped out, so I thought I’d try it. As it was, the anti-toxin is so old, it took two days to counter the poison.” He grimaced. “I had forgotten what it is like to be genuinely sick.”
“But you would have recovered at least three days ago,” Nick said, putting the bottle on the dining table. He still looked grim.
“Azazel was watching this apartment and every move you two made. Why would I ruin the one genuine advantage you had by letting you, and Azazel, know I was really alive?” Damian lifted his shoulders, a tiny shrug. “I was still weak and recovering, but even then I knew I would rather put you through a few more days of misery than show my hand to Azazel. It was a tactical advantage that won the game, Nick. We could not have killed Azazel otherwise.”
Nick shoved his hands into his pockets. Riley knew that look. He was upset. Damian was making sense, but Nick was hurting about this.
“You don’t understand, Damian,” she said softly. “It wasn’t just five days of misery he felt—”
“No, Riley,” Nick said shortly. “Don’t.”
Damian leaned forward. “The demon has been dogging your steps for nearly forty years. He’s had a hand in the killing of the people you loved the most.” He lifted a hand, a helpless little gesture. “I know the hurt I caused you. I, more than anyone…” He glanced at Riley. “Except maybe Riley, now. We know what you went through the last few days. But I thought it was worth it to rid the world—to rid you—of Azazel for once and for all. Christ, Nick, for all the people he’s killed—Peter, Carson, Tally and the others—”
“You,” Nick said hoarsely. “It wasn’t worth it if you were part of that price.” He moved toward Damian slowly, as if he were dragged there against his will. When he stood in front of Damian, he reached out with equal slowness to push his hand into Damian’s thick black hair. His hand clenched, gripping tight, and he bent and kissed him.
Damian groaned and his hand clawed the sofa.
Riley flinched. She had guessed her position correctly. She was the disposable mortal. Now Damian was back, Nick had forgotten her.
She made to rise from the couch, but Damian’s hand shot out and locked about her wrist. He broke the kiss and turned to look at her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Riley fought hard to keep her voice even. “You don’t need me,” she said politely.
Nicholas straightened. His eyes were sleepy. Aroused.
Damian’s thumb smoothed over her wrist. She hated that it made her nerves sizzle. “You and Nicholas are lovers now,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
She looked Nicholas in the eye. “Were.”
Nicholas swallowed. “Riley…”
“I don’t want pretty speeches, Nick,” she said tiredly, pulling her wrist from Damian’s grip. “I’ve had my fill the last few days. I don’t think I could stand another one.”
He pushed a hand through his hair. “No!” he said desperately. “That’s not what this is. Damian, for god’s sake, what game are you playing here? You’re pushing the pieces around and I don’t want to play anymore. Not if it means losing Riley.”
Damian’s face lit up. He surged to his feet and caught Nick’s face in his. “Say that again.”
Nick pushed him away. “You heard well enough.” He dropped to his knees on the floor in front of Riley. “I meant every word I’ve said, Riley,” he said gently. “I always do.”
Tears were burning her eyes. “But you love Damian,” she told him. “I saw the look on your face just then. Having him back now that you’ve lost him has taught you exactly what he means to you. You want him back, Nick.”
He sat back, silent.
The tears slid down her face. “You need to be with him,” she told him. “You always have.”
Nick groaned. “No.”
Damian put his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Wait, my lover. Just wait a moment,” he said softly.
Nick hung his head.
Damian turned to her. His black eyes were warm. She could drown in them. “You would give Nick up so I could have him, wouldn’t you?”
She nodded. “I’d only get to be with him for such a short time, anyway. Even if I lived an extraordinarily long time for a human, it would be over in a blink in your terms.”
Damian picked up her wrist again. “Do you remember that day when I said that I had to collect you first?” He kissed the inside of her wrist. His tongue slid along the inside of it.
Nick’s head jerked up. He was staring at Damian, his eyes narrowed as if his mind was racing. “You son of a bitch,” he breathed.
Riley looked at Nick. “Why? I remember the day, but I don’t…Nick?”
Nick was smiling. “’Trust me’ you said,” he told Damian. He got to his feet. “Oh, but this was a dangerous game to play, Spartan.” He grabbed Damian’s hair and kissed him. Hard. His knee came down between Damian’s thighs and pushed against his crotch and Damian spread his hand over Nick’s thigh.
Riley had no clue what “the game” was, but the sight of the two men kissing was doing interesting things to her innards. Her clitoris swelled and her pussy clenched. She pressed her thighs together, which put further pressure on her vulva.
Nick let Damian go and laughed. “I could kill you.”
“Thanks, but I’ve been dead once this decade already.” Damian’s hand hadn’t moved off Nick’s thigh. His fingers were stroking gently. Sensuously. Riley couldn’t tear her gaze off Damian’s hand.
Nicholas looked at her.
So did Damian. “She likes it,” he said softly. As before, it wasn’t a question.
Nicholas held out his hand to her. Riley took it, her heart thundering and he drew her closer to them both and kissed her. “Have you figured out Damian’s game yet, Riley?”
“I could guess, but why don’t you paint me the picture?” she asked. “You’re both as devious as original sin and I’m just a mere mortal.”
Damian chuckled. “There’s no ‘mere’ about you.” His hand smoothed its way up the back of her thigh, the hand that wasn’t caressing Nick’s. “I knew as soon as I saw you that I wanted you and not just a casual affair. Nick and I don’t indulge in them, especially not with humans. My reactions to you from the start told me I was in trouble, and everything that happened from then on confirmed it.”
His hand fluttered between her thighs, high up by the hem of her skirt. This was no casual touch. He was seducing her. Riley looked at Nick, but he was watching what Damian was doing. He wasn’t protesting.
With a rush, she understood the game. All of it. She bit back a moan, and let Damian continue to speak.
“I could see that Nicholas was reacting to you, too, and that his reaction was as powerful as mine. But I also knew that Nick would stifle his response. You are human, and you are Tally’s daughter. For both those reasons, he would kill off any feelings he had for you before they began to bloom.” Damian smiled. “When we realized that morning in the car that you wanted us both, my plan was born.”
“To ensure I got you both,” Riley concluded.
Damian stood up, dislodging Nick’s knee. Now both of them faced her.
“He had to make sure I learned to love you without destroying your love for him, or mine,” Nick said.
“The gargoyle bullet did it for me, although that’s not the way I would have chosen to do it,” Damian confessed. “My preferred way may have taken longer, but it would have been gentler and lots more fun.”
Nick brushed Riley’s hair from her temple. “I don’t know…we managed to have fun, didn’t we?” He winked.
Riley smiled, but it was a weak thing. She looked at Damian. “You manipulated us.”
Damian shook his head. “Just Nicholas, because he’s so stubborn he can’t always see happiness when it’s staring him in the face, or reach out and take it.”
“So you…claimed me first to make him jealous?”
“To make him see you as a desirable woman, not an animated object.”
Nicholas swore. “I could already see that in Pittsburgh. I’m not blind.”
“You saw her as a sex object, Nick. Not as someone you could love.” Damian spoke the words calmly. “You had to witness my love for her first before you could see the possibilities for yourself.”
Riley’s eyes widened in surprise.
“You didn’t tell her, did you?” Nick looked at Damian with something like disgust in his face. He wheeled away, and blew his breath out, looking at the ceiling. “The great strategist! He can’t even woo the woman properly!”
Damian sank to his knees in front of her. It put his head lower than hers. “Do you remember when I spoke of trust, Riley? When I said that saying the words were often harder than just giving the trust, unspoken?”
She nodded. “You said love was the same.”
Nick came up behind him. “He quite desperately loves you, Riley. He would lie on the bed next to you while you slept and bemoan his fate that he was not a man and could not marry you and give you children.” Nick grimaced. “It seems we’ve both been kissed by that muse.”
Damian’s gaze dropped from hers when she looked at him. “I couldn’t speak of it,” he said. “It was too new. Too strong.”
“It scared him,” Nicholas said softly. “Finally, after all this time, I got to see something that made the great Spartan afraid, and it was you.” He rested his hand on Damian’s shoulder. “Of course my eyes were opened, Riley. Of course I looked at you differently. Who would not? After two thousand years, Damian chooses you, of all humans, to love.” He looked down at Damian and back at her. “I see what Damian sees, now. Or perhaps not. Perhaps we love different things about you. I know I love you just as deeply as he does. Apparently that was his plan all along. Simple sex would have been too easy. Damian always plays at the high stakes table.”
Riley let out her breath. They were both looking at her.
“Does this mean, then, I get to keep you both?” she asked cautiously. “I really don’t have to choose?”
Damian grinned.
Nicholas’ smile made his eyes light up. He sat beside her on the sofa and brushed her hair back over her shoulder as she sank back down onto her heels. “The time I put the dildo in your pussy and I took you in the ass. You liked it, didn’t you?”
She glanced at Damian, her cheeks flaming. But Damian sat forward, his expression hungry. Intense.
Riley turned back to Nick and nodded.
“More than liked it, in fact,” he pressed.
She licked her lips. She had loved it.
Nick picked up her hand and kissed the knuckles. “Think about what it would be like if that were me and Damian in you, instead.”
White hot-ice cold excitement dropped over her like a blanket, whooshing through her from her toes to her hair, leaving prickling, sensitive nerve endings in its wake. She gasped, her genitals sizzling at the idea. Her pussy and ass both clenched involuntarily. A mental image flashed through her mind of Damian and Nick on either side of her, their cocks in her. Both of them.
She moaned.
Nick licked her palm. “Kiss Damian as you kiss me,” he murmured.
Damian lifted her down from the sofa. His black eyes looked into hers and now she knew what lay in his heart, it was hard to mistake the emotion in them. How could she have missed it before? Because these two were so good at protecting themselves, that was why. But they had let her in, now.
She settled her knees on either side of Damian’s hips, and her arms around his neck. “I love you,” she told him. “Even though you deserve to get kicked in the groin for letting me think you were dead for five days.”
“And she’d do it, too,” Nick added.
“My lover,” Damian told her, his hand curling around the back of her neck. He kissed her, and she pressed herself up against him. Even just knowing that Nicholas was watching was intoxicating and she moaned into Damian’s mouth. She pushed her tongue inside and felt his answering thrust. She ran her tongue along his teeth and felt the narrow, sharp points of his fangs, almost fully retracted. She stroked them and they extended a little.
Damian groaned, his hand at her neck sliding into her hair and clenching hard. He pushed her hips against him and the pressure of his hand spread her thighs and forced the denim skirt to ride up to the level of her hips. Her mons was crushed against his lower abs. The hard contact with his stomach made her clit pulse and she thrust her hips, rubbing herself against him. There was only her panties and the black sweater between them.
She brushed her tongue over his fangs again, and this time, Damian pulled her lips away from his. He was panting, his eyes glazed over with heavy sexual arousal. “Christos,” he whispered. He looked at Nick. “Take her.”
Nick’s hands came in around her waist and she was lifted and turned. Nick brought her against him. “Put your legs around me, instead,” he murmured.
“I thought you’d take the moment to strip, Nick. How unenterprising of you,” she chided him.
“When I can have the pleasure of you taking my clothes off me?” He smiled. “I want you half-crazed from kissing me and tearing my clothes off, like you nearly were earlier tonight.”
“Will you hush me like earlier tonight?”
“Please don’t,” Damian said.
Nicholas kissed her. His fangs were already extending and Riley stroked her tongue over the piercing ends. Like his cock, Nick’s fangs were longer while Damian’s were wider, but both were as sharp as razors. Nick moaned as she licked them, his hands squeezing her waist.
She felt the touch of the hot-cold aphrodisiac on her tongue. Even before she swallowed, the tingling effects hit her system. She clutched Nick, as swirling hot need ripped through her. His eyes locked with hers and he read her dire arousal.
“Damian,” he said softly.
She was lifted from Nick’s arms. The slightest touch vibrated to her pleasure center, so Damian’s arms around her back and under her knees registered as glorious stroking pressure. He was carrying her.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked. Her voice was throaty. Used.
“To our bed,” Damian replied.
Her whole body rippled. “Nick…”
“I’m here.” And he was there beside her.
Damian laid her on the bed, but she left her arms around his neck. “Kiss me,” she begged.
His eyes were very black as he leaned over her. “My lover,” he murmured. He kissed her, his hand resting on her hip, moving in the same restless little stroking movements as it had on Nick’s thigh.
The reminder and the mental image, along with the sensations created by his fingers on her overly sensitive nerve endings spread sparkling flurries of pleasure through her. She gasped against Damian’s lips, her hips thrusting, her back arching.
Hands were at her ankles. Her boots slid off her feet and her socks.
“Relax,” Damian murmured against her lips.
Riley smiled. “As long as you do.” She tugged at his sweater, pulling it over his head and saw his eyes widen just a little in surprise. She tossed the sweater to Nick, who threw it to the big easy chair with a smile.
Riley tucked her feet under her and got to her knees so that she was more or less at the same height as Damian, who stood at the end of the bed. She laid her hands on his chest, spreading her fingers and felt him catch his breath. “I learned something while you were away, Damian.”
Nick began to undress, moving fast and silently. He had either anticipated Riley, or guessed her thoughts. Then he moved to stand behind Damian. He was perfectly placed for what she intended to do.
She looked Damian in the eye. “Sometimes, you don’t get to control everything, Damian. Especially not Nick and me. Especially not here.”
She caught Nick’s eye. He moved fast. Blindingly fast. She didn’t see it at all except the end result, Damian’s arms caught in Nick’s viselike grip, pulled back and held. Only Nick had the strength to hold Damian still and keep him captive.
Damian tried to pull his arms free and grew still. He was breathing faster. “And now?” His voice was thicker. Heavier.
“Now, I have the control,” Riley told him. She caressed his strained chest with her hands, running her fingers over his flesh. She saw the muscles flex in response. “You do what I say. You respond to my commands.”
“And mine,” Nick added. He slid his tongue up the side of Damian’s neck, then bit his shoulder. Gently. But there was a capped, feral excitement in Nick’s eyes that made Riley’s heart jump anyway.
Damian groaned. He was watching her through his lowered, heavily aroused lids and she could see the front of his jeans was swollen with his erect cock.
Riley moved back on the bed so both Nick and Damian could watch her. She reached for the bottom of the tee shirt and languidly raised it to her breasts. She stroked her stomach, and slipped the button and short zip of the denim skirt undone, swinging her hips from side to side provocatively. Teasing. She had been to a strip club once or twice with groups of friends and now she deliberately mirrored the strip artists’ motions.
“Jesu…” Damian breathed.
She pulled the tee shirt up and off, revealing the leather bra beneath. Then she gathered the denim skirt up so it bunched up about her hips, and ran her hands over her thighs. Even her own touch was powerfully arousing to her, more so than usual. The aphrodisiac in Nick’s fangs was still at work. Still driving her. She licked her dry lips, feeling the pressure to hurry, to be possessed, and to be fucked. She would not hurry this, not tonight, no matter how driven she became.
Damian and Nicholas were both watching her with intense, predatory stares. She smiled at them. “You want this?” she asked, pushed the denim skirt farther down her hips. She already knew the answer. Damian’s cock was clearly outlined as a hard shaft rearing up inside his jeans. Nick’s fangs were extended, his eyes hooded with desire, and the blue was sharp and glittering, which she knew meant he was powerfully aroused. But still he kept Damian’s arms locked and held.
She slipped the skirt off and threw it away. Now she wore tiny panties and the bra. She spread her thighs and ran her hands over them, up her torso to her breasts, and played with the straps of the bra. One of the straps fell off her shoulder and she left it lying across her arm.
Damian drew in a shuddering breath.
Slowly, she crawled on all fours across the bed toward him. When her face was almost touching Damian’s stomach, she blew on it. His muscles quivered in response. So she licked his flesh, then unbuttoned his jeans and lowered the zipper.
Damian groaned again, his head rolling back onto Nick’s shoulder. “If it is mastery you want, I concede,” he muttered. His accent was thick. “Let me go. I must move, or die.”
Riley shook her head as she tugged his jeans down around his hips. “Not yet.”
Damian closed his eyes. “Gods!” he cried.
His cock was throbbing, purple around the flared head and surprisingly hot, for Damian. She ran her hand along the shaft, and realized she was humming in appreciation, her mouth filling with saliva. Her pussy was also slick with cream, as she imagined the cock she was fondling sliding into her.
Riley pressed her free hand against her belly then slid it lower, to curl over her mons and press against the stretch lace of her panties.
“If it’s torture you intend, Riley, you’ve achieved it. For both of us,” Nick said. His voice was thick with need.
She met his eyes and realized that by having him contain Damian, he was as helpless as Damian. “I’m not even holding my katana, Nick,” she said softly.
“If I let Damian go, this all changes in a heartbeat,” Nick warned her.
“You think?” She smiled. “Watch this.” She slid down on the bed until she was lying on her belly, propped up one elbow, and took Damian’s cock into her mouth. She had to stretch her lips to accommodate his girth, but the choking, moaning noise he made was reward enough. So was Nick’s harsh sigh.
Then she forgot about that and focused on the pleasure of fucking Damian with her mouth. She gripped the base of his cock with her hand and stroked the seamed underside of the head with the tip of her tongue. Her body was zapping and clenching with pleasure as she worked and she realized she was wriggling and moaning as she worked on Damian’s cock. Her eyes closed in ecstasy.
With her free hand, she reached for Damian’s testicles, expecting to have to burrow inside his half-lowered jeans, but she met no resistance.
She opened her eyes. His jeans were gone. Damian was naked and his arms were free. Nicholas had let him go. Damian’s hands touched Riley’s hair, then his fingers slid into the locks. “More,” he urged.
She felt hands on her back. Stroking. That was Nicholas.
Riley ran her tongue around the head of Damian’s cock and drew him back into her mouth as Nicholas caressed her back, making her skin quiver and her muscles vibrate. He unclipped her bra and unhooked the straps and drew the bra from her. Her breasts swelled and the nipples hardened instantly, rubbing against the satin bedcover like pebbles as she squirmed.
He spent long minutes stroking his fingers over the damp patch of lace between her legs before he drew her panties down her thighs. Riley was ready to scream by the time she was fully naked.
She felt Nicholas settle on the bed behind her. His hands on her hips lifted her up onto her knees and pulled her away from Damian’s cock. She was panting already as she looked at Damian. But his breath was no steadier.
“Kiss her again, Damian,” Nicholas suggested. “Make her moan and writhe.”
Damian climbed onto the bed and caught her face in his hands. His fangs were out, his eyes very black. “You have strong tastes, Riley, my love. I’d hoped it was so.” He kissed her and she thrust her fingers into his hair, and ran her tongue eagerly over his fangs.
He growled low in his throat and she felt the touch of the aphrodisiac on her tongue, rolling down into the back of her throat. Hot fire exploded from the center of her body, radiating out to the tips of her limbs, setting her nerves aflame. She gasped. She was floating, almost climaxing.
Damian held her steady. “The power of age, Riley,” he murmured, and she could hear the laughter in his voice.
“Oh…” Her voice was weak. Helpless.
Nicholas stroked her hips. “What I would give to be vulnerable to that power, just for a night.” His fingers slipped between her cheeks, and stroked the delicate tissues of her cleft, sending more hard, spasming shocks through her system. She moaned. From deep inside her, a wave was building. Large. Heavy. Powerful.
Damian was cupping and toying with her breasts, as Nicholas gathered the honey from her pussy and spread it higher. Around her anus.
Riley’s breath shortened and her arms shook as she kneeled on the bed. She pushed herself back toward him. She couldn’t help it. She looked up at Damian. “Hurry,” she whispered. She could barely speak the word. Her clit and the folds of flesh around it were swollen and pulsing with a life of their own. Just the brush of air over them was stimulating them beyond belief.
Damian sank down onto the cover, so that his eyes were level with hers. His hand cupped her chin. “Wait for me, Riley.”
She felt the touch of cool gel on her ass and moaned. Nick’s long fingers worked it quickly inside her. She gripped the cover, her gaze caught by Damian’s eyes staring into hers. Her breath was ragged, completely untamed. Anticipation was driving her wild.
At the touch of Nick’s cock against her ass, she stifled a choked, breathless cry.
Damian let out a harsh breath, watching her face.
Riley couldn’t focus after that. Her gaze shifted inward, to the overwhelming sensation of Nick’s cock working its way into her. She tried to keep still, but only Nick’s steady force on her hips stopped her from rolling and writhing and dislodging him from her as he pushed in.
The heavy wave of pleasure was increasing its power and threatening to drown her. Riley opened her eyes as Nick came to a stop, fully lodged inside her. She was panting, aware of the size of the coming climax and the power of it.
Damian had his hand around his own cock. He was stroking slowly, his fangs fully descended, as he watched Nick take her.
Riley was shuddering. “Fuck me, Damian,” she begged.
He curled his hand around the back of her neck. “At once, my love.” He glanced at Nick over her shoulder.
Nick’s hands curled around her waist and upper chest. “Relax. Let me lift you.” He lifted her back against his chest, her ass cheeks hard against his hips. His cock remained buried inside her. His lips nuzzled her neck. “Put your hands around my neck,” he told her. His hands were stroking her legs, opening them. Draping them over his knees, which he spread even wider.
She was being opened up in the most profound and delicious way. Riley shuddered, her breasts quivering, as Damian settled between her thighs.
His hands pressed against her hips and he kissed her throat. She could feel his excitement in the rush of his breath against her skin, in the brush of his teeth—lightly—against her throat.
“Hurry,” Nicholas urged softly.
“If I must,” Damian replied.
“This time, yes,” Nicholas said.
“Please, yes,” Riley begged. The hard, overwhelming swell of excitement was almost on her now, ready to take her where she had never been before. She wasn’t afraid, but she wasn’t ready to let it take her before Damian was inside her. She was shuddering with it, her breath ragged.
Damian brought his cock up against the opening of her pussy and eased it inside. Just the head.
She cried out and he laid his hand against her neck. “Let me in, Riley. Relax. Let me in.” His black eyes were inches from hers.
Nick kissed her ear. “Breathe, Riley. I have you. We have you.”
She tried to breathe. To relax. She looked into Damian’s eyes and consciously let go.
Damian slid his cock a few inches farther inside her.
It was overwhelming. The delight she had found in Nick’s cock and a dildo were nothing to this. Two real live cocks. Two real men. She drew hot air into her lungs, staring into Damian’s eyes. “More…” she breathed.
He smiled and pushed the rest of his length into her. She could actually feel their two cocks almost touching each other inside her.
“I can feel you, Damian,” Nick murmured.
“Mmm…” Damian breathed.
Riley lifted an arm and wrapped it around Damian’s neck. “It’s perfect.” She realized that her cheeks were wet.
Nick was lifting her to her knees between them and Damian wiped her cheeks. But the movement was too much. She grasped at Damian’s shoulders as the overwhelming sensations tripped off the blooming crests of her climax.
“God, no!” she begged.
Their hands came around her waist, two strong pairs. Both cocks began to thrust in unison. Slow, controlled, intended to avoid hurting her.
But she couldn’t stand it. “Fuck me!” she beseeched them, her hips thrusting and grinding, as she tried to find relief.
“No time!” Nick warned.
“I’m ready,” Damian growled. His fangs were down, and his eyes were the darkest, most aroused she had ever seen. This was Damian at his most vampiric. She turned to look over her shoulder. Nick was the same. Intense, brooding. Aroused. Driven.
Focused on giving her pleasure.
Riley threw her head back. Her eyes closed. She gave herself up to the pinnacle of pleasure they were giving her, as their cocks rammed into her together. Their fangs both pierced her shoulders at the same time, high up by the nape of her neck, just as her orgasm hit. Aphrodisiac injected itself into her system, and she felt them drawing blood from her as she climaxed. Her climax was pushed into another stratosphere altogether. Riley screamed, feeling like the back of her eyes might explode outward. Every nerve she possessed lit up with silver fire. Her breath locked in her body and for long seconds she couldn’t breathe at all.
When she could breath, it was to scream again as the climax tore through her, ripping nerve endings to shreds, tendon from bone, and flesh from muscles.
Her sight faded. Her hearing faded.
Her consciousness faded….