Lost Paradise (11 page)

He kissed me ardently, moving himself in my
hand hard and fast, grunting softly.

I pulled back my hand suddenly, letting him
go, then grabbed a fistful of his hair. “Tell me what you want to
do to me!” I said, yanking it back hard so he cried out. “Tell me,
Dev!”

Dev’s tone when he spoke was terrifying, his
desire for me was so strong. “Danial and I are going to have you
together, and then we both are going to bite you, as you come!” he
roared, his golden eyes burning hot. He grabbed me and pushed me to
the bed, rolling quickly under me as he impaled me on him,
thrusting into me hard enough to hurt.

Letting out a shout of pleasure, Dev held
himself there with effort, straining to hold still, shaking hard.
“Quickly, Danial!”

Danial moved into position behind me, then
came the soft sound of liquid noises as he applied lubricant.
Carefully, he eased inside me as I held as still as I could, Devlin
twitching under my body as he watched us. Finally, he was also
inside me fully.

“Ready,” Danial said softly.

“Now,” Devlin said, the words tortured in
sweet agony.

Slowly and deliberately, they began to move
as one.

I went weak almost instantly from the new
incredible sensation, my jaw going slack.

Devlin eased me down on him without breaking
rhythm, holding me close. “You feel so good, Sar!” he groaned,
rough with need. “So good around me.”

“Oh, Sar, you do,” Danial cried out, each
word guttural with raw ecstasy. “You’re so tight for me, my love,
so wonderfully tight. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt.”

Both of them trailed off into moans as they
fought not to break their rhythm, their hands suddenly clutching me
tight. Danial held me by the hips, thrusting into me on his knees.
Devlin held me at my waist and shoulders, still thrusting into me
in time with Danial.

I let out cry after cry, my ability to form
rational words gone.

“Tell us we feel good to you, Love,” Devlin
whispered seductively. “Tell us how much you want us there within
you, together.”

I found my voice. “Yes,” I groaned. “God,
yes! Just like this, to feel you both. Please, don’t stop,
please—”

“We don’t intend to,” Devlin purred. “Take as
long as you want, Love.”

Wave after wave of pleasure hit me as they
made love to me in slow strokes. As much as I wanted the bliss to
last, the wave we were riding was already cresting, turning, ready
to break over us.

Danial began to shake. He was close. I was
close, too.
Just a little more…

“Hold on,” Devlin ordered. “Just a few more
seconds!”

Danial groaned, slowing slightly, still
stroking me.

Devlin speeded up suddenly. A second later
Danial did also, than leaned into me. The weight of him pushed
Devlin that much deeper into me, grinding my hips against his. My
climax was immediate, all-consuming, flooding over me, making me
scream raggedly over and over as I spasmed around them both,
digging my fingers into Devlin’s chest.

At my first scream, Danial bit into the right
side of my neck and Devlin the left side, as they had done years
ago. Both began drinking from me, sighing in pleasure. In the next
instant, Danial and Devlin both bore down, thrusting into me
deeply. I felt them both come, jerking hard, their cries of ecstasy
muffled.

As they finished, Danial slipped his fangs
out with a last grunt, then held his lips to my neck for a second
before he collapsed on me, still jerking. Quickly, Devlin slipped
out and eased me to the right side of him and moved Danial off to
the other side. We were all gasping in air, trying to control our
still shuddering bodies.

As my panting eased, Devlin sat up, and
pulled me close, healing the bite marks. “They aren’t deep, Love,
but it pays to be careful.” He looked them over. “All set.”

Lying back down, Devlin held me gently,
Danial again spooning me from behind. “Now that was what I had in
mind,” Devlin said contentedly. “How about you, Sar?”

I didn’t reply. I was too busy still trying
to get my mind around what we had done.

“You were right,” Danial said contentedly.
“Being with her like that with you was wonderful. It was more than
wonderful; it was ecstasy.”

“I told you decades ago to try it with me,”
Devlin said richly, laughing. “But no, you—”

“Maybe I should’ve listened,” Danial
admitted, kissing me. “But maybe not. This felt as good as it did
because it was her, Dev; because I love her.”

“I know,” Devlin said tenderly as he looked
over at Danial and I. “I feel the same. I have done this before
many times in my life. It never felt as good before as it did
tonight.”

“I love you, Sar,” Danial whispered
softly.

“We love you, Oathed One,” Devlin said,
giving me a gentle kiss.

“And I love you, both of you,” I said softly,
reaching out to grab both of their hands and put them to my
heart.

The three of us snuggled together and slept,
sated. Just before I drifted off, I wondered if Danial and Devlin
had ever been truly happy sharing anything like this before in
their long lives. I was betting not, that for them this was the
first time.

* * * *

I awoke about midnight on Devlin’s chest,
shivering. Falling asleep with the covers off hadn’t mattered when
I’d been hot with exertion. Now I was chilled from sleeping
sandwiched between two vampires.

I shifted backwards slightly, rubbing up
against Danial at my back.

“What is it?” Danial asked softly in the
darkness.

“I’m cold,” I answered. “Can you pull the
comforter over us?”

“Dev, move your leg and grab your side,”
Danial said, sitting up and pulling his side of the comforter
upwards.

“Okay,” Dev mumbled. He shifted, then sat up
just enough to grab the comforter and yank it over he and I.

“Thanks,” I whispered, trying to wrap the
blanket around my cold toes. Two vampires was two too many for my
human heating system to handle alone.
We needed a non-vampire in
here for added heat…

Blushing slightly, I wondered if Theo and
Lash were back from the movies. Probably not; they’d only left a
few hours ago. Even if Theo had come back, he wasn’t welcome
here.

Depression flooded me, then a sudden burning
anger. I’d just had the most amazing night of my life so far, a
fantasy come to life, and here I was missing another man. What the
hell was wrong with my brain?

Maybe it was that I had found out too late
what I really wanted: a peaceful life, not a fantasy complete with
villains and love that threatened to swallow my soul. I’d done my
best to adapt to what my life had become, yet more and more, I was
tired of its complexity. I’d always been a simple woman with simple
needs and desires. Nothing was simple anymore. There were too many
people to please, and most of the time I felt like none of them was
me. The constant traveling to and from other houses each week was
exhausting. I wanted back the quiet life I’d once had with Theo of
going to work, spending the evenings with him watching movies,
eating pasta, and making love…

“Sar, why are you not sleeping?” Danial
asked, worried. “You smell anxious. Are you hurt?”

I scrambled quickly in my mind to come up
with something, anything, because I couldn’t say I’d been thinking
about Theo. Bad enough Danial would be hurt, but Devlin would be
apoplectic with rage. For all that Theo had let go his jealousy of
Devlin, at least most of it, Devlin’s had only seemed to get
stronger with time.

“I’m wondering why Dev came to me on a bike
in the middle of winter,” I said lamely. “There had to be warmer
ways, even in daylight.”

“You are thinking of that now?” Dev said,
surprised. He struck a match and lit one of the bedside
candles.

“Sar often thinks this way,” Danial said
casually, giving my neck a gentle kiss. “I am not surprised.”

“I am,” Dev said, snuggling close, his golden
eyes searching mine. “I told you, I had to get to you in time,
Love.”

That wasn’t an answer. “But why not come to
me in something safer? Sunlight hurts you badly. What if you had
gotten in an accident on the way to me? Why not bring at least one
guard to follow you and keep watch? Just a small tear in your
leather might have made you a crisp.”

Devlin hugged me tight. “I had to get to you,
Sar. There’s danger in everything worth doing. I needed you to
think I was Aran, so I could get inside your house and save you.
Even if you wouldn’t let me be with you, I needed to give you some
of my blood. But I did bring a guard, of course.”

I furrowed my brow. “Then where was he?”

“Nick was watching from the quarry road the
entire time I was with you. When we left, he followed at a discreet
distance. He froze his ass off, he said. After I gave him a large
bonus he got over it.”

That was why Devlin had gone with me to the
door when Brian showed up. Nick hadn’t called to warn him. “You
were worried Brian was someone Samuel sent to collect me?”

Devlin nodded. “And before you ask, Nick has
been told to keep the snowcapades to himself.”

Nick had gotten an eyeful when Devlin had
chased me out into the snow naked. I blushed faintly, then
stammered, “If you ever do get burned, what do I do? Should I give
you blood like I have in the past?” My tone was guilty, remembering
the burn I’d given Dev.

“Hush,” Devlin said easily. “I told you to
forget that. It was nothing.”

“Yes,” Danial said from behind me. “Blood
would heal Dev or I, if we were burned, as long as we could get out
of the sunlight. But if it ever happens and it’s bad, don’t try to
save either of us, Sar. We might savage you, as I did the first
time I took your blood. For anything more than a slight burn, call
for help instead.”

“He’s right,” Devlin said, old hurt in his
tone. “I killed a little girl once. I didn’t mean to. I’d been
burned when the house I was staying in collapsed in a earthquake.
It was agony. I waited in shade for hours, writhing in pain. When
she stopped to rest on her way to the local well, I grabbed her,
and drank from her. I only meant to take a little, but there was so
much relief to feel the pain ease that I took too much. She died
healing me. I had never killed a child, or even hurt one before
that. That still haunts me.”

I shivered, Devlin’s memory calling back
Lash’s words of how good his relief from his pain was. Then I told
myself to get a grip. If Lash had wanted to drain me, he would have
already. The only important thing to remember was to take some of
my vitamins first thing in the morning. Between letting Lash drink
my blood and now Danial and Dev, I had to be running a half pint
low.

“Sar, get some sleep,” Danial said softly.
“Morning will be here before you know it.”

I snuggled against him as Devlin settled
himself against my back, drifting quickly back into pleasant
nothingness.

* * * *

Elle woke us at ten a.m. with a gentle knock
on the bedroom door. “Mom?”

I slept right through it, but Danial heard
and shook me gently. “Sar, Elle wants you.”

“What is it?” I called sleepily.

“Can you come cook us breakfast? Theo said
that you would this morning.”

I shot a glance at Danial, and his eyes met
mine. This wasn’t about breakfast. Elle knew Devlin was in here
with us, and she wasn’t happy about it.

“Mom?” Elle called again more loudly.

Devlin stirred beside me, and opened his
golden eyes. “Tell her no,” he said, kissing me lingeringly. “I
don’t want you to get out of bed yet, Sar. I want to hold you in my
arms, and remember last night, how good you felt. God, you were
amazing—”

“You promised, Mom!” Elle growled fiercely,
each word close to a shout.

Devlin’s patience snapped in a split second.
“Listen, you were b—”

Danial slapped his hand over Devlin’s mouth.
“No.”

I shot Dev a look of aversion. “Elle, I’ll be
right out, as soon as I shower,” I said tiredly, rubbing my eyes.
“Go defrost the bacon and sausage. Make sure you get out enough for
Theoron your father, me and you.”

“Of course,” she said sweetly.

Danial took his hand off of Devlin’s
mouth.

“What?” Devlin said grumpily. “I have a right
to be here.”

“Dev, Elle had a problem with Theo at first,”
I interrupted, moving to sit on the bed out of his reach. “Now
she’s got to deal with you having a piece of me after she found out
about Lash and I yesterday. Give her some time. This is a lot for
her to deal with.”

“She isn’t a child—” Devlin started.

“She’s my child,” Danial said with red-tinged
eyes. “I’d better not ever hear you call her what I think you were
going to, Dev. She’s just protecting her mother the only way she
knows how.”

“Danny, I don’t care!” Devlin sang
derisively. Danial’s eyes began to glow red.

“I’ll talk to her,” I interceded. “Dev’s
right. She needs to accept this. Theo said he would talk to her
last night, but he must not have. I’ll talk to her this morning,
alone. I want the both of you to stay in here for a half hour after
I leave, okay?”

They both nodded.

“And Dev,” I said sternly. “You need to get
used to this. You’ll have a child soon yourself. That child’s needs
should come before your needs. I won’t be able to help you until
the baby’s older—”

“I’ll hire a nanny or two,” Devlin said
smoothly, folding his hands under his head and lying back on the
bed. “It worked well for Danial. Theoron is a well behaved,
well-adjusted child.”

That wasn’t what I meant, but I was too burnt
out to explain. “I’ll be in the shower,” I said, shutting the
bathroom door firmly behind me.

I carefully removed the metal lingerie,
rubbing at the slight red marks it left on my skin, and then placed
it back inside its box, irritated. Last night had been so
wonderful, a magical fantasy come to life. This morning it was back
to reality and all the trouble that came with it.