Melted By The Vampires: A Paranormal Menage Romance (15 page)

I ran my hand along one of the snow-dusted branches of the tree, admiring how a nearby light made the frosty powder appear pale pink. “Abbott hasn’t been acting like a Neanderthal. It was actually Dan who had some kind of a hysterical fit the other day, laughing himself nearly to death and boasting about how his ‘swimmers’ are surely faster than Abbott’s.”

Maria snorted. “Dan. Figures. He can really be the most easygoing guy in the world sometimes, but when it comes to his special vampire speed, he can get annoyingly competitive about it.”

Just then, four cars pulled into the small parking area adjacent to the park, one right after the other, and I asked Maria if she was ready to go. “I think more sightseers just pulled in, and I’m sort of not feeling a crowd tonight.”

What I was
really
not feeling was the possible sight of parents with their kids.

Once back home, I changed into pajamas, put my hair up in a knot, and climbed into bed. Then I promptly screamed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I hadn’t closed my bedroom curtains that evening, for some reason wanting to watch the stars twinkling high above the city before I fell asleep. It was a unique sight, to see stars above the outlines of skyscrapers, only possible because the city was still so new and small, and light pollution hadn’t yet made stargazing impossible. I found the sight comforting in some way.

But it wasn’t the sight of stars above skyscrapers that currently had my attention. The sight that
did
was of some dark shape moving down the steel beam that connected the building I was in with its neighbor. The shape was moving slowly deliberately, as if it were a cat sneaking up on prey. It was obvious this was no cat, though. The shape was far too tall, at least the height of a man. It took me several seconds, clutching my blanket in fear while trying to decide what to do, before I realized that the dark shape moving down the beam to my room was Dan. Even though I couldn’t see his features clearly, I could tell it was him by the way he moved. Which, now that I was noticing,
was
kind of cat-like. It was in a way that displayed a bit of feline grace, unusual for a man so well-muscled.

When Dan opened my window and leaped inside, landing soundlessly, he actually had the nerve to grin. I could see his perfect white teeth glinting in the pale moonlight.

“I really didn’t mean to make you scream. I heard it all the way outside, and I’m really sorry. I just thought this might be a novel way to bring you a late-night snack. I thought you’d recognize me immediately and think the whole thing was fun.”

Sitting up with my back against the headboard, I snorted. “Yeah. Real fun. Going to bed and seeing some dark shape creeping down a beam toward my room, thirty-nine stories up. I’m not exactly fully used to vampires and all their superhuman jumping tricks yet, you know.”

“I really am sorry, Harper. But I’m going to make it up to you. Ever had a fried chicken sandwich with pickles delivered by a vampire before?” After walking over to my bed and flicking on a nightstand lamp, he held up a white paper bag printed with the name of one of the restaurants in town. “I told them to hold the apple butter, but go very heavy on the orange marmalade. Isn’t that how you said you wanted it? ‘Dripping with orange marmalade,’ you said, I’m pretty sure. I told them, ‘You sandwich-makers, don’t be stingy with the marmalade. I’m taking this to a beautiful young woman who is likely to have a
fit
if the orange rind to pickle ratio isn’t just perfect.’ Oh, and I also told them to add extra sticks of gum on top of the pickles. ‘The beautiful woman I’m bringing this sandwich to is advanced... ahead of her time,’ I told them. ‘She doesn’t freshen her breath with a stick of gum
after
a snack; she likes to do it all at once.’”

Despite not really wanting to, and despite the fact that I felt like I shouldn’t for some reason, I was suddenly laughing. I was mad at myself for doing it, but I still couldn’t stop, at least not until I’d done a few hearty chuckles. I was starting to hate Dan’s humor, and things would have been a lot easier if I hadn’t found him so funny.

Seemingly encouraged by my laughter, and not surprisingly, Dan kicked off his boots, hopped into bed right next to me, fully clothed, and handed me the restaurant bag. “Here. Enjoy. And this sandwich
is
just fried chicken and pickles. For some reason, the staff at the restaurant completely disregarded my special instructions... kept saying that you’d really probably rather have a sandwich without all the fancy bells and whistles. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘But if she throws it at my face, I’m coming back here to exercise my authority as a city leader by firing every last one of you.’”

I ate my sandwich in bed while Dan entertained me further with various jokes and funny scenarios. It was only after I’d brushed my teeth and had returned to bed, finding Dan shirtless, that things began to get a bit more serious.

Without knowing what was going on between him and Abbott, and why he’d supposedly kill me if he discovered that I’d attempted to come clean to Abbott, I wasn’t exactly eager to climb in bed beside him, knowing what it might lead to now that I was finished eating. However, I really didn’t feel like I had much of a choice, so I did. To do otherwise might have aroused Dan’s suspicions that I was suspicious of
him
.

I’d just slid in beside him when he pulled me into his arms, seeming to be inhaling the scent of my hair. “You know, Harper... I think we could really make a great team. Just the two of us. I like the way your hair always smells absolutely delicious, I like you in bed, and I like how you laugh at my jokes. You’re utterly gorgeous when you smile, you know.”

I didn’t exactly know what to say, so I just said thank you.

Dan gave me a half-grin, pulling me even closer still. “Thank me with a kiss. After all, I did have to do some intricate maneuvering to break free from Abbott and the rest of the patrol team, just so I could come here and spend a little alone time with you.”

As if he’d only been waiting to hear his name, Abbott himself strode through my bedroom doorway right then. “Aha. Thought I might find you here, Dan. When I noticed you missing, I wasn’t sure if you’d told me where you were going and I hadn’t heard you, or what, so I figured I’d better try to find you just in case you’d told me to follow.”

Completely expressionless, Dan just looked at Abbott for a long moment. “Well, I did. I said for you to meet me back here, but you must not have heard me. I’m not trying to be selfish with Harper, you know. We agreed to ‘share’ her, and I intend to honor my word. She and I were doing a little talking here, sure, but I intended to wait until you got here for other activities.”

Abbott glanced up from untying his boots. “Oh, I know. And I don’t begrudge you a little one-on-one talking. In fact, I’ve been thinking that the both of us have probably been working too hard lately, and we should both take some time out to just enjoy some downtime and talking with Harper. And since you got tonight, I’ll take tomorrow. And I don’t mean lovemaking, but... just talking. Just relaxing. So, you take tomorrow’s evening patrol, and I’ll come back here for a while, and then you can join us later. Deal?”

Still expressionless, but with his nostrils flaring just slightly, Dan shrugged. “I don’t care. Sounds fine.”

“Good.”

Abbott was now undressed down to his boxer-briefs, and he climbed into bed on my other side. Dan flicked off the bedside lamp, and soon, in the pale moonlight, I was being held, caressed, and kissed by I wasn’t even sure who after a while. I just felt two different sets of hands exploring my body, and two sets of lips brushing against my skin, all of this stimulation quickly bringing me to a point where I was panting with desire.

By the sound of his groan, I could tell it was Abbott who managed to penetrate me first, rolling on top of me while Dan planted a slow row of kisses down the side of my neck. Before long, he returned the kisses to my lips and began plundering my mouth with his tongue, the sensation combined with Abbott’s powerful thrusting soon giving me my first earth-shattering climax of the night. My second came a while later, while I rode Dan with Abbott looking on, eyes glinting.

In the morning, they were already gone, of course. I was pretty sure that the three of us had fallen asleep at about the same time, but being that they only needed a half-hour or so of rest a night, I figured that they’d probably headed back out on patrol shortly after that.

I spent the day in a state of nervous anticipation, knowing that I was finally going to get the chance to talk to Abbott alone and get some answers. At the café for dinner with Maria again, I found I couldn’t eat more than a few bites of my food, which was extremely unusual for me, especially since the food at the cafe was so good. When Maria asked what was up, I told her the truth.

“Just a long-awaited talk with Abbott tonight. And maybe after, I’ll finally be able to tell you a bit more about some things that have been going on, though I’m not really even sure yet. All I know is that this talk is so long-overdue, if for some reason Abbott can’t make it, like a Saints problem or something, I swear I’m going to put my fist through a wall.”

I was worried about a Saints problem delaying Abbott or preventing him from coming over altogether, but even more than that, I was afraid of Dan delaying him or preventing him from coming over.

However, it turned out my worry was for nothing.

Abbott showed up at my apartment exactly at eight, dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt fitted just well enough to reveal the hard contours of his chest. After closing the door, he immediately pulled me into his arms, kissed me briefly and fiercely, yet tenderly at the same time, not hurting my lips in the least, and then pulled away to look at my face. “I just want to tell you something, very first thing.”

“What is it?”

“I hate ‘sharing’ you with Dan. I hate it. I can’t deny that at first, there was a little thrill from getting to sit back and watch you enjoy pure physical pleasure with another man. But now... I just hate it, Harper. He doesn’t deserve to touch a single inch of your skin.”

Abbott kissed me again, and I kissed him back, enthusiastically, realizing that I wanted to make love to him and him alone, and right then.

*

As badly as I wanted to make love to Abbott alone, and as much as it seemed like he wanted to make love to me, things might have gone that way,
if
I hadn’t been so anxious to finally get the chance to just
talk
to him alone.

After a short while, I broke our kiss and began leading him out to the living room by the hand. “Business first, or else we may never get to talk. If we made love, I can just see Dan arriving the moment we finish, before we even get the chance to say two words.”

While we sat down on the couch, Abbott assured me that Dan would be occupied for a while. “To make sure we have all the time we need, I had Noah report a Saints spotting to the east of the city, so Dan had no choice but to lead a group out there. But the truth of the matter is that Noah never spotted any Saint spy tonight. He’s really just working for me, doing whatever he can to help. He’s become one of the men I trust the most in recent days, although there are many others loyal to me as well. In fact, from what I know right now, there are only a few dozen vampires in the whole city who know what Dan is trying to do and support him in it. But you know what they say... all it takes is a few bad apples.”

“Okay. Please start at the beginning. What exactly is Dan trying to do?”

Turned toward me with his side against the back of the couch and one leg bent, Abbott sighed. “He’s trying to oust me from power and join forces with Dedrick. He’s in league with The Saints. I’ve known for a while... I think Dan underestimated the level of loyalty most of our people have for me, and he probably didn’t think that a few of them, including Noah, would start to tell me bits and pieces of funny little things they were seeing and hearing. Then, I did some investigating on my own, and my suspicions were confirmed. Dan had been meeting with Dedrick in secret, promising him shared power if he’d help take me out. Dan assured him that once I was gone, all vampires in the Darkness Coven would accept the two of them as leaders, which is absurd, but the two of them are completely delusional about many different things, so...”

Considering the wariness toward Dan that I’d developed, I couldn’t say I was exactly stunned by the things Abbott had just told me, but I still didn’t understand.

“But, why? Why does Dan want to oust you from power in the first place? I thought the two of you have always been happy sharing power together.”

“Well, in the beginning, I think we both were. But then, over the centuries, I started to notice that Dan started to become dissatisfied, while at the same time, his ambition started to increase. It was then that I knew there were going to be problems, but to be honest, I just more or less felt I could keep things under control, knowing Dan as well as I do. Now, in hindsight, I can see this was a mistake. During all his ‘Darkness Coven recruiting trips’ all across the land, that’s when he began meeting with Dedrick in secret about every single time he was gone. Slowly, he got Dedrick to trust him. The sad thing is that I think Dedrick actually believes that Dan would willingly share power with him if I were to actually be killed.”

“So, you think Dan’s just using him so that
he
can become the only leader?”

“Oh, absolutely. If I were to be killed, Dan’s next target would be Dedrick. And probably vice versa, at least eventually. One or the other of them would probably be dead within a year. Once he’d decided that he wanted me gone, Dan’s strategy to dangle the promise of shared leadership under Dedrick’s nose, just to use him to try to help himself get the job done, was a smart one, though. Dan is physically stronger than me, unfortunately, but I think he knew that taking me down with all our people around wouldn’t work. He’d need extra muscle. And so, realizing that Dedrick has wanted control of our city since the second we built it... well, that was how he formulated his plan. The ending of it, however, he has yet to execute. He and Dedrick intend to attack me sometime very soon, and have a full-scale fight right here in the city. Which just shows exactly how much Dan cares for our people. He seems to not care if innocent people are hurt or even killed in the middle of this attempted-takeover fight.”