Blood Knot (36 page)

She smiled a little. “He’d kill you if he were here and knew you were giving him away.”

“
He is here,” Sebastian said.

Winter’s heart lurched.

“
He’s down in the lobby,” Sebastian added. “Where do you think I got the American newspapers from?”

Winter stumbled to her feet. “Here?”

“
He won’t come up. He’s afraid you’ll be indifferent,” Sebastian told her, “even after you almost knocked him over in the shed that night, although I keep trying to tell him he’s wrong.”

Winter rushed over to the mirror. “Jesus Christ, Sebastian! Look at me!”

“
I do. Constantly. You look stunning,” he told her.

“
Where’s my clothes?” She looked around wildly.

“
You’ve been wearing a robe or nothing for three days,” Sebastian told her. “
Now
you start worrying about clothes?”

“
I’m going down there,” she told him.

“
Go in the robe,” he told her. “Nial will enjoy that.”

“
In a hotel lobby?” she gasped.

“
In this country you could walk around naked, Winter, and no one would raise much more than half an eyebrow. Besides, there’s a heated pool off the lobby. You could say you’re going swimming.”

She ran her fingers through her hair. “I’ll kill you for this,” she muttered.

“
Nial will, too, so you’re a set,” Sebastian said complacently. He leaned over and pushed her toward the door. “You look edible and you’ll make his heart stop. Go. I left him by the east end of the lobby by the pool.”

She went back to his chair and kissed him. “I love you.”

Sebastian took a breath and let it out. “I won’t ever get tired of hearing that.” He pushed her toward the door. “Go.”

* * * * *

Nial was sitting in one of the antique wingback chairs in the corner of the old section of the lobby, where the original black and white tile floor still gleamed and brass and potted palms competed with flock wallpaper and overstuffed chairs.

He had been reading a book, but now it sat on the table beside him, forgotten, while he watched kids playing in the water of the indoor pool, visible through double glass doors just off to his left.

It had been Winter’s intention to go straight up to him, but she found her steps slowing, until she was standing in the middle of the lobby, simply watching Nial, absorbing his appearance and readjusting to him with her new knowledge.

My wife.

He looked around, as if he knew he was being scrutinized. When he saw her, he straightened. A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. Then he stood and came toward her. He was wearing a suit and a light overcoat, for it was cold this high in the mountains. The garments were all the last word in sartorial elegance, and looked very European.

Winter could feel her knees shaking. Adrenaline overload. She let it be. She wanted to feel everything this time. The whole thing.

Nial stopped very close to her, but not close enough to touch. “Sebastian has a big mouth.”

“
I know why you won’t come up,” she told him.

He drew a sharp breath.

Winter lifted herself on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. Because of the space between them, she had to lean forward to do it and Nial automatically reached up to steady her, his hands on her waist.

“
Ask me why I was afraid of you, Nial.”

“
Was
afraid?” He sounded merely curious, but his gaze was roaming her face as if he looked for the tiniest hint, the smallest chink of hope.

“
I didn’t think a man who had lived as long as you could love someone like me.”

His fingers brushed across her waist in a tiny movement. Nial shook his head. “Live as long as me, Tera, and you learn that love comes easier. Not harder. You learn to appreciate humanity in a way that you never can when you’ve only got ninety years to sample it.”

“
But you’ve never loved a human and I was—I thought I was—human.”

“
We were all human to begin and we’re all human at our core. I don’t take human lovers, Winter, because for the last two hundred years or so, I’ve had Sebastian. And when he was gone, I wasn’t in the mood for another. Not so soon, not while Sebastian was still roaming the earth.”

“
But you took me.”

He sighed. “I had to.” His hands tightened around her waist.

“
Nial, I was never afraid of you. I had to let you think that because if I corrected your impression it would lead to the truth.”

“
So you were never totally honest with me,” he said.

“
Not about this.” She laid her hand over his chest. “I was afraid of how much I loved you. How much I wanted you in my life and never wanted to let you go. I love you so deeply, Nial, and I had no idea how you felt about me.”

He became still for the space of a heartbeat. Then he drew in a long deep breath that made his shoulders lift and his chest expand. He picked up her hand from over his heart and lifted it to his lips. “
C
oniunx
,” he whispered.

“
My husband,” Winter replied.

Nial groaned and wrapped his arms around her tightly. She could feel his heart racing.

But then his lips captured hers and she forgot about his heart and vitals, and everything but the joy of being in his arms once more. Her body caught fire as his mouth seared a path from her lips to her throat and descended to the nape of her neck, and his hand moved over her ass in restless, arousing circles. Through the thin silk of her robe, he might as well have been stroking her bare flesh.

“
You’re naked beneath this,” Nial said, his lips brushing her throat.

“
Of course,” she replied, blinking to adjust her vision against the suddenly blinding light in the lobby.

“
We’d better go to your room, Winter, or what I intend to do to you next will get us arrested, even here.”

Her pulse spiked hard. “This way,” she told him, moving reluctantly out of his arms. They climbed the grand old staircase to the first floor and moved along the corridor to their room.

Winter gave the knocking pattern and the door was opened almost immediately. Sebastian leaned against the edge of the door. “She got you up here,” he told Nial.

Nial stepped past Winter and pushed Sebastian further into the room. Winter followed, shutting the door behind her.

“
I should take a piece of your hide, Bastian. You gave your word you would not betray me on this, yet you blurted it all to her.”

“
I did,” Sebastian agreed. “Someone had to. You two were at an impasse. You’re both as stubborn as each other.”

Nial grabbed Sebastian’s face and kissed him. It started as an expression of frustration but swiftly turned erotic and rich with arousal.

Winter’s body was already heated and ready to burst. She could not stand idly by and simply watch such passion. So she moved up behind Nial and stripped him of his overcoat even as he kissed Sebastian. He cooperated enough to let the coat drop off his arms one by one, but he lifted his hands back to Sebastian’s shoulders afterwards.

Winter reached around Nial’s hips, past the opening of his jacket, and found his belt buckle. Moving swiftly, she slid it undone and pushed the ends aside so she could tackle the fastenings of his trousers.

“
Here,” Sebastian said softly.

Winter looked up.

Sebastian was gripping Nial’s shoulders and turned him to face her. “Do your worst,” he said.

Nial groaned.

Sebastian wrapped his arm around Nial from behind, his hand splayed out flat over his abdomen. He reached over Nial’s shoulder and yanked his tie undone then began unfastening buttons. “You’re wearing way too much,” he said, as his hand slid down inside Nial’s trousers.

Nial’s groan was harder, guttural.

Winter yanked his trousers open and pulled the layers down his thighs, to reveal Sebastian’s hand curled around Nial’s rock hard shaft. She bit back her own desperate moan, and quickly took Nial into her mouth, her tongue sliding over the flared edges of the head and touched the side of Sebastian’s hand.

Nial’s hips jerked under their combined assault and this time his groan had a desperate quality to it. His hand clenched in her hair. “Tera…” he breathed.

Sebastian grabbed both sides of Nial’s shirt and tore the rest of the buttons away, then pulled his shirt, jacket and tie from his shoulders in one movement, while Winter removed the rest of his clothes.

Then she took Nial’s hand and pulled him to the big bed sitting up on the low platform at the end of the room. She shed her robe as she walked and dropped it at the foot of the bed.

Nial picked her up and lay her on the bed. His eyes glittered as he pushed her thighs apart. “Nearly a week without the taste of you. I’m starved, Tera.” And he plunged into her with a hard stroke that drove the breath from her, then held still.

Sebastian climbed onto the bed, naked and erect. He curled his hand over Nial’s shoulder. “That applies to us, too, Nial. We missed you.”

Nial kissed Winter’s neck. “Not too much, I hope? He kept you happy while I was gone, Tera?”

She smiled. Sebastian had kept her more than happy. He was a sensual, hedonistic and inventive lover. “Oh, yes,” she breathed and felt Nial’s cock shift inside her in response.

He lifted his head to gaze into her eyes. “I’ll want highlights later.” There was devilment in his eyes.

Sebastian ran his hands down Nial’s back. “Later,” he promised. “Maybe we’ll even demonstrate.”

Winter gasped at the idea, her body rousing even more. Her clit was throbbing. She lifted her gaze to the mirror on the ceiling and watched as Sebastian gripped Nial’s hips. Sebastian’s heavy cock was glistening with lubricant, and he guided it slowly in between Nial’s taut ass cheeks until it was buried to the root.

Nial closed his eyes briefly, his breath shuddering.

“
Fuck me,” Winter told him as her climax swirled closer.

He thrust into her, beginning slowly and she watched as Sebastian did the same in counter beat. But the slowness did not last. She clawed at Nial’s chest. “Faster,” she begged as her climax rippled and roiled through her, provoked by the images she could see and the delicious sensations. So close!

Nial’s body was a taut, hard bow above her, his muscles iron-hard as he strained. He clenched the bed cover into a tight bunch as he drove into her, while Sebastian worked with fevered need behind him.

Winter came first, arching off the bed. She screamed, but Nial stole the scream by kissing her and returning it with his own harsh groan as he shuddered through his own climax.

Sebastian was a heartbeat behind, his fingers digging into Nial’s shoulders as he came, his eyes hooded and his gaze locked on Winter as she held Nial in her arms.

* * * * *

Sebastian was drawing lazy circles around her breasts with his forefinger, while Nial, lying to her left, played with her hand, caressing the flesh and tickling the sensitive flesh between her fingers with his tongue.

“
Do you remember what you told me about outsiders, Bastian?” she asked him.

Sebastian propped his head on his hand. “Once you have more than two outsiders together, they’re inside their own group. They’re not outside anymore.”

She nodded. “In one respect, we’re all outsiders. None of us is entirely human and none of us fit exactly amongst them. Especially now, after the Flatiron.”

Nial sat up and turned to face them both. “You’ve been reading my mind,” he said. He still had hold of her hand.

Winter shook her head. “I’ve been doing my own thinking.” She sat up, too.

Sebastian flipped himself around so that he was sprawled across the sheet on his other side and could see both of them. He looked at her expectantly.

Winter lifted up the hand that Nial held, with its significant ring. “The relationship you two had, for all those years. It was unusual amongst vampires?”

“
Very,” Sebastian said simply.

Nial blew out his breath. “And it was used against me,” he said flatly. He lifted Winter’s hand and kissed the back of it. “So were you, Tera.” He released her hand.

Sebastian sat up. “
That’s
what they used as leverage?
Me
?”

Nial looked at Sebastian and nodded.

Sebastian licked his lips. “And Winter…the other faction threatened Winter,” he said hoarsely.

“
Both of you,” Nial said simply.

Winter drew her knees up against her chest, feeling cold. She stared at Nial as the whole pattern of his behaviour since she had met him reassembled and fell into place in her mind.

“
You came looking for me not just to do the job, but to protect me,” Sebastian surmised.

Nial grimaced. “You wanted your freedom, Sebastian. I tried to give it to you, but they were going to pull you back into vampire politics with or without me. I thought I would be the softer alternative. So I came looking for you…and found Winter instead.” He glanced at her. “And so you were drawn into the mess as well, because I took one look at your green eyes, red hair and fiery emotions and I think I fell in love on the spot. Sebastian had told me so much about you over the years, I was half-way in love before I met you. But it was what he
didn’t
tell me that had the greatest impact. And that,” Nial said, picking up her hand, “knocked my knees out from under me.”