She opened her eyes. The room was round and there was a hole in the middle of the roof. That was for venting smoke from the fire, she knew.
Veris lifted his lips from hers, trailed them to her ear and thrust his tongue inside. Not Veris. Vidar. She groaned, her whole body blossoming with arousal. Vidar was home for such a short while. But they were preparing for all-out war. Even now the longboats were being prepared for the journey over the sea to Britain.
She thrust her hands into his hair, hiding her fear. “Kiss me again, my husband,” she demanded, fumbling with the buckles on the leather chest plate he wore.
“There’s no time.” He brushed her hair from her temple and stroked her neck. His hand fell to her breast and stroked it through the material of her dress.
“There will be enough,” she told him, sliding the second buckle undone, as the sweet pleasure from his hand transmitted to her clitoris and made her body begin to tremble and throb with desire. She was moist and ready for him.
She slid the third buckle apart and he tossed the breastplate over his head and onto the floor with an impatient shrug. He pushed her up against the wall, his blue eyes snapping fire. “You are ever an inspiration, Tyra,” he growled. He grabbed the scooped front of her white dress and tugged. The fabric tore down to her knees and he pushed on it with his boot to get rid of it, pulling the sleeves off her arms as he did so.
Tyra stood naked before him, her breasts rising and falling rapidly, telling him of her excitement.
Vidar removed his shirt and tossed it onto the breastplate. As he turned away, she saw a long, writhing scar along his back, high up under the shoulder blade. Then he turned back and unfastened his trews, revealing his pulsing cock. He stroked it as he approached her, letting her see the tip of it in his hand. She began to tremble with anticipation.
“Hurry,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “No.” His voice was a rumble. He pressed up against her. “Not now.” His eyes danced. “Ooooh, no.” He dropped his head and licked her collarbone, sliding his tongue along the depression to the nape of her neck, making her catch her breath.
Then he slid it down to her breast and sucked the tip into his mouth and began to play with it.
Tyra cried out, her hands slapping against the wall, as the pleasurable sensations bombarded her. She was melting into a puddle of joy. Dimly, she felt Vidar’s hands around her waist, holding her up, as his mouth switched to her other breast and continued the medley. She was gasping and trembling and aching to have him inside her. She reached for his head, twining her fingers in his hair, trying to coax him to rise, to press against her.
It was like trying to move a rock. She was hazy and weak from the pleasure he was giving her, anyway.
“Vidar…fuck me,” she said hoarsely. It was the wrong word, she knew that. But it was the only word she could think of right now. It would have to do.
He straightened and his hands around her waist lifted her like she was as light as his spear. She wrapped her legs around his waist, eager for his possession. Looking deep into her eyes, he thrust his long cock inside her with one deep, slow thrust. He groaned as he came to a halt, his swollen balls resting against her ass. “My woman,” he growled.
“Yes,” she said, as he thrust inside her. It felt so good, she was melting around him. She clutched at his shoulders. “Harder,” she begged. “Faster.”
He gripped her hips and thrust harder and faster, his pelvis kissing her clit, making her feel faint and swoony. Her climax was building, rushing at her. Her breath caught in her chest as the first convulsions of her climax washed over her. Vidar was slamming into her, driving her pleasure with his heated shaft.
Then she felt him spasm and his seed spill into her even as she shuddered against him. It touched off another powerful climax, one so deep and wrenching that she let her head fall back as she cried out, her eyes closing in ecstasy.
“Tyra. Taylor.” Vidar’s voice. Breathless. Close by her ear.
She snapped her eyes open at the use of her name. Her real name.
The room. The square room. Veris’ face was a bare inch or so from hers. He watched her warily. “Do you know where you are?”
“San Bernardino,” she said. “And you’re Veris again.”
He licked his lips. “And you’re Taylor again.”
Her heart was slamming in her chest, she realized. Then she grew aware of even more. She was pushed up against the wall. She was naked. So was Veris.
And his cock was buried inside her.
Taylor moaned in desperate embarrassment and horror.
“No, no, no.” He rested his forehead against hers. “Shhhh….”
“Let me go!” She began to struggle.
He withdrew from her. There was little else he could do under the circumstances. He lowered her to the floor and she found she still wore her boots. That made it worse, somehow. She pushed past him and came to a halt. Brody was still sitting on the lounge chair.
“Oh god…you were watching?” She didn’t bother trying to cover herself. If he’d been watching, he’d already got a good eyeful.
Brody didn’t bother looking embarrassed. “I didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said evenly. “When I realized, it was too late. After that, I thought it wise to simply guard the door. You two were blind and deaf to this world.”
She felt something fall around her shoulders. Terry cloth. A robe. With jerky movements, she thrust her arms into it and tied it shut.
Veris brushed past her again.
He was wearing his pants once more.
He sat on the sofa. Like Brody, he seemed completely unembarrassed. Well, these two were lovers, after all.
Somehow, their complete lack of shame helped to stabilize her. She took a breath and looked at Brody. “We were…acting it out in front of you?”
“Language and all. It’s been a long, long time since I heard the language of my enemies. I had a hard time just sitting here.” Brody cleared his throat and glanced at Veris. “I knew you’d have it down, but her? It was like she was born to it.”
Veris shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on. But for the time I was in it, I was home. Except for that one word.” He looked at her. “You said ‘fuck’.”
Taylor nodded. “I knew it was the wrong word even as I said it but I couldn’t think of the right one. It’s like having a dual personality. A modern one and an ancient one.” She sat on the edge of the coffee table and swiveled so she was looking at them. “I’m right, aren’t I? That was Anglo-Saxon we were speaking? We were somewhere in Scandinavia, preparing to invade Britain?”
“Norway,” Veris said flatly. “Or what was to become Norway. It was where I was born…in the year four hundred and thirty-nine.”
Taylor nodded, absorbing that.
Right.
She leapt for the door but Veris was there before her, even though she was closer by a dozen feet. She had known he would be that fast, even before she made the move. Only something more than human could have ripped a leather skirt and bustier from her body.
“You have nothing to fear from us, Taylor Yates,” he said softly, his back against the door. “Especially now I have tasted your flesh.”
She moaned a little as her fear tried to take over. “Of course…it’s both of you, isn’t it?” She backed up until she could see both of them at once and that put her into the corner of the room.
Brody still sat on the chair in the silk robe, unmoved, but she knew that he could react as fast as Veris if he needed to. “I suppose you really don’t need those wires they used tonight, huh?” she said.
“I’m a vampire, not a ghost.” He seemed offended.
“Why didn’t what happened just now happen out there?”
“Aren’t you glad it didn’t?” he responded, with a grin.
She wasn’t sure where the giggle came from but suddenly she was laughing. It didn’t sound like healthy laughter either. It was torn from her body, straining her vocal chords and making her head ache and her temples throb.
Veris picked her up. “That was one piece of information too much for you, I’m thinking.” His accent was suddenly thicker than she had ever heard it, as if he was relaxing, letting her hear the real Veris. She was lowered onto warmth and heat. “Rub her. Keep her warm. She’s hysterical.”
“Yes, doctor.” Brody’s voice. Rumbling next to her. His hands were rubbing her arms, her thighs. Veris had dumped her in Brody’s lap.
“I am not hysterical!” she screamed and burst into tears, proving that Veris was at least partially right.
* * * * *
When her tears had dried, Taylor realized that Brody was still rubbing, still stroking and that she liked it.
The two men—
vampires
, her tired mind corrected but she slid over that one with queasy self-denial—were conversing softly in a language she didn’t understand and wasn’t even sure she could name. But if they had lived for centuries, wouldn’t they know a few dozen languages and dialects that the world had all but forgotten? Hell, she had been speaking to Veris in Old English and there were less than a thousand people who could speak that language fluently any more.
“If you two were born as enemies, how did you become lovers?” she asked, lifting her head from Brody’s shoulder.
They both fell silent. Veris glanced at Brody.
“Who said we were enemies?” Brody asked.
“When you kissed me, we went back to fifth century Britain, Brody. I know that time. I’m an expert in it. I can speak the languages without having to kiss you and fall into some sort of spell to do it. I saw the building we were in and heard the language we were speaking. It was pure Irish, with local idioms for Britain of the time. Plus we spoke of Arthur.
Arturos
, in Celtic. King Arthur. You were an officer for Arthur and you were preparing for all-out war against the coming Saxons, after a period of settled peace. That has to be Camlann. Arthur’s death and the Saxon victory.” She looked at Veris. “Were you there?”
He took a breath. And another. “Yes.” His gaze cut away from her.
She lifted her head to look at Brody. “Were you?”
Brody was frowning. “Yes, but not as a soldier. I was only thirteen when my father died at Camlann.”
“Your father was a soldier?”
“No.” Something in Brody’s eyes shuttered closed and Taylor knew she would get no more information from him about it.
“You did not meet Veris at that time, then,” she concluded.
“We met in Jerusalem, during the Crusades,” Veris said. “By then, the stench of being Saxon was less of a burden than that of being anything but a Christian.”
Brody’s fingers were stroking her neck above the robe. She hated that she wanted to purr as he did it. “You’ve been together that long?” Even her voice was lower, thick with lust.
“On and off,” Brody murmured. “Sometimes one of us will want to follow our own adventure and go off for a year or two.”
“But he always comes back,” Veris ended. His hand lightly touched her ankle and began to stroke and her heart fluttered. She realized then that they were seducing her in slow degrees, trying not to alarm her, but intent on having her once more.
Both of them.
Her clit bloomed and throbbed at the thought. She left her head against Brody’s chest as his fingers continued to stroke the nape of her neck and ease her robe off her shoulder. She had only a few minutes left in which to make any sort of protest, or it would be too late.
Then a cool voice spoke in her mind. Who was she fooling? She had already fucked Veris. In her mind, she had fucked Brody. Because of some technical hitch, possibly the roadies hauling on the wires keeping Brody in the air, they hadn’t physically consummated the act. But in her mind, she was guilty.
So why was she being coy now? Because she had discovered that they were vampires? Veris had indicated that somehow, the act of fucking her put them in a position of obligation and that made it safer for her to be with them.
So Taylor lifted her head again and deliberately kissed Brody, giving him as clear a signal as she could. She was delighted to hear his breath catch and his hand still. “
Mhuirnin
,” he murmured against her lips.
Veris’ hands were on her robe, loosening the tie, parting the thick toweling fronts and peeling it from her as Brody turned her in his lap so her back was against his chest. He was a tall man—not as tall as Veris but even so, sitting on his lap, her head still barely lifted above his.
Veris kissed her softly. He still wore his pants but she could see the top of his cock thrusting above the half-open fly. He was aroused and excited. He let her lips go and turned his head to kiss Brody with just as much gentleness.
Then, showing no sign of effort, he picked Taylor up around the waist, flipped her over and laid her over the big padded arm of the chair so that her ass was up in the air and her head was in Brody’s lap. She saw Brody’s already stiff cock twitch and his hand slid into her hair.
His hips gave a little helpless thrust up.
Veris was behind her, caressing her cheeks, spreading them, making her feel wickedly exposed and vulnerable.
She wriggled on the arm of the chair. “Fuck me,” she begged, looking over her shoulder.
“I have a better idea,” he told her. He slid a finger through the slick dampness of her cleft. She was shockingly wet. Dripping with moisture. For one ecstatic moment, he stroked her clitoris, making her moan and arch on the chair.
Brody’s groan echoed hers as his hand clenched in her hair. He guided her hand to his cock and curled her fingers about the shaft and hissed as she slid her hand along its length, bumping over the flaring red edges of the head.
Veris brought his dampened finger to her anus and pressed it against the hole. Taylor gasped at the strange sensation.
“You’ve never been fucked in the ass, have you?” Veris said.
“No.”
“We want to,” Brody said, his voice hoarse with longing.
Taylor struggled to stand up but Brody caught her face in his hands. “It’s delicious,” he told her. “For a woman, it’s the most mind-blowing, powerful orgasm you’ve ever experienced. Two men inside you at once, both of them making you come. We have a unique gift that makes it very special.”
She searched his face but could see no sign of a lie there.
“I’m trusting you,” she said.
“You can,” he said flatly. He looked at Veris and nodded as she relaxed.
She heard Veris move away and the sound of a zipper and small rustling sounds. Then he returned. “Lubricant,” he said softly. “Lots and lots of it for a virgin like you. Relax, Taylor. We know what we’re doing. We’ve done this thousands of times.”
Brody was smiling.
“With women too, hmmm?” she asked and caught her breath as cool gel touched her ass and slipped between her cheeks.
Veris pushed out his breath. “God, that looks so sexy, sliding across your white flesh like that. Makes me want to eat you.”
Brody chuckled. “He means that in the literal sense too.”
She gulped.
Veris’ lips touched the back of her shoulder and his fingers toyed with her nipple, making her arch and gasp. “He’s teasing.”
His fingers spread the gel around her ass and pushed gently into it and it
was
an odd but erotic sensation. She caught her breath and found she was pushing back, encouraging him. He drove more of the gel into her, sliding his finger around the muscle, stretching it. Then he pushed a second finger inside.
It stretched her, but not in an unpleasant way.
His fingers moved and pressed open.
He was preparing her, training the muscles.
Taylor gasped, her eyes widening.
Brody kissed her, his hands capturing her breasts and toying with the nipples and tweaking them. The sweet sensations blended with the mildly uncomfortable ones and she began to writhe on the arm of the chair, panting into Brody’s mouth as he controlled her pleasure.
After what seemed an eon, Veris released her.
He picked her up once more, with an ease that made it seem like she weighed no more than a rag doll—
or his spear
, her mind insisted—and kissed her quickly and hard on the lips. “Were but it my turn,” he growled.
“Idiom, Veris,” Brody snapped.
“The door’s closed,” Veris said, not even looking at his mate. He handed Taylor to him, lowering her down into his lap. “Hurt her and I’ll kill you myself.”
“He’s a teddy bear, really,” Brody whispered, his hands around her waist, as Veris crouched down before them and draped her legs on either side of Brody’s thighs. As Brody’s knees were already apart on the chair, it spread her wide open.
Brody lifted her up as easily as Veris did and brought her down carefully upon his cock. He paused with the tip pushed against her ass. “Take a deep breath and relax, Taylor,” he said as she tensed. “Let everything open up.”
She took the deep breath and magically, everything did open up. She felt herself relax as he described and his cock pushed inside. He didn’t thrust inside but nudged in a fraction of an inch at a time until a few minutes later, she was resting with the full length of his cock buried in her.
Veris’ own cock was throbbing, clear evidence that he found the sight of her impaled upon Brody highly arousing.
Brody turned her head and kissed her. “You’re so tight and hot. I could come with the slightest jolt now.”
“Your coming is not on the agenda, my friend,” Veris pointed out with a growl. “Why don’t you make yourself useful, at least?”
Taylor gasped as Brody gave a hungry rumble and slid his hands up to cup her breasts. “With pleasure,” he murmured, squeezing them and pinching the nipples.