Spartan Resistance (37 page)

“That’s horribly pessimistic,” Billy said.

“It’s freeing,” Mariana said. “If it doesn’t matter what you do, then you’re free to do what you want, because nothing you do will change the outcome.”

Billy sat back again, thought-filled. “So what version do we believe? The idea that we can change the future? Or the one that says we can’t?”

“From a time traveler perspective,” Brenden said, “we know that the future
can
be changed. The Agency’s primary mission is to preserve history as we know it in order to maintain future outcomes. So that gives us two choices. We can do what the future is telling us. Or we don’t do it.”

“There’s a third choice,” Mariana added. “We can do what we want.”

Billy frowned. “It has merits. Throw everything we know of the future aside and follow our guts.”

“And hearts,” Brenden added softly. His gaze flickered toward Mariana, then back to Billy. “What do
you
want?”

“Didn’t we already talk about this?” Billy said, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“We all talked about what we had thought we wanted before Laszlo made us think differently,” Mariana said. “Forget all of that. Forget everything. It’s just the three of us. There’s no point being coy, or worrying about what we’ll think about what you want. Truth is the only thing that will help us now. Agreed?”

Billy dropped his hand. “Agreed,” he said flatly.

“Brenden?”

“Truth is a slippery tool at the best of times,” he said warningly.

“It’s the only tool we have for now,” Billy said. “If you want to feel like you have any control over this at all, you have to use the truth to get what you want.”

Brenden shook his head. “It will turn and bite you, but okay. Truth.” Then he smiled. “You go first.”

Billy sat for a minute, then blew out his breath. “This is hard. I want you, of course.” He looked at Mariana. “But I’m drawn to you.”

“You’re ducking the full truth,” Mariana said softly. “You don’t just
want
Brenden.”

His gaze dropped to the ground. “No,” he admitted, his voice low. “I love him.”

Brenden sat motionless, his gaze on Billy. She thought that perhaps Billy’s confession had not touched him at all, but then she spotted the pulse in his neck, throbbing hard. His heart was beating. He
was
reacting, but in typical Brenden fashion was maintaining a stone face in case someone was watching.

Mariana finished the shot of ouzo. For courage. “I keep confusing you, Billy, with Laszlo. You’re the same person, but you’re not the Laszlo I know. Yet you act and sound the same…it’s disorienting, because I was falling in love with him. So I want you…and I love Brenden.”

Brenden’s gaze speared her. His dark eyes seemed to be saying something, but he didn’t speak.

Mariana stared back at him steadily. “So now the truth is out there. No one is bleeding yet. It’s your turn.”

“I don’t know what I want.” Brenden’s voice was low, his gaze on her. “I have avoided entanglements….” He blew out his breath. “I’ve avoided
love
,” he said flatly. “For years. Millennia. It’s too painful. Too…fleeting. So I just stopped. I knew, I think, in here—” and he pressed his knuckles against his chest, “that you were a danger.”

“You treated me like the enemy,” Mariana pointed out.

“You were.” He drew in another breath. It was unsteady. “I didn’t know until you kissed me that it was already too late. And Billy caught me by surprise, too. I had my guard up, but I wasn’t expecting to be hit from that direction.…”

“You fear love,” Billy said.

Brenden closed his eyes. “I thought I was avoiding human complications…but in the end it’s love I don’t want.
Didn’t
want.” Like Billy, he kept his gaze on the dancing flames of the fire. “Still don’t want,” he muttered. “Except Laszlo has me half-convinced it’s too late.”

Mariana shook her head. “So even what we want is tainted by knowing the future.”

Another of the painful, thick silences settled over them. Brenden and Billy stared at the fire. Mariana got up and poured herself another ouzo, to give herself something to do.

Billy stirred and looked at them. “Maybe we’re coming at this the wrong way. We keep trying to figure this out intellectually.”

“Because feelings are such a great guide,” Brenden said dryly.

“What about figuring it out physically?”

Brenden raised a brow. “You want to bed Mariana that badly?”

Billy shook his head. “I want to
kiss
her that badly. I haven’t, yet. She’s kissed me, but that was Laszlo. I have no idea what it will be like to kiss her. I have no doubt that it will be good. But if we can’t figure out what we want until we actually
know
what our options are.” His gaze locked with Brenden’s. “You’re one step ahead of me there.”

“And again, I repeat—she kissed me,” Brenden growled.

“At first,” Mariana added.

Billy grinned. “Tell me you didn’t enjoy it,” he dared Brenden.

“Of course I fucking enjoyed it!” Brenden flared. “I pulled her into my office yesterday morning with every intention of bending her over and picking up where she had left off…and you were ten feet away! I don’t
trust
myself with Mariana.”

“Because I’m merely human,” Mariana finished. Hurt touched her.

Brenden didn’t just look at her, he turned his whole body to face her. “Because you’re
you
!” he growled. “You’re human, but you’re incredibly smart, sexy and when you leave a room I can still smell you on my skin—for hours after—and it drives me crazy. I love the way your hips move when you walk. I love your hair now you’ve let it grow longer. I love that you were hauled into the agency and dumped in the middle of a bunch of overbearing, self-centered vampires and you held your own. You’ve
changed
. You’ve grown into this incredibly strong, efficient woman, the person who really keeps the agency on the rails. And throughout everything that we’ve pushed you into—all the time jumping, hiding out in the past, writing books
and
keeping stubborn vampires in line—in that whole time you have never once compromised your ideals. You still believe that vampires are good, that they’re worth fighting for. You stood up in front of the entire world and said so. I’ve lived hundreds of lives longer than you and I can stop a rampaging soldier in his tracks, but I don’t have the sort of courage you have. Christ above, I can’t even speak of love without hyperventilating.”

His gaze skittered away and returned to the flames.

“That sounded like a pretty decent declaration of love to me,” Billy said softly.

Brenden dropped his head into his hands, hiding his face.

“I think you should kiss me,” Mariana said. “In front of Billy, right here and right now. You need to know what you feel.”

Brenden lifted his head. “I know what I feel,” he said roughly.

“Kiss me for no other reason than you want to,” Mariana said. “No guilt, no worry about what Billy will think. Kiss me and see how you feel after that.”

For a moment, she thought he was going to continue to resist her, that she wasn’t enough to overcome his long, long life of hurts and disappointments and loneliness. But then he pushed himself out of the chair and leaned toward her and his lips pressed against hers.

Thought stopped. Time stopped.

She had thought the kiss could not possibly be as good as the first, especially if she was aware of a third person watching them. She had assumed that having Billy watch them kiss would make her feel awkward.

But awkward was the last thing she felt. There was a freedom in having Billy know it all, that the kiss was purely and simply a kiss, that she was free to enjoy for what it was—and it was heavenly.

Brenden pulled her closer, until their bodies were straining against each other. He was hot—human hot. She could feel his heart against her chest, pounding hard. He ended the kiss by slowly drawing away from her mouth, as if he was as reluctant as her to finish it. He was breathing hard and he looked into her eyes. Mariana didn’t want the moment to end.

“Wow!” Billy breathed, next to them.

She blinked as Brenden put her back on her feet and moved to his seat.

Billy gave a small cough. “I never considered myself a voyeur…until now.”

Mariana made her legs move. She walked over to Billy’s chair and leaned down slowly, telegraphing her intentions so that he had all the time in the world to move, or protest, or stop this. Then she kissed him.

It was like kissing Laszlo as it should have been, but there was a difference in quality. This time there was no hesitation. No doubt. An absence of second guessing herself and her motives. She wanted to kiss Billy, so she was.

There was a delicious wickedness to kissing him knowing that Brenden was watching.

Then Billy groaned and pulled her down into his lap, barely breaking the kiss. The chair adjusted around them, his arm pulled her up hard against his chest and he kissed her with a heated intensity that stole her breath and made her heart thunder. Her body tightened and she realized that she was clinging to Billy with all her strength, trying to draw him closer.

Billy’s mouth lifted from hers, then he pressed his lips against hers once more. Then another. Hard, hungry touches.

If there was a single word that encompassed Billy, that would be it—hardness. Strength, too. Not just physical strength. There was a plasteel core in him that had endured heartbreak and disappointment and left him still optimistic about the future—hopeful enough to fall in love one more time.

Mariana rested her hand against his chest and felt the frantic beat of his heart.

Billy pushed her hair off her face and back over her shoulder with a soft brush of his hand. He looked puzzled. “From one kiss?” he asked.

“From one kiss, what?” Brenden demanded.

Mariana jumped. For a moment, she had forgotten he was there.

Billy’s arm tightened around her. “I want her as much as I want you. Two minutes ago, I didn’t understand your obsession. Now, I do.”

Mariana tried to sit up. “Now you must kiss Brenden,” she said.

“Not if I have to let you go.”

“I can fix that,” Brenden said, his voice back to the low growl. He moved around the fire and dropped to his knees in front of the chair, close enough that his stomach brushed Mariana’s elbow. He rested his big hand on her waist, then leaned over her and kissed Billy.

Hot pleasure fizzled through her as she watched their mouths move together from this very intimate vantage point.

Then Brenden groaned, the sound rumbling in his chest, right next to her. Mariana caught her breath and held it, as her excitement leapt to an even higher plane. She wriggled in Billy’s arm, unable to stay still. She wanted more, but she wanted to watch them together like this. It was an exquisite torment. They both had a hand resting on her and she wanted their hands to move, to stroke her.

Brenden tore his mouth away from Billy’s and looked down at her. His dark eyes were narrowed. Sleepy. “Anyone would think you liked that.”

“And they would be right.” Her voice was as rough as his.

Silence. This time it was filled with a taut waiting.

“Much more of this,” Billy said, “and I won’t be able to stop.”

“
Don’t
stop,” Mariana begged.

Billy looked at Brenden. “Do we stop?”

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Brenden swallowed as he considered Billy’s question. His hand on her waist shifted restlessly. “No, we don’t stop.” He bent to kiss her. As his lips met hers, his hand swept up from her waist, to her breast. He cupped it through her cotton top and Mariana moaned into his mouth, her back snapping taut, pushing her breast into his hand. Encouraging him.

But it was Billy that took advantage of her reaction. His fingers stroked inside her knee and her legs parted, encouraging him, as the chair moved to support them both, shifting as they did. Billy trailed his hand higher, pushing her skirt up as he went, exposing her thighs, then her hips. His fingers stroked the tender flesh on the inside of her thighs, making her moan again and her hips to thrust. It was an explicit invitation.

Brenden lifted his mouth from hers. He was breathing heavily. As Billy teased her thighs, Brenden lifted her shirt over her head and tossed it away. “Help me,” he said softly. Billy and he together removed the rest of her clothing, leaving Mariana naked in Billy’s arm.

He returned his hand to her legs, to the same teasing and stroking, only this time there was no barrier to prevent him from probing further. Deeper. The possibility made Mariana shudder and gasp as his fingers roamed over her flesh.

Brenden concentrated on her breasts. He closed his fingers around one and Mariana moaned again. His hand was hot against her. But he had not touched the nipple yet and she badly wanted him to.

Instead he bent his head and his lips brushed over the swell at the bottom of her other breast. So close to the nipple, but he scrupulously avoided it, moving his mouth all around it. His tongue tickled, his lips stroked and his breath blew across her moist skin, tickling her nerves.

The tip of his tongue touched the areole and she could feel the circle around her nipple tighten.

Then Brenden swiped his tongue across the end of her nipple and at the same time, Billy pressed his fingers up against her throbbing, swollen clit. She cried out at the double impact, her nerves sizzling and her body tightening up unbearably. Her climax began to build as they both continued their twin assault. Brenden teased the tip of one breast with his hand while he tugged and scraped the other with his teeth and lips. Billy pushed his fingers into her slick channel, then deeper into her pussy The lean length of his fingers impaled her, the knuckles scraping along the wall of her pussy, making the muscle clench and her clit pulse.

Dazed, Mariana found her eyes were drifting shut, as she laid helplessly writhing. The pleasure was indescribable. She had not suspected that the attentions of two men would far surpass the joys given by one. It wasn’t simply a doubling of pleasure. This was a tenfold increase, or more.