Page 23 of Vampires Don't Give Hickeys
But were the three of them really okay with this? They hadn’t given me a chance to ask them, and now I was alone with my thoughts. WasIokay with this? Regular society would declare me a slut, but like it or not, I wasn’t part of regular society. Besides, I needed the three of them, and not just on a sexual level. And I suspected they needed me too.
And it wasn’t as if they turned me off. Far from it. My body had practically caught fire at the thought of having sex with all three of them, at once and individually. Even now, the echoes of Sawyer’s touch on my thigh made me squirm in my chair and stuttered the air in my lungs until I was a panting mess. Jacek’s lips on my neck had soaked my panties. And Eddie’s genius was always a turn-on, no touching required. I was sure all three of them could smell my desire even now.
Did I need to sleep with all three of them so the demon would think I was tainted enough to leave me alone? Maybe. Maybe not. It was my choice.Mychoice. That alone made me almost giddy.
The sounds of Jacek pushing the furniture out of the way and rolling out his mats drifted from the living room.
I gathered my biology homework, stashed it in my duffel bag at my feet, then rose from the table while attempting to steady my breathing so I could walk past him out the door with minimal drooling. He was just a vampire, a hot, sexy vampire who loathed shirts and who could take me out in a fight. So far, at least. That was one thing I’d like to change.
He stood stretching on the mats as I came in, his stacks of muscle flexing underneath the scarred flesh on his back. I admired that he didn’t try to hide them, maybe as a reminder of his survival through whatever horror had caused them, or maybe as a reminder that they were simply one part of his whole being, one chapter in his whole story. Whatever the reason, it must’ve taken great courage.
He turned, flashing me that alluring grin. “Want to learn how to disarm someone in two seconds tops?”
I arched an eyebrow. “Definitely, but don’t you have students coming?”
“In half an hour.” He made a gimme motion toward my duffel bag. “Hand me a stake.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. A vampire wielding a stake? What if you stab yourself like I did or accidentally fall on it or...?” I stopped as his grin faded somewhat, as something shifted behind his eyes. Surprise, it seemed.
“Are you worried about me, Slayer?” His good humor sparked back over his face like he was joking around, but I guessed otherwise. He didn’t think I would be? That thought twisted a knife in my heart.
“Well, yeah...”
“I promise I’ll be careful. With you and the stake.” There was a solemn note in his voice I hadn’t heard before, and it fluttered my insides to hear him say it like a vow. I believed every word. Besides, careful didn’t mean gentle.
I fished in my duffel for a stake and then handed it to him. He took it, not seeming to mind I’d used it to dispatch quite a few of his kind, and flipped it again and again in his hand.
“Let’s brawl, earth scum!” he warned, his voice pitched high like a cartoon villain.
I burst into laughter.
“Sorry. I’ve always wanted to say that, but it never seemed appropriate with paying students.” He widened his feet into a fighting stance, his orange-yellow eyes still crinkling at the corners. “Okay, so keeping your palms flat, knock one against my hand, and the other against my wrist at the same time, as fast as you can like you’re about to catch a hot potato.” He held the stake in front of him like a dagger. “Ready?”
“Umm, that’s not how you hold a stake.”
“It’s a weapon, Slayer. It can be held a lot of different ways.”
Okay, then. I visualized my actions before I moved, then I struck my palms on either side of his hand. The stake popped out of his grip and hit the mat.
“Nicely done.” He bent to retrieve it while I gave myself a pat on the back, then he held it like a normal stake—in the air near his ear. “I’m going to do a running attack now, but do exactly what you just did, rolling the weapon toward the thumb. It loosens the grip just enough, and that combined with the initial shock of you disarming them will make them drop the weapon more times than not. Okay?”
“And if I’m the one who needs to be disarmed?” After last night, I couldn’t even trust myself. Not a good feeling in my line of work.
“Same thing applies if you’re able. Roll the weapon toward your thumb. I also put a Kevlar vest next to the door for you to wear on patrol. Let’s not put any more holes in that beautiful body of yours.”
My eyes widened, but before I knew it, he was tearing toward me, stake raised high. I held my ground, my whole body twitching in preparation to defend myself. When he was almost upon me, I flashed out my arms and forced him to drop the stake. He whipped to my side, but I read his movements, knowing what he was going to do before he did it. I dodged out of the way of his tripping feet and kicked his legs out from underneath him before he did it to me. He landed with a ridiculously satisfying smack.
Cue theRockytheme song because I felt like a badass.
I straddled his hips and squatted low, and because I was such a polite sparring partner, I stuck my finger in his face and said, “Ha!”
He laughed, the sound itself a delight. “Ha is right. You did good, Slayer.”
“Thanks.” Even though I had a long way to go before I moved as gracefully as he did, it felt good to finally be on an actual path that might eventually lead me to that point. To Jacek, I probably looked like I was dancing with bees while I fought, but I doubted he’d ever admit to that. I flicked my gaze to the black vest lying just inside the front door, and warmth thrummed underneath my skin. If I had to wear body armor to keep from staking myself, then so be it. I was a work in progress, and through this shitstorm of a week, therewasprogress. “And thank you for the Kevlar vest too. That’s more than I could ever ask for.”
“You deserve a lot more than a vest, Slayer.” He reached up and tucked a stray hair from my bun behind my ear. “Sometimes I wish humans could see us just so they’d know about you and everything you do for them.”
Whoa. That might’ve been the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me. For ten long years, I’d been fighting the big fight with zero acknowledgement. Not like I needed a constant spotlight and praise every damn day, but a little less frothing at the mouth from thirsty customers at The Bean Dream and fewer catcalls when I walked down the street would be really nice. Actually, everyone deserved fewer of those things, so I supposed all I really wanted was the slightest recognition for what I did. And it had come in spades from three lickable vampires.
