Blood Red. Sharon Page

her cheek. Her nude vampire-warrior. His large erection parried against her thigh. His hair and eyes gleamed bright and silver-gold in the wavering light.

      But the sensuous voice had come from her left.

      Long golden hair tickled her lips and cheek. Firm male lips slanted over hers from the left while Yannick bent and licked her neck from the right. Yannick’s hands slid beneath her left breast and lingered over her heartbeat, but another man’s hand nudged his away.

      Pleasure shivers tumbled down her spine as their hot mouths claimed both her mouth and her throat. Each man cupped a breast. She sensed the slight differences in their hands. Yannick’s rougher, his brother’s smooth. Yannick’s fingers pinched and teased her nipple, but his brother turned caresses into pain—not enough to make her cry out and fight him, but enough to make her moan in sweet agony.

      Althea gazed up into her second lover’s mirrored eyes, dark pools of heat and erotic knowledge. She knew he was Yannick’s brother, Sebastien de Wynter.

      Fraternal twins, she thought, hazily, as his hands skimmed down toward her thighs. Though shadow cloaked them, she knew they were different in looks. Somehow she knew they would be different in the ways they would make love to her.

      Stroke us both, Althea.

      She longed to. Lust burned in her. She shifted her hips and the sensitive curves of her hipbones brushed against both their naked cocks. No, she whispered in her mind. I…I can’t.

      Sebastien’s laugh was low, wicked. Sweetheart, don’t remain a prisoner of your goodness. Enjoy yourself.

      Yannick smiled at her again but his eyes flicked a warning to his brother.

      She’s not yet ready, Bastien.

      How could she hear words meant for his brother?

      Bastien spoke to her. No one sins in a dream, sweetheart.

      Was that true? She needed to believe it was.

      Bold as brass, she reached down and curled her right hand around Yannick’s cock. Her brave action surprised her, and surprised Yannick more, judging by his throaty gasp. She clutched the familiar thickness of his shaft and let her fingertips stroke the velvety length to the firm, full head. Touching it made her wet and achy, made her heart pound in delight.

      Just your touch makes me want to explode.

      She felt the tension in Bastien as Yannick moaned.

      Her left hand crept down. She wanted to pretend she did not control it. Her fingers danced over the very tip of Bastien’s cock. Touched his sticky wetness.

      Yes.

      His cock was different too. Slimmer—for her fingers met around the base of his. Longer? She couldn’t be sure. A fuller head. She couldn’t resist peeking—first at Yannick’s and then at his brother’s. In the shadow, she couldn’t see much. Only that both were as individual as the men who possessed them and that both were beautiful.

      Even in the gloom, she caught the expression on the twins’ faces. A trace of uncertainty. A worry that she might prefer one to the other? That one was better?

      Both of you are perfect. She tried to stroke them both at the same time, in the same way. But she couldn’t. She reached the taut head of Bastien’s cock first, and squeezed tight. His head dropped back; his lids plunged down to shield his glowing eyes.

      Oh, yes, angel. You’re going to make me come.

      Come. The word they used for pleasure.

      Cupping the firm, wet, hot head of Yannick’s cock, she squeezed them both. Two hungry male moans echoed through the room. Echoed through her head, her heart, her quim.

      She stroked faster. Clumsily, but they didn’t seem to care. Yannick moaned. Deep, hoarse, almost desperate. Bastien panted over and over. Fuck, fuck, yes, fuck me. They kissed her lips, cheeks, the rims of her ears, the length of her throat with their mouths wide open. As though they starved for her.

      Yannick’s cock swelled first, growing so thick and large she could barely drag her fingers along it. His hips bucked forward, his head bowed, and he cried out. Breathtakingly vulnerable. White, hot come shot out across her hand.

      You always did lose control first, Sebastien crowed, then he cried her name and came too.

      “London?”

      Althea stared at her father in astonishment. Their carriage swayed as it lurched up the hill to the churchyard and the case on her lap slid across her knees. She tightened her grip on the handle. She didn’t dare let it fall.

      Seated across from her, with the view ahead, Father leaned on his walking stick.

      “Yes, missy, London. It’s too dangerous for you here, lass. And you deserve the excitement of London.”

      The excitement of London? How could London compare to the adventure of hunting Zayan? And the adventure of bedding two men, whispered her naughty internal voice. “What excitement?”

      “You are a young lady. Balls. Dancing. Gentlemen. The sort of things that young women fancy.” His blue eyes twinkled behind his spectacles.

      “But I don’t fancy them. I am doing exactly what I wish to do.”

      “Your mother would have wanted to see you do those things.”

      Oh no, he couldn’t make her feel guilt that way—she didn’t know what Mother would have wanted. Three when her mother had died in childbed with her second child, Althea could barely remember her. The only portraits stayed at Kenworth House, their English home that she rarely saw. Only a tiny miniature was with her to remind her of Mother’s vivacious smile, her vibrant auburn hair, her lively green eyes, and the love and joy she radiated.

      “But she let you continue to hunt vampires because she knew how important it is,” Althea reminded him. “She let you follow your heart.”

      “And my sweet Anne would have me head if she knew I had let you do it.” He stretched out his leg, wincing, and rubbed his thigh through his breeches. “You’re a distraction to me, lass. I can’t be worrying about your safety—”

      “And when have you ever needed to do that? I’m well able to take care of myself.”

      Father leaned back against the seat as the coach took a dip to the right and rattled through deep ruts. “The truth then, lovey? I want you to find yourself a husband. Give me grandchildren. I fancy myself as Grandpa.”

      Her heart dipped as abruptly as the carriage. Marriage? She couldn’t marry! A husband would never accept a vampire-hunting wife. The brief time she’d spent in London had taught her two things. Gentlemen expected a wife to be proper and docile, preferably a pretty china ornament. And twenty-three-year-old bluestockings in spectacles, with only modest family connections and no fortune, did not catch the attention of gentlemen.

      Althea opened her mouth to protest. But a soft light sparkled in her father’s eyes—dreamy happiness at the thought of grandchildren. No doubt her father envisioned sitting beneath an apple tree and bouncing a hearty boy and pretty girl on his knees.

      Her thoughts whirled like the swirling lights of last night. Her father longed for grandchildren. But what of her hopes? Did she want children? She’d always thought she should endeavor to rid the world of evil before bringing children into it, but that was, of course, impossible.

      Would it be worth giving up her dreams, giving herself in marriage, to have children?

      How could she give herself in marriage now?

      A guilty flush swept her face and she couldn’t stop it. Her fingertips tingled as though they still touched the velvety steel of Yannick’s and Bastien’s cocks. Deep in her soul, she heard them moan again. Her body tightened instantly, hot and yearning. Her nipples puckered beneath her plain gown, her gray pelisse. Her quim throbbed like a second heartbeat.

      Would this always happen