“Protection is a compulsion to a small degree,” I state vaguely. “Serving…not so much.”
Her lips tug up in a lopsided, sardonic grin. “Well, let’s get on with the part where you do serve,” she states abruptly as she pulls out two long ropes from the bag.
“What’s that?” I ask her, my eyebrows lifting.
“It’s so that you don’t get away too easily,” she states like it’s obvious, confusing me.
Before I can ask more questions, she pulls out an odd, terribly sewn leather contraption.
“She can thread a needle like a boss, but her sewing skills are…horrendous. Was she telling me the truth about her family once sewing for royalty?” she muses when I lift the leather harness thing and try to figure out what the hell it’s for.
“Yes,” I state distractedly. “It saved her family from annihilation. Her family was enslaved at one point and forced to create the most sensational fashion for the royal families of the throne, or of relation to the throne,” I add.
“Well…that’s a bit more morbid.”
“So is the vast majority of our past,” I answer absently. “What is this?” I ask, holding up the harness contraption.
She just grins. “It’s so I don’t get away too easily. I hate to rush things along, since it’s nice having a companionable evening with a man and talking about my favorite-ever person, but my time is dwindling.”
She snaps her fingers like she expects me to spring into action. I glance down at my lap and take in the fact I’m anything but aroused right now, even though she’s stunning. It’s…unnerving to plan to fuck a Portocale gypsy who is possessed.
Lifting the whiskey, I drink a few long chugs before putting the bottle down and standing.
Anna tosses the leather contraption and the ropes to the bed, and then looks over expectantly at me as she walks to stand right in front of me, craning her head back to stare into my eyes.
Those eyes are confusing me, because they belong to Violet, and Violet never stares up at me with that much desire and want. Probably a damn good thing, since this is all really fucking confusing and crazy.
“I’ve lived a long time, but fucking a ghost is a first for me,” I tell her when she slowly starts unbuttoning my shirt, showing care.
“I can promise you my expectations are extremely low,” she assures me.
She leans up on her tiptoes as she finishes unbuttoning my shirt, and her fingers skate across my shoulders as she pushes the shirt off slowly.
Leaning down, trying to get myself in the mood a few hours earlier than I planned to have to, I let my lips brush hers.
It still feels awkward, especially when she kisses me, her lips gliding over mine with no familiarity.
The kiss stops abruptly and she pulls my head down to whisper against my ear. “You can pretend I’m her,” she says in such a muted tone I barely hear her. “I won’t judge.”
This time when her lips touch mine, I kiss her harder, lifting her so that her legs wrap around my waist.
She moans into my mouth as I carry her to the bed, and I shut my mind off so I can stop overthinking it all and give her the send-off Violet wants her to have.
At least until a triplet set of creepy children land in the room.
My lips go still on hers, even as I avoid eye contact.
“Don’t mind them,” Anna says like she knows exactly what has me pausing. “I told them they could watch.”
I’m not really sure how my life has turned into this without any sort of warning.
Chapter 5
VIOLET
I’m staring down at Vance when I come to, and his arms are…tied to the bed…
His hips buck up, like he’s urging me to move, and I come to the jarring, mind-boggling, surreal realization that we’re decidedly in the middle of having sex.
He’s inside me. I’m wearing the leather harness that attaches my body to his—Anna’s design that I sewed.
The brief moment of surprise has me stunned and just staring down, almost non-responsive, as he thrusts up again, groaning as his eyes open.
“So close,” he tells me…a little desperately with a really gruff, indescribably sexy tone.
My eyes dart over to where Anna is doubled over, hands on her knees, as she grins at me like the devil she is.
“Sorry. Had to make sure you got something out of this as well,” she tells me.
Vance goes utterly still under me, and the most awkward situation in history becomes this very exact moment.
He’s inside me, hard and very filling. He’s tied down, and I forget I’m strapped to him when I try to move.
The harness catches me before I can lift all the way off him, and he groans when I’m forced back down, feeling the drag of his cock inside me on the down-stroke.
My thighs actually clench, because I almost do it again on purpose, which is so freaking wrong. Why did I really think I could trust her?
“Anna,” I hiss, my cheeks burning as I glare over at her.
“Sorry,” she says again, still not even pretending to actually sound sorry as she grins broader. “Stay and enjoy. You both need a little less seriousness in your lives. You’re welcome,” she says as I catch sight of the triplets grinning and waving at me.
“And take your time,” she adds as she punches the air and begins to jog.
Vance struggles with the ropes on his hands, cursing Anna under his breath. “You could have been a damn good gypsy,” he says over at her, his lips twitching.
She nods. “Much better than Violet,” she says with a teasing grin.
She really doesn’t know just how much I want to salt her. But then I remember something important that I’m good at.
As the strands of very thickly corded rope begin whirring in the air, I smirk over at her.
“Damn gypsy,” she mutters, still grinning, as Vance sighs in relief.
The second the massive ropes are mostly shredded, he breaks them the rest of the way, and he starts fumbling with the metal clasps of the harness.
Unfortunately, that puts his face dangerously close to mine, and a breath shakes out of me when he lifts my legs and drags me closer. An unbidden roll of my hips has his breath catching. I’m not sure when my hands went to his shoulders, but I grip them tighter, resisting the urge to use them as leverage.
This is really distracting.
I barely force my eyes away, and his hands slow on working free the buckles as I stare at Anna, who is still grinning and running in place.
“Take your time. I feel better than I have in so long. I think you just re-energized me,” she says, eyes bright. “It could be the answer to the universe.”
My eyes widen. “You’re serious?”
She nods as her grin brightens. “So serious. I’ll see you back at the house. We’ll talk it over there.” She gestures to the triplets. “C’mon, girls. She’s not as kinky as I am.”
With that, I see a triplet touch her hand, and they all disappear.
That’s when it starts getting awkward again, because I remember what I have no idea how I forgot.
My lips clumsily bump his when I turn my head, because he’s gotten so much closer. He doesn’t pull back more than just a hair’s breadth away from my lips.
“I’ll leave this up to you,” he murmurs, his lips ghosting over mine in the barest of touches.
I can’t even remember exactly how long it’s been for me, but I can only imagine how long it’s been for him, considering he actually got bored with sex. Anna thinks the ribbon girl is cruel? She left him hanging after all that time and left his fate in my lesser experienced hands.
“You’re the one who lost interest in sex. It feels wrong for this decision to be mine, since I put you in this incredibly awkward position. Apologizing seems like something I should be—”
His lips find mine in an almost bruising kiss, and I forget what I was even saying. I’m not sure why I was the least attracted to him, since he’s by far the sexiest man I’ve ever known in this very wrong moment.
It’s like he knows every right way to kiss a girl, and is effortlessly transitioning into each method at a slow, deliberate pace.