Chapter 20
We eventually made it down to the party an hour after everyone had seen us trying to eat each other’s faces in the bedroom window.
They all probably assumed we’d done more than wrestle tongues right after.
But that was fine. It was unlikely these people cared about Theo’s personal life. They definitely didn’t care about mine.
I stayed at Theo’s elbow and mingled with him to begin with, but it wasn’t long before a crowd formed around him, and somehow, without me knowing when, I found myself standing alone at the snack table, with a glass of wine and a tiny plate of party food.
I’d been squeezed out, but I was okay with it. Mostly because I still buzzed from having my hands on Theo, like nobody else here had. But also, I wasn’t a crowd person.
Theo’s touch still lived in my body. The memory of his hands on me, his mouth doing good things on my skin, and then after, on the bed, side by side, sharing breaths and bodies, and I was going to have to stop thinking about it or we’d have an embarrassing situation by the snack table.
I’d have stayed in bed with him all night if a housekeeper hadn’t knocked and told Theo his mother had been looking for him.
We’d cleaned up after, both kinda awkward, but miracle of miracles, he got cute when awkward.
After a few nudges, some laughs, Theo’s light kiss had landed on my forehead like an afterthought right before we’d headed for the door.
I didn’t know what it meant, if it meant anything. I wanted it to mean something. But what was Theo thinking about us?
I could hear Theo laughing with his group across the room. I’d clearly been forgotten now he was with his people, but wasn’t that what I’d wanted? #Thowen trending would be a disaster, and if I went over there, there was no way I’d keep a goofy post-sex smile off my face.
I put my wine down and opened my phone.
Sure enough, there we were, #Thowen was trending in the local area, maybe wider too, right alongside multiple pictures taken through the window, from a low angle, of me trying to climb down Theo’s throat using my tongue first. He looked all handsome with his black hair and pretty dark eyes.
Next to him, I was the average, sandy-haired, tanned guy who worked the yard.
A nobody. And the internet was eating it up.
#GoldenRetrieverEnergy #HotPoolGuy #PoolGuyAtVampireMansion.
I turned my phone off before it could suck me into a social media spiral, and lifted my head.
Theo had vanished. My heart did a little hiccup.
I tried not to let it hit me wrong, that he’d leave without telling me.
What had I expected? He hadn’t said anything about us being a couple, just because we’d jerked off face to face and stared into each other’s eyes like it had meant something.
He probably brought guys home for that all the time.
He’d said some nice things, but it wasn’t as though we were in love or anything. And how much of it was real?
All of it was real, dumbass. You know him better than that. You felt how real it was. Now go find him.
I did know that.
It wouldn’t hurt to check in with him, even if I didn’t fit with his tribe. We didn’t need to be side by side all night, we were grown-ups. Grown-ups who had come in his hand not so long ago.
Oh-kay, clearly my mind was going to be stuck there all night.
But I was allowed. My dry spell had ended, and I still had it in me to make another guy breathless.
I sure knew how to pick ’em, but Theo wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d wrongly assumed when I’d first seen him.
Despite all his many, many faults, I wanted more.
And it wasn’t just the sex, although I definitely wanted more of that.
I wanted to be near him, to talk with him at three a.m., share my thoughts and dreams with him.
Okay, don’t get ahead of yourself there, lover boy.
Hm, this voice in my head had started to sound like a whole other person. A lot like mirror me, in fact. But that couldn’t be right. That thing had dissolved along with the rest of the Briars’ toxic pool. Hadn’t it?
I’d wandered outside into the cool night air, where the landscape lighting got sparse and the shadows had thickened. There were people out here, walking through the grounds, chatting. Not completely off the beaten track, but distant enough from the house that the music was a suggestion.
“I’ve been waiting to get you alone.” A voice I’d recently heard said from close behind me.
I spun.
A thick, salty hand slammed over my mouth. My back hit the house wall, oomphing air from my lungs.
Sweet loomed, filling my whole vision with his stocky, broad self.
How’d he get into the grounds?
Didn’t matter.
He was here, and big, and had a hold of me with a solid grip.
“What game are you playing, huh? Cleaning pools? That ain’t you, Owen. Davis needs your brain back at the numbering. He misses you. Time to come with me.”
Davis didn’t miss me. He missed the money I made for him.
Don’t fight. Don’t do anything. Nod along, let him think we’re listening, and when he lets go, which he will, because Davis doesn’t want you dead, lure him into the garden over there and make it so he has an accident. A fatal one.
Have a what now?
Was the voice in my head even mine? It seemed darker than the typical voice I argued with in my head.
“This is how it’s going down, Owen.” Sweet’s thick hand pushed in, forcing my head back against the hard wall. A reminder that I was smaller and weaker. Pain sparked behind my eyes. “You’re gonna pack this shit up, and you’re going back to Davis. You hear? You owe him. You belong to him.”
That wasn’t happening, but I nodded anyway.
“Stop fucking around with fake vampires and get back where you belong.”
“Did you just call me fake?”
Theo!
Sweet turned his head and there was Theo, head and hip cocked, dark-lashed eyes all emotive and devilish, shirt half open, pants low on his hips, like he barely knew how to dress himself. But like his mother’s suits, the casual mess he projected was camouflage.
“Yeah, you, pretty boy, whatever the fuck you are. Whatever this is, it ends now. You hear? Owen is taken by a guy you don’t wanna mess with. You get me?”
Theo tilted his head. A shallow laugh fell out of him. “Oh, I get you. You think this guy Davis owns Owen? Is that right? Just so I’m clear? I wouldn’t want any unfortunate misunderstandings between us.”
A dark teasing curl of humor wove through Theo’s voice, shooting off warning flares in my mind. There wasn’t anyone around. We were out the back of his property. And Theo was moving closer, doing his whole “I’m a dumb vampire who sunbathes for kicks” act.
Sweet took his hand off my mouth and said to me, “Tell this freak you’re taken.”
Sweet had taken his gaze off Theo.
I opened my mouth to tell Theo not to do something stupid, but Theo had already moved.
Sweet vanished. I felt him go instead of seeing it—snatched from the place he’d been standing. A few masculine grunts in the bushes to my left was all the warning I got that Theo had Sweet down there.
I took a second to catch my breath, and stumbled over to them.
Sweet’s legs stuck out from the hibiscus, kicking in the dirt. His heels dug out grooves, and then the kicking began to slow. Theo was on him, straddling his hips, face buried in his neck.
There’s knowing you’re maybe boyfriend is a vampire, and then seeing he’s a vampire. And the seeing was very different to the knowing. I wanted my piano leg back.
Theo’s back and shoulders moved with every pull from Sweet’s veins. His whole body moved with the motion. He fed, that was the only way of describing it. He fed.
If Theo killed this guy, Davis would double his efforts. He wouldn’t send one man, he’d send a small army to get me back. It would be worse.
I reached down and touched Theo’s shoulder. He snapped his head up and glared through me. Rabid, predatory hunger burned in Theo’s eyes. The bedroom softness had long gone. Sweet was his kill, and I clearly wasn’t getting between him and his meal.
I could stop this. Should stop this. At least try to save Sweet. Right?
On the other hand, he would have gotten violent, would have taken me back by force, and that would end with me back in trouble with the law, or worse. Because I wasn’t ever going back. I’d rather die.
Theo shook my hand off and buried his fangs in the man’s neck again.
Or . . . I stepped back. I could also not help?
Just stand back and let nature take its course.
Vampires were part of nature. This was all how the food chain worked. Bentley had said so.
Davis had cost me two years of my life and much of my future. He’d used me, manipulated me. People had gotten hurt. So who’s fault was it that this guy had crossed paths with a real vampire?
There he is. Mr. Ruthless. I’ve missed you, man.
Shut up, voice.
We’re back, baby.
Either I was losing my mind or there really was another separate personality in my head. Neither option was ideal, and also not my most immediate problem.
Theo gasped free of the guy’s neck and crouched back. He licked his lips and sighed. “Fuck . . . I really needed that.”
Sweet didn’t move. His eyes were open, mouth too. I didn’t think he was going to be bullying me into going back to Davis anytime soon, or bullying anyone ever again.
“You killed him.” I’m not sure why I had to say it aloud. Maybe so I heard the words, made them real. But if I expected to feel anything on hearing them, it didn’t happen.
Theo rolled his gaze toward me, his smile growing. “He was a bad guy, Owen.”
“We’re bad guys.”
“You’re moderately chaotic at best, Freckles.” He got to his feet, stepped over Sweet’s cooling body, and shook out his hands. “Damn, I feel great. That’s what I’ve been missing. A real kill, you know?”