Chapter 8
eight
BLAIR
My sisters were chatting up a storm with a small group of vampires who sat around them when we made it down to the dining room.
At least, some of them were.
Okay, fine, Clementine was.
Zora looked annoyed.
Izzy was sleeping, with her head on the table and her plate cleared in front of her.
Avery was nodding, but she looked severely uncomfortable in the conversation. Knowing her, she just didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by shutting it down.
None of us were used to talking with people outside our family in any sort of capacity unless it involved a nightclub. Even then, it was only to keep us alive.
Learning how to live in the Manor, surrounded by vampires, was going to take some serious adjustment.
The vampires served their meals restaurant-style, but there were only two food options, to simplify things. Everyone who lived in the Manor had a job, and the dining room made up a fair number of those. Damian had explained that to me on our way down from our room.
We put in orders on our phones after we arrived, then headed over to my sisters.
Two of the vampires sitting at their table excused themselves when they saw me and Damian coming. They were doing it to make space for us, but considering the absolute misery in Avery’s eyes, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if they just wanted to get out of the conversation.
“Hey,” she murmured, when we sat down.
“Nice outfit,” Zora said with a snort. “Looks like you had a run-in with some chlorine, too.”
“I am the epitome of fashion,” I said, rolling up the sleeves of my six-sizes-too-big long-sleeved shirt yet again. The pants were only staying on my waist because Damian had tied a knot in the waistband itself. “And the glitter was worth it. You need to see the pool here. It’s insane.”
“How long until the chlorine’s gone?” Zora checked.
I shrugged, looking at Damian. He shrugged too.
She made a face. “I’ll try to suffer without it for a few days. Your magic will purify it out eventually.”
“I’ll brave the glitter with you,” Clementine said cheerfully. “Glitter’s going to become all the rage in the Manor for the next few weeks.”
She held her phone out to Zora, whose eyebrows lifted when she saw the picture of me that Damian had sent.
I sighed.
She handed it over to Avery, who bit back a smile.
“So, Hale,” Zora said, studying the guy with new eyes. She’d undoubtedly seen his message underneath the picture. “Are we going to bring up the matching mate marks? Because that seems like something worth bringing up, don’t you think?”
“Run,” Avery murmured to him, and Damian snorted.
“I think they’re enough of a statement on their own, don’t you?” he asked.
“Sure, if the statement you want to make is, I forced a siren to mate with me .”
Avery put her face in her hands.
Clementine sighed.
“That is what happened, isn’t it?” Zora prodded.
Damian’s nostrils flared, but he looked at me.
He wanted my permission before going toe-to-toe with my sister. And I would give it to him… but the dining room had quieted around us.
People were watching.
This conversation was important. Not for my sisters, or for me, but for the stability of the Manor. Considering how many vampires it housed, and the fact that it was protecting us too, that stability was important.
“We had fun. Look at the glitter in his hair. It’s even in the scruff on his face,” I pointed out, reaching up to ruffle his hair just so she could see more of it. “He actually told me not to seal the bond until I was ready, but I wanted to be able to drink his emotions without kissing him. So, I sealed it. Feel free to question him, but don’t go accusing him of hurting me or taking my freedom. If that happened, I’d kill him myself.”
Normal discussion slowly resumed around the room, and I hoped I’d avoided any sort of negative outcome with my answer.
He squeezed my thigh lightly, but released it when our plates arrived.
“How big is the pool, exactly?” Avery asked.
“ Huge ,” Clementine said, her eyes bright. “But Hale hasn’t let anyone swim in it until today, so I’ve only looked at it. They built that thing insanely fast.”
I frowned.
The rest of my sisters shot him inquisitive looks.
“I built the pool for Blair. I wasn’t going to open it until she got here,” he said simply. “And the crew only finished it a few days ago, so it wasn’t a big deal to make everyone swim in the other pool.”
I whipped my head around to face him. “There’s another pool?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Clementine.
“It’s beautiful,” she assured me. “Gorgeous blue tile. Massive dive tank. Great lap area.” She made an okay sign with her fingers and kissed it, making Zora snort.
“You’re ridiculous,” Zora said, though the words were playful.
“I know.” Clem leaned her head against Zora’s shoulder.
“Now I feel like I’m missing out,” Avery teased me.
“We’ll go pool-hopping tomorrow,” I promised.
“In that wetsuit we talked about, I hope,” Damian drawled.
“Bring that up again and I’m swimming in the nude,” I warned.
He mimed zipping his lips and throwing the key away, earning laughs around the table.
“I feel like there’s a story behind this,” Clementine said.
I leaned over the table. “It started with a shoe hitting me in the boob…”
By the time I was done, all of my awake sisters were laughing. Even Zora seemed to have warmed to Damian a little.
And while my goal wasn’t to make them like him, I was glad I wasn’t arguing about his virtue anymore.
Damian and I walked back to the elevator together, slipping back into our room. The way I ditched his sweats on the floor and climbed into our bed felt oddly intimate, even though he was in the shower while I did.
My heart beat faster than usual as I tried to get comfortable beneath the blankets. I was used to sleeping with the bed’s canopy lowered over me, and blamed my discomfort on that as I adjusted the pillows for the fifth time.
But given our conversation earlier, I knew exactly what he was doing in the shower.
The only thing separating us was an archway and a few feet in both directions. If I looked through the arch, I would see him.
After a few more minutes, I angled myself away from him and padded over to a chair in the corner of the room, grabbing one of the extra pillows I’d seen. Finally, I let myself take the room in.
The floors were rustic-looking wood. The walls were a shade of deep green that reminded me of the forest, but somehow still felt neutral. All of the art was landscapes, and I itched to look closer at them.
I wouldn’t have expected to find the large, open, dark space comfortable, but I did. Something about it just felt like home.
Which was ridiculous, considering that my home didn’t have dark walls or wood floors.
I couldn’t stop myself from feeling that, though.
And even if I could’ve, what was the point? The Manor was my new home, even if it hadn’t been my first choice. Our options were to integrate into vampire society or let Curtis use and abuse us, so we needed to fight like hell for the former.
When I turned to walk back to the bed, I couldn’t get my feet to move.
My eyes had caught on the man in the shower—the stunningly beautiful man. The fancy dark tile within only served to make him stand out more as he stood with a palm on the wall and stroked his cock with his other hand.
Fire rolled through my veins.
I wanted him.
I really, really wanted him.
His ass was two perfect bubbles, his dark hair plastered to his skin instead of perfectly done, and his cock…
Well, he was proportional.
And the man was freaking huge.
His body shuddered, and mine tensed as I watched him come all over the shower wall.
It was intimate.
Way too intimate.
I forced myself to hurry back to the bed, my entire body clenched with how attracted to him I was.
That had to be because of our mate bond, didn’t it?
Settling back into bed, I set my second pillow down vertically in the middle of the mattress, then snuggled up against the divider I’d created.
There .
Now, I wouldn’t be tempted to wrap myself around Damian’s perfect body.
A few minutes later, the man came strolling through the arch that led into the bathroom. He smelled amazing, but I wasn’t about to say that.
Closing my eyes, I tried to act like I was asleep, so he wouldn’t realize what I’d seen.
I didn’t hear him put clothes on.
Which was bad news for my logical self, and great news for my outrageously horny side.
“The smell of your desire is so fucking delicious,” he murmured, and I heard him tuck himself into bed. “You watched me, didn’t you?”
“I may have accidentally caught a glimpse while I was looking for another pillow,” I said into my divider.
“Good. All I could think about was you.”
My body flushed further. “I don’t think this shared bedroom thing is going to work. I need more space. This is way too intense.”
“You can move to another room, but I’ll follow you there. You belong to me. I’m not letting you sleep away from me.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I can’t see you, I have no idea who you’re with.” The words were blunt, but not entirely surprising.
“You should be able to trust me, if we’re going to share our lives like this.”
“Trust takes time.”
“Love does too. And I’d like to avoid that, at all costs.”
“Don’t fall in love with me, then.” He said the words casually, like I was able to prevent something very natural.
“If you would wear clothes to bed, or at least let me have my own mattress, that would be easier,” I tossed back.
He chuckled. “No.”
“You’re infuriating,” I grumbled.
“I’m aware.” He hit the button to lower the canopy over us, and some part of me immediately settled as darkness wrapped around us.
“Don’t move this pillow out from between us,” I whispered.
“I won’t. Feel free to climb over it and have your way with me if you get horny. I’ll sacrifice sleep for sex at any hour.”
I scowled. “Of course you will.”
“I’m not kidding. Sit on my face, climb on my cock… I have no limits.”
“Go to sleep, asshole.” I swatted at him, and he chuckled again.
“Goodnight, little siren.
I snuggled my pillow a little tighter, praying I wouldn’t climb over it in my sleep. I needed to channel the humans’ vampire legends and sleep like the dead.
Hell, maybe I needed to invest in a few wooden stakes and some garlic, too.
It wouldn’t work… but it just might be my best shot at stopping myself from catching feelings for the big, gorgeous bastard.