Excerpt from "BLOOD OF INNOCENTS: Jacyn's Journey - Book Three"

            Lochlan wrapped his arms around my midsection to hoist me from the floor while Bryce remained close by, serving as an extra pair of hands in case something should go amiss. It wasn't that I couldn't get myself up, but only that the shard had pierced the deltoid muscle of my shoulder, and moving my arm, such as using it to support my weight, would be less than an enjoyable prospect.

            Once on my feet, we walked in unnecessary silence from Andre's room down a long hall, turning a corner and further along a longer hall to where Giana and Jerry shared a huge chamber at the end. It was a room that Brooklynn and I had once occupied, a vast apartment-like space that had once been referred to as the “Ambassador Suite,” wherein the space was divided by function, with corners dedicated to a kitchenette, an entertainment center, an office, and a spa-like bathroom. Giana fussed about the kitchenette area, clearing off the small dining table before draping a single white sheet over it. Her plan was one designed for my comfort, as she intended for me to sit in one of the chairs and then lay myself forward on the table. She could then move around me as she needed to in order to perform the minor surgery required to repair the damage.

            After Lochlan and Bryce excused themselves to make sure that Shark still had Andre under control, Giana locked the door and removed her blouse and then her brassiere. The action had made me lift my head for a moment from the folded towel that she had placed on the table as a pillow, quirking a brow as I wondered what exactly she had in mind.

            “Giana, this is hardly the time,” I began before she blushed a little and grinned.

            “I'm just trying to relax us both,” Giana replied in a soothing tone as she moved to the sink to wash her hands. “It's not like you haven't seen me naked plenty before, Jacyn. If you have something to keep your mind occupied, then this should go a little easier on us both.”

            “I'm not so sure that this is really going to 'relax' me, as you say,” I mused dryly. “Though I don't think I'm going out on a limb in saying that it will distract me.”

            “That's the idea,” Giana added, walking behind me as she dried her hands. “If you're distracted, I can relax some. Then I can get you all fixed-up without losing any teeth.”

            “And what if your 'distractions' lead to something else?” I hypothetically posed, laying my head back down on the folded towel. I had no intention of engaging in coital activities with Giana without Jerry there.

            “I'm failing to see the downside to that,” Giana answered honestly, unaware that I wasn't being serious. “I think the relationship that has developed between Jerry, myself, and you makes allowance for that kind of thing.”

            “I doubt Jerry would agree,” I pointed out, deciding that the conversation had taken a very serious and unexpected turn. “I'm somewhat amazed that Jerry is even a little comfortable with the way things have developed as they are. I don't think he'd be keen on us beginning without him or leaving him out altogether.”

            “Well, you don't know Jerry like I do,” Giana countered as she began to probe the inside of the wound with a suturing needle, resting her bared breasts against my back as she leaned closer. It was a move, I was sure, that was intentional. “Jerry knows where my heart is, and that's with him. He's seen me through the hardest part of my life, and been patiently faithful to me while I made a huge mistake in marrying another man.”

            “I can imagine, then, that he might expect a little of the same faith in return while he's out shopping,” I said coldly.

            A sudden barb of severe pain shot through my shoulder as she thrust the needle through the muscle, an act that lacked fluidity, I'm sure, out of sheer anger at my words. I gritted my teeth and made a mental note that she would, one way or another, pay for it.

            “Now, Jacyn, there you go assuming,” Giana said a little smugly as she continued to stitch, seemingly forgetting her gentle touch for a moment. “I would never do Jerry harm in that manner and you know it. Don't think that Jerry and I haven't discussed this already.”

            “Ohreally?” I blurted out in disbelief, the Irish brogue of my upbringing making the two words sound like one.

            “Really,” she answered with a small laugh, becoming more gentle as she proceeded. “I was ignored by my husband. He was a 'career man,' and I was his trophy doctor wife. Jerry knows that I am a very passionate and affectionate woman. I have needs, wants, and desires, and I refuse to have them ignored again. Jerry knows this, and he also knows that if I were to have my way, he'd never have either the time or the energy to get any of his work done.”

            And I gave this one to Jerry...

            “So what you're telling me is that Jerry is alright with you having sex with other men?” I asked, trying to make sure I understood what she was saying.

            “Not just any men,” she answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “Just you. He trusts you. He trusts me with you, because he knows you wouldn't hurt either me or him.”

            Damn him.

            “That's true,” I agreed, albeit reluctantly, which really bothered me. For some reason, I was upset that Jerry had placed such a high value on my sense of honor, I guess because I didn't believe I was worthy of it. I had, in all my estimations, ceased to be something 'honorable.' I was more of something base, feral, savage, and selfish, enough so that I, for a moment, felt that if I truly wanted Giana all to myself, I would just take her, and let the cards fall where they may with Jerry and our friendship. That was the nature of the male vampire, unattractive as it was, and Jerry was all-too-aware of it. In that, I didn't know if I should be insulted, thinking that Jerry saw me as less than what a typical male vampire would be, or honored that Jerry would think me capable of maintaining a sense of decency and morality despite my vampire blood. I elected to be flattered, thinking that Jerry must hold me in high regard if he was to trust his one-and-only sister with me.

            “So if I were to fuck the living hell out of you after I stitched you up,” Giana said, snapping me from my philosophical thought. “It would probably bother you a lot more than it bothered Jerry.”

            “I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one, Giana,” I rebutted. “What a guy says he'll feel about something and what he'll actually feel about it are usually two different things, except with vampires. He might say he'd be cool with it until it actually happened. He'd be singing a different tune then.”

            “Don't be so sure,” Giana almost giggled as she worked. “He already assumed it was happening.”

            “What?” I asked incredulously, looking back over my shoulder at her.

            “Yes, yes,” she assured me. “About three days after our 'first time' with the three of us. I was just in this great mood, feeling a little lively, and he was dead-sure that I had just come from a 'brutal sex session' with you. He was laughing and asking me all about it, and I was swearing over and over that nothing had happened. He wanted details, and there weren't any to give, but he wanted to hear all about it.”

            “That's just.... odd,” I managed, unable to imagine Jerry being that way. I didn't doubt her words, because I knew she would never lie to me, but moreso I was lost that Jerry had such a manner about him when it came to her.

            “It took me a little by surprise as well,” she admitted. “There are no limits to how wonderful of a guy he is, though. He genuinely wants me to be happy, no matter what.”

            “He'd make a horrible vampire,” I smirked.

            “You are quite correct,” Giana agreed. “He would be horrible at it. He's too damn nice and forgiving to be a vampire, which is fine with me. I love him just as he is, but I still find the intensity and passion of vampire men... you, specifically... to be quite intoxicating and arousing.”

            There it was, from her lips to my ears, a less-than-veiled confession of attraction to me for things that a male vampire wants his girls to appreciate. It was, perhaps, among the more attractive things to a male vampire to be presented with a girl, vampire or not, that unabashedly admitted that she craved him for his strength. While some outside the vampire blood might easily attribute such a thing to a mere stroking of the vampire man's ego, we simply knew better.

            To say such a thing, of course, did no harm to the male vampire's psyche, but to hear it meant a great deal more. It meant that with such a girl, if genuine in her words, there wouldn't be so much of fight to bring her to her place on her knees. It meant that she had, at least to some degree, rejected the social conditioning that assured her that she should seek equality where we knew there really wasn't any. It meant that she wasn't looking for some touchy-feely-cuddly spineless excuse for a man, but a a real man, one that was solid in himself and desiring only of women that appreciated his strength rather than condemning it. It was a vampire man liked to hear, and Giana, despite her professed love for the soft, tolerant, and polite Jerry, had said it of me, to me.

            “You might want to guard your words a little better, Giana,” I advised her, trying to keep things in perspective.

            “Why?” she asked honestly. “Do my words make you see me differently?”

            “Yes,” I answered just as honestly. “What you say to me isn't exactly what I would think to hear from someone that loves a guy like Jerry the way you do.”

            “I suppose that makes sense,” she replied, offering a teasing grin. “But it's simply the truth, Jacyn. You have no limits. I mean, you might have some scars that some women might see has ugly, but I don't. You don't hide from life and all it's perils. You confront them head-on, without fear, and without concern for yourself. You readily put yourself in harm's way, not as a sacrifice, but as a defender and a destroyer. Andre is positively huge and unbelievably powerful, and you went right after him, right?”

            “Yeah, but so did Lochlan, Sebastian, and Shark,” I reminded her, getting a semi-erection from her praising of my attitude.

            “Quite so,” she conceded without hesitation. “But they don't command people like you do, Jacyn. They don't stand at the forefront and say 'I'm the One' like you do. People don't run to them looking for direction like they do to you. You can deflect these words all you like out of respect for your friendship with Jerry, and I think that it just adds to your attractiveness. You're all those things, and still respectful of your friends.” She paused for only the briefest of moments before gushing out, “That's just... ugh... so hot.”

            “You have a thing for 'bad-ass Boy Scouts' or something, Giana?” I asked, trying to quell my own growing desires for her.

            “Or something,” she replied, taking a deep breath before returning to her work of stitching my shoulder. “It's just that every time I get the honor of repairing the damage you endure defending these people, I kind of get a little worked-up thinking of what it would be like to be with you all the time.”

            She paired her words with another hard push of her succulent globes against my back and a light grind of her hip against me, and I gave momentary consideration to ripping out my stitches, a result I was sure would happen while I forcefully fucked her on the floor.

            “This is a pretty severe tease, Giana,” I grunted out, once again trying to bury the growing lust. “I need you to get me patched-up so I can go deal with that douche-bag Aaron.”

            “I know, and I'm sorry,” she said softly but sincerely, indicating to me that she was as much affected by her admissions as I was, if not more. “I didn't mean to be a tease, or maybe I did and just didn't know it. I just got worked-up.”

            “I don't like to be manipulated and teased, Giana,” I informed her, though she was already well-aware of it. “To me, a tease is someone that knows her place and just lacks the courage to take the necessary steps to get there. They want it, but they fear it, so they put it in the hands of man to take by force. Sometimes it's because they need to feel the strength of the man putting them there without giving them a choice. It takes away some of the fear.”

            “I believe that,” Giana said, her libido unabated as she tried to concentrate on the work at hand. “And I can honestly say, I know how they feel. I wanted out of my marriage, but I didn't have the courage to just walk away. And let's face the truth, Jacyn. It wasn't Jerry that made me walk away, it was you. Even if you made me walk to Jerry, it was still you that made me walk.”

            “Enough, Giana,” I reminded her a little more sternly. “You just admitted that you were teasing, intentionally or not. And I made it clear as to what I think about teases and what they really want. Are you telling me that's what you really want?”

            She leaned her head down to look me in the eye.

            “Again,” she whispered in a hot, heavy breath. “I'm failing to see the downside.”