Page 11 of Victory for Vampires

“Alé, stop,” Pietro commands, his voice hard as steel. “Or I will lose my mind.”

“Don’t lose it yet,” I tease, “your pasta sauce is boiling over.”

Pietro growls, hesitating as he watches me drag my tongue up Valentina’s neck. A desperate mewl erupts from his throat,but the pasta sauce boils and hisses as it hits the hot stove. He spins away from us as I chuckle into our mate’s neck.

She pulls me with her toward him, yanking Pietro’s perfectly tailored shirt out of the back of his pants. When she slides both hands underneath it to touch him, he groans and shoves the pasta sauce off the burner.

“I have to touch you both,” she whispers. “Please let me.”

Pietro snarls and turns, focused on her as he unbuttons his vest and tosses it away. Her hands rove his upper body, greedily stroking him.

Not for the first time, I wish I could feel that bond between them. Every time we get together, we talk about her biting me. And every time, it’s me who makes the final determination that I’m not ready. It’s hard enough when we part, and I see how it destroys Pietro for months. I might be Mister Confidence, but I don’t think I have the inner strength to watch her walk away, to feel that bond go dark when she disappears through the portal and returns to her life.

But then Pietro shrugs his shirt off, revealing a muscular upper body covered in tattoos. Valentina moans softly, fingers dancing over the dark ink on his pale skin. She trails the tattoo of his core family line down to his upper pec.

“Bite him,” I encourage, slipping a hand between them to rub my fingertips over his heart.

Pietro growls, fangs descending as his second lid rolls over his eye. The chunky ziol necklace hanging between his chest muscles glints and gleams in the light. I’ve never seen a ziol as beautiful as the one we paid for together when we had enough money. Some days I wear it, but I prefer to see it on him.

“May I?” Valentina’s sweet request has his jaw clenching, muscles popping.

If she bites him now, he’ll come. And fuck dinner, because we’ll be on the floor first and then the playroom next.

“No,” he states, his voice full of command. He tips her chin up. “Did you eat? Are you hungry?”

Hungry for blood, I want to snap. But in the bedroom, he commands us.

And we fucking love it.

It’s always been that way. I’ll never forget how shy he was as a younger male, but as he became a man, a dominance arose in him when we three were alone. It started as a dare one night. Valentina teased him to tell us what to do. But then it felt so right, so good, so hot, we expanded on that over the years.

In public, Pietro seems to be the quieter, more subservient personality. But it’s all an act. Because our Pietro in the bedroom is a monstrously commanding force.

On cue, Valentina’s stomach rumbles, and he gives her a sideways look. “Mate…tell me the truth. Did you eat?”

She shakes her head no, and that’s all he needs to move away from us and return to the pot that now simmers on the stove.

“Sit.” He waves us toward the table. “We must feed you first, mate. Sex second.”

“Awww,” I tease, nipping at her neck playfully. “Fine.”

Valentina turns to me with wickedness in her smile. “If our mate won’t kiss me, Alé, perhaps you will?”

I am not the man Pietro is, because I cannot find it in me to deny our woman what she so sweetly asks for. Bending down, I run my hands over the firm globes of her ass, bringing my forehead to hers. Sliding down her body, I grip the backs of her thighs and pull her up onto our kitchen island.

Pietro growls as he dishes pasta sauce into a saucepan of homemade noodles.

Ignoring his ire, I push my mate’s skirt up her beautiful pale thighs until I can spread them wide enough to wrap her legs around my waist. She smiles sensually up at me, slinging an arm around my neck.

Everything about her is so familiar, so perfect, I can’t resist bringing my mouth to her throat. I breathe her in, soaking in a scent that’s called to me for hundreds of years. She’s all sun-drenched fields mixed with snow-capped mountains and crisp, tart cherries. Growling, I drag my open mouth over her throat, tongue darting out to taste her skin.

So good.

So good.

Sofuckinggood.

I can’t resist closing my fangs over her throat just under her neck. Her head falls back into my palm as she gasps, opening herself to me, inviting me in.

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