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“And I’m winning.”

Leif rises from the bench and crosses to me before he tips my chin up with one finger and looks at me like there’s something written on the inside of my skull and he’s most of the way through reading it.

“Ask them upstairs,” he says. “After.”

“After what?” And who? Who am I asking what?

He just smiles, fangs and all. Up this close and not chasing an orgasm they look almost real. Which is of course impossible.

Vampires aren’t real and I need to not feed into their delusions.

Chapter Nine

Awkward silence stretchesbetween the four of us. I can’t tell if it’s because of their shared delusions or if there’s a part of them that wants more.

There’s a part of me that wants more and I’m not talking about tonight.

I could get used to this. To them. To having a man pamper me all the time. At my beck and call. For life. Through sickness and in health.

Except the logical part of me whispers, this isn’t sustainable.

Because a relationship with three men who think they’re vampires? I should have set them up with Callie, who also believes in things that go bump in the night.

But I dismiss that thought as quickly as it arises.

“Just for tonight?” Leif stands close to us, his hand resting on Enzo’s shoulder. For a moment I wonder if they too are lovers. But they’re not. Just an innate feeling I get. Almost like there is nothing between them in that sexually charged way.

But there is something there. A thing I can’t really name. A connection that goes deeper than love. It’s obvious and I’m not sure they can even see it.

When Davi stands behind Enzo, the room turns. Three sets of eyes watch me carefully.

A thrill of power pulses just beneath my skin. The kind where a woman first understands just what it means to feel desired.

Sure, I’ve had men look at me before. In passing, walking through a grocery store. Down a street where catcalls echo off the buildings. And my favorite, the drunken grind just past midnight at the club.

Mendesireme.

Men don’t desire me liketheydo.

This is something else entirely. This is a desire that feels different even if from the outside it looks the same. A one-night stand turned foursome in the basement of the Penn.

But they don’t look at me like I’m just another woman to discard.

They look at me like this is the prologue. The opening act of something so much more complicated that I may never recover from.

Maybe that’s why I slowly stand, letting Enzo’s cum drip down my legs.

Barefoot, I walk across the locker room.

Their gazes burn through my back as my bare feet slap on the tile floor. And when I get to the locker room door, I don’t spare them a glance back.

Of course I know they’re going to follow.

But this newfound desire is ruining me. Driving me toward something unknown. Something new, something I could crave daily.

Which is why I have to stick to just this night.

I round the corner into Mosaic Hall and Leif is already there. He didn’t pass me. He didn’t take a different hallway. There is no different hallway, I know this building, I have walked thesefloors since I was six years old. He is just here. Waiting. Like he knew which corner I would round and got there first.