Page 33 of Tall, Dark and Haunted

“Would you stop kissing my mate,” Davy hisses. “She’s no lightskirt that you can just—”

“She’s my mate too, you know,” I growl at him. “Stop being so damn bird-witted.”

“He’s the bird,” Davy says with a glance at Red. “No offense.”

Red grunts.

Davy turns to scowl at me again. He seems to do that a lot. “I won’t allow you to treat my mate so disrespectfully.”

“What are you talking about?” I don’t have enough patience for this. I thought we discussed this already and came to an agreement.

“Marriage, Topher! We can’t do that,” he says, blushing slightly, obviously awkward, “until we marry her!”

“Marriage?” Rhiannon’s eyes are wide. “Did he just say marriage?”

I pull her against my side. “He’s not wrong. I should come up to scratch first.”

“Make an offer?” Davy is furious. “You should be fully leg-shackled, you rake!”

“What is happening?” Rhiannon asks, looking utterly bewildered. It’s actually a pretty adorable look on her.

“Swallow your spleen,” I growl at Davy and give Rhiannon another squeeze to tell her I’ve got this. “She’s our mate. No one is trying to take advantage of the lady.”

Davy’s fist clenches, and for a second I think he might actually draw my cork. But I really don’t fancy spending what might be my last night alive with a broken nose.

“Come on, Davydd,” Rhia says, holding her hand out towards him. “This might be our only chance to be together.”

“And we have an agreement,” I remind him.

“What agreement?” He frowns at me like he wasn’t here for the discussion about sharing her tonight.

“You know, what we said earlier.” I rub the back of my neck. “About only having tonight.”

“I thought you meant talking. Or taking her to dinner.” His cheeks flush as he takes in Rhiannon. He hesitates, but steps toward us. “Rhi, I just want you to know that if we weren’t probably about to die, there’s no way I’d agree to this. We’d wait until our wedding night. Because even if you’re not a virgin, I should still treat you like the lady you are.”

Rhiannon looks at us as if she thinks we’re insane. And maybe we are. We’ve known her for a day, and here we are talking about marriage.

“And I thought my grandparents were old-fashioned,” she teases us.

I wrap my arms around her tightly, lowering my lips to hers, but she pulls back, an impish grin on her face.

“You’ve all seen me naked. Now it’s my turn.” She pulls away from us and goes to sit on the big bed in the center of the room.

“You want us to strip?” Red speaks up for the first time since she entered the room.

“Yup.” Rhia licks her lip expectantly.

Red and Davy exchange looks, suddenly nervous. It’s almost funny.

“You heard the lady,” I tell them with a smirk as I start to pull my shirt out of the waistband of my trousers. The sooner I’m naked, the sooner I can make love to her.

I watch Rhiannon’s reaction as I slowly remove my clothes. I’m not quite used to these new trousers. They’re very different from my old breeches. And it’s been a century since I’ve had to undress on the regular.

But Rhiannon’s eyes are hungry as she watches me. They move from my bare chest to Red’s legs, and I feel a wave of jealousy.

“Are we even now?” I ask, drawing her attention back to me.

I’m standing completely naked in front of her. All my muscles are tense with anticipation and my cock juts out eagerly. Even fully dressed, she’s driving me insane with desire. My body feels like it’s been waiting for this for an eternity, and I guess a hundred years is a really long time.