Blurred Memories Page 6

  Marc was beginning to wonder if trying to nudge things forward had been a mistake. He couldn’t bear Kate’s frustration anymore, and taking things slow with Blake didn’t seem to help much. What other choices did they have?

  Blake’s eyes closed for a second or two. When they opened again, the ghost of a once-familiar smile brushed his lips. “Who said I don’t want to?” he said, his voice deep with echoes of his old cockiness.

  A flash of hope ran through Marc, quickly followed by renewed lust when Blake’s tongue ran along Marc’s cock before darting past it to Kate’s folds.

  The choked-up sound that rose from Kate’s throat was gratitude and need all wrapped in one word: Blake’s name. She reached down, and Marc could see her hand hesitating above Blake’s head, just like Blake hesitated before touching them again.

  “It’s okay,” Marc whispered for both of them, brushing a kiss to Kate’s temple. “Everything’s fine. Everything is going to be fine.”

  He had never hoped to be right as much as he did in that moment.

  Chapter 7

  I can do this. I can do it.

  The words went round and round in Blake’s mind until they lost all meaning and his thoughts shut down, replaced by sensations.

  Kate caressed him, touching his hair, his forehead, and even, it seemed, the very core of him, for all that he was the one giving her pleasure. Her hands were familiar, and Marc’s were even more so. Blake had felt them touch him together before. There had always been a line, however, unvoiced, unacknowledged, but nonetheless very real. Even if the three of them had been in a bed at the same time, even if they had touched each other, they hadn’t been together in that way. Blake had watched Marc and Kate together, and he had taken his Sire’s offered body while she watched, but that had been the extent of what they had done since his return to this world.

  To touch Kate like this now, small flicks of his tongue and caresses from his lips where she was so sensitive, both thrilled him and scared him. She wanted it; he could smell it in the sweet headiness of her scent, taste it in every drop of need he lapped from her folds, feel it with every press of her hand pushing him closer to her. She wanted this, and he wanted to offer it to her.

  But even so, the past didn’t relinquish its hold on him, cruel talons digging in and tearing chunks of his mind to shreds. He was here, in this room, with Kate and Marc, but he was also there, in that cell, with people who looked so much like them that it made little difference to his confused mind. His lovers allowed him to touch them and stayed still as he licked them, one after the other and at times together. They shared kisses, sometimes, and their moans entwined like their hands at the back of Blake’s head. But those people in that cell, in his mind, the ones he now knew had not been the real Marc and Kate, acted much differently—and there was no place Blake could hide from them.

  The woman, the Kate-who-wasn’t-Kate, a stranger even though she had looked, smelled, sounded, even tasted exactly like the woman Blake loved, had sometimes pleaded with Blake, begged him to help her, free her—kill her. Blake had known better than to try to help her, or even talk to her; she would have been hurt more if he had tried again. This lesson had been seared into his mind, and he wouldn’t forget it. He also wouldn’t forget that any blow that fell on her, from hand or whip, was punishment for something Blake had done. She never seemed to understand that he was the last person she should ask for help, that he was to blame for her pain and suffering.

  The man, the Master-who-wasn’t-his-Sire, so much like Marc and yet—

  “Blake?”

  Blake shuddered at his Master’s voice. He looked up, ready to be chastised…and abruptly remembered it was Marc lying spread in front of him. Marc whom Kate clung to, her chest heaving with fast breaths, flushed with the pleasure she hadn’t quite reached yet. Marc who was looking down at Blake, his nostrils flaring, his eyes worried. Marc who would stop everything if he guessed the strange path Blake’s mind had taken.

  Without a word, Blake returned to his task. He pushed away thoughts and memories, digging his fingers into Marc’s thighs as though it might help him hold on to reality.

  Kate wanted this, he reminded himself. And he wanted to give her whatever she wanted.

  Before he had started losing the thread of his own sanity, he had teased Kate and Marc equally, his tongue caressing each of them with the same intensity. Now, he focused on Kate, intent on making her come, and touches to Marc’s cock were mostly accidental.

  He laved her folds studiously, slurping away every bit of her wetness he could find with greedy noises that weren’t exactly elegant, but that drew low moans from her. Each of those moans urged him onward. It had been so long since he had caused those moans, but every one of them reawakened memories—the happier kind, memories from the few weeks they had spent as lovers before he had been taken. He nudged her clit with his tongue and her entire body jerked, then a second time when he did it again.

  “So close.” It was Marc who whispered it, the words shaking from his own need. “She’s so close, Blake. Can you taste it on her?”

  Had Blake been able to speak, he would have said that of course he could taste her need, even her rising pleasure, and that he had never tasted anything as sweet, as intoxicating. Words were beyond him, however, and all he could do was hum against Kate’s folds. She shuddered, and without Marc’s arm around her holding her, tight and snug… Too tight, and in a moment she’d start struggling and gasping for breath and—

  “Blake, please…”

  But it wasn’t fear that caused Kate’s voice to shake now as she pleaded. She wasn’t clawing at Marc’s hand or digging her fingernails into Blake’s scalp because she was trying to escape.

  She wasn’t trapped; if anything, she was only seconds away from soaring, high and free. All Blake had to do was help her fly. A touch of his fingers or cock would have been enough, he was sure of it. He also knew that he couldn’t touch her like that, not now, not yet. All he had was his mouth; all he could do was redouble his efforts and try not to stumble again before it was over.

  * * * *

  Blake was hurting. Marc was sure of it. He could practically feel it. But he didn’t know how to help.

  Over the last few months, he had learned once more to be attentive to the smallest changes in Blake’s scent. This bitter scent used to mean that the old walls were closing in on him again and becoming too tight. These days, it meant that Blake was falling yet again into the nightmares he pretended didn’t haunt him.

  At that moment, Blake’s scent was shifting back and forth between need and fear, tittering on the edge but not quite falling yet. How close was he to losing himself, Marc wondered, worry muting his own desire. As close as Kate was to finding pleasure, maybe?

  Marc lifted his hand off Blake’s head and rested it on Kate’s left breast instead, his fingertips caressing her nipple. He had let Blake pleasure her so far, but maybe if he helped she would come sooner, and Blake would be able to pull back from that dangerous edge. Kate moaned Blake’s name again, then Marc’s, and Marc froze.

  The thought ran through him like a jolt of electricity. He was going at it the wrong way. Kate was close. She would come soon whether Marc intervened or not, come at Blake’s hands—or mouth, as it were—for the first time since that dreadful night. Would it help Blake to see her pleasure, the pleasure that he alone had given her?

  It had to help. What else was there if it didn’t?

  Marc took his hand off her breast again and rested it on her stomach instead, holding her as she bucked against Blake’s mouth.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said in a choked whisper, looking down Kate’s body to where Blake was fucking her with his tongue. “Both of you, so beautiful…”

  Kate’s orgasm started with a low, keening noise that soon blossomed into a wordless cry. Her body turned rigid against Marc’s, and he wondered if her fingers were as tight in Blake’s hair as they were clutching Marc’s hand. After a couple more seconds,
Blake pulled back and looked at her, his mouth and chin shiny with Kate’s desire, his eyes glowing gold with his own.

  For a short but beautiful moment, Marc forgot how far they still had to go before he could get more than glimpses of the Childe he remembered and missed so much. That reality, however, slammed back when Kate breathed out a shaky, “Kiss me. Please, God, kiss me.”

  The words were for Blake, Marc was certain of it. And he was just as certain that Blake would not kiss her, not when his eyes suddenly became so wide and startled and his nails dug harder into the skin of Marc’s thighs, drawing blood. Could Blake even make himself let go?

  “Not finished yet,” Blake offered with a grin that might have tried to be cocky but trembled too much. And then he was lowering his head again, this time to engulf Marc’s cock.

  Marc had not expected this, and electricity seemed to shoot through him as Blake’s mouth resumed the blowjob from earlier as though he had never stopped. Marc’s hips jerked upward, and Kate’s still-trembling body started to slip to one side. Marc tried to hold on to her and not moan quite so loudly, but she turned her head to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth and murmured a quiet, “Let me help him,” that turned Marc’s will to little more than a memory. He unwound his arms, and she immediately shifted off of him, sliding down the bed to join Blake.

  Be careful, he wanted to warn her. Don’t rush him.

  But it was difficult to form coherent thoughts, let alone express them, when Blake was still sucking on his cock. More difficult still when Kate’s hot little mouth joined Blake’s, the tip of her tongue stroking along the edge of Blake’s lips against Marc’s cock.

  Marc struggled with himself, wanting to grab both their heads but afraid he’d be too rough if he did. He clutched at the sheets instead, clenching his hands tightly as he shut his eyes. If he looked down at them and watched them play with his cock together, things would end much too fast.

  He felt Blake slide upward, and moaned at the wet little popping sound when his dick slipped out of Blake’s mouth.

  “Now will you kiss me?” Kate asked, and her smile rang so clearly in her words that Marc could picture it in his mind.

  He opened his eyes again and started to sit up, a weak protest at the back of his mind, but forgot what he was about to say when he saw—felt—their mouths press against each other, right against the underside of his cock. A tongue—warm; it had to be Kate’s—caressed him before slipping away. A deeper kiss, then, and Marc was right in the middle of it.

  Slumping back down against the pillows, he scrunched his eyes shut tightly again. They were sharing wet, sloppy kisses all around his cock, sometimes right against the very tip, sometimes closer to the base. The combination of their touches drew continuous moans from him, but he was barely aware of it. All he could hear were the whispered words they shared, “Here,” and “Like this,” and “Doesn’t he taste good?” and finally, “Up or down?”

  That last question puzzled him for a second before he understood. Hot breath and a warm tongue were suddenly caressing his balls, while a cooler mouth, a little bit warm still from kissing Kate, was closing over the head of his dick and sucking hard.

  His body jerked, trying to press up against them, but four hands on his thighs and hips held him in place. Blake had also shifted upward so that he was now half resting on Marc’s stomach, pinning him down but also leaving more space for Kate between Marc’s thighs.

  “Be good, now,” Kate demanded, her laughter just a breath away. “Let us make you feel good.”

  Her mouth only left him for an instant. When it returned, she carefully sucked on one of his balls. Marc gasped, only to cry out the next moment when Blake swallowed over and over around his dick, his throat constricting and releasing rhythmically.

  “Slow down,” he grunted, twisting his hands in the sheets. The fabric ripped, the sound like thunder in his ears. “Too much.”

  “Just let go,” Kate said, pressing the words like kisses against the most sensitive part of him.

  “Can’t—”

  But he did. It might have been her teeth that pushed him over the edge, carefully closing at the root of his cock for a painless bite. Or it might have been Blake’s tongue, swirling and slurping around Marc’s shaft as he pulled up again. Or maybe it was the fact that the three of them were together at last, the way they had wanted for so long.

  As his orgasm rippled through him, one wave followed by the other, each stronger than the last, he came in Blake’s mouth then Kate’s and clung to the hope that it would be only the first of many times, and that each would help Blake heal a little more.

  It felt like hours before they stopped licking him clean, sharing slow kisses again around his softened flesh. They both rested their heads against his chest, and now Marc allowed himself to thread his fingers through their hair. Kate’s was still a little damp, and he combed his fingers through it like he did to Blake.

  “That was…”

  His voice trailed off. He had no clue how to finish that sentence. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one with speech difficulties, because Kate laughed—oh, God, how he had missed her laugh—and said, “It really was. And it’s not over.”

  She raised her head then, and when Marc did the same, he saw her give Blake a wicked look.

  “Someone didn’t get a turn yet,” she said in a sing-song voice.

  Laughing quietly, Marc drew Blake higher onto the bed. His amusement faded when he saw the traces of wariness at the corners of Blake’s eyes. Everything wasn’t as good as it seemed, then, was it?

  Marc kissed Blake lightly, just enough to taste both himself and Kate on his lips, then asked, “What do you want, Childe? Tell us how to make you feel good, too.”

  Having moved higher on the bed, Kate now sat on Blake’s other side. She didn’t say anything but rested a hand on Blake’s chest, well above the place where his cock waited, hard and full. Had she also guessed that Blake’s mind might be more clouded than they both would have liked?

  Blake licked his lips, his eyes going back and forth between the two of them before he finally murmured, “Can you… Will you…touch me? Just… Together?”

  Marc kissed him again. Kate reclined on her side and pressed her lips to Blake’s shoulder. Their hands found each other over his cock, and their fingers linked together. They worked his dick as he had asked—together—and much too quickly Blake yielded to pleasure, his body arching, his eyes closed, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he silenced a cry.

  As he caught Kate’s eyes, Marc wondered if this was anything like what she had had in mind when she had asked for them to be closer again. He also wondered how much time would pass before Blake was ready to try again—or to move further still.

  Chapter 8

  Kate had great expectations for the night after Blake’s first breakthrough.

  She tried not to hope too much, to tell herself she shouldn’t expect anything and just let things take their natural course, but as the hours passed while Daniel briefed her more thoroughly on the situation in the city, her pulse quickened, and images started swirling through her head.

  That morning had been a gift, and as with any gift, she should have been grateful, not greedy, and give thanks without asking for more.

  But she wanted more. She wanted so much that it scared her, at times. She wanted Blake to touch her, to kiss her, to hold her as close as Marc did. She wanted to wrap both of them around her and never let go again. She wanted the past two years to disappear, and better years to take their place.

  “Long day. I’m exhausted.”

  Just a few words from Blake, and Kate’s hopes were dashed. She had tried to tell herself it would be okay if they didn’t have sex again right away, but it was a disappointment nonetheless, especially when she knew that Blake was making excuses. Somehow, in her mind, Blake’s healing and shared intimacy had become intricately linked, and she couldn’t separate the two anymore.

  “Did you two spar a lot today
?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light. She took another bite of food; it suddenly seemed to taste like sawdust.

  Blake was peering into his glass of blood as though seeking answers in it. It was Marc who finally replied.

  “We did. Trying to get back into shape for the next fight. What’s the news from Simon?”

  He already knew what the news was; after all, they were there, in the dining hall, having a late dinner, rather than on their way to the breach. But talking was better than silence; she could understand that.

  “He says he’ll have something by tomorrow night. He was marinating herbs or something. Honestly, it sounded like cooking when he explained what he was doing.”

  She tried to put a bit of humor in her words, but the two smiles she obtained in response were equally strained. Blake lifted his glass, drank deep from it, and rose from the table after setting the glass down again.

  “I’m going to turn in early. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Kate repeated after a beat, feeling a little numb, but Blake was already leaving and she wasn’t sure her words reached him.

  A gentle hand settled on top of hers on the table, and she looked up at Marc.

  “Give him time,” Marc murmured. “It was a big step he took this morning. Let him find his balance again.”

  Kate nodded mechanically. “I know. It’s just…”

  A weight seemed to press on her chest, making it hard to finish.

  “You hoped things would go more smoothly now?” Marc offered with a small, sad smile. “Me too. And they will, just as long as we give him the time and space he needs.”

  “I know,” she said again, but she was nonetheless grateful for his words and touch as he continued to hold her hand while she finished her dinner.

  * * * *