Do not come, Gideon. Not until I say.It was a breathless wail of sound in her mind that escalated into a long cry that echoed off the tile.

She needed so much, stripped so bare in this second, and yet never had she felt more powerful. As she came, the cry became a scream at the strength and pleasure of it, strangled by that savage bloodlust. She wrapped her fingers in Gideon's hair and turned his head into her shoulder, biting down into the meat of his. Though she held him there, he wasn't fighting her, even as his body was coiled-spring tension, his cock so hard and pulsing inside of her. Because his mind had become a red haze of pure lust, his control was astounding.

Daegan reacted to the blood scent, his nostrils flaring. Gideon recognized it, because tension rippled through him. It dampened his arousal, helped him hold on a little longer, but not by much.

Let him have a lick, Gideon. One long stroke of his tongue along your beautiful shoulder to clean up the mess I made. Then I will let you come.

The words weren't entirely her, and yet they were, a vampire's sensual cruelty mixed with her own Mistress inclinations. She had him. He was trembling with the effort not to release. If she tightened her muscles at all, the battle was lost. If he hadn't been so close to this pinnacle, he would shove away from her, tell her,Hell, no , but she'd driven him too hard. His body needed that orgasm like it needed air.

She was walking that edge, the one Madelyn had mentioned, a mere life-altering day or so before, and she exulted in it.Tell me, “Yes, Mistress.”

In his mind, she saw the fleeting thought that, just like a man who'd soiled his hands with one murder, it made the next step toward Hell that much easier. That took her aback, something cold and unpleasant tightening in her belly as he likened his submission to her marking as a crime. However, he'd made his decision.

He pressed his forehead into her shoulder.I can't. I'll do what you ask, but I can't say it. I don't . . .

Jesus, please just get it over with. I want to come inside you so much.

Daegan gave her a measured look as she turned her head, their faces so close. She'd never order him to do anything, but when he lowered his head, she had a feeling he was doing more than indulging her. As his lips touched Gideon's shoulder, the man made a strangled noise of protest, his fingers tightening on Anwyn's hips. A glint came to Daegan's eyes that Anwyn knew, that made both apprehension and pleasure unfurl in her belly. Daegan dragged his mouth over the punctured area, his tongue doing a slow, methodical cleansing of it. The hair on his forehead brushed Gideon's nape, the line of his shoulder.

Gideon's cock jerked inside of her, unable to resist the stimulation of that clever mouth.

She fully savored her orgasm's aftershocks as she indulged the pleasure of holding one man in her arms, watching another taste his flesh in this bold, precise way.

Daegan's hands covered hers, and together they slid them down Gideon's broad back, following the shallow valley to the rise of his buttocks. Gideon had pushed his jeans halfway off his hips, and the vampire's hands were inside that cloth barrier, overlapping hers. Anwyn's hands gripped Gideon's flesh hard as Daegan provided the pressure on the outside of them. They pushed Gideon in deep, then pulled him out. In, out, with excruciating slowness, controlling the motion so he had to follow their rhythm.

Now, Gideon. It was both of their voices, she realized, offering the release to him in her mind. And though he tried to resist, he couldn't. He began coming almost before the command completed, but Daegan was as diabolical as she was, controlling that rhythm, so it continued as a slow thrust and retreat.

Gideon tried to increase the pace, jerking against them, his strangled grunts building into a shout of release that echoed in the shower, and kept echoing, as their rhythm made sure his seed was shooting in thick, continuous spurts inside of her. With a surge of primal satisfaction, she knew it went on far longer than he usually experienced with his hundred-dollar, fifteen-minute hookers.

Those women weren't in his mind now, and she hoped never to see them there. They'd been a receptacle for his release, not what he needed. Not her.

When he finished, Gideon was leaning into her, and Daegan was the solid support for both of them. Her servant's mind was fogged with the power of that climax. Bemused by how easy it was to think of him that way—her servant—Anwyn took advantage of that lull to separate her hands from Daegan's. They chose different paths up Gideon's back, hers up the center, Daegan's fanning out from the buttocks, following the rib cage back up to the shoulder blades. They came to rest on the back of Gideon's head, where her own hands rejoined his. Both tangled in his hair, indulging in easy, soothing affection.

Anwyn closed her eyes, feeling relief. The seizure had passed and, just as Gideon said, she hadn't hurt anyone.

“Because I was here. You're an idiot.” Daegan gripped a hank of Gideon's hair and jerked it, not ungently, and the other man grunted. “I told you to call me when you felt it coming. You thought you could handle it.”

“You were here, right? With your supersonic hearing. Did we pull you away fromOprah or something?”

“I think your first instincts were right,cher . You should have ripped his heart out.” Anwyn couldn't summon a smile. As Gideon pulled his head away, his shoulder was twitching under Daegan's forearm. He averted his eyes from hers, but he couldn't avert his mind. She knew enough to read a man's body language, but hearing the thoughts made it a sharper underscore.

Sex was a powerful distraction, but reality always had to return. The aftermath could make the guilt or betrayal all the sharper. Gideon was already reliving Daegan putting his mouth on his shoulder. How it became part of the arousal, both of them stimulating him, what that meant. And—faintly accusing—why had she done that to him, knowing how he felt about being touched by a male? More important, a vampire.

I'm a vampire.

Startled, his gaze flickered up.I wasn't really talking to you, you know. His tone wasn't resentful, but it was a near thing, rippling along her raw nerves.You know you're different.

Am I? Or have you pulled that moral yardstick out of your ass and decided I've taken another tick closer toward becoming as bad as he is?

From the way Daegan's hands stilled on her back, she knew he'd heard that. Good, because she had an even deeper level of anger stirring for him. Her reality was returning with Gideon's. When she slid down their bodies, her feet finding the tile, they both steadied her as she swayed. But she pushed away from them, standing apart and leaning back against the side of the shower. Folding her hands behind her, she propped her hips on them, and met Daegan's gaze. “You promised you'd never do that to me. Mark me like a servant so you could read my mind. Speak inside of it.”

“You're not a servant; you're a vampire. I did it because it's clear you're going to need my ability to reach you in your head. And so is Gideon. It's only temporary. With practice, you'll be able to keep me out, where a human servant can't.”

“Oh well. What am I complaining about? As long as you know what's best.” Daegan didn't add that, with their age difference, it would be almost impossible for her to keep one of his strength and maturity out of her mind when he was determined to find out what she was thinking or to speak to her. It was his hope he never had to do that, but she needed the stability a servantand a vampire sire could bring to her. He'd been wrestling with it ever since giving her the locator mark, but this had cinched it. Gideon was handling things well, all things considering, but he wasn't objective enough when it came to her.

Pressing his lips together, Daegan pulled a towel off the rack, went to her despite her forbidding look and spread it over her shoulders, using that tether to pull her slightly toward him and slide the rest of the towel between her and the wall. She remained wooden, her condemning gaze on him. He didn't linger, but he didn't let her refuse him, either, spreading her hair over her shoulders before stepping away to get a towel for himself. Gideon already had one.

She glanced toward the human, who'd tugged up his wet jeans with difficulty and refastened them.

Despite their barbed exchange, there was a softening to her expression, some regret, when she looked at him. Probably because she knew she'd pushed him to accept Daegan's caress.

But it hadn't been because of a sadistic vampire urge. Daegan wondered if she realized it had been purely her instinct as a Mistress, knowing how to push a sub toward the surrender he needed, to help his soul as well as give pleasure to them both. He wondered how long it would take Gideon to figure that out.

Something else twisted in his gut at that soft look, but it wasn't jealousy, not exactly. It was knowing he wasn't forgiven, and knowing there was nothing he could do about it. Correction: that he was willing to do about it. While it was past time to confront her anger and disrespect head-on, the truth was that an inferno of emotions about what had happened to her was barely banked within him. Because of those events, events he should have been able to prevent, he was having to take even more of her choices away. Even if it was to protect her, he knew he was systematically destroying what fragile trust they'd had between them. He honestly couldn't trust his own emotions if he let them slip in any way.

None of that mattered. He would do whatever was necessary to make sure she survived this.

The dark clouds she turned toward him now made it clear her anger against him was only compounding, as the pleasure of the climax was washing away. Of the three of them, she'd had the most sleep, though it had mainly been due to unconsciousness after her seizure. It made him take a firmer grip on his self-control, bracing himself for her next words.

“Once I get in some semblance of a routine again, with control of who and what I am, I intend to make some decisions about my life.”

Daegan met Gideon's dark blue gaze, then shifted back to her face. “You will have latitude to do that eventually,cher . But it's not that straightforward for us. Vampires are not like humans. Our society is not as free. There are too few of us, and we live in the shadows.”