Page 84 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

Damn, I hated seeing him like this. Theo was all sarcasm and wit. All smiles and movement, but he had a darkness, and it was crushing the life out of him. I knew what that felt like too. Maybe we really were alike.

“For what it’s worth, I like you this way. Maybe not forever, as I’ll⁠—”

I’d been about to say something about how I’d get old, cranky, and wrinkly, but Theo’s mouth on mine stole the rest of the sentence. The kiss brought all my thoughts to a screeching halt, turning thinking into needing. And I really needed this—all of him, on me. Now. Vampire? Didn’t care. I’d been thinking about it all for days, going over and over it, and it all came back to the fact that Theo needed me, and I kinda needed him. I couldn’t go back to staring at my beige walls without us texting each other at two a.m. I’d missed those dumb texts.

I swept my hand up his back, getting a good feel of his warm, firm skin under my palms. And man, it felt good. I hadn’t touched someone like this in years. Not since my ex, before my life went up in a trash fire.

Theo’s teeth nipped at my bottom lip while his hands caught my hips and pulled me in. We kissed with our mouths and bodies, push and pull, coming together in one fluid rocking motion. Heating up. Igniting. Fire to the fuel. I stopped thinking altogether and just felt.

Someone down by the pool must have noticed, because a shrill whistle went up, then a cheer followed.

So much for staying invisible.

Theo smiled into the kiss, grabbed blindly for the cord. The blind fell. His hand came back, this time cupping the back of my head. He marched me backward. My shoulders bumped the wall. Theo pressed all of himself in hard. His mouth left mine, trailed down my jaw.

Oh, heck yes.

I let my head fall back and allowed myself to feel another man touching me.

His left hand cupped my neck again, while his right slipped around my lower back and dropped over my ass. He kissed my collarbone. He was everywhere, hands moving, lips teasing over my sensitive skin.

I threaded my fingers into his messy, dark hair. Yes. This. I was having this. Him. Now.

Music thumped somewhere in the house and down by the pool, bass thumping through the floor. People chatted loud enough that it all blurred into background noise. All of it faded behind the feel of Theo’s mouth on my skin. His hands left my ass and neck and went to my shirt buttons.

I wanted those hands back on me, immediately.

Dark eyes caught mine, asking permission.

“Yes . . .” Please don’t stop. I didn’t want to sound desperate, so I kept the rest of it unspoken, but he could feel it, his body on mine in all the right places. Feel how hard I was. I swallowed, and his gaze dropped to my neck.

A dangerous thrill ran a current down my spine.

“I’ve wanted to do this since the morning we met . . .” he whispered, quick fingers working my buttons open.

“When you were sleeping on the lounger?” My voice came out gruff.

“Wasn’t sleeping.” He kissed the corner of my mouth on his way to whisper in my ear. “Was thinking about the hot new pool guy.”

He was?

He pulled open my shirt and spotted the nipple ring. “Oh.” A little, surprised laugh fell out of him. “You are a man of many surprises.”

I smiled. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“If you tell me you’ve got a Prince Albert, I might die. And I’m immortal, so . . .”

“Ah, no. Sorry to disappoint. Do you?”

“Wanna find out?” He laughed and swept his hands up, over my shoulders, scooping the shirt off, and down my back, trapping my arms slightly behind with my shirt cuffs. He got a look at me from a foot away, and purred as he came back in, and that mouth skimmed from my neck, sweeping down my chest, tongue moving, kisses sucking, teeth nipping.

Lord help me, I hadn’t been this hard since waking up after dreaming about him. So, that same morning, then.

He was heading down. His tongue flicked the nipple ring, then a little metallic sound as his teeth teased it. If I thought I was hard before, I’d just peaked.

He went to one knee.

I was going to die if he . . .