Gypsy Freak

I’m not sure why I smile.

“She’s breaking all sorts of gypsy laws to give you this day,” I decide to tell her.

She nods as she sips the bourbon and moans around the edge of the glass.

As she lowers her drink, she smirks over at me. “She chose you because she’s the least attracted and least drawn to you.”

I bristle, unsure how exactly I feel about that, and her smirk grows more taunting.

“She thinks it’ll be less awkward afterwards because she never sees the two of you in a similar situation,” she goes on, swirling her drink.

“Why exactly are you telling me this?”

She shrugs a shoulder, still smiling. “Because I always root for the underdog. Terrible habit of mine.”

Scrubbing a hand over my jaw, I lean forward. “I think you’re confused about my interest in Violet.”

“I think you’re in denial about your interest in Violet,” she’s quick to volley.

Sitting back, I watch her as she studies me with a shrewd eye that Violet lacks. Her age is showing.

“How did Violet raise Arion?”

“How did he make her forget she did that?” she asks instead of answering.

I huff out a breath.

“Please answer my question. It’s important I get details before I deal with him next time.”

“I honestly don’t know. I wasn’t there when it happened,” she answers, clearly playing coy as her eyes dart around the room. “I expected a lot of swords and things to be hanging in here, since you’re a Van Helsing.”

“Not my room,” I remind her as I sit back. “It’s just on loan. And my weapons stay in their vault, regardless. Who tricked Violet into helping them raise the bastard? And don’t dodge the question.”

Her eyes connect with mine. “Sitting here, seeing a dildo-less corner, and no purple gorilla following us around, I question how much I truly know. I feel it’d be reckless or dangerous to give you misinformation as truth, considering I could most definitely be confused about what I do or don’t know. I’m dead; I shouldn’t involve myself with problems of the living. It defies a natural order,” she goes on, striking a nerve with that last comment without realizing it.

“Very well.” I decide not to point out that possessing a body to have a fun blowout party before final decay oblivion is also defying the natural order.

“Is he a threat to her?” she asks me, eyes on mine. “He made her forget everything, but he was spewing some romantic gibberish during an orgy, I think.”

“Orgy?”

“Yesterday. When you came to save her,” she goes on, gesturing toward me.

I laugh humorlessly, realizing just how misinformed her information must be.

Then, on an annoyed exhale, I tell her, “I’m not sure about anything involving Arion right now. I can’t get into the cemetery until the acidic fog in there dissipates. It nearly burned my eyes out when I tried.”

“Enough gypsy talk. Let’s talk more about Violet.”

“Violet’s most certainly a gypsy,” I point out, lips twisting in a semi-suppressed grin when she rolls her eyes.

“Well aware. She’s a pitiful little gypsy who has no idea what’s going on around her, and God help her for relying on me to help her through it. She’s going to need someone much saner and more dependable when I’m gone.”

The seriousness to her last note has me sipping more of my whiskey. I say nothing to her as she looks down at her glass of bourbon.

“Violet is the one soul who cares for me.”

“Since your death?”

Her eyes level mine with a cold look. “Ever,” she answers with a tight smile.

She bends to pick up the bag and starts walking toward me again.

After she deposits the bag to the table, she opens a compact, inspecting herself in the mirror, softly touching her face as she just stares.

“Violet isn’t fragile, but she’s not yet strong either,” she goes on, snapping the compact shut as her eyes find mine.

I sip my whiskey, content to hear her story as she just stares down at the bourbon in her hand once more.

“I didn’t expect to like her so much,” she confesses. “She sneaks up on a person like that. I have the dazzle. She has the sneaky razzle.”

She laughs bitterly, still not meeting my eyes.

“I’m the secondary character, after all,” she goes on, confusing me. “She’s the lead.”

Her voice wobbles on the end when her gaze lifts once more. She pushes her glass aside and props up on the table as she takes her seat once again.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask her softly.

“Because someone should know,” she says with a shrug. “Also, someone needs to know something has been killing me slowly.”

“What do you mean?” I ask in confusion. “Violet isn’t feeding on you, if that’s what—”

“She’s not feeding on me. You should figure out what her mother attached to her soul to keep ghosts away. And you should figure out why she did it.”

“Me?” I muse as I finish off the last of my whiskey and push my own glass aside.

I don’t even know if that’s a thing.

“You’re the Van Helsing. Isn’t it your duty to serve and protect or something?”

“Protection is a compulsion to a small degree,” I state vaguely. “Serving…not so much.”

Her lips tug up in a lopsided, sardonic grin. “Well, let’s get on with the part where you do serve,” she states abruptly as she pulls out two long ropes from the bag.

“What’s that?” I ask her, my eyebrows lifting.

“It’s so that you don’t get away too easily,” she states like it’s obvious, confusing me.

Before I can ask more questions, she pulls out an odd, terribly sewn leather contraption.

“She can thread a needle like a boss, but her sewing skills are…horrendous. Was she telling me the truth about her family once sewing for royalty?” she muses when I lift the leather harness thing and try to figure out what the hell it’s for.

“Yes,” I state distractedly. “It saved her family from annihilation. Her family was enslaved at one point and forced to create the most sensational fashion for the royal families of the throne, or of relation to the throne,” I add.

“Well…that’s a bit more morbid.”

“So is the vast majority of our past,” I answer absently. “What is this?” I ask, holding up the harness contraption.

She just grins. “It’s so I don’t get away too easily. I hate to rush things along, since it’s nice having a companionable evening with a man and talking about my favorite-ever person, but my time is dwindling.”

She snaps her fingers like she expects me to spring into action. I glance down at my lap and take in the fact I’m anything but aroused right now, even though she’s stunning. It’s…unnerving to plan to fuck a Portocale gypsy who is possessed.

Lifting the whiskey, I drink a few long chugs before putting the bottle down and standing.

Anna tosses the leather contraption and the ropes to the bed, and then looks over expectantly at me as she walks to stand right in front of me, craning her head back to stare into my eyes.

Those eyes are confusing me, because they belong to Violet, and Violet never stares up at me with that much desire and want. Probably a damn good thing, since this is all really fucking confusing and crazy.

“I’ve lived a long time, but fucking a ghost is a first for me,” I tell her when she slowly starts unbuttoning my shirt, showing care.

“I can promise you my expectations are extremely low,” she assures me.

She leans up on her tiptoes as she finishes unbuttoning my shirt, and her fingers skate across my shoulders as she pushes the shirt off slowly.

Leaning down, trying to get myself in the mood a few hours earlier than I planned to have to, I let my lips brush hers.

It still feels awkward, especially when she kisses me, her lips gliding over mine with no familiarity.

The kiss stops abruptly and she pulls my head down to whisper against my ear. “You can pretend I’m her,” she says in such a muted tone I barely hear her. “I won’t judge.”

This time when her lips touch mine, I kiss her harder, lifting her so that her legs wrap around my waist.

She moans into my mouth as I carry her to the bed, and I shut my mind off so I can stop overthinking it all and give her the send-off Violet wants her to have.

At least until a triplet set of creepy children land in the room.

My lips go still on hers, even as I avoid eye contact.

“Don’t mind them,” Anna says like she knows exactly what has me pausing. “I told them they could watch.”

I’m not really sure how my life has turned into this without any sort of warning.

Chapter 5

VIOLET

I’m staring down at Vance when I come to, and his arms are…tied to the bed…

His hips buck up, like he’s urging me to move, and I come to the jarring, mind-boggling, surreal realization that we’re decidedly in the middle of having sex.

He’s inside me. I’m wearing the leather harness that attaches my body to his—Anna’s design that I sewed.

The brief moment of surprise has me stunned and just staring down, almost non-responsive, as he thrusts up again, groaning as his eyes open.

“So close,” he tells me…a little desperately with a really gruff, indescribably sexy tone.

My eyes dart over to where Anna is doubled over, hands on her knees, as she grins at me like the devil she is.

“Sorry. Had to make sure you got something out of this as well,” she tells me.

Vance goes utterly still under me, and the most awkward situation in history becomes this very exact moment.

He’s inside me, hard and very filling. He’s tied down, and I forget I’m strapped to him when I try to move.

The harness catches me before I can lift all the way off him, and he groans when I’m forced back down, feeling the drag of his cock inside me on the down-stroke.

My thighs actually clench, because I almost do it again on purpose, which is so freaking wrong. Why did I really think I could trust her?

“Anna,” I hiss, my cheeks burning as I glare over at her.

“Sorry,” she says again, still not even pretending to actually sound sorry as she grins broader. “Stay and enjoy. You both need a little less seriousness in your lives. You’re welcome,” she says as I catch sight of the triplets grinning and waving at me.

“And take your time,” she adds as she punches the air and begins to jog.

Vance struggles with the ropes on his hands, cursing Anna under his breath. “You could have been a damn good gypsy,” he says over at her, his lips twitching.

She nods. “Much better than Violet,” she says with a teasing grin.