Of course they would have the penthouse suite.

I didn't know why I'd expected anything less. Having never been in a penthouse suite before, though, I had nothing to compare this one to, but I was pretty sure that even for a suite this one was extravagant.

"It's huge," I murmured as I walked into the luxurious living space with high ceilings and views of the park beside the hotel, and across the city. It was unlike any hotel room I'd ever seen.

My feet sank into the plush carpet as I took it all in. It was easily double the size of my whole house, maybe more. There were four king-sized beds evenly spaced around the room, which made me wonder if they stayed here often. It seemed odd that a single hotel room would have four beds otherwise.

Glittering lights hung in the air and skittered away when I tried to touch them. A fully stocked white onyx bar sat in one corner in front of a row of glass, stackable doors that led to a balcony with a hot tub big enough to fit an army.

The living area held a collection of gray couches with steel feet and a television, various gaming consoles, and a whole host of other electronics that I didn't recognize. Heavy white curtains hung in the windows and blackout blinds were installed behind them.

"That's what I've been told," Cooper quipped, walking up beside me and putting his arm around my shoulders.

Beckham sighed and strode across the room to the bar. "It goes without saying that she wasn't talking about your favorite appendage, sorry to break it to you, Coop. Would you like something to eat, Starling?"

Eat? Nerves knotted my stomach now that I was alone with the four of them, and as soon as the door slammed shut behind Maddox, breathing became increasingly more difficult as I looked around the room, the beds suddenly looming large.

“No… No, I'm fine, thank you," I told him, the lump that was forming in my throat making my voice sound breathy.

"A drink?" Jaeger asked, joining Beckham at the bar and holding up a bottle of champagne. A drink I could do. It might even help undo some of the ever-tightening knots.

Though we'd had a few down in the bar, I wasn't drunk or even tipsy. Having a glass of champagne should be safe. "Yes, please. I'd like that."

Maddox took my hand and guided me to the couch, but my eyes remained glued on those beds. They were made up with deep red linens and while my mind was racing trying to process the events of the night and what exactly I'd been thinking when I agreed to come up here with all of them, the first thing that popped out was, "I take it you don't sleep in coffins then."

Cooper chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that instantly set me more at ease. "No, not anymore. Those things are too uncomfortable."

Jaeger walked over, handing me a long-stemmed champagne flute, and gracefully lowered himself onto the couch beside me, shooting Cooper a look. "He's joking, of course. We've never slept in coffins. If memory serves, that disturbing rumor started when a human author, who knew of our existence, decided to write a fictional account of life as a vampire."

"Humans have a bit of a flair for the dramatic sometimes. I guess it was too mundane for him that we slept in beds," Beckham said, his eyes meeting mine as he sank into the couch across from me.

As he sipped his champagne, another thought occurred to me. "You're drinking champagne. Shouldn't you be drinking blood?"

“We do, but we can enjoy other food and drink.” Cooper's lips twitched up in amusement and the different colors in his eyes became all the more pronounced for it.

“Do you, ummm, do you have to kill people so you can drink their blood?” I forced myself to ask. My cheeks flamed that I was only just asking it now, after I’d already joined them. Even if I believed they wouldn’t hurt me, that didn’t mean I was okay with hanging out with a bunch of murderers.

“No, Star,” Cooper replied, his mouth hitching into a grin. “We’ve killed to protect ourselves in the past, but never for food. There’s no need as there are so many willing donors who are happy to let us partake.”

The thought of those willing donors combined with the lazy sensuality in his voice had a shot of jealousy coursing through me.

Jesus, it wasn’t like these guys were my boyfriends. It was none of my business who they drank from.

I sucked in a deep breath and tried to focus.

"And is that why I'm really here? To be a donor?"

Beckham shook his head. "Absolutely not. We only need to feed once every few weeks."

"Then what do you want from me? For real." The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, but that really was the question, wasn't it? "Each one of you could have anyone that you wanted, why me?"

"We were going to wait until you knew us a little better before we told you, but since you asked, we’ll be honest with you. We only ask that you give us the opportunity to explain fully," Jaeger said, his eyes imploring me to stay, while his tone suggested that he thought I might bolt at any second.

"In other words, hear us out and don't freak out," Cooper added, the usual levity in his tone missing.

In fact, they were all looking at me with weirdly serious eyes and as though this meant the world to them. Strange, considering they'd only known me for a few hours, but okay.

"I can do that." I was too curious to leave anyway. I'd come this far. I felt like I owed it to myself and to them to listen to whatever it was that they had to say.

"What we’re about to tell you is going to sound strange to you, so I’m going to preface it by saying that much of what a vampire feels is dictated by instinct and scent," Jaeger started, raking his hand through his hair but keeping his eyes on mine. "When I first found you… Fuck. You're going to think I'm insane, but I'm not. I promise. I was so compelled by you, so attracted to you, and your blood smelled so sweet, that I knew then and there that I had to make you my own."

"Then I met you, and I felt exactly the same," Maddox said, gulping down the rest of his champagne and inclining his head to Beckham and Cooper. "When they met you, same thing. The four of us want you to be ours."

"How do you know they felt the same?" I asked him, struggling to process the rest of what he'd just said. It wasn't like they'd had time to talk alone much since meeting me.

"We've been together a long time," Cooper told me. "We're the last of a group of vampires created by one of the originals, Lazarus. If you need to hear us say it, though, he's right."

Beckham nodded. "Agreed."

My eyes narrowed a bit as I tried to comprehend what they were saying. They all seemed so sure of themselves, each of them keeping their eyes on me. For four different guys who claimed that they wanted me as their own, none of them seemed jealous and no one was trying to come up with a solution of how we were going to—

Oh. OH!

That was because they meant… Like all of them and me… Like Stevie and those guys I'd met earlier…

Oh my.

Flustered, I was tempted to bring my hand to my heating face to wave at it. The temperature in the room suddenly felt a thousand degrees hotter and my core temperature had risen just as much.

They waited silently as they watched me put the pieces together. There was a tension in the way they held their shoulders, in the intensity of Beckham's eyes and Maddox's clenched fists. I didn't quite understand it, none of it. Not how this would work or why this seemed so important to them, but I could see that it was.

"Look, I'm not going to deny that I'm attracted to all of you, as well. As wrong as that sounds. But don't you each want your own woman?"

"Not really. Doesn’t matter," Jaeger said immediately and the others nodded their agreement. "And for the record, it's not wrong for you to be attracted to all of us. The way we feel about you… The best way that I can explain it is that we all need you."

"Why me?" I asked again.

Maddox stood from his seat and came to slide in next to me, pressing me closer to Jaeger's side at the same time. Jaeger's arm went around my shoulders as Maddox cupped my face in both of his hands. "While we need humans to survive, to feed from, we've been largely unmoved by human women for the past century or so."

"No one drew us in for more than a purely physical outlet, but you're different," Cooper said, moving the coffee table in front of me to make space for himself on the carpet by my feet.

"You have something else. A shine, if you will," Beckham added, now the only one who was still across the room and not touching me. Maddox had dropped his hands to my one thigh, while Cooper had his forearm draped over my knees.

"What’s that?" I asked no one in particular. I wasn't fishing for compliments. I just really didn't get it.

"You have an innate goodness about you, a light shining from within that we’re all… Let's just call it, taken with," Maddox told me almost reverently. "It seems unfair that any one of us should have to deny ourselves this pleasure or you the pleasure we can bring. That's why we don't all need our own woman, only you."

Only me.

I still didn't really understand why that was, but there was such sincerity in all of their eyes that I knew they wholeheartedly believed what they were saying. Whether it made a lick of sense whatsoever to me or not.

Jaeger reached for me, tenderly hooking his index finger under my chin and turning me to face him. "Let us show you."

Eyes simmering and igniting a slow burn in me, he bent his head down until our lips were so close together that mine parted instinctively from the kiss I hoped was coming. When he spoke, his soft breath warmed my skin and my breathing hitched. “Will you let us show you?”

Would I? I wanted him to kiss me so badly my toes were practically curling in the heels Maddox had magicked me into. The only way I was getting that kiss was if I agreed. I nodded my assent before my brain could take over from my body and ruin the moment.

“You say stop at any time and we stop, okay?” he said. My eyes were fixated on his lips and it took a second for me to realize he was waiting for me to respond.

“Okay,” I whispered.

A soft groan fell from his lips and then they were on mine. I didn’t know what I’d been doing when I thought I was kissing someone before, because if this was what it felt like to be kissed, I’d been sorely mistaken about what kissing was.

Jaeger’s mouth was loving and tender on mine, slowly encouraging me and cajoling me to open. Tipping my head back, I leaned my weight into his arms and let him take full control of the kiss. His tongue stroked mine possessively; long, sure glides that gave me a much better idea about what they’d meant when they said they wanted me to be theirs.

It kind of felt like I already was.

My arms threaded around his shoulders, pulling him closer to me. Our chests mashed together and it still didn’t seem close enough as his tongue worked me into a state that no simple kiss should’ve been able to achieve.

But this was no simple kiss. It was a kiss that made me forget. Forget that we weren’t alone in the room. Forget that there was a whole wide world out there that would condemn any kind of relationship like they were proposing. Forget my own damn name.

There was only Jaeger and this crazy, desperate need for him to never stop kissing me like this. He lifted me and I thought he was about to pull me into his lap, but instead, a second pair of arms wrapped around my waist and he passed me off to Maddox.

I whimpered at the loss of his kisses, but the sounds were swallowed by Maddox slanting his lips over mine. His kiss was different to Jaeger’s, fiercer and more insistent, but the effect it was having on me was the same.

It was like I could feel each stroke of his tongue on my clit and I was surprised by how much I wanted it there. I’d never done anything more than give a chaste goodnight kiss on my doorstep on a first date, yet there I was, desperate to have them—all of them—inside me within the first couple of minutes of kissing these guys.

Alarm bells sounded in the back of my mind, warning me that it was too much too soon, but I silenced them. It felt too good to stop.

God, please don’t let them stop.