My dreams were wild that night, blazing hot with naked flesh, sweat, and moans. It wasn’t just Eddie starring in them, either, but all three vampires, one right after the other. I woke panting with a throb between my legs ten minutes after my alarm was supposed to go off. Too late to do anything about it myself.

But, like the badass I so badly needed to be, I’d already emailed my finished economics paper and whisked through the door of The Bean Dream right on time. Sylvia, my boss, glanced up from the customer on the other side of the counter and smiled. I waved as I skirted around to the back office to clock in.

Humans didn’t know about the existence of vampires. That is, until they were bitten and then became one. If a human happened to see a vampire, they would forget about the vamp as soon as they looked away. That lack of knowledge also applied to me, the slayer, except humans didn’t forget about me when they looked away. Word was still out on whether that was a good or bad thing. I sometimes wanted to be forgotten about, by vampires, demons, devils, and humans, so I could just fade into the background and exist on my own terms.

No can do if you happened to be me.

My split-shift day went quickly, the customers’ orders keeping me busy between thoughts of the devil’s proposal, this darkness coming for me, and the three mystery vamps. With my stinky red apron folded over my arm so I could take it home and wash it, I walked outside, the crisp evening air filling my lungs. It tasted like fall and apple cider and reminded me of pumpkin carving with Mom.

My heart pinched at the memory. Someday, I would be able to think about her without it hurting so much, but today was not that day.

A sound like TV static hesitated my steps on the sidewalk. The street was practically empty since Podunk City liked to nestle down right at dusk. The first glimmers of starlight shone along a ribbon of cobalt blue, but it wasn’t quite dark enough for the vamps to come out and play.

I jaywalked across the street to the empty lot where my car was parked, a 1999 burgundy Pontiac Phoenix, also known as my hoopty. Before I made it to the curb, the static sounded again, louder, and sharp enough to prickle through my skin to my bones. I stopped and looked around, my senses tingling.

Was the demon fucking with me? Because it couldn’t be a vamp. Not yet. Which meant the stakes in the trunk of my hoopty would be worthless against the demon once again. Yet standing around like a dumbass wasn’t going to solve anything either. I leaped up on the curb, and my brisk steps carried me across the parking lot.

“Lovely...”

I stopped at the sound of the voice that came from everywhere and nowhere at once. It sounded as if someone had swallowed broken glass, and ancient. Not like the demon’s smooth-as-silk voice. Not at all.

“Why, thank you,” I said, loud enough for the words to roll on the breeze. “Care to show yourself?”

Across the street, the lights inside The Bean Dream went dark, and Sylvia stepped out, trying to juggle her keys, jacket, and purse. Aside from her, nothing else moved along the street.

“Okay, then,” I muttered, and crossed toward my hoopty.

No time to waste listening to weird, disembodied voices. I had a marriage proposal to thwart and a vamp nest to visit.

* * *

DESPITE MY HOOPTY, I always chose to walk to the graveyard at night. Brand new vampires tended to flock there, to what should’ve been their final resting place. Since they were young and inexperienced, they were usually easy pickings. The older ones knew not to cross paths with the slayer except, of course, the three who lived next door. While I patrolled, I sniffed myself, trying to smell what had lured them to me. Did all vampires think I smelled like desire and sunshine, or just the ones I wanted to lick?

After a few uneventful hours of patrolling, it was Jacek who answered the door of their house wearing his heart-stopping grin. He seemed to have forgotten his shirt, which did everyone with eyeballs a favor, really. The guy was ripped. His stacks of lean muscle moved like water as he crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

“You came back.” The moonlight sparked in his amber eyes and glinted off his short dark hair.

A blush heated my cheeks, which made me glad it was night, but he could probably hear the blood crashing underneath my skin. “I did.”

“Did you find anything?”

It took me a second to figure out he was referring to the stack of books, not his chest. It was an honest mistake given that I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the smooth expanse of skin.

“There’s a lot about how to kill demons, but like Eddie said last night, the devil will just send more,” I said. “I didn’t find anything concrete about how to make the devil propose to someone else.”

“That’s a shame.” Jacek shoved away from the doorframe and stood up tall. “Well, want to come in and see what else, uh, strikes your fancy? Is that a term people still use?”

I chuckled. “Not for people with heartbeats.”

He held the door open with a wide smile. “Well, I’m out of luck.”

“I guess so,” I said, sliding past him. For a dead guy, he could sure tremble the air around him enough to make it hard to breathe.

The living room had changed somewhat. The coffee table had been pushed against the TV, and the hardwood floor was covered with blue mats.

Eddie rounded into the living room from what I guessed was the kitchen, and my heart took flight at the sight of him. He wore dark pants and a suit jacket, unbuttoned, over a white dress shirt, the top few buttons of which were undone. His messy blond hair had fallen over his glasses, and he shoved it back to peer at me with those disarming orange-yellow eyes of his.

His sinful lips twitched as he pushed up his glasses. “Hello, Sunshine.”

“Hi, Eddie. Uh...” Why was here I again? Not to undress them with my mind. “I brought the books back.”

He nodded. “I appreciate that.”

Jacek crossed to stand next to him, and my whole being tightened at the sight of his back. Long white stripes marred his skin, across his shoulders, and down his spine. Scars. Horrible ones. He looked like he’d been flayed open again and again. I sucked in a shaky breath, clenching and unclenching my fists, my nerves vibrating as I wondered who could do something so brutal to him.

“I see you’re not covered in blood tonight,” he said, turning to face me again as he stood next to Eddie. “Easy night slaying?”

Eddie stared at me through his glasses, likely reading every thought on my face before I blanked it.

“Yeah, not too bad. And I knocked off a little early to do more research.” Of the Eddie and Jacek variety, but also the demon variety. I only had a few nights left before my birthday, after all, so I needed to get cracking on how not to become the devil’s bride.

“Research. Right.” Jacek nodded as if he didn’t believe me, probably because he’d heard me eyeball fucking Eddie upstairs last night.

“Looks like I caught you in the middle of...” I shook my head at the mats on the floor. “Gymnastics?”

Jacek flashed that panty-dropping grin and crossed his arms. “Judo, actually. I teach a variety of martial arts to vampires a couple nights a week, sometimes here and sometimes not. A family of four just left before you came here.”

“You...” My eyes bugged out of my head. “You teach martial arts to vampires?”

“Yeah. It helps pay the bills. Eddie here works as an online law librarian.”

A teacher and a librarian. That was so unexpected for some reason, even though it made total sense. It was also hot as hell. Men who used their brains were rare in Podunk City, but it had always been an instant turn-on of mine.

“Eddie’s the brains of the operation.” Jacek looked at Eddie and rubbed his mouth like he wanted Eddie to do the same and get rid of some stray blood or something. Eddie took the bait and brought his hand to his jaw, but then realized it was all a joke when Jacek burst out laughing.

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Jacek’s not that good at martial arts. He knows I could take him out if he gets too territorial.”

Jacek threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, is that right? How many years do I have on you again? A hundred and sixty?”

“Doesn’t matter, old man,” Eddie said. “I know ways I could take you out without breaking a sweat.”

An image of the two of them sparring leaped into my head, shirtless obviously, the smell of testosterone thick in the air. I honestly didn’t know who would win in that fight since I’d never seen either one in action, but it would be quite a sight to see as long as no one really got hurt. An arm-wrestling match would work too. Or just standing around shirtless.

Jacek crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at Eddie. “I’ll bet you fifty dollars that you can’t even hit me.”

Eddie shook his head, a pitying look on his face. “Do you not remember the last time you bet me and lost?”

“That was to see who could bite into a waterbed filled with blood and drain it the fastest.” Jacek chuckled. “I don’t think anyone really won that bet.”

I grinned at the playfulness between the two of them. I never knew vampires could be so lovable and...real. It kind of made me feel guilty about being a slayer, but I’d never met any quite like these two. I mean three...

“Where’s Sawyer?” I asked. “Is he here?”

“Yeah, he’s here.” Jacek walked barefoot over the blue mat, angling his back away from me. “He keeps to himself mostly.”

Yet I’d felt him mentally undressing me from behind last night on the way here. Did he not want to see me or talk to me like these two? It made no sense, but I couldn’t help the twinge of hurt that gave me. I didn’t even know him. Not like I knew Jacek and Eddie, but still. I was getting to know them, and I liked them. It would be nice to get to know Sawyer too.

“Ready?” Eddie jerked his head for me to follow him up the stairs, his citrine gaze like a hot caress against my skin.

“Yep.”

We started for the library upstairs again and seated ourselves at the table where a fresh stack of books waited, along with a steaming cup of coffee and another slice of pie. I was going to gain so many pounds with this devil proposal research, but I was strangely okay with that. Because pie.

I laid my books down, scanning the titles of the new ones. “The Power of Dreams,” I read. “You think my dreams are important?”

“Depends on what you dream about,” he said, pulling that one off the stack.

I sealed my lips on a smile, my cheeks flaming. My dreams last night had been off the charts, starring three vampires in vibrant detail, but I didn’t think he needed to know about that.

“Sunshine,” Eddie purred, and it sounded as though he was repeating it.

“Huh?”

“Your dreams. What are they about?”

I licked my lips, and Eddie tracked the movement as if my mouth were his prey. Flashes of my dreams sparked in my head, lowering a powerful heat between my thighs. Skin, naked and hot, and biting with fangs, marking me as theirs, all three of them, and round after round of satisfying sex, so much that I thought I would burn up from the inside out. I gripped the armrests of the chair, trying to control my increasingly erratic breaths.

“Just...you know...” I swallowed. “Normal stuff.”

Eddie’s chest heaved against his suit jacket. A red preternatural glow ignited around his irises, and the twin points of fangs peeked from behind his full lips. “Sunshine,” he growled, “your desire smell is through the roof.”

“Would you like to do something about that?” I blinked hard as soon as the words had flown out of my mouth, stunned at my own brazenness, but I meant every word. I shoved my chair back and around, then looped my foot around the leg of his chair, and just like he’d done last night, I scooted him out to face me.

“Yes,” he said, his voice as sinful as any demon’s. “Yes, I would.” He dropped to his knees in front of me and nudged my thighs open as he drew closer, his gaze alight with fiery hunger. His fingertips curled over the waistband of my yoga pants and underwear. “Can you promise me something?”

Raw need coursed through my body. I lifted my hips slightly and shifted toward him so my panties rubbed against my suddenly very wet folds. I pushed my lips together to stifle a moan while slick heat gathered at my center until it throbbed. “Anything.”

“I need you to keep your hands on the armrests. No touching me. Can you do that for me, Sunshine?” He rolled the fabric of my yoga pants and panties down my thighs, my aching pussy now on full display, and I didn’t even care.

“I promise.” I wanted him so much it shocked the air from my lungs and wetted the leather underneath my bare ass. To save time, I threw off my T-shirt and sports bra while he finishing ridding me of my pants until I sat there completely nude. His for the taking, and I sure hoped he would. Then, without question, I clasped my fingers around the armrests.

His gaze traveled down the length of me, tightening and igniting everything inside me all over again.

“Belle.” My name was an awed whisper and a sinful promise coming off his lips.

I spread my legs wider in invitation, craving his touch as much as my next stuttered breath. With his heated gaze locked on mine, he ghosted his hands up my thighs, his fingertips barely touching. Then when his mouth was just inches from mine, he gripped my hips hard and hauled them to the edge of my seat. My back hit the headrest, knocking the wind out of me, but air didn’t seem to matter all that much when Eddie dipped his head between my knees.

He pressed feather light kisses up my inner thigh. When he drew closer to my center, his kisses became harder with an intoxicating mix of tongue and fangs. My hips rolled toward him involuntarily. My blood stirred faster, spiking the throb in my pussy to almost painful. I moaned and gripped the arms of the chair to anchor myself to it while he kissed his way to my soaked center.

He flicked his gaze to mine, his eyes like twin flames, ready to consume. His lips were so close to my folds that his next words vibrated inside me. “Do you taste as good as you smell?”

“Please,” I begged. “Taste me and find out.”

With a wicked grin, he gripped my hips tighter and flicked out his tongue. The first stroke along my slit nearly lifted me out of the chair. I cried out his name, but the rest of my words tangled up when his tongue stroked me, tasting me. He groaned, and the low rumble slid into me, too, plucking every nerve until they turned into livewires.

My body buzzed under his expert touch. I’d never felt anything like this before—my craving or his worshipping. My hips rocked forward into his face to meet his tongue’s thrusts. I wanted to sink my hands into his wild, silky hair and twine them at the back of his head to hold him there for an eternity, but somehow I behaved myself.

He freed one hand from my hips and dropped it below the edge of the chair where I couldn’t see. A zipper sounded, and I tried to lift my head from the back of the chair to see what he was packing between his legs. But then he slid two fingers inside of me, and my thoughts scrambled. While his hand worked inside me, he kissed his way to my clit and flicked it with his tongue so it swelled even more.

I held to the armrests tighter, my hips bucking.

“You’re so wet, Belle.” He slid his hand out and dipped it between his legs. “And you taste like a goddess.”

He groaned as the muscles in one arm bunched and flexed, his mouth never leaving me, and it didn’t take a genius to know what he was doing to himself. I sat up as much as I could to watch him. His long, thick cock glistened with the wetness he’d taken from me. His fist slid along his shaft in quick pumps while his hips rode the air. What a fucking turn-on.

“You can bite me, Eddie,” I said between pants.

Something dangerous flickered behind his eyes when he glanced up at me. “Only after you come.”

I was close, so close to tipping over the edge. Eddie seemed to feel it, too, because he lavished his attention on my clit, stroking and sucking it, building up my orgasm to explode to every part of my body.

Seconds later, it did. My whole body clenched. Blood roared through my veins. Eddie tasted me through it while he continued to stroke himself. Then he pulled his head away from me, his fangs on display, and sank them into the inner part of my upper thigh. I cried out at the sensual shock as his teeth pierced my skin. My body still buzzed with the aftereffects of my orgasm, and his bite stretched it out longer.

He moaned into my flesh, his tongue circling and sucking, while his hips slowed. A full-body shudder rolled through him. Just as I was starting to sag into my chair and see imaginary spots floating past with the blood loss, he pulled away. His lips were bloodstained, and his eyes were half shuttered behind his glasses.

“You taste”—he licked his lips—“fucking awesome.”

I shrugged, a goofy smile stuck to my mouth, too sated to focus on much of anything except him. “It’s the least we could do for vamps. You know, taste good before we kill them.”

He stood, tucking everything back into his pants and straightening his glasses and hair, his smile as dangerous as the rest of him. “You’re going to kill me?”

“I may have to make an exception,” I said. “Your tongue is too knowledgeable.”

“So is my head.” He zipped up his pants and winked. “Both of them.”

I snorted a laugh as I stood to pull up my yoga pants.

He stopped me with a kiss. His mouth covered mine with a heady mix of his taste and mine. Somehow he touched every part of me with just his lips, simultaneously melting and hardening everything down to my toes.

Dizzying minutes or weeks or years later, he pulled away. “Ready to get down to business with more research?”

Funny, I thought we just had.