Page 17

Gio

Gio led Mila into the bedroom and found Carter was in the same position he’d left him in.

He was fast asleep in the very center of their large bed, arms spread out like a starfish.

When he was in the bed by himself, Carter tended to spread out as if unconsciously looking for someone to cuddle.

Gio had finished cleaning Carter as Faith healed him.

After she was done, Gio had pulled a sheet over Carter, but all the movement had drawn it down to his navel.

While they stood there, Babette managed the mighty leap onto the bed and snuggled back up on the pillow next to Carter’s head. The man didn’t even twitch.

They didn’t stop until they were standing at the end of the bed. Mila’s hand tightened on his, as if she was fighting the urge to do something.

Carter must have sensed their proximity because he started moving restlessly, rousing Babette. With a little whine, she uncurled her head and licked his face. He huffed but didn’t wake up or stop moving his limbs.

“Would you stay with him?” Gio asked, urging her to the far side of the bed. “I need to do a few things, and I don’t want to leave him alone for too long.”

She mumbled something about invading Carter’s space even as she let Gio press her down on the edge of the bed. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the wolf since they’d walked into the room.

Carter’s slowly moving arm bumped into her thigh.

He whispered something unintelligible and curled his large body around where Mila was sitting.

Somehow, his head ended up in her lap and his arms around her waist. His feet dangled off the bed as he crunched his knees up against her other thigh to the point where his nose was almost touching his knees.

“Carter?” Mila whispered, putting a hand on his shoulder. “This can’t be comfortable. You need to move over and stretch back out.”

As Gio expected, Carter didn’t move at all. Gio bit his lip, trying not to smile when Mila looked up at him with a helpless expression. “He can’t sleep like this.”

“He’s a snuggler,” Gio explained. “It’s hard for him to sleep without someone to wrap around.”

“But I’m not his person,” Mila said. “You are.”

“Trust me, he wants you to be his person also,” Gio said.

Before Mila could begin protesting in the way humans like to do, he pointed to the head of the bed.

“I can uncurl him to give you time to move into a better position. He needs comforting, and I need to do a few things. Would you please do this for me?”

He watched her protest die a quick death. “Of course.”

She probably didn’t even realize she’d been stroking Carter’s shoulder the entire time.

Moving around to the opposite side of the bed, Gio crawled onto the bed and stretched out until he could get hold of one of Carter’s hands. Pulling it free of Mila, he tugged gently.

“Come with me, Carter,” he urged in a low, sexy tone. Carter unfurled from around Mila and let Gio pull him more toward the center of the bed, but refused to let go of where his hand was on Mila’s thigh. Consequently, he started pulling the robe away from her.

With a squeak, she followed Carter further onto the bed. Gio wasn’t ready for Carter to keep hold of his hand while also rolling over and tucking Mila tight against him. He almost ended up toppling on top of Carter and Mila.

It wasn’t hard for Gio to pull his hand free of Carter’s grip, but the wolf did make an unhappy sound.

“Gio?” Mila whispered from her spot as the little spoon.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked, moving around so he could crouch down and meet her gaze without her needing to crane her neck.

“Yes?”

“Please be honest,” Gio begged. “This is about you, not me or Carter. He’s not going to die if he doesn’t get to cuddle you. If this is too much, we can reposition you, or I can pull you free. Be honest with me, bellezza . What do you want?”

Mila looked confused by his question. “What do I want?”

“Yes, Mila,” he said. Why was she so surprised that someone cared about her needs? “I need to know what you want.”

She blinked a few times and let her head lay back down on Carter’s bicep. “You’re coming back, right?”

He nodded. “It’ll only take me a few minutes.”

“Then I’m okay,” she answered.

“You’re too good for us,” Gio whispered.

Mila blushed. “That’s not true at all.”

Gio shook his head. “You’ll see that I’m right.” Straightening up, he pointed at the door. “Call if you need me. I’ll only be a moment.”

She gave a little nod, then closed her eyes and relaxed into Carter’s embrace.

Gio hurried out of the room and upstairs to his studio.

There was a small pile of blood bags on one of the tables.

He’d grabbed the blood from the downstairs fridge and brought it up here to keep Mila from seeing it.

He’d gotten lucky that she’d decided to take a long shower.

There wasn’t a way to keep them cold up here, and Faith pulled a lot from him to help heal Carter. He drank all four instead of risking them going bad. He felt overfull and a little drunk by the time he finished. He hadn’t consumed so much since he was a voracious young vampire with no control.

Those were dark days. His maker had enjoyed tormenting him. Gio would forever live with the shame of all the innocent lives he took while under that man’s control.

Dismissing the memories, he looked around for his laptop. Grabbing it, he made his way back to the second floor. Faith was standing in the hall outside his bedroom, yawning.

Fear spiked through him at the sight of her, but she languidly waved a hand and calmed his worry. “Carter’s fine. I’m going back to bed. I’ll check on him one more time, but only so I earn my exorbitant fees. Mila’s taking good care of him.”

“Thank you.”

The knitter didn’t answer, she was too busy yawning again as she shuffled back down the hall.

Slipping back into his room, he found both Carter and Mila sound asleep. Like most vampires, Gio could see auras, and Mila’s was shockingly bright. He'd never seen a pure human with an aura as startlingly brilliant as hers. But that wasn’t what was surprising.

Coming to a stop at the side of the bed, he watched the movement of Carter’s and Mila’s auras. When he’d first seen Carter, the wolf’s aura was frighteningly dim. It wasn’t back to his normal color yet, but there was a sheen of Mila’s bright aura mixing into Carter’s.

She was feeding him. Not as much as him or Faith, but far better than any human should've been able to. Even more interesting was that her aura wasn’t diminishing.

When Gio fed Carter, he’d felt his magic being pulled from him in a massive amount to keep Carter alive and to help him heal.

It didn’t look like Mila’s aura was changing at all.

It was building back up at the same rate that Carter was syphoning.

Gio didn’t think that was possible, but the evidence was right in front of him. Mila was slowly but steadily feeding Carter without doing any damage or decline to her own aura. It was astonishing.

“What are you?” he whispered. “Your aura only has human colors to it, but there has to be something else in your ancestry.”

It was something they could puzzle out later. One thing was certain, she might not be fully human, but she was entirely theirs!

He pulled a chair close to the bed and made himself comfortable. He would’ve liked to get into the bed and curl himself around Mila so she was between him and Carter, but that wouldn’t be appropriate yet. The last thing he wanted to do was spook her.

Balancing the laptop on his lap, he started researching the things a pastry chef needed. When Mila was admiring the kitchen, she hadn’t opened any of the drawers and cabinets to find that most of them were absolutely empty.

It was fun to pick out mixers, bowls, knives, measuring spoons, cups, and many other items. He paid extra to get everything by the end of the following day.

He was tempted to order a full set of dishes because they only had the mismatched ones Carter had moved in with, then decided against it. He wanted Mila to pick out what she wanted, and if there was already a full set, she might not feel comfortable ordering more.

Once that was done, he set the laptop aside to gaze at his peacefully sleeping flock and let a deep sense of contentment fill him.

Mila

Mila woke up to Babette licking her ear. The dog was so close it was hard to focus on her little, pointed face. The events of the previous evening came back to her in a rush. Sitting up was harder than she expected because Carter's heavy arm was laying across her chest.

Instead of trying to lift his muscled arm, she slid out from under him and off the bed. Thankfully the robe came with her. The moment she was on her feet, Babette leapt off the bed and started dancing around her feet.

A life growing up around dogs told Mila exactly what Babette needed—outside access!

“In a moment,” she whispered to Babette. The little dog made a whining sound and sat down with a huff.

Gio was in a chair facing the bed, his head resting against the back of the chair at an unnatural angle and his eyes closed. A laptop was sitting on the floor next to him. It looked like it had slid off his lap. The poor man had fallen asleep while working!

“Gio,” she murmured, shaking his shoulder.

His eyes opened, and he straightened up, but he looked dazed. “Yes?”

“You should lay down in the bed,” she said, taking his hand and urging him to stand up.

Blinking slowly, he looked from her to the bed. In the short time since she’d left his embrace, Carter had rolled on his back and extended his arms and legs across the bed while still sound asleep.

After taking in Carter’s starfish pose, he looked back at Mila.

“It’s daytime,” Gio said. He sounded like someone only partially awake.

“It’s early morning,” Mila agreed. He must’ve been up most of the night to be this groggy. She gently tugged at his arm. “Up you go.”

He stood up at her urging but wasn’t steady on his feet. Mila was quick to wrap an arm around his waist to keep him upright.

“Don’t go,” he said as she guided him to lay on the bed. One of Carter’s hands found him and the larger man pulled Gio into his embrace. Even as Gio relaxed into Carter’s arms, he kept his eyes focused on her. It was clear Gio was fighting his fatigue.

“Mila?” He sounded a little like Anna when Mila was putting her to bed.

She leaned over to put her face in his field of vision. “I won’t leave,” she promised.

Gio smiled at her and let his eyes close. “Good.”

Seeing the two men snuggled together in the bed made it hard for her to leave, but Babette’s whining reminded her someone else desperately needed her!

They hurried down the stairs and it only took two tries before Mila found a door that led to a perfectly manicured backyard. Babette was quick to rush past her and squat on the nearest patch of grass.

If the dog was human, Mila was sure she’d be sighing with relief.

Watching the dog relieve herself made Mila aware that her bladder was also uncomfortably full. A glance around the backyard assured her that there was no easy way for the dog to get free, so she left the back door open and headed inside to make use of the facilities herself.

By the time she was done, Babette was waiting at the bathroom door, looking demanding.

“I suppose you want breakfast now?” Mila murmured with a smile and headed to the kitchen. She’d left everything they’d given her for Babette at Joy so hopefully there was something she could give the little dog to tide her over.

To Mila’s absolute shock, there was nothing!

“I’ve never seen a kitchen so empty,” she said to Babette with a shake of her head. It wasn’t that Gio and Carter were out of fresh things, like eggs and milk, but they didn’t have anything! Not even crackers. The pantry shelves were bare except for an empty box of Pop-Tarts.

“Who doesn’t have cereal?” she asked, standing in the center of the enormous and very empty pantry. “I bet Bec would have so much to say about this. She’d have all kinds of predictions about Gio and Carter’s personalities.”

Thinking of Bec made her miss her friend fiercely. “I’m going to call her tonight,” she told Babette. “She needs to know things are starting to work out. Although, I’m not sure I’ll tell her everything.”

Bec was the only person she’d been honest with about everything happening. Bec would die before betraying someone so everyone knew their secrets were safe with her. Still, Mila wasn’t sure about admitting she was sexually interested in the same men who were providing her with a job.

The more she thought about it, the worse it sounded. Was she being a naive idiot all over again?

“Deep moral quandaries are for after breakfast,” she declared, walking out of the pantry with Babette at her heels.

She found one of Carter’s shirts in the laundry room.

It was big on her, but clean. She’d have to wear the jeans she wore a few days ago.

She was out of clean clothes, but at least they weren’t the ones she’d worn last night in the filthy alley.

“Laundry after breakfast,” she decided. “But before anything, there needs to be grocery shopping!”

Excited to show off for the guys, she searched everywhere for the van keys until she realized she’d left them in the van last night!

“There was a lot going on,” she muttered to Babette. “I can’t be blamed for forgetting something small like keys.”

Double checking she had everything, she climbed into Mildred. Babette was quick to clamber up behind her.

“I’m not sure you should be coming with me,” she said to the little dog.

Babette completely ignored her and climbed into the passenger seat and sat down like a polite passenger.

“Okay then,” Mila said, happy to have the company. “Prepare yourself, Babette! We’re on a quest to purchase ingredients for a sumptuous meal that will make Carter and Gio beg me never to leave!”