Octavia's War Read online

  Except that now a mood was pouring off Remmy that deflected questions without him speaking. He seemed…sad.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” she murmured.

  “In eighteen fifteen, a penny was actually worth something.” He eased off his boots and socks and pushed his feet into the sand, wriggling his toes.

  “Is that where your thoughts were? Back in eighteen fifteen?”

  “Back in time, yes, ma’am,” he said softly. “I learned a long time ago not to linger there too often. Vampires have a very long tail of history behind them and those who look back too often…well, they forget how to look forward.” He looked up and around the grotto. “This place always takes me back there.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It reminds me of Oregon.” He looked down at the sand and lifted his toes so it trickled between them.

  Ángel stood and kicked off his boots, then his jeans, the big belt buckle rattling with a soft metallic clink as he dropped the denim to the rocks at his feet.

  Octavia was mesmerized by the sight of Ángel’s ass, high and hard. The spread of his shoulders. The powerful thighs.

  She realized she was holding her breath, waiting for him to turn so she could see the front half.

  “There is a place like this in Oregon?” she asked Remmy.

  He was watching Ángel, too, she realized. His eyes were narrowed. He had stopped kicking at the sand.

  “All of Oregon is green like this,” Remmy said, his voice distant.

  “So why would the memory of the place make you sad?” she asked.

  Ángel walked into the water, until it was up above his knees. He still hadn’t turned to face them.

  Remmy sighed. “That was where I was last human.”

  Ángel pushed farther across the pool, heading for the waterfall itself. The water lapped around his thighs, not getting any deeper, until he was right up next to the cascade itself. He put his hands in it, turning them over and over. “Cold!” he hissed.

  Octavia looked at Remmy, tearing her gaze away from Ángel. “You miss being human?”

  Remmy tilted his head, watching as Ángel ducked under the waterfall, letting it fall on his back. “There are compensations,” he said distantly.

  “Yet you still would prefer to be human?”

  Remmy shook his head. “I would prefer to experience something as if it were for the first time, the way everything was novel and interesting, back then. As for being human, well….”

  Ángel turned, finally, letting the water play all over his body and his face.

  He was a gorgeous man. The loose cotton clothing he normally wore hid all sorts of unexpected pleasures, although the sleeveless shirts had never disguised the width of his shoulders or the powerful biceps. The musculature continued down his torso, making the flesh over his belly ripple.

  His cock was thick and long, even flaccid as it was.

  Octavia drew in a breath, trying to keep it steady. Remmy could sense far too much about her state of mind and the state of her body just from listening.

  “Why hide your reaction from me?” Remmy said quietly. “It is only what I feel, too.”

  “You do?”

  Remmy’s smile was wise. He glanced at Ángel, drawing her gaze back to Ángel’s wet and sleek body. “How could I do otherwise?”

  His confession drove her to her knees. She kissed him and Remmy’s hands came up around her waist, holding her there, so he could kiss her back.

  Octavia realized with a start she had stopped thinking of Remmy as anything but Remmy. The man who had been her supervisor and coordinator, the man called Bear, had long gone. The man she was kissing was a different person and she was fascinated by him, by the hint of his long history and the quiet way he had of finding something reflective in everything around him.

  She loved that he had wanted her for so long and had not reached for her.

  Octavia could feel how much he wanted her now, in the way he was holding her, with a tightly held-back power. It felt as though he was barely holding himself in check. She suspected he could overwhelm her in a heartbeat with the strength of his need, with his power and speed. He was trembling with it.

  Only, his lips were firm and his tongue swept into her mouth to stroke with masterful delicacy. A man who had lived as long as him must surely be an expert in everything he did, including how he kissed.

  She shivered as he lifted her easily and settled her over his thighs. She had to spread her legs wide to straddle him and even though she was still wearing all her clothes, she felt wicked and vulnerable.

  How much of a barrier were clothes to someone like Remmy anyway?

  He was falling back…no, not falling. He was lowering himself to the sand, bringing her with him. As he slowly leaned backward, his fingers caught the hem of her top and drew it up her torso and over her head.

  Then he carefully propped her up, one arm at a time. He slid the top over her hands. He looked up at her as he balled the top in one hand and threw it in the direction of her backpack.

  “You don’t mind that I…let myself be used?” she asked.

  He frowned. “Not in the slightest. Why?”

  “Things like that were important, in your day.”

  Remmy smiled and his big hand settled against her cheek. “The only thing I feel about what you did with Severo was a deep admiration for your courage and your dedication. You want the right side to win, just as I do.”

  She nodded slowly. She had never thought about her quest to avenge Mandy’s death in that way. In the end, though, that was what burned in her at night when she lay scheming her schemes—the need to see justice done.

  In that, Remmy and she were alike.

  She kissed him again, this time very aware of her exposed flesh resting against his chest. He stroked her back, playing with the straps of her bra, nudging them from her shoulders in tiny increments. He was teasing her in a subtle way and it was torture.

  Impatiently, she reached for the clip at the back and he knocked her hand away and pulled his mouth from hers. “Now, don’t spoil my fun,” he complained.

  “I’ll die if you don’t speed up even a little,” she breathed.

  “Then we’re getting somewhere,” he said with a smile. “Now….” He went back to kissing her again. Octavia suspected she would never get sick of kissing Remmy. It was a very different sort of pleasure from kissing Ángel. It was more fun kissing either of them than any man she had ever kissed before.

  How could she have thought kissing was boring? It was igniting a white hot fire inside her, coiling in her belly with the potential to explode. Her heart was pistoning with ferocious speed and even her fingertips seemed to pulse with wanting.

  Remmy’s lips moved to her chin, then down her throat. “So responsive,” he murmured. “I can hear your pleasure. Feel it, too.”

  She shivered. Knowing her excitement was driving his made it even richer and more powerful.

  His hands smoothed over her back and her bra sagged, the straps sliding over her shoulders. She hadn’t noticed him releasing the clip at all. Now, all she could focus on was what his hands were doing to her. It was simple enough. He was stroking her back in soft caresses. What it was doing to her was anything but simple, though.

  She wanted to arch like a cat and purr in pleasure. She lifted her head, her eyes closing. Her hips drove into him.

  The bra was pulled away from her.

  “Ah…” he breathed.

  Octavia swallowed and opened her eyes again.

  Remmy was gazing at her breasts. She could feel the tips swelling, tightening into hard nubs. The brush of the air and his gaze was a powerful combination.

  Her breath was coming faster now. She wanted to hold it, to anticipate his lips or hands on her breasts, yet couldn’t control it. She propped herself up, her hand on Remmy’s shoulder, waiting.

  He didn’t cup her breasts as she thought he would, as any other man would have. Instead, he trailed his fingers around t
he sides of them, with a soft touch that made her moan.

  “Jesus Maria….” Ángel breathed from right next to her.

  Octavia looked up. She had not forgotten Ángel was there. He had been in the back of her thoughts, even as Remmy had stolen her attention. She had known that every move they made was being watched, that what they were doing would be stirring Ángel just as much. The knowledge had added heat of its own to acts that had lost their novelty for her as much as they had for Remmy. Having Ángel in the mix made everything new again.

  He was standing next to them, still naked, droplets rolling off his olive flesh. His cock was erect, red and throbbing.

  Ángel looked down at the sand at his feet. “I told you we should have brought a blanket with us.”

  Octavia could feel Remmy’s amusement. It was a low, subterranean chuckle that vibrated in his chest and emerged almost soundlessly from him.

  “Get up,” Ángel told them.

  “I like it here just fine,” Remmy said. His accent was even stronger, now.

  Ángel cursed and leaned down and picked Octavia up the same way Remmy had, with his hands around her waist. He put her on her feet with what looked like no effort at all. She had her back to him. His hand swept up to cup her breast and his lips pressed against her neck from behind. “Stay there,” he said, his voice rough with arousal.

  She turned and watched him bend and pick up her tank top and jacket. Then he collected his shirt and jeans from next to the pool. It was hard to take her gaze away from his naked body as he moved, the thighs working and the muscles under his flesh flexing and stretching.

  Remmy had lifted himself up on one elbow and was watching Ángel, too. Remmy’s jeans were bulging.

  Ángel spread the clothes out on the sand so they were overlapping at the edges. Then he walked over to Remmy. “Get up,” he told him.

  “Yes, sir,” Remmy said lazily. Then, with an almost gymnastic flex of his body, he jumped to his feet. He didn’t push himself off the ground with his hands at all.

  Ángel nodded approval. “That’s better,” he said shortly. “Now…” He started unbuttoning Remmy’s shirt.

  Remmy tried to push his hands away. “I’ve been undressing myself since I was four,” he said.

  “Then you’re about to learn something new,” Ángel told him, shoving his hands out of the way with his elbows. He pulled the shirt out of Remmy’s jeans and opened the last three buttons and pushed it aside.

  Remmy’s flesh was pale, yet his stomach was as flat and powerful with muscle as Ángel’s.

  Ángel pressed his hands against the flesh, spreading his fingers.

  Remmy hissed in a shaky breath.

  “I don’t normally play with gringos, “ Ángel said softly. “Now, it feels as if this is the way it should always have been. That I’ve been fooling myself all these years.”

  “Maybe you have,” Remmy said.

  Ángel nodded. “Maybe.” He pulled the shirt off Remmy’s shoulders and laid it out alongside the clothes he had already spread. Then he walked back to Remmy and slid his fingers underneath the front of his jeans, lifted the band and the belt together. “Octavia,” he said, his voice suddenly thick with wanting. “Pull the buckle.”

  Her heart jumped even higher. Octavia stepped over and grabbed the buckle as Ángel released it, then pulled. The belt slid out of the carriers with a soft whisper of leather. She tossed it on her backpack and stayed where she was, watching what Ángel was doing.

  He flicked the button undone with a push of his thumb under the denim.

  “Zipper,” he breathed.

  Octavia’s heart squeezed again. Remmy gave a soft sound that might have been a groan, held back.

  She picked up the little copper-colored tab and eased it downward.

  The jeans sagged and Ángel bent and pushed them down to Remmy’s ankles. “Step out of them,” he said.

  Remmy obeyed. His cock was as ready as Ángel’s and possibly even thicker. The head was flared and the shaft highlighted with veins. His hands were curled into tight fists by his sides.

  Octavia swallowed.

  Ángel spread the jeans out, taking his time to arrange them to his satisfaction. Then he came back to them and looked at Octavia. “That just leaves you.”

  She didn’t think her heart could possibly surge again, yet it did. Her clit throbbed. She wasn’t sure she would be able to stand still and let Ángel take her jeans off.

  Perhaps Remmy thought that, too, for he moved to stand behind her. His hands settled around her waist. “Go ahead,” he told Ángel.

  Ángel smiled and reached for her zipper. “It’s so short, next to ours,” he observed and pulled it down. Remmy’s long fingers tweaked the button, sliding it undone.

  Octavia’s jeans didn’t sag the way theirs had done. They were stretch jeans and hugged her hips and thighs and even her ankles. As the zipper parted, the jeans pulled to either side as the tension was released, revealing her belly and the little panties beneath.

  Ángel slid his hands into the opening of the jeans and eased them down to her upper thighs, fully revealing the panties.

  They were not practical lingerie in the slightest. The front of them was a scrap of lace in a diamond shape, while the rest of them was four cords running from the top edges of the diamond over her hips, to meet at the center back. Another cord ran down between her ass cheeks.

  “Oh…my lord,” Ángel whispered.

  “We have come a long way from pantaloons, have we not?” Remmy said, his tone one of approval.

  Ángel crouched down in front of her and for a moment, his gaze lingered on her mons, beneath the lace. Heat leapt in his eyes. “Hold her up while I get these off.”

  Remmy’s hands tightened and she was lifted. Ángel tugged at the narrow hems of the jeans, pulling them over her heels. The jeans slithered over her feet as he pulled. He held up the denim. “Barely enough material to make it worth the effort,” he said, yet laid them out to finish the informal blanket he had been making. Then he bent and patted Remmy’s shirt. “Park yourself,” he told them.

  Remmy carried her over to the blanket and put her in the middle of it. Octavia slid her thumb beneath the top cord over her hip. “I’m still dressed,” she pointed out.

  Both men looked at her and the heat she had seen in Ángel’s eyes duplicated itself in Remmy’s.

  “That’s right,” Remmy said. He looked at Ángel and lifted a brow.

  “Please do,” Ángel told him.

  Remmy’s chest lifted and fell as he took in a deep breath. He walked carefully on the blanket and stopped in front of her. His hand as he raised it to her hip was trembling.

  He held it up, looking at his shaking fingers.

  “Are you…is that good for you?” Octavia asked.

  “Adrenaline. My human systems are breaking through.” Remmy swallowed. She could see his throat work in the moonlight. His eyes were dark shadows under his brows. “It happens in times of high stress…or high emotion.”

  She took his hand and held it.

  Remmy shook his head. “There is one certain cure for what ails me right now.” He pulled his hand from hers and kissed her briefly. Then he sat on the blanket. “Come here,” he said.

  Something deep in her belly turned over in a slow, delicious tumble. The flesh between her legs felt swollen and slick and heated. She got to her knees next to him.

  Ángel sighed. “I could stand here and watch your legs move forever,” he said.

  “Mine?” Octavia asked, startled.

  “We can’t have that,” Remmy said with a growl. “No one stands and watches anything.” He scooped Octavia up and turned her. “Spread your legs,” he directed her.

  Octavia began to shake. She spread her knees and Remmy placed her over his legs again. Only this time, her back was to him. It was an odd position, yet it was an arousing one. Her back was against his chest, which meant her front was exposed. All he had to do was reach around and play with whatever h
e wanted…while Ángel could see everything he did.

  Her clit throbbed. She realized she was pushing her ass back against Remmy’s belly, coaxing him to put his hands on her.

  Remmy pressed his hand flat against her stomach. His hand was so big that even though his thumb was stroking her navel, his fingertips pressed the soft mound of flesh protecting her clit and she gasped, her hips jerking forward.

  “Ángel,” Remmy breathed.

  Ángel dropped to his knees in front of her, so that he was between Remmy’s legs. “You are right. I cannot just watch,” he breathed. He bent and sucked in the tip of her breast and Octavia’s back bowed and everything snapped taut as the pleasure tore through her, straight from her nipple to her clit. Her pussy squeezed. She moaned as her arousal built.

  Remmy’s fingers tugged at her other breast, teasing and tweaking her nipple. It was overwhelming having both of them tease her at once and Octavia closed her eyes. The teasing was stealing her thoughts. All she could do was hang on and try to make this last.

  Then Remmy tore her panties away in a slow, controlled movement that hinted at his great strength. She felt the stitching and the elastic give way, then the fabric itself tore with a low ripping sound. The panties were pulled from her and replaced by Remmy’s hand.

  His fingers were resting at the juncture, stroking in little movements that made her hips twitch.

  “You’re too close…” Remmy’s voice rumbled against her back. “Ángel.”

  Ángel answered by moving his mouth to her other breast. His teeth scraped over the sides of her nipple, then bit gently.

  Octavia’s breath evaporated. She began to pant.

  More fingers were on her thighs, stroking the insides of them, fluttering up against her pussy. It was not Remmy’s big hand, which had not moved.

  Ángel pushed his fingers inside her and she could hear the moist sound they made as they encountered her sopping pussy. The rough, odd shape of his knuckles speared her, caress the sides and sending ripples of building pleasure through her.