Taken by a Vampire (Vampire Queen) - By Joey W. Hill Page 0,147

with a wedding guest.

If I knew how to tango. She’s waiting for another response from you.

Case in point. She snapped her attention back to Chloe, but the pause had become too protracted. The girl didn’t seem offended by her apparent lack of attention; in fact, the inquisitive brown eyes were riveted on her face. “Is Evan telepathic? The reason I ask is Niall does that, too. It’s a lot more subtle, but they’ve been together longer, right? You catch it, here and there. It’s like he’s tuning in to something in his head, and then all of a sudden he answers the question you’ve asked him on Evan’s behalf, and it’s always what Evan wants.”

Alanna blinked, but Chloe shrugged, relieving her of having to answer. “Gen says I’m nuts, that I believe in aliens and magic, but why not? If we only use 10 percent of our brains, and some of us way less than that, then there’s 90 percent we don’t know and understand. Everyone who meets Evan can tell there’s something very different about him. There’s this deep river thing happening, as if he’s filing and comparing everything with this vast well of knowledge in his head. I think he’s carrying around the Alexandria Library in there.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “You don’t have to answer. I’ve been around enough subs of über-Doms to know it puts you on the spot if I ask anything too personal. Have you been with him and Niall at the same time? Because, oh my God, what woman wouldn’t die for the chance at that? Niall is just sheer Chris Hemsworth sexy, and Evan has that Adrien Brody intense artist thing happening, sans cheesy goatee . . . I think you’d just die from pleasure, having them both inside you.”

“Chloe.” Gen cast Alanna an apologetic look. “I’d smack you in the head, but it would muss your hair. Do you have any kind of filter?”

“No.” Chloe shot Alanna a mischievous grin. “C’mon, give me a couple details. Brendan and I’ve been apart three days, with nothing to think about but being with him forever and ever. At the rehearsal dinner, he smelled so good I wanted to bite him. When I get him alone, I swear I’m going to eat him alive.” She winked. “Here come Mom and Cherry, but I’m not letting you off the hook. I’ll pester you later on for deets.”

Alanna couldn’t refuse her. Leaning forward, she clasped Chloe’s hand, brought her lips to her ear. The girl, her eyes alive with pleasure and happiness, grinned even wider as Alanna murmured into the delicate shell.

“When they are both inside of me, it’s what I imagine Heaven is. A Heaven I never want to leave.”

As Chloe gripped her shoulder, holding the private, intimate pose, Alanna felt an unexpected but overwhelming desire to linger in the embrace of a girl who knew what it was to fall in love, who lived so exuberantly. Chloe picked up on the desire immediately, her arms encircling Alanna’s shoulders in a gesture overflowing with care and friendship.

“I hope you never do, then.”

Out under the night sky, Evan sat in a folding chair at the back row of the assembling wedding guests. He was gazing out toward the marsh when her words hit him in the chest. And not just him. He’d kept his mind open to Niall, so that he could also track her whereabouts. If she needed anything, it was best to have Niall handle it, because though he could move among humans, Evan knew he had to maintain a certain reserve.

At the moment, his servant was having a discussion with Thomas about proper tires for the RV. Though Thomas was a celebrated artist specializing in male–male erotic paintings, he was an adept mechanic as well, like Niall. The shy yet down-to-earth North Carolinian was also the spouse and submissive of Evan’s current art broker, Marcus Stanton, who was New York to the bone, neither shy nor down-to-earth. Yet the two men were an obvious fit. Marcus was across the room, comfortably talking to a trio of elderly women who looked like they were old Southern money. Every once in a while Evan would see Marcus’s or Thomas’s attention shift, touching base with each other, holding that connection. The two men were so closely bonded it often seemed they could read each other’s minds like vampires and servants.

If the third mark were taken away tomorrow, would he and Niall know each other that well,