“I don’t want a relationship either, so what’s the problem?”

“Jared, I can’t sleep with someone who sees women as possessions. I’ve been doing that for the past three years.”

“I see women as possessions?”

“You have three constantly tucked in a little apartment awaiting your pleasure.”

He sighed and shook his head, still confused. “So...you’re saying that you ignore that you want me because I’ve got consorts? So then you do want me to get rid of them.”

“You’re not listening to me. You see women as possessions – that is the problem.”

He started pacing in front of me. “Why are you being so judgemental about this? I’m not the only one who has consorts. Antonio has them, do you judge him?”

“Antonio isn’t asking me to sleep with him.”

“Half the Commanders have them, most of the security guards have them.”

“Yeah, and a lot of them don’t. Sebastian doesn’t either. Your brother doesn’t.”

He halted his pacing and his irises glowed red. “Whoa, wait a minute, what does my brother have to do with this?”

“I’m just saying -”

“Comparing me to my brother? Who’s scoring the most points so far?”

“Oh don’t be a dick.”

He glared at me for a minute like he was studying me, like he was trying to see through me. And then a smile – it wasn’t a nice one – crept onto his face. “Know what I think, Sam?” He walked toward me stealthily, his eyes narrowed. “I think it’s just been that long for you since your body and your mind responded to someone without any manipulating involved from anybody else that you don’t know what to do. It scares the hell out of you, doesn’t it?”

He was right up close to me now. I’d never seen him angry before. He was unnerving, to be truthful. At the same time as wanting to reach out and calm him, I also wanted to slap him for making me see something about myself that I hadn’t really wanted to see. I was – human years and vampire years added together – twenty-three years old...and I didn’t know how to handle something as basic as desire anymore.

“Maybe,” I allowed. It didn’t seem worth denying it. “Can you honestly blame me for that? Can you blame me for not wanting to feel like someone’s possession anymore? Every single time he touched me I felt sick, dirty, and sometimes I wanted to die. So excuse me if I don’t want to sleep with someone who sees women as nothing but sexual outlets just the same way that he did!”

Jared pointed hard at me and spoke through his teeth. “Hey, I am nothing like him. Don’t ever compare me to him again, or to my brother. I’ll tell you what, Sam” – he said my name with animosity – “I’ll make things easy for you: right now is the last time we’ll ever talk about this. I’ll never come onto you ever again. The bet’s off. You can just get on with your celibate lifestyle and I’ll get on with shagging my sexual outlets.”

He then teleported away, leaving me alone with thoughts that I didn’t want at the forefront of my mind and feelings that I didn’t want to feel. If I – a vampire, a creature that was naturally sensual – couldn’t even cope with desire then I was basically broken, wasn’t I? I hated Victor so much right now. And Jared. Actually, no, I didn’t hate him. I hated that he was so infuriated with me. I hated that he was somewhere thinking bad of me. I hated that I’d hurt him. How could I have compared him to Victor? I hadn’t been comparing him to Evan, or at least not in the way that he was thinking; I wasn’t weighing up who was the better brother to be with. I didn’t want to be with either of them. I honestly just wanted to belong only to myself and not have to be concerned with pleasing other people.

Well, I got what I wanted. So why didn’t it feel as liberating and comforting as it should?

Chapter Six

(Jared)

I hadn’t at all been kidding when I told Sam to go enjoy her celibate life while I went to screw one of my possessions. That’s exactly what I was about to do right now.

I watched as Joy writhed and arched underneath me, moaning and begging me to come inside her. She looked beautiful when she was like this. She had no problem with losing all self-control. She was eager when it came to experimenting. She said – moaned – all the right words. She knew exactly what I liked and exactly how I liked it, and she did it without even being asked to. All of that made her my favourite of the three.

But that wasn’t why it was her who was underneath me. I wanted her because right now – even though I hated myself for feeling it – I wanted to hurt Sam, and I knew she really disliked Joy ‘the twig’. It didn’t make sense that I’d do this considering that I wasn’t exactly going to tell Sam about it. I guess all I was really trying to do was make myself feel better.

Yeah that wasn’t working too well.

Because as much as Joy was beautiful and seemed to have this innate gift for sex, she wasn’t Sam. With that thought my hands halted at the snap of my jeans. My heavy sigh made a slight whistle as it got past gritted teeth.

“What is it?” asked Joy in a whiny voice, looking up at me with a sulky expression.

“Nothing.”

“Well it must be something, you’ve just stopped.”

“I’m just a little worn out, that’s all.” I was drained. Sam had taken a fair bit of my energy in more ways than one.

“Okay well lay on your back and I’ll ride you. I’ll even do the reverse cowgirl if you want.” Her grin was seductive. “We haven’t done that in a while.”

Not a bad idea, actually. Then I wouldn’t have to look at her. Every time I looked at her face, I was just reminded that hers wasn’t the face that I wanted to see. There didn’t seem any sense in cutting short sex with someone just because you were thinking about someone else who you’ll never have like this anyway, but all I wanted to do was leave. Then an idea popped into my head; totally immoral and unethical but appealing all the same. I could ask Joy to do the thing I loved most out of all the things she could do...I could ask her to use her gift of Physical Imitation.

Plenty of times she had morphed into someone else for me. She’d do it now, no questions asked. Sam could be underneath me just like that. Then maybe all this frustration would go away. Maybe half my problem was that I was just too curious about what it would be like with her. Maybe if I got that curiosity cured I’d be alright again.