Desiree Holt - Caught in the Middle

Stafford nodded.

He looked across at Hayden.

Hayden looked back.

One of them obviously had to say something.

Stafford cleared his throat. “Last night, the part of last night before we went to sleep,” Stafford stressed. “Didn’t go as badly as I thought it would.”

As peace offerings went, it was at least something, and at that time in the morning Stafford was actually quite proud of himself for managing that much of a token step towards not hating the other man outright.

Hayden nodded. “I like her.”

Stafford studied him very carefully, wondering what the wolf was plotting now. “So do I,” he informed him.

Hayden put the menu to one side. “You are to be the alpha of your pack, aren’t you?” he asked.

“The head of my clan,” Stafford corrected with a nod.

Hayden considered the matter further. “And there is only ever one head.”

“Yes.”

“There is only ever one alpha pair in our packs too,” Hayden informed him. “An alpha male and an alpha female.”

“Vampires aren’t good at sharing power, even with their lovers. There is one head of the clan.”

“So who do you mate with?”

“Submissives,” Stafford said. “Humans usually.”

“Omegas?”

Stafford half smiled. “To the head of a vampire clan, everyone who isn’t him is a considered a submissive.”

Hayden frowned. “No pack?”

“We aren’t pack animals.”

“You should have a pack,” Hayden told him firmly. “Packs are good. I’m going to have a pack.”

“You don’t have one now?”

Hayden shrugged. “I have my parents’ pack, but I’m going to have one of my own soon. First, I must find an appropriate alpha female.”

Stafford raised an eyebrow at him, suddenly realising where this conversation was going. “Oh?”

“Jas would make a good alpha female,” Hayden said.

“You’re not good enough at subtlety to make this sort of conversation to work-you’d best stick to simpler forms of communication,” Stafford said.

Hayden didn’t seem to perceive the intended insult. He nodded. “You would make a good beta,” he said simply.

“No, I wouldn’t. However, you might make a competent submissive-with a lot of training.”

The wolf’s eyes narrowed. He shook his head as his hackles rose. “Alphas do not submit to betas.”

“I guess you’re not really an alpha then,” Stafford said with a dismissive shrug as he reached for the phone. “I’ll order breakfast.”

Hayden reached for the phone receiver at the same time. His hand landed on top of Stafford ’s. “I am the alpha-I will provide for the pack.”

Stafford ’s grip tightened on the phone.

The bathroom door opened. Jasmine stepped back into the room. Hayden didn’t break eye contact, he didn’t look down. Stafford tracked Jasmine’s progress across the room out of the corner of his field of vision, but he would be damned before he looked away first.

Jasmine glanced back and forth between the two young men. They obviously weren’t at the point where they could be left safely on their own yet.

She walked slowly across to the bottom of the bed and knelt down well within both their fields of vision. Neither of them looked away from the other man, but she could feel the subtle change in the atmosphere as part of their attention transferred to her.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to speak without first looking to one or both the men for permission. “How may I serve you sir?” she asked softly.

Both men turned their complete attention towards her at exactly the same time.

Hayden inhaled deeply, taking her scent from the air. “You smell different,” he observed.

Jasmine stood up. Stepping forward, she knelt on the bed between them. She offered her hand to the wolf, letting him sniff at the skin inside her wrist and learn the scent of the shower gel she’d used.

He didn’t look incredibly impressed with the change, but he lapped at the skin she offered him, accepting her back under his protection. She smiled across at him, and turned her attention to Stafford.

He brushed her hair back from her face, tucking the damp ringlets behind her ear. “As beautiful as ever,” he said.

She offered him the same shy little smile and waited for one of her masters to give her an order, but none were forthcoming.

“Would you like me to order the breakfast for you, sir?” she asked, carefully directing the question at both of them at the same time.

The two men looked at each other.

“Very well,” Stafford said slowly.

Hayden, watching the vampire all the time, took his hand away from the phone and Stafford offered it to her.

They each gave her their order for breakfast and retired to the bathroom, still trapped together by the handcuffs.

She phoned down the order for the breakfast and listened with half an ear just in case one of the men took it into his head to drown the other in the shower. It seemed quiet in there-maybe too quiet for two young men who seemed inclined to bicker over everything. Jasmine put the phone down and crept to the bathroom door. Through the wooden panelling, she heard the faint sound of voices inside.

“Do you have to get the water everywhere? I’m getting soaked out here.” That was obviously Stafford, she couldn’t imagine the werewolf ever managing such haughty a tone.

“If you’d just let us share the shower like I said, it wouldn’t be a problem.” Hayden said cheerfully back, never the least bit repentant.

Jasmine found herself smiling as she walked away from the door. Tidying the bed and setting the room in order, she picked up all their clothes and put them in separate neat little piles on top of the dresser.

Smoothing out the creases in the fabric, her smile faded a little. She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. She was here to serve them, to distract them until they realised they didn’t hate each other as much as they assumed they did, or perhaps as much as they liked everyone else to assume they did. That was all.

She didn’t belong to them. Once they found their common ground, she would be returned to Mr. Washington and they would probably never think about her or anything that had happened that night again. They would go on to find vampire and werewolf girlfriends who were closer to their ages and they would have no use for her.

Jasmine took a deep breath and shook her head at herself. She wasn’t here to enjoy herself-if she had loved every minute of the previous night then that was chance and nothing more.

They weren’t her masters, and they weren’t going to be.

The door to the bathroom swung open. Stafford pulled impatiently at the cuff joining their wrists.

Hayden carried on rubbing at his hair with a towel, not in the least bothered by Stafford ’s tugging at his wrist. As she watched, he tossed the towel aside and shook the last of the moisture from his hair. Stafford, standing well within range of the last few droplets, closed his eyes and, if she was any judge, only just kept his temper.

“Breakfast will be here in a few minutes, sir,” she said quickly.

“Thank you, Jasmine,” Stafford said, glaring at Hayden but not actually saying anything to him.

Hayden caught his eye and tilted his head on the side as if trying to work out why the other man looked so pissed off with the world.

“How may I please you, sir?” she asked them both.

“After breakfast we all need to talk,” Stafford said firmly.

Jasmine nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Stafford walked over to his clothes and extracted his boxer briefs and his trousers from the neat little pile she had made of them.

Hayden, by the necessity of the cuffs, followed him across the room, but he showed no interest in his own pile of clothes.