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.
Stafford looked to him a few times. When he seemed to realise Hayden had no intention of picking them up himself, Stafford grabbed the other man’s jeans and tossed them at him. “Put them on.”
“Why?” Hayden asked.
“Because civilised people don’t go around with their cock hanging out all day,” he snapped.
Hayden shrugged and pulled his jeans on with a long suffering sigh. They rode low on his hips, the legs were full of tears and rips.
“Couldn’t you find anything else to wear?” Stafford asked.
“What’s wrong with them?” Hayden said.
Stafford huffed and made no further comment.
Hayden looked across at Jasmine. Out of Stafford ’s line of sight, he winked at her.
The phone rang. Stafford ’s slightly faster reactions allowed him to pick it up before Hayden. He smiled, very smugly and went to the far end of what the handcuffs would allow.
Hayden beckoned her across to him.
“May I ask you something, sir?” she asked softly as she stood before him.
In the background Stafford went through the payment details on his credit card and confirmed the breakfast order.
Hayden smiled and nodded, pulling her close in so their bodies were pressed together. His free hand slid over her back, caressing her wherever his fancy took him as she rested her hands on the sharply defined muscles of his arms.
“What do you want to ask?” he whispered in her ear, rubbing his cheek against hers.
“You… you wind him up on purpose, don’t you, sir?”
Hayden’s smile grew. “Sometimes, yes. He has…” his brow creased as he began to think about the matter more carefully. “He has too many sharp edges. He has to learn how to get on with people if he is ever to be happy in a pack.”
Jasmine hesitated. She knew very well what correcting a master could lead to, but wrapped in Hayden’s embrace, somehow it seemed safe to say more than ‘yes, sir’ to him.
“Vampires don’t usually live in packs, sir,” she whispered.
Hayden looked past her at Stafford. “He should. He would make a good pack member. He is wasted on his own. Don’t you think so?”
Jasmine looked down. “It is not my place to tell masters how they should live their lives, sir.”
Hayden tucked his knuckle under his chin and made her look back up. “You don’t think your pack would listen to your opinion?” he asked, immediately concerned.
She offered him a small smile. “I gave up the right to have an opinion of my own a long time ago, sir.”
Hayden frowned down at her. Stafford hung up the phone and turned back towards them.
“What’s wrong?” Stafford asked.
Jasmine forced a smile. “Nothing, sir.”
“Then you should rest until breakfast gets here,” Stafford decided, with a nod to the bed.
Hayden nodded his agreement and took her by the hand. Stafford had no choice but to follow where the cuffs and Hayden led. For some reason Stafford seemed quite set on her lying between them on the bed despite the inconvenience of the cuffs and the chain crossing over her body.
The werewolf wasted no time making himself very comfortable and pulling her close.
Stafford, who’d left a gap between their bodies when he lay down, frowned. “She’ll rest far more comfortably if you give her some room to breathe,” he snapped.
Hayden glanced at Stafford and then to her. “You’re comfortable, aren’t you, Jas?”
She didn’t get a chance to answer.
“I know a damn sight more about women than you do,” Stafford snapped.
Hayden considered the idea for several long seconds. “No,” he decided. “You said before that humans are for feeding and sex, you don’t know any more about human women than I do.”
“You’d never even had sex with a human before last night,” Stafford accused.
Hayden grinned. “Doesn’t matter. I’m a quick learner.”
Stafford ran his eyes over the way he held Jasmine. “You haven’t learned anything.”
“I know Jas has the same pleasure spot inside her as a female werewolf,” Hayden said. “I know she likes to feel my tongue here too.” He slid his hand between her legs and brushed his finger tips across her clitoris.