Present Tense: Pleasure Times Four (Out of the Fire Book 3) Read online

  Present Tense

  Candace Blevins

  Contents

  Connect with Candace

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Bibliography

  Only Human Excerpt

  Only Human - Chapter 1

  About the Author

  Present Tense © November 2020 by Candace Blevins

  All rights reserved under United States of America copyright law, and the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

  This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  Cover design © 2020 Candace Blevins

  First Edition November 2020

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Thank you for supporting authors and creating an environment where they can continue writing by purchasing this and other books in compliance with copyright laws.

  Connect with Candace

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  Website – candaceblevins.com

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  Blurb

  Kelsey is a baby vampire. She was turned at twenty-five and she’s thirty-seven. She was born, raised, and turned in Australia, and managed to keep her original identity after she became a vampire, but now it’s time for her first new identity. She’s a hacker, and a security company in Tennessee has hired her under her new name.

  The Fabulosa trio — Fabio, Eunice, and Collosa — have been asked to house the new uber-hacker Drake Security recently hired. They’ve been warned she’s agoraphobic and terrified of her own shadow. Most twelve-year-old vampires haven’t figured out their powers yet, and this one is no different. However, she’s figured out how to hack brains as easily as she can hack a computer, so it isn’t as if she’s completely helpless.

  Grizzly, leopard, mongoose, and vampire. Join this kinky foursome as they learn each other’s foibles and quirks, and figure out how to live together in the present tense.

  1

  Kelsey held her breath while the plane lined up to land, and worked hard not to break the arms of the seat with her vampire strength. The plane finally touched down on solid ground again, and she took a breath she didn’t need and then sat in her seat and waited to be told she could exit. Vampires rarely puke, and she hadn’t fed in nearly twelve hours, so there wasn’t an actual danger of her throwing up, but she felt as if she might. Some human idiosyncrasies were harder to put into the past than others.

  No one had told her how freaking expensive everything would be once she was a vampire. Well, it hadn’t been at first, because she’d been taken care of.

  Unfortunately, her maker had tired of her within a few years of her regaining her sanity, and as soon as she could be trusted not to lose control and kill humans, she’d been on her own. Thankfully, there’d been room for her in the coterie house, but the rent to live there was way more than rent for a normal apartment. But most apartments are aboveground with windows, and don’t come with nonflammable, secure daytime quarters.

  She’d been pretty wealthy before she’d agreed to be a sex slave to the Master Vampire in exchange for him eventually turning her, but she’d stowed that wealth away with the expectation she wouldn’t need it for another fifty to eighty years — and it’d only been seventeen years since she moved into the Master Vampire’s mansion. Twelve years since she’d been turned.

  Every penny she’d made in the past eight months was going into this move. New identities aren’t cheap, and neither is a vampire-safe chartered flight half-way around the world. The plane brought her as far as a single-runway airport in Ocala, Florida. Apparently, there aren’t many private airports with a runway long enough to land this plane. Nine passengers were on the chartered flight, and all were either vampires or their food. She’d paid the ticket add-on to drink from a werewolf on the flight, and that should last her the night.

  A grizzly bear named Collosa was supposed to pick her up. She’d be sharing a house with him and two other coworkers, but she’d lived in a coterie house for years. She was good with only having three roommates, rather than dozens.

  The plane finally slowed and then came to a stop, and she took yet another breath she didn’t need. She’d landed in her new country. Her new life, where Christmas happened in the winter. It was going to be odd.

  Collosa watched the huge plane land from inside the comfort of the Drake Security Chevrolet Suburban. He hadn’t been able to drive his Wrangler because she had too much luggage. Four huge suitcases in the luggage compartment and three carry-on suitcases because she wanted her computer equipment to stay in the climate-controlled portion of the plane.

  He walked out to the plane when it stopped, and waited for Kelsey. Her picture showed her as being a knockout times a thousand. Her hair was light brown with blonde highlights, and she had boobs for days. The picture hadn’t shown her from the back, but he assumed the view would be nice from any direction. Vampires turn people either because they’re beautiful, powerful, or smart. This one was supposedly a genius hacker, but her looks had likely been the icing on the cake for the vampire who turned her.

  She exited the plane with three large rolling suitcases, a huge backpack, a cross-body messenger bag, and a purse over her shoulder.

  And, of course, she saw Collosa right away — it was hard to miss the six-foot-ten-inch-tall hulk standing with the butlers and chauffeurs waiting to pick up the other passengers. He was in jeans, they were in suits. Oh well, not the first time he’d been underdressed.

/>   The adorable little vampire stopped in front of him. “Collosa, I’m glad you’re here. I have four more bags in the plane we need to get.”

  He smiled and tried to look friendly. “Actually, why don’t I take those off your hands, and you can go get your other four bags, since you know what they look like. Take the wagon and stack them on their sides. Three should fit, and you can put the fourth on top.”

  She shook her head. “These have to go in last. My electronics can’t be crushed.”

  She was supposed to have worked on her accent, so it wouldn’t sound as if she’d grown up in Australia, but what he heard was straight out of Sydney.

  “Okay. Let’s get them together, so we can make sure I get the correct four bags.”

  “They’re red, and each has a black-and-yellow checked ribbon tied to the handle.”

  This time, when he smiled, he meant it. “Clever girl. You must be exhausted. Wait here and I’ll be back with your bags as quick as I can.”

  They had plenty of time. It wasn’t quite twenty-two hundred, and the sun wouldn’t rise until oh-seven hundred. They had nine hours to make a seven-hour drive — and a black, lightproof body bag to put her in if they were waylaid.

  Collosa stowed her bags in the back of the Suburban while she watched, as if she expected him to demolish them somehow, but he’d been warned about her anxiety. She suffered from agoraphobia, and she was moving halfway around the world. It wasn’t like she had a choice in the matter, but she was being brave.

  “I have filtered water in a thermos for you,” he told her when they were both seated and belted in. “Flying always dehydrates me. I know you fed on the plane, but if you want something to drink, I figure you’ll prefer warm.”

  He scented surprise and happiness coming from her, as well as relief. “Thank you. Have you been around many vampires?”

  “I’m a bodyguard. Most of the time we keep humans safe, but I’ve been assigned to enough supernaturals, I know how to keep them comfortable. It isn’t my job to feed and water the client, but I’ve found that if I pack snacks for them when I pack for myself, it keeps things simpler.” He put the SUV into gear and backed out of the parking space. “And I’m all about keeping things easy. Speaking of which, I’ll hit up a fast food window before we hit the interstate, and then we should only need to make one stop between here and home to gas up and make another food run. Since you fed on the plane, I assume you’ll be good until you rise tomorrow night?”

  “That’s correct.”

  He followed a stretch limo out to the main road, and she noted it had South Carolina tags. She’d learned all the states immediately around Tennessee, so she had an idea of where that was.

  “I was also told you’d been working to lose the Australian accent, but that information seems to have been wrong.”

  She sighed, slouched in her seat, and said in a perfect American accent, “I know how, I just don’t like doing it.”

  “Well, practice makes perfect. Aaron wants you to blend in, and I’m pretty sure our new Master of the City is going to feel the same.”

  “Right, because I’m coming in as one Master is about to leave and another is arriving, just to complicate things even more.”

  Collosa glanced at her and looked back to the road. “I can’t imagine how stressful this is for you. I can’t speak to the vampire politics part of it, but Drake Security will fold you into us like you’re family. We’ve been needing more computer geeks, so everyone will be happy to see you.”

  She shrugged. “Likely not everyone. I’ll walk in and be better than everyone else. It always causes problems, but I can deal with it.”

  “You’re better than Chance?”

  “Apples and oranges, where he’s concerned. Different skillsets.” She sighed. “But yes, I’m better.”

  Kelsey sat quietly while the grizzly bear ordered nearly sixty dollars of food. She did the math in her head and figured that was around eighty Australian dollars, and she suppressed a sigh. Vampires are supposed to offer to provide food for the people who regularly offer up a vein. She wasn’t to the point of penny pinching, but she wanted to build up some savings, and feeding this man would be expensive. Would the gorgeous leopard eat as much? She hadn’t counted on spending hundreds of dollars a day to feed the shapeshifter who’d agreed to be her regular sustenance.

  Old vampires are rich because they accumulate wealth. Kelsey would be reasonably well off in another thirty-three years — when the funds she’d squirreled away to grow for fifty years became available to her once again. For now, she was living off her paychecks. Drake Security was going to pay her much better than her previous employer, but she couldn’t invest in her future if she spent everything she earned.

  “You’re going to have a year without a summer, aren’t you?” Collosa asked.

  She looked at him, in profile, and focused on him as a person instead of a gorgeous male specimen. He had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen on a human, and the face of a god. Chiseled, strong, and as alpha male as one could get. Walking up to him and pretending to be confident had been hard, but she thought she’d managed.

  She wanted to just stare at him. No, she wanted to touch his arm and see if the muscles that rippled when he turned the steering wheel were as hard as they looked. She wanted to feel his heat. His life force.

  But he’d asked her about having two winters back to back, and she needed to answer him.

  “Yes, which isn’t a bad thing for a vampire.” He looked displeased, and she remembered he wanted her to speak American.

  American was her present, Australian was her past. New identities can’t be absorbed unless you stay in the present tense. She’d been coached about it enough, but the lesson hadn’t fully sunk in until that moment.

  She focused on speaking the way her speech coach had taught her. “Vampires prefer long nights and short days, and the cold doesn’t bother us. I’ve ordered some things. Have there been deliveries?”

  “Several boxes arrived yesterday, which was perfect timing. The three of us were in New Hampshire until a few days ago, on a job I worried we wouldn’t finish before you arrived, but we finished the night before Halloween, thank goodness.”

  “Excellent. I sold most everything I owned. Cheaper to do that and buy new than to pay to ship things overseas.” She breathed in again and had to say something. She’d smelled it before, but it was stronger now, in the closed car. “I smell explosives and something else I’m not familiar with. It seems to be coming from you, but I suppose it’s in the car.”

  He breathed in, turned his head towards the back of the vehicle, breathed again, and finally leaned towards her to smell again.

  “I smell my gun, and the rifle in the hidden compartment, but no explosives.”

  A gun? Kelsey’s stomach tried to turn over again. Fear raced through her veins. “Gun? You have a gun?”

  “Of course. I’m a bodyguard.” He came to a stop at a red light and glanced over at her. “This is America, sweetheart. We carry guns here.”

  “I’ve never actually seen one, other than in movies and on television. Well, I suppose I’ve seen them on coppers, but not up close, and you can’t really see much when it’s in the holster, can you?” Too late, she realized she’d reverted to speaking Australian.

  “We call them cops here, and you’re going to need to check that accent.”

  “Stop changing the subject,” she said in her best American accent. “Why do you have a gun? No, two guns!”

  “I don’t go much of anywhere unarmed. I mean, I have to take it off before I can go into a government building, or into an airport, or school, but otherwise, if it’s legal for me to have it, I do.”

  “Wait. It’s legal here? To just walk around with a gun?”

  He let out a breath that wasn’t quite a sigh, but was damned close, and he waited until he’d merged onto the interstate to answer.

  “It’s difficult to own a gun in a few states, like California, for instance. We’l
l be in Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee on this trip, and it’s legal for me to have a weapon and carry concealed in all of those states, because I have a license to carry concealed in Tennessee. If I didn’t, it’d still be legal for me to have it in the car.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  He laughed. Laughed! “Why would I bother carrying a paperweight around? Of course it’s loaded.”

  “And the one in the hidden compartment? Surely that can’t be legal, even here.”

  “Seriously? If you didn’t like the country, and if you can’t handle security people being armed so they can protect their clients, why did you accept a job with a security company in the States?”

  Great, now she’d pissed him off. She took a breath she didn’t need in the hopes it would calm her, but it didn’t.

  “Just, never mind. I’m sorry I asked.”

  They were both silent several long minutes, and he finally said, “Look, you said you’ve never seen one. Fear of the unknown is perfectly understandable. I’ll unload a few tomorrow, teach you how to check for yourself to see if they’re loaded, and we’ll talk about how they work. I’ll take you to the range the first chance we get.”