SOS HOTEL: Ho, Ho, No

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

I made it back to our rainbow nest with Zee, where we cut the lights and sat on the bed, half-buried in cushions, and stayed there, panting in the dark until Victor appeared a few minutes later, confirming we hadn’t been followed.

“So, what did we learn?” he whispered, standing watch at the doorway.

“Santa is definitely a pedo, and Adam looks great in a red hat.”

Zee wasn’t wrong. We did learn that.

“I was thinking of answers more relevant to our dire circumstances,” Victor grumbled. “But far be it from me to get in the way of your fashion expertise, demon.”

“You like me in red?” I asked Zee.

“Kitten, I love you in red. But I love you out of it more,” he purred, and scooted over, scooping me under his arm.

“Aw.” I snuggled closer, needing to feel him so I knew we were both alive and safe.

Victor’s scowl softened. “Perhaps we should focus on our efforts to survive this night and not whether the color red complements Adam.”

“It really does though.”

I pulled my fluffy red hat off. It was a great color, but Victor was right. We had a Santa problem. “We found the murderer.”

“Fancy Fangs, you speak Swedish, why don’t you go back there and talk to him? For science. Adam and I will wait here. If one of us is going to be Santa’s Christmas sacrifice it should be your ancient ass. We’re too young and pretty to die.”

Victor gave Zee his resting Victor face. “Santa spoke English.”

“Oh, yeah...” Zee draped his arm around my shoulders, and tucking me closer, drew circles with his fingernail on my thigh.

“He didn’t seem all that interested in talking,” I said. “If the store opens tomorrow with Santa in his grotto, he’s definitely going to eat people. Not that I would know anything about eating people. He just... seems the sort... to do that.”

“What else did we learn?” Victor prompted.

“He’s fast,” Zee replied. “Super old. He smells musty, like he’s been stored in an attic most of the year. Huh, kinda like you, Fancy Fangs.”

“If you channeled all that wasted sarcastic energy into bettering yourself, you’d be remarkable.”

“Ha! Joke’s on you. I already get remarks. Lots of them. All over the internet. And some are nice.”

Victor slid his nonchalant gaze to me, where he probably hoped to focus our efforts toward dealing with murder-Santa and less on Zee’s unique perspective. “Now we’ve managed to get a better look at who and what we’re dealing with, we can at least better formulate a plan.”

“Does this plan involve meatballs?” Zee asked.

Victor hesitated for a heartbeat. “Why?”

“Is nobody else hungry?” With a shrug, Zee hopped from the bed and adjusted his baggy sweater. “Attempted murder makes me peckish.”

“I could eat,” I agreed.

“Great. Let’s go find some meatballs while His Lordship gets his rocks off making plans.”

“And should Santa make an appearance while you eat, we’re going to... what?” Victor asked. “Share a hot dog with him?”

“I don’t think Gramps Beardo is interested in that kinda sausage.” Zee flashed Victor a smile. “You’re cute, though.”

Victor huffed a long-suffering sigh. “As it appears Santa is reluctant to leave his grotto, we’ll visit the restaurant and see if there are meatballs. But we must do so quietly, and quickly.”

“Pfft, I can do quiet. It’s like you’ve never met me.” Zee sashayed off in the hope of finding an arrow or sign pointing toward the restaurant. I followed, tossing Victor a grin, which grew wider when he smiled back. He wasn’t nearly as annoyed by Zee as he let on, but it was important he let Zee think he was. Reyzee was complicated—but cute.

As we ambled in the general direction of where we guessed the restaurant might be, Victor went over some possible plans to lure Santa from his grotto. Santa was fast, but probably not Victor-fast. And in the kitchens, if we could find some more impressive knives that had a chance of beating Santa’s claws, then we’d be able to dispatch his branch-like, shape-shifting self without too much fuss. We did all agree that Santa wasn’t going to fall for Zee’s Mariah Carey act again. We’d have to come up with a new show.

After finding the deathly quiet restaurant, we ambled between the tables fixed to the squeaky floor and headed for the food bars.

Zee leaned over the counter and rummaged underneath, then found a box of ring donuts that had been put away until tomorrow’s service. He leaned a hip on the counter’s edge, popped the box open, and chomped into a donut.

“Striptease, right?” he said around a mouthful of sugary sweetness. “We know Jolly Pedo is into good boys, so I’ll strip, then you two turn him into a pin cushion.”

Victor’s permanent frown turned more frowny. “You’re clearly not good, or a boy.”

“Excuse-moi. I’m the fuckin’ epitome of sweet and innocent,” said the demon wearing fishnet tights under painted-on shorts that happened to leave very little of his masculinity to anyone’s imagination.

Even I had a hard time swallowing the idea he might be innocent. “I’ll do it.”

“Adam does resemble the typical good boy,” Victor said, and for some reason, my entire body got chills. The good kind. Y’know, the kind that wakes your libido up like a slap to the face.

Zee’s eyes widened, catching the little skitter of nerves that fluttered low in my belly. Yeah, okay. I maybe had a thing for Victor saying good boy . Who knew?

Zee smirked around the donut. “Say that again, Daddy.”

“Say what?” Victor asked, perplexed.

I chuckled. “Really, there’s no need . . .”

“Good boy?” Victor asked.

I closed my eyes, relished the tingles, and gave my head a clearing shake. “Yeah, okay,” I croaked. “Uhm... maybe not right now?”

“Adam?” Victor asked.

I opened my eyes to find his face concerned, and Zee grinning, tail flicking, his interest piqued.

“It’s uh...” I cleared my throat. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s clearly something.” Victor was growing more concerned with each beat of my now-racing heart.

“Yeah, Kitten . . .” Zee snorted. “It’s clearly something .”

“Zee.” I held up a finger. “I don’t think now is a good?—”

“Adam is such a good boy,” Zee purred the last two words and I almost melted in my shoes.

“I’m just . . . uh . . . hungry, I guess? Yeah. That’s it.”

“You’re hungry, alright,” Zee snickered. “For Daddy’s meaty-balls.”

With a huff, Victor said, “I am clearly missing something.”

“No, it’s nothing.” I waved them both off and leaned over the counter, searching for something to eat that would take my mind of Victor, the walking sexual feast who pushed all my hungry buttons.

A quick look over my shoulder revealed Zee whispering into Victor’s ear, and when he turned back toward me, cocking a hip next to Victor, their gazes devoured me as though I were the all-they-could-eat buffet.

Oh dear.

Victor blurred from Zee’s side, appearing hard up against my ass and thighs. “Allow me?” He leaned over me, pressing harder still and shifting a little, seating himself properly against my ass.

I squeaked, “Okay.”

“Hm... What would you prefer? A hearty snack of donuts, or something...” Turning his head, his gaze sharpened, his target in his sights. “Hotter?”

His voice, when it did that deep, smooth, audible lick through my soul, turned all my insides to jello and other parts of me to iron. Mercy, I was already falling, even though he pinned me to the counter.

“Uhm . . .”

“Hm?” Victor purred.

“Hmm.”

Yeah, alright. I was into this.

The ball of his thumb rode up my spine, and then his fingers swept the back of my neck, combining hard massages with swift, delicate strokes. I searched for Zee, checking he was alright and not upset over being left out. He’d draped himself in a plastic chair, one leg up on the table, smirking at the show. “Don’t mind me, Kitten. It ain’t often I get to watch.”

Victor’s hips gave a small jerk, then his hands were gripping my hips, his mouth skimming my ear and a very hard part of him nudging my inner thigh in slow, rhythmic strokes.

“I’m uh... I just... You said... distracted by passion was... bad?” I really wanted this to happen but I was also aware that we were potentially being hunted, which was also kinda hot.

“We have a lookout.”

But Zee wasn’t so much looking out as looking in, at us.

Zee rolled his eyes. “I can multitask. Just pretend I’m not here. Have at it. You’re good.”

“Like a good boy...” Victor’s voice hummed at my ear and I was done. If Santa showed up and tried to kill us, he’d have to wait until after Victor had ravaged me, because that was definitely where this was headed. “You remember our safe word?”

Oh mercy, we were going that deep?

I bit my lip and nodded.

“Good.”

“Heads-up,” Zee said, then tossed something that Victor snatched from the air without looking. “I always come prepared.” I heard him chuckle at his own joke.

With that comment, it had to be lube.

I was going to get railed in a restaurant where people ate their meatballs, and nobody would ever know.

Victor’s fingers tightened around my neck. “Hard and fast or soft and slow?”

There was only one correct answer. The time and place for soft and slow was not bent over a buffet counter. “I think you know.”

His growl reverberated down my spine, hardening my already enthusiastic dick. Victor’s efficient hands dealt with my fly, and I assumed his, in record time. Cool air touched my ass. The rough handling might have been too much for a normal human, but I wasn’t normal. After a few restrained, savage jerks, warm, slick fingers dipped between my ass cheeks while his other hand shoved me forward. Electric lust spritzed through my veins. A purple haze cast us in eerie, shifting light. I didn’t need to look to know Zee’s wings were out. He was feasting on more than donuts.

I did look over my shoulder to see Victor’s serious expression making all his handsome angles sharper. His lips parted, and his wet tongue swept over curved, sharp fangs. Unhinged Victor was my favorite Victor.

His fingers dove in, offering minimal prep, and then as his free hand encircled my dick, the hard, hungry part of him replaced those fingers, pushing in. I stopped thinking after that, and turned into a pillar of sparkling feelings. He called me a good boy , then slammed in hard enough to rattle the entire food counter, and my soul. His hand worked my dick, while the rest of him worked my ass. Heat turned into pleasure, spiraling higher, and sensing my untethered release about to blow, he stopped jerking me off, grasped both my hips in his hands, bent me under him, and pounded me with all the ruthless efficiency you’d expect from Daddy Vampire.

The thrill of it—being hunted with murder in the air, Zee watching, knowing I was in Victor’s safe hands while he railed me—it wasn’t romantic, but I needed it like I needed to breathe, like my heart needed to beat and my veins burn.

I clutched the counter, clinging on, dick bouncing with every one of Victor’s hammer-like thrusts.

“Come for me, Adam.” His powerful voice poured into my ear and deep into my dick, where the permission freed the last of my threadbare restraint. I came hard, stuttering a gasp. Victor’s arm locked around my waist, his panting breaths stroked my neck, and with a few staccato jerks, he growled his climax into my ear.

For a few wonderful, buzzing seconds, we clung to each other as though we were the only two left in the universe.

“Fuck me with bells on. That was the hottest fuckin’ thing I’ve seen, not including my own explicit films, obviously.”

A rumbling grumble replaced Victor’s growl. “Does he ever stay quiet?”

“Never.” I peered over my shoulder and caught Victor’s contented, post-sex grin. The grin that softened his whole face and revealed a side of him few ever saw. A rare event, and one I’d always cherish.

Leaning in, he planted a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth, made all the more special since it followed his brutal hammering. “You are, and will forever be, a marvel to me,” he whispered.

When he said things like that my heart scrunched in a good but achy way—as though, maybe this was love but I didn’t think I deserved it.

“Oh-kay.” Zee planted his feet and cocked a hip. His wings sizzled, framing him in all his spicy, incubus glory, even in tights and a baggy top. “Let’s get this Santa-slaying show on the road. But first, imma need a new spork.” He poofed behind the counter, and clattered through the cutlery containers.

Victor dealt with cleanup, then neatly tucked himself away, and if I hadn’t already been coming down off a sex high, seeing him tuck himself away and jerk that zip up would have been enough to get me fired up again. Mercy, why did he have to be so naturally gorgeous?

“Demon, do you not recall the need for us to be quiet ?”

“Meh. If you two fucking didn’t attract psycho-Santa, I think I’m good.” He flicked a wrist and launched a spinning knife toward Victor.

Victor snatched the blade from the air and side-eyed Zee. “Really?”

“Oops.” Zee grinned.

“Nice reflexes,” I told Victor, as Zee poofed back to my side and handed me a similarly long, deadly looking carving knife.

“Let’s recap, fam,” Zee said. “I’m the bait?—”

“ I’m the bait,” I corrected.

“Ugh, I thought you’d forgotten that with all the sex.”

“Nope.”

“Fine. Whatever. You’re the bait...” His gaze shifted over my shoulder and fixed on something behind me. “Was that there before?”

“What...” I turned and immediately spotted the gnome by the entrance to the restaurant. The little guy stood there in his red boots and blue raincoat, looking demure. “Maybe?” It seemed like something we’d have seen on our way in.

“Fancy Fangs, you go poke it.”

Victor arched an eyebrow and folded his arms. “Why me?”

“Because nobody likes vampires.”

“I’ll do it.” I started heading over toward it. It was just a gnome. Nobody needed to be afraid of a two-foot-high yard ornament. We’d fought and beaten much worse. What was the worst thing the little guy could do?

I stopped with a stride’s length left between me and the gnome. “Uh, hey there?”

The gnome predictably didn’t move. Its smile was off-putting, but it hadn’t changed or twitched. I gave his round belly a poke with my shoe. The gnome rocked, but it was clearly just one of those weird human things they liked to decorate their homes with—like me with cat trinkets. There was nothing supernatural about it.

I looked over my shoulder. Zee and Victor stood side by side, watching curiously. “I think it’s just a gnome.”

Something heavy leaped onto my leg.

I looked down and met the gnome’s flat, soulless eyes peering back at me. Its arms hugged my shin.

Panic clamored in my head.

The gnome was on me!

This was fine.

I didn’t need to lose it.

“Ugh, guys?”

I lifted my leg and gave it a shake. The gnome stayed glued. Had its grin gotten bigger?

“A little help?”

“I’ve got you.” Victor’s arms encircled my waist from behind. “Zodiac, remove the gnome from Adam’s leg.”

Zee grabbed the gnome, lifting it and my leg. He tugged. “It’s stuck.”

“We can see that. Unstick it.”

Zee adjusted his hold around the gnome’s chonky middle, while Victor tightened his grip around my waist. “Pull!” Victor ordered.

Zee dug his feet in and heaved, wings and tail out, yanking on my leg. “I’m pulling!”

“Get it off, Zee.” I wasn’t panicking. This wasn’t panic, just... slight concern.

“I’m trying! Little fucker’s stuck!”

“Harder!” Victor barked.

“Steady with that voice, Daddy Vampire.” Zee shook his head. “I got this.”

“Clearly, you do not have it —it has Adam.” Victor had begun to sound concerned too.

The gnome’s little arms tightened. Was I about to lose my leg? “My foot’s numb.”

“Pull, demon!” Victor growled.

“I’m fuckin’ pulling! You get down here and pull!”

My hip groaned, the thigh bone about to pop out of its socket. Grimacing, I turned my face away and wished I hadn’t. Six more gnomes had appeared, all with eerie grins, brightly colored little outfits, and murder in their otherwise empty eyes. “Oh dear.”

“Sweet baby Gareth! That’s a fuck-lot of nope-gnomes.” Zee gave one more mighty tug, and the gnome popped off. He held it aloft like a prized trophy. “I got it!”

The gnome’s head swiveled a one-eighty... and it yowled.

Zee screamed, and drop-kicked the possessed yard ornament, pitching it through the ceiling. Bits of dryboard rained, but at least the gnome was gone. One of them. The rest glared. Their grins turned upside down, into angry frowns bristling with sharp teeth.

“That way!” Zee pointed toward the buffet counter and poofed behind it, then opened the kitchen doors. I vaulted over the counter and dashed through the door. Victor dashed in behind us. Zee swung the door shut, and we stood panting in the dark.

“Fuck, there’s no back door,” Zee growled.

“Are they still out there?” I whispered.

Zee stood on his toes and peeked through the door’s high window. “Yeah. And there’s more. It’s fuckin’ gnomeageddon out there.”

“What are they doing?”

“Coming this way.” He turned away from the glass and eyed his knife, which wouldn’t be much help against a supernaturally animated critter poured from cement. He tucked the knife down the back of his shorts, grabbed a nearby chair, and threw it at the ground, smashing it to pieces. “Here.” Handing me a chair leg, he took one for himself and one for Victor. “You ever played baseball?” Zee asked, eyes twinkling in the dark.

“What’s baseball?” I tucked my knife away, like he had, and clutched the chair leg tighter.

“Never mind. Hold it like this.” He demonstrated and I copied, holding my chair leg in both hands. “Awesome. We’re goin’ out swinging, and we don’t fuckin’ stop until those little fuckers are rubble. Fancy Fangs, you follow. Keep Adam sandwiched between us.”

Victor nodded and raised his chair leg.

Zee’s gaze pinned mine. “You ready?”

“Yup.”

“On three.” Zee grabbed the door handle. “Three!” And burst through, howling a battle cry.