Blood Tied Read Online Free PDF Page A

for yourself.”
    I growled in frustration before I held the phone away from my ear. I pressed the home button, and all my icons appeared on the screen. When I clicked on the calendar, I gasped. It was the thirty-first. How the hell had that happened?
    My gaze drifted over to the empty side of the bed where Ben had been a few hours ago. After our volcanic orgasms, he’d gotten up and dressed. He’d claimed he had out-of-town business to take care of and couldn’t stay. Not that I would have asked him to anyway.
    After I’d showed him out, a wave of fatigue had washed over me. I’d never felt so tired in my life. I’d intended to lie down and nap before hitting the road.
    How the hell had I slept until the next day?
    “Are you still there?”
    I brought the phone back to my ear. “I’m here,” I replied. Shock replaced my previous bluster.
    “Believe me now?” he asked.
    I nodded.
    “I’ll take your silence as a yes,” he said. “What’s going on, Thad?” His voice softened. He was no longer my bullheaded big brother, who plagued my existence. Genuine concern resonated in his tone.
    “Nothing. I guess I just got too involved with my dissertation and lost track of time,” I lied. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him the truth. I’d never hear the end of it.
    He snuffed. “You should spend more time with your nose in someone else’s ass rather than shoving it in your books.” And like that, Pierce-the-jackass returned.
    “Do you have to be so crass all the time?”
    He belched into the phone in response.
    “Classy.”
    “I’m all about the class,” he said. “Now get off the fucking phone and get over here. Dad’s wound up about all the decorations, and he’s planning on you to help.”
    “And what’s wrong with you and Mason and Drake?” Although I knew Pierce and Mason were useless, Drake was not. Mason’s boyfriend had been living with us since the vampyre killed his only living relative. That decision had brought about great controversy, especially when attempts to spell memories of our existence from his mind failed.
    Drake’s imperviousness to magic was yet another mystery that begged to be solved.
    “I’ve got a business meeting,” he said. Pierce worked as a vice president in the family business Dad was grooming him to take over. “And Mason and Drake are most likely playing hide the salami somewhere in the house.”
    I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be there as soon as possible.”
    “Make it faster than that,” he said before hanging up.
    I tossed my phone on the bed and surveyed the room. Most people would likely descend into panic after learning they’d lost a good portion of a day, but I wasn’t like most. As with anything else in life, clear thinking could produce the answers I sought.
    Although it was bizarre and unusual for me to pass out like that, Ben and I had been going at it pretty hard for at least four hours. By the time we were spent, we’d dripped sweat and panted like bulldogs in the middle of a hot, humid day. I was exhausted after he left, and it had been somewhere around three in the afternoon if I remembered correctly.
    While I’d planned on only taking a nap, the recent lack of sleep caused by my dreams, coupled with the intense sex, had more than likely caused my body to shut down. That had to be what happened.
    Satisfied with my logic, I rose and entered the bathroom. I turned on the faucet, held my hands under the stream, and then splashed cold water onto my face.
    As I toweled the drops of water from my pale cheeks, made slightly coarse from the reddish facial hair I’d yet to shave away, I noticed the small wound on my neck. I’d almost forgotten Ben had bitten me in the heat of the moment. The freak.
    It wasn’t infected or anything. In fact, it was little more than a scratch now. Still, I grabbed some Neosporin and rubbed it into the cut.
    By tomorrow, all traces of it and Ben’s short visit into my life would disappear forever.
     
     
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