by Elena Lawson
“Since I have you here,” Blake purred, reaching out a hand to me. I took it and stood with him, my stomach dropping. His gaze flicked to the rope contraption hanging from the ceiling and back to me. “Do you trust me?”
18
“I trust you,” I told him, but I was a little thrown off. “You want to do this now?”
Nervous flutters swirled around in my belly, waking the slumbering dragon and the little minx.
“Why wait?”
I shut my mouth. Suddenly unable to think of a single reason why we shouldn’t. The darkness and pain of only moments before shrunk back into the corners as Blake beamed at me—the light of his grin bright enough to chase even the darkest shadows away. Why did he have to be so infuriatingly perfect? How could I say no to that face?
Not that I wanted to say no.
Why the hell would I want to do that?
I’d have to be insane to refuse him. I’d been dreaming about him since I missed my chance to have him the last time I’d seen them. I’d been vividly imagining all the erotic scenarios and naked escapades we could get into together.
“Alright,” I said in a coy voice, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth to stifle a premature moan.
I let him lead me over to the ropes hanging from the ceiling and he let go of my hand, beginning to deftly untie the loose knots keeping them from reaching the floor. The ropes unfurled one by one until there were at least ten sections, each probably close to thirty feet in length hanging from the ceiling to pool in little spirals of russet gold on the carpet.
“These are made from conditioned hemp,” he said, running his fingers over a length of rope. “Here, feel them.”
I swallowed hard before walking forward to take a bit of rope in my fingers. It was soft, with just the right amount of softness. I bit my lips again. “And what exactly are we going to do with them?”
I couldn’t help the blush that rose to my cheeks. I was clueless when it came to this sort of thing. Like any normal person, I enjoyed a good fucking, but Mr. Dickins was the only trustworthy man I’d had in…well, since forever.
Rose Ward didn’t get close to people.
Ha! I certainly didn’t trust any other human being enough to allow them to blindfold me or bind my hands. But Blake and the guys weren’t just any other humans.
They were mine.
And not humans at all. Not anymore.
He’d asked me if I trusted him, and the answer was yes.
Always.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he replied with a note of excitement in his tone. “In fact, I don’t want you to move at all.”
I stopped breathing as he stepped closer, a blue glimmer in his eyes from the dim light on the nightstand. I shuddered as his hands ran down my arms.
“Will it hurt?” I managed.
He stopped his soft touches and touched a knuckle to the hollow beneath my chin to tip my head up to look him in the eyes. “No,” he said simply. “This isn’t about pain. I would never hurt you, Rose.”
The ropes dangling behind him begged to differ. What would he do with them, then?
“This is about pleasure. About…beauty. And you’ll be my most exquisite masterpiece.”
Blake moved my hair from my breasts, laying it behind my shoulders so he could unzip my top. The air in the room was warm, but the second it hit my breasts, they hardened, and my core tightened.
“It’s called Shibari,” he explained as he undressed me with practiced restraint. “I’m going to tie you up.”
Oh fuck…
“And then I’m going to suspend you from the ceiling…”
Warmth pooled between my thighs as he coaxed my pants and panties down to my ankles, his breath brushing against my pussy as he helped me step out of the pool of clothing.
“…and then I’m going to fuck you until you cum…again…and again…and again…”
He stood; his obsidian eyes boring into me. He licked his lips and I fought the urge to touch him, already shaking with a combination of unchecked desire and restlessness. “Do I have your consent?”
I didn’t hesitate before responding this time. I wanted this. I wanted him. I wanted to know every facet of him. What made him tick. What turned him on. All of it. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the bizarre. Every. Fucking. Bit. “You have all of me.”
He smiled. “Good.”
Blake took me gently by the elbows and moved me into the center of the ropes. Wordlessly, he tapped something on his phone and then tossed the device onto the bed. Music drifted out from some unseen speakers, surrounding us in a hauntingly beautiful melody. Lyrics sung in an ethereal voice, in a different language, caressed my ears, mixing with the drumbeats and cello in a way that made me sigh and shiver all at once.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“No talking,” Blake replied gruffly, and I saw the depth of his own desire etched into his stone carved features. His eyes darkened and I saw the beginnings of his fangs as he tugged my arms behind me and locked my arms together, coaxing me to wrap my hands around my forearms near my elbows.
The ropes slid over my wrists with little shhh noises as he wrapped and tied and knotted. Around my wrists and then across my back and around to my front, above my breasts and across my chest. The sensation of the rope tightening over me had my body screaming for release. By the time he had my entire torso and arms finished, I couldn’t move more than half an inch.
I moaned as he set to work between my legs, knotting rope along my thighs and calves until they were pulled up from the ground, my legs bound into bent angles, spread wide.
He was right. This was art. And the artist worked with a furrowed, sweat dampened brow and a determined look in his eyes. No knot was insignificant. No movement unmeasured. He was precise.
And when my body was finally fully suspended, he rocked back on his heels to look at me.
He’d pulled on the ropes to bring me higher from the floor and adjusted the lengths until I was suspended with my body upright. The ropes around my chest and across my back were attached to others that supported me like a cradle, allowing me to lean a little backward. Enough so that the angle of my pussy was perfectly aligned to a level where his cock could glide in unobstructed.
Surprisingly, he’d been right. It didn’t hurt. There were so many lengths of rope supporting me in so many different places, that no one place felt strained. The balance of my weight was equally distributed in a way that only caused lines of pressure across my body. And…I kind of liked it.
It wasn’t pain, but close enough to that invisible line so it could be called extreme pleasure.
Blake’s dark eyes traveled over me with a keen and unscrupulous gleam. It should be illegal for anyone to look as incredible sexy as he did marveling his work.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said with reverence, and his adams apple bobbed with a hard gulp as he righted himself. He reached forward to unbuckle his dark-wash jeans and my back arched. Every second of additional waiting was killing me.
I wanted to tell him the view from where I hung was just as incredible. That the work of art I was now admiring from the perch he’d crafted for me was just as magnificent…but the length of satiny red cloth he’d tied across my mouth as a gag stopped me, so I just moaned instead, hoping the look in my eyes conveyed to him what my mouth couldn’t say.
I watched without blinking as Blake removed every bit of his clothes until he was standing before me completely naked. His cock hard and standing proud. His deep gray eyes hungry. His pale skin like smooth, unblemished marble in some places, and covered in blackish-blue ink in others.
One day I would trace the lines of every tattoo. I’d inspect every bit of artwork he’d deemed worthy to grace his immortal body. One day—when he was ready.
Blake stalked forward, putting himself between my suspended knees. He ran his fingers up my stomach, and between my breasts until he was caressing my neck. He tugged the gag out
of my mouth, and I licked my dry lips.
Looking deeply into my eyes, he latched onto some deep part of me. A part I normally kept buried—under lock and key. But he found it and he held me there. It was a quiet understanding. It was the dark parts of him calling out to the dark parts of me. As though meeting for the first time.
Recognizing their counterparts in another creature.
Blake dipped his head and kissed me softly, all the while his thumb was brushing small circles in my neck, making my body come alive with need. He slipped into my mouth and I moaned into him. He drank me in, his fangs skated over my tongue, so close to drawing blood.
He hissed as he pulled away, and I saw how his upper lip curled back—twitching as he tried to keep his more primal urges in check.
“Take it,” I told him in a breathless voice as his cock brushed against my navel, sending a cascade of trembling warmth over the surface of my skin. “You have all of me,” I told him again, wanting him to understand that I meant it.
He had my body. My soul. My blood. They were all his.
As I hoped he would be mine.
Blake considered my offer, his eyes flicking back and forth between mine, searching for any uncertainty. He wouldn’t find it.
He slipped the gag back into place and knelt.
What was he—
My body stiffened as he found the vein on my inner thigh and bit down hard into my flesh. Pain and pleasure exploded through me all at once. I threw my head back at the explosion of sensation and moaned loud and long.
As Blake fed from me, his hand ran up the inside of my thigh, over the ropes and further up until his thumb brushed over my sex. I convulsed and he growled, his bite growing harder as his fingers found my opening and plunged inside.
I whimpered as my pussy clenched around him, my body straining at the binds holding me steadily in place for him. The venom of his bite made a sparkling fog settle over my mind and every flick of his fingers—ever circular press of his thumb against my clit had me on the verge of coming undone.
I almost cried out when his fangs slid out from my thigh. I was ready to beg him to take more, not even dizzy yet. His control was impressive.
But he surprised me yet again when he met my burning gaze for an instant before he gripped my opposite thigh with rough fingers and loosed an animal snarl before he bit down once more, doubling the dose of venom.
His fingers quickened their pace and just as I was on the cusp of finding my release he released my thigh and moved his mouth to my pussy, flicking his tongue over and over to coax me to a brutal orgasm that tore through my body like a bolt of lightning, leaving a lengthy sizzle in its wake.
Blake rose to his feet and met my eyes as he curled his hands around my hips. With a devilish grin, he pressed his cock against my opening, teasing me.
“Blake,” I tried to moan around the length of cloth, begging him. “Please.”
His grip tightened and he looked dead into my eyes as he said, “I’m going to fuck you hard and fast, and then just before your release, I’m going to bite you. Understand?”
My heart was pounding—my blood rushing in my ears. I nodded vehemently. Oh, fuck yes…
He pumped into me in one quick thrust, seating himself inside me all the way to the hilt. I bucked and groaned as my body adjusted to fit him, but he was already thrusting again. As my head lolled back to the front, I watched him watch me as he fucked me.
Blake’s gaze never faltered as he took in my pleasure, making it his own. Every sigh, every moan, every shudder and twitch of my body—he drank it in and the heat in his burning black eyes only deepened.
He fucked me unlike anyone ever had before. No human had this amount of stamina. Only a vampire could fuck like this. With his venom still pumping in my veins and my body bound and gagged, I knew I would cum again fast—my body already clenching—the muscle straining and the quickening sensation in my womb rising to a crescendo.
Blake smiled as he watched the orgasm rise, my breaths quickening and my moans growing more frantic. Blake moaned with me and the sound of him so close to finding a release of his own tipped me over the edge.
He thrusted his cock into me three times more before I knew I couldn’t contain it any longer.
I cried out and his fangs slid into my neck, the venom injected into my bloodstream intertwining with the orgasm in a way that had me literally screaming. Stars and dark spots danced in the corners of my vision and my core convulsed as the orgasm swelled within me until I could hardly breathe.
When it finally began to fade, my body sagged back against my binds and Blake released my neck, leaving a hot dribble of blood to roll down over my breast.
Blake hungrily lapped it up, pausing to circle his tongue around my nipple. His cock inside me was still rock hard and he had a smug look on his angelic face. “I’m not even close to finished with you,” his whispered.
19
I awoke in Blake’s bed, groggy and gloriously sore. In was the kind of deep ache that made you shiver as you stretched out your muscles. The unfurling of taut muscle its own kind of release.
I tried to remember how I’d ended up in the bed but couldn’t quite grasp the memory. I’d been limp and utterly spent when Blake finally began to untie and unwind me from the ropes. Every brush of his fingers over my skin had sent shockwaves over my body—my skin so sensitive to the touch by the time he was through that I sucked in a breath each time.
He must’ve carried me to bed. I must’ve fallen straight to sleep.
The thin covers and sheets smelled as though they’d been freshly laundered with Blake’s trademark clean linen scent. The notes of vanilla and suede soothing me to wakefulness. I yawned as I stretched out and felt around the bed for him, but my hands came up empty and cold.
“Blake,” I whispered into the dark.
When no answer came, I slid from the bed and felt around in the dark for my clothes. I found the ropes easily enough, but my clothes were no longer beneath them on the floor. Crap.
I went back to the bed and tugged off the sheet, wrapping it around myself as though it were a sheath dress. It would have to do for now.
Padding out into the hall, I found the apartment quiet and dark. I hadn’t the slightest clue what time it was, but I had to assume everyone was asleep. I cursed myself for passing out. I hadn’t wanted to waste a minute of time with them, and now I’d probably slept through most of an entire day. Damnit.
I peeked into Frost’s room, careful not to let the door handle make a sound as I turned it. I could just make out the burling shape of him atop his bed. The steady rise and fall of his chest told me he was out cold. I shut the door again, wincing as the tongue clicked back into the chamber.
There was only one other door in the hall besides the bathroom, and I had to assume that it was Ethan’s room. I hadn’t been in there yet. Careful to be quiet once more, I pushed open the door and found a lamp illuminating the space. The blankets on the bed were rumpled, but he wasn’t there.
Pushing open the door the rest of the way I stepped inside, whispering his name. I peered around the door and found a long desk, filled with half-completed drawings and three more monitors, their screens a polished black. He wasn’t in here.
I bit my bottom lip and continued into the living area, tucking the tail of the sheet in tighter to keep it from falling off. I found Blake dozing on the sofa, his arms crossed over his chest. With the soft light from the ignited fireplace casting an orange glow over his face he looked ethereal. But even in sleep his brows were slightly drawn, and his jaw seemed tense.
Where was Ethan?
I remembered he’d mentioned a back entrance to the tattoo shop. A way to get inside without leaving the building. Wandering back down the hall, I inspected the walls, looking for a door I may have missed. There was nothing.
The door to Ethan’s room was still slightly ajar and I stepped back inside, finding what I had originally assumed was a closet on the right side of the room. I opened
it and found a staircase instead, grinning.
A single fluorescent bulb illuminated the narrow staircase and I followed it down and to the right, and then down some more until I came out an open door and into a bright room. I shielded my eyes from the glaring light, squinting to make out the shapes and contraptions as my eyes adjusted.
“Rose?” Ethan said, spinning around on a short round stool. His caramel hair was disheveled, sticking up at an odd angle in the front. There was a smudge of something on the corner of his chin, and his eyes were bloodshot and wide as he took me in.
I looked at what he was so intently doing before I interrupted. The room was like a miniature lab. Like the one in the cave, but with some different equipment and a table of Bunsen burners and beakers, all lit with blue flame and bubbling.
He was inspecting something beneath the microscope in front of him. It looked like black ink.
What the hell was he doing?
“Ethan, have you been awake all night?”
He swallowed and moved his hand up to rub the spot of whatever-it-was from his jaw. “Is it that obvious?”
I bit back a grin and nodded. “A bit,” I admitted. “But you’re even more adorable when you have that gleam in your eyes.”
His ears turned pink as I stepped closer and helped him get the smear of dried ink from his jaw. “There.”
“Come here,” he said suddenly, tugging me down to fall into his lap. I gasped in surprise as his hands came around my waist. He spun us back to the table and gestured to the microscope. “Go ahead,” he told me animatedly. “Take a look.”
I did as he said, pressing my eyes into the viewer and squinting to see through the illuminated backing of the sample glass thingy. With the light shining through the substance, I found it looked more like a very deep red color than black. But there were veins of black inside the liquid. Moving lines of black. Like living vines, they spread through the substance, slithering, retracting, and gyrating before my eyes.