See? Boy Scout.
Since the weekend approached and class was cancelled until the roads could be cleared, we took extra clothes. A longer stay wouldn’t bother me. I had no one waiting for me at home. Gianna and I rarely spoke anymore outside of her visits to take my blood a couple of times a week, and even then we were never alone. I couldn’t trust myself around her and she was, well, a little confused about the whole thing, and sometimes a lot upset.
Who could blame her?
Jason’s visits had dwindled after the holidays. Basketball season was in full swing and he just didn’t have the time between classes, practice, and games. That wasn’t to say that I hadn’t seen him because I had. He’d made a point of coming over to give me tickets to some of his home games, and I’d made just as big of a point to attend them when I could, usually with Devin.
Gianna had come once and seemed to enjoy watching Jason play, but the awkwardness between us had been too much for her. I left the invitation to come with me again open. It was the most I could do without pushing, which I wasn’t going to do. God knew I’d pushed her enough to last a lifetime.
With the two of them out of my life, temporarily, I hoped, I was at loose ends, so the extra time at Elizabet’s wasn’t a big deal, in and of itself.
On the other hand, spending that time with Elizabet was a big deal. Since my punishment, I’d had a lot of time to think about that night. Whole chunks of my memory were gone, never to be retrieved, but some parts were crystal clear. Elizabet had punished me far more harshly than had been warranted. As a result, I’d dipped a toe into full-blown vampirism and lost Gianna in the process.
And now, I wanted Elizabet to pay.
There was nothing I could do, of course, nothing at all. Our contract aside, I wasn’t stupid enough to take on Elizabet by myself. She was a vampire, for Christ’s sake, older and stronger and more vicious than me, even if she never showed it. And then there was Marco, who would hunt me down and exact a frightening vengeance if I so much as looked at Elizabet funny. Naw, nothing I could do except stew, so that’s what I did, letting the anger and bitterness fester and build into a hard lump in my chest that no amount of wishing could break.
We reached Elizabet’s a little after six and went straight in to supper, taking a place with the already seated group at the far end of the main table. Elizabet’s chef had prepared a buffet instead of our usual plated meal, a concession to the weather. An hour later, we made our way to the Red Room, as I’d come to think of it, the place where we exchanged blood with each other and Elizabet, the only place I felt comfortable accepting Devin’s touch as a lover.
I let him undress me, held his head to my chest as he slid hot kisses over my skin. Desire swirled through me, keeping pace with his touch as his hands tickled over my flesh. I wanted to feel him, needed something to cut through the numbness that had held passion in its grip since that night a month before. I didn’t know why I could only feel so much and then no more, and didn’t care. All I wanted was for it to stop so my body could find release again, like a normal man and not the monster I had become, or was becoming, or had once been.
Devin sucked my erection into his mouth in a slow pull. His fingers dug into the muscles of my ass, pushing my hips forward as he swallowed me. I held the back of his head, tugging gently on his hair because he liked it, not because of any urgency on my part. As angry as I was about that night, I couldn’t take it out on Dev, not him. He’d been my first male lover, probably not my last, especially if Jason had a say in it, but Dev was my first and he’d been good to me. For that, he’d always have a place in my heart.
Elizabet entered the room just as I hit the wall that kept me from achieving an orgasm, an endless plateau on which my desire rested but never crossed to find release. Her gaze met mine across the room as her fingers quickly undid the buttons of her dress, this one a midnight blue that hugged her curves from shoulder to knee before it fell in a loose flow of material to the floor.
Her brow furrowed as she stepped out of her dress and placed it carefully on a waiting chaise. Devin’s finger found the pucker of my ass and pushed carefully inside, but I wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what he did. I opened my mind and let her see the plateau, let her see what her punishment had done to me. The gaping wound on Gianna’s neck, Jason passed out on my couch from his initial testing, and the empty holes where memory should have been. I let her see it all before I slammed the walls down around my mind, shutting her out.
“Eric, dearling,” she said.
I turned away from her, focusing instead on Dev, who had pulled my dick out of his mouth. I stroked his hair, gave him a tender smile. “It’s time,” I said, and helped him rise to greet Elizabet.
I had always taken a somewhat passive role in our play. Tonight, I couldn’t handle sitting back and letting Devin direct me. As soon as we were on the bed, I rolled Elizabet onto her stomach and entered her pussy in one smooth shove, and felt not a damn thing on the inside, not desire, not passion, just my dick engulfed by her wet heat. The wall that kept me from release loomed large in front of me, a frustrating, stubborn obstacle that heaped fuel on the flames of my anger.
I nudged Elizabet’s hair out of the way and sank my fangs into her pulse. Her gasp was muffled by the bedspread as her fists clenched the silky material. I fucked her hard, pounding into her while I fed from her throat. Devin settled behind me, straddling our legs. He stroked a finger into my anus, added a second when I didn’t protest, and let the motion of my hips pull him in deep.
And still, there was nothing but me and that damn plateau. My erection ached as I plunged in and out of Elizabet’s hot little pussy and Devin’s fingers found the sweet spot in my ass. I was on the brink, wanted to come, needed to spurt my seed into her, and couldn’t.
Goddamn it all.
I took more of Elizabet’s blood than I should have. Not enough to harm her, but enough to feed the burning need I had to lash out at her. When I was done, I said, “Lift your head,” and waited until she raised herself onto her forearms before giving her my wrist. I opened a slit in the steel wrapped around my mind, enough to connect with her, enough to help her find her own release.
I was pissed at her, yes, but not so cruel that I’d withhold that from her, not when my own body continued to punish me night after endless night.
I gave her what I could, felt the need edge over into pain as her body throbbed around mine and she cried out, and then I pulled out, unable to bear the futile effort any longer. I pushed Dev’s hand away and crawled away from them. Elizabet curled into a ball on the bed, covering her face with her hands. A sudden sorrow swept over me. It took me a minute to figure out that it was coming from her, travelling through the bond between us, and that she was crying, her soft sobs barely audible through the barrier of her hands.
“What did you do?” Devin said in a low voice. He curled up facing her, pulled her into his arms. His gaze dropped to my erection. “How could you hold back on her?”
The anger unfurled in me so quickly I could barely contain it. He was blaming me for this, when I hadn’t been able to come in a month from the things the two of them and Marco had done to me? Yeah, I’d been a voluntary participant, but they’d gone way too far and this was the goddamn result.
“Fuck you, Devin. Fuck you and her both. I gave her what she wanted, my blood and my dick. That goddamned contract doesn’t say diddly about me having to come.”
He hissed in a breath as his amber eyes went hot. “You’re a fucking idiot. She loves you.”
“Yeah?” I picked up a pillow, the first thing my hand found, and flung it against the headboard, where it hit with an unsatisfying thump. “Is that in the contract, too, or did I miss that part? Let me guess. It’s right next to ‘punish Eric unmercifully and ruin his whole goddamn life.’”
Devin’s voice went as flat as his stare. “Don’t blame her for the mess you made.”
“The mess I made.” I laughed, a harsh discordant noise that f
ell between us like shards of ice. “Jesus, Dev. I know it was me wrecking my life that night, but I’d never have done any of that if y’all hadn’t pushed me past my limits.”
“No.” Elizabet’s soft voice cut through my anger, softening it and forestalling Devin’s reply. “Eric is correct, my pet. It was my duty to end the punishment before he broke. I failed to protect him and thus am to blame for the…problems he faces. If he now wishes to break our contract, I shall hold him harmless.”
“Elizabet…”
It was all I could get out around the misery in my gut. She kissed Devin tenderly before climbing over him, sliding off the bed, and wrapping her dress around herself.
She left without looking back.
I rubbed my hands over my face, clenched my hair into fists. Jesus. What a mess. A stupid, unnecessary mess that was entirely my fault from beginning to end.
Devin sat up and speared me with a look so full of disgust it left me helpless, and then he padded after Elizabet, not bothering to pull on clothes before he walked into the hallway.
Desire throbbed through me in spite of the misery, made worse by the month-long lack of release and the spells enchanting every inch of the walls in the Red Room. I stumbled wearily from the bed and gathered mine and Devin’s clothes together. He’d come back to his room when he was finished taking care of Elizabet. Maybe by then I could find a way to tell him that I hadn’t held back on purpose. I just couldn’t come.
Chapter Two
I showered and went to bed to wait for Dev, and fell asleep with the bedside lamp on halfway through what should’ve been a fascinating discussion of quantum gravity.
Yeah, I love physics, but let’s face it. Textbooks are boring.
I don’t know how long I slept before he woke me by snapping off the light and crawling into bed behind me. My textbook was gone. Maybe he’d moved it, but my brain was so foggy from sleep, I didn’t care. I rolled over, saw his back, and rubbed my gritty eyes.
Devin never slept with his back to me. Never. He always held me after we, well, did the dirty with Elizabet. It was one of the few things I remembered from the month before, Devin holding me. I’d woken up after that horrible night in his arms.
Dammit, I missed that.
I curled around him, wrapped an arm around his waist, buried my face in his neck. His skin smelled like the woodsy soap he used, clean and crisp and fresh. I did an automatic check of his blood level, a new mental trick thanks to my brush with outright vampirism, and scowled.
Devin the Boy Scout had tried to give Elizabet both his share of blood and mine.
“Here.” I lifted my wrist to his mouth. His breath blew gently across the tender flesh and my breath grew short. God, I loved that, loved the way my heart pounded and my breath caught and my dick went hard the moment he touched me, though I’d die before I’d admit it.
He half turned toward me, his eyes a soft glow in the darkened room. “I’m ok.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “Come on. I’ve got plenty to spare.”
His gaze darted from my wrist to my neck, so I rolled my head aside and made room for him, holding him close while he fed. Like most pets, he only used his fangs to puncture the skin deep enough to draw blood, then sucked to take what he needed. His mouth made slow pulls on my throat, his tongue laved my skin, and his touch shot heat straight through me. My dick grew harder and harder until I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed him, wanted him in me in the worst way.
I tightened my grip on him and rolled onto my back. He settled between my thighs, his hips moving in time with his mouth as his erection slid between us.
“Lube,” I whispered, begging him to fuck me in the only way I could.
“Mmmf.”
He reached out and patted around until he found it laying on top of his nightstand, then plopped it into my hand. I squirted a couple of dots out onto my fingers and reached between us, rubbing the gel on the head of his dick, stealing a stroke or two to please him. A moan rolled out of his chest and hummed against my throat, and my skin tingled and tightened. I lifted my knees, guided him to my ass, and hissed out a slow breath as he pushed into me, stretching my anus painfully.
“Not so hard, Dev,” I said. “It’s been a while.”
He eased back, pushed in again, then rocked back and forth until he was buried deep, waiting between each thrust while my body grew accustomed to him. His mouth made a final draw on my throat before his tongue swirled around the puncture marks he’d made. He braced himself above me and caught my gaze with his. “How long is a while?”
I hesitated, hissed in another breath as pain turned to pleasure and his slow, gentle strokes began to fill the secret craving for his touch. “That night.”
“That night, as in the last time we were here?” At my reluctant nod, he stopped in mid-stroke. “You haven’t had sex in a month? Jesus, Eric. How did you stand it?”
“Gianna’s scared of me, Jason’s got basketball, you’ve been busy with Cass.” I wiggled beneath him, clamped the muscles of my ass down on his dick, a silent plea for him to fuck me. “I’ve been taking a lot of showers.”
No need to tell him they were cold showers, meant to cool off a body that refused to orgasm.
On the other hand, not telling Dev what was going on hadn’t turned out so well earlier.
“Look, man, it doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “I can’t come.”
“You can’t…” He swallowed hard and closed his eyes when my muscles tightened around him. “Stop doing that for a minute.”
I relaxed the inner muscles of my ass. “Yeah, sorry. I want you to come.”
“Much obliged,” he said drolly, and I felt the echo of his amusement pressing against my mind, along with a raging need to fuck me so hard I lost track of everything but him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Ha, well. It’s kinda embarrassing.”
He cupped my jaw, pressed a fleeting kiss to my mouth. “It’s a problem, though. You should’ve told me so I could help you fix it.”
I didn’t know what he could do that I hadn’t tried other than let me fuck him. He must’ve read it in my expression or maybe pulled it from my mind because he laughed.
“Anytime you want to fuck, let me know. God, you feel so good.” His hips moved against mine, pistoning his erection into and out of my ass in a slow slide of flesh clinging to flesh. “Sorry. I’ve waited so long for you, I can’t seem to help myself.”
“It’s ok.” I skimmed my hands down his back, deliberately being rough, and grabbed his ass, digging my fingers into it. “We can talk about this later.”
“You know it’s not because I don’t care. You know that, right?”
I breathed out a laugh and slipped a single finger into his anus, stroking in and out of the tight hole. “If you cared any harder, I don’t think I could handle it.”
“I’m so…” He shoved into me with a hard thrust that took my breath. “You’re my… So good…”
“I know,” I murmured, and pulled his head down to capture his mouth, nibbling on his lips while he fucked me, reveling in the soft noises he made in the back of his throat and the way his breath caught with need. I opened my mind to him, left myself defenseless, and hitched onto his pleasure, feeding off the intensity of our bond and riding it high, higher than I’d been in a long time. He pushed me there with every touch, with every thrust. With every beat of his mind against mine and every muted cry of love, I went with him, right to the top of his peak, and stayed there while he shuddered and gasped and spilled into me.
My albatross, the plateau of desire, went on and on and on. Sweat broke out on my skin and flames licked across my dick, spreading quickly until they consumed me, burning away the good and light. I went under, pulled into the darkly familiar recess in my mind, and panicked. Not again. Not that, please God. I shoved against Dev, pushing him away, and scuttled to the far side of the bed as madness licked at me, taking a chunk of my sanity with each taste. I curled into a ball
trying to contain it, and screamed when Devin’s arms came around me, struggling to break free of his hold.
“Don’t want to hurt you,” I said in a voice so harsh and rushed I barely recognized it as my own. My mind dimmed, hurtling toward the void that called with a cold, steely certainty, pushed there by his love, pushed there by the pain. I trembled, clutched at the arms around me, and melded with a sucking pop into the laughing evil in my head. It was gone, all gone, all the people, all the threads, gone, gone, gone. I was alone, me, the master, the one in control, not the pet. Where were my pets, my lovely pets who had served me so well before?
“Eric.” A man was behind me, a man whose love resonated from him like a perfect chord. It hung in the air between us, smothering me with its beauty, its pureness, its light. “Come back to me, Eric.”
I struggled to free myself from it, struggled to find something, something I’d lost, someone who loved me, more than one heart. Take him, the cold one said, take your pet and relieve yourself, and I recoiled from it.
“Can’t hurt Dev. Can’t hurt him,” someone said. “Pain, pain, hurt them. Can’t hurt them.”
“Shh. You’re not hurting me,” the man said gently. “Come back, love. Come on. I need you here.”
I don’t know how long the madness held me in its grip. Honest to God, I lost track, but later, when I woke safe in Devin’s embrace, I remembered that and shivered from the chilling entity that had held me in its grip.
I tried to speak, cleared my throat when the sounds came out wrong, then tried again. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said. His hands shook ever so slightly as he smoothed back my hair. “One minute you were here, and the next, you were gone and something else was there.”
I shifted against him, grimaced at the sweat coating our bodies. “Something else?”
The Vampire's Pet (The Vampyr Book 1) Page 16