Alphas: Supes and Badboys (8 Books in One)

by Myles, Eden

  “Is something wrong?” I asked nervously, momentarily forgetting the food on my plate.

  “What does red feel like, Daniel?” he asked suddenly. He glanced up at me, his dark, almost exotic eyes hovering somewhere nearer my chin than my eyes. “It makes me curious…red. So much symbolism attached to it.”

  When he had picked me up tonight, he’d given me a dozen red roses. No one had ever given me flowers before. They were perfectly beautiful, and I was still struggling with a way of ditching them before I got back to my dorm. It was going to break my heart, but I didn’t think there was any way I could smuggle them into my room without someone noticing. “The roses you gave me tonight were red.”

  “Yes, but what does it feel like?” he asked. “What is red?”

  I wiped my mouth with the cloth napkin in my lap and tried to think of a way of describing colors to a man born blind. There were candles burning on the table between us, so I captured one of his hands in mine and drew his fingertip to the edge of the flame, not touching, but close enough for him to feel the heat. “Red is hot.”

  “Ah.” He thought about that. “Tell me about white.”

  I took an ice cube from one of our water glasses and pressed it against his palm, making a small circle. “White is cold.”

  “Blue,” he said with some challenge, like a game we were playing.

  I took his hand and guided it to the same water glass and pressed two fingers into it. “Wet.”

  He sat thinking about that a long moment. Then he said, “What color are your eyes, Daniel?”

  “They’re blue.”

  “But your hair is red.”

  “It’s auburn, actually, a sort of dark brownish red, but yeah…basically red. How did you know?”

  “Because it feels warm when I touch it.” He moved his hand so he was touching the tips of his fingers softly against my face. “Like your skin.”

  “My skin is really white,” I complained. “Everyone at home gets a farmer’s tan after being in the sun for a week, but I just turn red like a lobster, peel, then go back to being white.” I laughed. I was rambling nervously, I realized. Even my laugh sounded nervous to me. He said we would be visiting the Dollhouse tonight. I had no idea what that meant, but he kept saying things that made my nerves jump under my skin.

  He cupped my face and brushed his thumb across my lips. “Did you make all your plans for the wedding?” he asked conversationally.

  “Yes, I booked my flight.”

  “What about your friend Sheri?”

  I didn’t want to talk about Sheri. My sister’s wedding, and my plans to be there with Sheri as my pseudo-date, seemed an endless source of interest to him, but not in a good way. It just made him solemn, and a little rough when we made love. “Sheri’s still deciding,” I told him truthfully.

  “I see.”

  I almost asked him if he wanted to go with me instead, then decided to change the subject. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. Mr. Karenina didn’t love me; he just employed me. I was his courtier. His rent boy. I had to keep that in mind. “Maybe, when I get back, I’ll have a tan.”

  “I’ll warm your skin tonight,” he said, his voice low, almost a growl. Again, my insides quivered and I felt my belly fill with butterflies. He was feeling both angry and lusty tonight, a dangerous combination.

  “What…whatever you have planned tonight…is it going to hurt?”

  Mr. Karenina smirked and his steady black eyes pinned me. “I’m going to do things to you tonight that you will never forget. You’re mine, Daniel, mine to play with, mine to use.”

  I reached for my wine and drank down a large gulp. “Are you angry with me?”

  Mr. Karenina returned his attention to his half-eaten plate. “I’m a gentleman, Daniel, and it’s a gentleman’s prerogative to train and discipline his courtier accordingly. In the Dollhouse, I can do whatever I want to you.”

  I sat in my seat, before my uneaten food, and just concentrated on not hyperventilating.

  “Do you trust me, Daniel?”

  “Yes,” I answered, hesitantly.

  “Trust me.”

  * * *

  Mr. Karenina’s driver took us out to a sprawling, palatial estate on Staten Island with an old stone colonial mansion set far back on a sweeping, tree-lined lawn. Mr. Karenina kept the windows cracked and told me to breathe deeply of the sweet, piney air, something you almost never experience in the inner city. “I haven’t been here in two years,” he said offhand as we ascended the long gravel drive.

  I assumed he meant since his wife Elizabeth had died two years ago. She’d been a courtesan, he’d told me. A member of the Dollhouse. She, like me, had been his to play with.

  We got out and I walked him up the long, steep stone path to the doors of the manse, taking our time because Mr. Karenina had refused to use his cane tonight. We passed through the giant oaken double doors and into an anteroom done in burnished mahogany and furnished like an Eighteenth Century drawing room. It was empty, but a great hum of activity emanated from the spacious Great Room adjacent. I gaped at the sight of the enormous space like a typical country mouse. The walls were a bright, arctic white but covered in framed grayscale photography, and there was a pristine checkerboard floor that made me feel like I’d stepped into an old black and white movie. At least a hundred people filled the room, some in groups or pairs, and some alone, drinking champagne being transported hither and yon by waiters and generally mingling. They were some of the most beautiful people I had ever seen. I saw men outfitted like Fred Astair in black tuxedoes and woman in evening gowns that shimmered like rain under the pale mood lighting. Most stopped to notice us as we stepped into the room.

  A small, debonair man immediately stepped forward to greet us. He reached out and took Mr. Karenina’s hand. “Alexei,” he said haltingly, the way you talk to someone who is terminally ill, “it’s been too long, my friend.”

  “Hello, Malcolm,” Mr. Karenina answered in his usual polite, reserved manner.

  Malcolm looked him up and down. He ignored me, but Mr. Karenina had already warned me about that—that a proper gentleman won’t acknowledge another men’s courtesan or courtier. I tried not to let it bother me too much. “You look well. But how are you, really?” He sounded concerned.

  “I’m fine,” Mr. Karenina answered in that clipped tone of voice. He sounded almost annoyed that Malcolm should ask. Then he changed the subject. “Has anything changed here?”

  “Nothing ever changes here!” Malcolm laughed. “Well, we had a row about a year ago. Wish you could have been here, old boy. Ian Sterling almost laid out one of the pundits.”

  “Oh dear,” Alexei answered with surprise. “We have pundits now? Things have changed. Tell me about the ball tonight.”

  Malcolm laughed and took Mr. Karenina by the arm. “When we heard you were returning to the Dollhouse, Alexei, we decided to make it a double debutante, one for you and one for your young friend here. He’s quite the handsome fellow, isn’t he?

  “Yes, he is,” Mr. Karenina agreed.

  “Won’t you let me show you around? Let me help you get the lay of the land, such as it is? It’s been too long and we’ve changed around some of the rooms.”

  “One moment, please.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Mr. Karenina turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder. He drew me close against him. “Do you remember what I told you, Daniel?” he asked.

  “I can’t talk to the gentlemen, but I can talk to the courtesans.”

  “That’s correct. Would you like to meet them?”

  “Sure,” I said, trying to sound happy about the fact that I was about to be tossed into a social pool with like a gazillion people completely out of my league. Worried? Not me. Much.

  “There’s my good boy.”

  After he left me to join Malcolm for the grand tour, I stood there, watching all the beautiful, high society people stalking about and wondered what I was doing here. I caught sn
atches of conversation—people discussing the health of their stock portfolios, or talking about movies and calling them films. I turned my attention on the elegant and rather explicit photography on the walls and tried not to be too obvious about my hickabilly status. I was just wondering about the possibility of slipping out a back door when a couple of exquisite women descended upon me and boldly hooked their arms through mine, making me feel like a sacrifice in a King Kong movie.

  “Oh, Malcolm told me about him. He’s just lovely!” the one woman with long brunette hair cooed.

  “He has beautiful eyes,” said one of the most beautiful black women I had ever seen as she grinned at me.

  They introduced themselves as Evelyn and Rachaela. I didn’t know how to respond as they dragged me along the floor to the wet bar where a tall, rangy blond man in a snug tuxedo was serving the girls’ drinks.

  “Ah, there’s our fresh meat,” said the tall man with a slightly lilting and vaguely sinister Cockney accent. He offered me a leering smile and a drink.

  “Don’t, Devon, you’ll scare him!” Evelyn said, hanging onto me as if I might bolt otherwise.

  “I don’t think he scares so easy. Do you scare easy, ginger?” the blond Englishman asked as I took the bubbly (but unfortunately very non-alcoholic) soda water from him.

  “No,” I said with more bravado than I felt. I might have gotten angry at his teasing, but he was pretty hot, and I thought maybe I’d seen him in a commercial or a magazine ad. I took a sip and started as the bubbles went up my nose. After I’d blinked the tears out of my eyes, I said, “I’m Daniel.”

  “He’s as cute as Devon,” Rachaela said, petting my forearm.

  “No,” Evelyn protested. “He’s cuter than Devon!”

  “That’s not even possible,” Devon sniffed with insult, and the two girls laughed good-naturedly.

  The girls and Devon were really nice, and we talked and learned more about one another over the next half hour. Rachaela was a publisher, in addition to being a courtesan, but Evelyn was a lot like me, just a college girl, though she was married to one of the most powerful men in New York. Eventually, though, Devon walked me a few paces away, toward a gorgeous white grand piano set off in one corner. He set his drink down atop it and said, “You belong to Alexei, don’t you?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I would say belong, exactly…”

  “Daniel,” he said patiently. “You’re his courtier. He is your gentleman?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you know about Alexei?”

  “Enough.”

  “Do you know about his wife dying?”

  “He told me.” I set my drink down as well. “Look, what are you saying, exactly?”

  Devon looked pensive. “Nothing, really. I’m just concerned about him, is all.”

  “Why?”

  “Daniel,” he said, and put a hand on my shoulder in a brotherly way. “I just want you to be careful with him. Elizabeth was a wonderful woman. He took her death very hard, and some believe he has never really recovered. He’s much more fragile than he seems…”

  “No, he’s strong,” I protested. “He’s much stronger than he looks, and he doesn’t like being treated like an invalid. Look…” But before I could argue further, I heard soft waltz music start up and the lights in the room dim a little.

  The groups of people began breaking up, and I watched the gentleman and their courtesans pairing up on the dance floor. A very tall gentleman with glasses took Evelyn into his arms, while another, blond gentleman with a cane embraced Rachaela. I watched the two girls follow the leads of their gentlemen across the dance floor, but I stayed by the piano, not sure what was happening or what I was supposed to do. A few moments later, Mr. Karenina found his way over to me, feeling along the edge of the piano, and said, “Daniel. Would you like to dance?”

  I watched the couples waltzing across the floor to the music, graceful and almost geometric, almost like they had been choreographed to move all the same way, and felt a spike of fear. I’d never been much good at the raves and mixers that Sheri always dragged me off to. I usually wound up wallflowering in a corner somewhere. And this…well, I was totally out of my element, whatever that was. “I’d rather not.”

  “Why is that?” He sounded disappointed.

  I turned to my gentleman and told the truth. “I don’t know how to ballroom dance.”

  “Let me show you, then. I suspect you’ll be an apt pupil.”

  “You can dance?”

  Mr. Karenina gave me a droll look. “I’m blind, Daniel, not crippled.”

  “Y-yeah, of course,” I said, and turned to take his hands.

  He led me out onto the dance floor amidst the other members of the Dollhouse. I stood there like a big knucklehead while he positioned my body correctly. He took my one hand in his and set his other hand on my waist. He told me to put my free hand on his shoulder. “Watch my feet,” he told me, his voice low and rumbling, and I looked down and tried to follow his steps with my own. It was much harder than it seemed, and as we began to move in and out of the shadows to the beat of the music, I noticed I was perpetually one step behind him—that is, when I didn’t accidently trample on his toes.

  “I’m not very good at this,” I admitted.

  “Like anything, it takes time, patience, and work, Daniel,” he said, sliding his hand down my back and guiding me along with just the touch of his hand. I liked the feeling of his warmth soaking through my clothes, and he moved so gracefully, like he’d been born dancing, whereas I felt like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, flopping artlessly all over the place.

  “Is the Dollhouse everything you expected?” he asked after some time.

  “The girls are really nice,” I admitted. “But I didn’t know it was a ballroom dancing club.”

  “It’s not a ballroom dancing club,” he chuckled, the intimate sound of his voice raising the little hairs along the back of my neck. “The board wanted to do something nice to welcome me back. It’s been two years.”

  “What does everyone do here, then?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “Shall I show you, Daniel?”

  “Please.”

  He stopped to orient himself in the room. He had an uncannily ability to do that, what I had come to think of as his personal echolocation. Satisfied he knew where we were, he waltzed me off the floor and toward the piano. We slowed as we approached it, and when we finally stopped, he pushed me up against the side of it, very aggressively, pressed his body against mine, and yanked my chin up to kiss me.

  It was a warm, wet kiss, and I always liked those, but I still squirmed uncomfortably. I’d never been very big on public displays of affection. Growing up, my mom and dad never so much as held hands in church, thinking that was too intimate a gesture. They certainly never kissed in public. But now Mr. Karenina cupped the back of my head to keep me in place while his teeth first nipped at my lips and then his tongue invaded my mouth. Our teeth clinked together in our haste and he moved his arms down my back to cradle my ass and hold me against him, against the growing erection in his trousers. He fucked his tongue into my mouth, and in seconds it was like we were trying to eat each other, to crawl into each other’s mouths.

  I hadn’t realized how long two weeks without him had felt until that moment.

  His hands traveled over the front of me, leaving great swaths of warmth in their wake. He attacked the buttons of my shirt under my blazer, but couldn’t work them fast enough for his liking, so he just ripped the shirt open, my buttons pinging all over the place. His hands moved over my exposed pecs, circled my nipples, and then squeezed my muscles until I groaned into his mouth. He splayed his hand possessively over my chest, over the soft, spare dark hair there.

  “You’re a very good student, Daniel,” he said, but I barely heard him as he moved his hands lower, over my abs, so all my muscles constricted under his touch. His fingers traced the soft hair above my belly button, then moved lower. I whimpered against his
mouth as his hands worked on my jeans, undoing them and peeling them and my briefs down over my hips. The sudden coolness of the room awakened me to what was happening and I started to close my legs, but he slid his knee between them, then shoved my jeans and briefs to my knees. He rubbed the coarseness of his trousers against my growing erection while his tongue traced the side of my jaw to my ear, slid briefly into the canal, and then moved downward to lick and kiss at the flitting pulse in the side of my neck.

  He breathed roughly against me, the coarseness of his cheek sending a delicious shiver over my oversensitive skin. He held me against the piano and dry humped me a few times before his hand slid between my legs to test the hardness of my cock. I gasped at his touch, at the way he seemed to weigh my balls in his hand. He squeezed them before tracing my crack to my ass and inserting a finger, my hips bucking compulsively against his invasion. As he touched and teased me, he lavished his attention on my nipples, taking them one at a time into his mouth and licking and biting them, tenting the oversensitive nubs until I grunted at the near-pain.

  He finally stopped finger fucking me and slid both hands around my bare hips and lifted me easily so I was sitting on the edge of the piano, looking down at him. He finished sliding my jeans, underwear and shoes off, then stood up to push my shirt and blazer off my shoulders so they fell in a pile atop the piano. Sitting there, naked and shivering on the edge of the piano, he looked at me in that way he had, that way that went beyond mere sight, and there was such raw emotion in his dead and useless eyes that for a moment my breath caught in my throat.

  I thought of the term the face of love, but then immediately dismissed it. It would be so easy to forget that this, too, was play. But play wasn’t real. This wasn’t real.

  “You are so fucking beautiful,” he said to me, running his fingers over my face and, briefly, into my mouth. I sucked on his fingers as his voice came low and gruff so I knew that only I could hear it. “You’re like some angel in the dark, Daniel.” He cupped my face and kissed me, and it was such a strangely bittersweet kiss. He sighed into my mouth, but the sound was closer to a desperate sob, and I thought about what Devon had said about Mr. Karenina being more fragile than he seemed.