Ever After Series: Paranormal Romance Box Set (Steamy Vampire Romance)

by A. C. James

  “As most of you know, our Kindred Spirits of Darkness Gala is just around the corner. I’d like to thank Victoria, who has been instrumental in planning our annual events. She has booked some innovative entertainment for this year’s theme—Dark Romance. Details can be found on our website. If you haven’t purchased tickets already please do so, on the website. Proceeds from ticket sales are divided between two fantastic charities that we’ve chosen to sponsor this year. We look forward to having you all for an evening of dancing and draining.”

  Victoria sighed.

  The crowd went wild and Tessa left the stage, walking in our direction. She perched on a barstool beside me and looked over at Victoria, who toyed with an olive in the dirty martini sitting in front of her.

  “Victoria, did you take care of inventory?”

  “Of course. I already placed an order.”

  “Excellent.” She turned toward me with an amused smirk. “Hello, pet.”

  I summoned the courage to put my plan into action. “Tessa, could I talk to you in private?”

  “Of course dear. We’ll take this in my office.”

  Victoria narrowed her eyes at me as we left the bar. I followed Tessa onto the elevator. She didn’t wait until we reached her office to question me. “What do you want to discuss with me? I have a meeting in an hour, so cut to the chase.”

  “I know about Katarina. He never got over her, did he?”

  “No. And I doubt he ever will. So if you have any romantic inclinations I wouldn’t get your panties in a twist.”

  “He wants me. I know he does, but I want you to teach me how to be a submissive. I’ve been curious about exploring…”

  It was embarrassing talking to her about my sexual problems in an elevator. I really didn’t want to share that one of the only times anyone had been able to make me come was after a spanking and screwing on top of her remodeling efforts.

  Tessa stepped forward. Only inches separated us within the cramped confines of the elevator. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  I gulped. “Yes.”

  A twisted smile curved her mouth. “If nothing else it will be an amusing diversion.”

  The elevator stopped on the third floor. When we passed both Tessa’s office and her interrogation room I choked back my uncertainty. “Where are we going?”

  Tessa smirked at me over her shoulder. “Don’t ask questions. That’s your first lesson in submission, my pet. This is not your conventional BDSM club where the inexperienced are initiated into scenes. And I have a meeting. I don’t have time to figure out your threshold for pain and certainly won’t have time after. You get an intro at best and then you’re on your own.”

  I gulped.

  “Are we clear?”

  “Crystal.”

  Chapter 13

  Tessa stopped in the hallway in front of a red door. We entered a room unlike any I had ever imagined, but I’d seen it before in my vision. This is where Arie and Tessa were feeding on Isla. Sounds of opera music filled the space with a beautiful melody. I only wished I knew the language that drifted from the speakers overhead.

  The walls were brick like Arie’s loft apartment, except these walls were painted black. Its floors were a contrasting white marble that my boots squeaked across. The soft yellow lighting lent a romantic ambiance despite the starkness of a room that spoke of desires that had nothing to do with sappy sentiment.

  A St. Andrew’s cross with cuff restraints on each steel cross-arm was bolted to the far wall, while a mahogany table stood next to the cross. Its surface had all manner of equipment including riding crops, floggers with leather strands, a cat o’ nine tails, and a feather duster with red and black feathers. The smell of leather assaulted my senses, and I gulped at the sight of the exotic spread.

  Against the wall to the left stood a large armoire occupied with unseen delights. Next to it hung a large wooden paddle just like the one that hung over my elementary school principal’s desk. Although it had been out of use for some time when I’d entered kindergarten it still held the power to scare the shit out of students.

  Along a wall to the right I saw a large bed. It had an oval mirror inlayed in the center of a complex steel headboard with twisting black rungs. A maroon fitted sheet covered its expanse, and it was enclosed by sheer black canopy netting.

  In the center of the room sat a beautiful dark wooden queening stool with black padding. Thank God, I knew what all this stuff was from all the erotic romance novels I’d read; you could learn damned near anything from them these days. Tessa stopped in front of it and gestured for me to approach.

  “Take your clothes off.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re a slow learner, aren’t you? I said no questions. Do you want this or not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take your goddamn clothes off.”

  I dropped my army satchel on the floor and began peeling off my clothes layer by layer. I hesitated when I got down to my cotton underwear and bra.

  “All of them,” she said in a commanding tone.

  Standing naked except for the silver locket around my neck, I waited for further direction. She walked around me in a circle, looking me up and down appraisingly.

  “Not bad. Have a seat,” she said, pointing toward the queening stool.

  I sat obediently, feeling a bit apprehensive and uncharacteristically shy. “What are you going to do?”

  “Again with the questions. Think of it as fishing. You’re the lure and we’re going to tease Arie until he breaks. He’s fun to break.”

  “What? You think he’ll go for that?”

  “Why? Because he slips into chivalry out of habit? Holly, he’s a vampire and he’s still a man. He won’t be able to resist your blood.”

  I gulped. “My blood?”

  “A word of advice—don’t look him in the eye. Look at the ground, and by all means scream all you like.”

  “You mean don’t scream, right?”

  Tessa smiled and ran her tongue over the tips of her fangs. “No, scream as loud as you want to. He gets off on that. And no one will help you no matter how much you beg. We’re used to it around here.”

  “What else does he get off on?”

  “From the way he’s been acting these days…you.”

  “I want to believe that,” I said but I couldn’t help feeling insecure.

  “Enough. You wanted to know what it means to submit. It means no questions. No hesitation. You will do everything to the letter immediately.”

  Her words were making me think of how I submitted to Arie spanking me. It still surprised me a little. Both his request and that I obliged without much of an argument. But if I was being honest with myself I was curious from the moment I’d set foot in HFC and I wanted to receive his spanking as much as he wanted to give it. Thinking of his hand lingering on my ass before peppering it with sharp, stinging spanks was already making me wet.

  “I think I can do that.”

  “You will also address him as sir and speak only when spoken to.”

  This didn’t surprise me when I remembered Arie commanding me to address him that way in the apartment. “Okay, I get it.”

  She walked across the white marble to the armoire and opened the doors to reveal an assortment of bondage apparatus on shelves to one side. The other side was lined with drawers, and I wondered what they contained. Do you really want to know? Plucking something black from the shelf, she crossed the room and without words hooked black leather cuffs to both my wrists. They were hooked to another set of cuffs which she buckled to the arms of the queening stool. I didn’t have time for second thoughts. Tessa walked over to an intercom by the red door and pushed a button.

  “Have Arie meet me in my dungeon.”

  A broken reply came through the static on the intercom but I couldn’t make out the garbled response. Tessa crossed the room and came to a stop in front of the queening stool. She reclined in front of me with her ankles crossed neatl
y. Without preamble she extended her fangs and bit into my thigh. She did it so suddenly that I didn’t have time to protest. An involuntary gasp escaped my lips.

  Tessa raised her head and licked the blood that trickled from her lips as she acknowledged Arie’s entrance. I didn’t even hear him at the door. A slow smile formed on her lips. I could see her skin beneath the sheer white blouse she wore with a black leather corset skirt. When she stood to greet him her black spike heels clicked on the marble.

  “Arie, how good of you to join us.”

  Arie glanced at me but seemed to look through me, fury burning his eyes as he turned to Tessa. “What are you doing? Holly belongs to me.”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? Interviewing her—I do like to sample my employees and make sure they’re up to snuff.”

  “I told you before. Holly belongs to me. I thought we had an agreement,” Arie said through clenched teeth.

  “Join us. There’s plenty to go around. You’re too pale. We are only pale when we haven’t fed. You have not fed today,” Tessa said.

  I smiled, looking through my lashes toward the ground. An unruly strand of hair dangled over my shoulder, brushing my breast. The temptation of my smile seemed to be his undoing. His nostrils flared at the sweet copper smell of the blood that dripped down my thigh. He watched the single drop as it rolled down my leg, falling to the white marble below like an angel from the heavens. I could feel him holding back the thirst that burned in his veins.

  Arie crossed the open expanse, his movement so swift that it left an indistinct outline trailing behind him. He knelt in front of the queening stool as he lapped up the blood running down my leg. His tongue trailed from the tip of my toe up my calf, and to my thigh until he latched his mouth around the punctures.

  Desire comingled with his unquenchable thirst. I wouldn’t have even fantasized of this, let alone acted on it, without Tessa. Arie’s mouth closed around the punctures in a passionate haze as his hand trailed up my other thigh. Restrained to the queening stool, I’d never felt so alive. It had nothing to do with Arie being a vampire and everything to do with how I felt with the leather around my wrists, holding me in place. I felt his fingers brush across my satin folds before separating them and pushing two fingers inside of me.

  I let out a moan and glanced up.

  Tessa stood watching like a proctor would oversee an exam. She lowered herself to lounge beside her pupil. My lips parted, my head tilted sideways with knees splayed wide. Tessa looked once more at Arie, who still drank while slowly moving his fingers in and out of me as he stroked my clit with his thumb. Tessa caressed the inside of my other thigh. Thrusting her fangs into the soft awaiting flesh with fierceness, I didn’t have to fake the scream that released from my throat with primal force. It surprised me even though it shouldn’t have as I thought about Isla. What did surprise me was the level of arousal I felt with Arie’s fingers stroking my pussy as they both fed from me.

  But Arie released the punctures, inhaling like one would whiff the bouquet when decanting a fine wine. Tessa released my thigh; her smile at Arie dripped with my blood. Arie leaned toward her and kissed the blood from her mouth as he trailed his tongue across her lips. Still his fingers continued their torturous assault as he kissed Tessa. The way he kissed her wasn’t passionate, but as if he was simply cleaning my blood from her lips. And it didn’t make me jealous like the other women who’d lavished their attentions on him. I felt him push a third finger inside of me and groaned with need to feel his weight on top of my body, his cock thrusting inside of me like his fingers did now.

  Tessa moved away from him, licking her lips.

  “Leave us,” Arie said.

  Tessa rose from where she knelt next to him and winked at me as she exited the room. As she left us alone in her elaborate dungeon, Arie removed his fingers and I shivered when he withdrew his touch. The smell of the leather, wood, and hint of orange from the polish used to clean it were overridden in my mind by the faint metallic smell of my own blood. I turned, and Arie regarded me, his expression unreadable.

  I was grateful for the queening stool supporting my weight. If I wasn’t sitting I felt sure that I would faint. If not from the blood loss then from the erotic situation; one I’d fantasized a few times, but never quite like this. Part of me couldn’t believe I was doing this, while another part of me couldn’t wait to see what Arie would do to me. And if I was honest with myself I wanted it just as much as he did. I wanted him to make me come again and again.

  Without speaking Arie walked past me, and when I looked over my shoulder my eyes widened as he grabbed a red riding crop from the table by the cross. He walked back to stand in front of the stool, looking down at me. Admittedly, I wanted to feel the sting of the riding crop. Arie trailed it down the side of my neck, across my breast, and slid it over my nipple. I inhaled the soft smell of leather running over my skin. Its smell reminded me of Arie’s leather jacket. It reminded me of every good and pleasurable experience I’d ever had rolled into one. Somehow it amplified my imagination, breaking its boundaries.

  He pulled the riding crop down the skin of my taunt stomach and through the blood smeared across my inner thigh. The feel of leather running down my skin sent shivers through me. I could absorb all the sensations and observe but felt powerless to articulate my feelings or fears, or the unbelievable desire at the thought of the riding crop welting my skin. And knowing how he got off on fear, I didn’t think it would matter if I did. I trusted him and I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. Not without my consent, and the over-riding feeling that went beyond my fear is that I wanted this. With him looking down at me naked and strapped to the queening stool, I felt powerless to question how or why I wanted this. But I did. More than anything I’d ever wanted or needed. And I did need it. Spanking, or my supernatural bond to Arie, had kept the visions away before and I wanted to see if it would happen again.

  “You’re not afraid?” he asked.

  “Oh, but I am.”

  His mouth quirked in amusement and he held the riding crop in one hand and palmed the other end. “But you want me despite this.”

  “Despite it, because of it, and more,” I said, while my heart hammered against my chest.

  “I’m going to hurt you.”

  “Yes. I know. I want to do this with you, very much.”

  “Why?”

  I blinked while I considered my answer. “You want to know what I’m afraid of? What I’m really afraid of?”

  Arie arched an eyebrow, looking down at me while holding the riding crop that would bite into my skin just as he did.

  “I’m afraid that you’re the only one who will ever make me feel like this. That you’re the only one who can distract me from having visions during sex. That for the rest of my life I’ll only feel this way when I’m with you.” I paused. “You make me feel things I’ve never felt before. And that’s the thing of it, isn’t it? Even if you hurt me, you accept who I am. Just like I accept you.”

  Arie closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them, he looked almost apologetic. “You won’t get what you’re looking for out of this kind of arrangement.”

  “Arrangement?”

  “Submitting to me, pleasing me—I would like it very much to have you submit to me. I’ve tried to deny it, but the simple truth is that I want you regardless of the past.”

  I knew then that this wouldn’t be about love, whether I was falling for him or not. At least not this part—this moment. This would be about submitting, nothing more and nothing less. And that’s what I wanted. I realized that he needed this perhaps even more than I did. I didn’t care that he couldn’t love me just yet. It was a revelation that I accepted the baggage that came with his past because I felt more alive than I’d ever felt, every time he touched me.

  “Okay,” I said, looking down at my feet as Tessa had instructed.

  “Okay?”

  “Yes. I want this. I want you. I want you to fuck me.”

  He walked a
cross the room to the armoire and pulled a towel from the bottom shelf. When he returned he wiped the remaining blood from my legs. He looked down at me and then released my wrists from the cuff restraints that had restrained me to the chair.

  “Kneel.” He pointed to the floor in front of the queening stool.

  Obediently, I knelt at his feet.

  “Now hold out your hand.”

  I held out my hand and he grasped it, turning it palm up. So fast that I didn’t even see him move, he brought the riding crop down, swatting it across my palm. I was surprised it didn’t hurt—it only stung.

  “Does that hurt?”

  I shook my head and my mouth felt dry.

  “Stand up.”

  Remembering what Tessa said, I kept my eyes on the floor as I rose to my feet.

  “Good. Now walk over to the bed. Stand and spread your legs hip-width apart.”

  I obliged, feeling a little scared and excited at the same time. This was the single most erotic thing I’d ever experienced. Arie walked over to the armoire and removed a pair of handcuffs from its depths. He strode across the room, standing between me and the bed. He set the riding crop on its surface.

  “Hold out your hands in front of you. Side by side.”

  When I did, he secured the cuffs around my wrists. The steel felt cold, yet made my skin feel hot and prickly. Arie crouched in front of me like a jungle cat. He trailed the riding crop down my navel and then down even further, across my swollen clit. I quivered at the feel of leather brushing my most intimate area. Rising from the floor, he trailed the riding crop around my midriff as he circled around me. Without warning he flicked the riding crop just below my bottom and I felt the sting across my pussy. Its bite sent fire through every nerve ending and brought tingling shockwaves of pleasure. It doesn’t hurt. He circled around my front and whipped the riding crop across a nipple. Unexpectedly, I let out a moan.