by Ivy Nelson
Blood
A Diamond Doms Novel
Blood
A Diamond Doms Novel
Ivy Nelson
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Ivy Nelson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [email protected].
First edition January 2020
ASIN- B07YZVLVH4
www.ivynelsonbooks.com
A Note From The Author
Blood contains depictions of BDSM. This book is the authors interpretation of BDSM fantasies and is not intended to be an educational tool. BDSM is different for everyone and this is just one perspective. Everything in this book is fictitious and should be read as such. If you choose to participate in BDSM, please remember consent above all else and please do educate yourself with something that isn’t a work of fiction.
I hope you enjoy this creation.
Ivy Nelson
A Note From The Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter One
Why is it always chicken at these things? Holly Sutton stabbed at the lifeless, bland chicken breast sitting in the middle of a puddle of sauce. Touching the fork to the creamy liquid, she lifted it to her lips. Creamy Alfredo. Not terrible, but certainly not worth the two hundred dollars a plate the guests were paying. Of course, the food wasn’t really why people bought tickets.
Just then, her table illuminated, and she realized the audience was clapping as someone at the podium thanked her family for their charitable work. With practiced grace, she gave a polished smile and lifted one hand in a small wave. When the spotlight went down and the speaker moved on, her gaze moved to the dessert that was tantalizing her. At least that was usually good at these things. If it weren’t impolite to eat dessert before the rest of the table finished dinner, she would have pulled it closer and dug in. A glance at her wristwatch told her there were at least two more hours to endure and she got to do it all over again in three days.
The joys of being the face of the Sutton Foundation.
But it wasn’t joyous at all, and Holly was tired of doing it.
“Smile, Holly, there are cameras everywhere.” The insistent voice came from her left and belonged to her companion for the evening, Grant Sterling. Letting her lips drift upward, she turned to look at him.
“Sorry, Grant, just tired. It’s been a busy week.”
“It has, but you’re doing great.” He let a long finger trail down her cheek as he spoke. “The Sutton Foundation pulled in almost a million in donations just this week. It makes the family look really good.”
Holly scowled and turned away from his touch. “You mean it really helps the people of Africa?”
Grant sighed and shook his head at her. “Of course, that’s the most important thing. I’m just trying to let you know that you’re an important part of the Sutton brand. I know you worry about not doing anything meaningful with your life.”
Grant would never get it, but he was paid to make the Sutton family look good so she couldn’t really blame him for doing his job. But she was getting restless in her current role. It was a made-up job her father invented to keep her close and Grant was often her companion at Daddy’s insistence. Holly knew he was just keeping an eye on her.
“Is Daddy coming?” she asked, glancing at the empty chair to her right.
Grant shook his head. “Not tonight. Late flight in. But you might see him in the limo before we drop you off at the club.”
Holly groaned. “Do I have to go out tonight? It’s Saturday and the clubs will be insane. You know I don’t like crowds.”
Grant squeezed her shoulder. “Big donor and he’s only in town for a few days. While your dad is doing business with him over scotch at the house, you need to entertain his daughters. You know this is important.”
Holly hated night clubs. After a big fundraiser like the one they were at, she just wanted to go home and read a book. The last thing she wanted to do was go pretend she liked thirty-dollar cocktails and bad music. But she would do it because her daddy asked her to. There was little she wouldn’t do for him, especially after everything he’d been through.
The rest of the evening went by in a haze of smiles, handshakes, and a quarter million dollars’ worth of thank you’s. That’s how much the event pulled in.
“Miss Sutton.” Holly turned at the sound of a voice she loathed and forced a smile.
“Good evening, Mr. Wilson. Wonderful event wasn’t it?” Troy Wilson was the director of the Sutton Foundation and the bane of Holly’s existence. But daddy insisted she be nice to him. She wanted his job and knew she could do it better than he could, but nobody would give her the time of day anytime she brought it up.
“Thank you for being here, Miss Sutton. Next time though, I think you should avoid wearing so much blue. It really doesn’t look good this time of year.”
“Since when did you become a fashion expert, Troy?” Holly asked, not bothering to keep the annoyance from her tone.
“Now, now, Holly. You know what I mean. When a woman of your status shows up at a fundraiser this big, decked out in blue, people wonder who she’ll be voting for. We can’t have them thinking you’re voting for the wrong person, now can we?”
Holly felt her face redden and she clenched her fists. Who she voted for was nobody’s business.
Beside her, Grant slipped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed, hard. A subtle warning not to lose her temper. “Miss Sutton looks lovely as always, Mr. Wilson. I’m sure you can find something else to worry about. We raised a lot of money thanks to her efforts,” Grant said, as he started to turn Holly away from the older executive.
Troy humphed and walked away. Holly gave a small smile to Grant.
“Thanks. I don’t know why he has it out for me so bad.”
Grant frowned. “You haven’t exactly tried to hide the fact that you want his job, Holly.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not that it matters. Daddy will never let it happen.”
Grant steered her toward the door. “Speaking of Mr. Sutton, his limo just arrived. We should go.”
Outside the hotel, Holly gave a quick quote to a group of reporters and slid into the waiting limousine.
“Hey there, princess, I hear it was another successful night,” Nicholas Sutton said from the shadowed corner of the back seat.
Holly slid across the long bench and laid h
er head on his shoulder. “Hi Daddy. It went OK. I really wish you would fire Troy. He had the nerve to tell me to stop wearing blue.”
She felt the rumble as her dad’s chest rose and fell with laughter. “You know that’s not up to me. A board controls everything and I purposely stay away from it. We don’t want to be the next Trump or Clinton foundation. I need you to be the Sutton part of the Sutton Foundation. You can’t be that if you’re the one in charge. It doesn’t look good.”
Holly sat up and scowled at him. “You know you have the influence to make it happen. I want to run it, Daddy. It would be so much better if I were in charge.”
Nicholas reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sorry, princess. The answer is still no. But I’ll speak to Troy about his comments tonight if it makes you feel better.”
It didn’t, but Holly laid her had on his chest again. “Then let me go get a real job doing something far away from the Sutton name. I can’t handle being the pretty face another minute.”
She felt her father stiffen. “You know how I feel about that, Holly. It’s unnecessary. Join a social club. Do more volunteer work. You need more friends anyway.” It was the same conversation they had every few months. Nicholas Sutton was protective of his daughter and she didn’t blame him. After her mother—his wife of fifteen years—had been killed, Nicholas felt the need to keep Holly close.
Not wanting to make him tense, she dropped the subject and closed her eyes for the twenty-minute ride to another hotel where she would change clothes and pick up two young women for a night of drinking and dancing. As she was shedding the navy-blue cocktail dress in favor of a more appropriate night club outfit, she made a mental note to buy more of that shade just to piss Troy Wilson off.
The girls she was meeting, Trinity and Mary or something, were going to be another half hour before they were ready to leave, so she settled on a couch in their spacious hotel suite and scrolled through her phone to a familiar number. With a smile, she hit call and put the phone to her ear.
“Holly? It’s after eleven at night. Is everything OK?” A rich baritone voice answered.
“Everything is fine, Patrick. Does something have to be wrong for me to call my big brother?”
The man on the other end sighed. “No. Of course not, I always like hearing from you. It’s been too long since we’ve gotten together.”
“Are you in town? I’m being dragged to a night club by some of Daddy’s clients and I could use a friendly face.”
Patrick laughed. “Unfortunately, no. But I’ll let you know when I’m there next. We’ll have lunch or something.”
“You know you don’t just have to see me when you’re here on business. You could come just for a visit sometime.” But she knew he wouldn’t. Patrick Sutton hadn’t been home since he left for college over a decade ago. There had been some sort of falling out with their father, but she didn’t know the details. After getting snapped at a few times, she’d stopped asking.
“You know I don’t like that house, Holly. Did you just call to invite me out or is there something else on your mind?”
Holly sighed. “I’m just bored and feeling cooped up. Daddy won’t let me run the Sutton Foundation, and he doesn’t want me working a different job. I don’t know what the point of getting a college degree was if I’m not going to use it.”
“I don’t know. The press said you pulled in a quarter mil tonight. That sounds pretty impressive.”
“I just showed up at a fundraiser. That’s all I do and it’s nauseating. Are you sure you can’t give me a job at your company? I would move to San Francisco for that.”
“It’s not really my company, Holls. If David were back and running things I would consider asking, but I don’t want to take advantage of his trust in me by hiring family. If you send me a resume though I can probably find you something else.”
"I just don’t know if I could talk Daddy into letting me work anywhere else.”
Her brother snorted.
“You’re a grown-ass woman, Holly. You can move out anytime you want.’
“I don’t feel right leaving Daddy. You know that.”
She could tell from his tone that Patrick was getting frustrated with her. He felt like she was being codependent by staying at home all these years. Holly just thought she was being a good daughter.
“Dad will survive without you, sis. Come visit me soon. We’ll talk about jobs.”
The sounds in the background on Patrick’s end changed, and for a moment she heard loud, thumping music, and a voice said, “Are you coming inside, Sir?”
“Oh, God. You’re out. I’m so sorry. You should have said something.”
Patrick laughed and she thought she heard a woman squeal. “Don’t worry about it, sis. I’ve always got time for you. Come see me. I gotta get back inside. I love you.”
Holly set the phone aside. One of the bedroom doors opened and two women came out in a flurry of perfume, cleavage and too much make up.
Holly stood and offered her brightest smile. “Ready?”
• • •
Elijah Barrett leaned against the plush velvet couch of the private booth he sat in and surveyed the dancing crowd below him with a scowl. He would much rather be in Colorado at Club Solitaire, but instead he was here entertaining a client. It wasn’t something he did often, but sometimes the client was important enough that you humored them and went out clubbing like a twenty-two-year-old.
“Now there’s some eye candy,” the older man sitting in the booth with him said, nodding his head to a group of women entering the VIP area. Elijah let his gaze linger on the group. A lot of cleavage and bright colors. Not really his type. A woman in the back of the group caught his eye. She wore a black top and skinny jeans, classic night club outfit, but she seemed out of place. He watched amused as she settled into her own velvet lined booth and pulled out what looked like a tablet or an e-reader and ignored the waitress who was offering to pour them drinks from the bottle in the center of the table.
Her companions loudly tossed back shots and urged her to take one. As if put out, she hastily tipped back a shot of Grey Goose and went back to her screen. Her face was all angles and sharp cheekbones, and her dark brown hair flowed over her shoulders in a way that begged him to grab a fist full and turn her neck so he could shower her in kisses or bites. Would she be into letting him sink his teeth into her pale flesh?
An elbow nudging him stirred him out of his thoughts. “Looks like something caught your eye, Elijah,” the old man said.
Elijah just gave him a wink and lifted his glass of scotch.
“She seems a little too aloof for me, but I’ll take her friends, you can have her.”
Elijah gave the man a glare. “Do you always talk about women as if they’re cattle?”
“Oh, lighten up Barrett. Don’t act like we don’t know what you get up to in Colorado.”
Elijah shook his head. Colorado referred to the exclusive BDSM club known as Solitaire that Elijah helped found. It was a members-only venue, but there was a bit of press surrounding the opening several months ago, and the public had a lot of preconceived notions about kink and BDSM. Elijah didn’t see it as his job to educate people either, so he just downed his scotch and tried to steer the conversation a different direction. But the bookworm in a nightclub kept pulling his gaze in her direction. So much so that his client laughed. “Go talk to her. I’m going to see if I can pull her friends out onto the dance floor.”
Elijah smirked. The girl with the book was hardly his type. It was hard to imagine her stepping foot in a BDSM club, much less letting him strap her to a cross and whip her. But he wasn’t at Solitaire, he was at a nondescript night club in California. Might as well have some fun.
Snagging the bottle of scotch, he filled his glass halfway before sliding out of the booth. His client had already pulled the two younger women in the group off to dance. When he stood behind her, he took a minute to read the first paragraph on her screen. H
is smirk turned into a wicked grin, as he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “I can assure you, one night with me and you’ll never want to read this drivel again.”
He watched her jump like a scared rabbit before setting the tablet aside to glare up at him. The glare didn’t last long though and Elijah knew her attraction to him was instant. The way her breathing changed was obvious, even with all the sights and sounds around them. “Invading one’s privacy is quite rude,” she said after she recovered.
Elijah just winked and slid into the booth next to her. “You’re right. I apologize, but I haven’t been able to stop staring at you since you came in here, and I really want to bite your neck.” He leaned in close and let himself inhale her scent.
The girl spluttered but didn’t get up or try to pull away. A good sign.
“You seem rather sure of yourself,” she said as she leaned forward and poured vodka into her glass and topped it with the cranberry juice that sat next to it.
“I have to be to succeed in my world, gorgeous. What are you doing here if you’re just going to read trashy romance novels?”
She gave him a frown. “Calling someone else’s art trashy is a bit rude.” Elijah wanted to snort, but she seemed serious. Romance novels could hardly be called art, could they? Then again, he’d never read one, so he couldn’t say for sure.
“A fair point, well made, but that doesn’t answer my question. It seems there are better places to read than this god-awful place.”
“I’m entertaining the daughters of a client for my father. If it’s so god awful what are you doing here?”
He wanted to lean in and capture those lips with his and fist his hands in that hair of hers. “Something along the same lines,” he murmured as he felt his hand involuntarily raise and slide against her cheek.
A moan fluttered across her lips and for a brief second her eyes drifted shut before she pulled away and frowned.