by Renee Rose
I have taken my time to make sure I am perfectly posed the way he has trained me to be. I am in enough trouble already, I don’t want to push him any further tonight. My hands are folded neatly over my head, my feet equally spaced, shoulder length apart, my butt pushed out just enough for it to be on display for him, and I am naked as the day I was born. There was a time when being naked, even in my own home, would be terrifying to me. Bentley has helped me overcome those insecurities, especially with him.
“Good girl, Butterfly.”
The warmth of his breath is on my neck. His big hand comes up, wrapping itself in my hair, pulling my head back. His lips come down, claiming mine. I moan into his mouth, opening to him for the taking. It has been a month since I last saw him. He is intoxicating. I can’t get enough.
More. Please.
“My naughty girl has some payment due before she is allowed a drop of pleasure.” The kiss is broken, he releases my hair. My cry of distress fills the otherwise silent room as I turn towards him, a slight pout on my lips.
“Tsk, tsk. Back in position, you know better.” A firm hand swats my naked rear. Whimpering lightly, I obey.
The clock on the wall ticks loudly in my ears, and I wonder how long he is going to stand there, watching me, saying nothing. Has he moved? Is he still within arm’s reach?
“Come here, Butterfly.”
He’s sitting in the tall-backed chair that he moved to the middle of the room. How? When? It is as if he is magic, the way he is always moving quickly and silently. Leaving the corner, I approach him, eyes down, until I am a few inches from him before gracefully kneeling at his feet. Leaning back on my knees, I rest my hands on my inner thighs, palms facing outward, presenting myself to him. I stare at the carpet, waiting for him to address me.
“Good girl. Look at me now.” He waits for me to look up before he continues. “What rules did you break today, Butterfly?”
“I didn’t text you back within fifteen minutes of you texting me, Sir.”
“And?”
“And I called you by your first name, Sir.”
“When are you permitted to call me Bentley?”
“When we are in public or at official work events, Sir.”
“Do you have a good reason for ignoring my texts, Butterfly?”
Looking at my hands, I think about my response for a second. He is a reasonable dominant. He will be understanding. If I had been in a meeting or incapable of answering for any number of acceptable reasons, he wouldn’t punish me for it. I don’t have an acceptable reason. I wasn’t in a meeting, I simply hadn’t picked up the phone. I had chosen to ignore the text messages. It is not a good idea to lie to him. He has a weird sixth sense, it is almost as if he can read my mind—he knows, he always just somehow knows when I am not telling him the entire truth. It can be infuriating, I never get away with anything.
Isn’t that what you always wanted?
Oh. Shut. Up.
I really hate my inner voice some days.
“Look at me and answer.”
“No, Sir. I did not have a good reason to ignore your texts.”
“Thank you for telling the truth, Butterfly. It is always better on you when you do. Okay then, let’s get this over with. Neither offense is particularly naughty. I believe a hand spanking will do. A quick reminder of who you belong to, whose rules you follow, and what I expect out of you. Are you ready?”
“Yes, Sir.” Am I ever truly ready to be spanked by him for punishment? Not really. But boy, do I love the aftermath.
“Come here then, girl. Over my knee.”
I readily obey. It wasn’t that long ago that I wouldn’t have been quite as quick to scamper up and over to him; I would have been too nervous, too skittish. But not now. We’ve spent the last year together, learning each other. He has trained me exactly how he wants me to behave and shown me how little patience he has for games. Stalling, to him, is very much a game.
I lower myself over his thick, strong thighs. He shifts under me, lifting his left leg.
“I thought I had trained you out of these bad behaviors, Butterfly. These types of things shouldn’t be occurring this far into our relationship. If you need a reminder, I will be happy to give you one.”
With that, he raises his hand and brings it down hard on my ass, beginning the task of spanking me. He brings his palm down again and again, fast and hard. There is no doubt that this is a corrective measure, not an erotic one. My dominant is speaking, and my ass is doing the listening.
This spanking hurts. His hand is moving quickly and with fervor. I take deep breaths in and out, accepting the punishment I’ve earned, trying hard not to cry out as the pain spreads. Over and over again, his hand falls, the fire spreading until I am burning from it. His aim moves lower, to the tops of my thighs.
“Ow! I’m sorry. I won’t do it again!” I finally cry out, the sharpness of these swats bringing about a special kind of hurt.
“What do you do when I text you?”
I hear the words, each one accompanied by a swat to my sit-spot. I try not to wiggle, as I will my hands to stay in place. I won’t throw them back. I won’t. I know how much that displeases him. I will keep my hands on the floor at his feet.
“Read it and promptly reply back, Sir,” I answer quickly.
“And if you are going to be busy and can’t look at your phone for a while?” The swats continue, it is hard to concentrate on the question with the pain blazing in my backside.
Focus. Focus.
“I text you beforehand to let you know, or as soon as I can after I am done. I am sorry, Sir! Please! It hurts.”
“It is supposed to hurt, that is what makes it a deterrent.” Another volley of hard swats land then, covering the fullness of my butt. I kick my feet back, I can’t help it, but my hands stay put, grasping the chair legs for dear life. I am proud of myself.
“That offense is taken care of. A count of seven now with the paddle. One for each letter of Bentley.”
“No! Please! Not the paddle!” I whimper in fear. I hate the paddle, I hate the feeling of wood. Cold, hard and unbending. Why can’t he use his belt?
“It wouldn’t be a punishment if I used something you liked.” His voice is stern. Did he just read my mind?
“Count these out, Butterfly.”
The crack of the paddle falls quickly. The first blow lands, taking my breath with it. “One Sir.” The next two come in quick succession. I am grateful for the speed, not having time to suffer unduly. Almost as soon as the thought comes, he slows down to a torturously crawling speed, dragging out the pain with each additional swat.
“Who am I to you?”
“My dominant.” The words fall from my lips easily. He is my dom. That, and so much more. The next swat lands, taking the breath from my lungs. God, it hurts.
“Count, Butterfly.” He is patient with his reminder, not adding another stroke, not starting over. He waits for me to catch my breath and squeak out the next number.
“Five, Sir.”
“Your dominant. What does that mean to you?” The paddle rises and falls again, the swat lands so heavily, it pushes me forward. I squeal in pain.
“Six, Sir.” I remember to count this time. I catch my breath before answering. What does that mean to me? “It means everything.”
The paddle falls again. The hardest swat yet, right where the skin of my butt and thighs meet. I barely recognize the animalistic cry that comes forth from my lips.
“Seven, Sir!” I cry out before collapsing over his thighs, spent.
“What does everything mean, Butterfly?” He continues to talk as he rubs my back gently.
“It means, everything.” I stress the word. I am sure that I am making no sense to him, but it makes all the sense to me: he is my world.
“What a beautiful red ass you have, Butterfly. There are some purple splotches rising up, here and here.” He pokes each corresponding spot with his fingertip. He grabs my ass and squeezes, and I squirm,
moaning deep in my throat. My pussy clenches with need. What a strange body I have… crying out in pain, wiggling, trying to escape from him in one moment, and then seeking out his touch and craving more of it in the next. I wonder how much of my cream I’ve just left smeared over the black of his pants.
I hate having to punish her before starting our vacation week. Then again, maybe it is good, a reminder of who she belongs to and what I expect out of her. Where we are heading, I need her to listen to me, stay close. There are things going on in Tucson that have me worried. Erik is staying at my house for a while. He has tracked his wife’s murderers to the area. Add that to the vampires, shifters and wolves in the area, and you never know what could happen.
Keri is snoring softly in the front seat beside me. I should wake her, but sleeping is good for her, she does too little of that these days. I’ve never taken her on a trip before, I was worried about her finding out my secret. It is one thing letting her think I work the late-night shift as a world traveling diamantaire, which means sleeping during the day, it is another thing altogether to be on vacation with her. I have kept who I am a secret for a year, and it is time I opened up to her, especially if I am going to ask her to spend the rest of her life with me.
This trip is planned right down to the minute details. It is infuriating having to plan around another person, but for her, I will do it. It has been a long time since a woman has slowed my movements, complicated my plans. She is worth it. She stirs and looks at me, her beautiful brown eyes reminding me of a time long, long ago when another looked at me the same way. I can’t think of her right now. It wouldn’t be fair to Keri. I focus instead on the sweetheart next to me.
“Are you going to tell me where we are going, Sir?”
Her bottom lip flares out just the teeniest bit, a small pout. Adorable. I wonder if she knows she is doing it. “Don’t you want to be surprised?”
“No!” Her emphatic answer has me chuckling.
“If you must know then, we are headed to Arizona.” I can’t hide my smile as she bounces in her seat.
“Are you taking me there? To the club? The one you always talk about?”
“Club Toxic is on the agenda, Butterfly. Among other things. First stop will be my Arizona residence, for rest. You will get to meet Erik, he is staying there while he looks for his own place. This weekend is the All Hallows’ Eve celebrations, and there is a full schedule of fun ahead of us. But, the fun is all at night, so your schedule is going to be changed quite a bit. We will sleep during the day and play all night.”
“That is what you do already,” she says with a giggle.
“It is. I like to stay on my routine so when I return to work, it is easier.” Another lie. How easily they roll off my tongue now. There was a time, fifteen hundred years ago, when I was a moral, mortal man. The before. This is the after. I am not the man I was then. Hell, I am not a man at all. I am a vampire.
The drive to the private airport went quickly. Keri is easy to talk to, one of the traits of hers that I am drawn to. There is a quicker way to get there, but not with a human. I answered her questions the best I could, the lies piling up as we drove. How could I tell her that Erik and I have known each other from The Battle of Hastings in 1066? That we fought on opposite sides and, when we lay dying, a fucking Italian monk of all people, captured us and then had the two of us chained and turned into vampires before holding us hostage in a tower? That he kept us in a bird cage covered with blackout curtains like fucking pets? Nah. That doesn’t come up in polite company. Old army buddies—not buddies, brothers. That’s what Erik and I are. If she wants to fill in the missing pieces with assumptions, that is on her. Lying by omission… something I would tan her hide for but that I’ve become habitual at. I have a problem with the hypocrisy of it all. I have to convince myself it is being done for her safety. It is and… it isn’t.
Erik and I share the same mantra: Vampires have a bigger purpose in this world beyond our mere existence. Maybe, we were chosen to be the protectors of the weak in this world, including humans; to be the sheepdogs. There is no doubt in my mind that humans are the weaker species, perhaps even the weakest of all the species. They allow too much to color their survival, too many emotions to get in the way of even the basic of all self-preservations. It was emotion that caused the war that put us on the battlefield, emotion that had us fighting against each other, and that was how we ended up turned, together, in that God forsaken cage.
I shake my head. I won’t go there. Not tonight. Those millennium-old memories flash back as if they occurred yesterday, the nightmares fresh. I am haunted by the torture. Someday, we will both get justice for what he did to us. But not today. Not tomorrow or this week. This week is about Keri and me. Not about age-old wounds that continue to fester. I am glad that my brother will be present to share this happy memory with me.
Erik and I are two of the older vampires, just shy of a thousand years old. We have both been gifted with the ability to read minds, and our mind-bending powers are strong. Our similarities are many, we were sired by the same vampire, only seconds apart. Our differences are also vast. He is and will always be my brother, forged by a common enemy, and a battle bond.
I choose not to use my mind-bending powers on Keri. I want her to come to me willingly, giving me her submission from her free will and not forced. Forced submission is not submission at all. I had hundreds of years’ worth of one night stands before the loneliness hit. A deep loneliness.
My gut twists with anxiety and fear. She could reject me after I reveal myself to her. I don’t like the feeling of these emotions. Fear is an emotion I was glad to have mostly left behind with my mortality. It is not an emotion that plagues me often. Yet, here I am. Afraid of a wisp of a girl who might twist a knife in my heart and leave me aching for an eternity.
Every time I thought I was ready to tell Keri, I saw her face. Ann. My last love. The girl who thought I was a monster. Ann, the one who broke my heart with her pettiness and caused a considerable amount of trouble. The number of people’s minds I had to wipe after her… well, she was my hard-learned lesson on being cautious. That was why I had chosen one night stands, short term, no emotional connection experiences from then on out. I paid a pretty penny for my ethically sourced blood deliveries; Lucius had kindly shared his contact.
Instead of relationships, I chose to scene with regulars at the clubs I visited around the world. I had my favorite submissives at each one, but they knew my expectations. Nina at Club Toxic was my plaything for years. Out of all of my playmates, she was the only one who seemed to hang on to me, even though I’ve been more than clear with her. Not anymore. I am bringing my own submissive with me this time.
If everything goes well, Keri will be more than my submissive at the end of the week. I will have to check on the custom piece being designed for her—and several others—by my personal jeweler.
The plane touches down and a car is waiting for us. Keri doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t have to. I read her thoughts. Confusion fills her. She knows I am wealthy, but not how wealthy. She has never asked, and I’ve never volunteered my worth. Too many women throw themselves at my feet due to my net worth. Clueless humans, money doesn’t buy happiness or love. No matter how much they try to convince themselves otherwise.
It is time to take her home. I will finally tell Keri what I am and hopefully, if all goes well, this will be her Arizona home, too.
Chapter 2
The man has literally swept me off my feet. I can’t believe he has chartered a private plane to fly us to Arizona. I know he is wealthy but man, this is crazy. The black ominous vehicle we are now riding in is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
“I had it modeled after the Roadrunner,” he says.
“The Roadrunner? Like the bird?”
“No, Butterfly. Like the President’s mobile command and control vehicle. It’s just a heavily modified Chevy Suburban.”
“Wait, like the armored communicat
ion center?” As a journalist, I am familiar with it.
“One and the same.”
“It’s a good thing you don’t have that ugly SATCOM dome dish on top.”
“No, it does have its own Wi-Fi signal and communication devices, though, along with protective armor.”
“But…” Why does he need an armored vehicle?
“Working the type of job I have, I transport billions of dollars’ worth of jewelry at times.”
Oh. A work vehicle. That makes more sense. It’s just his armored work car, kind of like the armored vehicles that transport large amounts of money. Okay. There is a reasonable excuse for it. Otherwise, I am going to start believing my boyfriend is part of the mob or something.
“It’s beautiful here.” I’ve never been to Arizona before. It is definitely a different view then the lush green environment of southwest Washington State, where I am from.
“It is.”
“I can see why you have your vacation home in Arizona. Although, it makes you like, seventy. You know, a snow bird?” I laugh. My grandparents were snow birds until they died. They summered in Washington at the lake, and wintered in Florida.
“Haha.” He pauses for a moment. “We are almost home. See the gate up ahead?”
How could I miss the gate? Two large white brick columns stand on either side of the galvanized steel cantilever gate. It is the type of gate you would see outside a prison or a high-priced country club.
The camera on the top of the left column turns on, and the gate slides open at our approach. As we drive through, I get my first glimpse down the long, winding road at the house at the bottom.
