“This is all for me?” I asked, my tone filled with both wonder and awe.
Daisy didn’t answer me so I turned my head to her and found her watching me, a strange look on her face as she studied my expression. I felt myself blush and dropped my eyes from hers, suddenly self-conscious of my behaviour.
“Of course child, this is your room, do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.” I reluctantly turned away from the room and met her eyes again. “I can’t thank you enough for giving me this chance to work for you and to stay in such a beautiful room. I...I’ve never seen anything like it before.” I knew I was repeating myself but I simply felt so overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of everything the room had to offer.
“I find that hard to believe child. You would have had some pretty room for a little girl when you were younger, surely?” I could hear the question in her tone.
“I...my…my mother died when I was six and my father raised me from then but well…he…my father…he…he wasn’t so worried about pretty girl rooms…you know?” I gnawed on my bottom lip while my thoughts drifted back to my bedroom at home. A narrow single bed with inadequate bedding on it. Sheets that were rarely changed, only if my father agreed to give me fresh linen for it. A narrow window with a grill, that was there to keep me in and a bathroom which consisted of only a toilet and wash basin. There was no shower, I had to ask to use that and I’d only been given permission once or twice a week. The rest of the time, I’d made do with the wash basin. There was one cupboard in the room for my clothes but I didn’t have much anyway so that hadn’t mattered. The floor was lino, old, hard and cracking, the walls painted a dull sort of grey colour.
As I looked around the room that I would have while I looked after Daisy, I felt tears threatening at the back of my eyes. I didn’t cry, I’d trained myself not to cry. Crying was a weakness, a loss of control, and I had learned years ago that no tears, no emotion, equalled no fun for my abuser. I blinked rapidly to stop the tears from falling as I walked slowly around the room, my fingers trailing gently over everything, the bed, the table, the chest of drawers. It was unlike anything I could have imagined from its warmth, the sunlight streaming in through the huge window to the thick carpet, the paintings, a bathroom with a shower for me and a TV, this, this was heaven.
“I don’t know what to say Daisy, it’s so beautiful, thank you, thank you.” I smiled at her, my lips trembling and I bit into the bottom one to hide the tremor. “Now, what would you like me to do for you first? Do you have a schedule for me to follow? Please, I need you to give me instructions, a roster, whatever you have so I do everything exactly as you wish.”
She gave me an odd look before smiling warmly at me. “You just unpack your bags my dear and then when you’re ready you come out to the kitchen, and we’ll go through a bit of a routine but don’t go getting yourself all worked up about this, it’s not written in concrete, there’s no exchanging of blood as part of a pact or anything like that. I just want someone to assist me not be my slave and to be honest the company will be nice too, although I imagine a pretty young thing like yourself, you’ll be wanting to get out on weekend nights and go clubbing? Like the young ones do?”
I barely contained the shudder of revulsion that ripped through my body. God, I could think of nothing worse. Dancing, crowds, men? No thank you. “No, I don’t go to clubs, in fact I’ve never been to one before in my life.”
She snorted at me in surprise. “You’re serious girl? Never? Have your friends, boyfriends never taken you to a club to dance at all?”
“My…my…dad was very strict and he didn’t like me to go out much.” That was putting it mildly I thought to myself. He never let me go anywhere. “I didn’t have a lot of friends and I’ve never had a boyfriend. My father didn’t like me having anything to do with boys.” My mind drifted to the only man I’d had in my life, my father.
I dropped my eyes and as a result I never saw the frown that crossed Daisy’s face or the more searching look she gave me.
“Oh dear, so you had a very sheltered upbringing then? Well, I’m not complaining. From a selfish point of view, if you’re home instead of out partying, then I’m going to appreciate the company.”
She propped her crutches firmly under her arms and hobbled to the door. “I’ll leave you to unpack and when you’re ready, you come and see me and we’ll go through the things I need you to help me with.” She smiled at me before leaving the room, leaving me to stand in my beautiful room, hugging myself with the first real feeling of happiness I’d felt in more time than I could remember.
When my bags were all unpacked and I’d taken the time to wash my face and brush my hair until it lay smoothly over my shoulders, I hesitantly left the room and made my way through the house in search of Daisy.
I found her sitting on a recliner lounge chair, her plastered leg on the foot rest, sound asleep. I stared at her for a moment unsure what to do but reluctant to wake her. I looked around the room, noticing the beautiful paintings hanging on the wall, similar to the ones in the room I was staying in. She obviously liked paintings.
The room was beautiful too, the colours warm and the décor welcoming from the moss green lounge to the decorative things hanging around the room and the beautiful solid timber furniture.
I turned and made my way to the kitchen gasping when I saw all it had to offer. It wasn’t huge, but definitely bigger than anything I was used to with its black granite bench tops, timber cupboards and stainless steel fridge, stove and dishwasher. Still, looking at the dishes in the sink and surrounds, the remains of burned food stuck to the stove top, I could clearly see that Daisy had been struggling.
I started rinsing off the dishes and opened the dishwasher staring at it in confusion. I’d never used one but surely it couldn’t be that difficult? I loaded up everything that was lying around and hunted around in the cupboards until I found a box of things called power balls which announced boldly on the side of the box that they were going to stun and amaze me with the brilliant clean and shine they’d put on my dishes. Following the diagram on the box, I managed to work my way through what I needed to do with it and when another search of the cupboards revealed the instructions for the dishwasher, I quickly worked out what buttons I needed to push and turned it on.
With a smile of satisfaction at my achievement, I turned my attention to cleaning down the benches, washing the baked on food off the stove top and when the kitchen gleamed to my satisfaction, I looked over at Daisy to see if she was stirring.
She was still sound asleep and I hesitated, again unsure what to do with myself now. A glance at the clock revealed it was just gone 4pm so it wouldn’t be much longer before dinner time, well, dinner time at the time I was used to having to have it prepared by. I had no idea what time Daisy would want dinner.
I opened the fridge to see if there was anything there waiting to be cooked, but there was nothing. I rummaged around and found some ham, tomatoes and eggs, Daisy sure had plenty of eggs. I would wait until she woke and see if she would like an omelette for her dinner.
A scratching noise at the back of the house drew my attention, and I headed towards the long floor to ceiling windows at one end of an area off the living room, which looked like a family room or rumpus room I guess. There were sliding glass doors that led out to the backyard and I followed the sound until with a cry of delight, I found the source of the noise, a little dog scratching at the door to get inside.
When he saw me he gave a high pitched bark, but despite the noise, his tail was wagging so hard, his whole body swung from side to side. I opened the door, reaching down to pat him and after a tentative sniff of my fingers, he rushed forward, bouncing around me excitedly. I patted his wriggling little black and tan body, as he licked me wherever he could make contact with my skin and I laughed at his antics. He was so cute. I’d never been able to have a pet, my father wouldn’t allow it so to see that Daisy had a dog was just the icing
on the cake for me. This job was going to be everything I needed. Not only did it give me somewhere to live, but I had an employer who was really nice and kind. She had a beautiful home and had given me a room unlike anything I could ever have imagined. Then to top it all off, she had a cute little dog who appeared to think I was as great as I thought he was.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt myself relaxing, the tension easing in my shoulders. Maybe, just maybe I would be safe here. I could stay hidden from my father and hope that he would never find me. I would need to be careful and I hoped that he never found out that Debbie had had a major hand in helping me or her life would become hell.
I smiled down at the little dog and lifted him into my arms, cradling him close to me as he licked my face.
I heard a chuckle behind me and turned to see Daisy watching us. “Well, I see you’ve met Milo.” She said, giving me that warm smile of hers.
Chapter Two
Lucian
“Fuck I’m so damn bored.” Lucian sighed as he threw himself down on the lounge, his eyes shifting to Damien who too was looking about as enthusiastic as he was over their evening so far.
“Oh for fuck sakes, take yourselves out to a club or something and stop with the childish bleating you two.” Francesca grumbled at them. “I’m sure you’ll find one or two women eager to share their bodies and their blood with you and if they aren’t, just bend their minds until they’re happy to share.”
“What is wrong with my children this evening.” They all turned as Fabian, their sire stepped into the room, his little witch by his side, the glow of recent sexual gratification still showing in her eyes.
Lucian rose to his feet, nodding to Fabian and Sirene as he left the room. The truth was he wasn’t just bored, he was frustrated. A beautiful young woman was staying in the house over the road with their old neighbour. The old lady had broken her leg apparently and it appeared that the young girl was there to help her around the house.
The first night he’d seen her, he had instantly become hard, his cock straining against the black jeans he wore and he knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he bedded her.
Each night for the last week he’d gone out waiting for a glimpse of her as she seemed to pick the evenings to take the old lady’s dog for a walk. Lucian so badly wanted to go up to her, but something about her held him back. There was a fragility, a nervousness, an almost timid demeanour about her, and although ‘me see, me take’ was his usual method of dealing with things, for the first time he found himself reluctant to force his presence on her and certainly at this stage he didn’t want to try and mind control her.
No, for now he would just suffer the agony of wanting her, desperate to go to her but determined to restrain himself from doing just that. If it meant a serious case of blue balls while he waited for the right opportunity to approach her he would settle for blue balls. Well, the prospect of blue balls certainly didn’t excite him and the ache he’d carried for a few days already in his dick and balls told him he wasn’t too far off a pretty decent case of it anyway.
Impatient with his thoughts, frustrated with his family but most of all, frustrated with the need he had for the waif across the road, he stormed out of the house and almost skidded to a halt when at that exact same moment, she stepped out of the old lady’s house with that tiny, oversized rat they called a dog on a lead by her feet.
He ducked into the shadows and watched her bend to pat the rat, hearing the soft tones of her almost musical voice as she spoke to it before straightening and walking up the driveway towards the road.
She paused at the top for a moment and almost appeared to look straight at him but he knew she’d never be able to see him in the dim lighting. Finally she turned and started to walk down the road the little dog trotting happily along by her side and Lucian almost envied the dog for being able to be that close to her.
He waited until she’d disappeared around the corner before heading down the street himself determined that tonight he was going to speak to her.
Using the other houses to conceal his presence, he rushed down the street until he was well ahead of her and crossed to her side of the road before settling down to a more sedate pace as he tried to give the illusion that he just happened to be out walking too.
Her reaction when she first saw him took him by surprise. She froze momentarily before appearing to almost shrink before his eyes. Her eyes widened and he could see the fear in them, he could smell her fear. The rat at her feet decided it didn’t like the look of him and began to yap, in some annoying high pitched bark. He glared at it which was enough to silence the damned thing for now, and again he raised his eyes to the timid woman before him.
“Are you alright?” He asked her but she didn’t answer him, she just stood, frozen. Fuck she was literally rigid with fear? What the hell was wrong with her?
He stepped closer and stopped when she seemed to shrink back from him even more. Her reaction wasn’t something he was familiar with and it took him by surprise. Women generally fell all over themselves to be with him, just one of the perks of being vampire. This girl’s reaction was not quite what he’d expected. Ok, he could see from observing her over the week that she was shy, nervous, not exactly a social butterfly, but one look from him and the girl was nearly catatonic.
Slowly he approached her again until he was right in front of her, and could see the tremors running through her body. He reached out and hooked a finger under her chin, raising her face to his and his stomach clenched painfully when he saw what he could only describe as sheer terror in her eyes. God, what amazing eyes she had. They were big and round and startlingly blue; a beautiful shade of baby blue, blue as the sky on a brilliant summer’s day, they were stunning.
“What’s your name?” He asked her softly and he saw her swallow, watching the movement of her throat and the pulse in her neck leaping wildly. Why was she so scared? “Please, I won’t hurt you. I simply want to know your name. I’ve seen you coming out to walk this dog each evening. My name is Lucian Andreas, I live across the road from where you are staying. You’re living with Mrs Appleby aren’t you?”
He waited, watching her to see if anything he was saying was reaching her. Finally, finally her eyes shifted marginally until they almost met his, almost. “A..Arissa. My name is Arissa.” She said so softly, it was a mere whisper and her lips, those luscious full lips of hers barely moved as that beautiful name passed by them. She had such perfect lips, plump and with that naturally pouty look that made him long to lean forward and kiss her.
“Arissa.” He tried the name out for himself, before releasing her chin. He desperately wanted to spend more time with her, simply staring at her, but he suspected he’d just about tested her limit of endurance so far, so he stepped back. This was so unlike him to walk away but there was something about her that tugged at him on an emotional level unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Of course he still wanted her, the hard ridge of his cock straining against the fabric of his jeans proved that. Fortunately the dark hid his body’s reaction to her since he felt certain she would have been screaming rape if she’d seen he was hard for her. Well, scream or pass out cold at his feet. Either reaction was possible.
“Good bye Arissa.” He said softly and stepped back from her, but then a powerful desire struck, a need to taste her, so strong, he couldn’t ignore it. Softly he called her name, watching as her eyes met his and before she could look away, he locked on her, bending her mind to his control. When he saw her expression go blank, almost serene, he stepped up to her again, bending forward until his lips touched hers. God they were so soft and he wanted more. He kissed her, teasing, nibbling at her, tracing his tongue along her full bottom lip that drove him crazy, before slipping inside to taste the sweetness of her mouth.
He groaned softly, his hands shifting to her hips where he pulled her into him, curving her body against his. She was so thin, so fragile, like the finest bone china and he worried that he
might accidentally snap her in two.
For a few moments he indulged his fantasies, savouring the feel of her soft warm body against his, his cock pressing insistently into her stomach and he even allowed himself to grind into her before reluctantly releasing her again.
It would be so easy to take advantage, but he couldn’t, not yet at least. Despite the urgent demands of his body, he had to practice something he wasn’t accustomed to, restraint. He didn’t know why he was acting so restrained with her, but something about Arissa brought out a strong desire to protect her and to tread carefully with her. It was totally against his natural urges, his animalistic needs that would normally have him tearing the clothes from her body and fucking her.
So no one was more surprised when he stepped back, staring one last time into her face made calm and relaxed by his control over her. With a snap of his fingers, he watched her come round again, the wariness settle in her eyes as she stared at him.
“Good bye Arissa.” He said softly and without a backward glance at her, he headed towards home.
The walk back was agonising and he almost laughed at himself. All this shit for one woman? He was in pain and well on his way to a classic case of blue balls for one pale, skinny female? He was either losing his mind or getting soft in his old age. Was she worth this? An image of her beautiful face filled his head, the stunning blue eyes that had looked at him with such fear, and yet haunted at the same time. Something had happened to her, something had made her the way she was. He’d never seen such fear before, and he knew it was her fear that motivated him to take it slow with her. It was going to kill him not just getting in and fucking her as he longed for. He needed the release and he needed it now. He was vampire after all.
Passion Follows Pain (Passion Series Book 3) Page 2
