by A. C. James
“What, here? Now?”
He laughed, grabbing my hand across the table. “We’ll grab a drink, assure everyone that you’re unalive and well, and then we’ll get out of here and do that again.” Arie nodded to a vampire cuffed to a steel chair with a woman riding his cock. Dinner and entertainment. “Except you’ll be the one in cuffs.”
My mouth went dry. He grabbed my hand, encircling and rubbing his thumb over my inner wrist. The adrenaline rush from feeding ratcheted my desire to feel cold hard metal around my wrists as Arie mimicked with his strong grip. I loved when he was in control. It was freakin’ sexy as hell, and it made my pussy clench.
“Well, if you think you can go another round,” I said.
“Do you doubt me?”
Oh, no. I shouldn’t have teased him. Determination reflected in his eyes. What to say?
“Your stamina is unreal. You’re like a machine.”
“Only with you. Are you certain that you can handle waiting until we get home?”
His thumb continued to trace circles on my wrist. With the way he kept looking at me, the only thing I was sure of was that I needed to feel him inside of me. I looked again at the woman riding the vampire cuffed to the chair; her hands were planted firmly on his shoulders for balance.
My clit throbbed as I imagined Arie’s well-defined pectorals pressed against my breasts. It felt hot, despite the winter air that the refurbished warehouse did little to keep out. Would anyone stop to watch us? Would they even care? Inexplicably the thought of being watched as Arie took me made my skin prickle. I wanted to know what it would feel like, but didn’t know if I had the guts to go through with it. He’d taken me in Tessa’s dungeon upstairs, but we’d never done anything out in the open.
I reached under the table and ran my hand up Arie’s thigh, cupping him through the taut denim. “I don’t know, Arie. I want to but I don’t. Take me home?”
Arie stared at me like he might take me right there. “You’re awfully bold, taunting me under the table. I don’t want to wait. I want to feel you wrapped around me now. Right now.”
I looked down at the table and pulled away from him but he grabbed my hand, wrapping it around his hard-on. Our eyes met, and I knew that I’d be sucked into whatever he had planned regardless of my conflicted feelings making me hot and anxious at the same time.
“Arie...”
His chest rose with his intake of breath as he urged me to squeeze his cock through his pants. He swelled beneath my grip. “You will do exactly as I say.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Come with me.”
Arie stood and grabbed my hand, leading me to the other side of the room, where there was a stage with a spiral staircase to one side and a floor-to-ceiling pole on the other. A few feet from the pole stood a large wooden chest. It reminded me of the cedar chests where linens are usually stored, but somehow I didn’t think it contained anything so mundane. Beside it sat a black leather chair.
My thoughts raced like my pulse and I recalled Tessa walking down that staircase and whipping a man. He led me toward the chest, and we stood in front of the metal pole. “Take your shirt off.”
My fingers shook as I began to unbutton the front of my shirt. His eyes never left mine. I took my shirt off and Arie took it from me, draping it over the chair. I looked around the club, but no one seemed to be paying attention to us.
“Lose the bra.”
I gasped, but unhooked it just the same. He took it from me and it joined my shirt. “Beautiful.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a few people watching us now that I was topless and it looked like Arie was starting a scene with me. No one made any move to stop us, but then I never expected them to. But they didn’t move closer, and for some reason that helped. My nipples pebbled from the cool air of the club. Arie cupped one of my breasts, brushing his thumb over the hardened peak.
“Breathe,” Arie said.
I looked down through my lashes and tried to focus on my breathing. In and out. Steady girl. You can do this. I focused on my feet and not the people who watched. In and out.
“Good. Even though you don’t need to, it helps if you breathe,” Arie said. “Take your shoes off. Pants too, and your underwear.”
I worried my bottom lip and kicked off my shoes. Then I unzipped my cargo pants and slid them down my legs. I did the same with my underwear, and concentrated only on what I was doing, not the growing audience. It was easier that way. Arie picked up my discarded clothing and placed them on the chair. Naked in front of everyone, I felt both vulnerable and turned on at the same time. The adrenaline from feeding on the maggot dancing with his girlfriend down below still rushed through my veins. It gave me the push I needed to follow Arie’s directives without analyzing what I was doing or what he was about to do to me.
“Stand with your back against the pole. The support will help.”
Even though I did what he told me, I wondered what he had planned. My skin tingled and a chill ran down the length of my spine as the cool metal supported my back.
“Now spread your legs and clasp your hands around the bar behind your back.” His voice was thick with desire. This was what he loved, what turned him on, and I wanted to give it to him. Surrender to him. I’d been born for this—born for him. It gave me pleasure to surrender to him and only to him.
Arie walked over to the trunk and he pulled out a spreader bar with cuffs on each end. He bent and attached a cuff to each of my ankles. Then he returned to the chest and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Arie walked behind the bar. The cool steel sent goose bumps along my skin as it encircled each of my wrists. As I looked to my left there, I saw a woman sitting on a vampire’s lap. The vampire fondled her naked breasts as they both watched Arie cuff me to the pole. My clit throbbed between my legs where the cool air caressed my exposed pussy. I couldn’t clamp my thighs together or even move without Arie assisting me.
“How do you feel?”
“I’m okay, sir.” I responded automatically, knowing he expected that.
He cupped my breast again and ran his hand down my stomach, then between my legs. His eyes grew dark. “You’re wet.”
Arie plunged two fingers into my channel. I moaned at the unexpected penetration. The woman on the vampire’s lap, was riding him backwards while he cupped both her breasts. Her wavy blonde hair flew through the air as she jerked her body up and down the length of his cock. As I watched her hips move, the pressure continued to build from Arie thrusting his fingers in and out of my pussy. Without warning he stopped, shoving his fingers into my mouth.
“Suck.”
I sucked my juices from his fingers. He pulled his fingers from my mouth and grabbed the back of my head, plunging his tongue inside, teeth clashing as he dove in for a kiss. When he pulled away I was a little breathless, which I thought was strange considering that vampires don’t need oxygen the way that humans do.
Arie walked back over to the chest. He pulled out nipple clamps and ripped open the packaging on a vibrator. It was bigger than the one he kept in the bedside table at our loft, but I was so wet that I didn’t think it would matter. I couldn’t remember ever being so turned on. It was hotter than our scavenger hunt. The hum of the vibrator buzzed through the air when he turned it on, causing my heart to pound in anticipation. All my doubts from earlier faded with the buzzing of the vibrator. I gasped at the twinge in my nipples as Arie attached the clamps.
Arie’s eyes met mine. “Don’t come. Not until I tell you to.”
“Sir?”
Arie raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“If you’re going to use that on me I don’t think I’m going to last very long.” I nodded toward the vibrator.
“When you feel like you’re getting close say ‘edge.’ If you come, you will be punished.”
I gulped.
“Understand?�
��
“Yes. Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
Arie leaned forward and bit my lower lip. Then he slid the vibrator in, inch by inch, and I groaned. Vibrations filled my pussy, which clenched around its width while Arie’s fingers circled my clit with his other hand. He slid it in and out with excruciating slowness, but if he kept it up much longer it wouldn’t matter how slowly he did it. Not when the steady rhythm was hitting my G-spot. Regardless of the people scattered around us in the club, no one existed in that moment except us. His expert hands brought me closer and closer to orgasm. Closer and closer to that earth-shattering edge…
“Edge,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Good. Very, very good,” he whispered against my ear as he slid the vibrator out of my cunt. “I need to be inside you. I need to feel you come. Your orgasm is mine. You are mine, Holly.”
He kissed me again; his mouth melded against mine, our tongues tangled and my legs shook. I needed to come. I needed it so bad that hot tears stung my eyes and it took all my effort to hold them back.
“Tell me…do you want me to fuck you in front of all these people?”
I closed my eyes.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Say it.”
I opened my eyes. “I want you to fuck me in front of everyone. Fuck me, Arie.”
He groaned.
I knew it made him hot to hear me tell him what I wanted.
“I’m going to make you come, make you fall apart in front of everyone.” His voice was husky.
His lips met mine and I moaned into his mouth. His hunger matched mine, and I knew he needed release almost as bad as I did. Arie’s mouth told me everything I needed to know. He pulled away, kneeling at my feet, and removed the spreader bar from between my legs. Unzipping his pants, he shoved them down his hips. Arie grabbed me under my thighs, sliding me up the length of the pole. The handcuffs scraped against the pole with the sound of metal grinding against metal.
-Wrap your legs around me.-
Following his telepathic command, I gripped both my legs around his waist, pulling his hips toward me. He positioned himself at my entrance and plunged into my pussy to his root. I moaned. His thrusts rode hard and deep, driving me up the pole. The woman riding the vampire picked up her rhythm, her eyes wild with lust. She was going to come. I was going to come. I couldn’t help it, but I didn’t give a damn who was watching us.
“Come for me,” he murmured against my ear.
Hugging his hips with my legs I screamed my release. While the orgasm surged through me, Arie pulled off each nipple clamp and I screamed again. Waves of pleasure and pain coursed through me.
“Fuck.”
I buried my head in his shoulder, panting and spent. I didn’t know why, but I felt anxious. My skin prickled and dizziness pressed down on me, but thankfully Arie’s firm body supported mine. When I turned my head I saw the woman had collapsed on top of the vampire, who cushioned her weight. Her head was tilted back, lips parted, and tendrils of hair were stuck to the perspiration dotting her neck and face. Just behind them by the bar was a man—no, not a man, a vampire—sitting at the bar and staring directly at me, a wide smile on his face. The dizziness I felt grew in leaps and bounds.
I’d never seen him before, but there was something familiar about him. He had dark brown hair, wavy like Arie’s, but his eyes were a vivid green. He looked at me the way that a lover might look at someone from across a room, in a private exchange that said, “Yes, I know every curve of your body and I’m going to explore every inch of it later.” I turned my head toward Arie’s neck, breaking eye contact with the stranger, who was making me feel uncomfortable.
-I feel dizzy. I really need a drink.- Suddenly I felt weak, and I was glad that Arie was holding me up.
“Can you stand if I put you on your feet? I want to get these cuffs off of you.”
“I think so. Yes. I just really need to sit down.”
Arie set me down gently. He moved behind the pole and released the handcuffs, keeping one hand on my arm to steady me. He scooped me into his arms and grabbed our clothes before setting me on the leather chair where they’d rested as if I were a delicate china doll. Arie helped me dress with astonishing gentleness. For some reason I felt a little drunk.
His eyes were filled with concern. “We’ll go back to the table and I’ll order you a pint of Puncture.”
“No, I just want water.”
All of a sudden I felt thirsty, hungry, and more than a little tired. Maybe sensory overload? It was the first time I’d left the loft since I’d been turned. Or it could just be that my legs felt like jelly from straddling them around Arie’s waist while he drove me up the pole.
My nipples tightened when I thought about how he’d taken me in front of everyone in the club. I couldn’t believe how much it turned me on to know that people watched Arie make me come, and how it had intensified my orgasm. I wondered if my emotions being all over the place made me impulsive. I thought about our exhibitionism as Arie tied my shoelaces as if I were a child. His tenderness made me feel vulnerable, but it could have been my perception from the intimate act we’d just performed. I still worried that someday he might regret that I’d been the one to dispatch his old flame.
Stop it. Don’t think that. Don’t ruin this moment.
Instead of letting my insecurities get the best of me, I smiled down at Arie. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Don’t look so amused,” he said, grinning up at me.
My smile came out wobbly and his face fell.
“What’s wrong?”
I faked a laugh. “It’s nothing. I just don’t remember the last time someone tied my shoes for me. Kindergarten, I think. But it’s probably a good thing you are. I feel like I could fall flat on my face.”
Arie searched my face. “I don’t want you bending down, getting up too fast, and falling over. You look paler than usual.”
“Yeah, I am a little dizzy.”
“Not unusual; considering the circumstances, that’s to be expected. Here, take my arm.” Arie helped me stand and guided me back toward our table. I looked toward the bar as I leaned on Arie’s arm. I wanted to get a better look at the stranger who had been staring at me, but he was gone. We took our seats at the highboy table. I couldn’t wait to see everyone so the two of us could go home. I couldn’t believe how tired I was after our exhibition, and I’d already been feeling insecure before we got here.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I smiled. “Dizzy, tired, and a little hungry.”
I didn’t want to tell him how I really felt.
“We don’t have to stay long, but we should wait for Victoria. Once we see her, then we can go. Is that okay?” Arie asked.
I nodded and looked toward the stage.
“You were wonderful,” he said. Arie reached across the table, grabbed my hand, and caressed the back of it with this thumb. “You’re mine.”
I grinned. “That’s good, because I don’t like to share.”
On that thought I noticed Isla, a sexy redhead, dancing in a cage over by the bar. God, she has an amazing body. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t like her. Not one bit. A stab of jealousy coursed through me as I remembered the first time I’d seen her in a vision. Sometimes having the Sight could be brutal as hell. Being a fly on the wall when someone I had the hots for was screwing around with someone else was like a sharp needle to the eye.
Arie had kissed his way down her throat, biting the skin where he planted each kiss, and then licked the bites with his tongue. His mouth. There had been something incredibly wrong with it. I remembered how his fangs lengthened as he bit into the side of her neck. And he began to drink her blood.
That was when I’d realized that Arie was a vampire. But the worst part was remembering how her hand had slipped up his thigh and
the sexy smile she threw at him. Kind of like how she was smiling now, at a man who slid a twenty into her G-string through the bars. I could kick myself for being jealous; I knew that it was at least in part because I didn’t want to get hurt. Anytime you open yourself up to someone, there’s always that possibility that they’ll tear your heart out.
Even knowing that, when I’d first met Arie I felt like I could trust him. Trust had never come easy for me. But he made me feel safe, and long before I’d known about his past, and my uncanny resemblance to his unbalanced ex-lover, I’d found myself falling for him. Arie’s pain and guilt had drawn me in regardless of whether it was safe or sane. My desire to be with him caught like wildfire, consuming every rational objection that I tried to come up with to talk myself out of it.
And I knew that I had to find a way to break through his wall. I wouldn’t let his history with his ex get in our way then, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let it ruin things now that she was gone. My self-doubt and habit getting in my own way was more of a problem than anything else. Maybe I had more in common with that girl Jess than I thought. Did she stay because she thought she could fix him? Or did she feel like she was the one who needed to be fixed? Was it thinking like that which made me accept things that shouldn’t be overlooked? I’d overlooked Arie being a vampire. I overlooked a lot more, when I should have ran as far and as fast as I could in the opposite direction—but I was so glad that I hadn’t. I couldn’t run. Not when I’d fallen for him.
Arie followed the direction of my gaze. “Hey, I can’t help that I have a past. My past is simply longer than most people’s. You know what Katarina put me through. I never expected this. I never expected to meet you.” He gave my hand another squeeze. “But now you’re the only one I want.”
“I’m not naïve, and it would be foolish for me to think that there weren’t other women before me.” I returned his squeeze. “Look, it’s probably just me being insecure, and with everything heightened, I’m a little on edge. I never thought I’d meet someone like you, and I certainly never thought I would do the things we do. I just…”
