“This is the one, Javier,” Callum said and Javier almost barked that he knew that already and barely stopped himself from throttling his friend for interrupting his perusal of her neck.
He cleared his throat instead. “I will deal with you later.”
Callum moved on. Javier remained where he was, his feet firmly planted to the dusty floor, his eyes glued to her, waiting to see her reaction.
Lilah’s gaze slowly rose, bringing her head up with it. When it touched on his, the colour on her cheeks darkened and he forgot to breathe. He stared at her, mesmerised, lost in the black abyss of her dilated pupils.
Enthralled.
She didn’t take her eyes away from his as expected. She held his gaze, steady and unafraid, no trace of fear in her scent. The way she looked at him spoke of desire and he had a hard time telling himself that he had to be imagining it. Her bond with her master made it impossible for her to feel anything for Javier. The gentle rhythm of her heartbeat called to him, luring his gaze down to her cleavage, and he fought his desire to step closer so he could reach out and run a lone finger over the luscious curves of her breasts. Touching her would only bring her pain. He couldn’t. No matter how much he needed to have her warm soft skin beneath his fingertips and know the feel of her at last. It would hurt her. He didn’t care. No. He did care. If it hurt her, he would stop. He would never harm Lilah. To pain her was to pain himself. He cared about her too much.
“Are you coming?” Callum’s voice shattered the spell she had cast on Javier and he glanced at him and nodded.
When he looked back, the door was closing and Lilah was gone.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, drew in a long deep breath, catching the enticing scent of her in the air, and followed Callum backstage.
Later.
He would be in her presence. Alone.
And he wouldn’t be able to resist her any longer.
If it hurt her, he would stop, but he needed to touch her.
He needed to know the feel of her and her taste.
Even if that one taste was all he could ever have.
Even if it signed his death sentence.
CHAPTER 2
Lilah didn’t pause to watch the show as she cleaned the boxes, preparing the red velvet seats for the coming week. She pulled another of the covers off the plush soft seats and hit it with the palm of her hand to beat out any dust that had managed to creep under the protective cream material. The murmur of the crowd below drew her attention to them. She pressed her hands into the small of her back, stretching her spine, and sighed. Preparations for the new season were always tiring but she had been working harder than ever tonight, hoping that Callum would notice and that Javier’s punishment would be less severe because of it.
She wasn’t sorry that she had hit Victor. She was surprised.
She had expected him to stop her or evade her fist. He must have been more caught up in what he had been doing than she had thought.
Lilah removed the cover off the final chair in the elegant gold and red box, folded it and set it down on the pile near the red velvet curtain that shielded the private area from the corridor that ran between all the boxes. During the main season, the aristocrat vampires used the boxes, separating themselves from the elite who sat in the rows of seats filling the theatre below. She had never cleaned the boxes before.
She ran her fingers over the carved wooden top of the hip-height wall around the box. Antoine had arranged the cleaning of the exterior and repainting of the interior during the closed period so the cream paint was perfect, highlighted with beautiful gold that one of the decorators had told her was real. Only the best for the aristocrats.
Lilah leaned against the edge of the box and looked down at the crowd as they watched the show on the grand stage to her left. How did the aristocrats feel when they sat up here, looking down on their weaker kin? Was that why they preferred the boxes? So they could look down on vampires they believed were weaker and less worthy than they were? She had never understood the sense of separation between them. To her, it didn’t matter how pure their blood was or what lineage they were from. They were all vampires.
She had never believed in their existence until Lord Ashville had found her on the streets and forced his blood down her throat, bonding with her and claiming her as a sort of slave. His blood in her veins linked her to him but she hadn’t seen him in a long time and she didn’t care. She hated him and wished she could break free of his rule, had tried to escape his mansion many times, so many that he had grown tired of her and sent her here along with another of his humans. She hadn’t realised what sort of place the theatre was until she had caught her first glimpse of the show. She had blushed a thousand shades of red and hadn’t been able to take her eyes off the stage, watching the perversion playing out on it, the bloodletting and debauched erotic acts.
Lilah was used to it now and rarely stopped to watch, and she made sure that she was never in sight of the stage during the final act. The first time she had witnessed that, she had discovered the true nature of vampires. The scent of human blood had driven them into a frenzy, both the vampires on stage and those in the audience. It had even reduced the aristocrats, with their fine airs and graces, to slavering beasts, their red eyes bright and sharpened fangs dripping with saliva.
That was the reason why she didn’t understand the separation between elite and aristocrat. When it came down to it, all of them hungered for human blood and couldn’t resist the smell of it. They were all beasts in human form.
A brief flicker of golden light drew her gaze down to the door below the boxes opposite her, close to the front of the stage. The door slowly shut and she shifted her focus forwards, past Antoine where he stood to one side watching the show, blending into the darkness that edged the theatre, to the vampire who had exited from backstage.
Javier.
It was dark where he crossed the theatre using the strip of open red carpet between the raised black stage and the front row of the audience, but she knew it was him. She would recognise his fine athletic figure anywhere and the haphazard mess of his sandy brown hair. His suit jacket was gone but other than that he hadn’t changed from when she had seen him earlier. Her heart had lodged in her throat when she had looked up to find him there, watching her, his rich chocolate eyes intent on her and stirring heat in her veins. She had thought he would say something about what she had done, would berate her in front of everyone, and had even braced herself for the hard edge his words would have. When he had spoken, his tone had been surprisingly soft, warm with his Spanish accent lacing the words. She could listen to him forever, sometimes drifted away when he was issuing orders to the staff first thing in the evening and last thing in the morning, imagining him speaking close to her ear. Just the memory of his voice had her heartbeat accelerating, a flush of heat sweeping over her skin. Her teeth teased her lower lip. She had to stop torturing herself like this. Javier would never do such a thing with her. He had taken care of her over the past two years but he took care of all his staff, whether they were vampire or human. She wasn’t special to him.
Lilah leaned forwards, following him until he disappeared beneath her. Was he coming up?
He had said that he would speak to her later about what she had done. She both feared it and looked forward to it.
She picked up the broom again, intending to sweep the floor so she would look busy if Javier was coming to see her, but her gaze caught on the show.
Three men were pleasuring one woman in the middle of the luxurious red and gold stage set, all of them vampires right now, but she knew that would change before the final act. It was early in the show. With each act, things grew a little more risqué and a lot darker. The moans of the four vampires writhing naked on stage filled the theatre, the rapt audience watching in silence. The woman sat reclined on a red velvet armchair, her legs splayed over the arms and a man between them. Another stood to one side of her, one hand tangled in her blonde hair, holding her mouth to his cock as
he thrust into it, his other hand on the erection of the man behind the armchair, pumping it as he kissed him. Lilah tried to drag her eyes away but found that she couldn’t when another two women joined the group, both of them human and both of them under the thrall of two of the vampires on stage. She could tell it by their glassy expressions. They walked calmly forwards on black stiletto heels, their sheer feather-trimmed baby dolls barely concealing their breasts and the black leather thongs they wore. Two of the naked men broke away from the vampire female as the third man pulled her onto her knees on the armchair and thrust into her from behind, causing her to cry out.
The two female humans approached the male vampires who held them under their thrall, teetering on the heels now, a hint of nerves flickering on their faces. The males were lessening their control over them, letting them see where they were and that an audience was watching them. The scent of their fear would satisfy the gathered elite and the humans would still be under the vampires’ spells enough that they wouldn’t think to escape.
The human women sat down on the two red leather couches positioned in the middle of the stage, one on each. Crimson spotlights bathed them, making them look as though blood covered their skin. In perfect synchronisation, the broad bare male vampires crouched before their woman, lifted the opposite leg to each other and started to kiss along it from ankle to knee.
It wasn’t turning her on.
Lilah told herself it a thousand times over but the sight of the vampire couple fornicating at the front of the stage and the forced seduction happening behind them had her heart pounding and her nipples hardening against the tight top of her uniform dress.
“I need to question you about Victor.” Javier’s deep accented voice coming from behind her caused her to drop her broom and turn.
She panted hard, startled and trying to get her arousal under control so he wouldn’t sense it.
His dark brown gaze slid to the stage and then back to her.
Lilah quickly bent to pick up her broom. When she straightened, Javier’s eyes were on her dress, his pupils wide in the low light coming up from below. The moans on stage grew louder and she tried to ignore them and push the images of the couples out of her mind.
“Why did you hit Victor?” Javier said, more composed than she was. Didn’t the show affect him at all? He had crossed the theatre without pausing to watch and his eyes were fixed on her now. She had heard that he and his partners had been running the theatre for almost a century. He had probably grown immune to whatever was playing out on the stage.
“Because he was hurting Nia.” It came out blunter than she had intended and she added, “Sir.”
Javier’s eyebrow rose. “Victor said you had no grounds to strike him.”
“Then he’s a liar and a bastard.”
“He’s an elite.” The darkness in his tone was reprimand enough to Lilah. She bowed her head.
“My apologies.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at Javier so she glanced to one side when she brought her head back up. It was a mistake. The act on stage was getting hotter, with the two humans now kneeling on the couches and swallowing the rigid cocks of their partners as they stood before them. She ripped her gaze away and closed her eyes, figuring it was safer. That way she didn’t risk seeing the anger in Javier’s eyes or the debauchery on stage, and she could keep a clear head. “He was forcing himself on Nia and she told him to stop. When he didn’t, I hit him. I thought he might stop and block me.”
“He said Nia was cut. He was under the influence of his hunger. That is why he didn’t stop.”
That made sense. “Nia cut her hand on some glass. A mirror in the main dressing room had broken. We had to clean it up and she cut herself.”
He muttered a ripe curse in Spanish and stepped towards her. “Were you cut?”
Lilah opened her eyes, looked up into the dark pools of his, and shook her head. “No.”
The relief that swamped his eyes surprised her and sent fear into her blood. What if she had been the one to cut herself? Would Victor have tried to touch her and taste her instead? Would Nia have tried to stop him or would she have let him hurt her?
“You must be more careful around our kind,” Javier said and she nodded slowly, unable to take her eyes off his.
The moans from the stage grew louder and she blushed when Javier looked towards the performance.
“Will I be punished?” She tried to shut out the sounds. Javier’s gaze returned to her and he shook his head.
“Victor overstepped the line.” He frowned and turned quiet for so long that she couldn’t ignore the noises coming from the stage. She glanced across at them. Javier’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you like to watch them?”
Her eyes shot wide and she instantly shook her head. He stepped closer, slid his hand over her jaw in a way that had her shivering and her breath quaking, and carefully turned her face towards the stage. His thumb and fingers remained against her face, holding her gently, warming her down to her bones and causing a flood of arousal to sweep through her.
He traced his hand down her throat and stepped up behind her. What was he doing? She trembled under his touch, anticipating pain from it but feeling nothing but pleasure.
“Does it arouse you when you watch them fucking?” he breathed into her ear and she shivered, her eyelids dropping, a ripple of shock running over her skin at hearing him say such a thing.
“I don’t watch them,” she whispered, her voice barely there.
“You were watching them when I arrived.” He ran his thumb up her throat and claimed her jaw again. How long had he been watching her before he had said something and torn her attention away from the show? Had he enjoyed watching her while she watched the performance, unaware of his presence and his eyes on her? The thought that he might have sent heat into her blood that pooled in her abdomen, tightening it with arousal.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the show now but she wasn’t taking any of it in. All of her focus was on Javier where he stood behind her, so close that his hip was against her bottom. Why was he doing this? Why wasn’t it hurting her? Was there no pleasure in his touch, no sense of desire inside him as he ran his hands over her throat and pressed his body close to hers?
Lilah sharply turned her head towards him. He was so close to her that his breath skated over her lips, her chin touching his cheek. The darkness of desire in his eyes was unmistakable. There was hunger in his touch, in the way he forced her to face the stage again, clutching her jaw and lowering his mouth to her throat.
He drew in a long shaky breath and pressed his brow against the side of her head. “You smell so good... such a temptation.”
He wanted her. Her knees weakened beneath her, legs going slack at the feel of him pressed against her back, his hands firm on her body.
Lilah’s breathing quickened and she stared at the three couples on stage, her heart racing and blood thundering. Javier reached around her and slid his hand over hers where it gripped the pole of the broom. He took it from her and let it fall to the ground as he pressed soft kisses to her bare shoulder and the nape of her neck. They tickled, sending shiver after shiver through her, dizzying her.
This was so wrong.
But that only made it feel more right.
She had wanted him for so long, had craved the feel of his hands on her body, ached to know what it would feel like to be with him. She had never thought it possible though, had thought her bond to Lord Ashville would prevent it and pain her if she accepted the touch of the man she desired with all of her heart.
Javier licked the nape of her neck near her hairline, teasing her, and she couldn’t stop herself from arching her backside into him. He groaned and cursed softly in her ear, kissing it and nibbling it with blunt teeth.
“Watch them,” he whispered into her ear and licked the lobe, teasing it with the tip of his tongue. “Keep watching them while I touch you.”
She nodded and bit back a groan when he slid his hands down ove
r her stomach and then around to her backside, palming it through her short dress. He suckled the lobe of her ear and then kissed her throat and ran his hands up her sides, pressing them in hard as he passed over her ribs. He cupped her breasts and stepped into her. The feel of his erection against her bottom sent a new hot flood of arousal pooling between her thighs. Was this really happening? She felt as though she was imagining it, as though it was a fevered fantasy brought on by watching the show and seeing him crossing the theatre towards her. It didn’t feel real.
“You cannot deny me this,” he uttered into her ear and she trembled at the command in his tone, the hunger that roughened it. “I will have you.”
Lilah didn’t want to deny him, but the thought that he wouldn’t let her only served to arouse her further, making her heart skip a beat as his strong hands kneaded her breasts through the confines of her short black dress.
She would never deny him.
No matter the consequences.
He was worth the risk.
And she would have him.
CHAPTER 3
Lilah almost covered her mouth to contain her moan as Javier squeezed her breasts, thumbing her nipples through the black material of her dress. She leaned back into him, trying to keep her eyes on the show, struggling to focus on it as he had told her to when he was setting her aflame with his touch. He groaned against her throat and licked the nape of her neck again, tickling and teasing her.
Her eyelids dropped when he skimmed his hands downwards, pressing them in hard when he reached her stomach and flattening his palms against her. He continued this time, his mouth dropping to the back of her shoulder as his hands reached the end of the skirt of her dress. He moaned again, apparently uncaring that there was an audience below them, watching the same show that she was. It was exciting to do this with him in the privacy of the box, courting the risk of someone seeing them, watching them as everyone else watched the performance.
He muttered something about the feel of her thighs and the sight of her in the dress and swept his hands along the length of her bare arms. She frowned when he lifted her hands and placed them on the curved edge of the box and held them there. He pressed his body against the full length of hers, resting his chin on her shoulder.
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