by Renee Rose
“Congratulations,” he said. “I guess that means I can't keep you trapped here as my sex slave anymore?”
She beamed at him. He looked at his watch. Six o'clock—still too early to go out. “What else did you have going on this weekend?”
“Nothing,” she shrugged. “Just getting this paper finished.”
“Okay, how does this sound… as you've probably noticed, we need groceries. Would you take my car and run to the grocery? And then when you get back I'll take you out to dinner to celebrate.”
Kate jumped up. “Sounds great! I need to stop in and feed my kitty anyway. What do you need?”
He, Stella, and Fox kept a running list on the side of the fridge so that whoever had a chance to run errands (usually Fox) could easily grab it, so he handed it to her now along with the keys and cash. “See you in a bit.”
When she had returned, she was wearing a sassy babydoll dress and kitten heeled sandals. “You look great,” he said, taking the groceries from her as soon as she came through the second set of double doors.
She flushed a little. “I wasn't sure where we were going and I didn't want to look like a slob.”
“I was thinking Italian.”
“Yum.”
He set the groceries down on the counter. “Are there more bags?” He checked his watch to see if the sun had set yet.
“It's still a little light out. Don’t worry, I’ll grab them. Besides, I don't know where things go here yet.”
He could feel a little shiver of daring emanate from her at her use of the word yet and it made him smile.
She was a little nervous at the restaurant, so he ordered a bottle of expensive wine and enjoyed the feel of her relaxing more and more into the moment as she sipped. As if reminded of their last dinner date, she started quizzing him.
“So, when did you come to the U.S.?”
“In 1858. Fox and I came together from England and settled in Chicago. Stella joined us five years later.”
She looked confused. “But I thought you and Stella were together a long time before that.”
“We were. And then we split up and went our separate ways for a hundred years or so. She found me in the States by accident, and it was easy to band together again. Just as friends,” he added hastily.
“How did you actually get over here from Europe?”
“In the bottom of a ship. Fox wasn't a vampire back then, so he took care of me—made sure I was safe from the light and that I had everything I needed.”
She frowned. “You knew Fox before he was a vampire?”
He nodded. “I've known Fox since he was nine years old. I found him on the streets of London. He tried to steal my coin purse so I took him home and fed him. You might say I raised him, except that he was already mostly grown up at that point. He'd been on the streets more or less his whole life.”
Kate looked at him with big eyes. “He never told me any of that. But it explains a lot.”
“Like what?”
“I don't know,” she smirked. “You're still his daddy in some ways.”
He raised his eyebrows, but knew she was right. As much as he'd tried to foster Fox's emotional independence, there was a neediness there that still showed up at times.
“But wait… you said you've never turned anyone. Who turned Fox?”
“Stella.” He couldn't keep the hard note out of his voice. It had been a source of contention between them since the day she had turned Fox.
Kate had raised her eyebrows, waiting for more. He shrugged. “Fox wanted it. I didn't want it for him. Stella gave him what he wanted.”
“Why didn't you want it for him?”
He pressed his lips together. “It's a curse, bambina.”
She stared at him for a long moment and he willed her not to ask more. She took the hint. “So what did you do in Chicago?”
“I owned a few taverns, and then during prohibition I owned a piece of every speakeasy in town.”
“I thought the Chicago speakeasies were run by Italian mafia. Oh!” she said, clapping her hand over her mouth.
His lips curled into a smile. Once again, he was impressed with her knowledge of history. “How do you think the mafia got so powerful? Vampires can make a lot happen on the seedy side of business.”
“Is that where you killed people?”
He shook his head at her. “Don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answers to, cara mia.”
“I didn't.”
He felt hurt from her and cursed inwardly at how sensitive she was. He tried to explain. “The answer is yes. Among other places. But I've tried to leave that way of living behind me. And it may be what you want to know, but I don't especially want you thinking of me that way,” he admitted.
She softened at that. “Okay. I can understand that. But it doesn't make me think less of you.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You think it makes me exciting.”
She took offense. “No I don't.” Her face had flushed.
“The truth, Kate.”
She took some bread from the bread basket and dipped it in the olive oil and balsamic vinegar he had poured onto a plate for them both.
“Yeah, maybe.” She shrugged. “So what?”
He shrugged himself. “I don't know. I don't like it. I guess because I don't want to be that person.”
“Well, okay, you're not that person anymore. But it's what's made you who you are today. Right? So if it turns me on, well… you could just go with it, couldn't you?”
He couldn't help but smile at that. He helped himself to the bread. It was warm and melted in his mouth—a delicious sour dough. “Mmm, this is good, isn't it?”
“I know,” Kate said, reaching for another piece. “I shouldn't have it, but I just can't help myself.”
“Why shouldn't you have it?”
“I have a wheat allergy. I break out in a rash on my neck and chest if I eat it too many days in a row.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “So why do you eat it?”
She shrugged. “It tastes good.”
He took a sip of wine and considered. He had taken on a dominant role with her, which she obviously liked. And though he questioned its ultimate benefit to her, there were ways to use it to help her.
“Is this something you'd like help with?”
She looked up in surprise, and he felt a little thrill of fear come off her. She knew what he meant, then. “I guess so,” she said, sounding a little nervous.
“Okay,” he said, pulling her bread plate away from her. “Here are the rules: no more wheat. If you decide something's really worth eating, which I'm sure will happen, you have to text or call me first and explain to me why it's worth it. You don't have to wait for my permission if I'm not around, but you do have to provide the explanation in advance. Does that make sense?”
She smiled and nodded at him and strangely, he could feel a rush of love pouring out of her. Just then their waiter appeared to take their order and Kate suddenly scrambled to open her menu again, mumbling, “Well, I was going to get the penne pasta, but I don't think it's worth it…”
“Do you want another few minutes?” the waiter asked.
“Please,” he said. “And will you take the bread away?”
“Of course, sir,” the waiter said smoothly and glided off with the bread basket in hand.
Kate chose something else and closed her menu again.
“Would it bother you if I ordered the penne?” he asked.
“Of course not!” she assured him.
“Great. So back to the rules. If you eat something with wheat in it without prior explanation, you must come to me and let me know. And then I'll put you over my knee and spank you soundly.”
She turned a little pink at that and he saw her eyes dart around the room, as if to make sure no one overheard.
“If you eat wheat and you don't tell me…then you'll get spanked with my belt.” He sat back in his chair then and watched as she flushed a deep red.
Adorable.
She caught him trying to hide his smirk and laughed at herself. He felt another rush of love pour from her. “Dom, why do you think I'm like this?” she asked, sobering.
He shook his head. “Don't go there, cara. It's a quirk, that's all. There's nothing wrong with you. I would guess that a pretty large percentage of women have the same quirk.”
“Really?” she said doubtfully. “I've always wondered, you know, why.” She leaned forward to say in a low voice, “I sometimes can't get turned on or orgasm during sex without thinking about it.”
“So? Be happy you know that about yourself. Some women have never orgasmed at all and can't figure out why not.”
“True,” she said doubtfully. “So what is your experience with it, really?”
He smiled slowly. “Vampires have a lot of sex—more than mortals. I guess originally it was because we were so separated from religion that we were the only ones who were uninhibited. Now our sex lives probably aren't so shockingly different from those of many mortals.”
“And…?”
“Well, when you've had that much sex, you've pretty much tried it every way. I got my personal experience caning women in Victorian England. You wouldn't believe the kinds of things they were into.”
She leaned forward eagerly. “Like what?”
He grinned. “Have you ever heard of using a piece of ginger as a butt plug?”
“Shut. Up.”
“It's true. Add a little caning to that and you've got the true Victorian S & M experience.”
“Whoa.”
The waiter returned and Kate ordered a steak, cooked to medium. He ordered the penne pasta himself.
“They make excellent authentic Italian food here,” he said.
“Do they? You would know, wouldn't you? I suppose you know how to make it all.”
He laughed at that. “No, cara mia. Men didn't cook when I lived in Italy.”
“Oh. Right.” She blushed. “What does cara mia mean—'my dear'?”
“That's right.”
Their food arrived, then and they began eating with enthusiasm.
“Dom,” she started shyly.
“Yes?”
“Where did you get your blood from, before me?”
He hesitated. It was another question he'd prefer not to answer. “I hypnotized women at the club,” he said at last, pulling on his earlobe.
“So they didn't know you'd bitten them?”
He nodded. He didn't feel any strong emotion coming from her. Neither revulsion, nor anger.
“Always women?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
He blinked slowly and sighed. “Well, I prefer women,” he said and winced, waiting for her to react.
“Because there's something sexual about it?”
“Yeah, I guess. Yeah.”
“Did you do…other things with them?”
“No. I mean… wait. Let me start over. Yes, sometimes. But if so, it was consensual. I would never hypnotize for that. If I ended up picking a girl up—which isn't that hard to do when you're the owner of the club—then afterward I would just erase the feeding part.”
He was surprised and slightly amused to sense jealousy from her. He looked at her plate and noticed she hadn't eaten much.
“Why aren't you eating?” he asked.
“Oh… well, it's a little too raw for my taste,” she said, turning the cut part of the steak around to show him how pink it was.”
“Send it back.”
“No, it's all right.”
“No it's not. You're not eating.”
“I know, but I have enough with potatoes and vegetables.”
He raised his eyebrows and put on his most stern voice. “You will send that steak back and ask that it be cooked to your specification or I will take you home and spank your sweet little butt.”
He felt a flare of irritation from her as she stared at him, contemplating that threat.
He softened. “Look, I'm not trying to be heavy-handed. If I were truly a gentleman I would send it back for you. But you lying down and taking it instead of demanding what you deserve is a pattern I've seen in you before and frankly, I don't like it.”
He felt hurt coming off her then, and it saddened him. He reached for her hand across the table. “I just want you to practice standing up for yourself. Here and now. I'll back you up if you need it.”
She rolled her eyes. “But I don't need to stand up for myself. The steak is fine!” To prove it, she stabbed a piece with her fork and put it in her mouth, chewing it viciously.
He watched her in silence until she faltered and stopped chewing, staring at him uncertainly. He caught the waiter's eye and waved him over. Kate was pleading at him with her big eyes, but he ignored it and gave her an encouraging smile.
“Um, I was wondering if I could have my steak cooked a little more?”
“Of course,” the waiter said, smoothly whisking her plate away. “I'm so sorry. You asked for medium, didn't you? I will bring it right back for you.”
“You see?” he said, when the waiter had gone. “That wasn't so painful, was it?”
She was still looking a little resentful.
“Be sweet and I'll forget that you rolled your eyes at me,” he said, casually turning back to his own food. He was satisfied when he smelled the familiar mixture of fear and arousal coming off her.
* * *
Okay, so sending her food back hadn't been that bad. But she hated that Dom had pushed her into it. Now her belly was filled with butterflies wondering if he was going to spank her over rolling her eyes. Peeking at his handsome face as she ate her dinner (the steak was now cooked to perfection), she found him devastatingly sexy. His dominance made her knees go weak and her belly do flip flops. He knew just exactly what to say and how to say it.
For whatever reason, the vulnerability of the moment made her willing to take a risk. “Dom?”
“Yes, cara?”
The waiter came then and asked if they wanted dessert or coffee. She looked at Dom to see if he felt like staying, but he looked the question back to her. Since dessert was her favorite thing, she nodded happily and ordered a decaf. Dom ordered a cappuccino and smiled indulgently at her.
“What were you going to ask me?”
“Oh. Um, well… I'm wondering what changed for you between getting a room at Hotel Congress and my car accident?”
“Oh.” He looked like she'd asked yet another question he didn't like answering. He did his ear-pulling thing, which she was beginning to recognize as what he did when she put him on the spot. “Well, the truth is that I still think I'm bad news for you.” He was looking at her seriously.
“Why?”
“A whole myriad of reasons, dulcezza. The main one being that I'm a vampire.”
She rolled her eyes and then froze halfway through the gesture. Of course, he hadn't missed it. He very slightly raised one eyebrow but he didn't say anything about it. Instead, he just shrugged. “I guess I think you deserve more than just great sex.”
She felt angry at that. “I guess I'm tired of you deciding what I do and don't deserve,” she snapped. He raised his eyebrows. She leaned forward to take him further to task, but the waiter showed up with dessert menus. She sat quietly and looked at the menu. There was one dessert that sounded like pure heaven. It was called molten chocolate lava cake, and it served two. But it also said it took 30 minutes to prepare.
“I'm thinking the molten chocolate lava cake is a worth it, despite the wheat,” she said with a note of challenge in her voice, testing his new rule.
He nodded. “All right,” he said mildly.
She dropped back into her normal submissive state then. “But it says it takes thirty minutes.” She looked at him pleadingly.
He smiled. “I'm in no hurry, cara.”
“Great!” she said, as giddy as a little girl and he chuckled.
The waiter came and he gave him the order. Then he said. “You were s
aying?”
She looked at her fingernails. “Well, I've never had great sex before. So why is for you to decide that that's not enough for me?”
He blinked at her for a moment and then his face broke into a slow grin. “Far be it for me to prevent you from having great sex.” She smiled back.
After a moment, he said, “It's just that at some point it won't be enough. And it might hurt both of us more to end things then than it would now. That's all I was thinking at Congress.” He shrugged. “And then even after making that decision, I couldn't keep my hands off you. The sex is pretty good for me, too,” he said in conspiratorial tone that made her giggle.
“Well, let's just enjoy what we've got, okay?” she said.
He nodded, but she caught that wistful look on his face again.
She pressed on just a little further. “Do you consider this…whatever it is, to be exclusive?”
He raised one eyebrow at her and answered sternly. “It had better be. You don't want to screw around on a vampire. Believe me.”
She laughed, fairly certain that he knew darn well that she would never screw around and had just answered her that way to flatter her. She peeked another look at him and he gave her a knowing smile. The rush of love she felt for him at that moment was overpowering. She wondered if he could feel it.
Back in the car after dinner, Dom said, “Your place or mine?”
“Mine, I guess,” she said reluctantly. Even though she'd stopped in and fed her cat when she changed clothes earlier, she felt bad that she'd been gone all weekend.
She wriggled in her seat a bit, wondering what would happen next. Would he come in? Would he spend the night at her place? No, the sunlight wasn't safe for him there. Would he spank her for rolling her eyes?
“Dom, can we revisit the eye rolling rule?”
“No.”
She wheedled, “It's just that it's sort of an automatic thing. Like a reflex. I can't really help it.”
Dom looked over at her. “I really have you scared of spankings now, haven't I?”
It was true. Now that she'd experienced such a painful one, she wasn't in a hurry to repeat it, despite the fact that thinking about the way he'd handled her was the hugest turn on. She shrugged. “Kind of,” she said in a small voice.
