Born to Please [Pleasure Vessels 1] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove)

by Jana Downs

  Payne seemed to contemplate the possibility. “I’ve never seen the ocean. I’d love that.” He favored Alec with a smile. “How many boyfriends have you whisked away for a Hawaiian vacation?”

  “None. We usually don’t make it that far into a relationship. I’ve been there a couple times by myself, though,” Alec said, nipping Payne’s ear in retaliation for his teasing.

  “Ouch,” Payne breathed, and he evened the score by latching onto Alec’s neck that was an inch above his face. Alec gasped, and his head fell back to give Payne better access.

  “Oh fuck. That’s a sweet spot.” Alec sighed. His mind glazed over instantly with lust despite being tired. He figured he’d spend a lot of time being aroused with Payne around. His Vessel understood and fulfilled his desires better than anyone ever had.

  * * * *

  Payne bit harder at his reaction, sucking at the place and licking it to soothe away his bite. He’d never played the aggressor before, and he found a well of desire within himself to be just that. He wanted to bite Alec and mark him for the world to see. He wanted to see if Alec liked a man pounding inside him as much as he liked Alec doing it to him. He wanted to fuck Alec until he couldn’t remember his own name. The realization was so shocking that he let go of Alec’s neck instantly.

  “Why’d you stop?” Alec wondered, his erection pressing at the front of his slacks insistently.

  “I—nothing,” Payne stammered. He cleared his throat. “Are we going to get there soon?”

  Alec looked puzzled by his reaction but chose to let it slide. “Yeah. We’ll be at the house in ten minutes or so.”

  Payne nodded and stared out the window to watch the countryside pass. He rubbed his eyes and rested his forehead against the glass. The estate was huge and seemed to stretch on for miles. It was a wonder that they were so close to the city. In actuality they’d only been in the car for a few minutes. The woods gave it the illusion of complete privacy.

  They pulled down the long drive and circled to the front of a house that looked more than a little intimidating. The towering structure was not set up to elicit feelings of comfort. It had the same feel to it as the Facility building he grew up in. Where Alec’s house was warm and welcoming, the senior Kane’s house was downright frosty.

  “Just relax,” Alec said. “My father is a bit of a hard-ass, but as long as you stay out of his way, you should be fine. You’re going to love Mom though. She’s the sweetest lady I know.” He opened the door and rolled out before offering a hand out.

  They climbed up a dozen steps onto a large stone porch that was overwhelmed with tall, white Grecian columns that were designed to make the approaching person feel small and insignificant. When two servant-class androids opened the doors, Payne found himself in a dark-brown-and-gold cavernous room that made their footsteps echo around the room.

  “I’m getting flashbacks to Gone with the Wind,” Payne muttered as yet another massive staircase loomed before them.

  Alec laughed. “Try growing up here. We Kanes are a lot like old Southern aristocracy.”

  An old familiar voice sounded to their right. “And you’d do well to remember it, Alecander.”

  Payne’s stomach dropped as he heard Alec’s father speak. He still remembered the last time they’d spoken and how painful it had been when he’d made him convulse on the floor. The elder Mr. Kane must’ve come out of the lighted hallway that ran along the right side of the staircase. Despite his age, he walked with a swagger that bespoke an arrogance of someone who was used to ruling his world with an iron fist.

  “Good morning, Father. Did you see the press conference?” Alec asked, not batting a lash at his interruption.

  The older man nodded. “I did. You did well with your speech. I’ll give you updates to make an additional speech tomorrow. Send your Vessel up to the Green Room. Your mother would like to have coffee with him.”

  “Only if he wants to go. Would you like to go meet my mother, sweetheart?” Alec asked. Payne was a little intimidated by the prospect. “If you don’t want to, I can take you up to my room and you can nap there. I’ll come get you when my father and I are done talking.”

  “I’d like to meet your mother. She’s a Vessel, right?” Payne asked, trying to sound more confident than he felt. He hadn’t expected his lover to keep his word about asking him instead of ordering him around.

  Alec’s warm smile went a long way to reassuring him. “Yes, she is, and she’s dying to finally meet you.”

  “Will you take me there?” Payne bit his lip in nervousness. He didn’t want to be a kid about it, but androids had always freaked him out. Whereas Vessels were flesh and blood, androids were over seventy-five percent machine. They had this eerie calmness about them that Payne had always seen as unnatural. He didn’t like to be alone with them.

  “Of course I will,” Alec said, kissing his cheek. “Father, shall I meet you in the study?”

  “Fine, but hurry up,” his father rumbled. “I swear you spoil that Vessel worse than I do your mother.”

  Alec took his hand and led him up the massive staircase. Payne felt safer when Alec was touching him. It steadied him.

  “Do you think she’ll like me?” Payne asked as they rounded the left side of the staircase and headed toward the sign that said “West Wing.” He’d never imagined a private residence large enough to necessitate signage. This place was creepy. He hoped they weren’t staying long.

  “I know she will. Besides, I like you. So it wouldn’t matter if she didn’t.” Alec squeezed his hand, and warmth radiated from him. Mine, the now-familiar internal voice said.

  “Thank you, Alec,” Payne said. “Thank you for being so kind to me.”

  “I told you I want you to be my boyfriend, sweetheart. That means loving you right.” Payne’s heart tripped over itself at the “loving you” part. He hadn’t imagined he’d ever get the chance for such a thing. Alec pulled him to a stop in the carpeted hallway to kiss him gently. “You’re going to do just fine. I’m going to tell my father what you said about the Trainers at your Facility center disposing of Vessels. I may need to call on you as a witness.”

  “Sure thing, Alec. Whatever you need me to say.” If he could stop the Facility from unfairly murdering Vessels, he would do it. His heart constricted as a thought struck him. “Do you think you could check on my sister, Desiree? She’s supposed to have a placement, and I’m worried about her being there without me.”

  “I’ll check on her when I go to my dad’s office,” Alec assured. He pulled them along the hallway at a leisurely pace despite his father’s urgings to hurry. “The Green Room is my mother’s haven. She spends most of her free time there. When Joey and I were kids, she read to us there.” He stopped them in front of a heavy oak door. It was dark in color and had a strange lettering above the doorframe. Mille mores delecto. Quisque est diversus.

  “A thousand ways to love. Each one is different,” Alec translated for him. “My father had my mother learn Latin when he brought her home. It’s his secret passion. He loves classical languages. He carved that himself above the door when they found out they were pregnant with me. Sweet, isn’t it?”

  “How did he go from being the guy who writes love phrases above a door to the guy who is as unfeeling as a marble statue and tortures Vessels for fun?” Payne asked. Okay, he had no proof that he was torturing people other than Payne when he was mouthy, but he seemed like the type.

  Irritation flickered over Alec’s face, and Payne knew he shouldn’t have said anything. “He’s not unfeeling,” Alec said. “He just—He’s a man who doesn’t believe in a big show of emotion. He takes his work very seriously, but he loves us.”

  “If you say so,” Payne replied. Doubt saturated his thoughts, and he hoped it didn’t translate into his voice.

  Alec didn’t respond. Instead, he knocked twice on the heavy door. They both stood back and waited.

  Payne was so nervous he held his breath. The door swung open without drama to re
veal a tall, thin woman whose hair at one time may have been the same shade of platinum blonde her son’s was. Her eyes were a lovely shade of light brown that seemed to glow with warmth.

  “Welcome home, my son,” the Vessel said. “And I’m so happy to finally meet you, Payne. I’ve been reading about you since you were a child. How are you finding this wonderful son of mine?”

  “He’s been a kind Master, ma’am,” Payne said, unsure of how to address her. Technically she was another Vessel, but she was also Alec’s mother.

  She laughed at his words, which caused Payne to shift uncomfortably. She winked at him. “Master indeed. My son is no more Master than his father is. Though I wager, if he’s anything like his father, he rates a nine on a scale of ten as a lover.”

  Alec’s blue eyes went wide. “Mother!” Alec exclaimed. “I’m not supposed to hear shit like that. God!”

  “Oh hush,” she admonished, clearly not concerned with her son’s embarrassment. “You are an adult, and he is a Pleasure Vessel. Leave us alone, Alecander. Go play with your father for a while. I’ll entertain your Payne.” She turned her pretty brown eyes to him, and he nearly laughed. He liked her. “Good to know you have a bit of spirit in you. Come in and leave the humans to their play.” She took Payne by his arm and pulled him from the surprised arms of her son. Without effort, she shut the door in Alec’s face.

  Payne was immediately encased in a room of warmth. She turned them from the door and into the room, revealing a space built for comfort. Lounge chairs were scattered about the surprisingly large space intermingled with plush couches. The walls were lined with bookshelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, and at the center of the room sat a small tea table that had a white porcelain tea set on it along with a rather large leather-bound book.

  “I’ve never seen so many printed books,” Payne exclaimed in amazement. “The library at the Facility never had printed books. Too expensive. All the books we had were accessed through our PDA devices.”

  Alec’s mother nodded. “Yes. That’s how I remember my time there. A lot of people are following that example and getting rid of the paper versions. The EPA even tried to ban the use of print books a few years ago. Now they’re all printed on recyclable material that the company will pick up if the book becomes damaged and replace it. David, that’s Alec’s father’s first name, and I just couldn’t give up our books. There is something to be said about literature that has a sensory aspect. The smell of a new book as opposed to an old one, or a leather-bound as opposed to a cardboard one, even the weight in your palm, gives the book a uniqueness. Do you read much?”

  “I don’t usually read a lot for pleasure. At the Facility I read a lot on advertisement and finance. Guess I know why now, with Alec being in advertising. I was also schooled on rhetoric and a lot of philosophy dealing with communications.”

  “How about fiction?” Mrs. Kane asked, her brow drawing down to frown at Payne’s words.

  “No, ma’am. Fiction was discouraged. The Facility was so centered on our education, pleasure reading was seen as a way to distract from that.”

  Her face broke out into a grin. “Then I have just the thing for you. A romance novel that David gave to me when we first lived together.” She crossed the room with firm, purposeful strides and took a book off the shelf that was almost at the top. “Here you go. Since Alec is always busy, you might as well have a little something to read.”

  Payne took the novel from her with a smile and glimpsed at the cover. He blanched and turned twelve shades of scarlet. A tall burly man stood on the cover, shirtless, with a willowy, blonde-haired woman, also half-clothed, in apparent ecstasy in his arms. The title blazed in gold on the cover. To Love a Vessel, an anthology of stories about Vessels and the men and women who love them.

  “I–I am very well educated in that, ma’am,” he stuttered. God, Alec’s mom is downright scandalous!

  Alec’s mother burst out laughing at his horrified expression. “It isn’t a book on sex, Payne. It’s a collection of stories about different Vessels who fall in love with their Masters. It’s a lovely collection really. The writer is a male Vessel commissioned for a wife and husband pair in Connecticut, I believe. Why don’t you sit with me and have some coffee?” She motioned to the table, and they both walked over to it before sitting in opposite chairs.

  “You are not what I expected, ma’am,” Payne said, sipping at the bitter liquid before making a face and setting it back down as delicately as he could. She laughed at him again.

  “Please call me Amber. This ‘ma’am’ business is silly. We’re practically in-laws now.” She continued to laugh softly, the sound delicate and feminine. Where her husband was cold and laughed seldom, Amber was light and laughter. It was an interesting juxtaposition. “And I hope I am not what you expected. I bet you expected a sour-faced crone who was the obedient Vessel.”

  Payne blushed. “Something like that.”

  She continued to smile. “You’ve got to get out the mindset that the propaganda of the Trainers is truth. They give you generalities about the expectations of Vessels. But what they don’t tell you is that every pairing is different and every one is a unique relationship experience. Has my son said he loves you yet?”

  Payne looked down at the book in his lap and wondered why he felt compelled to answer her prying questions. She’s his mother, and whether he says so or not, she has influence. He sighed. “No.”

  “And how do you feel about him?”

  Payne considered his own feelings for a second. “I care for him. He’s kind to me and patient with my adjustment. He gives me everything I could ever want and treats me like an equal. He values me. But, I was made for him. So I don’t know what is me and what is my training.”

  “Just because you were predisposed to like him doesn’t mean you would love him,” Amber admonished. “Haven’t you heard that strange inner voice in the back of your mind that looks at him and tells you that he is yours absolutely?”

  “How did you know about that?” he asked, shocked. He thought it was strange but hadn’t mentioned anything because he didn’t want his love to think he was defective.

  Her brown eyes sparkled with mirth. “Because when a Vessel bonds to their owner, when they imprint, the new voice arises. It happens to all Vessels who mate with their owners. Not even a personality alignment guarantees an imprinting. It’s relatively rare.”

  “Huh. Any idea why?”

  She shrugged delicately. “No idea. We’re not scientists, so I couldn’t tell you. I’m sure there is a reason, but I don’t know it.”

  Payne grew quiet as he looked inward and considered her words. This was a lot of information to process. If they weren’t just programmed to love someone, then what he felt for Alec was one hundred percent real. His heart pounded with the words that echoed with the beat of his heart. I love him.

  She took a long sip from her cup and regarded him knowingly. “Ah, so now you see what you’ve been lying to yourself about for the past few days. Instant affection and almost instantaneous love is something we’re taught can’t be real. But it is. Whatever is inside us is never wrong, Payne. What you feel for him won’t go away now or a hundred years from now.”

  “What about them? Do they love us just as fast?” Payne asked. The idea of it being one-sided, that Alec wouldn’t love him in return, was horrifying.

  “I think they struggle with it more than we do just because they don’t have that reassurance in their heads. But I believe they fall just as fast for us as we do for them, yes.” She poured herself another cup of coffee. “I’m not saying the road ahead is easy, but I’m saying it can be rewarding. My son is a wonderful man, and I hope you two are happy together.”

  “Me, too,” Payne murmured, stirring his coffee cup with no intention of drinking it. He hoped that they would have something more than sex between them, more than courtesy. He wanted them to love like Amber described. He just had to convince Alec that his moody, stubborn, sometimes surl
y Vessel was worth it.

  Chapter Six

  “You seem to be very affectionate with your Vessel already,” Father said, sitting in his high wing-backed chair in front of his study’s fireplace. It was the same spot he was usually in when Alec had lived at home. Father had been at the labs more often than not when he was growing up but on the rare occasion that he was in, this was his domain.

  “I like him. He likes me. We want to have a relationship,” Alec said. Why do I always feel like I have to defend my relationship with you?

  His father practically rolled his eyes. “A Vessel has to prove their loyalty before you give them your heart, Alec. Please don’t get too attached until you know if he’ll stick. You’re rushing into this as per usual.”

  Alec frowned. “Um, you commissioned him for me, Dad. He was literally born for me, and it seems to be working out really, really well to be honest.” He hated admitting that his father had known better than he had about what would make him happy, but Payne was everything he had ever hoped for in a partner.

  “This is the honeymoon stage, boy. Don’t get carried away with it. Sometimes Vessels just don’t work out as they’re supposed to,” Father said, beckoning him over. “Go to my desk and get the file out of the top drawer.”

  Alec nodded and did as he was bid. “You and Mom are not the best example of how Vessels and owners don’t work out. You guys have been in love for how long?”

  “She wasn’t the first Vessel I had, son,” Father said. A bomb exploding or spontaneous combustion would’ve been less shocking.

  “What?” Alec asked, his steps faltering.

  He waved Alec closer, looking impatient. “Your mother was my second. My first Vessel matched fourteen of my twenty-seven point criteria. We only need ten for it to be considered a viable union, so I brought her home and we stayed together for six months before I figured out it wouldn’t work out. Even with the personality alignment, she wasn’t happy with me. Vessels are strange creatures, son. Sometimes not even my fail-proof measures stack up to full capability.”