Beloved Vampire (45 page)

On the next cross, a male slave was manacled and facing away from the crowd, his Mistress caning him with brisk strokes, leaving red stripes on his tight ass and upper thighs. But then she had water brought and gave it to him herself, stroking his throat as he swallowed. Her fingernails scraped over his erection, an impressive reflection of his pleasure in serving her.

Because she’d been conditioned to arouse and climax against her will, under extremes of humiliation and pain, Jessica knew the difference in what she was seeing. The next four were similar to the first two. One Master had chained his sub upside down and was having her deep-throat his cock, his thighs and testicles pressed flush against her face. He’d opened his trousers but not dropped them, so as a Master he was not on bare-assed display before observers, but his sizable organ, revealed when he withdrew and pushed back in, was slick with her saliva as she worked him. As his buttocks clenched rhythmically with his thrusting, her breasts quivered with her enthusiastic efforts. Jessica drew an unsteady breath, remembering the night she’d wanted to go on her knees, put her mouth on Mason there.

When she at last nodded, indicating she was ready to move on, Amara squeezed her hand, a flash of approval in her eyes. The next visual was a glass wall, behind which different scenes were played out in rooms where the Dominant wished the activity to be viewed. A Victorian maid being spanked by her irritated Master, a Roman gladiator taking control of his Christian slave, who was more than willing to do anything to save his life . . .

She was doing well. However, like the night on the beach when she’d tried the somersault before her body was ready, she realized her mind and body were giving her signs of overload. Her heart was pounding erratically and she was getting dizzy. She was becoming more aware of the attention of passing men, the crawl of their gazes over her flesh. It really was too crowded in this viewing corridor. A shudder, a need to move faster, swept through her.

Easy,
habiba
. Amara and Enrique will take you to the dance floor now.

He was here, and as usual, he spoke just when she needed to hear his voice. But damn it, she
could
handle this. She dug her heels in, determined to stare at the next brace of female submissives, tied together in elaborate Japanese rope bondage and suspended, blindfolded and at the mercy of whatever their Masters inflicted upon them. She would confront that overwhelming feeling, rooted in a past she was determined to
make
the past. However, Amara and Enrique were implacable, their hands firm, Enrique’s strong arm taking her waist. They were too well linked with their Master, and she couldn’t stand against all three of them.

They emerged on the upper catwalk above the dance floor. As she blinked at the wholly different environment, she lost her irritation. “It’s something, isn’t it?” Amara shouted in her ear.

She realized the area through which she’d just passed had essentially been the foyer and entrance corridor of a much larger club.

The dance floor
was
astounding. The main floor was broken into lighted, colored squares like a graduated stained-glass window. In those lighted blocks beneath people’s feet, bodies were moving on a lower level, twisting beneath the thick glass. Naked and sometimes bound slaves, a tinted mural of erotic undulations from pane to pane. The dancers moved over them, looking down to enjoy, or giving the submissives pleasurable views in return, because Jessica was sure she wasn’t the only one without panties here.

The dance floor was flanked by scaffolding, a massive erector set crisscrossing up to the fifty-foot-high domed ceiling, an impressive feature of the club’s architecture she’d seen from the parking area. People danced along the wide scaffolds, some suspended on bars like trapeze artists, only spread-eagled, bound in secure cuffs overlaid with twisted ribbon. As they were pushed by the dancers across open space, the ribbons flowed. One woman with red hair that fell to her waist had her wrists and ankles bound on the top and bottom of one ring of a sphere of interlocking rings. She was oscillating, the hair and ribbons twining as the sphere drifted across space, up and down, like a randomly floating bubble, only on wires. When she came close enough to the scaffolding, the dancers reached over the railing and touched her freely, giving her a push to send her on another flight.

At other places on the scaffolding, where metal bars crossed, gagged and blindfolded submissives were crucified with manacles, some with vibrators strapped into their bodies so that they trembled and climaxed into the hygienic chastity belts they wore. Passing dancers were allowed to tease and fondle them. However, in every case of a bound slave, she could search the nearest bystanders and find a carefully watching Master and Mistress, or an assigned security person, attractive and discreet, but obviously there to ensure the safety of the bound and helpless person in the dense crowd of aroused, dancing clientele.

Watching it all, Jessica realized she was wet, her thighs slick against each other as she walked, her body taut, eager for . . .

something. Focusing so hard on how she’d handle the club without falling apart, she hadn’t anticipated her own body’s reaction to the stimulus. Trying to accept and understand that response was almost as harrowing as trying not to fall apart. Since she hadn’t survived Raithe by rationality, she suspected it would be best to make it through tonight without it as well. Analyze later, she reminded herself.

“Want to go out and dance?” Amara had slipped her arm around Jessica’s waist, holding her securely. Enrique pressed close behind them as well, a twofold reassurance of warm, protective bodies who meant her no harm. Who would allow no harm to befall her. And in her consciousness was one who’d sworn he’d tear apart anyone who tried. Who reinforced his presence with the collar on her neck, the bracelets on her wrists. But what if she was her own worst enemy? How did she fight herself?

Jessica looked up at Amara, the dark eyes shining with pleasure and anticipation. Amara wasn’t afraid. She wore a collar, subjugated to two men. She was cherished, loved, strong. And she’d said she admired Jessica.

Jess swallowed. Nodded. “Let’s dance,” she called out.

Needing no further invitation, Amara took the lead, tugging her out into the disconcerting fray. However, with the grace and confidence of a professional dancer, she carved out a place for them in a matter of seconds. Enrique had stayed behind, but Jessica saw him take a position on the upper scaffolding where he could watch them both and secure a drink from a waitress. She wondered where Mason was in all of this. She wished the geographical locater mark was two-way, but for now she had to settle for knowing he was out there.

Amara had them dancing on a translucent blue square of glass. Beneath it, Jessica saw a slave with a muscular build. His cock was in a harness, the organ so in need of release it was almost plum-colored. He stared up at them, held in a steel and nylon suspension system. Something was fucking him from behind, obvious from how he kept pressing himself against the glass in a rhythmic manner.

His mouth was open, gasping, the eyes bright and fierce with lust. It stimulated her as well, as Amara fell casually into the pleasure of further goading him, straddling his face with her heels, shimmying her hips in those complicated belly-dancing moves that were so easy for her. She swept her hair across the square and then worked her way down into a lithe squat, swinging her hips low, giving him a close-up of her tightly encased ass and what was between her thighs.

“Amara.” Jessica couldn’t help laughing as the woman looked up at her impishly beneath her fall of dark tresses. Tugging at the hem of Jessica’s short skirt, Amara eased forward on rocking knees, scattered a circle of kisses up Jessica’s thigh before she was on her feet again, turning her in her arms, getting her to move out of her stiff, self-conscious sway into a more abandoned movement.

As she moved around Jessica, keeping her in a protective circle, giving her space, Jess tried to relax and focused on the music, let it move into her.

She had loved to dance. High school dances, college parties, then the wide offering of clubs in Rome. As if answering her desires, the next song was a vintage heavy metal favorite, Quiet Riot’s “Bang Your Head,” sweeping her back to that time of her life. A smile spread over her face despite herself. Nothing said loss of inhibitions like hard rock.

Closing her eyes on instinct, she began to move her body with the vibration of that insistent opening drumbeat. When the lead singer belted out that opening scream, the dance floor screamed with him, and she was lost, remembering Mason’s Berber yell in her ear as they sailed across the sand and surf on Coman’s back.

She was rocking back and forth, her arms lifting as her upper body gyrated left, then right, hips swiveling, adopting some of the novice moves Amara had taught her into a couple turns, a light step or two. She was finally giving that gasping male slave a show, moving back and forth over his body as if walking on him, turning so he’d see the cleft of her bare ass and the slick lips between.

Not as blatant as Amara, but she liked the power of it, the way it flowed over her. His desire was hot and potent beneath her while she remained untouchable, taunting him with what he couldn’t have. Something that belonged to another Master.

As that power and unexpected thought filled her, she remembered her thought to Mason.
Maybe I want you off the chain
. . .

I’ve left the gate wide-open.
Her movements became even more provocative, a mating dance meant only for the strongest, most dangerous beast among this seething mass of humanity.

You are the bravest woman I’ve ever met
. . .

She remembered his words, remembered she’d survived what few could. If she wanted him, damn his sense of honor, her fucked-up head, her fears. She could call him to her, make him break the chain himself. Letting her hands drop, she molded them over her breasts, her thumbs caressing bare flesh inside the low neckline. Sliding her palms down to her abdomen, then lower. Curling her fingers around the dress hem, she raked it high on her thighs, responding to the wild abandon of the song. She rocked down, bending low, tossed her head up and led with her hip to pivot and come back up straight. Her eyes still closed, she gave herself over to the music, her own raging desire. She would fear nothing here, not with the music beating through her like blood, like the pounding of sex, all its unbridled, mindless rush of euphoria and dangerous need. The way it was supposed to be.

When her arms brushed something metal, she opened her eyes and realized she’d reached one edge of the dance floor. In between the scaffolding, they’d put panels of tall cage doors without the cages, the illusion of imprisonment. Some had slaves bound against them, and now she found herself brushing muscled flesh, a blond, blindfolded man of lean, tall physique who quivered under her touch. She curled her fingers around the bars beneath his spread arms and used them for leverage, pulling forward, then back, her rhythmic hip thrusts and circles far more insistent when she was straddling his thigh, brushing herself against his flesh. His cock was in a chastity cage, the organ bound in a condom inside, because, cage or not, he’d already been goaded to climax.

She lifted on her toes, wondering how far she could push this, if she could put her mouth to his throat, tease his neck with her ca nines. Right before she made contact, a pair of familiar, strong hands closed on her hips. Triumph surged through her.

I would hate to ruin my membership by killing someone here,
habiba
. There is a long waiting list.

He spun her around. Thrillingly, he shoved her back against the man’s body, using it as no more than a functional wall, underscoring who held control over her. His amber eyes were molten gold, taken straight out of the heated earth, and her eager hands slid up to grip that silk shirt over the thundering of his heart. She was so glad that vampires weren’t dead and cold, as lore depicted. Right now she thought he could consume her in flame and she’d burn in joy.

He locked a hand over one of her wrists, but she wouldn’t be denied this time. Sliding her free hand under his arm, along his waist, she gripped the muscular feast of him through that mesh shirt. When his mouth tightened, she twisted free with a quick move and ducked under his arm so she was pressed against his back, the curve of his taut ass. She began to work against him those same hip movements she’d offered the blindfolded and bound slave. Teasing her mound with the feel of the luscious male buttock inspired her to hook her leg over his hard thigh, her calf moving down the inside of his knee, her own knee brushing his arousal. She would twine around him like a vine, seduce him.

He was so tall, broad-shouldered. So much larger than her. She wanted to feel it, wanted that control to break, all the power unleashed.

She spun away and returned to his front. As she did, she closed her eyes, wanting everything about him conveyed through her fingers. It maximized his effect on all her other senses, for his body’s perfect beauty was best experienced by touch. A vampire lost none of his impact in the dark, after all, because they were creatures of the night. Sliding a closed fist up his chest to the base of his neck, she spread her fingers like a starfish, caressing his throat, then began to slide down.

Abruptly her wrist was manacled by his again. Twisting her around, he maneuvered her to an unoccupied cage door and shoved her against it, face forward. The steel erection he brought against her buttocks was more unyielding than the metal. Clamping his hands on the bars on either side of her, he caged her there. Her breath caught in her throat.

Yes.

“I’m not them.” She wasn’t one of his damsels in distress. She wanted to be taken by him, and taken rough, because that was her desire, different from Raithe’s, the rapes he forced on her. “And I’m not her,” she added savagely, wanting to tease the beast to raging.

He bent, his breath caressing that sensitive juncture of her throat, the promise of his fangs so close. Possession. That was what made the bite of a vampire so scintillating, so overwhelming to a woman’s imagination. That, and the knowledge that such a possession allowed her to give him what he needed to live. So many truths Raithe had buried beneath the brutality, but Mason had dug them out with his impact upon her senses, her very soul.