Nectar: DD Prince (36 page)

“How’d you get here so fast?” she was breathless as he kissed her.

“I hurried. I missed you.” He kissed her deeply again and walked her to the bed and they were all over one another. 

Kyla and Tristan’s t-shirt and boxers soon parted as he ripped them to shreds. She clawed at his dress shirt, popping a button as she fumbled through getting it off as fast as possible.  He helped her by undoing his suit pants as he kicked off his shoes. She pushed his socks off with her feet and a moment later they were connected by lips, by wandering hands, by him deep inside of her, and by his teeth puncturing her throat.

By the time they were both sated, slightly sweaty, and snuggled up together basking in the afterglow, it was nearly 1:30. He was investigating her throat.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. His brows were furrowed as he touched her neck with his strong warm hands.

“It’s too marked up. Looks like I have no control.”

“What do you mean?” she clutched her throat.

“I love seeing my marks on you but don’t really relish the idea of others ogling your throat and my teeth marks are going to draw eyes there. There are too many marks,” he fingered the marks on the crook of her arm, “it looks sloppy.”

“Oh.” Would other vampires really be analyzing her bite marks and drawing conclusions about Tristan’s state of mind?

“We’ll tell the stylist to leave your hair down,” he reached fingers into her hair and fingered a curl distractedly, staring off into space.

The doorbell rang. Tristan jumped up and got quickly into a pair of jeans, commando, and trotted down the stairs quickly. Kyla shrank under the blankets.

She heard his voice, another male voice, a bit of laughter, and then the door shut and the lock clicked. Then he came up the stairs with a huge smile on his face, a pizza box in one hand and small paper bag in the other.

“Oh.” Kyla sat up with a big smile on her face, “Yum!” She clapped her hands.

He laughed and put the box down on the bed. The bag had two cans of grape Fanta pop.  She took his dress shirt off the floor and pulled it over her head and fastened the buttons that remained, then dove in to the pizza, which was perfect. Oodles of cheese, roasted red peppers, pepperoni, pineapple, and sliced tomatoes. Just how she liked it and with her favorite pizza-paired beverage.  Some liked beer or red wine with their pizza. Kyla liked grape soda pop with hers.

“You can seriously read my mind to the degree that you know what I like on my pizza?”

“Not quite but I do very good recon work….aka, your old roommate is on my speed dial. Although she doesn’t remember our conversations.”

“My old roommate?” Kyla was confused.

“Daisy?”

Oh. Past tense.

“I’m your roommate now,” he winked at her, making her blush.

“My vampire prince boyfriend is---awe-some!” she chanted and took a very big unladylike bite.

He gave her a big dimpled smile and flopped back on the bed, “Your vampire prince boyfriend?” he raised one eyebrow at her.

“Umm…” she blushed furiously. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. She was mortified and could never remember her brain to mouth filter malfunctioning like this before. It was typically very measured, unless she was angry. She totally had her guard down here.

He snuggled in and kissed her on the cheek, “I think that’s a fairly accurate description. And I’ll take being called awesome. We’ll eat and then grab a shower. I’ll scrub your back for you, you scrub mine?” He winked and swiped a piece of pizza and sauntered over to the window and looked down at the busy city while he ate it.

“Is that why you made me a
real
turkey sandwich that first afternoon? Because you found out it’s what I liked?”

He smiled back over his shoulder at her, “Creature comforts are helpful during captivity, yes?”

“Hmmm. I suppose,” she mumbled with mock disapproval, “What else did you find out about me?

He wiggled his eyebrows at her, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Uh, yeah. I would. You have a very unfair advantage. Several unfair advantages, as a matter of fact.”

“Yes, I do. I like having an advantage. You’ll have to get to know
me
the old-fashioned way, I guess. It’ll take some effort on your part.”

She smiled warmly, “I’ll take on that challenge.”

“Come here. You already have a pretty good idea of one or two things that I like,” he whispered huskily. She wiped her mouth with a napkin and wrapped her arms around his neck. She got on her tiptoes and nibbled on his earlobe.  He let out a little moan and his hands trailed up under the back of the dress shirt and gripped her backside.

“I love seeing you like this,” he whispered into her ear, “I could feel that this was in you somewhere, deep down.”

“Way deep,” she mumbled, “It feels so good that it’s just us. It feels different,” Kyla told him, “I guess I’m enjoying it while it lasts. Hey, wait a second…the coffee --- was that another creature comfort?”

“Yeah, and I got you another can of it on my way here.”

“What’s your favourite food?” she asked.

“You first, steak, second. Rare steak. Very rare.”

“Favourite colour?”

“Green.” He smiled and his eyes sparkled. She blushed.

“Favourite movie, book?”

“Dracula and Dracula. Favourite cereal, Count Chocula, favourite animal, vampire bat, favourite Sesame Street character, Count Von Count. We don’t have a lot of time before the hair and make-up troupe get here. Come, let’s shower,” he murmured, stopping her from going to the darker recesses of her mind, the place where she was afraid of what was to come.

“We have like an hour and a half.”

“Not enough time for what I have planned for you,” he flirted.

“You mean, like, maybe an eco-tour and well-digging in Kenya?”

“Huh?”

“What you said to Daisy.”

“What?”

“I talked to her.”

“You did what?” he looked pissed.

“Relax. It was just a Facebook chat. I said almost nothing. But now I know why no one is looking for me. They think I’m doing an eco-tourism thing where there’s no internet, then digging wells in Kenya, then moving to Spain with you and ah… marrying you.”

Tristan folded his arms, “When was this?”

“Last night.”

“And you’re just telling me now?”

“Uh…”

“Let me see this Facebook chat.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“Not true. I wouldn’t have left a computer if I didn’t trust you and I’d know if you were lying to me, but I need to check out this conversation. Now.”

She opened the laptop on the desk in the bedroom, logged into Facebook, and then backed up and sat on the bed, feeling slighted, feeling more than slighted.

Tristan scanned the conversation and then snapped the laptop computer shut. He spun around to look at her,

“Don’t even think about get pissy with me,” he pointed his index finger at her, “If anyone has hacked and is monitoring my computer usage and sees you having a conversation about me with someone, if someone is pretending to be someone you trust in order to gain information about me, if anything is happening that puts you or me in more jeopardy than we’re already in I need to know about it. Okay? You can’t just have a recordable conversation like that, Kyla. We need to work
together
to keep you safe. Okay? I’ll trust you to be alone, I’ll trust you to use a computer, but you have to trust
me
when I say that we are in danger and everything we do, every single fucking thing, has to be carefully calculated before we do it.”

Kyla was dumbfounded. Then she felt her anger begin to rise. She opened her mouth, ready to fire back at him but he cut her off first.

“Don’t even start!” he hollered, making her wince, “I know you didn’t think that a Facebook conversation could be dangerous but now you know. Don’t go getting your haunches all up now because I’m telling you what to do, alright? I don’t need more stress right now just because I’m trying to keep you alive!”

Kyla blew out a slow breath.

They stared one another down for a beat.  Finally, she let her shoulders slump,
“Okay,” she said softly, looking away and giving him the win on another stare down contest.

“No bathroom door slamming? No throwing things?” He eyed her warily.

She shook her head, chewed her cheek, and wrapped her arms around herself, not looking him in the eye.

Tristan looked up at the ceiling and shouted, “Hallefuckinglujah!” 

She pursed her lips at him and shot him the evil eye. They were both quiet for a minute. Finally, she broke the silence, “An eco-tour and well-digging is more Daisy’s scene than mine.”

“She concocted the story. Not me.”

“Huh?”

“I got her to come up with the story of why you were leaving. She doesn’t know it but she concocted it based on her own dream. You got to live her dream life.”

Kyla flopped onto her back on the bed, legs dangling over the side, “Gorgeous guy, ecotourism, philanthropy, getting married and moving to Spain. Totally Daisy.”

“What’s Kyla’s dream?” He moved to stand over her, their knees touching.

“Right now? Just a second slice of that pizza.” She gave him a smirk.

He straddled her, pinned her wrists, and kissed the tip of her nose,

“I’m crazy about you, you know that? Eat fast. I need to get you in the shower stat!”

The afternoon blurred by, getting ready, getting reminded how to act, and getting over her nerves and before she knew it, she was walking into the banquet room on Tristan’s arm, ready to face somewhere around 120 vampires and not quite ready to pretend she was under his thumb.

Opulent was an apt word for this banquet room at the Four Seasons. Everything was meticulous and within a moment of arriving Kyla thought it seemed totally pulled together, not at all like the event had been cobbled together just that morning. Tuxedo-wearing waiters moved through a sea of beautiful ‘people’ with champagne and hors d ‘oeuvres.

A band played soft music and dozens of people swarmed the large room, mingling, dressed to the nines. Tables all had bouquets of red roses on them with black linen tablecloths and there was a black and red banner on one end of the room that said Kovac. The sandwich board outside the banquet room had said Kovac Capital in red on a black background. Kyla eyed it but tried her best not to look curious. Every one of the guests wore some sort of masquerade mask and every single one of them was fit, young-looking, and good-looking. Totally A-list.

Kyla walked in, holding Tristan’s arm. She wore a delicate eye mask in black glitter with a few red feather tips that fringed the upper half. The mask matched her halter dress and her glittery red-soled shoes.  Her hair was up with several tendrils cascading down her throat. Tristan had told her to tell the stylist he wanted it worn down but the stylist, Enrique, was very boisterous, very gay, and very verbal about the style he envisioned for her hair based on the dress and her throat, which he’d called elegant (to which, she’d seen Tristan mutter under his breath, ‘and biteable’).

Kyla had whispered to Tristan that maybe he should tell the stylist what to do as he would have the powers of persuasion but Tristan declined quietly and just watched her being primped while working on his laptop. Kyla had the makeup girl put some concealer on her throat and it did mute and blur the bite marks a bit.

The makeup girl was a lovely Russian girl who took Kyla into the bathroom to handle the waxing of Kyla’s brows, under arms, legs, and bikini area. She was beautiful with long sleek black hair, almond shaped green eyes and huge boobs. When Kyla saw her eye colour she felt fear rise in her. Tristan was into green eyed brunettes. The girl devoured Tristan with her eyes but he barely even glanced in her direction.

“Amorous sexy man you’ve got there? Lucky girl!” The Russian whispered into Kyla’s ear as she patted concealer onto Kyla’s throat marks, “I love it rough like that,” the girl said in a husky voice, gazing Tristan’s way. Kyla blushed but said nothing.

He’d given Kyla a silver cuff bracelet for the wrist that was marked up from a bite and a silver and ruby collar that took the attention from most of the bite marks on her throat with a silver chain with a dangling teardrop shaped ruby came down to her cleavage, which was evident via a keyhole cut-out on the halter dress. Small red teardrop ruby studs adorned her ears. Tristan had thought of everything and she felt worthy of being on his arm once she was ready to go. He had talked to her at length before their short drive in the back of a limo about behavior.

“You need to leave your attitude at the door, baby,” he’d told her as he passed her the garment bag with her dress.

“I know you don’t like me to ‘control’ you,” he gestured with mock quotes, “but others need to think that’s exactly what I’m doing. No hesitation. I know I sound like a broken record but I can’t stress this enough. Think about this mask you’re putting on and put a mask on the rest of your face as well. This collar, pretend there’s an invisible leash between you and I attached to it. You wearing that is symbolic, shows everyone that you’re off limits; that you’re mine.”

Kyla swallowed hard.

“If we’d been at home I would’ve brought you out for only a short time but here you’ll be with me most of the event. There are pros about it being here, too, as everyone will be on their best behaviour. But don’t forget that someone could be watching you closely. After the banquet senior team members will be in a behind closed doors meeting. That meeting will have a part 2, tomorrow.  I’ll bring you back to the apartment after the dinner and then head over there for the meeting. I’ll duck out with you as early as I can manage. Depending on how the conference goes, I’ll decide what to do next from there.”

Kyla was as ready as she’d ever be.

Walking into the banquet room Kyla caught sight of the back of herself in a full length mirror looking sexy, she could even admit it herself, but she wondered who could see bite marks on her shoulder in two places, once on the top and once on her upper back. If someone looked closely they’d also see past the concealer and count fang marks peeking out from the thick jeweled collar on her neck in several places and her shoulders and the crook of her arm as well as her calf despite her efforts to cover them up. A turtleneck long sleeved ankle-length dress would’ve been better, obviously.

Of course the dress hid marks on her thighs, her hips, backside, her lower back, her stomach, and that cuff bracelet hid the marks on her wrist. Tristan had spent the better part of the past week and a half branding her thoroughly, just as he’d told her he wanted to do.

The mask over her eyes did lend enough anonymity to help her feel a bit more at ease about her poker face. As she quickly surveyed the room she wasn’t sure who was a vampire and who was a human date or pet. She knew most of them were vampires and it was more than unnerving but she did her best to walk steady on his arm and not make direct eye contact with anyone.

Tristan looked debonair in a black tux with a dark ruby red bow tie. He was clean shaven, his wavy hair slightly gelled, and he smelled awesome, as usual. He was tall, dark, and gorgeous and even in her very high heels he towered over her. His black satin mask made him look mysteriously sexy and dangerous, the icy blue gemstone eyes blazing through.

Tristan told her ahead of time that as the event host he needed to speak at the start and end of the event but that it would be largely social in nature for the vampires so she’d be able to simply stay at his side and quiet throughout the event. He sat Kyla at an empty table for eight close to the podium and whispered in her ear to stay there, stay quiet, and simply smile and be polite if anyone greeted her. If in doubt, act catatonic. There was a card at the place setting with ‘guest of Tristan Walker’ embossed. The band leader gave him a nod and then there was a break in the music. Tristan removed his eye mask,

“Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the eightieth annual conference kickoff for Kovac Capital. Thank you for all of your efforts that have contributed to our ongoing success. I apologize for the short notice on the venue change and I hope you all have a good time tonight despite that. I will see many of you tomorrow for meetings and discussions here that will help us take this company to new heights in the coming year. You’ll have notifications texted to you before midnight about your schedule for tomorrow. Tonight is about celebrating so
Salut
. Enjoy dinner, drinks, and dancing. And have fun. Keep your masks on but don’t have too much fun.” He gave an exaggerated wink to the crowd. Laughter rang in the air. He smirked, raised his glass of champagne, and dipped slightly in the direction of the crowd who all clapped. 

Tristan signaled a thumbs up to the maestro and the band started to play another song. He put his mask back on.

He definitely commanded the room, cool as a cucumber. Kyla felt authority exude from him and could see how logical of a choice he was as someone in a position of authority for a company. Meanwhile, two people sat down at the table Kyla was at.  She smiled at them in greeting and was grateful that Tristan was on his way to the table.

Tristan sat beside her and greeted the other two people at the table, “Jet, Isabelle, nice to see you.”

“Good evening, Tristan,” the couple said in near unison. She looked to be in her 40’s and wore a full length gold strapless gown and had a platinum blonde French twist. Her mask was gold, like her dress. He was dark-haired but slightly salt and pepper and had a longish goatee. He resembled Sam. He was dressed like Tristan but with a bow tie that matched his date’s dress. Kyla moistened her glossy ruby red lips with her tongue and stared straight ahead, so thankful for the mask she had on.

“And this must be the lovely lady we’ve heard about,” Jet said extending forward to take her hand.

“Hello,” Kyla said.

He kissed her hand. She felt like his lips lingered a tad too long.

She saw Tristan’s jaw tighten ever so slightly.

“Enchantee,” Jet said.

Enchanted? Kyla held back the urge to snicker.

“I was so sorry to hear about your home, Tristan,” the woman gushed, “How terrible!”

“Yes,” Tristan said dryly, “Indeed.”

“I guess that’s still being investigated?” Jet asked.

“That’s right,” Tristan answered coolly.

“Any sign of Joseph?” Isabelle asked.

“Not yet.” Tristan sipped his champagne.

“Well the event turned out marvelous despite the last minute change. Well done, you,” she said.

“Thank you. Excuse me.” Tristan turned his attention to Kyla and spoke slowly, “Princess, do you need the rest room?”

“Yes,” she answered softly, meeting his eyes.

“Excuse us,” Tristan said. He led her toward the door quickly. She held the crook of his arm. A few faces glanced at them in the crowd and it looked like a few were about to stop them to speak but Tristan was clearly on a mission as he walked purposefully with her in tow. She felt scrutinized but stared ahead and walked steady.

As they reached the exit of the banquet room, she heard a woman’s voice.

“Tristan Walker, as I live and breathe. Sort of.”

He spun around, looking annoyed.

A tall woman with straight chin-length blonde hair in a short ruched white satin strapless dress and a matching eye mask stepped forward slowly, a glass of champagne in her hand. She looked about thirty and she oozed sex appeal. She lifted the mask off and smiled sweetly at Tristan. She was gorgeous. She had big smoky brandy eyes and full lips.

“You’re not supposed to be here!” Tristan hissed under his breath, his voice a little bit menacing. Kyla felt the woman’s eyes land on her. She did her best to stand still and hold her face as expressionless as possible.

“I came with Liam,” the woman said, smugly. She looked to Kyla, “So, this is who has been keeping you so busy? And you’ve collared her. Hm.” She stared directly at Kyla’s throat. Her eyes narrowed.

Sam was suddenly in their path, “Dawn, darling. You’re breath-taking!” He twirled her and gave her a little dip. She snickered and swatted him on the shoulder. Was he there to run interference? He was good at it!

Tristan pulled Kyla in the other direction and they quickly exited the hallway into a restroom. He locked the door behind them. Kyla felt a cramp spread across her lower abdomen. She winced and put her hand across her stomach.

He was suddenly breathless.

“Hey, you okay?” He lifted her mask carefully off.

“I’m okay,” she said, “I just have cramps. They’ve been bugging me off and on since this morning. They’re worse now, though.” She thought he seemed edgy. Too edgy, “I’ll be fine. Are you okay?”

“You’re playing it cooler than I am.” He looked in the mirror and ran his fingers through his hair, “And the night is young.  This isn’t good. Why am I feeling so anxious? I almost lost it when Jet put his mouth on your hand.” A muscle worked in Tristan’s jaw.

“What can I do?” She touched his face. He seemed like he was ready to climb out of his skin.

He dropped to his knees and lifted her dress up. She jolted in surprise. He took her ankle and parted her legs and then his teeth grazed her leg and then he bit in at the outer thigh and he began drinking, urgently. His fingers dug into her hips. Kyla leaned against the wall for support and took a deep breath.

“Oh baby,” he whispered, “This is what I need…”

He drank while rubbing his hands up and down her legs. One hand grabbed her rear end possessively and then fingers on his other hand slipped into her panties and he started to rub her at her most sensitive spot.  She let out a little moan. He swallowed a few more times and then stood up and caged her against the wall and started to devour her mouth with his. She could taste her own blood.

His lips were so powerful. He moaned and started grinding into her and she felt tingly all over.  He undid his pants and lifted her up onto the vanity. He pulled her panties past her thighs and then let them drop to her ankles and pulled up a leg so that they dropped off, his eyes locked with hers. He wrapped her leg around his hip and was quickly inside of her.

“Ah!” she breathed. It felt so good but it nagged at her that he was here doing this here, now, when the party was going on outside that door. She considered what Joe had said about his head not being in the game lately. Anxiety spiked.

“No, shhh, it’s okay,” he whispered and gyrated deeper, nuzzling into her neck and he started licking it below the collar, then took the collar off and dropped it on the floor, squeezing her throat possessively, massaging it.

“I won’t let anyone take you from me, baby. Tell me you’re mine, only mine,” he murmured, his lips vibrating against her throat as he kissed her.