Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy (26 page)

I was so screwed.

I made a very unhappy sound. “When
you’re not sporting those sharp incisors, I enjoy your company too.
Dan’s not thrilled about sharing me, but he’s willing for now. What
are your thoughts on the matter?”

Tristan closed the distance between us.
His fingers trailed through my hair. The selfish expression had
disappeared to be replaced by simple, warm need. With real regret
he said, “As much as I’d like you to be monogamous with me, I can’t
ask you to make me your one and only when my hungers lead me to
seek other women. Blood and sex go

together. No vampire is exempt from
that one-two punch. But know this, Brandilynn, if I could be with
just one lady, you’d be the woman for me.”

Jeez, he’d stopped just shy of
proclaiming his eternal love. What did I do to make these men act
like this? I was Brandilynn Payson, a BDSM-loving, no-commitment
making, high-end prostitute. It made no sense Tristan and Dan would
want a woman like me, not for keeps.

I tried to play it off like my brain
wasn’t twisting itself inside out over the situation. “It’s just as
well I’m polyamorous. At the risk of sounding racist, I don’t go
for bloodsuckers. You really freaked me out last night.”

“I know I did.” Tristan’s smile was a
bitter thing, one that didn’t sit well on his handsome face. “We
have the daylight hours though. Look, Brandilynn, no fangs.” He
opened his mouth to show me.

I laughed. When he kissed me, I
snuggled in tight. So sue me for wanting to bang a vamp. He’d been
honest. He’d been open. He’d treated me like I was a real person
with real feelings. You don’t toss aside a man like that, no matter
how long his teeth grew after the sun set.

Tristan’s kiss deepened, and I did my
whole gooey-puddle shtick. He plundered my mouth thoroughly,
sending my senses reeling. His hand drifted down to cover my
breast, and blink! – my sundress was only a memory.

Tristan pulled his lips from mine and
frowned down on me. “Did I tell you to remove your dress,
Brandilynn?”

Uh oh. I’d let my eagerness overstep my
role in this relationship, and Tristan was going gonzo Dom on me. I
froze and dropped my eyes from his dark gaze. “I’m sorry, Sir. I
didn’t have your permission.”

“No, you didn’t. Stand up.”

I rose to my feet in an instant.
Nervousness churned uneasily with arousal. Maybe with Dan I’d have
gotten away with a warning. A little smack on the rear for my
temerity. Not Tristan. This man didn’t coddle disobedient subs. I
was in for it.

“Up on the desk, hands and
knees.”

I swallowed and clambered up on the
wide surface, arranging myself so that I didn’t disturb the books
and papers on the desk. I felt terribly aware of the vulnerability
of my bare flesh.

Tristan’s hand rubbing over my buttocks
filled me with warmth tumbling through my belly. He wasn’t doing it
to make me excited, though his touch certainly did that for me. He
let me know where the punishment would occur, letting dreadful
anticipation make me tense with worry. I didn’t know how bad it
would be. The offense had been minor in my opinion, and Tristan
might let me go with only light discipline. Then again, he might
decide to make an unequivocal statement by really letting me have
it.

His deep, honeyed voice sounded firm
and emotionless. “Ten swats from my hand, Brandilynn. You will
count them off. If you miss any or try to move away, I will start
again from the beginning. Do you understand?”

“Yes Sir.” I already
trembled.

“What is your safeword?”

“Sharkbait, Sir.”

“Very good.”

Tristan didn’t start right away.
Instead he continued to caress my backside, his touch light and
gentle, as if he’d never correct a sub’s lapse of judgment. The
seconds spun out as he stroked me. I grew more worried as time
passed, as he made me wait for the spanking. Tension thrummed
through my body. I clutched the edge of the desk, my knuckles
whitening.

“Relax, Brandilynn. The more you clench
up, the worse it will hurt.”

I took a deep breath and make my
muscles ease. “Yes Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

The words had no sooner left my mouth
when his palm cracked mightily against my upper right butt cheek.
Fiery pain lanced from the blow, and I gasped. Intense heat flooded
my body, and it took half a second before I remembered what I was
supposed to do.

“One,” I whimpered.

“Good girl.” His hand descended again,
hitting the exact same spot.

Tears filled my eyes. “Two.”

The next two blows went to the opposite
cheek, again the upper part. My rear stung and burned, and my
breath sobbed in and out between counting them off. The following
two spanks went back to the left mound, just above my thigh. Then
twin strikes found the same spot on the other cheek.

“Seven. Eight.”

Tears dripped from my eyes as the raw
burn of my backside grew. The heat in my womb made me ache for
Tristan to touch my pussy, to end the torture of the need that
pulsed there. His willingness to dominate me, his ability to be
strong with me fired up everything. I wanted him to plunge deep
inside, to soothe the pain of desire. I’d gone dizzy with
need.

His hand crashed against me, right on
my slit, stinging my clit. Agonized bliss rocketed through my body.
Oh. My. God. I almost came right then and there. A high-pitched
wail streamed from my lips.

“Nine! Oh, Sir!”

Tristan’s last blow hit the same exact
spot, and my pussy convulsed hugely, sending excruciating elation
pouring through my senses. I hung onto myself long enough to scream
“Ten!” before letting the spasms carry me away into the heaving
tide.

Tristan’s low chuckle was a life
preserver for me to clutch at and bring me back to reality’s shore.
His hands rubbed the stinging flesh of my rump, sending fresh darts
of pain through me. My body hummed with delight.

“That was supposed to be punishment,
Brandilynn, not reward.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.” Like heck I
was.

“You’re a little bit of a pain slut,
aren’t you?”

“With the right man. Sir.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time
you’re in need of discipline.”

“Yes Sir.”

“On your knees in front of me,
sweetheart. Since you’ve already had yours, you may service me
until I achieve mine.”

I darted a glance up at his face as I
slid down to the floor. Tristan looked pleased. More than that, I
detected real affection on his expression. I felt all warm and
tumbly inside again.

He didn’t make his clothes disappear,
so I fumbled with the old-fashioned button fly of his trousers
before his cock finally sprang free. I served him enthusiastically,
determined to make my earlier transgression right. I wasn’t sure
who was more satisfied when he flooded my mouth with precious hot
saltiness, his groans ringing in my ears like the sweetest
orchestra.

Being stalked by my killer aside, it
wasn’t such a bad afterlife.

Chapter Fifteen

I entered Miller-Edwards Funeral Home
on Dan’s arm and gaped at the full lobby. “A lot of stiffs on
display tonight, I guess,” I muttered. I spoke quietly despite the
fact I could have yelled and screamed and no one would have known
the difference. Nobody speaks loudly in a funeral home. Public
grieving is so darn civilized. Despite the crowd, you could easily
hear the soft piped-in music, even the rustle of
clothing.

“Just you and one other,” Dan answered,
his voice equally hushed.

Even in the lobby, floral arrangements
perched anywhere there a horizontal surface existed to support
them. As if that wasn’t enough, I spotted bowls and jars of
potpourri dotting the room. It was as if the funeral home directors
were obsessed with hiding the slightest odor of corruption. It
smelled like a meadow full of flowers had farted.

Dan pulled me into the Darien Room
where a snow-white closed casket sat under a soft spotlight. It
gleamed with ethereal mistiness, as if in the act of being
dissolved into the eternal clouds of Heaven.

If not for the canny lighting that left
the rest of the room in dimmer shadows, I would have missed it in
the large gathering. My first instinct was that we’d gone to the
wrong room because there were so many people. We’d only taken a few
steps into the mauve-carpeted room when I jerked to a
halt.

My eyes went so wide with disbelief
they hurt. I turned to Dan. “What – why?”

He stroked a thumb beneath my eye. Only
then did I realize a tear had escaped. “Why not? People care,
Brandilynn. You don’t have to do great things for them to notice
you’re not around anymore. Sometimes the lightest touch is enough
to affect others.”

“You sound like Augustus,” I said, my
voice strangled. I blinked back further tears before they could
embarrass me. With my vision cleared, I spotted the griffin sitting
next to a sofa where Tristan’s black-wearing vampire aide Penny
perched. People looked at him in awe, giving him a wide berth.
“Speak of the furry, feathered devil.”

Dan followed the direction of my gaze,
and he jerked so slightly I wouldn’t have felt it if I hadn’t been
molded to his side. “Now that’s respect. He rarely allows himself
to be seen in public. You’ve made a heck of an
impression.”

My throat closed up again, and I fought
to get hold of myself. I was not a weepy damsel in distress. Not
me. “I don’t know why he’d do that for me. I haven’t done anything
in particular to astound someone like him.”

I let my gaze roam back to the casket
that held my remains. It was closed of course. The Ripper’s
mutilations and amount of time my body had spent in the woods had
no doubt made the view exceedingly unpleasant. A line of people
filed past, some pausing to touch the gleaming surface of the
casket. The sweet young man with Downs Syndrome who carried my
groceries to the car and acted like my five dollar tips were
a

flood of wealth. The barista from the
coffee shop I went to every day, a single mom with two children. A
salesperson from the bookstore I frequented.

I watched Agent Heany mouth something
as he leaned close. A prayer, perhaps? A promise to catch the
monster that had ended my time among the living? Agent Neuhaus did
something similar. Sheriff Grayson simply bowed his head and closed
his eyes for a few moments. Buck the puking deputy crossed
himself.

After paying their respects, people
stopped at the head of the casket to have a few words with Tristan
and Patricia, who stood in for my family. The vampire siblings were
as grave (ha-ha) as the occasion demanded, looking cold and
beautiful and yet appropriately solemn. A few bodyguard weres
including Gerald and Eddie stood nearby, looking like the Secret
Service in dark suits and ties.

Dan tugged at me, and I allowed him to
lead me into the room. We threaded our way through the gathering,
and I saw the owner and several employees of the escort service I’d
worked for along with Lana, Taylor, and Isabella.

I halted before an aged man sitting
alone in an armchair. His eyes rested blankly on an arrangement of
lilies sitting on the table in front of him. I dropped to my knees
before him and grasped one bony, big-knuckled hand in my
nonexistent grip.

My heart ached. “Martin. You came for
me? Oh you sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

Dan’s voice drifted down. He stood
behind me, staring at the old man’s sorrowing face. “Why does he
look familiar to me?”

I sniffled and wished for ghost tissue.
“It’s Martin Lancaster. He owned the computer factory that caught
on fire a few years back.”

“Oh, I remember that.”

I wanted to hug Martin more than
anything. I wish I had loaded up on energy before I’d come here,
just so I could offer some comfort. “He lost everything in that
fire. It turned out he didn’t have enough insurance to cover the
damages and lawsuits that followed. He’d been a client when he was
still rich but it was only for companionship, not sex. His family
up and abandoned him after he was destitute.”

“Nice family.” Dan sounded thoroughly
disgusted.

“He was so lonely I kept going to visit
him every couple of weeks free of charge. You’re so sweet to have
come, Martin. I swear I never meant to leave you alone.”

I wept for him, this kind, abandoned
man who looked forward to our games of checkers and shared his
memories of European and Asian tours with such vivid descriptions
that I often felt I’d visited those far off lands myself. Who would
spend time with this forgotten being who subsisted on meager Social
Security checks? He had no one, no one at all to care
now.

The room quieted. Martin’s head lifted
as everyone’s attention was drawn to the front of the room, near
where Tristan and Patricia had been posted. I rose to my feet with
Dan’s silent assistance to see what was going on.

Tristan had stepped behind a small
wooden podium, apparently ready to make a statement or speech.
Patricia took a seat nearby.