The Maestro's Apprentice (19 page)

If he doesn’t let Adam have you and I wind up with you, I may consider putting you over my knee on his behalf. Sort of a lesson about what will happen if you weren’t nice and obedient in my house.”

Autumn felt a pinching sensation as both nipples suddenly went very erect. Her jaw dropped and she took in a gulp of air. She hadn’t expected him to say that and wondered if he was serious. Gooseflesh erupted up and down her arms and along her back.

“You don’t believe me? You’d better. In fact, I may just give you a little demonstration when I’m done fucking you,” he said sternly, thrusting harder. His eyes left hers only long enough for him to locate her wrists and push them into the mattress.

He pressed his lips together and held her gaze, pounding the length of his erection into her over and over again.

168

When he finished, he rolled off and stared at the ceiling. “I would really like a taste of you,” he said, raising up on his elbow to look at her. “You know that. You smell fucking awesome and you feel very good around my cock.”

In spite of how wild the past few days had been, she blushed. “Everybody says that,”

she said. “It’s like you vampires have some – charm thing or something. Y’all always know the right thing to say to make a girl feel beautiful.”

“You think that Manny guy back there could make anyone feel beautiful?”

“Well, maybe not him,” she said.

“It helps to be able to get along with people. But have you considered that, if so many men are telling you you’re beautiful, that you might just
be
beautiful?”

“That’s the nicest thing—”

“It’s not a ‘nice thing.’ It’s true. You’re fucking gorgeous. Claudio du Fresne prides himself on being a connoisseur. And I know what’s hot when I see it myself. And you are smokin’.”

She smiled and dropped her gaze.

“Now,” he said. “About that demonstration.”

Autumn looked up at him, suddenly alarmed.

“It’ll have to wait until tomorrow, because all I want to do right now is hold your body next to mine until I get horny again, and then I’m going to have my way with you over, and over, and over…”

169

Malcolm made good on his word, rolling Autumn over on her stomach while she was still sleeping and fucking her from behind until they both dropped back off from exhaustion. The next morning, she crept out of bed and looked out the window, remembering Francois. The thought of him sent unpleasant shivers all over her body.

Things could have ended up very badly. She felt happy to be safe with Malcolm and on her way back to Claudio and Adam.

Adam. She didn’t know why she hadn’t known she would miss him so much. At the same time, he wasn’t exactly a take-charge kind of guy.

Not that it mattered. It looked like Claudio would be the one to choose who she would be with. Trying not to wonder just how much trouble she was in, she sat down in the chair by the table and tried to open the pizza box quietly. She had gotten nearly all the way through a slice by the time she realized Malcolm had raised up on his elbow and was watching her.

She inhaled suddenly and went into a coughing fit.

He laughed and got up, his nude body moving gracefully toward the bathroom. He was already hard. “Finish that up,” he said. “It’s time for your demonstration.”

“Of what?” she asked.

“I told you last night you were going over my knee first thing this morning,” he said with a sly smile and closed the door.

“You did?” she asked.

170

When he came back out, he wriggled into his jeans and shooed her out of the chair.

While she looked on with ever-widening eyes, nibbling on a piece of pizza crust, he moved the chair to the foot of the bed and sat in it, then patted his thighs with both hands.

“Come on.”

“But…”

He shook his head. “If I have to come get you, it’s going to be much worse,” he said.

“Now, come over here.”

Confused and teary-eyed, she put down her crust and went to him. “I didn’t do anything,” she said.

“I think you’ve done a lot of things over the past few days,” he said, taking her over his knee. “Including put yourself in a lot of danger, and making the people who care about you worry. I wouldn’t call that nothing.”

He rubbed his hand over the round cheek of her bottom. It would have felt good if she didn’t know what was coming. It had been a while since she had been punished for real.

She began to tear up again.

“You were lucky this time. But there still have to be consequences,” he said, bringing his hand down hard on her rear, repeatedly and quickly. It wasn’t long before she was squirming against his thighs and whimpering with the pain of the spanking.

“Oh, are you starting to feel a little regretful?” he asked.

Autumn nodded.

Malcolm smacked her ass again, hard. “I can’t
hear
you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good,” he said. “Here. Get up.”

171

She stood up, but wasn’t quite sure what to do next, except wipe a stray tear from her eye. “Aww,” he said. “I made it cry.” He took her on his lap and held her tightly against him. “If you were mine, and you ran away like that, I can’t promise you there wouldn’t be a belt involved somehow.”

That made her think of Claudio, and thinking of Claudio made her tear up even more.

“Shh…” Malcolm said. “It’s over now.”

“Claudio’s going to punish me,” she whined.

“Maybe not,” he said. “I’ll tell him I gave you a pretty decent spanking. Probably not what you deserve, but you’ve had a pretty hard night. And Manny got you pretty good with that belt.”

“You vampires love belts.”

“They’re efficient,” he said, guiding her off his lap and standing up. “And they’re convenient. Eat some more pizza if you want to and come back to bed. We didn’t get much sleep last night. Plus, I’m horny again.”

172

A few hours later, Malcolm led Autumn to the door of the room she shared with Adam and Maria at Biali House. Hearing Claudio’s voice inside, she stopped.

“I can’t,” she said.

Malcolm shook his head. “Don’t make me do this,” he said.

Claudio flung open the door and stood there, nostrils flaring. “Is she all right?”

Malcolm caught her arm and hitched it up high, then tugged her forward. “A little worse for wear, but not too bad.”

Claudio motioned with his head. “Bring her in.”

“Hey, Claudio,” Malcolm said in a low voice. “I spanked her this morning for the whole thing.”

“Why?”

“As a lesson, in case.” He looked around. “Hey, look. I like her. If you decide you don’t want her and you don’t want Adam to have her, well…” He shrugged.

“I’ll consider it,” Claudio said, giving Autumn a look that nearly froze her to the spot, before returning to the room. She looked away.

She did not follow on her own, but had to be tugged by an insistent Malcolm. “Come on,” he ordered. “You’re just making it harder on yourself by stalling.”

“But…”

“Don’t make me tell you again,” he said, allowing his voice to take on a hard edge.

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Inside, Maria sprang from the bed toward Autumn, smiling and crying, but Claudio put up his arm to stop her. Maria’s smile faded as she shifted on her feet and looked from Claudio to Malcolm to Autumn.

Adam, who had been leaning against the dresser with his arms crossed over his chest and his head down, looked up and was halfway to Autumn before Claudio could put his hand on Adam’s shoulder. Adam stopped and looked at it.

“Business first,” Claudio said.

Adam scowled. “Get off me. The girl has been through I don’t know what. I want to make sure she’s okay.”

The two men locked eyes for a moment. Claudio jutted his jaw sideways and let his eyes smolder at Adam, who merely flared his nostrils at him. Claudio tightened his jaw, put his left hand on his hip, and took his right hand off Adam’s shoulder to flourish violently with it. Then he turned away.

Adam turned to Malcolm. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing she didn’t want,” Malcolm said. His eyes never wavered. “I got her out of there.”

Adam nodded. “Thanks,” he said, then took Autumn off her feet in a bear hug. “Oh my God, baby girl. Oh my God. What did that punk-ass motherfucker Francois do to you?”

Autumn felt so relieved, the only thing she could do in response was cry and tremble against him. She felt another hand on her hair and turned to see it was Maria, who had ventured over when Claudio turned away. Malcolm moved toward Claudio as they embraced her. Finally, Autumn was able to speak.

174

“What’s happening?”

“Claudio is deciding what to do about you and Maria,” Adam said.

Hearing the words from Adam made fresh tears come. She put her hand over her mouth and shut her eyes tight.

“Maria,” Claudio said sharply. “Autumn. Come. Sit.” He motioned with his hand toward the foot of the bed.

Autumn looked up at Adam, reluctant to leave the safety of his embrace, but the urgency in Claudio’s voice drove her to pull away. A few days ago, she had actually believed she would never have to worry about trembling before Claudio again. She sat so close to Maria that the entire length of her thigh pressed against the entire length of the other girl’s. Maria was trembling too.

Claudio separated them. “You there, and you there,” he said, pointing to the corners of the mattress. The girls glanced at each other and moved apart. Adam sat at the head of the bed, while Malcolm stood nearby, arms crossed and studying the toe of his boot.

Claudio stood in front of them. Autumn stared at his shoes. They had a high polish, as always. He was always so immaculately dressed. It was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the beginning. She clasped her hands and pressed them into her lap, resisting the urge to rock for comfort.

“Autumn,” he said. His French accent seemed stronger than she remembered, but she knew it wasn’t. Her fear was making her hypersensitive.

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you know what is happening here?”

She nodded. “You’re trying to decide what to do with me and Maria.”

175

“I’m trying to decide what is best for you and Maria. But first, I would like to know why you felt it was necessary to leave, yes?”

Maria sat up straight. “We—”

“From her,” Claudio said. “I want to hear Autumn’s reasons, not yours. Yours, I know.”

Maria looked around the room sheepishly, then seemed to wilt on the spot, bending her spine and looking at her hands.

Claudio turned his eyes on Autumn. She stared at him wide-eyed, and swallowed, certain that anything she said would get her into far more trouble than she was probably already in.

He lowered his lids slowly, and smiled. “Tell me,
cherie
,” he said gently. “Why you want to leave my home.”

“I wanted – I wanted to be with Maria.”

She heard the other girl take in a breath, and from the corner of her eye saw Maria’s hand go to her mouth.

“And now?”

Autumn shook her head. “I thought I was in love, but I just – I love her as a friend.”

She hated the way the words sounded, coming out of her mouth. Knew how horrible they must sound to Maria, how the attempt at kindness probably hurt just as much as outright cruelty. But she couldn’t bring herself to be cruel to Maria, not even to make things easier later on.

“What changed your mind?” Claudio asked.

176

“Freedom,” Autumn said without hesitating. “I wanted to experience things on my own terms.” Again, she winced at her words. They sounded like something a TV

character would say.

“Yes,” Claudio said. “Freedom can be a potent drug. What did you find while you were free?”

Autumn looked at him, unsure what he meant. Her heart raced. She knew he liked to have answers when he asked questions, but she didn’t have one. “I don’t…” she began. “I don’t understand.”

“What have you been doing, besides getting yourself kidnapped?”

She hung her head, blushing.

“Maria?” he said suddenly.

Maria’s head snapped up. “Yes, sir?”

“What has Autumn been doing with this freedom of hers?”

Maria looked at Autumn.

“Give me the truth,” Claudio said. “I am basing my decision on what she needs.

Nothing more.”

Maria took a deep breath. “She’s – been exploring…”

“She’s been fucking around,” Malcolm said.

All gazes turned to him. Autumn twisted around to see him, watching him walk over to Claudio without looking at her. “She told me. It’s been one guy after another, ending with me. What this little girl needs is a firm hand on her backside. She doesn’t need to be allowed to run wild, because what she looks for is somebody to make her behave. I think she’s just been shopping for a new master.”

177

Autumn’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe she was hearing these words, and had even more trouble believing the shivers down her spine and the tingling between her legs that told her they were true. When Claudio looked at her, she looked away with burning cheeks.

“Is this true?” he asked.

“I…I don’t know.”

“I can tell you how she reacted to what I did,” Malcolm said, “which was to tell her how I discipline my girls when they need it, and to make her give me what I wanted. She mewled like a kitten.”

Claudio turned his attention back to her. “This is what you had at my home, Autumn.

Do you wish to return?”

Before she could stop herself, she began shaking her head vigorously, eyes tearing up and voice cracking. “No. I don’t want to go back.”

“Why,
cherie
?”

“Because it’s too much. You’re too much. I’m afraid all the time. I can’t please you.

Even being in the room with you like this, it’s…” Her voice hitched in her throat and she began to sob.

Claudio nodded. “I see. Knowing you as I do, I believe what Malcolm says is true, that you need to belong to a vampire. Perhaps I am the wrong one, but I also do not believe Adam is the right one.”

“Why not?” Autumn asked, suddenly panicking, realizing that, even as she strayed, she had counted on Adam’s presence to anchor her. Without that, she didn’t know what she would do.