Vampire Master: Vampire Queen Series: Club Atlantis, Page 4

  “You’re too young to know who Cousin It is,” he said.

  “I watch that channel with the old black and white stuff,” she responded. “Life sometimes looks better in black and white.”

  As he sat down next to her, bracing his longer legs next to her dangling ones, she laid her hand on his arm. Unexpected, since even outside the club she usually observed protocols between Doms and subs. She studied the contrast with her pale skin. He was the dark-skinned end of the color spectrum. He’d also grown up in Gulf-side Florida, where he’d spent most of his nearly thirty years of human life outdoors in the sun. Back then, he’d known swamps and fishing. Being drafted for Vietnam was the first time he’d been more than a hundred miles from home.

  “See,” she whispered. “Black, white. Everything looks better with those two colors in it.”

  He clasped her fingers, a reproving squeeze. “No one gave you permission to touch me,” he said mildly.

  “I know. I like that about you. You’re a Master all the time. You don’t switch it off. It’s comforting. It tells me you’re real, all the way through. It’s not a fantasy. It’s not.” She added that last part with a touch of fierceness.

  Ella was one of the most sought-after female submissives they had on staff, not only for the unattached Doms, but for those who needed another player with their own submissive. Within what was permitted inside the club walls, she had no limits at all, seemingly, and a lot was permitted.

  Except she didn’t top. Ella wouldn’t have the first clue of how to do that.

  Otherwise, she could be whatever they wanted. A brat, a service sub, a slave, or whatever grade was needed in between. She could get off on hardcore pain or a satin ribbon flogger. She would serve Master or Mistress, because what drove her, fed her need, her ultimate aphrodisiac, was the pleasure of the Dom. If the Dom needed her to get worked up over feathers, wanted to hear her sobs, or have her giggle like a schoolgirl, she would. She could be the unattainable queen, brought to her knees by a forceful conqueror, or the prison inmate forced to satisfy a guard’s pleasure. She could be the naughty teenage schoolgirl, frisked thoroughly by a police officer.

  She could be anything, apparently, but something someone wanted to take home and keep. There were times when she reminded him uncomfortably of the dog at the shelter who gave two hundred percent to everyone who came in looking, but was always the one left behind in favor of the dog who played more morose or hard to get.

  Maybe because those looking wanted to know that what the dog would give to them, she wouldn’t just as willingly give to anyone else. If all she wanted was love, the one providing it must be irrelevant to her.

  Or maybe they couldn’t believe someone was that giving and loving. There must be a catch. People were inevitably selfish and perversely conditional.

  So were vampires.

  Yes, she gave every scene, every Dom who engaged her, her full energy. Yet she was intriguingly hard to break down to the marrow. For many Dominants, that was fine, especially when doing a session with someone who wasn’t their collared sub.

  Not for him.

  Other Doms might not need that, but he was different. For him, the treasure he was after was what a submissive wasn’t willing to give, but needed desperately to relinquish.

  It was also something a vampire craved. He’d stayed away from doing it with Ella, telling himself he couldn’t exactly explain why.

  Which was bullshit. He knew exactly why. He stayed away from the ones he might want to keep.

  Despite his admonishment not to touch him, he’d kept her hand. With his other one, he pushed her hair back from where it covered her face, a practical stroke. That fabulous, curling mane fell to her hips, bouncing and moving like playful cat’s paws on a dark sea. Her eyes were different all the time, because she had several types of colored contacts. Today her irises were violet, with a silver ring around the outside, her pupil dark and striking in the center.

  But what caught his attention, more than their beauty, were the emotions there. She’d been using the hair to conceal the fact she’d been crying. The tears had dried, but her eyes had that tired look to them she’d tried to pass off with the smile. It would have worked on most men, because a beautiful woman’s smile could blur the details of what was going on behind it.

  He wasn’t most men, though.

  “I knew deep down it was a pointless crush,” she said abruptly. “I just didn’t realize how much it would hurt, knowing for sure James didn’t want me that way. He’s meant for someone else. Someone he’s met in New Orleans.”

  Almost everyone but James had been aware of Ella’s infatuation, but from the beginning most of them, including Ella, had known it was one-sided. Her acceptance of that wasn’t new, as her own acknowledgment of it now told him, but the information about him meeting someone in New Orleans was.

  Part of what made Ella such an exceptional sub was her uncanny intuition. She also picked up on changes in energy. Though Anwyn hadn’t known it until later, the night she was attacked and turned by rogue vampires, Ella had arrived at the club only moments after it happened, nearly hysterical, because she was sure Anwyn was dead.

  “And I’m fully capable of caring for myself, by the way. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”

  The switch from fierceness to sadness and back to fierceness again, bordering on anger, told him something had set her off. He was getting pieces of things, not the full story. James meeting someone was just a final straw thing. However, from the way she was throwing rocks around the subject, she wasn’t ready to talk about it, which worked, since he didn’t want to encourage too much familiarity.

  Still… Because she was obviously hurting and feeling alone, a question came to mind he couldn’t stop himself from asking. There was a whole building of people nearby who loved her as much as she loved them, and yet she hadn’t wanted to be around them for…whatever this was.

  “Ella, do you have family?”

  She blinked at him. Suddenly the mask of the contacts irritated him. He wanted the real color of her eyes. He wouldn’t order her to remove them, though. Not here. She didn’t have anywhere to put them.

  She’d been smart enough to don a black hoodie. Beneath it, she wore a black corset that laced her in tight and set her C-cup breasts up high, though they were currently shadowed in the folds of the partially zipped coat. Slick black leggings and a gold and green gauzy skirt over them finished the look. Earlier, on the dance floor, she’d been sashaying around in just the leggings, corset and four-inch stilettos that gave her fine ass a tempting swing-and-twitch motion. Now she wore ratty canvas sneakers for walking.

  He was used to seeing her inside the club, where everything about her fit. It made her an expected part of the scenery, the fixtures, as unkind as that thought sounded. He noticed her in the safe way he noticed any of the female subs.

  Here, the contrast of her surroundings made all the details of her appearance seem new and different. More of an impact to his senses.

  Despite the sneakers and hoodie, she was astonishingly beautiful. When she was made up, like now, her lips wet and full with crimson color, her skin creamy and smooth, she looked like a vintage pin-up. When she wasn’t wearing makeup, she was girl-next-door irresistible.

  He realized she was still gazing at him, and hadn’t responded to his question. “Ella,” he said.

  “You were looking at me so oddly,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to answer yet.”

  He touched her chin. “I do. Now.”

  She dipped her head, her lips brushing his hand. She was overwhelming, how much she was willing to give, so immediately. He’d never known her to be this forward with him. The reserve he maintained with her, that kept her at arms’ length, wasn’t working tonight. Maybe it was her mood, but he was concerned he was projecting something that he shouldn’t be.

  “I’m this close to putting you over my knee,” he admonished her, sharpening his tone. She drew back, telling him he’d
been right. It was him. Shit. “Ella. Last time. Where is your family?”

  “They’re all phoenixes.”

  Her gaze lifted and held his again. Even with the contacts, there was so much there. That look, all the inexplicable things it could mean, fell deep inside him. Without thought, he gripped her upper arms, as if he thought the rest of her was about to follow.

  “Whoosh,” she said quietly. “They went away in flame. I was there, but they didn’t take me with them, because I was trapped in my room. I sat in a corner and watched the fire come closer, but I could still hear them. My mother screaming for me, my father shouting. My brother and sister just screaming, then…just silent. A fireman came out of the wall of fire. He took me outside, held me in his lap, and pointed to the flame. He said ‘Look. There’s your family, their spirits, dancing in the fire, dancing up to Heaven. It hurt at first, but now it doesn’t hurt them at all.’”

  A light smile played on her lips, but something very different was in her gaze. An unexpected sense of danger ran up his spine as he saw something wild and savage and angry, something he’d never known was inside Ella. Then it was gone, replaced by her usual open expression.

  “I think my nightmares would have been far worse if he hadn’t told me that,” she said thoughtfully. “I hear them screaming still, but when the dream gets too unbearable, the screams die away. Like they were the ones having the nightmare, but they’ve woken up and now they’re dancing in the flames.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice, to be able to do that? I’ve danced in the wind, and the rain, and even in the mud.” Her tone became teasing. “Remember that night we celebrated the anniversary of Stripes, recreating the mud fight, all topless? But I’ve never danced in the fire. Maybe one day. It scares me too much now.”

  She looked away and started combing her fingers through her hair, covering that one side of her face again.

  Did Anwyn know any of this? He didn’t engage in a lot of chitchat, but he kept his ears open around the staff. As far as he knew, Ella never talked about her past. Had she ended up in the foster care system? Had she ever had a family again, before Atlantis?

  “Okay, enough pathetic wallowing.” As if a switch had flipped, she turned back to him, all those shadows abruptly gone. She tossed her hair back and shone a smile upon him. It was genuine, fully in the moment. “The carnival’s in town. Want to go ride the rides, eat bad food, get sick? Flirt with trashy carny women while I tease the men? Or vice versa?”

  “I have a session in an hour,” he said. And was surprised to find he regretted that. On a normal night, he wouldn’t seek out the overwhelming noise and light of a carnival, but she projected a calmness that was contagious, even when reliving one of her most horrible memories.

  Maybe he could reschedule the session. But Ella had already acknowledged his response with a nod of respect, and hopped down from her perch.

  “Oh, of course. I should have remembered that. Anyway, it’s here for another week or so, so you can go another time, if you like. I need to get back.”

  “Ella.”

  She stopped, already across the dock and headed down the steps. She didn’t look at him, but she glanced over her shoulder, her gaze on the wall of the building behind him. “It’s okay, sir. I’m okay. I’m always okay.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You are.”

  She dimpled at him for that, then cocked her head. “You know those scenes in books when the main characters have been separated, and they finally find one another after going through so much apart?”

  “Chick stories.”

  “You sound like Gideon.” Her smile deepened. “In those scenes, when the people come back together after so much horrible stuff, they’re crying and their hearts are breaking, but they’re so very happy, because they’re together again and it’s all okay. That's how I think it will be when I see my parents again, my brother and sister. I know it’s going to roll out just that way. I’d live in a library if I could, full of stories like that.”

  She was down the steps, striding away briskly. It was unusual for her to take her leave of a Dom that abruptly, but he could feel her need for space.

  She wasn’t the only one needing that.

  Wolf scowled, returning to the present and his dark apartment. He’d wanted to go after her, soothe her. Do other things. But he hadn’t. He didn’t get involved in the lives of the others, not that deeply.

  Especially not mortals.

  He said that, but after that night, he’d told Gideon he’d keep track of Ella on an ongoing basis. He’d told himself he was merely taking on a few responsibilities to share the load with Gideon in James’s absence.

  And yet, tonight, he’d invited her to be his assistant at a workshop.

  He took a drag on the cigarette, felt the burn. Fuck, it was one class. It didn’t have to be a mistake. She’d done plenty of assisting for other Doms. He’d treat it just like that, then cut her loose.

  Yeah, right. If the assistant thing had been all there was to it, that might work. But he’d laid a full-on claim on her when he’d put her between his knees, gripped that full, firm breast. He’d done an Evel Knievel leap across the chasm he maintained between himself and most humans. Particularly a female sub like her.

  Apropos of nothing, she would have no idea who Evel Knievel was. His lips twisted at the random thought, but his eyes half closed as he remembered how her nipple shaped itself into such a delectable point beneath his touch. Her lips had parted, her eyes glinting with unshed tears as she struggled through the pain to earn the right to touch him. Those fingers, so astoundingly gentle, trailing over his shoulders, his neck, his head, sending a shiver down his spine that tightened his ass and hardened his cock.

  He’d smelled her arousal. He’d wanted to push her down, lift her spread legs to his shoulders and lick every bit of that honey, knowing she’d only gush more. Which would work out fine when he shoved his cock into that sweet stickiness and spurted himself deep inside her.

  She was curvy but small. He’d curl her up in his lap and baby her afterward, right before he went after her again, keeping her in a constant state of sore and soothed.

  His lips curved, dangerous. Think you know insatiable, baby girl? Think again. There was a reason that vampires had third marked servants. A normal human could be fucked to death. Literally.

  He shook his head at himself. A pussy was a pussy, just like a cock was a cock. His fixation on her was because of other things, dangerous things she made him feel and want. The packaging just made it even more tempting.

  If he was smart, he’d get someone to step in for him on that workshop. He’d shoot Ella a message on the club forum, tell her he’d had something else come up, but she could assist whoever was doing the lecture. They’d be glad for her help.

  If he withdrew now, sending a clear message that, whatever he’d done tonight, what he wanted their relationship to be was what it had always been, she’d respect that. He’d rein himself in better, because she was as sweet, decadent and fresh as warm pralines.

  She didn’t deserve to be hurt by yet another asshole who didn’t want to be with her.

  Or couldn’t be.

  Chapter Three

  “Do you ever look at a man and feel like he walked out of every fantasy you ever had?”

  “Yeah. Except in the case of who you’re thinking about, it’s more like your fantasy landed on the workbench of some cranky goddess, who scoffed and said, ‘Bitch, let me show you what a fantasy really looks like.’”

  “Or the workbench of a god. One who wanted to ram his divine cock into an ass that perfect.”

  Madelyn and Chantal had made the first two observations, but it was Lars who threw in the third. He was stretched out on his stomach on the bar, reading a textbook. An unfinished Mai-Tai was next to him. He was twirling the purple paper umbrella that had garnished it in his fingers as he studied the page. He wore only a pair of loose cotton trousers that molded his own not unworthy-of-notice backside.

&nb
sp; From the table where the two Mistresses sat, Chantal tossed an amused look at him. “You think a goddess couldn’t conjure a cock to enjoy that same pleasure? She is a goddess, after all.”

  “I defer to a Mistress’s perspective on it,” the bartender noted. “Since she is as close to a goddess on earth as one can get.”

  Chantal shook her head at Madelyn. “Save us from the silver tongue of a switch who taunts us with his beauty, while bestowing it only on the less fair sex.”

  Lars sent her a grin, but then he returned to his textbook. He was working toward a Masters in English. He lived with four rowdy roommates, so often came to the club before opening to study. Anwyn encouraged her trusted staff members to see Club Atlantis as a place of retreat during the off hours, which was why she had workout facilities and other amenities to support their needs.

  Accordingly, Chantal and Madelyn had met with her earlier to review current membership applications, but now that they were done with that, they’d decided to share a glass of wine in the cozy second level bar area.

  For her part, on her nights at Atlantis, Ella always tried to arrive as early as she could to assist wherever setup help was needed, but at the moment everything seemed well in hand. So Chantal had pulled her down into a chair, put her silk stockinged feet in Ella’s lap, and teasingly demanded a foot rub.

  Ella was glad to oblige. And not just because it kept her close to where Wolf was, without seeming like that was what she was doing. This second level held a smaller dance floor and a couple of alcoves for equipment, and he was in one of those alcoves, working on a mechanical problem.

  When their paths had crossed a half hour ago, he’d offered her only a short nod. His fixed expression had given her a sinking feeling. She was sure he was going to tell her he’d changed his mind and didn’t want her help at the workshop. However, he strode away without further discussion, obviously focused on whatever he’d arrived early at the club to do.