Bound by the Vampire Queen (Vampire Queen Novels (Quality))

  He plunged in deep, making her cry out, but then he stopped there, lodged to the hilt, and spoke against her hair. "Do you love me, Madison?"

  He released his hold on her head, lowered it back to the pillow so that she saw him through the gray darkness of her bedroom, illumination provided by the light they'd left on over the hallway steps. She'd given up anticipating anything this man would say to her or ask of her, and this was no exception.

  "I want to. I want you to love me . . . back."

  His eyes softened then. He held them both on that cusp as her nails raked his shoulders, her hips working against his in tiny, insistent movements, but he pushed down, pinning them. "Ssshh. Be still, love. Be still. Calm down for me."

  She stared at him, panting, but gradually, painstakingly, things slowed down, until it seemed they were balanced on some still point in the universe, where they had stopped as everything else passed around them. He waited until he saw her reach that still point with him.

  "I will, Madison. I do. You understand me?"

  She nodded. Tears trickled over her cheeks, probably baptizing his thumbs. "I want to love you, too, Logan. Really love you. My choice. I want to get there."

  "Go over for me," he whispered. "Let me see it happen. Come for me, Madison."

  This was the easiest thing of all, given that the stroke of his cock, his skill in rousing her beyond anything she'd ever experienced, took the choice out of her hands. She climaxed, cunt spasming over him, nails biting into his flesh, her body straining up in that crazed rigor during which the human body could do anything. He put his mouth on her sternum, right between her breasts, holding it there, continuing to pump into her body, work her to the full measure of her release.

  Only when she was starting to come down did he speed up, seek his own finish. She held on for the ride, loving the feel of his body shuddering against hers, the male grunts of release and the heat of him searing her inside. She clung to him for all she was worth, tilting up her hips to give him back as much pleasure as he gave her. Though she wasn't sure that was possible, she would do her best to try.

  When he at last stopped, brought them both to earth, he lowered himself so his weight held her down in a pleasurable way, then he propped some of it on an elbow, keeping his jaw against her temple. She held him to her, all her limbs still wound around him. It was perfection. If only the moment never had to stop.

  But Logan was the type of man who kept a wheel turning. He wouldn't let her stop the ride for fear it would go in the wrong direction. And the next stop was going to be one of her deepest fantasies. The auction, the soldier . . .

  He'd been helping her explore her submission fantasies all along, but with every step along the way, he'd also somehow kept the focus on the reality of their relationship as well. Like tonight. He would deliver on her fantasy, like a candy man delivering the most delicious chocolate, but what happened after?

  "Stop thinking," he rumbled against her. "Just sleep with me. Find good dreams."

  Leave it to him to order a woman to have good dreams. Her smile was a painful one, though. Did he understand how afraid she was of the other shoe dropping? How did a vessel that had been broken over and over withstand something as strong as his will? She knew her heart was safer on the shelf, not subjected to any undue stress on those cracks, but she hadn't yet been able to deny him.

  As he turned them and tucked her against his body, she clasped his forearm, pressed under her breasts. Tightening her hold on him was a reflex, as natural as breathing. She sighed deeply, burrowed into him and prepared for sleep, making a quiet noise as he kissed her neck.

  Closing her eyes, she hoped she'd find the best kind of dream in slumber. The one that would still be there when she woke up.

  Read on for a special preview of the scorching final novella in Joey W. Hill's tantalizing Naughty Bits series

  THE HIGHEST BID

  Available July 2014 from InterMix

  As the door to Naughty Bits opened, Gloria Estefan's "Wrapped" started up on the music system, the sultry intro earning a startled look from the woman who'd entered.

  "It's like having your own theme music, announcing your arrival. Pretty cool, right?" Madison gave her newest customer a smile. She did it from a kneeling position, because she was working on her newest display. The antique lingerie chest, a piece she'd picked up cheap at a consignment store and re-finished with Logan's help, was perfect to display an array of lace panties, bras and corsets, draped over the half-opened drawers and hung on the knobs.

  The woman offered her a tentative smile. She was middle-aged, with attractive auburn tinted hair and brown eyes. Her manicured nails and tailored clothing weren't polished enough to suggest executive management, but likely the strata that kept the wheels running in the office. Perhaps executive assistant. The type of person who would ask for what she needed, when she needed it.

  It gave Madison a fleeting thought of herself, working as an investment manager all those years, polished up and always looking the same outside, no matter what might be brewing beneath the surface.

  "If you need help with anything, just holler," Madison said, holding eye contact to tell the woman she meant it, not just a store employee offering a rote response to a customer.

  The woman nodded. "Do you have . . . costumes?"

  "We do." Giving a demi-cup bra one more quick adjustment, Madison rose to her feet. "A variety of them. Which one are you planning to use to dazzle your lover?"

  "Oh . . ." The customer chuckled. "Ah, maid?"

  "A classic." Madison took her to the rack on the wall and showed her a traditional black-and-white outfit, complete with frilly apron and very low-cut blouse, matched by the high cut of the miniskirt. As the woman fingered the fabric, her expression reminded Madison of the disastrous times she'd sought out lingerie to bandage her own failing relationships. The look in the woman's eyes wasn't a true mesh with the desires she was harboring. Confirming it, she spoke.

  "I'm not sure. I really don't know if he'd even like this sort of thing."

  "Do you like the idea?"

  "Maybe. I just remember years ago when we saw a movie that had a sexy maid in it, and how he liked that. Maybe I'm being foolish. It seems to take more to get him interested these days since he turned fifty, and I thought maybe something . . ."

  What can I do to get him to pay attention again? To look at me the way he did at first? It was as clear as if she'd said it aloud, but the silence said it was too painful to be voiced.

  Not more than a couple months ago, tangled up in her own baggage, Madison would have been unable to help, beyond offering the woman the number to a good divorce attorney. Since then, she'd connected with her own desires, thanks to Logan's direction. As such, Madison could step back and look at the situation from the woman's perspective, sympathizing with it, but not getting it confused with her own. This woman was dealing with middle age libido issues with her husband. A simple thing that wasn't so simple when dealing with the heart. "Would you mind telling me your name?"

  "Nancy."

  "Nancy. I'm Madison. And if you don't mind a couple suggestions, I think you may be focusing on the wrong person here. There's a good kind of selfishness, the kind that helps everyone involved. We have to be able to turn ourselves on before we can turn on a lover. As obtuse as guys can be, nothing centers their radar like a woman who's getting hot and bothered. It also sounds to me like rather than taking him on a wild rapids ride, you need to take him to a secluded lagoon."

  At Nancy's blank look, Madison drew her to the bookshelf. "Does he like to read?"

  "He'll spend a whole day with a book on the weekends and he reads at bedtime every night. He's even read my romances when he has nothing else." Nancy gave a little laugh. "Wasn't self-conscious about it at all. Said he liked a couple of the historical ones."

  "Wonderful. Who gets home from work first?"

  Nancy shrugged. "He does, usually."

  "Okay. How would you feel if you came hom
e from work and he met you at the door, naked and ready to go at it like rabbits?"

  Nancy put her hand over her mouth, stifling a surprised giggle. Then, seeing Madison wanted her to consider the question, she did, and whatever went through her mind sobered her. "Well, I expect I'd feel a little pressured. I mean, I'd be glad he was interested, but--"

  Madison waved a hand, accepting that. "Of course you'd feel pressured. My point is that maybe that's his problem. When we're in our twenties or, God help us, our teens, it's all about our hormones. At fifty, it's about his boss, about the job stresses, the jerk who cuts him off in traffic on the way home. Whether there will be enough money for the kids' college, retirement, the vacation you've both always wanted to take to Europe. You have to help him change gears when he comes home."

  As Nancy digested that, Madison picked up a book selection. "How about one Friday night, you suggest reading to him? He can put his head in your lap, close his eyes."

  She put the book in Nancy's hands. "This one is a menage a trois, with one man and two women, written with both genders in mind. Plenty of things to intrigue him, as well as you. There are sketches in it as well."

  Nancy flipped open the book and blanched. "Wow . . . " She gave it a closer look while Madison suppressed a smile. "That's actually very . . . nicely done."

  "Yes. There's some erotic photography in there too. Again, things that will appeal to him visually and you emotionally, the best of both worlds." Letting her hold on to the book, Madison took her to a different section of the store and picked up a remote control panty with bullet vibrator in the crotch. She made a mental note to order more, since she'd sold about half a dozen of them this week.

  "Encourage him to be interactive. When you're reading, switch this on, show him what you're doing. Get yourself worked up, and draw him into the spell. Then turn the remote and the reins over to him, so he feels like a man, like he's taking the lead. I bet things will take a good turn."

  She took a breath. "If they don't, then maybe you need to dial it down further--or shoot him in the head and bury him in the backyard--but what's most important is getting in touch with what you want, Nancy. Pleasure yourself and invite him to take the journey with you. That's the key to reconnecting to him. If he's worth anything at all."

  A few minutes later, as she was checking Nancy out with a generous purchase that included a couple of the books and the panty, she saw Clarence's UPS truck turning into the alley. Today was Friday, and not just any Friday. It was one of those Fridays where he might be bringing her something from Logan. When she heard the motor idle outside her back door, then Clarence turning the back room door latch, delight surged through her.

  Nancy flicked a glance at her as she swiped her credit card. "You must have ordered something nice. You look like a pony just arrived at your birthday party."

  She hadn't ordered anything at all, which was exactly why she had that look on her face. A week ago, Logan had told her it was time to give her the guided fantasy he'd promised her, a tantalizing erotic threat. She expected whatever Clarence was delivering would officially kick that off.

  That same night, Logan had taken her for an after dark walk in a park near her neighborhood. He'd done nothing more than hold her hand, flirt, and let her talk about a hundred different things. Then he'd backed her against a tree and given her long, hot kisses that made her feel like a teenager out necking past curfew. She'd had a stubble burn on her throat the next day she'd caressed with her fingers when she discovered it.

  He'd refused to take things further that night, but he left her reeling with the possibilities, thanks to his parting words.

  "Can you clear your Sunday next weekend?" At her nod, those brown eyes had kindled with heat. "Then do it. I have plans for my sub."

  She still leaned toward keeping their relationship a chain of erotic sessions, nervous about moving too fast into deeper territory. However, the obvious care Logan put into making those sessions special and unique perversely transferred those qualities to their relationship as a whole. The man was far too clever.

  Nancy took her leave with a smile and a nervous look, but nervous in the right kind of way. Madison well understood the feeling. While she engaged Clarence in pleasant conversation, she had to quell her impatience to shoo him out of the store before more customers arrived and she'd have to wait to find out what was in the package he left on her counter.

  As he was leaving, though, he paused at the curtain to the back storeroom and looked back at her. Like most UPS drivers, he was fit. Not very old, maybe a couple years younger than Madison, but she'd often wondered about his story, because there were lines around his eyes, and a look in them that said he'd had some interesting journeys in his life.

  "I bet Alice smiles every time she looks down from Heaven and sees you behind that counter, ma'am," he said. "You fit here. You really do. Not like you're her, but like you were the best person to honor this place. To honor what she made of it. I think that's why she gave it to you."

  It was the most she'd ever heard the quiet man say, and it left her staring after him as he beat a hasty retreat. He lifted a hand before he disappeared out the door, though, and she automatically raised her hand in answer, giving him a warm smile again so he didn't feel awkward about it. After the door shut behind him, she thought about it, though. And smiled.

  "I really didn't fuck this up after all, did I, Alice?"

  Each person walking through her doors was a potential story or desire to realize, just as Logan had said. As Alice had said. Madison wondered why she'd spent five years of her life doing something that didn't speak to her heart the way this job did. And pursuing relationships so different from the one she was in now.

  The answer to that was pretty simple. She'd been looking for love, a relationship, instead of actualizing herself. Moving to a new place, realizing how much she enjoyed doing this, gave her a different sense of who she was, almost as if she was becoming a more evolved Madison. One who was involved in . . . something . . . with an extraordinary man. A Master.

  As she picked up the box, she knew she might be about to evolve even further--if she could hold on to her courage with both hands.

  The box wasn't as small as the last one, but too small to hold a full costume. Shaking it, she heard what sounded like several loose items.

  "Why do you shake a present before you open it?" She remembered her eight-year-old self asking Alice. "You're going to open it anyway."

  "Why do you smell chocolate before you bite into it?" her sister had rebounded. "It's the same thing."

  Lately, Madison had been shaking packages as well as savoring her chocolate. Good changes.

  When she opened the box, the first thing she saw was an embossed invitation on heavy, cream-colored paper. When she opened it, the handwriting looked like a woman's script.

  Novitiate, your training is complete. It's time for you to be claimed by a Master. At six p.m. this coming Sunday, you will wait in a kneeling position inside the door of your quarters, leaving the door unlocked. A servant will retrieve you for the auction. It will be the last time you see your home. Wear and bring nothing but what is contained in this box. Prepare yourself exactly in accordance with the instructions. --Training Mistress

  What Logan had coaxed from the deepest, most shameful corners of her mind was her recurring desire to play out a fantasy where she was a female sex slave, trained to serve a Master. The pinnacle of the fantasy was an auction where the highest bidder would take possession of her. A particular bidder--a soldier. Quelling a little quiver in her lower vitals, she looked deeper into the box.

  She lifted out a utilitarian collar, no more than a buckled strap with several D-rings placed around its circumference. There were chains attached to it. A diagram showed her how it fit. The chains ran to a set of nipple clamps, and then continued around back to be reconnected to the collar. As she registered the weight of the chain, imagining the pull, her nipples gave a twinge.

  At the bottom of th
e box was a thong like she'd given Nancy, a bullet vibrator inserted into the crotch panel. There was no obvious way to turn it on, suggesting it was remote-controlled, but that piece wasn't included. Her heart fluttered as she thought of the control in Logan's hands. The thong's back strap had a metal ring sewn into it. Glancing at the bottom of the box, she found out why. She also found she was starting to breathe a little more shallowly. The room had become even more silent, the air dense, pressing on her exposed skin.

  She pulled out a butt plug. It was about three inches long, but thick as a man's cock. As Logan's cock. Opening the folded sheet included with the announcement, the referenced "instructions," she started to read. The quiver of the paper told her she was shaking.

  From here forward, you are not allowed to pleasure yourself in any way. Or be pleasured. A single infraction will incur severe punishment. Twenty-five strikes with a switch.

  You will not speak to anyone about your preparations or the auction. For eight hours before you are picked up, you will not eat, or drink anything but water. You will not watch television, read or do anything to occupy your time except think of how you will serve your new Master.

  Four hours before the auction, you will do the following:

  You will use the cleansing products included and flush out your vagina and anus thoroughly, purging away the leavings of other males you endured as part of your training. You come to your Master clean and pure, never again to be touched by anyone except him and whom he designates.

  "Whom he designates." Logan had said he would give her a guided fantasy, that other men wouldn't really be touching her. He would just make her believe it "might" be happening. He was doing a good job, because she was already wondering if she'd misunderstood, or if she needed to reinforce the message with him.

  Take an hour-long bath, soaking in the oils included in this package.

  Wash your hair, braid it and put it in a tight topknot on your head. Use the sculpting clay so not a single strand is loose. Put on the collar.