STORY EXCERPT

It was her eyes which drew him in. Crystal blue like a summer’s morning, they held such hidden pain, the Dom in him wanted to take that away from her. They were eyes which had seen too much, endured, and yet shimmered with desperate hope. Considering that note about a child, he could wager a guess where that sadness came from. It was no doubt why she was here too.

It remained to be seen whether she was here only because she needed the money, or there was more behind it. She listed only the most basic of experience on her entry form, and excitement fizzed through his veins at the thought of initiating her fully into the delights to be found with the right Dom. Not that The Games gave them much time, but there was no reason why he couldn’t prolong their acquaintance.

She wouldn’t be the first submissive he’d taken from The Games and kept for a while. As long as he was careful not to show his true self, it shouldn’t be an issue. There were perks that came with being one of the oldest vampires in existence. A thousand years was a damn long and lonely time to be around, but a man picked up a few things along the way. Not only did he need very little blood to sustain himself these days, but his powers were so finely honed that no human would ever know who he truly was unless he decided to show them.

Her pulse beat an uneven rhythm at the base of her long, slender throat, and her overgenerous curves were in danger of spilling out over the top of her blue corset. The color of her dress enhanced the magnificent blue of her eyes, which widened further when she spotted him.

Henri gave an elegant bow and approached slowly. The closer he came, the shallower her breathing became, and she jumped when he grasped her hand and raised it to his lips.

“Bonjour, ma belle.” Henri dropped a kiss on the back of her small hand, satisfied to hear her sharp intake of breath when he let his lips linger for a fraction longer than was polite. “What brings a beautiful young woman like yourself to a place like this?”

She snatched her hand away, and he caught her frown when he straightened up.

“I…I don’t understand…I” She glimpsed at the list in his hand, and her eyebrows drew together even more when he handed it to the bartender.

“Are you sure, sir?” the young man asked. “You’ve only just arrived and—”

“Oui, bien sure.” He gave a sharp nod, and the other man stamped a SOLD sign over the list.

“Then she’s all yours,” the human said with a smile, while he handed the sheet back to Henri and rang the transaction up in his till. “Enjoy your evening.”

“I intend to. Have my driver bring the car around, will you?”

The youngster inclined his head, tapped his earpiece and spoke into it. Satisfied that his instructions were to be followed, Henri slipped him some cash and turned around to a soft gasp from the delightful bundle of curves next to him. She looked utterly terrified.

Mais non, this would never do. While he could easily compel her to do his bidding, he wanted and needed her submission freely given. It was bad enough that he would have to erase her memory before he sent her home. An action that never set well with him yet was required to keep everyone safe. While she would never know who he truly was, he couldn’t be sure how much she’d seen or guessed, and it was imperative that the true nature of The Games stayed hidden. That was for later, however. For now, he would have to put her at ease. Call him old-fashioned, and as the oldest vampire here, he no doubt was, but there was never any need to make these transactions unpleasant.

“Relax, mon chère, I do not bite, unless you would like me to.” He added his most charming smile to the words and held out his arm for her take. “Shall we?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do this.”

The whispered words held a wealth of sadness behind them, and the way she wrapped her arms around herself in a protective move should have pissed him off. Would have on anyone else, but there was something about this young woman that drew him in. Had done so from the first moment he’d seen her, and this close to her, her sweet scent unencumbered by any artificial trappings wrapped itself around him, pulled him in like a moth to the flame.

This woman would be his, come what may. It would be his pleasure to help her relax and forget her worries for a little while at least.

“You are not hungry?” he asked and smirked at the instant confusion which registered on her face. Joanne, Jo, as she liked to be called according to her limits list wore her emotions on her heart. It made reading her far too easy.

“Hungry?”

“Oui, I have a table reserved at Gauthier Soho. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

A slow blink was her response before she looked down at her herself and frowned.

“I’m hardly dressed for…” Her words trailed off on another gasp when he placed his forefinger over her lips and smiled.

“You look beautiful, mon chère, and it’s a private table.”

Again, he held out his arm. Muttering something under her breath, Jo took it, and a jolt of recognition shot up his arm. She must have felt it too, that strange and instant feeling of rightness if her renewed frown and the sharp intake of breath were any indications. There was something so very familiar about her, as though they’d met before, but he would have remembered her.

Time to find out what it was that spoke to him so strongly.

ADULT EXCERPT

He proceeded to take off his cufflinks and rolled the sleeves of his dress shirt up, revealing strong, pale forearms liberally sprinkled with fine dark hair. His tie and the few top buttons of his shirt were next. Jo couldn’t tear her gaze away from the nimble actions of his long fingers, not least because he’d fared far worse than her in the rain. Large areas of his shirt were so damp, it had rendered the fabric transparent, and she swallowed hard at the play of muscles clearly delineated by the fabric as he ran a hand through his hair. Droplets of water flew off and hit her, and she shrieked in surprise.

Henri’s deep, dark chuckle in response washed over her, and she froze when he slid closer to her, dipped his head and licked those drops off her skin. His tongue felt cool against her skin, and she bit back a moan as he skimmed the top of her breasts. Both of his hands came around her waist as he pushed her further into the seat so that she was in a reclining position.

“Sir?”

Henri smiled, shook his head, and yanked her ass toward him, while he turned so that she was now facing him.

One hand on her hip, he trailed the other down her leg ever so slowly. Even through the layers of her petticoats, she felt that caress as acutely as though he was touching her skin. By the time he reached her ankle and pushed that leg up and to the side so that she opened up to him, she was a panting mess.

“We never did have dessert, so I think I’ll take mine right now and here, with your permission, of course.” He let go of her hip and repeated the same moves on her other leg before he flipped her petticoats up and fixed his attention between her splayed legs. There was no way he would miss how wet she was for him. Sure enough, he smirked and ran what felt like one finger up the inside of her leg. Her thighs started to tremble, and her pussy clenched in anticipation of his touch.

“Hmm, what have we here, so delightfully wet for me already. Give me a color before we proceed, mon coeur, and tell me how you feel about bites, in particular here.” He pinched the soft skin on her inner thigh, and Jo squirmed. That slight pain only added to her arousal, and she gasped her answer.

“I’m green, Sir.”

“Good because I need to taste you.” Henri looked up at her, and the heated intensity in his eyes further scrambled her brain. In the dim lighting of the vehicle they almost seemed to glow, and then she heard it the soft click, which signaled the lengthening of his incisors.

“Oh my god.” Before she could even fully process her shock at the discovery that she hadn’t imagined that moment in the restaurant, Henri disappeared between her legs and bit down hard on her inner thigh. Her scream gave way to a deep-throated moan when he started to suck. Pleasure so intense it took her breath away, radiated outward from that point of contact. It sucked her under until nothing mattered but this feeling of belonging. Her clit tingled, and her internal muscles clenched down, desperate to be filled as the first waves of her orgasm hit. Made ten times more potent because he hadn’t touched her there at all. She groped blindly for his head, pulled on the silky strands of his inky hair, and Henri growled low in his throat. In the blink of an eye, he had her hands pinned above her head and secured to the door handle of the limo with a pair of handcuffs. The metal felt cool and strangely reassuring on her wrists as he yanked her further down so that her arms were fully extended. Another lightning-fast move had her legs flung over his shoulder. One audible rip later, cool air rushed across her pussy, as her knickers gave way. Henri grasped generous handfuls of her ass cheeks–a move which should have been mortally embarrassing, but his sharp intake of breath left no room for that.

“Beautiful, and all mine.”

He followed his words with actions, and all conscious thought fled Jo’s befuddled brain when he set to work between her legs. Henri ate her out as though he was a man deprived of nourishment for weeks. Every flick of his tongue, every nip, tug, and bite he subjected her to, sent her further into the abyss of pleasure. Time and time again he took her up to that delicious precipice, and every time he withdrew with a growled command.

“Don’t, you haven’t got my permission to come yet.”

Jo didn’t recognize the needy words which tumbled out of her mouth as she pleaded with him to let her come. Another bite to the other thigh was her answer, and this time she did scream, loud, hard, and long, as the pain of that bite lodged deep inside her belly. Henri started to suck on that wound, pushed several fingers inside her cunt, and curled them just so. Pain morphed into something else entirely. Her hips flew up in a desperate effort to get herself closer to the ecstasy he promised. Jo yanked on her restraints. The pain of the cuffs digging in added to the sweet, ever-mounting spirals of bliss and torture he was subjecting her to. Almost there, if only he’d let her. The most intense orgasm ever hovered just out of her reach. Eyes closed, head thrashing from side to side, Jo tried to let go, to ignore his demand to wait. As though he had imprinted himself in her consciousness, however, she found that she couldn’t, not without his express say-so.

Why this should be, why this man should hold such power over her, was beyond her. She simply accepted the truth of that statement, and rode the waves of frustration and need, while he took his fill of her. Everything started to drift away, the need to come a distant, not altogether unpleasant heaviness in her belly until he shifted his fingers so that he massaged that one spot designed to drive her wild.

Jo bucked against that onslaught, climbed those rungs of arousal so high she was sure to never ever recover until he said those magic words.

“Come for me, now.”