That couldn’t be right. I hadn’t been down here as a vampire’s fuck-and-suck toy for a year. It couldn’t be. An entire year? I’d been raped daily, for a year, mostly twice a visit, sometimes three or four times. That all amounted to…
I’ve been fucked more than a thousand times. No…no. Oh, no no no!
“
Actually, it is more like seven hundred and ninety-five times; that is, if you only count anal intercourse.”
Marcus was suddenly standing right behind me, a hand on my shoulder, keeping me from turning around. “If we add in the fellatio, the masturbations, the number of times we used other body parts because you were too sore, well then I believe we would be closer to one thousand, one hundred and four. Now, look though, you have gone and spoiled my surprise for you. I even had thirty candles set aside to light on top of the cake.”
I didn’t even react as he wrapped his forearm around my neck and pulled me back against him, watching him as he reached into the dumbwaiter with his other arm and dragged out the cake with his hand.
“
We, or rather, you, will enjoy this cake. We will have a final party, and then you will choose your gift.”
Then you’ll kill me.
“
I have to, my Little One. It is the Vampiric Code. We can only keep humans for a single year. Any longer than that and it would be open season on me by the others. So the choice we have before us is this: are you just my fuck toy, or are you my equal? That is for you to decide. I was going to give you a third option, but it is a moot point now.”
Marcus maneuvred me back to the couch and tossed me down on it. He sat himself on the edge of the coffee table and looked down at the cake.
“
I took you from your world one day after your birthday. Tonight, I will take you from this life, but I am granting you a new one.”
Let me go.
“
If I did that, we would both die. Do not worry, Sex. I will be gentle. This will make up for my taking your virginity so brutally.”
I don’t want to die.
“
It will only be for a short time.” He actually smiled at me, reaching out and brushing away the cracker crumbs from my face. “Happy Thirtieth Birthday, Sigmund Edward Xavier.”
My teeth clacked together as he pushed my jaw closed. I hadn’t even realized I’d been gawping. He took a finger and dragged it through the icing, holding the sugared digit to my face. When I refused to open my mouth, he flicked it across my lips, pressing lightly at one corner, pushing it in. I opened my jaw just as he had trained me to do whenever he presented his cock to me in this way, and then he stroked my tongue with his finger, smearing the icing around, before pulling his finger free.
“
Good boy.” He smiled sweetly at me. “I know everything about you, Sex. I knew all about you when I first found you in that bar. I was supposed to kill you that night, but you were so miserable that you were irresistibly desirable. Yes, I drugged you. Yes, I kidnapped you.”
He stuck another finger covered with icing in my face. He mocked me as he thrust it in and out of my mouth, running the icing over my tongue. It was sweet, and sugary, and tasted nothing like this last bitter year that I had suffered. A whole year was lost. My twenty-ninth year was gone.
“
And yes, I loved you, even when you fought me. I will admit to raping you when you defied me, but that does not mean it has to continue that way. It will depend on your choice.” Marcus pulled his finger out of my mouth. “Oh, you have some icing on your…here, let me get it.”
Marcus’s tongue was in my mouth quicker than I expected. There was no place to go. There was nothing to do but let him do as he wanted, with my hands curled into useless fists behind me.
Wait
a minute. What do you mean, you knew all about me?
Marcus sat up away from me, and he reached for my throat. I tensed as he took the neck of my shirt and tore at it, wrenching it open, ripping it so that it hung off my shoulders.
“
How do you think I maintain this place?” he asked me. I had no idea and so kept quiet. “My talents are sold to the highest bidder. No secret is safe from me. If the House tells me to dispose of my target, I do by simply ripping their minds open, ferreting out what I need, and leaving the remaining mess to die a quick but horrible death.”
His fingers toyed with my nipples. He was saying something important, and I had to force myself to listen as he pinched my left nipple. I arched backwards, shoving my chest into his hand. Fuck. My body has accepted him. He plays me like a whore, his very own special private sex toy. I was nothing but a willing hole.
Marcus looked at me with a knowing expression on his face. He had heard that, even though I hadn’t directly thought it. He took his hands off my body and placed a kiss on my forehead.
“
Your company knew what you had done, Sigmund. They only hired me to confirm it. Why do you think you had a headache all that week? That was me, taking a cruise through your mind. I liked you then, though not as much as now, of course. They hunted down the data that you stole and retrieved it quite quickly, for humans. When I got the order to kill you, the company arranged for you to end up at that bar, using the pretext of your birthday. They did not care what happened to you; they just wanted you to disappear. I have defied my orders in order to keep you by my side. I have never challenged the House before. I have given you a year of life—a life that should have ended that very day three hundred and sixty-five days ago. What do you offer me in return?”
I just stared at him. This hell wasn’t an unfortunate accident? It was planned? It had all been planned because I’d been stupid and careless?
My family!
Marcus turned, set the cake down on the table beside him, and pinched off a huge piece of spongy sweetness. He rammed the chunk of vanilla goodness into my mouth as he continued talking to me.
“
They just targeted you, based on my recommendation. I did not care about your human family. I had no need to investigate them any further than I did. You held them with such contempt in your mind. No, maybe not contempt, but I discovered that you had locked them out of your life when you were just a teenager. Would it please you to know that your family has been grieving your loss? You might have turned your back on them, but they still hold you dear in their hearts. Because they care so much for you, I made sure that they are safe out there on that farm where you lived.”
Oh crap. He knew about my family. He knew where they were, and what they did. Or did he? I had cut myself off from them because I didn’t want anything to do with the family business. I swallowed the cake he had shoved into my mouth, and I tensed as his hand caressed my neck and trailed down my now-exposed chest. His other hand dipped back into the cake, pinching off small crumbles of it and easing them into my mouth. I obediently ate. Just because I was a bastard didn’t mean I wanted my family to suffer because of me.
Vanilla…oh my God. Oh, how I missed that taste. I licked his fingers clean. I’d missed out on a lot, being held prisoner like this, but if being with him kept my family safe, so be it. I could be a vampire’s fuck toy.
I leaned back, crushing my arms beneath me, spreading my thighs wide and wrapping my legs around his lean body, hooking my ankles together to keep him there. I bucked up against him gently as I turned my head, exposed my throat, and closed my eyes. This was his reward if he wanted it. I thought my heart was going to break. Tears streamed from under my lids. I could do this. I had to. And if the truth were to be stared at in all its accusation and purity, I’d done this to myself. My own greed and denial had fucked me over, big time.
“
Submission? I never expected that from you, my Little One, but I would be a fool to turn it down. However, I think this should be done in a more horizontal position that we can both enjoy.”
I was still amazed that Marcus could pick me up as if I were a child. Since being imprisoned here, I have had the experience of being carted into the playroom by him, one hand around my waist, and being tossed onto the bed from the chamber door. This time though, he picked me up, supporting my back with one arm, the other under my legs like I was a bride being carried over the threshold. I shuddered. That was
not
an image that I wanted, however true it might be.
“
You want to play my submissive, blushing virgin, Sex?” His lips were pressed into my hair. “You should have been awake for your deflowering…then again, maybe not; I was rather, ‘excited’.”
Oh God.
I expected him to toss me onto the king-sized bed and simply take me, but he surprised me yet again, lowering himself to his knees as he laid me tenderly down on the mattress. He was too large a man to expect tenderness from, and he hadn’t shown much of it this past year.
Why now
?
“
I said you deserve gentleness, Sex. No, you have not seen it with me, but I am capable of it. You should feel safe in your lover’s arms. You should be able to sleep without terror. Let me be that for you…your lover. You have no idea how much I desire that.”
He rolled me onto my face and unbuckled my cuffs. My hands were numb, and my shoulders protested. It was pure agony when he began rubbing the feeling back into my limbs. I gritted my teeth and groaned as pins and needles attacked my arms and shoulders. And I groaned again when he stopped his rubbing and flipped me back over to look at him.
“
No more stabbings. And no more of this.” Marcus gestured to his face, towards the fine silver scar leading from his nose, which was now healed and fading. “Keep your hands to yourself, will you not? In return, I will not drink from you when we make love. I know how it scares you.”
The bed shifted as he climbed onto it. He stroked my bare chest and pulled the remains of my shirt away. My vision narrowed down to his chocolate-colored eyes as he set his forehead against mine.
“
You can be my fuck toy for an eternity, if you want. I would be your master, and you could never refuse me anything. Your sole existence would be to see to my pleasure.” His hand burrowed its way into the waistband of my leather pants to cup my heat. “Or you can be, for the lack of a better word, a stand-alone vampire.”
Stand alone.
He blinked and let out a roar of laughter. “You certainly have no problem making decisions. That is what got you into trouble to begin with. Are you sure you do not want to be my sex slave?”
Been there. Done that. Fuck that option.
“
Language. So be it. I am glad, I hoped you would make the choice to be my equal, because that mind of yours is just too fascinating to be dulled down to a sex doll. The birthing will be slow. There will be pain, but not much. I know you do not like blood, but try not to fear too much. I will not leave you to face it by yourself.”
I stroked his long, brown hair and tucked it behind his ear, and then reached up and forced myself to kiss him. I surprised him with my actions, I know I did because his eyes narrowed into slits as he looked at me. This was only part of my reward to him, for protecting my family from my obvious stupidity. I suspected now just what my boss was capable of, the extent of his wrath. To be at the receiving end of it for a year was something I hadn’t anticipated. I was so used to only thinking of myself and my own woeful predicament that I never considered I might have endangered my family. But they were safe because of this…creature. I might have been nothing but a big fuck-up, but my family did good, important work. And so, for them, I closed my eyes and angled my head the way Marcus liked it, sucking on the tongue that got poked into my mouth as he returned my kiss. I was getting whatever it was I fucking deserved. Apparently, eight hundred or so times.
“
Sex?”
Don’t hurt me any more than you have to. I can’t take much more.
“
Shall we start now?”
Do it. Fuck me…drink me…then kill me.
“
I never expected to hear that from you, Sex. Are you going to help, or are you just going to lay there and take it?”
This is your reward
.