The Parlour (VDB #1) (34 page)

“What remains of my heart is lost for him alone, Lilah. It will always be so. I have already warned you of this.  You will lose this battle and then suffer your loss, while I will revel in your degradation. It is always this way,” he replied, pulling his cane from her hand slowly and turning for the opening doorway.

“He told me that you’d say that, and then offered to teach me.” He swivelled around and watched her grow in confidence even more. Her stature grew, her body seeming to suddenly ooze in a sophisticated elegance of debauchery that only yesterday she wasn’t even aware of.

“He knows this?”

“Yes.”

“And he would allow it?” She smirked and rubbed her wrist, kneading it as if remembering something.

“I didn’t ask his permission. He offered, and I’m certainly not asking your permission either. Now, dinner,” she said as she walked past him and out into the foyer. He watched her, swung his gaze back to the mirror, then back to the foyer. Why would Alexander do something such as that? He belonged to the man. Why would he allow another Domme after Lucinda? “Knickers, please,” she called back as her heels clicked along the marble. He scanned the floor and found the discarded scrap of material, scooped it up with the end of his cane and lay it over his shoulder as he exited the elevator. She swayed effortlessly in front as she headed for the door. Curves were beginning to creep back into her frame, highlighting a trim waist but offering the perfection of a rounded ass and toned legs. Her sharp hair cut accentuated those sublime collar bones and long slender neck. Beautiful, strong, and spectacular in her arrogance. Enough so that she filled the room with her presence.

“And who is this?” she said, nodding at the driver.

“Someone unimportant,” he replied nonchalantly, holding up her knickers, desperate for more information regarding the tryst she had endured with his beloved. She snarled at them and then pointed at his mouth. “When did you meet with, Alexander?”

“In they go.” He automatically nodded in response, and then caught his reaction and chuckled at the absurd notion.

“No.”

“I’m not joking. It may keep you from making another attempt at intelligence and spoiling our lovely dinner date.” Still he smiled and watched as she slid into the back of the car, grabbing the underwear as she went. He followed her in and stared across at her crossed legs. “Now, open up.”

“I am not in the habit of sucking underwear, Lilah.” She raised a brow in reply and swung them around her index finger, taunting him with that which was probably inevitable. If not now then later. “My dear, you–” She was faster than a cheetah as she suddenly sat across him and began shoving the things in his teeth. “Have you heard yourself,” she spat. “It’s as if you want to be in control of me. Do you? I don’t think so. If you did, you wouldn’t be getting hard beneath me while I’m riding you and shoving knickers in your mouth. And I swear, if you call me ‘my dear’ one more time, I’ll counter those fucking stripes on your body with something far more painful.” He sat, near dumbstruck at the manoeuvre as she continued to feed him her underwear, all the time gently teasing him with small rocking motions, yet not giving enough friction to cause anything but more tension. “You want that inside me again? You’ll have to beg me for it, and you’ll have to show me what’s hiding inside your chest.” Grabbing hold of her hips, he pulled her down onto him to increase the pressure, but she just kept shoving the material in deeper, until he was almost choking on it and trying to get away from the pressure. “Games, huh? I can play those, too. How is the choking? Are you man enough to take it like I did beneath you?” she said quietly, licking across her crimson lips with her tongue and fighting his hold on her until he simply gave up and just stayed still. The moment he did, she stopped pushing and began to pull the material back out again. “You’ll make love to me the next time. You’ll slide inside and take it slowly. You’ll give me everything you withhold from all your other insignificant fucks. Do you have a safeword? I think you’re going to need one.”

She removed herself just as quickly and replaced her delectable ass back on the other side of the car, leaving the knickers dangling out of his mouth as he continued to cough a little to regain his breath. He narrowed his eyes at her and watched her smile grow to one of a manipulator, or certainly someone who wasn’t quite what she seemed. Disgusted with his lack of composure around such a woman, he lifted his fingers to remove the garment.

“Nope,” she said, her finger hovering and a look of utter contempt suddenly descending. “Who is Jon Innsbrucker?”

He mumbled an immediate response through the material and raised a brow. Was he supposed to speak through them? Even vampires had their limits. “Try harder.” She laughed out in hilarity. He presumed he would have been just as amused if the roles had been reversed. “And Thomas?”

He pulled them directly out and flung them at her.

“You are pushing the limits of acceptability.”

“Am I? I don’t see a spanking in the near future, do you?”

“Mmm,” was all he could manage as he stared out of the window and gazed at the oncoming traffic.

“Are you defeated? Honestly? I thought you’d have far more bite than this. I’m rendering you speechless? Imagine what will happen once Alexander gets his claws into me. Little old Lilah James, already superior to Pascal Van der Braack.” She was, in many more ways than she might have imagined.

Silence descended as the car swerved gracefully through New York’s honking and blaring, and he watched the flow of endless people all milling about their business. Useless people. All denying their own natural proclivities. Simply enduring the monotony of day to day life. Fitting into a world that neither accepted nor allowed one to be ‘abnormal’. Not many of them would be embracing their true selves, more than most would imagine, but still not many. Why was he still here? Europe offered so much more in the way of resplendent kink. Venice, in particular.

“Defeated is not a word I have used for a long time,” he replied, smirking at the venue in front of them. “You should learn to see my silence for what it is, rather than that which your new found ego would like to imagine.”

The car pulled to a stop and he immediately got out of the car and wandered around to her door. On opening it, he grabbed her offered hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

“Where are we?” she asked, scanning the unassuming doorway and looking around the area. It was not one of New York’s finest neighbourhoods, but nonetheless, it held the place she needed to see should she still be inclined to play with his innards.

“We are having dinner, are we not?”

“Yes, but I said expensive Italian. Steak would have been nice.”

“Indeed. Fresh, battered, prime cuts await your snapping teeth,” he replied, ringing the bell on the door and waiting for it to be opened. She covered her arms and stared at the doorway again with nothing but that half smile laced across her mouth.

“If this is something I’m not prepared for, I’m going to–”

“You are ill prepared for everything, Lilah. Including me. And yet you have just requested that Alexander train you to beat me. You have also asked for my innards on display. I am honouring your request, even though this may prove to be the most preposterous decision I have made thus far in all of my life.”

“Oh,” she replied, watching the door open.

Charles opened the door with a warm smile and waved them inside. He ushered Lilah in and let the noise of the world drown out as the locks were bolted back into place.

“We haven’t seen you for a while,” the old man said as they followed him along the dull, homely hallway and turned various corners until they reached the cellar entrance.

“No, I haven’t felt so inclined for quite some time, and have been dealing with other matters.” The old man’s face crinkled as he let out a raucous laugh and carried on down the steps.

“You old dog. You are always so inclined. Who’s the woman?” He chuckled and watched as the underground club’s main entrance came into view.

“She is none of your concern for the moment, Charles. Who is on tonight?”

“Matilda, and her new plaything. Also, believe it or not, Jackson.”

He raised a brow and felt the heat hit him as Charles pushed into the small arena and laughed again. Well, Jackson would be interesting for Lilah to witness, although he hadn’t planned on it. It had worked out well.

They continued on to the table he had ordered and he nodded to several patrons he had not seen in a while, friends of sorts, acquaintances mainly. All here for the type of entertainment even he himself kept for only the small private rooms at Eden, for the few who needed such extreme play. Charles pointed to their corner and grabbed hold of a passing waitress. “Get them whatever they need for the night, and remain close to the table at all times,” he snapped, his voice instantly turning to that of his true nature. Sadist. One of New York’s finest. He may have been old, but there wasn’t much the man’s hands hadn’t broken. He smirked and thought of Alexander again. Given twenty years, he would rival him, but not yet.

“Thank you, Charles,” he said, pushing on Lilah’s back and directing her to sit at the simply dressed dining table. She slid into the deep red leather armchair and gazed back at him as Charles wandered off again. “Drink?”

“Whiskey,” she replied, still maintaining her unaffected composure and glancing at the other people who were chatting cordially and eating their food.

“Bring a bottle of Charles’ favourite,” he said to the young girl who had immediately gone to her correct positioning, kneeling beside them. “And two fillet mignon, rare.” She didn’t reply, just as was correct. She only nodded and then began to rise and left them alone.

“Do these people always dress like this?” Lilah asked, looking at all the outfits on display. He hadn’t really noticed. He never did anymore. These were normal clothes to him. The business suits and elegant cocktail dresses on the patrons were the sham clothes in reality. The real world lived in the latex, rubber and leather draped around various bodies down here. Life’s real and imaginary worlds. Most people on the streets thought these clients odd. Intrinsically, however, they were more real than the average New Yorker. More honest.

“Do you not like it?”

“It seems excessive, and a little laughable.” He chuckled at her less than enthusiastic response and yet again remembered Alexander in his early years. He had little time for the dramatics of the scene either, still didn’t.

“It is how they are most comfortable.”

“Why don’t you dress like that?”

He laughed out loud and imagined himself in the outfits around them.

“I am Pascal Van der Braack, I do not need to wear them.”

“Would you if I asked?”

“No.”

“Would you if
he
asked?” He smiled and took the bottle of Machellan being offered to him from the floor and poured two tumblers while they were still balanced on the tray held by the young girl beneath his feet. He knocked the tray twice for good measure to see if she would spill any. She didn’t. Clearly Charles had trained this one well. He looked back at Lilah and gave her a glass.

“He would never ask,” he said, picking up the chin of the girl and hauling her to her feet. She was an attractive little thing, blonde, similar to Emanuelle, enough so that he felt the need to shove his cock in her somewhere.

“Pascal, put your cock back in your pants.” He looked down at his crotch. He had not gotten his cock out that he was aware of. “And leave the girl alone.”

“I was not–”

“Yes, you were. And unless you would like me to go and straddle big boy over there,” she replied, nodding over at James Eldrick, who was indeed a big boy, in more ways than one, “ I suggest you continue with the dating, which, at present, does not include me watching you fuck something else.”

“You may straddle James as much as you like,” he replied, nonchalantly waving a hand and daring her to do exactly that while pulling the girl’s hair towards his now waiting cock. She glared and then sipped her drink.

“Is this how it works? We all fuck each other at will and then waltz off as a couple at the end of it all? Multiple orgasms induced by manic animalistic fucking?”

“In the main, yes. However, we are not a ‘couple’.”

“Then I shall leave you to your ritualistic fuckfest. I was hoping for a higher purpose than simple rutting like… What did Charles call you? A dog? Yes, rutting like dogs,” she said, rising from her seat and swerving her way towards the door before he had time to blink. He stared at the spot she had sat in for a moment, allowing the girl to rut around in his crotch. He pushed her away and found himself following the utterly enticing sway of Lilah’s ass, full of self-disgust. He grasped hold of her arm and spun her towards him before she reached the doorway. She instantly looked shocked, then smiled, radiantly, beaming at him with the same eyes Elizabeth had for Alexander. He gazed at her, completely losing himself in the depths of an emotion he refused to acknowledge as anything other than lust.

“Why did you chase me?” she whispered, moulding herself to his frame and resting her cheek against his, then manoeuvring him into a dance hold. “Tell me, Pascal. I need you to tell me.”

He had nothing to tell her. Nothing could possibly describe what had made him reprimand himself for his own normal actions. “Is it love? Is it love that’s drawing you to me? Those moments we share, you haven’t had them before me, have you? Only with Alexander, and maybe Elizabeth,” she continued, now swaying them into a rhythm and leading him. He felt his body contradicting his mind’s denial as he let her turn him. He felt his own heart reacting to her words as the room disintegrated around them. It was now just the two of them again, and that irritating feeling he was, for once, simply embracing.