Fallen Ever After (6 page)

“When you feel like you’re getting close say ‘edge.’ If you come, you will be punished.”

I gulped.

“Understand?”

“Yes. Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

Arie leaned forward and bit my lower lip. Then he slid the vibrator in, inch by inch, and I groaned. Vibrations filled my pussy, which clenched around its width while Arie’s fingers circled my clit with his other hand. He slid it in and out with excruciating slowness, but if he kept it up much longer it wouldn’t matter how slowly he did it. Not when the steady rhythm was hitting my G-spot. Regardless of the people scattered around us in the club, no one existed in that moment except us. His expert hands brought me closer and closer to orgasm. Closer and closer to that earth-shattering edge…

“Edge,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Good. Very, very good,” he whispered against my ear as he slid the vibrator out of my cunt. “I need to be inside you. I need to feel you come. Your orgasm is mine. You are mine, Holly.”

He kissed me again; his mouth melded against mine, our tongues tangled and my legs shook. I needed to come. I needed it so bad that hot tears stung my eyes and it took all my effort to hold them back.

“Tell me…do you want me to fuck you in front of all these people?”

I closed my eyes.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Say it.”

I opened my eyes. “I want you to fuck me in front of everyone. Fuck me, Arie.”

He groaned.

I knew it made him hot to hear me tell him what I wanted.

“I’m going to make you come, make you fall apart in front of everyone.” His voice was husky.

His lips met mine and I moaned into his mouth. His hunger matched mine, and I knew he needed release almost as bad as I did. Arie’s mouth told me everything I needed to know. He pulled away, kneeling at my feet, and removed the spreader bar from between my legs. Unzipping his pants, he shoved them down his hips. Arie grabbed me under my thighs, sliding me up the length of the pole. The handcuffs scraped against the pole with the sound of metal grinding against metal.

-
Wrap your legs around me.
-

Following his telepathic command,
I gripped both my legs around his waist, pulling his hips toward me. He positioned himself at my entrance and plunged into my pussy to his root. I moaned. His thrusts rode hard and deep, driving me up the pole. The woman riding the vampire picked up her rhythm, her eyes wild with lust. She was going to come. I was going to come. I couldn’t help it, but I didn’t give a damn who was watching us.

“Come for me,” he murmured against my ear.

Hugging his hips with my legs I screamed my release. While the orgasm surged through me, Arie pulled off each nipple clamp and I screamed again. Waves of pleasure and pain coursed through me.

“Fuck.”

I buried my head in his shoulder, panting and spent. I didn’t know why, but I felt anxious. My skin prickled and dizziness pressed down on me, but thankfully Arie’s firm body supported mine. When I turned my head I saw the woman had collapsed on top of the vampire, who cushioned her weight. Her head was tilted back, lips parted, and tendrils of hair were stuck to the perspiration dotting her neck and face. Just behind them by the bar was a man—no, not a man, a vampire—sitting at the bar and staring directly at me, a wide smile on his face. The dizziness I felt grew in leaps and bounds.

I’d never seen him before, but there was something familiar about him. He had dark brown hair, wavy like Arie’s, but his eyes were a vivid green. He looked at me the way that a lover might look at someone from across a room, in a private exchange that said, “Yes, I know every curve of your body and I’m going to explore every inch of it later.” I turned my head toward Arie’s neck, breaking eye contact with the stranger, who was making me feel uncomfortable.

-
I feel dizzy. I really need a drink.
- Suddenly I felt weak, and I was glad that Arie was holding me up.

“Can you stand if I put you on your feet? I want to get these cuffs off of you.”

“I think so. Yes. I just really need to sit down.”

Arie set me down gently. He moved behind the pole and released the handcuffs, keeping one hand on my arm to steady me. He scooped me into his arms and grabbed our clothes before setting me on the leather chair where they’d rested as if I were a delicate china doll. Arie helped me dress with astonishing gentleness. For some reason I felt a little drunk.

His eyes were filled with concern. “We’ll go back to the table and I’ll order you a pint of Puncture.”

“No, I just want water.”

All of a sudden I felt thirsty, hungry, and more than a little tired. Maybe sensory overload? It
was
the first time I’d left the loft since I’d been turned. Or it could just be that my legs felt like jelly from straddling them around Arie’s waist while he drove me up the pole.

My nipples tightened when I thought about how he’d taken me in front of everyone in the club. I couldn’t believe how much it turned me on to know that people watched Arie make me come, and how it had intensified my orgasm. I wondered if my emotions being all over the place made me impulsive. I thought about our exhibitionism as Arie tied my shoelaces as if I were a child. His tenderness made me feel vulnerable, but it could have been my perception from the intimate act we’d just performed. I still worried that someday he might regret that I’d been the one to dispatch his old flame.

Stop it. Don’t think that. Don’t ruin this moment.

Instead of letting my insecurities get the best of me, I smiled down at Arie. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Don’t look so amused,” he said, grinning up at me.

My smile came out wobbly and his face fell.

“What’s wrong?”

I faked a laugh. “It’s nothing. I just don’t remember the last time someone tied my shoes for me. Kindergarten, I think. But it’s probably a good thing you are. I feel like I could fall flat on my face.”

Arie searched my face. “I don’t want you bending down, getting up too fast, and falling over. You look paler than usual.”

“Yeah, I am a little dizzy.”

“Not unusual; considering the circumstances, that’s to be expected. Here, take my arm.” Arie helped me stand and guided me back toward our table. I looked toward the bar as I leaned on Arie’s arm. I wanted to get a better look at the stranger who had been staring at me, but he was gone. We took our seats at the highboy table. I couldn’t wait to see everyone so the two of us could go home. I couldn’t believe how tired I was after our exhibition, and I’d already been feeling insecure before we got here.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

I smiled. “Dizzy, tired, and a little hungry.”

I didn’t want to tell him how I really felt.

“We don’t have to stay long, but we should wait for Victoria. Once we see her, then we can go. Is that okay?” Arie asked.

I nodded and looked toward the stage.

“You were wonderful,” he said. Arie reached across the table, grabbed my hand, and caressed the back of it with this thumb. “You’re mine.”

I grinned. “That’s good, because I don’t like to share.”

On that thought I noticed Isla, a sexy redhead, dancing in a cage over by the bar.
God, she has an amazing body.
I couldn’t help it. I didn’t like her. Not one bit. A stab of jealousy coursed through me as I remembered the first time I’d seen her in a vision. Sometimes having the Sight could be brutal as hell. Being a fly on the wall when someone I had the hots for was screwing around with someone else was like a sharp needle to the eye.

Arie had kissed his way down her throat, biting the skin where he planted each kiss, and then licked the bites with his tongue. His mouth. There had been something incredibly wrong with it. I remembered how his fangs lengthened as he bit into the side of her neck. And he began to drink her blood.

That was when I’d realized that Arie was a vampire. But the worst part was remembering how her hand had slipped up his thigh and the sexy smile she threw at him. Kind of like how she was smiling now, at a man who slid a twenty into her G-string through the bars. I could kick myself for being jealous; I knew that it was at least in part because I didn’t want to get hurt. Anytime you open yourself up to someone, there’s always that possibility that they’ll tear your heart out.

Even knowing that, when I’d first met Arie I felt like I could trust him. Trust had never come easy for me. But he made me feel safe, and long before I’d known about his past, and my uncanny resemblance to his unbalanced ex-lover, I’d found myself falling for him. Arie’s pain and guilt had drawn me in regardless of whether it was safe or sane. My desire to be with him caught like wildfire, consuming every rational objection that I tried to come up with to talk myself out of it.

And I knew that I had to find a way to break through his wall. I wouldn’t let his history with his ex get in our way then, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let it ruin things now that she was gone. My self-doubt and habit getting in my own way was more of a problem than anything else. Maybe I had more in common with that girl Jess than I thought. Did she stay because she thought she could fix him? Or did she feel like she was the one who needed to be fixed? Was it thinking like that which made me accept things that shouldn’t be overlooked? I’d overlooked Arie being a vampire. I overlooked a lot more, when I should have ran as far and as fast as I could in the opposite direction—but I was so glad that I hadn’t. I couldn’t run. Not when I’d fallen for him.

Arie followed the direction of my gaze. “Hey, I can’t help that I have a past. My past is simply longer than most people’s. You know what Katarina put me through. I never expected this. I never expected to meet you.” He gave my hand another squeeze. “But now you’re the only one I want.”

“I’m not na
ï
ve, and it would be foolish for me to think that there weren’t other women before me.” I returned his squeeze. “Look, it’s probably just me being insecure, and with everything heightened, I’m a little on edge. I never thought I’d meet someone like you, and I certainly never thought I would do the things we do. I just…”

“What?”

“Are you really over
her
?”

“Holly…it’s been a long time since I’ve taken a chance on anyone. I wasn’t ready for you because you reminded me of so many things that I’ve tried to forget. You make me want to remember every minute that I’m with you—every curve of your body. I won’t ever forget the way you make me feel.”

My breath hitched in my throat. Now that was nice to hear.

And I knew he meant every word of it. It was the same for me. I wasn’t looking for a relationship the day Arie walked into the Coffee Grind. He’d been intrigued because I looked so much like Katarina. He was still learning just how different I was from her—or at least I hoped so. It touched me to see the warmth in his eyes when he said he never expected what had changed both of our lives for better or worse.

Still, it stung that I knew he compared me on some level to Katarina. I bit my lower lip. I wanted to ask him how he felt about her being gone, if he really knew I wasn’t like her, but damn it if I could get the words out.

“I know you feel that way now,” I said. I just hoped it stayed that way.

“Holly, when are you going to understand that I’m not the same? You changed me. You reached a part of me that I thought was dead. I don’t want you going anywhere. You can’t run away. I won’t let you.”

And that was the right thing to say too.

“I know I said we should slow down, but it’s not because I’m trying to run away. I’m sorry.” I rubbed my temples.

Arie’s brows furrowed together. “Are you okay? Do you want to go home? We don’t have to do this tonight.”

“No, it’s fine. I want to be here.” I gave his hand another reassuring squeeze.

Without knowing why, I felt anxious. Uneasy. I was probably just overwhelmed.

“Just don’t ever lie to me. I want to spend the rest of my life getting to know everything about you. I can’t handle secrets. I’ve had to hide who I am, having the Sight, my whole life. And I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. Not now, not ever. It wouldn’t be fair to expect you not to have had others in your life, any more than you could expect that from me. I just feel like we never got to know one another because we were caught up in finding…”

I didn’t want to say her name.

She’d been the one thing standing between us. If I went the rest of my life without hearing her name, I couldn’t be happier. I looked down at the promise ring on my finger. Its diamonds sparkled even in the dim club lighting. His gift both scared me shitless and made me happier than I’d ever imagined was possible. I’d had to move the bloodstone ring that protected me from the sun to my other hand.

“Holly, I won’t. I’m with you. And the past—”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. I want to be with you, too, and I want to know everything about you—the good and the bad,” I said.

“You will always know the truth with me, and we have all the time in the world to learn each other’s quirks.” His smile relieved the niggling doubt in the back of my mind. At least for now.