Viola Grace - Saguinary Seduction, page 36
“It’s fire agate. It’s a stone of protection, supposed to aid in improving sexual activity, stimulate vitality and assist in overcoming destructive desires. And, unfortunately for you it looks like, this piece, which is my special favorite, isn’t for sale,” he whispered the last part near her ear as he stood behind her.
She turned to look at him, her butt and low back pressed against the counter, and became caught in his gaze. Aww, damn, her mind reeled as she stood rooted by his mesmerizing stare.
“I’m Ed, new co-owner of this fine establishment.”
Staring at him, she sensed heat welling in her cheeks and her mouth went numb. He was like those scarves she couldn’t resist. The amativeness flooding her system was like the last time she was in this position with him and had lost her resolve.
Except that time her back was up against a tree and his hot, thick fingers were in her pussy, probing the canal, letting the wet juices trail down her legs. His tongue had snaked in and out of her mouth and played with her ear as she had stroked his cock. They had been having a grand playtime until his father had strolled by and interrupted their interlude.
Stop staring at him. You’ll give yourself away, her mind interjected and she blinked. “I’m Adelyte,” she finally managed to offer once the staring contest had been broken. She checked her peripheral vision for an escape if needed.
“What an interesting name,” he drawled, with a faint almost 328
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closed lip smile.
“Yeah, my hippie parents slapped that name on me at birth,” she said, the lie she had created years ago tumbling out of her mouth without thought as she endeavored not to meet his eyes again. Her eyes focused on his shirt. He was dressed in all black. God, how she loved it when men dressed in all black.
In her opinion it was an outfit even non-hunks could look sexy in. “My parents named me that because when I came out I was drenched in blood. My father, a medieval history professor at the time, said I had good humour and called me Adelyte. The name stuck.”
Truth was she heard the name one night in a tavern in Germany and had looked up its meaning. Humour, once related to blood, seemed to be a fitting tribute to her, but since she couldn’t well go around being called Humour she stayed with Addi.
“That must have been a sight to see at your birth.” His tongue darted out and wet his lips.
“Yeah, a gross sight, I’m sure,” she said, remembering the night she stumbled from his house and, right before dawn, finding herself soaked with blood.
“Not all blood is bad,” he murmured and leaned toward her, placing his hands on the counter on either side of her, his full, kissable lips a mere couple of inches from hers. “The ancients believed blood was the seat of the emotions. My parents believed that, too, and my full name, Edom, reflects that belief. Red, earthy, of blood.” His face sensually circled in front of hers as if breathing in and tasting her spirit.
Before she had a chance to respond, his lips feathered hers and, as she prepared for him to kiss her, Emma called from the back.
Addi blinked in stupefied astonishment. One moment he was in front of her and the next he was behind the register, behind her, counting money.
Damn, the man was still fast and still the consummate charmer.
She turned to Emma who was skipping up to her.
“Sorry, I’ve been gone so long. I hope we didn’t miss your 329
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performance.”
Addi narrowed her eyes at her friend. “What are you talking about? You’ve been gone not even three minutes.”
“I’ve been gone for hours,” Emma balked.
“Umm, no,” Addi replied, placing a hand on her friend’s shoulder and giving her a squeeze. “You went in the back, Ed came out, he and I had a brief chat and here you are.”
Appearing to be perplexed, Emma shrugged her shoulders.
“We need to get going. I have to get ready for my date with Joe tonight.”
“You gonna tell me what went on back there?”
“Yeah, later,” Emma replied with a giddy, childlike smile on her face. “Let me say bye to Joe and I’ll tell you on the way to the club.” She skipped back off to the offices.
“Don’t you think it’s weird your friend is so smitten with my business partner after only knowing him a matter of minutes?” Edom asked when Emma was out of earshot.
“I’ve been privy to a lot of bizarre things in my life,” she replied, waving a hand up and down in front of herself to indicate she’s one of them. “So, no, it doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
“Hell no,” Addi said with a hardy laugh. “The last guy I dated pulled such a number on me I gave up on love.”
“That’s a shame. Pretty little thing like you…” A trill from the back broke Edom’s comment. “It’s our private line. Excuse me for a moment, will you?”
She nodded and watched him stroll to the back and disappear behind a door. The red stone’s a favorite piece, eh? With a quick flick of the wrist and movements borne of years of practice, she snatched his prized possession from its resting place and hurried from the store.
* * * *
“You seem a little off tonight, Addi.” She groggily looked up at her male bassist from the chair 330
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she had collapsed onto the moment she arrived backstage for the break. “I am. I had to get up earlier than normal to help out a friend and I haven’t had a chance to eat yet.”
“You want some fries or something? I can go up to the bar and get some for you.”
“Nah, I’ll be okay until we leave. Thanks though.”
The bassist started to walk away and then turned back.
“Oh, did you see the hot dude in the audience? Come, let me show you.”
He took her hand and led her to the gap in the curtains on the side of the stage. She peeked out and zoned in on the area he pointed to. Her breath hitched. Edom. Of course he tagged along with Emma and Joe to see her band. Hell, she’d have to hightail out after the show was over. Last thing she needed was Edom confronting her before she had a chance to eat.
Once the reverberation of the last chord died out in the air, Addi flew off the stage and out the back door of the club. She hated having to avoid her friend and her entourage, but she had to find food. As she fumbled her car keys in her rush to get into the vehicle, the smells of meat from the nearby steak house made her mouth water.
Not good. Not good, her mind recited as dizziness set in.
Through her haze of lightheadedness she picked up on small animalistic scratching, followed by the patter of little feet. Her eyes honed in on the area of the noise. Next to the building a rat poked around in stray garbage.
Her world went black.
The next evening as she roused from her coma like sleep, she marveled at how deep she had been under. Then again the night before had been harrowing, up a few hours earlier than her normal time, dragged out into the sweltering desert sun, running into Edom.
Edom.
She stretched in the bed, or at least tried to stretch, discovering her arms and legs were extended from her body and tied down. Her eyes flew open. She gawked at the 331
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burgundy colored canopy above her, then at the scarves which restrained her wrists and ankles to the posts of the bed.
Burgundy and black striped satin sheets lined the mattress beneath her.
How the hell did she get here? Where was here anyway?
Last thing she knew she had left the bar in her attempt to avoid Emma and company. Her eyes rapidly moved side to side, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings—the matching burgundy curtains on either side of a long picture window with a distant view of the strip, the dark wood paneling on the lower half of the walls below a dark green upper half—and the man standing in the corner fingering the red rock she had lifted from the store.
“It’s about time you finally woke,” Edom said, pushing away from the wall and strolling toward her. He placed the stone on a tall, thin table with a deep green top.
“How dare you do this to me,” she grated and craned her neck to look down her naked length to where he stood at the foot of the bed. “How did you get me here? Release me at once,” she commanded, jerking on the restraints.
“Your friend Emma was more than happy to point me in the right direction once I made her believe I had an interest in you,” he replied, his eyes hooded, viewing her exposed form.
“Granted, she thought it was a romantic attraction. I didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise. And, I don’t think I’ll release you. I quite like you this way.” He sat on the edge of the bed and raked his fingers along her foot, up her ankle and along her calf.
She squirmed beneath his touch, her body involuntarily reacting to his caress out of habit. No, not again. She couldn’t succumb to his charm, his false love. Of course at any time she could break the ropes that bound her, but the feat would give her away. “Please. Just let me go,” she pleaded, jerking her leg from his lips, which had replaced his hand, but since she could only move a matter of inches, his mouth reclaimed its position near her knee. “Let me go. You have your rock back so why keep me?”
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“Because you intrigue me.” He trailed his tongue up her thigh, stopping short of where her legs met. “You’re different than most women. Usually I can get the sense of a person. You are a closed book, a book I want to crack open and read…and to savor.” His tongue darted in and lapped the fissure of her labia.
Her hips rose off the bed and he chuckled, his breath drifted over her pubes. A delightful shudder racked her body.
He chortled again and rested his chin on her lower abdomen right above the border of her pubic hair.
“Mmmm, sweet,” he said in a deep, sultry voice. “As for why I’m going to keep you. Well, you’re going to stay here until you tell me why you took my favorite stone.”
“What if I don’t have a reason?” she asked, sucking in her breath as he flicked her clit with the tip of his tongue. Juices leaked out from between her folds and moistened the sheet near her ass.
“I’m sure that’s not the case,” he replied. He repositioned himself and slipped a finger into her, stroking her inside, and worked her clit with the ball of his thumb. “There’s a motive locked away in that head of yours, an explanation as to why you absconded with the stone my true love gave me.”
True love? Must have been that chit I saw him with the night I left Stirling Glen.
“Granted, the stone was much larger at the time,” he continued, not only with his story but with kneading her crotch and slipping his finger in and out of her vagina. “The outer shell was lighter, too, more of an orange red color. Like her hair. We were supposed to get married, but she disappeared and, when I found out she had left, I broke the stone. I have the pieces in various locations, but that particular fragment means the most to me. It’s the heart of the stone, a reminder that my dear Rhiamon still has my heart.”
Addi wanted to cry, coming to remember it was she who had given him the gift, a symbol of the fire of the love she had for him. It had been a beautiful, large rock and now he was saying he still loved her.
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But why had he been with that other woman, exchanging blood with her, the afternoon of their wedding?
“Then you came along,” he said, slowly crawling up her body like a predator stalking its prey. “And stole my heart.
Now I’m going to steal yours.” He unzipped his pants and freed his cock from the confines of his clothes.
His mouth latched onto the hardened nub of her breast and she automatically arched in response to him. Unwelcome waves of liquid fire coursed through her as his tongue teased the tip of her areola and the restraints bit into her flesh. The titillating rope experience, a new game for her, sent flashes of electric stimulations throughout her body. If she let him continue, he’d have a moment of pleasure, where as she’d be allowing him to tear her soul to shreds…again. A moan of desperation slipped by her lips and he slid his penis into her wet cavity.
In a momentary lapse of reason, her hips rose and sank him further into her, his cock filled and throbbed within her.
Oh, dear lord, I’ve missed him so. “Edom, I want to hold you.”
“If you tell me why you took my stone, I’ll untie you,” he offered as he rotated his hips and glared down at her.
“But I can’t,” she muttered breathlessly as his cock circled within her, firing off her nerve endings again.
In response to her answer, he drove in and out of her with a vengeance. She supposed she deserved his wrath and, though he pounded her furiously as if he attempted to purge his own demons of the past with the harsh fuck, her heart went out to him. As he continued to slide in and out of her, her breath quickened until her torso bucked up and off the bed as waves of an orgasm racked her body.
“Tell me why,” he demanded again, once her body stilled beneath him.
She shook her head and immediately he hardened inside her. Once more he pummeled her until she came.
Sweat matted her hair to her forehead and cheeks. A bead of moisture trickled into her eye and stung the sensitive membrane. Water formed and dripped out.
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“See your guilt is getting the better of you,” he stated above her as he paused in his presumed punishment. “You might as well tell me the truth.”
“The truth? That’s a good one,” she said with a bitter laugh.
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you on the ass.”
A fierce expression lit his face and, as he growled, his fangs came down. Before she could think twice, his teeth sank into the flesh of her breast. She waited patiently for him to realize he wasn’t going to obtain anything from her…neither mortal blood nor information. When he finished, pulled his penis from her and sat up, it was with a perplexed, surprised expression on his face.
“Problem?” she asked as if bored with the whole situation.
“You’re an immortal,” he replied in quiet shock.
“Yep, ‘bout time you noticed.” She broke the material holding her to the posts of the bed and sat up. “Now it’s time for a little game of truth or truth. I’ll go first. I took the stone to hurt you. I took the stone because I knew it meant something to you and I wanted to cause you pain.”
“But why? You don’t even know me.” He moved to the edge of the bed.
“Oh, I know you all right, Edom, or at least I thought I knew you until I saw you with that woman with your teeth in her neck.” She shook her head sadly, the pain of the memory tearing through her. Water welled in her eyes and she swiped the moisture away. “You can’t steal my heart because you’ve already broken it. You stole it and broke it and I don’t think I can ever forgive you.”
“Rhi?”
“Yes. It’s your dear sweet Rhiamon you had tied to your bed. Where is your wife by the way?”
“Wife?”
“Yeah, that woman you deserted me for. The one you were all over the day of our wedding.”
He rose from the bed and resituated himself into his clothes. “I never married her. I found out my father wanted me to marry her the morning we were supposed to be wed. He 335
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had a gambling debt due to her father and he thought he could pay it with me. That morning he forced me to say the vows and exchange with her, but after the vows, instead of trading our blood, I fed off her. I killed her that day because I didn’t want to be with her. I wanted you. But I guess you didn’t stick around long enough to learn all the details, did you? Now, if you don’t mind, I want you out of here. I will call for my car and my driver will take you home.” He shambled from the room, head down, shoulders hunched.
Confounded, she gripped the sheets to her body. How could she have been so stupid? Of course he loved her. But back then, in her infancy of immortality, she was still steeped in her humanity and all the hang ups that came with it, especially when it came to her not so admirable traits of jealously and possessiveness. She rubbed her fingers along her cheekbones and rested her head in her hands. She was such a twit.
Foolish or not, she had to find out if she could rectify the situation between them. She had to make amends. She couldn’t live without him anymore, especially now that he was in the same city as her. She pulled her hands from her face. They were coated with the white face powder. Realizing she must look positively frightful and hoping he wouldn’t begrudge her a shower before she left, she found her way to the adjoining bathroom to wash.
Clean and showered, her copper hair hung wet from her head framing her bisque colored, freckled face. Her Goth clothes looked completely out of place on her without the dark hair coloring and white skin, but there wasn’t much she could do about it, unless she rode back into the city limits nude and that wasn’t an idea she was too comfortable with.
She left the room where Edom had held her captive and navigated her way through the house, viewing portraits of his relatives hanging on the halls’ walls, most of whom she recognized. On a credenza beneath a painting of Edom’s father sat miniature oil paintings and hidden amongst them in the back was one of her. She picked it up with a sad smile, her eyes 336
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in the picture reflecting happier times. She remembered poising for the artist and having a blacksmith make the bronze frame for it as a wedding gift. She replaced it in its spot and continued on her journey out of the house.
