Page 16 of Blood as Sweet as Roses

Paige

I follow her down a hallway, and then another flight of stairs. It’s chillier down here, and goosebumps sprinkle my skin. The lights are also dimmer, barely illuminating the stone passageways.

“My crypt is at the heart of the mansion,” she explains.

Her crypt? I’m expecting some sort of mausoleum, filled with tombs, skeletons, and spiderwebs. But then she opens a mahogany door, and my fears are put to rest.

I need a moment to take it all in. I thought my bedroom was nice, but it’s nothing compared to Crimson’s crypt. If my room is fit for a lady, her’s is built for a king.

The ceilings are high, tapestried with images of angels, demons, stars and a bright, shining moon. The walls are paneled with ebony wood, tastefully finished and polished. Brass wall sconces cast flickering candlelight across the expansive room.

The bed is sunk down a level, similar to the dance floor in the lounge upstairs. It’s the largest, most impressive bed I’ve ever seen. Its four posters are more like wooden columns, with etched roses carved into them. The bedspread is blood-red, and thick, iron chains are bolted into the headboard.

With a horrible start, I realize those aren’t the only chains in this room.

There are more, bolted into the walls and hanging from the ceiling.

Not only that, but I spot a tall, dark cabinet opened just a crack to reveal a line of slim, leather whips.

I quickly move my gaze away, afraid she’ll catch me looking.

Is she going to chain me up, before she drinks from me? I’m shocked to find that the thought both fills me with dread and also ignites a burning, painful heat deep in my stomach…

What is going on with me lately?

“Would you like a drink?” she asks, gesturing toward a generous bar at the side of the room.

I’m a little tongue-tied, so I just shake my head. She crosses to a dressing-table, and removes something from her side. It’s a holster, which holds a sharp, gleaming dagger, and an ebony stake. The stake has an “X” on its hilt.

I frown. “Isn’t your stake…supposed to be red?”

She places the holster carefully on the table, then turns back to me. “Why would it be red?”

“I just thought…all the other vampires call you the Crimson Stake. I assumed it was because your stake was red. Mahogany, or something.”

A slow, malicious grin crosses her face as she regards me. Then she shakes her head, a few strands of dark hair falling into her eyes. “No, that’s not why they call me the Crimson Stake.”

I don’t know what I said to amuse her, but it’s nice to release a little of the tension between us.

“Then why do they call you the Crimson Stake?” I ask, genuinely curious. “Shouldn’t they call you Roslyn?”

“Nobody calls me Roslyn,” she replies, her tone not angry, but definitely indicating that I shouldn’t press the matter.

“Well, should I call you Crimson, then?”

She gives me an assertive look, her gaze hardening. “You can call me sir, or ‘my king.’”

There’s a powerful twist in my stomach. My knees weaken, and I’m glad I didn’t ask for a glass of wine. I’m sure I would have dropped it.

I’m clearly not hiding anything, because she looms down over me provocatively. “Do you enjoy it?” she asks, holding nothing back. “Submitting to me?”

I open my mouth to respond, but I find that my throat has gone completely dry, and I can’t form any words. There’s no denying the way I feel, the electricity that courses through my body in her dominant presence.

All I can manage is a small, shy nod.

“Well,” she responds, her eyebrow flicking upward. “Why don’t we start slowly, then. Get on the bed.”

Nervously, I scurry over to the bed. At least tonight it’s just the two of us, far away from the lounge full of watchful eyes.

But I fear what she could do to me, down here where nobody can hear me scream. A chill goes through me as I hop onto the bed, trying not to look at the thick chains bolted to the headboard, wondering what sort of activities have happened here.

I arrange myself against the pillows, lying down on my back. Then, in the blink of an eye, she’s on top of me, crouched down, her eyes gleaming red. In the dim light, she looks just like a demon.

Her eyes travel over my aching body, her gaze as powerful as her touch.

“I do love it when you tremble like that,” she whispers villainously, the tips of her fangs peeking out over her lips.

My heart pounds in my chest, overwhelmed by her presence. Down in her crypt, I feel like I’m in a dream, far removed from all sanity and reason. I know I shouldn’t want her, I know I shouldn’t enjoy this, but every atom in my body is screaming otherwise.

“This dress,” she says, fingering the smooth fabric at my thigh. “Did you wear it for me, sweet one?”

“Yes,” I reply, breathlessly.

“Yes…?” the insistence in her voice wraps around me like a vise.

Heat radiates from my core. “Yes, sir.”

“That’s better,” she replies curtly, bending down closer. “Tonight, would you prefer a stronger spell? I have many more abilities in my arsenal.”

I bite my lip, fearful. “Is…is it going to make me…” I’m not sure how to phrase it, but the idea of being wholly at her command is terrifying.

She laughs, a mirthless, evil sound. “Sweet one, if I was going to drain you completely, I wouldn’t need to glamour you first.”

Cold, hard fear grips me, and I start trembling even more than before. She notices, and her fangs elongate further down her chin, cresting in a powerful arc.

But something else shifts, an unexpected softness behind her eyes. Her voice lowers. “I won’t hurt you. Not unless you ask me to, of course.”

The breath catches in my throat, and I melt into her gaze. But she’s not enchanting me, not yet. The only power between us is the intensity of our attraction, the pull between her raw hunger and my desperate longing.

“If you want to leave,” she says, her voice thick against her sharp fangs. “You need only say the word, sweet one.”

My answer is immediate. I reply in a whispered breath. “I don’t want to leave. I want you…to drink from me.”

“And if you want me to stop, what will you say?”

I realize what she’s asking, and I take a moment to consider it. My eyes wander to the rose-etched columns around us. “I’ll say, ‘thorn.’”

“Good.”

Now that the agreement is made, she crouches lower over me, so that her face is only inches from mine. She takes her thumb and gently presses it to my bottom lip. The tender gesture melts any remaining resolve I might have had, mingling up the fear in something undeniable…

Desire.

And then she pulls me in with her stare, drawing me smoothly into her spell. But she’s already captured me. As I feel the tingle of the magic working, I know there’s an even stronger quiver much lower.

I recline onto the soft, silk pillow behind me, pushing my hair back from my neck.

“How sweetly you offer yourself up to me,” she says with a devilish smirk. “I’m going to enjoy tasting you, sweet one.”

And before I can say anything, before I can ready myself, she sinks her bared fangs into my throat.

I scream…not a moan this time, but a proper, ear-splitting, glass-shattering scream.

It’s so much more intense than when she bit my wrist. There’s something intimate, something vulnerable and electrifying, about her drinking from my neck.

I’m caught between agony and transcendent pleasure as she feasts upon me.

She’s never looked more inhuman than she does in this moment, her body tensed and hard, pining me to the bed.

Her thigh finds a place between my legs, pressed up tightly against me.

My body responds before I can stop it, straddling her.

Warmth and wetness pools inside of me as she drinks, as though my overwhelming desire is spilling out, uncontrolled and wild. I fist the thick blankets, unable to contain myself.

She takes a heavy pull of my blood and my head spins. Everything else disappears. Every thought, every anxiety, everything else in the world except for the two of us and our complementary, carnal desires.

The more she drinks, the more I feel that second urge…that pounding, painful throb in my core.

Blake had said it didn’t matter to him, right? That he didn’t mind. Even though a little guilty part of me knows he’s wrong, knows what this means…I can’t stop myself.

More consciously this time, I move against her thigh, feeling that wonderful hardness against my softest spot.

She pulls her fangs out of my neck and raises her head. Thick, red blood drips from her fangs. Her eyes are crimson, right down to the irises.

“Tell me what you want,” she says, raising a sly eyebrow.

“I…I want more,” I whisper, not completely sure what I can ask of her.

“How much more?”

I swallow. “I don’t know.”

“Would you like me to touch you?”

I can’t deny it. “Yes…”

“Yes…?”

“Yes, sir.”

She props herself up with one elbow, and with the other arm, she reaches down and caresses my thigh. Her fingers are chilly, and a shiver runs up my spine. But I like it. Her touch is assertive, but tender.

“And would you like me to…kiss you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Her mouth finds a spot below my ear, so sensitive right after her bite, and she kisses me. I can feel the sharp edge of her fangs against my skin.

She whispers throatily in my ear, “And would you like me to fuck you?”

“Oh,” I gasp, feeling weak again. “Yes, please, my king…”

I spread my legs wide for her, shocked at my own eager willingness, the power of this all-encompassing need. She wastes no time, bringing her hand up under the thin material of my satin dress.

But then, it’s her eyes that widen. There’s a greedy, pleased expression on her face.

“No panties,” she whispers.

I’m overwhelmed with joy to have pleased her. When I dressed tonight, I’d been thinking about her, and now I’m very glad I decided not to wear any underwear. “For…for you, sir…ah…”

Her fingers have found me quickly, capturing the already-sensitive, already-perfectly erect bud of my desire deftly and teasing me. She immediately knows how to touch me, how to work me. I feel like I’m being pulled under a powerful current.

“What,” I gasp. “What are you…doing to me?”

She laughs, a crisp, cruel note that rings throughout the crypt. “Do you like how I touch you, sweet one? Tell me.”

I moan. Her fingers dance around my throbbing clit, working up a tempo, then, tantalizingly, slowing down just as my pleasure builds. “Yes, yes, I do…please don’t stop…”

“Good girl,” she says, her eyes flashing dominantly. “Tell me what you like.”

When she calls me a good girl, I’m flooded with pleasure, and I come in a crashing wave that pulses through my entire body. She slows, running her fingers lightly over me to draw out my orgasm even further.

My muscles contract, and I feel heady and woozy, but she doesn’t stop touching me.

I’ve never come like that, definitely not with anyone else. I didn’t know it was possible to feel that way.

But there’s a shimmer in her eyes.

“How long do you need?” she asks. “In between?”

I blink up at her. “Um, in between?”

She cocks her head, her dark hair spilling into her glowing eyes. “Where did you come from?” she whispers, looking at me as though she’s seeing me for the first time, all over again.

Then she moves her fingers lower, finding a spot tantalizing close to my opening, sensitive and tender, and she teases it. It’s like a button, revving me back up again, sending a full-body quiver through me.

“Oh god,” I moan.

“That’s right,” she purrs.

Then her eyes flash red, and her lips part. She takes two fingers and enters me, filling me up in a way I didn’t know I needed so badly to be filled.

At the same moment, she sinks her fangs back into my neck, the sharpness of her canines satisfying another desire.

I surrender to the twist of pain and pleasure. Every atom in my body tensed and aching. Every nerve electrified by her touch, by her raw power.

She’s more monster than human now, feasting from my neck, fucking me as though our bodies were made for each other. We move like one creature, my hips bucking against her as I crest into another orgasm, still high off of the last one.

As I come, she sucks from my neck, moaning as she drinks her fill. She seems to become more powerful, the more of my blood that she consumes.

And I want her to have it. I want her to drink from me until she’s satisfied. I want to give myself to her completely.

She fucks me, and drinks from me, until all I am, and all I know, is one aching, throbbing need…

I want to serve her.

Forever.