Love? Danny?

He heard her breath catch, a small sound almost like a sob, and then Lyssa’s voice cut over it smoothly. “If Lady D has no objections, I’d like him left like this while we enjoy the rest of our cocktails. Watching a muscular naked man swaying in chains, with his seed running down his thighs and glistening on his cock, mixing with his blood, is something we should savor before we let him down. After he catches his breath, we will let Nina service him with her mouth and watch him come again, as spectators this time.”

“Thomas.” Danny spoke then, and her voice was back to that neutral, smooth tone which told him nothing, but he caught a slight quaver on the syllables. That could be from the aftermath of her climax, of course. “Put his feet back on the floor to rest his shoulders, but otherwise Dev will pleasure us according to Lady Lyssa’s wishes.” 21

So it went. Nina did put her mouth on him, something he was powerless to refuse. Because her pregnant belly was pressing into his shins, he was afraid to move too violently for fear of hurting her, resulting in a slow build to a climax almost as intense as the first.

When he spurted into her mouth, care washed away as he groaned out his release.

Before and after, they went back to their conversation of politics and past experiences. His presence there was one more adornment to enhance their evening, and he was expected to submit to display.

In fact, I gagged and blindfolded you in deference to your inexperience, Dev. A seasoned servant would have stood quietly, without those things, waiting to be released.

He could hear the rustle and shift of bodies moving. Clothing. The clink of teacups and silverware. The occasional hiss of a dying candle, mixed with the smell of the women’s perfumes, Alistair’s aftershave. Even the quiet, clean scent of Thomas, nearer than the rest. Dev wondered if he’d shifted closer to give him some steadying reassurance.

While he hung there, exhausted, he became aware that his muscles were trembling, and it wasn’t from fatigue, but something far deeper. As clear and sharp as all those separate impressions were, her movements, her scent, her voice, were the most precise, like etchings on the fragile glass he felt he’d become. Transparent, exposed, breakable. When he’d worked as a stockman on a cattle station, or did shearing, he’d had days he’d felt beaten half to death by the time he laid his body on his swag. But this . . .

he’d resisted all of it with muscles drawn so tight he knew he must have knots, and now, in this lull, he felt as if he’d been beaten, dragged and then done all over again. And they still weren’t done with him. He knew it.

She’d offered him the way out, not once, but twice.

If you’d called me Danny . . .

I don’t need a servant whose only reason for serving me is to exercise some twisted punishment upon himself.

He did relish the pain when she offered it, God help him. But there was no voice in his head telling him he should crave pain because he deserved it. It was something about the way she dished it out. The wave of desire he felt with her, the connection that was established, it didn’t matter if it was from the cut of a knife, the lash of a whip, the touch of her lips or the gentle stroke of her fingertips. Or another man’s cock plunging into him.

It was too much to handle. But throughout the two hours they made him hang there, his shoulders screaming despite the fact his weight now rested on the floor, his legs bound so close together with the ankle and thigh manacles, there were moments when his thoughts and the physical state of his body overwhelmed him. A wave of violent panic deluged him, an overwhelming need to fight his bonds, gnaw his damn arms off at the wrist if need be.

Each time that happened, before he could start struggling, do more than twitch in the chains as if he were preparing for seizure, she was there in his mind. Crooning to him, a soft lullaby, like she’d done before. That instant presence told him that, despite her casual conversation with the others, she was watching him closely, watching over him. Christ, he was so bloody twisted up.

“Lady Lyssa?” Alistair spoke. “It’s getting time to draw the evening to a close. You’ve taken precious little from Lady D’s servant.

Would you like to sample him before we retire? I feel certain he has one more in him. Too much energy seems to be pouring off him still.”

“Try not to sound so envious, Alistair. Be warned, Danny. Keep Dev around him too long and he might decide to trade his baby for him.” Lyssa’s cutting amusement was met with mock outrage by Alistair and a short chuckle from his lady. Then the vampire queen rose, evidenced by a soft whisper of her legs, which, not stockinged, had a different sound from Danny’s.

“Unlike you children, I prefer anticipation to saturation. The taste of it has a sharper edge. So perhaps I’ll get him warmed up for the lady Daniela to take him once more before she sleeps. If she’d like that.”

“Of course,” Danny said courteously, though Dev thought he heard something in her voice, some level of reluctance.

She was right. You can share me with another male, or his servant, but a female vamp’s a different story, isn’t it?

She didn’t deign respond to that, an answer in itself. He wasn’t goading her, not exactly. His body and spirit were exhausted, numb, leaving him hanging on an odd precipice between yearning and despair. Then, from the exotic scent and that emanation of heated power, he knew Lady Lyssa stood before him. He made a hoarse sound behind the gag as the chains were drawn taut. Not to the extent as before, but enough his heels left the ground and he cried out as even the slight pull on his shoulders was enough to spark pain through the tendons. Her long nails trailed down his chest, slow, slow, and his breath stilled, his heartbeat conversely speeding up.

He’d been touched by his lady, and her skill was enough to make any man cross-eyed, but something about Lady Lyssa’s touch . .

. Jesus, this woman had been alive more than a thousand years and had all the mysterious magic of a sorceress behind her touch, paralyzing a man.

She’d reached his abdomen, and now her fingers caressed the silken mat of hair above his cock, teased one finger down the length of it. It had been drained by Nina just a little while ago, but now, at that touch, it stirred weakly.

“There you are.” Her voice was a purr. “You need to be ready to service your lady again. Lady Danny is so aroused, even now.

Watching Nina put her mouth on your splendid cock, then seeing me touch you. All the while, everything that has happened tonight replays in her head. When she takes you to her bed at dawn, she will be so hungry to have you all to herself, to mark you with her scent as only hers again. She’ll shove you down on the bed and take you hard, too needy for your cock to pretend any formalities, any thought that she is giving you foolish choices.”

The bite to her words now was obviously directed at Danny. But then Lyssa’s slim, small fingers curled around his cock and pulled with a skill that had him sucking in a breath.

“If I were Lady D, I really wouldn’t let you out too much. Someone might be tempted to steal you away.” As she drew closer, the brocade and silk of her dress pressed against him. “Thomas is removing your gag, but you will not speak unless spoken to.” The buckle eased, and then Thomas’s fingers were there, guiding the ball from his mouth, his body pressed briefly against the back of Dev’s, another reassurance. “He bit into it quite fiercely, Lady D,” Lyssa observed softly. Then her hand was on his shoulder.

When she gripped it, and leaned into him, her body elongating as if she was rising onto her toes, he realized she was bringing her mouth up toward his.

He jerked back and away, avoiding her lips.

He hadn’t thought about courtesy. He’d just reacted. Now a tense silence fell over the room, just long enough for him to think, Oh, bugger. Then Lyssa’s hand was on the side of his face. But not to turn him back and force him into the kiss. Instead, she went for his throat, grazed him with her fangs.

He had a band around his chest so tight he could barely breathe. He didn’t realize how tight until Danny’s hand touched him.

Traced his mouth. Then she was next to Lyssa, so close the women had to have an arm around each other to balance. They pressed against him to add to that anchor, but Danny’s other hand moved to his nape, and when her mouth covered his, he gave himself up to that kiss. The softness of her mouth, the reassuring touch of her hand tunneling through his hair as Lyssa teased his carotid with the threat of her fangs, her hand still working his cock. Then there was Alistair again, God help him, his strong palm running down Dev’s back, down to his arse to give it a kneading squeeze, his fingers playing in the cleft.

Nina’s mouth and hands came back as well, along his right thigh. Her flexible tongue worked around Lyssa’s fingers and underneath as Nina started to do as Aapti had done that night, sucking one testicle gently into her mouth, then the other, then licking both. Alistair’s fingers slid back into his still well-greased backside.

He couldn’t take it again. He couldn’t.

Stay with me, Dev. I’m here. Still Danny kissed his mouth, pricking him with her fangs, sweeping her tongue inside, tangling with his. Despite the excruciating discomfort, his arms grew taut in the chains as he strained toward her, his body surging to life with need. While the stimulus of the other three helped his cock reach its turgid state, it was that mouth, the smell of her in his nostrils, the brush of her blond hair against his cheek and temple, that had him needing. Wanting Danny to do exactly as Lyssa described, when Danny took him to her bed before dawn.

He knew a lot about patience, having lived in the bush. Where so much had to wait on the elements. The sun, the rain, the wind.

Where one might have to be still for hours to catch food, or walk for miles to find it. How you had to pay close attention to find water.

But patience had a different quality in creatures who lived forever. Danny was content to keep kissing him as long as she liked, knowing she could have more whenever she wished, even as his body jerked and arousal built, and built, until he was groaning into her mouth, telling her his need. His cock was an iron bar in Lyssa’s grasp, his arse clenching rhythmically around Alistair’s fingers, electric sensation jolting up from his testicles under Nina’s clever mouth. He didn’t know where Thomas was, might be glad he didn’t know. He was probably saying rosaries or whatever a monk did in his mind to overcome the temptations of the flesh displayed before him so blatantly.