Manny groaned and nearly lost it. So to keep things from getting out of hand, he put his arm around her waist. “Come on. Let’s take off before we lose the chance.”
Her laugh was so carefree that for some reason it split his chest wide and exposed the beating heart behind his ribs. And that was before she leaned in and kissed his cheek.
“You are aroused.”
He glanced over at her. “And you are playing with fire.”
“I like being hot.”
Manny barked out a laugh. “Well, don’t you worry—you are just that.”
When they came up to the fire door, he put his palm on the push bar. “This really going to open?”
“Try it and find out.”
He tilted in . . . and what do you know, the latch sprang free and the heavy metal panel went wide.
As vampires with guns and machetes didn’t come streaming down on them from every direction, he shook his head. “How in the hell did you manage this.”
“The king was not happy. But I am not a prisoner here, I am of age, and there is no reason I should not be able to leave the compound.”
“And at the end of the evening . . . what then?” As her joy diminished, he thought, Uh-huh, that was how she’d pulled it off. Technically, she was escorting him home. . . . This was their good-bye.
He smoothed her hair back. “It’s okay. It’s . . . all right,
She seemed to swallow hard. “I shall not think of the future, and neither should you. There are hours and hours to be had.”
Hours. Not days or weeks or months . . . or years. Hours.
God, he didn’t feel free at all.
“Come on,” he said, stepping out and taking her hand. “Let’s make this count.”
His car was parked in the shadows on the right, and when he got over to it, he found the thing unlocked. But come on, like anyone was going to get at it?
He opened the passenger-side door. “Let me help you in.”
Taking her arm like a gentleman, he settled her and then stretched the seat belt across her breasts, clicking it into place.
As her eyes bounced around the interior and her hands stroked the sides of the bucket seat, he figured this could be her first car ride. And how cool was that?
“You ever been in one of these before?” he asked.
“Verily, I have not.”
“Well, I’ll take it slow.”
She caught his hand as he straightened. “Does this go fast?”
He laughed a little. “It’s a Porsche. Fast is what it does.”
“Then you shall take us upon the wind! It shall be as my days astride were!”
Manny took a mental snapshot of the wild happiness on her face: She was glowing—and not in the ethereal sense, but in the simple joy-of-life way.
He leaned in and kissed her. “You are so beautiful.”
She captured his face. “And I thank you for it.”
Oh, but it so wasn’t him. What was lighting her up was freedom and health and optimism—and she deserved nothing less out of life.
“I have someone I want you to meet,” he blurted.
Payne smiled at him. “Then drive on, Manuel. Take us into the night.”
After a moment more of staring at her . . . he did just that.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Standing naked in his penthouse, Vishous waited for something . . . anything.
Instead, Butch backed off and disappeared into the kitchen. As he was left to his lonesome, V closed his eyes and cursed. This was a bad idea. You didn’t ask a good Catholic boy to play with the kind of toys V—
The hit came from behind, fast and sure.
It was a modified body slam, and executed beautifully: Two huge arms wrapped him at the chest and the hips and he was slung around and spun out into the far wall by the worktable. Which was when the “slam” part came in: Every square inch of him made impact. No bounce-back, though. No ricocheting.
He was pinned in place by the nape and the ass.
“Arms over your head.”
That growl was like a gun to the back of his skull and V struggled to comply, fighting against the pressure that trapped both his arms in front of his chest. The right side came free first—and the instant his wrist was out from under, it was grabbed and forced into a cuff. Left side happened just as fast.
Then again, cops were good with the steel.
There was a brief release where he was able to catch some air. And then the sound of metal chain links being churned through a gear announced where things were headed: up.
Gradually, his weight shifted off his feet and onto the sockets and lengths of his arms. The ascent stopped right before his toes left the floor completely . . . and then he just hung there, facing toward the windows, breath squeezing in and out of his lungs as he heard Butch moving behind him.
“Open your mouth.”
At the command, V cranked his jaw wide, the joint at his cheekbone cracking, his eyes pulling down at the corners, his facial cuts coming alive with a chorus of howls.
The gag was pulled down over his head and it fit right where it should, the ball squeezing between his fangs and forcing shit open even farther. With a quick jerk, the leather strapping tightened across the back of his skull and the buckle was fastened until it dug into his scalp.
It was a perfect setup: The suspension and the choking confinement did their job, spurring on his adrenaline, making his body strain in so many different ways.
A barbed corset was next, the contraption not going over his shoulders, but around his torso, the metal points on the inside of the leather bindings sinking into his skin. Butch started with the strap right across the sternum, and then it was a case of sequential squeeze, down, down, down . . . until from V’s rib cage to his stomach to the tops of his hips, concentric circles of bright white pain tingled into his spine, shooting north to the receptors in his brain and south into his rock-hard cock.
Oxygen whistled through his nostrils as there was a brief calm of no-touch, and then Butch was back with four lengths of rubber strapping. For an amateur, he had great instincts: Both the ball gag and the chest harness had stainless-steel rings that hung inch by every inch, and clearly the cop was going to put them to good use.
Working steadily, Butch slipped hooks through the gag’s fixtures and stretched the tubing down, attaching it on the front and the back of the corset.
Which effectively locked Vishous’s head into the forward position.
Then Butch gave him a swing and sent him on a little merry-go-round. In his frozen state, it was a mind fuck and a half, and it didn’t take long before he wasn’t sure whether he was moving or the room was on the ride: Things passed by one after the other, the bar, the door out, the worktable . . . Butch . . . the bed, the glass . . . then it was back to the bar, the door, the table . . . and Butch—
Who had walked over to the hanging whips and chains.
The cop just stood there, his eyes locked on Vishous.
Like a train pulling into a station, the rotation grew slower and slower until it stopped altogether . . . with the pair of them facing each other.
“You said no rules,” Butch gritted out. “Do you still mean that.”
With no way to nod or shake his head, V did what he could with his feet, moving them up and back on the floor.
“Are you sure.”
