I stood in the entryway of a grand old mansion in the richest part of the Chesterfield area, trying not to let my self-consciousness show as I shifted from one stiletto-heeled foot to the other. Already, both Rans and I were drawing interested glances from the other people waiting to have their I.D. checked so they could enter the members’ only club.
Not that I could really blame them. Rans’ darkly beautiful features and lean grace drew attention wherever he went. And that was when he wasn’t wearing tight leather pants, black boots, his long black leather coat... and nothing else except a spiked dog collar buckled around his throat. Well, almost nothing else. His chest was bare, but I’d watched with queasy fascination earlier as he’d pierced his own nipples with nary a flinch and slid a pair of pale metal rings through the holes.
“Tell me those aren’t real silver,” I’d said, unable to look away from the little hoops.
He’d only snorted. “Anything else, and my flesh would push it out within moments.”
“But... doesn’t that hurt?”
After all, he’d told me not long after we met that vampires were sensitive to silver, the same way that Fae were sensitive to iron.
“Oh, most definitely,” he’d replied, eyeing me with amusement. “It hurts in all the best ways, luv. What—have you forgotten where we’re going?”
So apparently, Rans wasn’t averse to putting the ‘M’ in S&M on occasion. Which, okay, I probably should have guessed.
The last element in the vampire version of skank-wear was a pair of black leather forearm guards that laced up the top, from wrist to elbow. On anyone else, they would have been mere decoration; part of the general ‘more leather is better’ approach to dressing for a sex club. In Rans’ case, though, each leather guard hid a wicked iron dagger.
“Just in case,” he’d quipped, a grim smile touching his lips.
While the look Rans was sporting could best be described as Hell’s Angels meets the Village People, tonight I was all about black latex. Latex sheath dress, latex thigh-high platform boots with six-inch spike heels, latex elbow-length gloves. It looked like someone had strategically painted an oil slick onto my skin, and it had somehow stuck in place in the shape of clothing.
He and I still had an unresolved argument about who was going to tell Guthrie the reason why the box of cornstarch from his immaculately stocked kitchen was missing.
“It’s better than using lube to get this dress on you,” Rans had insisted. “And it will help absorb the sweat later on.”
I gave him my best unimpressed glare. “Charming. It really says something about you that you’ve apparently done detailed studies on this subject. I’m not sure what it says, mind you. But it definitely says something.”
His answering leer almost broke through my determination to keep the scowl on my face. So... tonight I was Latex Girl, my ensemble topped off with my best attempt at pornstar makeup, along with a hairstyle inspired by Mad Max. Nineteen-eighties Mad Max.
Tina Turner, eat your heart out.
We had a plan, sort of. I’d stood my ground regarding my intention to play the big bad Domme during our little expedition on the wild side, but I now understood what it must feel like to have a man-eating tiger on the end of a leash. Literally on a leash, mind you. There was a dangerous edge to Rans’ aura of deceptive submissiveness, and I suspected it was playing into the other patrons’ obvious fascination with us.
If I could successfully play my part tonight, we were going to have a whole lot of interested eyeballs on us. Of course, that was the entire point of the exercise. Rans was fairly certain I would only be able to draw on sexual energy that was specifically aimed in my direction. So the goal was to get as many people hot for me as possible.
The part of me that had believed myself human for twenty-six years insisted I should be a mass of nerves, and possibly offended as well. The succubus in me was licking her lips in anticipation.
“I don’t recognize you two,” said the bouncer, eyeing us up and down as we reached the front of the queue.
Rans’ eyes flashed. “Sure you do, mate. We’re Daniel’s new sponsees. He’s here already, right?”
The bouncer’s expression grew glazed. “Yeah. Yeah... okay. He’s here already. You should go on inside.”
I shot Rans a sidelong glance, still freaked out by that little party trick. But I was supposed to be the one in charge here, so I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin imperiously. “Thanks. Come on, slave—follow me.”
I brushed past Rans and headed into the old house, hoping my stiletto-heeled stride looked sexy and confident, rather than overly careful as I strove not to end the night with a catastrophic ankle twist before it had properly begun. Honestly, whoever designed these boots must have been a man—and not one with experience in cross-dressing. The only plus side was that the extra six inches put me almost at eye level with my pretend slave—Rans might have been a pretty tall guy in the thirteen-hundreds, but in the twenty-first century, his height was close to average.
The leash I was holding still felt foreign. I could feel Rans’ continued amusement against my back like the warmth from a fireplace, and the idea that he might make me pay in kind for my little power trip at some unspecified future date was enough to make me squirm.
As we made our way into the mansion, I looked around with interest. A glance over my shoulder showed Rans with his head bowed, much of his expression hidden by his unruly fringe of black hair. Even so, I would have laid odds that he was smirking at me, on the inside at least.
The ground floor boasted a grand staircase. People of all shapes, sizes, and ages milled about in the open area. The place appeared to be laid out in a symmetrical
