Out of the Box 3

  Out of the Box 3

  By Kallysten

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2007 Kallysten

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The right of Kallysten to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First Published 2007

  All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Mary S.

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  Out of the Box 3

  My Lady Aphrodite,

  I returned to Anando, as I had told him I would, and as I had promised myself I wouldn’t. I always considered myself a strong woman until a few days ago, but I find myself unable to resist him, or even the thought of him. I’ve been wondering if that makes me weak. Anando says it doesn’t, but would he tell me if he thought otherwise?

  He had asked me to come back at dinnertime, and the shadows were long in front of me when I walked up the alley and to his front door. By daytime, his house seems even more modern; the light sharpens the angles everywhere, and makes the building seem almost like a geometric figure. A small wind was blowing around me as I crossed those last few yards, and it made my summer dress dance around me.

  I knocked, two sharp knocks, and within seconds Anando appeared, opening the door wide for me. His smile was simply dazzling.

  “Virginia.”

  I never knew, until I heard him, that my name could be a purr.

  “I’m glad you're here. Come in, please.”

  I walked inside, stopping next to him, and he surprised me by leaning in to kiss my cheek. The touch was so brief I might as well have dreamed it, but it warmed me better than the late sun had.

  “I did say I’d come,” I pointed out when he motioned for me to follow him.

  “But you said it as though pledging to commit sin and already feeling guilty about it. Don’t tell me you didn’t think about staying home.”

  In truth, I had, and I felt my cheeks burn at how well he knew me already. It was even more embarrassing that I knew so little about him. I was reminded of that fact even more acutely when he made me sit on a bar stool at the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. Judging by the scents wafting from the cooking range, he was preparing something himself, when I had imagined he would order from a restaurant.

  “You’re cooking,” I stated the obvious.

  He grinned as he placed a tall glass in front of me and filled it with white wine. “You sound surprised.”

  The flavor of the wine burst on my tongue with my first sip. Fresh and light, it made me think of apples and lilac.

  “I never thought vampires had much interest in food. I mean, real food. Human food. You know what I mean.”

  “I know, yes.” Leaving his own glass behind, he turned to the pan on the cooking range. He seized its handle with one hand and a wooden spoon in the other. “I don’t need this kind of food, but I can eat it and enjoy its flavor. And it is certainly more companionable than to watch you eat alone.”

  He shut off the gas and abandoned the pan on the range. I sipped on my wine and watched him open a cupboard, then a drawer, both of which appeared to be neatly organized. I stored that tidbit of information, adding it to the little I knew of my host. When he returned to the bar, he set down a plate, cutlery and a napkin in front of me, and a second set facing me.

  “Salad to start?” he offered as he picked up a bowl on the counter, and served both plates when I accepted.

  We ate the salad in near silence, Anando merely inquiring about whether I liked the wine, and offering me more when I said I did. When he stood with both our plates and turned to the skillet and pan still on the range behind him, I asked the question that had been echoing through my mind for a few minutes.

  “Do you often invite…people for dinner?”

  He threw a quick amused glance at me. Undoubtedly, he had heard the ‘girls’ that had almost passed my lips. I didn’t want to think about the other women he slept with, but I suppose I should have avoided the topic altogether rather than danced around it.

  “Not often, no,” he replied as he filled our plates. “Good company is harder to come by than one would think.”

  The compliment didn’t escape me and I smiled when he deposited my plate back in front of me. A golden fish fillet lay on one side over a white sauce with green specks of herbs. Sautéed vegetables covered the other side, cut into bite-size pieces. It looked delicious, and it tasted even better. Fish and vegetables were both crisp and flavorful, and the sauce had hints of wine without being overpowering.

  “A pity you don’t share your talents with more people,” I said after a few bites. “But a definite privilege for me.”

  It was only when he murmured a very sensual, “The pleasure is all mine,” that I realized my words could be interpreted in a very innocent way—or a not so innocent one. By the look he gave me, he had chosen to hear a reference to our more naughty activities, and that set me thinking about them too. My throat was dry, suddenly, my skin flushed, and I squirmed uncomfortably on the stool. His smile did not help anything, a too clear reminder that he knew exactly what I was thinking. I took a sip of wine, and set to finish the meal he had prepared for me. Dessert could wait a little longer, and would be all the sweeter for the delay.

  Anando, of course, was not ready to make things easier for me. Abandoning his plate, he settled for watching me eat, leaning his cheek against his closed fist and smiling the whole while.

  “Have you thought about what game you would like to play tonight?”

  A flash of pure heat coursed through me at the mention of games. His playthings box and its contents were still etched in my mind, as clear as the night I had first opened the box. I shook my head. I didn’t trust myself to speak at that moment.

  “But you’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?”

  I kept my eyes on my plate and took a few more bites. I wasn’t sure how to answer him. All day long, I had tried not to think about the box, about what we certainly would end up doing after dinner. I had tried, and failed. Twice, I had opened the chest, and twice I had offered myself to Anando, taking on a passive role that I had never known myself to enjoy before. I had always thought that I was the kind of woman who took what she wanted. It was why, after all, I had gone to the club in the first place. I wasn’t sure I liked the side of me that being with Anando revealed. And despite all that, I was still there, back to him, and craving more.

  “Ah, Virginia,” Anando sighed. “Sweet Virginia. You are not thinking of leaving so soon, are you? I thought last night had convinced you that running was not a solution.”

  Done with the food, I crossed my fork and knife over my plate but still didn’t look up. Anando reached out to me, and with a gentle finger beneath my chin, coaxed my head up.

  “What is it?”

  I tried to deny something was wrong, but I could see tha
t he wouldn’t accept anything other than simple truth. So, once more, I yielded to him, and told him how I felt about surrendering so completely.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I amended my words when he started frowning. “I enjoyed what we did. I enjoyed it a lot. But the feelings it leaves me with are less pleasant. I do not like to see this weakness in me.”

  The frown disappeared and his eyes widened at my words. “Weakness?” he repeated. “You think giving control to someone else makes you weak?”

  I nodded, embarrassed. His hand slid from my chin and down my neck until his fingers were brushing against the bite marks there.

  “What you showed, Virginia, is the very opposite of weakness. You entrusted your body, your pleasure and your very life to me, when you couldn’t know what I would do with any of them. That’s not weakness. That’s courage, and audacity. It takes more bravery to surrender to a lover than it does to accept such a gift.”

  His words were as seductive as the way his body moved when he danced, as enthralling, and they would have been too easy to accept. So I didn’t.

  “Of course you say so,” I replied, leaning back just enough that he had to drop his hand from my neck. “You’re the one in control. You don’t know what being on the other end of it is like.”

  There might have been a hint of reproach in my voice, and he answered it with a stare in which flames danced. He stood so abruptly that he startled me, and I’ll admit I was a little apprehensive when he walked around the bar and came to me. The idea of angering him—a vampire—was definitely frightening, even if he had been nothing short of a gentleman so far. And he continued to be as much, offering me his hand to help me off the stool as he said, “Come with me.”

  The tone of his voice left no room for hesitation. I slipped my hand in his and stepped down. He led me not to the front door, as I almost expected, but to his bedroom. The lights were low, and the blue walls seemed darker than they really were. He let go of my hand to walk to the white chest against the wall, and put one knee down in front of it before opening it. When he stood again and turned back to me, handcuffs were dangling from his fingers.

  I started shaking my head. I had just confessed being uncomfortable at the idea of giving him too much control over me and enjoying it. More bondage games hardly seemed like the solution.

  The handcuffs caught the light and gleamed when he snapped one cuff onto his right wrist.

  “Your game, tonight,” he said simply.

  I swallowed hard as I understood what he meant by that. He was trying to prove to me that he, too, could give up control, and that it didn’t make him any weaker. My knees threatened to buckle beneath me and my heart leapt inside my chest when I realized that I wanted what he was offering just as much as I had wanted what we had shared so far.

  He seemed to be waiting for a sign from me, and so I nodded, saying without a word that I accepted his offer—his challenge. I stepped out of my shoes before I crossed the few steps that separated us. He waited for me, immobile, and when I motioned for him to give me his hand, he did so immediately. I looked at the cuff encircling his wrist for a moment. There had been several of them, in the box, one pair lined with fur, another lined with fabric. He had chosen the plain metal ones. They shone coldly when angled into the light, and the metal was just as cold as it looked when I ran a finger over it and around Anando’s wrist. Without warning, I tightened my hand over the cuff, causing it to fit more snugly. Anando let out a quiet laugh.

  “I think you’re catching on very nicely,” he commented, his eyes sparkling with enjoyment.

  “Shh. No talking, now, not unless I ask you a question.”

  I was pushing his limits as well as mine. He accepted my rules with a tilt of his head and a grin.

  My hands itched to snap the other cuff around his wrist and to seal the game, but there were other things I needed to do before that. One, the most important, was to undress him. It would have been a pity to have to ruin his silk shirt simply because I had been too hasty.

  I undid the buttons at his wrists first, then, slowly, teasing the two of us at once, I unfastened the buttons holding the shirt closed. One by one, they yielded beneath my touch, and I pulled at the fabric to reveal his chest. I ran my hands over his skin, my fingers spread out and light as air. His skin was even silkier than I remembered it.

  The shirt easily slid down his arms. It caught on the handcuffs for a second, but Anando shook his hand and the fabric pooled at his feet. They were bare, I noticed for the first time. It made things easier for me when I undid his pants’ button and zipper, feeling the slight hardening just beneath the fabric, and let it fall down his legs. He stepped out of the pants without my prompt, but I didn’t notice, my attention focused on his cock. It hung between his legs, heavy and slowly filling in under my eyes. I wanted nothing more than to touch it and feel it grow in my hand – then I realized, I could do that if I wanted. I could do anything I pleased. And so I cupped my hand against his cock, pressing lightly. The pressure built against my palm, a promise of things to come, until I drew back.

  My eyes drifted back up his chest and to his face; he was smirking. For a second, I had the feeling that he could read my mind and was amused by my thoughts. The truth was probably much simpler than that. I suppose the way I looked at him gave me away as much as the way I touched him, or as much as my scent. I had barely touched him, done little more than gaze at him, and already my panties were soaked.

  “Get on the bed.”

  I was so nervous – so excited – that my voice squeaked in the most embarrassing fashion in the middle of my request. I felt fire creeping up my cheeks and expected an amused remark or look from Anando, yet he said nothing as he climbed onto the bed, kneeling in the middle of it with his hands resting on his slightly spread thighs. The metal of the handcuffs was a trace of light on his dark skin, but once again it was his cock that drew my attention at first, bobbing lightly under my gaze as though to invite my hand to return. His entire body seemed coiled, ready to spring into movement, yet he was still as a Greek statue – and as perfect. An arched eyebrow asked me for further instructions; I gave them with just a little more assurance.

  “Pretty. But I think I want you on your back. With your hands by the headboard. Yes, just like that.”

  I kept my eyes on his face when I approached the bed. Five undone buttons down the front of my dress, a shrug of my shoulders to make it slip off me, and there it was, that slight widening of his eyes as they ran over me, from my baby blue satin and lace bra to the matching panties. I had spent some time choosing my underwear earlier. That time seemed well spent now that I could see the clear appreciation in his gaze.

  Feeling emboldened by his arousal, I leaned over the bed and reached for his cuffed hand. The way I stretched over him, I could practically feel his eyes caressing my chest, inches from his face. Maybe I took a little more time than necessary to loop the free cuff behind the decorative bars of the headboard. It looked like solid wood, but I wondered if it would hold if Anando pulled hard. Then he arched up to run his tongue just along the underside of my bra, and I stopped wondering about anything. I snapped the second cuff around his waiting free wrist before drawing back.

  “I thought you were going to be good.” I had to struggle to look stern, but it was part of the game. “Who said you could touch me?”

  His eyes were sparkling with mischief. “If I were good, I wouldn’t need to be cuffed, now, would I?”

  I couldn’t fault his logic. But I could – and I had to – punish his transgression. “If you insist on being bad, there’ll be a price to pay.”

  I climbed onto the bed and knelt over his upper thighs. His cock twitched against his stomach.

  “What’s the price, then?” he asked.

  I clucked my tongue. “There you go again. Speaking without permission. That’s two strikes against you.”

  I paused for a few instants, waiting to see if he’d take the bait and speak out of turn again. He gri
nned knowingly, certainly understanding my game, but held his tongue.

  “I think that each time you are bad, I will request one answer from you.”

  “An answer?”

  He sounded both puzzled and wary. It was the first time since I had met him that his confidence had appeared to crack.

  “That’s three, Anando. And yes, answers. You seem to know way too much about me already, and I know way too little.”

  He gave a small, almost hesitant nod. As a reward, I laid my hand over his slowly softening cock. It sprang back to life beneath my light touch.

  “Here’s my first question, then.” It came to my lips before I even realized I knew what I wanted to know. “Do you like it better to tie someone to your bed, or to be the one tied up?”

  The caution in his gaze melted back into amusement. I wondered what he had expected I’d ask.

  “I enjoy both.” He let out a little hiss when I stroked his cock from root to tip with no more than the tips of my fingers. “Usually I’m in your place at this time, but a change of pace can be nice. Don’t you think?”

  Inside, I agreed, but I was the one asking questions. I squeezed his cock gently to remind him of that fact.

  “Second question, then.” This time, I hesitated, unsure how he would react to the more intrusive probing. “Have you…have you ever felt something for one of the women you bring here? Something other than lust?”

  In a flash, the wariness was back. “I suppose that by ‘something’ you mean love? Haven’t you ever heard that vampires don’t love?”

  I had heard as much, of course. It’s one of the most widely known things about vampires. But I’m not sure I have ever truly believed it. Vampires have all been human, at one point; it makes no sense that they would lose the ability to love.

  “You’re not answering the question, Anando.”

  His gaze locked with mine. I was sure, for a moment, that I had pushed too far and that he would call it all off, right then and there. I was about to back off when he finally answered.