Dane (20 page)

Sevin was already shaking his head before she finished. “Although everyone is visible to everyone else here, upon leaving these premises, you‟ll find yourself unable to recall anyone‟s precise features or identity.

There is one exception, but it requires a specific invitation. It‟s done in that way.”He indicated a couple across the room, who were standing close together. Briefly, each placed their palms over the other‟s eyes, then removed them as if removing blinders. “Now neither will forget what passes between them here tonight.”

Eva looked down to find Pinot at her side again. His friend hovered near the front door, as if preparing to depart, and Pinot was casting him longing glances. “You want to go with him?” guessed Eva.

“No, I‟m staying with you.”But he looked torn between duty and a desire to enjoy himself.

Sevin offered his hand then, shaking Pinot‟s. She liked that he treated him as an equal. Some men didn‟t. “Sevin, Dane‟s brother,” he said, introducing himself. “I‟ll make sure she gets home safely after her visit.”

“Go. I‟ll be fine,” she assured the pixie.

“All right, then.” With a bit of a swagger, Pinot sauntered over to his young man. Arm in arm, they departed the salon. How fortuitous that Pinot‟s protective instincts had been dulled by his infatuation. Now, if she could slip free of Sevin at some point, she had a question or two for Signor Russo.

“You‟re welcome to take a tour,” Sevin suggested, gesturing toward the arched entrance to the main salon. “Unless you‟re intolerant or easily shocked, in which case I advise against it.”

“Though I‟m not sure about the latter, I‟m innocent of the first. But don‟t I have to be a member?”she said, already moving toward the curtained opening. Even she, with her lackluster olfactory abilities, could detect hundreds of different scents emanating from beyond it.

“Not if you‟re with me,” he assured her. “However, if you plan to join us again, you‟ll first have to go through our orientation process. There are standards and policies by which everyone must abide. All prospective members are carefully screened before they receive a subscription card.”

Eva considered that, wondering what the screening entailed and whether Odette‟s powders could withstand the scrutiny. The fantasy of coming here again at some point for a carnal purpose appealed. But shyness blossomed in her at the thought as well. Would she dare?

The two burly guards on duty at the entryway to the main salon stood aside as they approached. Sevin parted the velvet drape with one hand, and then they were inside.

The complex, evocative scent of magic that permeated the room was the first thing that struck her. And the decor was a feast for the senses—lush, predominantly done in reds and golds. The gilded, coffered ceiling reached three stories high, and there were balconied seating boxes encircling the room‟s vast perimeter, much like those in the Enclave a Paris Opera House in ElseWorld. Massive candelabras forged of precious metals unknown to humans were ensconced between the boxes, bathing the floor where she now stood in an incandescent light, while at the same time washing the boxes in half shadow. She saw clandestine movement in some of them and briefly wondered what the occupants did up there in their sequestered quarters.

“Come.” Sevin took her arm and they began to walk the perimeter of the room. He was silent, allowing her to absorb the sights at her own pace. Guards in severe, tailored black studiously ignored them as they passed. They were stationed in unobtrusive locations, their sharp eyes making sure all ran smoothly.

The expansive room was mildly chaotic and in its center, a carousel turned with mesmerizing slowness. Wildly painted and lacquered dragons, unicorns, and other fantastic creatures pumped up and down, their backs eerily bare of passengers for the moment.

On short pedestals set here and there around the room, life-size erotic statues stood, some fully nude and others partially so. She assumed they were stone, until they all suddenly moved on cue, switching positions to the strains of the soft music that emanated from an indeterminate location. The partners of some now paired themselves with new partners, while others posed alone. They were alive, she realized, and had only been painted to give the illusion that they were sculpted of marble. Their poses were overtly sensual, meant to titillate. A woman‟s head was thrown back in ecstasy as her lover‟s lips pressed themselves to her breast. A man caressed the face of a woman who kneeled at his feet, her hands cupping his genitals, her adoring face upturned to his. Two women embraced, their bellies pressed together and their hands linked at each other‟s back.

She blushed and felt Sevin‟s amusement. “As it turns out, you are, in fact, quite shockable, aren‟t you?” he teased.

“I didn‟t promise otherwise, if you‟ll recall,” she said, smiling faintly in return. And she was shocked, but the salon‟s air of freedom excited her as well. Here, fantasies could blossom and flower, unfettered by shame. Anything seemed possible, and acceptable.

“Are you certain you want to stay?”

Eva nodded. Not only because of her search for Russo, but because this place fascinated her. ElseWorld species of all kinds milled about, some in translucent veils. Others were in costume or in street clothes, or even half naked. It was hard to be circumspect when she wanted to stare.

“Who are all these creatures?” she asked, as they continued on their stroll.

“A broad spectrum culled from the ElseWorld population of Rome and beyond,” Sevin readily informed her. “The salon boasts over five hundred members from all over Europe.”

Her eyes widened.

He chuckled. “Not all here at once.”

Two well-dressed gentlemen sauntered past, eyeing her, and Eva edged closer to her escort, uncertain of what they might want. Sevin put a hand at her back. He and the men exchanged potent glances, seeming to recognize something about her that she didn‟t yet understand. Her gaze found the floor, and she suddenly noticed that it became glass in places.

Below the glass was a continuous, lighted pool in which mermen swam. It seemed she‟d tarried too long in one place, for several of them had gathered to stare upward, their vantage point allowing them a clear view of what lay under her skirts. With a little yelp, she moved aside to an opaque piece of flooring.

Sevin laughed, displaying white teeth. Several females looked in their direction, drawn to the sound and to his dark good looks. The mermen winked at her irreverently, and with an iridescent flash of their tails, swam away.

From the corner of her eye, Eva saw an expanse of black and turned to see the trio of hooded gentlemen she and Pinot had trailed here. One held aside yet another curtain that hung in a doorway, and they all went inside.

“Anything attempted without a partner‟s full consent is forbidden here,” Sevin was saying. “Other activities a partner might consent to are off-limits as well. There are some things I haven‟t the stomach for, and since it‟s my establishment, I set the rules.”

A woman came up to Sevin then, her arms sliding familiarly around his middle. She rose on tiptoe and whispered something in his ear that caused him to glance upward, toward the largest of the opera boxes. It was covered with smoked glass that made it impossible to see inside it.

Taking advantage of his distraction, Eva slipped away, intent on following her quarry.

“I‟m not interested in force,” Dane stated unequivocally, as he and Bastian observed the scene unfolding below. From the secluded balcony above, they had watched as Eva and Sevin entered the salon a few moments earlier.

Having tracked Eva and her pixie here by means of the pixie‟s scent, Dane had come upstairs to the balcony knowing it would provide an overview of the salon, making it easy to locate her. The smoked glass surrounding their box was transparent from their side but impenetrable from the floor below. The enclosure also served as Sevin‟s luxurious office, but Dane had found only one of his brothers here.

“She‟s already offered you a liaison,” Bastian replied firmly.

“With conditions.”

As Eva‟s eyes lingered on one of the living tableaus of statuary, Bastian sent him a significant look. It was a foursome she admired, three men gathered around a single female, all standing frozen in place. Two males were at the female‟s back, one with his hands covering her eyes, the second with his fingers trailing the crease in her buttocks. A third man faced her, wrapping her hands around his cock. “It‟s easy to see what draws her interest. Domination. Multiple partners. Give her what she wants. Sevin and I will easily oblige if you require us.”

The thought of dominating and controlling Eva appealed, and if he were honest with himself, the notion of sharing her under certain circumstances did as well, but he would not be so easily manipulated.

“Your habit of issuing orders grows tiresome. I‟ve managed on my own all these years without your help.”

“Giving orders is a big brother‟s raison d‟être,” Bastian said with an amused quirk of one brow. “And I‟m proud of the man you‟ve become.

Others might have been crushed by what you‟ve been through.”

The two didn‟t look at one another as he spoke, but Dane was moved by his brother‟s words. “Well?” Bastian prodded. “You have only to join us here when Dante comes and we‟ll help you question him if you require us.”

Dane angled his head toward the third occupant of the room lounging on the couch behind them, a tacit warning to Bastian to be careful in what he said regarding Dante. “So I‟m to use Eva as a tool.”

“Use her as you must for the good of our family. For the good of Luc. You‟ll give her a night of pleasure in return. Everyone wins.”

Whatever had happened to Dane during that missing year had left him with an abhorrence of any sort of restraint and of any attempt to control him. Yet it had also engendered in him an appetite for a measure of control over his partners in carnal engagements. The very thought of dominating Eva‟s soft body with his, of having her willingly entrust herself entirely into his keeping in the name of pleasure, was a balm to his wounded soul.

Dane slanted a glance in his direction. “I‟d forgotten how persuasive you could be.”

“Cold logic,” said Bastian. “It‟s what I‟m good at.”

As they watched, Sevin turned away from Eva for a moment when his assistant approached him. In a furtive move, Eva slipped away and then dashed inside one of the semi-private rooms.

“What the fuck?” Dane said in alarm. The words had hardly left his lips and already he was through the door and taking the stairs downward three at a time.

Bastian remained in the office, watching.

“Cold logic is my very favorite thing,” teased a feminine voice from the couch behind him. “Perhaps I could warm it for you?”

Though he didn‟t reply, Michaela rose and came to stand before him, her slightly rounded belly bumping his hard one. “Shall I stay?”

“Your choice.”

“Then I choose to stay.” Her hand shaped his prick through his trousers.

“Why?” he asked gruffly, covering her hand with his.

“My reasons are my own,” she told him with a demure smile. With sure, skilled fingers, she unfastened his trousers. His phallus jutted free from them, vein-roped, ruddy, and almost frightening in its size and power. She took it between her palms, and her eyes slanted upward to meet his. “Not so cold after all,” she teased gently.

He grunted, his eyes glued to her face, wondering why he could never read her expressions so well as he could those of others. Wondering why he cared. Her hands stroked downward on his shaft as she sank to her knees in a swish of silk. Her lips parted just enough to reveal the flat of her pink tongue, which then journeyed from his root upward along the underside of his length, tracing the vein that would soon carry his cum from his balls and into her. Too soon, if she kept this up.

“Your lips are magic,” he murmured, petting her hair. It was a fact.

Only one in five hundred thousand ElseWorld females were gifted with such a mouth. The mere touch of her lips or tongue on the flesh could make a man—or a woman—come in an instant. She‟d done it to him the first time they‟d met. Before he‟d known what she was. But he‟d since raised his guard.

When her talent had first revealed itself in her at a young age, she‟d been sold by her parents into the Academie du Grand Horizontales, where she‟d studied the Arts of Companionship. Bastian knew little else of her past, except that somehow she‟d wound up here, working in the salon. And that she‟d had the misfortune to find herself attracted to him.

She resided here he knew, but he‟d already decided he would take her into his home on Esquiline while she recuperated from her inevitable miscarriage. He did care for her in his own way. His brothers thought him incapable of love, but he only shunned entanglements, for he was interested in his work and disinterested in fidelity. And he wouldn‟t apologize for that. He had scrupulously informed Michaela and his previous partners of this fact well in advance of entering into relationships with them. His passions burned highest for the mysteries in the Forum, and he wouldn‟t apologize for that either.

The point of her tongue rubbed at the sensitive groove on the underside of his crown, then swept up to press at his cock-slit. Gritting his teeth against the swift rise of lust, he looked away from her and through the window. Belowstairs, Dane entered the salon, spoke to Sevin, and then passed through the same curtained entrance that had earlier admitted Eva.