Page 15 of Skin Trade

She dared to turn, seeing if he would let her. He did, but he kept his hand on her flesh so when she moved, he was left holding her bare side. His gaze slid down from her face to the V neckline of the t-shirt, ending at her cleavage.

Heat flooded her at the look in his eyes, but she slammed it back. “I am mad with your kind,” she said in the end. “I do not wish to be owned.”

That smile again, eyes twinkling with mischief, he leant into her, bowed his head so his mouth was just at her neck. The tips of his fangs grazed her skin and sent a shiver along her flesh. “There are many ways I could own you,” he said in that deep resonating whisper he had. “And not all of them are bad. Some, I find, are rather enjoyable.”

He stayed there for what felt like a long minute. Her pulse throbbed in her head at his words, her breathing hitched.

A lower whisper. One of a man, not vampire. “I will never force you, Payton.”

She bit back the sob in her throat and blinked away the tears that welled as he stepped away from her, leaving her oddly bereft and cold. He’d not break her. She’d not let him. No one … no one got that part of her.

Chapter Twelve

Frustrated, choked up with a fury she didn’t understand, Payton kept herself exactly where Seth had left her, alone. Alone and lost with everything running through her body, her mind, everywhere. It was a fire in her veins, a need in the pit of her belly that twisted and made her want to sit in a corner and close her eyes. Something in her had made decisions she couldn’t yet fathom, and other parts of her sank into the memories of things she’d shut out a long time ago. It was all so confusing.

When she was sure Seth was gone. She blew out a breath and moved away from the table, but not in the same direction he had taken. Not to her room. It would be impossible to go upstairs and try to sleep now. Her body was on fire, and even though she should have been tired, the idea of lying awake in her bed in the room next to his was even worse than it had been before she’d almost been eaten by some creature.

But now the apprehension was … what? Temptation? A beating pulse in her brain? It was something, something raw and undeniable, something that made her want to drop the shields she’d spent so many years of her life building and perfecting.

She pressed both palms to her eyes. “I’m a walking cliché.” Next, she’d be dropping her knickers and opening her legs.

Her body betrayed the bravado she was trying to show, and her hands trembled. “Mind games.”

Vampires could be notorious for them. They could make a person lust for another just because they felt like it. They could fool a victim into infatuation, even love if it pleased them.

She could tell herself that was the cause of her undoing, even with the fact her mind was missing that hum brought on by mental violations. It was one way to tell. A warning system of sorts—a gentle knocking on the door of the mind.

But that wasn’t what this was.

Curiosity perhaps? Not just of the man, but the place. Her mind was a warzone of sensations all fighting for her attention. She needed something to distract her, to focus on. Maybe this was what freedom would be like. So long held captive somewhere she didn’t want to be, and now she had freedom, and she didn’t have a clue what to do with it. How ironic was that?

There was a name for that, she was sure, but God help her if she could put her name on it.

“Explore,” she said to herself, the idea coming to her like a lightbulb. She’d not had the freedom in Creven’s to walk around, and certainly not by herself. But here? Surely if she could leave the building of her own free will, then she could wander around the place that was now her home and explore every crevice and secret it might offer?

As a child she’d been like that. Of the few memories she had of growing up, exploration of places had been one of them. She didn’t know why she was hiding in her memories, or what she was doing in the dark places, but she did remember the times pretending. One day she could be the little girl in the story where they left breadcrumbs and came across the witch’s house made of sweets and biscuits. Other days, she would be the little girl taking baked goods to a sick grandmother. But she didn’t have a grandmother, much less a sick one, and no one would follow the breadcrumbs.

There were several doors leading off from this room. Most of them had signs and were self-explanatory. Men’s room, ladies’ room, cloakroom and storage. There was no desire to explore those. What would she find? A lost coat? Balls of scrunched up toilet paper smattered with lipstick kisses as women slutted themselves up with rouge or powerful pink? All of them ready to bare their necks and their breasts at the vampires like it was some glamourous thing to be their food—something sexy.

It could be sexy, she supposed. It could even feel like love if the vampire handled his donor correctly. Would Seth handle his donors right? Would he lure them with love and lust and promises of pleasure rather than pain?

The door Payton chose to take was the one without a sign. There was a bolt at the top, almost as if it was hidden, forbidden; she slid it back. Something damp and earthy … scents of outside, of soil and greenery swarmed out of the dark room and bathed her skin. She took another breath. Oh … sweetness, perfume … something vaguely tangy. “Flowers?”

She was like a child sneaking around the big mansion as she stepped through the door on tiptoes. Laughable. Vampires could hear. Hell, Seth could probably hear her from whatever floor it was he was on, but still, it made it seem less wrong, less intrusive if she walked in with light steps and the knowledge she wasn’t meant to be there.

The wall beside her was cold and damp, like it was covered in that stuff children used to play with. What was that called? She shook her head at herself. She was almost forgetting every word. Playdough? Was that it? That cold, damp, plastic sheen of something? She fumbled until her fingers hit a button and she pressed it. Her heart jolted, and she gasped, pulling herself back from the edge. She was standing on the edge of stone steps. Another inch, and she’d have tumbled down into the dark.

“Secret basement, Seth?” Full of chains and constraints, of whips and fetish masks. An acquaintance of Creven’s liked masks. Payton called him an acquaintance in her head, because Creven never cared enough to learn his name. His coin was good, and that was enough. He liked the masks with the long noses. The mask doctors wore in the days of the plague. She was almost certain the mask had been authentic. It always smelt of antiseptic mingled in with the leather.

There was no sex room at the bottom of the stairs like she’d imagined. Although, in the walk down the steps, she’d imagined a whole host of things. Bodies, slaves, cages, prisoners, even a horded stash of canned goods for the day when the true apocalypse came. It was nothing as interesting as that, though.

“Ha,” she said to herself, “of course.” It was a cellar. Nothing more than a cellar filled with beer barrels and boxes of other alcoholic beverages ready to stock the bars and stock the patrons so they’d be more willing to hand over their cash. Feeling slightly silly with herself, she was about to turn back, but there were more doors down there too. The one that interested her the most was the one with the sign reading, “Keep Out”.

She paused, stared at it for a moment like she might decide to turn around and not go through it, but hell, if she was going to be whatever it was Seth wanted, then he could deal with this.

Testing him, perhaps? Pushing … seeing where her boundaries were. It was madness, she knew that deep in herself too, but still she went to the door and pushed it open.

The sweet scent of flowers had come from here. She gripped the handle, peered in and used the wood as support for herself. It was the outside, but inside. Someone had taken a slice of the outside and encased it inside this … this thing.

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