Emmy turned and walked back. She sat and stared at him a good thirty seconds before giving a slow nod. “Do you need me to go through the hard limits again, to be sure you have them all written down?”
“I have them. Someone will messenger the contract to you within the hour.” A pause, and then, “Spence?”
“She’s inked in today, but I can rearrange her assignment tomorrow.”
Emmy read through the contract from beginning to end twice when it arrived. The only change she could see was a stipulation that the time would begin after she was restrained and in place.
She wrote out to the side that restraint should take no longer than three minutes, and then signed the contract.
Spence witnessed it, took a picture of both pages, and said, “Since Lucien is under Zander but not part of this coterie, he’ll pay me the funds before your time with him, and I’ll turn them over to you once all contractual obligations have been met. The Atrium will be empty tomorrow, so I can drive you there afterward. He wishes to do this in the underground dungeon here.”
Emmy nodded. It was a twenty or thirty minute drive, depending on traffic. That would be fine.
Emmy dove into her studies that evening and the next day, rather than talk to her friends about what she’d agreed to.
That evening, she fed a vampire who most often invited her into his bed. One who focuses on the fucking more than the feeding, though both happen. He always made her feel like a whore rather than food, and she wasn’t sure how or why.
But he did.
Emmy had always enjoyed sex, so what was the problem with being paid for it? It wasn’t like fucking him was a hardship.
She showered a long time after, trying to wash the scent of the vampire off her body, but it didn’t work because he’dcome inside her. So she dove back into her work to try to get her mind off him.
The next day, she removed her bellybutton jewelry and then made her way to the pantry off the kitchen to access the steps to the underground. Spence was on the other side of the wall when it opened, and he smiled. “Ah, right on time. I like that about you.”
She’d known someone would have to escort her — flock isn’t allowed past the feeding room hallway — but security most often escorted her when a vampire wanted her in their room.
Spence walked her through the multiple locked doors, all the way to the dungeon, two levels lower than the playroom.
The latter is designed for BDSM fun, the former for actual torture. People used both for play, she understood, but it wasn’t lost on her that this scene wasn’t going to be about pleasure at all.
Not hers, anyway.
She’d kept her mind off the subject during the twenty-five hours since she’d signed the damned paper, because there was no backing out of it from that point, so why bother considering what she’d done?
She’d whored her body out for ten thousand dollars. Not just for sex, but for pain. For humiliation. For consumption.
The stone-lined room looked ancient, like it’d been here before the house.
Some of the equipment looked ancient as well — the whipping post, the steel cuffs mounted to the walls, the wooden pony off to the side.
The bondage table didn’t look hundreds of years old, but decades.
The winch on the ceiling was definitely modern-day, but the eyelets in the floor beneath, hooks embedded between the tiles, had been in place for a while. She could see tiny chips from where chains had scraped across them hundreds of times. This wasn’t a space made for performance. It was made for breaking things.
Her stomach turned, and she hated herself for it.
Spence walked her forward without touching her again. “I have instructions for how he wants you. Put your clothes and shoes in the cabinet beside the door, please.”
She undressed, folded her clothing, and placed everything in the small storage area.
The floor chilled her feet, but she ignored the cold. She stared at the winch and the spreader bar under it and felt a twist low in her belly that wasn’t arousal, but dread.
There was no way to back out now, though. Supernatural law was clear on the value and use of contracts. She’d owe him for his time if she backed out, and there was no telling what his per-hour fee would be.
But more than that, she’d be considered unreliable. Someone who wasn’t to be trusted.
And while it was true she had no compunction following rules she deemed stupid, the only promises she’d ever gone back on were those she’d made to her parents when she wasyounger, and she’d promised to stay out of trouble at college.
