Chapter 32
“A session with… Vey? Is something wrong, Sylvia? I’m happy to lend an ear myself.”
Leonard’s entire demeanor changed in a split second. He was fully analyzing Sylvia now, his curiosity ignited like a lighter. He was clearly desperate to find something to use as leverage against her. Aster wanted to bite that smug little face of his and chew it.
That idea must have been written all over her, because Leonard’s eyes slid over to hers with a grimace.
“Can you please tell your lap dog to calm itself? It looks like it wants to eat me.”
Sylvia laughed. She turned to Aster and, staring at her intently, she slid her tongue slowly over her lower lip in thought.
“She’ll be good,” Sylvia said, pinching Aster’s waist chastisingly. “She just doesn’t like when people try to put their nose in my business.”
Leonard scoffed. “I would never—”
“One session, Bianchi. That’s all I want. And then you can have your Mass Suggestion contract. I think that’s a very generous trade, don’t you?”
Leonard went silent, sipping his drink slowly as the party roiled around him.
The sun had completely set by this point in the evening, so the only illumination left in the villa were the candle-lit chandeliers and a pair of ill-matched strobe-lights, blinking like police cars.
The strobe-lights gave everything a choppy, stop motion effect; sweaty, dancing bodies appeared and disappeared, and in those split-second moments of complete, utter darkness, Aster could see Leonard’s phantoms in every corner of the villa — behind the bar, in the yard, sitting on couches.
In a blink, they were utterly surrounded, and then in another, there was nothing there.
Aster began to feel a sense of deep foreboding that gnawed at her bones. An urgency she hadn’t felt since she was mortal, like she was staring down the headlights of an oncoming train.
“Take a few minutes to consider it,” Sylvia said, giving him one of those slimy, too-wide smiles. “I’m going to use the powder room. Thrall, come with me.”
Before Aster could process what was happening, Sylvia was grabbing her by the hand and ploughing through the crowds, pushing through the orgy—sorry, quarterly business event for guests of the company—until they were spilling into an extremely decadent bathroom.
The ceilings were low, just a head taller than the both of them, so they had to duck to avoid hitting their head on the golden chandelier.
The air was surprisingly cold and crisp compared to the hotbox of the living room, and Aster felt like she could take her first real breath in hours as Sylvia opened the single stall door to check that nobody was in there.
When it was empty, she hastily locked the door they’d just come through.
Sylvia turned toward her, panting slightly from the speed in which she’d tugged them both there.
Aster met her gaze, taking her in through half-drunken eyes.
And dear god, Sylvia looked absolutely, gut-wrenchingly beautiful in her crimson red, off-the-shoulder dress, so much so that it was hard for Aster to form a sentence as Sylvia approached her.
No—stalked toward her would be a better word; she had a single-minded focus, like she was about to leap.
Aster’s brows furrowed at her intensity. Was there a threat? Had there been something she hadn’t seen? Fuck. Had she been too busy ogling Sylvia the entire time that she’d missed something obvious? It was good that they were alone now, they had a lot to discuss.
“Sylvi—”
Sylvia clapped a hand over her mouth. “Don’t talk.”
Aster’s eyes widened in confusion, but she lost her ability to speak when Sylvia suddenly pressed her to the cold tile of the wall, and shoved their lips together.
The kiss was animalistic, loud and sloppy, Sylvia all but moaning into Aster’s mouth as she grabbed both sides of her face to keep her there, pinned under her.
For the first time maybe ever, Aster’s eyes remained open as they kissed.
Confused was not an apt enough word to describe what was happening.
But she stopped caring why when Sylvia’s thigh suddenly shoved between her own, hitting right up against her center, and she groaned. All the uncouth thoughts she’d had over the past hour came running back into her brain.
“I’m sorry,” Sylvia whined quietly into her mouth, pressing herself even closer to Aster, so their bodies were almost enmeshed. “I just couldn’t stand it for another second.”
Aster mumbled back, “Stand wh—”
Sylvia’s hand came up to cover her mouth again, and Aster was equally lost and turned on by the action. But this time, Sylvia gave her an answer, pressing her lips to the shell of Aster’s ear.
“One of his lackeys is outside the door, listening. If you talk, we give ourselves away,” she said quietly, then took in a sharp breath inward as she inhaled Aster’s neck.
“You have no idea what you’ve been doing to me for the past two hours.
How you’ve been looking at me. Especially after what you said on the bus, oh God. I need to – I just — is it okay if I —”
Aster could understand what she wanted without her saying so.
She nodded quickly, desperately, and Sylvia sunk her teeth into her neck.
It took everything in Aster not to moan embarrassingly loud when Sylvia’s knees went weak at the contact; Aster slung her arm around Sylvia’s back, and let her other hand slide down to the hem of Sylvia’s dress.
“Please,” Sylvia begged, canting her hips up into Aster’s hand.
“God, the way those fuckers were looking at you. I was ready to—” Sylvia cut herself off, probably realizing that it wasn’t a great look if she started blaspheming the Council, either.
She pivoted, taking Aster’s chin in her hand for better leverage as she drank.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re mine. You understand that? ”
Aster whimpered in place of an answer. She felt like complete puddy in Sylvia’s hands. She wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the roleplay she’d been forced into for the last three hours, but she felt utterly like a ragdoll. She would have done just about anything to please Sylvia then.
“If they think they’re ever getting their hands on you,” Sylvia snarled in her ear, and then ran her hand down Aster’s suit top until she reached the zipper of Aster’s corduroys.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to fuck you, and then we’re going to leave this bathroom, they’re going to give me everything I want, and then we’re going to go home, take a bath, and I’m going to fuck you again.
How does that sound, baby? Would you like that? ”
The sound that came out of Aster’s mouth in response wasn’t human.
And when Sylvia released her fangs from her neck, and stared into Aster’s eyes, searching for one last piece of permission, the look on her face wasn’t human, either. Her eyes were a shade of red that Aster had never seen before. They were nearly pink, and glowing.
That must mean something, Aster thought, briefly, before Sylvia’s hands were down her pants, and her fingers were rubbing exactly where Aster needed it, and she did not have the brain capacity to play vampire detective.
“That’s right,” Sylvia breathed into her mouth as she kissed her again, languidly this time. “You’ve been so good for me all evening, baby. I’m just going to need you to be good for a little bit longer.” She began to pick up the pace. “Can you do that for me?”
Aster moaned into Sylvia’s mouth, wanting to say I’ll be good for you everyday of my life, but that wasn’t allowed, so she settled for biting Sylvia’s lip instead, hard enough that it bled.
They both gasped as Aster took the lip into her mouth and began to suck on it, the blood as sweet as Kool-aid.
“God, fuck. Yes. Good girl,” Sylvia whined into her mouth. “Drink up, and then come on my hand baby. Please. Show me you don’t belong to anyone else. Come on my fingers.”
The command went straight through her, and she cried into Sylvia’s mouth as her hips stuttered against her hand.
The orgasm was unrelenting—she had to rake her fingernails into the tile just to stay upright—as she came once, then twice, Sylvia swallowing her moans into her mouth the entire time.
It felt like nothing Aster had ever experienced.
Like something different was going on.
An idea that was reaffirmed for her when Sylvia grazed her hand over her center once more, and she felt like she could come again. She nearly did, before Sylvia drew away.
They broke apart, and she could see in Sylvia’s eyes—her dark pink, glowing eyes—that she sensed the difference too.
“Shit,” Sylvia said, a lightning shock of panic running through her. “Shit. Shit.”
A knock thundered at the door. Leonard’s voice followed just after.
“Everything alright in there, Miss Maroven?” He cleared his throat. “Come join me on the second floor once you’re… finished. I think we can arrive at a deal.”