[Fae Scandals 1]Prince of Submission (5 page)

She shrugged. “So what? You kissed a guy. You said yourself, after this week you have to go back home and play good prince for the rest of eternity. College was a time for exploration but you couldn’t do it because the cameras were everywhere. Here, in this place, there are only the rules you impose on yourself, Corrin. You’re safe here. No one is going to judge you. No one cares.”

Corrin released a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. She was right. Absolutely right. In New Orleans, he was just Corrin, freshly graduated art student. He was just another face in the crowd. Relief poured over him in scalding waves along with the realization that tonight would be the only opportunity to live up to his fantasies. He let himself have a weak smile.

“Thank you,” he said, taking another deep breath.

She smiled. “No problem. What are friends for, other than calming you down when you’re having a panic attack?” She laughed at her own joke. “Let’s go find Mariah and get a good spot on the balcony so we can watch Desire. Any hints on what it’s going to be like?”

Corrin shrugged. “How would I know? I’ve never met an Unseelie Fae, let alone a
Vampire
Unseelie Fae.”

* * * *

Adrian took his place center stage and let it all wash over him. He was in high spirits. Despite the fact that he’d had to walk away from the most interesting being that had caught his eye in over a year. He’d issued the command as a test, a sort of soft feeler to determine how he would react to the part of Adrian which was never far from the surface. The Vampire within him had pushed against the walls of social confines the first moment he’d seen the boy on the dance floor. Adrian had learned a long time ago to trust in those instinctive drives, but he needed the reassurance of those subtle signals to confirm what he already knew about his prey.

Corrin was obviously inexperienced, not comfortable with either his sexuality or his submissive tendencies. But he was curious and so full of desire that it bled from him. Maybe not in an obvious way but to those who knew what to look for, he was a bundle of denied desire. When Adrian had commanded Corrin to meet him, he knew he’d been correct in his observations. Corrin’s eyes had dilated, his mouth going tight and then relaxing in surrender, and his voice had taken on the soft quality of a dream. He was perfect. He wasn’t experienced enough to be able to mask his natural reaction to Adrian’s sexuality.

The curtain slowly slid open with the first beat of the drum. He knew Davy was waking him up as much as he was setting the tempo for the rest of the band. Parker started on the bass, and somewhere over Adrian’s right shoulder their keyboardist, Jamie, began to let his fingers fly, allowing for the fast-paced tune. Instincts kicked in, and Adrian gripped the neck of his guitar and leaned into the microphone.

The first thing Adrian saw was the sheer number of people in the crowd. Their first song, “Let Go For Me,” was stirring them up. Those people in the lifestyle knew exactly what the song was about, the warming up of a slave to take deeper levels of pain and submission for their Master. It was those first licks of a flogger, the first slap of a hand to warm a slave’s eager body, and the first whispered command where he knew that the slave was completely his. Just as in the song, the crowd was being warmed to the touch of Desire, the music seducing them.

Adrian tried to fix his gaze on one person in particular. It always ratcheted up the intensity when he sang to someone. His eyes wandered over the crowd, looking for that special person. His eyes rose, searching the balcony of the VIP area. His heart thudded painfully in his chest as he realized that directly in front of him on the balcony was the boy he’d danced with. He was sandwiched between two beautiful brunettes dressed in matching black and red vinyl dresses. He frowned. Who were those women? Friends he’d come with? Or something else? He imagined their eyes met, and he knew that all the music he sang tonight would be for the beauty whose gaze ate him alive.

* * * *

By the time the band finally exited the stage, Corrin was sweating, and it wasn’t just from dancing to the heavy beat. He’d been unable to move far from where he’d stood, aching with a need that had no name.

“You’ve been staring at him the whole time, Corrin,” Mariah whispered in his ear, breaking the spell the man on stage was weaving around him.

“It just figures,” Corrin muttered almost too low for her to hear.

“What figures?” she asked, confusion in her voice.

“If I’m going to break the rules, it might as well be for someone completely wrong for me in every way. He’s not only a guy playing at a fetish club, he’s an Unseelie guy playing at a fetish club.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “When did you decide to break your hard-core rules?” she asked incredulously.

“When I met him. We only spoke for a moment or two, but the way we danced set me on fire. I’m meeting him at the bar in fifteen minutes.” Calmness took over Corrin as he allowed himself the luxury of feeling happy about it.

“Do you have any idea who that is?” Mariah asked. Her eyes seemed to size him up, measuring his determination.

“Does it matter?” he countered.

She shrugged. “He’s the Master I was telling you about. He’s the Vampire that’s good with a single tail that I saw in Las Vegas. Do you know what that means, Corrin? He’s not going to be looking to help you explore your desire to be with a male, or at least not solely. He’ll want to explore you as a submissive. It’s not a game to people like him. He probably had you pegged as an unattached submissive from the second he laid eyes on you.”

“I know that logically, Mariah,” Corrin snapped, running a hand through his hair in irritation. “He told me to meet him at the bar. I may not do anything other than get a drink with him and talk. I’m not committing to anything. Even though apparently every person in this joint has pegged me as a sexual submissive, I’m not so sure if I am. I’m curious about guys, and that’s all I’m admitting to. All right?”

Mariah gave him a weak smile, seeming to indulge him, which irritated him even more. “Okay. Sorry for trying to protect you like a mother hen, but I don’t want your last free week to be spent in regret. Me and Taylor will take a table near the bar, so if you need us, just wave us over and we’ll pose a distraction to get you away from him. How does that sound?”

He nodded. “Sounds good.”

“All right. Get moving, stud muffin, or you’ll be late for your date.”

* * * *

Adrian knew the second he came up behind him. The boy’s quiet presence was palpable, and Adrian surprised himself by being very much in tune with the energy his beauty projected. He took another shallow swallow of his rum and Coke and slowly swiveled on his barstool to face him. He was pleased by what he saw. The boy was obviously nervous, shifting from foot to beautiful foot, unsure of whether or not to interrupt Adrian at his drink.

“I didn’t know if you’d show,” Adrian said. He waved to the empty barstool to his right, indicating he should sit.

The boy cleared his throat. “I didn’t know either.” He raised his hand to the bartender and ordered a Long Island iced tea.

“I’m glad you did,” Adrian said, locking eyes with the boy and letting him see the desire swimming their depths. “So now the question is, what are we to do now?”

Corrin shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought maybe we’d talk or something.” He sighed, seemingly frustrated by his inability to articulate what he wanted.

“Well, if you want to talk, we need to get something out of the way,” Adrian said.

“What would that be?” Corrin asked in confusion.

“This,” Adrian murmured. He leaned in and captured Corrin’s lips in a breath-stealing kiss.

* * * *

The first touch of his lips had Corrin sighing in pleasure. Those soft lips coaxed his own open, teasing his tongue into an engagement that left him gasping into the heated warmth of Adrian’s mouth. The world faded away, leaving nothing but the two of them. The bar, the club, the people watching, and the open “play” on the expansive floor disappeared, and Corrin found himself threading his hands through Adrian’s soft black hair, playing with the spikes, and deepening the kiss until they shared one breath.

Corrin realized that he was drowning in his passion for this man, unable to grasp onto anything except the firm body before him. The kiss was something as out of control as his emotions. A firm hand gripped his chin, taking control. The other hand came up to frame the kiss, and with a grateful sigh, Corrin surrendered to the mastery of the man in front of him.

After endless moments Adrian pulled back, giving Corrin a last nip on the lips before releasing him. He was halfway in Adrian’s lap, and they were both breathing hard. The kiss had told Corrin beyond a shadow of a doubt how explosive things could get between them. The magick swirled around them as opposing powers of Seelie and Unseelie crackled as they met.

Adrian sat back and looked at him with a curious expression on his face. “Now you won’t be nervous about when it’s going to happen because it already has. Now, we can talk. However, I think it’ll need to be in a place a bit more private, Seelie.” The word held a thread of understanding that made Corrin tense. “Perhaps you can explain to me why you’re playing in a place where only my kind dare to tread.”

He was a Seelie Fae and a noble to boot.
Son of a bitch
! Adrian led the boy to a more private seating area in a darkened corner. He never would’ve suspected such a thing. Seelie Fae did not have any sort of interest in this lifestyle, at least not openly. The fact that Corrin was a natural submissive blew his mind. Why was he here? Was he just a Seelie kid exploring the forbidden? The questions could only be answered by one person, and that person followed him, one step behind.

Adrian sank into a plush couch that was on the outskirts of the bar. A St. Andrew’s cross sat directly behind him. It wasn’t empty. A male slave was strapped to the
X
-shaped structure, his back to the people around them. His Master was employing a wicked-looking flogger tipped with fishing weights to redden and mark his slave’s smooth skin. Adrian suspected that the sight would reveal how turned on the Seelie really was by the sight of pain.

The beauty only showed a brief moment’s hesitation before his jaw twitched and he forced himself to sit down. Adrian smiled, grudgingly proud of his show of spirit.

“As you’ve already figured out, I’m Unseelie,” Adrian said, swirling his finger around in his cup to mix the Jack and Coke better. “I’ve not seen many of your kind off the reservation in some time, which means you’ve got noble blood in you. They’re the only ones who travel. However, they don’t travel with humans. More often than not, they only travel with members of their own race. No one in the Seelie court would be caught dead in a fetish club. It’s forbidden. It is also against their laws, and with the threat of exile over their heads, no Seelie would risk even a cursory dip into the deep end of this pool. You’re obviously attracted to me, so I’m guessing you like men. But you jumped like you’d been burned when I first touched you, which indicates you still have something to hide from yourself and everyone else.

“You could be an exile already, but that would make you an unattached Fae. No unattached Fae lasts long. Being part of a court is an integral part of our very being. You’d be trying like mad to survive, not dressing up and hitting a New Orleans nightclub. If you were Unseelie, I’d know you. So this brings me back to the first point. You are a delicious conundrum. Tell me why you’re here.”

Beauty cocked his head to the side and listened intently as Adrian spoke, seeming both perturbed with and intrigued by his logic. “You’re right. I’m Seelie. I’m nobility, and I shouldn’t be here. I’m traveling with my two companions, who are both human. I am all those things. I’m also an artist to boot if you’ll believe it.”

Adrian liked the little rebellion in his voice. “Which brings me back to my original question, why are you here?”

* * * *

Corrin chewed on his bottom lip, contemplating his question. Why was he here? He surprised himself by wanting to answer truthfully.
Don’t be crazy.
You don’t know this guy well enough to spill out your deepest, darkest fantasies to him.

“I…My friends Mariah and Taylor are Mistresses. I met them in college. I never asked about their lifestyle, never sought out any additional information. I have a very shallow view of the lifestyle that they prescribe to. They got tickets to this place, and I was curious. It is just that simple.”

Adrian raised an eyebrow. “Still doesn’t explain why you’d risk exile to come here. Why not just rent a movie?
The Secretary
, maybe.”

“Can’t you just let it go? Suffice it to say I’m here,” Corrin said, aggravation in his tone.

“No.” Adrian’s voice was hard and somehow colder than the moment before. “If I am interested enough in someone to have this sort of conversation, I will not accept a half-assed version of the truth. So, you have ten seconds to come clean and stop wasting my time or I walk away and we will not talk again. Now, ten, nine, eight, seven…”

Corrin made a noise of frustration, his voice a protest but also a confession. Adrian had him. “I have been having dreams since I was a teenager,” he murmured, his voice a bare whisper. He prayed it would suffice.