You’ll have to tell me some stories about Danny and other women. In vivid detail.

Mal teased the panel to the side, slid a finger inside of her, proving she was already wet and slick, ready for the device. She colored all manner of rosy for him to do such a thing, but the vampires seemed to take excessive pleasure in her blushing innocence.

Mal fitted the device to the opening and slid it in, following the contours of her body with the ease of intimate knowledge. She gasped, swaying at the invasion, particularly when he positioned the notched piece over her clit, such that it felt like a finger pad sitting on that bud. There were adjustable straps to go with it. Using the hold of her underwear, as well as those straps, he had her secured in it very quickly. But Cynthia wasn’t entirely satisfied.

“Have her leave the dress, Mal, and walk across the room. I want to know if it can be worn comfortably while moving.”

Mal gave her a nod, and Elisa shrugged out of the dress, though she had to suppress the strong urge to hold on to it.

Walk for me, Irish flower. Show me that pretty ass, the way it swings in those high heels.

Walk for him. Not them. She held on to that. But before she could move away, Jonathan spoke again.

“Turn it on, so we can see how she walks with it that way.”

She was beginning to really not like him. Still, Mal nodded, and made an adjustment. A sudden, astounding wave of vibration spiraled up into her sex. On top of that, the notch started stroking across her clit, altogether too distracting and intense, particularly since she’d started this evening fully aroused.

Walk, Irish flower. Obey me.

He wanted to see her walk, too. Ironically, it helped, to know his lust was being stimulated, showing her off this way. She’d obey anything he told her to do, which just made his reaction intensify. There was no telling how far that would take them tonight—or how far it would incite this group to go.

She moved away tentatively, breath coming fast. There was no way she could walk normally, not with that friction rocketing back and forth across sensitive tissues, but she tried, and got dizzy. She’d made it just past Jonathan’s chair when she swayed. Gustav’s hand closed over her arm and elbow, steadying her, but then Jonathan turned and his servant’s hold became something different. His large hands shifted to her upper arms, holding her back against his massive chest as Jonathan leaned forward with interest and wiggled the base of the thing, simulating a short thrust, which pushed the clitoral stimulator harder against her.

She cried out, arching against Gustav’s hold, and she couldn’t help it. “Mal.”

Easy, girl. I’m here with you. Close your eyes; imagine it’s me.

When Mal had been able to arouse her in a way no other man had, she’d thought it simply skill. He was a male who’d looked beyond his own release to develop the ability to pleasure a woman. But such talent could be applied indifferently, and received indifferently. Any man with such skill would have been able to arouse her. So she’d thought.

While another man could touch this device and ratchet up her sexual response through his knowledge of a female body, other key parts of her were repelled. She didn’t want Kreager touching her. Gustav had steadied her out of helpfulness, but now he was holding her for the benefit of another vampire, and she found his grip constricting, stealing her breath, no matter that he smelled like cinnamon spice, something she usually found reassuring. As the room seemed to bend inward, she realized she was being overwhelmed by panic. She shut her eyes, fighting for calm.

“Oh no, you don’t.” Jonathan’s voice was amused, though not unpleasantly so. It didn’t seem to matter to her nerves, however. Trapped, trapped, trapped. “Don’t go hiding on me.” He withdrew the vibrator enough to slide it back in, and those tissues reacted with preclimactic violence. She gasped and he chuckled, but with command in his tone. “Open your eyes.”

“She has them closed on my command,” Mal interjected, though there was an edge to his voice that Elisa caught, even if no one else did. “She is new to this, Kreager, and I don’t want to overwhelm her.”

“But overwhelming a servant is the best way to break them in.” This from Cynthia. “And watching their ultimate acceptance as they face utter surrender . . .” Wistful memory was in her tone. From the shift in the direction of her voice, she was looking at Christophe. The idea that the confident Frenchman could ever have been feeling what Elisa was feeling now was astonishing but also somewhat reassuring, but it was a fleeting feeling, lost in the perilous sense of being in a shrinking box, the air going away.

Lord Marshall spoke. “She’s right, Malachi. I’m overruling you. Host and overlord’s prerogative. Open your eyes, girl.”

You don’t need to do so, Elisa.

But she did, didn’t she? And not just for the fledglings. She wasn’t going to look too hard at that, but she felt it in her bones. She was his. He just had to command her. He had to do it. Please, Master ...

A brief pause, a flash of something like seething frustration, but it wasn’t directed at her. Then he spoke in her mind, calm, firm, just like he did for his cats. Open your eyes, Elisa.

She managed it then, shifting her gaze to the flat expanse of linen tablecloth, focusing on dinnerware, because all her internal focus was on the build of her body toward climax, toward . . .

“No . . .” She panted it out, but it was already too late. Kreager kept moving the vibrator, his fingers brushing her wet sex with unconcerned intimacy as she stiffened in Gustav’s hold, unable to control the orgasm that rolled over her relentlessly, heedless of her shame at being so easily coaxed to it with an inanimate object, in front of strange, staring eyes. She flung her head back on Gustav’s massive chest and cried out, aware that her nipples were stiff and prominent, pushing against the barely there bra. As the climax took her over, Jonathan let go of the device to cup and squeeze her breasts, furthering the reaction of her body under his practiced hands.

It wasn’t enough to keep her coming for long, though. Not like the never-ending, drawn-out moments she experienced with Mal, savoring his pleasure as he did things to make each orgasm a more mindaltering, prolonged experience than the last. Still, she was making soft bleats of spent passion, pressing her cheek to Gustav’s shirt and the solid chest beneath. Jonathan nodded his satisfaction and tossed another question out. “Has she ever taken three men?”

“No.” Mal’s expression had become granite. Lord Marshall apparently picked up on what might be boiling behind the dispassionate mien.

“Is there a problem, Malachi? You came here as a guest in my home, a supplicant for a favor. Have you been on your island so long you’ve forgotten how to be a vampire?”

Mal shifted his gaze to the overlord. Elisa saw the flash, the hot fury, so brief it could have been a trick of candlelight, because now his expression became courteous, mild. “No, my lord. I’ve not forgotten anything about being a vampire.”

Mal let his attention rove over her displayed body. The fluid from her climax was running down her thigh, the vibrator still going inside of her, working the oversensitized tissues so she twitched and mewled, unable to stop herself, but no one seemed to mind. She was the center of a great deal of aroused attention. Cynthia’s avid gaze caressed her abdomen, the way her legs trembled and the vibrator filled the flesh in between.

Elisa clung to how Mal’s eyes warmed on her, putting the fury away. He let her see that her desire pleased him, stoked his own. In the passion-filled privacy of his bedroom, she’d felt the power of that, time and again. It steadied her, and as it did, she gave herself back to him, mind, body and heart. I’m fine, Master. I can do anything you demand.

That dark gaze dwelled on her face for a long moment, then shifted to Lord Marshall. When Mal spoke, his voice was still all polite courtesy. “What is your pleasure, Lord Marshall? My servant is lovely, young and eager to please. However traumatic she might find this situation, whatever she has known before this moment, her personal circumstances, it should certainly not interfere with her presence and performance for your guests.”

Had he lost his mind? His championing of her bolstered her beyond description, but trepidation shot through her as well. It wouldn’t take much to upset the apple cart for William and Matthew.

If one grazing shot at his hypocrisy is all it takes, then it’s not the right place for them.

The even thought startled her, but at the same moment Marshall Grant’s jaw eased. He inclined his head, a faint acknowledgment. “Touché, sir. I expect we can all be a little protective of our servants, when they do so much for us. But I think you’ll agree that it’s possible for her to handle more.”

He’d adjusted the mantle of his authority with little difficulty, and now she found herself pinned by his steady, implacable gaze. “What about it, child? Can you serve your Master’s needs, no matter what they are, in this company or any other? Can you be his full servant in truth? You see, no matter her ‘personal circumstances,’ if I told Nadia to join us, get on her knees and serve every vampire in here, she would do it. It is because she has proved that capacity to me over and over, that I give her consideration now, not asking that of her. So are you ready to begin earning that high regard from your Master?”

It was odd to be having this kind of serious conversation, pinned against a mountain of a man, her body naked and spread and impaled upon a vibrating phallus, making it devilishly hard to think. But on top of that, Lord Marshall Grant was a lying wanker.

Elisa was dead certain he wouldn’t have asked that of Nadia even if she’d never whored herself out for him in her entire life. He cared for her too much, in a way he wasn’t allowed to show here. The same way Mal cared for Elisa, and didn’t want to be here, wanted to be back on his island where the world was about so much more than this. And it was likely why Danny preferred her station, where she and Dev could be as close as they wished. It made Elisa think that the vampire world might be in for an eventual surprise, as it changed its attitude about servants, one pairing at a time. Unfortunately that wasn’t going to happen today.