Breathless Ch. 03

"You didn't wait for backup, did you?" Vlad asked.

"Let's see . . . no, no I didn't. I'd actually taken a whiff of the chemicals in the air back at the original crime scene, and with the cloud on the Rolling Stone tour bus --"

"Say no more."

Sadie had been feeling pretty invulnerable at that point. And hungry, but she could wait to satisfy the sudden Twinkie craving until after she had served out cold hard slabs of justice. So she rammed the warehouse with the bus. There was a most unusual cloud of something floating through the air and people were running around frantically. A fire had also broken out which was not only going to destroy millions and millions of dollars worth of product, but was creeping towards the chemicals used to create that product.

She had heard sirens approaching, and the drug cartel went charging out into the streets to be arrested and saved from "that lunatic bitch!" She in turn had come charging out, still half naked, to get everyone out of the area before the warehouse blew up. Luckily, no one was seriously injured in the explosion that consumed the entire building and took firefighters the better part of two days to contain. Overall, she had cost the city millions, but she had felt perfectly justified since it had been for a good cause. She had promptly gorged herself on junk food, apologized to the Rolling Stones, and fended off a proposal for sex by at least two members.

"A girl's got to have SOME standards," she said by way of her grand finale. Vlad was laughing so hard he almost could stay in his seat. While a bit embarassed, she was glad to see him laughing like that.

She was getting ready to make fess up and explain his relationship with his wife when the dancer from earlier came over.

"Would you like that dance now?" the pink-haired beauty purred.

"Don't move," she said, pointing at Vlad but looking at the stripper.

"Let's go to the VIP room," the girl added. "I think you'll like the privacy." The girl's voice was saturated with promise.

"That okay with your girlfriend?" Sadie responded, glancing at the buxom brunette in the corner.

"Actually she insisted. I've been a good girl recently, so she's giving me a reward."

"Lucky me."

"Not yet." She led Sadie to a hallway with booths on either side. Once the vampire had stepped inside, Torrie pulled the curtain closed.

Sadie grinned. She knew the drill. "Been a while since I've been in one of these," she murmured. "Last time, I was in you shoes . . . or heels, as it were."

"You a dancer?"

"I was . . . undercover project."

"You're a cop?" the girl asked, backing off a bit but not seeming too put off.

"An Arbiter," Sadie said. She lounged back on the bench. "But I don't do 'indecency' citations. Hell, I get naked any chance I get."

Torrie smiled. "Any?"

Sadie nodded. She hoped she was reading the vibes from the girl right. Then the next song officially started, and Torrie began to move. Sadie knew she'd picked the right girl within seconds. This wasn't just a bump-and-grind girl, oh no. She certainly didn't mind contact, but she teased her victims first. And as the song went on, she encouraged Sadie's hands to roam. Sadie always made sure never to put her hands anywhere the dancer didn't want, but Torrie seemed to have no restrictions.

"So, your girlfriend give you to strangers as a reward often?" Sadie asked as that hard body slid down over the vampire's cleavage.

Torrie grinned. "She's also my mistress, and I do anything she asks."

"You're a sub? I keep running into you people!" She moaned lightly as the girl raked the inside of Sadie's denim-clad legs with her fingernails.

"Mmmh," Torrie moaned. "I'd kill for legs like these." She was no fool, and knew how far she could push a vamp before things got dangerous. So no biting. "So you like submissives?" she asked innocently.

"I like attractive women, and men for that matter. A friend from work has submissive tendencies, and I'm trying to help her work them out. She's nervous about it all, and I'm really not that knowledgeable."

The dancer stopped and nodded before reaching into the tiny purse and pulling out a business card. "My email and number are the second ones there. Tell your friend to call or write any time. My mistress and I are serious about making sure that anyone who wants to enter the lifestyle has plenty of intel."

Sadie smiled and looked at the card as the girl started to dance again. "Dark Eden?" she said, looking at the business name. "I've heard of that. Fetish club in California isn't it?"

"Yep," Torrie said, lightly rubbing her ass on one of Sadie's thighs. "Isabel . . . my mistress . . . started managing it a couple of years back, and has started a couple of clubs since. I do a lot of fetish art, including specialty equipment such as cages. I make stuff that's exotic and fun, but safe for the submissive. Cages have emergency exits, cuffs have secondary releases . . . stuff like that."

Sadie wasn't surprised by people often, but this highly sensual woman was much smarter than the vamp had given her credit for. "So if you two are so successful, why strip?"

Torrie straddled her client's lap, grabbing Sadie's hands and placing them directly on her exposed breasts. "For fun. You see, I like being seen as a sexual object, just like my mistress likes seeing me that way. After we get back to the hotel, she's going to spank me until I'm done telling her every sordid detail of what went on back here," the girl murmured, lowering her lips to Sadie's neck and blowing warm air onto her skin. "So if you don't mind, I'd like lots of sordid details to make the spanking take a while."

Sadie grabbed the girl's ass and gripped it tightly, loving the gasp the girl made. "So you up here on business?"

Torrie nodded, biting her bottom lip. 'Such power in those hands,' she thought. "Yeah, we were thinking of opening up a new club in Midian, but we decided against it."

"Why?" Sadie asked, feeling the girl fumbling with the buttons of her pants.

"Vamps are a big part of our clientèle usually. They really dig the scene, but the vamps up here . . . no offense . . . are just really abusive it seems. The ones we talked to were too domineering in a bad way. There's no way Isabel would let them near her clients."

Sadie, for one of the few times in her life, was distracted from sex with an attractive person by thoughts of work. Normally, it was the other way around. She needed to talk this over with Vlad, and make sure it wasn't just her natural biases coming to the foreground.

"I apologize," Torrie said, lowering her eyes in a manner similar but more elegant that the way Melissa did it. This girl was a practiced submissive. "I have been using time that should be dedicating to your pleasure," she purred, "for something as mundane as business." She slid across Sadie's lap, elevating her ass just a little bit. "I deserve punishment."

Sadie grinned. "I like a professional," she said, running her hand across those taut cheeks. "And how much of a punishment do you deserve?" She shrugged. "I'm really not that good at this whole thing," she admitted.

Torrie smiled back. "Basically, this is where I usually get spanked until I cum on your leg."

Sadie's eyebrows shot up. "You can do that? Just from getting spanked?!"

"My mistress trained me well," came the hungry reply. "We had to practice for a long time." She flexed her ass cheeks. "Don't worry, the booths of this club have all been magically soundproofed."

Sadie raised her hand and lowered it sharply, lighting up the woman's flesh but not so hard as to hurt. She knew the limits of her strength. The reaction was immediate and obviously pleasurable, as Torrie moaned with a great deal of heat. She responded to the next thwack the same way, and the third . . . the fourth . . . the twentieth. Sadie would've stopped, but it was pretty clear that Torrie far from minded this treatment. She had spread her legs slightly, allowing her to put pressure on her mound while rubbing against Sadie's leg. Sadie reached between the girl's cheeks for a moment and slid her fingers pass those soaked panties and into the girl's sex. She finger her for a moment, then wiped Torrie's moist expenditures on her ass before spanking her again.

True to her word, the pink-haired stripper began to climax by the time they got to thirty. Her body shook as the little death overtook her, and she sighed with pure contentment.

"Good grief woman," Sadie started, genuinely impressed, "what else have you been trained to do?"

Torrie could have been the devil, based on the mischevous glee that toyed with her features. "So many things," she murmured, sliding to the floor and propping herself up on her knees. "Amongst others, I've been trained to provide oral pleasure using ONLY my mouth and tongue, with both hands tied behind my back."

Sadie's handcuffs magically appeared. This was a huge violation of protocol, but she didn't give a rat's ass. She reached around the girl's body and secured her hands. "Just say the word and they come off," she promised.

Torrie's grin returned. She liked this woman and was happy that her mistress had "chosen" her for the evening. She was obviously no stranger to lust, but never without compassion. She wouldn't hurt Torrie, at least not in an unpleasant way. The fact that this vampire Arbiter was sexy beyond all reason didn't hurt matters. Watching the woman push jeans and panties down to her boots and then lowered her legs on either side of Torrie's head.

"Prove it," Sadie growled.

"As you command," Torrie said slyly, pressing her face forward and lashing at the vampire's exposed sex with sensual aggression. She placed the tip of her tongue near the base of Sadie's pussy and slowly traced it in a clockwise direction. She stopped at the top and teased the clit, giving her mistress of the moment a small glimpse of the pleasure in store for her. Then she continued her circle until she reached the bottom again before finally going straight up the midde. She planted a gentle kiss on the clitoral hood . . . then another.

Sadie's hand reached under her vest and started vigorously playing with her breasts, giving them something to do as pink tongue penetrated her pink cleft and got her normally still heart racing. She sent blood surging to all the places it needed to be to make the pleasure more potent, and it was working.

Torrie sucked on those swelling inner labia. She hadn't been with many vamps, and none as hot as Sadie. She would have to do something extra nice to her mistress for letting her have this. She tugged on on those inner lips, making a low growling noise. She let it loose and then moved to the other one.

"You're as good as you said," Sadie chuckled, then moaned again.

"I've had a lot of practice," Torrie replied demurely. She spread her tongue and pushed it slowly upward from bottom to top, then dragging it back down. She did this several times in short order, then wrapped her soft lips around that hard clit and sucked gently.

It was only a few minutes before she had Sadie writing in pure bliss. She lavished affection all over her lover's mound, and even performed a few quick darts at that perfect little anus.

Sadie grabbed two handfuls of Torrie's pink hair and held her in place when she climaxed, not letting go until the girl's mouth was coated with a sweet, sexy sheen: evidence of Sadie's pleasure.

"I've never pleasured an Arbiter before," the girl said happily. "It could be addictive. If I weren't utterly devoted to my mistress --"

"It's okay sugar," Sadie replied, releasing her legs death-grip on Torrie's head. "I ain't the settling-down kind, and you folk need more . . . consistency? Yeah, consistency. Besides, sounds like you and your mistress have a good thing going." She gave the young submissive a kiss, more friendly than passionate, but warm nonetheless. They both got dressed, or as dressed as they were going to get and cleaned up. The booths had a convenient box of tissues set aside, and the girls made great use of them.

"Hey, here's my card as well," Sadie said, "just in case you hear of any other weird behavior or need help." She smiled and grabbed Torrie's tight ass. "Or if you AND your mistress want another taste."

Torrie bowed her head in subservience, but that gleam didn't leave her eye. "I will happily . . . very happily . . . extend your invitation." She waved off the money that Sadie tried to offer for the "dance." "Oh no," she said, "this one was on the house."

The exited the VIP area and Torrie vanished into the corner of the club where her mistress eagerly awaited news of her slave's debauchery. Sadie sat down contendedly next to Vlad.

"Oh sweet hell," the wolf said, rolling his eyes, "you reek of sex, you know that?"

"That would be because I had sex," Sadie responded primly. "I need to visit that club of theirs next time I'm in California." She looked at Vlad, seriousness taking over. She told him about the mistress's concern about the growing arrogance of vampires in the fetish scene. "I didn't even start it," she said at last. "But I need to make sure someone else thinks something's wrong. I'm not crazy --"

"I know, and no one thinks so. But the vamps have contacts, ears, and eyes everywhere, and they have tons of connections. Not everyone is so willing to stoke their fires as you are."

"Think I should back off? Let someone else look into this?"

"You're biased, headstrong, and far too cocky," Vladimir said. Then he grinned, "There's no chance in hell of you letting someone else go chasing these shadows and you know it."

She nodded, waving down the waitress for another beer. This was turning into a particularly dangerous game, and it was time she took it more seriously. But that would have to wait for another sunset. "Your turn," she said, turning towards her comrade. "Fess up. How did you and the little missus meet?"

Vladimir's mirth vanished. He hadn't really expected for Sadie to come clean about Austin, but she had and so it was time to pay up.

"Really not much to tell. I actually served with her brother in the first Gulf War. Never thought I'd see an elf in the Marines, but he surprised me. Good man . . . good man. Always had my back. I'd met Teresa and she'd seemed a little snooty, but Lavelle was convinced that was just a front. Their parents died about ten years ago, so Lavelle thought it was his job to keep an eye on her, even though she didn't much seem to want him to. Well, one night, we were clearing out a bar in Baghdad . . . and by that I mean --"

"Yeah, I can guess what you mean," Sadie replied, shaking her head. Leathernecks were all the same.

"Well, he had this look about him. You know how some people seem to know that their time has come due? Elves especially?"

The Arbiter nodded. Each race had their own varieties of the notion of an afterlife. Humans had a number of religions, none of which could agree on much of anything. Vampires, not including Sadie herself, tended to think they would be reincarnated, as if the possibility of living forever the first time wasn't enough. Elves also believed in reincarnation, but as some kind of spirit associated with the earth, and werewolves . . . they believed that they would join the great Pack behind Lupus the Hunter and run amongst the stars for eternity. Sadie liked that version best, and almost wished she could believe it.

"Well he got to talking in that weird kind of way. You know, questioning the purpose of everything and why we were there. Said he didn't want Teresa to be left alone. He'd promised his father that he'd look after her always. He said he felt the Earth Spirit whispering to him . . . I just thought he'd taken one too many shots to the head. But he was serious, and he made me promise that if anything happened to him, I'd look after his sister."

Sadie grimaced. "Something happened to him, didn't it?"

"We were ambushed," Vlad said, so softly that she could barely hear his voice over the pseudo-erotic thumping of the DJ's music. "He took a bullet for me."

The vampire leaned back and drained half her beer. She needed to let him collect himself. Sadie didn't even need to hear the rest of the story, but she had a feeling he still needed to tell it. Some things needed to be aired out now and again, even memories. Otherwise, they festered in the dark places of your mind until all the therapy or alcohol in the world can't wash the rotting smell away.

"We were waiting for the docs, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize he wasn't going to make it. He reminded me of my promise . . . then asked to be given his final inspection. Said he was leaving the military a little sooner than expected, so he thought he'd earned it . . . didn't even want his last rites."

Sadie nodded. She always wondered who'd written those verses. Silently she spoke the last lines to herself, seeing that Vlad was doing the same.

"Step forward now, you soldier, you've borne your burdens well. Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets, you've done your time in hell." Their gazes met. "I'm sorry for your friend."

"I was allowed to be his escort back to the States, and Teresa met me at the airport. We buried him . . . we got along back then. I looked her up when my tour was over. She was still kind of lost, and had taken up with the wrong crowd. I courted her constantly until she consented."

"Doesn't sound particularly romantic," Sadie said. "Consented is an ugly word when it comes to marriage."

"How would you know?" Vlad replied angrily. "You don't seem to have much interest in love or commitment, just lust. How many lovers have you had since getting to Midian? Hell, since getting to this bar?!"

"Vlad, calm down!" she said, flushed with anger and . . . and something else. Resentment. She doubted he knew how deeply he had cut her, even by accident. "Yes, I'm fairly free with certain things, but don't think for a moment that I don't understand love!" She stood up, her feet and mouth on autopilot. "And I know that love shouldn't hurt. Do you really think that you're fulfilling a promise to a friend by being miserable with someone for the rest of your life?!" She stormed out the door. She wasn't sure why she was the one storming out, but the conversation had taken a turn that she wasn't prepared to deal with. And to think that she'd just told HIM to calm down.

He followed her out to the parking lot and grabbed her arm. "Marriage is work and sacrifice, not something to be just abandoned whenever convenient!"

"From what I hear, you've NEVER been happy with her! She treats you like shit because you aren't high born. I've seen the way she sucks up to the elite." She ripped her arm away. She hadn't meant to be confrontational, but he'd touched a nerve. "I'm sorry," she said, lowering her eyes. This was more than human sexual submissive play for her, because she knew how it would be interpreted by a were. She was trying to back down from challenging him. "It's just you didn't really seem happy with her and I wanted to find out what was going on. I didn't mean to question your integrity or honor."

Vladimir knew she what she had meant to do. He hated her for bringing it up, but she'd been the only one to challenge him on the issue to his face. He'd admire her more if he wasn't so furious. "I don't know any other way to protect her," he growled.

Sadie looked up and realized how close he was to her. "Are you protecting her or your honor?" Sadie asked, looking directly into his eyes. They were sad, and they shouldn't be. He was primal . . . he was a predator. There should always be hunger behind those eyes, not regret. "Does she even want your protection?"

He knew that he needed to step back. He had adrenalin pumping through his veins, and the face looking up at him was as beautiful as it was challenging. Despite her brief attempt to appear meek, Sadie Hewitt could never truly bow to anyone. 'Maybe that's why she doesn't like the other vampires,' he thought. 'She simply will never kneel before any Lord.' There was a time that he would've done anything for a woman like this.