Page 30 of Black Velvet

"You're very eager to please," he observes. "I don't know how I feel about that."

My eyes fill with worry. What does he even mean by that? Why wouldn't he want me to please him?

"Please..." I stammer.

He arches his eyebrows. "Oh, so now you're begging?"

I pout at him, feeling ashamed and frustrated. What kind of game is he playing with me? And why?

"Is that part of your routine?" he asks snidely. "Begging?"

"I don't have a routine." I'm lying, but he doesn't need to know that. Of course I have a routine, plenty of them even. There are certain ways that satisfy certain men, and once I figured out what kind of man I'm with, I knew pretty well how to entertain him. There are routines that include begging, pleading for a man to take me, even if it was a lie.

But I'm far from lying right now.

"I don't believe you," he says, and my heart sinks. "Of course you have a routine; you girls always do."

"You don't believe anything I say," I counter. "Maybe you should let go of that persistent distrust."

I pause, our eyes connecting. I pout my lips slightly and bat my eyelashes at him. "Have some faith for once. I might be worth trusting."

A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth.

"I don't trust devils," he says. "But I do want to be alone with you."

He pauses and lets go of my chin. His eyes travel across the room, resting on the spiral staircase.

"Show me," he says, turning back to me. "Show me the black velvet room."

Chapter 19

Damon

She's walking in front of me, swinging her hips invitingly, because she knows that my eyes are on her. There’s no doubt that she's a professional as she leads me up to the velvet rooms.

It's my first time seeing the upper floor after its renovation, so my curiosity is as piqued by her as it is about the rooms.

I expected it to be dark up here, but I'm surprised to see how dark it really is. A hallway opens up before us once we reach the second floor. The area is wider and more open than I expected, and the walls are almost entirely covered by thick velvet curtains. Red lights on the ceiling provide dim and alluring illumination that allows little judgment about the decor on the walls or the color of the curtains.

Elene pauses for a moment, as if she has to find her bearings, before leading me down the hallway. It splits into several corridors, each of them lit in different colors, indicative of the different themes she told me about.

There's no music up here, nothing but dead silence, interrupted by an occasional moan and clashing of naked skin coming from somewhere behind the curtains. The walls of the smaller corridors branching away from the main hallway are entirely covered by velvet curtains allowing no one to see what might be going on behind them. A solid wall? A door? An open room? According to what I've been told, it could be any of the above.

Elene hesitates for another moment, as we listen in the dark to soft moans coming from somewhere to our left. I wait for her to continue moving down the hallway.

"The black room, you said," she whispers, without turning to me.

"The black room," I confirm.

She doesn't say another word, but strides forward, turning into the darkest one of the corridors. The farther we walk down it, the darker it gets—if that’s possible—and by the time she stops, I've been following her by ear more than by sight.

"Left," she breathes, and then I hear a muffled brush of fabric as she moves the thick velvet curtain aside. A hint of light filters into the hallway, guiding me where I need to go.

The room we enter is not quite as dark as the corridor we just traversed. One single lamp hanging from the ceiling provides just enough light for me to make out Elene’s outline as she moves to the center of the room. We are no longer walking on wood flooring, but on carpet, which muffles the sound of her heels.

"The light can be changed," she says, facing me. "There's a panel to your right. You can turn it up, or down, change the color, whatever you like."

I see her gesturing in the dark and look in the direction she's pointing. A little red light helps me find my bearings, and the first button I push is the one I was hoping for. The room gets lighter, but just barely. I leave my finger on the button and turn to look at her as I adjust the lighting to where I want it. Dim, but enough to see her, all of her. I need to see her face, not just the outline of her perfect body.

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