The Dark Collector Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Blurb

  The Dark Collector

  About Vanessa North

  Other Titles by Vanessa North

  THE DARK COLLECTOR

  Vanessa North

  Copyright © 2013 Vanessa North

  Cover Artist: Aimee Benson

  Editor: Sharis Mayer

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9899034-0-0

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters and location are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to real people, alive or dead, are coincidental.

  Dedication

  To Parker, to Liz, and to Liza. ’Cause none of you thought I was crazy.

  Also, to Twitter. For that thing that time. Every time, really. But mostly the one with the #cockring

  Acknowledgements

  I really dislike the term self-published, because let’s face it, I did not do this all by myself. Parker Kincade gave generously of her time and knowledge to help me understand the self-publishing process and options available to me because that’s the kind of kickass friend she is.

  Speaking of kickass friends, Sharis Mayer edited the manuscript for me—working with her is always a delight.

  I also don’t believe I could have written this story without Liza Gaines, who humored me when I Skyped her one Saturday morning with the message “I want to write something new. Prompt me!” Some of the very best things in my life start with Skype conversations with Liza.

  Jeffrey Kuyper was a once-in-a-generation talent and I was his muse.

  Jeffrey’s death shocked the art world and upended my life. His last portrait is an intimate reminder of our final weeks together. Now it’s up for auction and I want it more than anything. When a cold-mannered man in a dark suit outbids me, I’ll agree to anything to buy it from him—even a weekend in his bed.

  The Dark Collector

  I was angry the day Jeffrey painted my facial expression. My petulance is clear in every brush stroke. We’d fought that morning, and I hadn’t forgiven him yet. I did eventually and the make-up sex was as explosive as ever—but he left the painting as it was, no matter how many times I begged him to paint over it.

  He never would.

  Standing in the auction house, looking at the program and seeing that hated expression of boredom mixed with anger on my own face, I miss him so desperately it’s all I can do not to run to the nearest men’s room and vomit up my breakfast.

  It took a year for his estate to catalog and ready his works for sale. I’m in many of them. I own several of his paintings, ones he gifted to me because they were too intimate for him to bear for a stranger to own them. But this one still belongs to his estate.

  A single-car accident, an exhausted man asleep at the wheel, this is all it took for the life we shared to become his estate.

  This painting was his last, which makes it “important” and also valuable to the art world. I’ve liquidated my savings and sold my car—it was a gift from him, but I want the painting more.

  It’s not that I don’t want anyone to see me naked. Anyone familiar with his work has seen me stripped bare in every sense of the word. They’ve seen his teeth marks in my shoulder. They’ve seen me blindfolded. They’ve seen me bound. They’ve seen me erect and they’ve seen me sated. They’ve seen me however he saw fit to photograph or paint me.

  Being a muse to a man like Jeffrey was exhilarating and exhausting, but it was the best five years of my life. No matter how important this painting is to the art world, it’s more important to me.

  I’ve never been to an auction before. It’s quieter than I expected, but every bit as tense. I watch as the auctioneer introduces each lot. I close my eyes and shudder as a collection of negatives is put to bid, remembering how intense Jeffrey was with a camera in his hand. His old Minolta with its stinky leather neck strap and its glittering lenses was always nearby. He scoffed at digital, called it mundane. Jeffrey was never mundane, but he loved to photograph things that were. Those negatives would show our life together, not just the parts he painted. My parts. There were breakfasts in bed and weekends on the lake and a fist in my ass all together in that lot of negatives.

  A man to the far left of the room lifts his paddle, catching my eye. Everything about the man is dark and powerful. Dark hair, dark eyes, a dark suit. He glares intently at the auctioneer as the price goes up. He raises his paddle each time, steadfast, until no one else bids.

  As if he senses my gaze, he looks across the room and meets it.

  I see a flicker of recognition in his eyes. So he’s a fan of Jeffrey’s work. He inclines his head in a brief nod, and I look away, a flush heating my cheeks.

  I’m not ashamed of the work Jeffrey did, except in a good way. The intimacy of his art was part of the thrill, and being put on display, especially sexually, was…stimulating. I’m blushing because this man, this stranger, will see things I’d never intended anyone else to see. He’ll see me cuddling a kitten someone abandoned on our street—a kitten we would have kept had Jeffrey not been allergic. He’ll see me shaving. He’ll see me reading pulp science fiction novels in the bathtub.

  The lot for the painting is announced. The auctioneer describes it as an untitled, possibly unfinished work of Jeffrey’s longtime model, Oliver Conklin. Model—is that what I’d done? For me it was foreplay. And the painting was finished, had been for weeks, but only Jeffrey and I knew that. He’d teased me with potential titles, describing sex acts the twink in the painting might have been about to perform.

  “He’s on his knees to suck my cock. He’s such a slut, that boy. Perhaps I should call it ‘Slut.’”

  I’d sucked his cock until he came on my face without warning. My eyes were bloodshot for three days.

  “He’s on his knees because that’s how he waits for his master. I think I’ll call it ‘Slave.’”

  He’d tied my hands to my ankles that night and fingered me dry until I begged for his dick. He’d pressed my face to the floor and fucked me senseless.

  The game lasted until the morning he died.

  “He’s on his knees because that’s how his master feeds him, like a dog. I’ll call it ‘Puppy.’”

  And then he’d collared me and fed me breakfast from his hands.

  I raise my paddle.

  The dark collector raises his. I wish I could say it’s a dramatic back and forth between the two of us, but there are four men bidding on Slut-Slave-Puppy.

  The reserve is met, and there are still three of us bidding.

  We approach my bid ceiling, and my lungs are tight. I can’t breathe, can’t think. I have to have this painting.

  The dark collector raises his paddle.

  I raise mine for what has to be the last time. My two-year-old BMW and all my savings were only worth so much.

  The dark collector raises his paddle.

  ****

  I find him in the hallway after the auction.

  “You have to sell it to me.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize I’m speaking.

  “Excuse me?” The dark collector looks me up and down, as if he has no idea who I am or why I would want the painting. “Why would I?”

  “It’s mine.” I snarl.

  “I bought it.” He shrugs. “I outbid you. That makes it mine.”

  “I’ll come up with the difference.” I don’t know how, but I will. I have to. Maybe I can sell one of the other paintings. Ouch.

  “Jeffrey Kuyper was a very important artist. This is an investment which will grow significantly. I don’t want to sell it.”

  “Please.” I fist my hands in his shirt. “I have other pieces. I could
trade you.”

  “But this one is his last.” He untangles my hands from his clothing. “It’s not for sale.”

  “Please.” Hot tears spill down my cheeks, surprising me because I haven’t cried like this since the funeral. “I’ll do anything. He would have…”

  “Oh God, you’re not crying are you?” He looks uneasy. “Come on, come with me.” He leads me to the men’s room. After taking a towel from the attendant and tipping the man, he wets the towel and hands it to me. As I wipe my face, he stares.

  I stare back.

  A standoff then. He’s handsome, I notice. Absurd that I would notice that, but there it is. His skin is bronzed, and stubble darkens his chin. There’s a hard set to his mouth, a powerful jaw. If it weren’t aimed at me, I’d like his aggressive glare.

  “How long did you model for him?”

  “Five years.”

  “Did he know you were in love with him?”

  “Yes.” He loved me too. I wasn’t his model, I was his boy. He was my everything.

  The dark collector sighs heavily. His glare turns speculative. “You can buy the painting back from me on one condition.”

  Hope reaches up its grimy hand to grasp whatever he offers. “Anything.”

  “You spend the weekend in my home. You do anything I ask. You do everything I ask. For one weekend—you’ll be to me what you were to him.”

  Impossible.

  He could bind me, bite me, fuck me, but he’d never, ever own me the way Jeffrey had.

  “I’ll do it,” I whisper.

  A fierce light in his eyes, he stares at me for a long moment before extending his hand for a shake. “Agreed.”

  He pulls a card from his pocket, the card for the auction house, and he scribbles an address on the back. “Meet me here at seven Friday evening. At seven Monday morning, I’ll arrange to have the painting shipped to your address rather than my own. If you leave my home before Monday morning, I won’t make that call.”

  I nod, slipping the card into my own pocket. “What’s your name?”

  “You can call me ‘Sir.’”

  ****

  His words echo in my ears as I take the elevator up to the penthouse of the exquisite apartment building on the Upper East Side. “You can call me ‘Sir.’”

  So it would be like that. I shudder. Of course, if he was a fan of Jeffrey’s work, he would be into the BDSM scene. Frightening, this unknown. There are as many types of kink as there are people. I don’t mind a little pain-play, but what really gets me off is humiliation and objectification. Who knows what this guy is into? Submitting to a stranger for two days and three nights is intense. Jeffrey and I had worked up to the harder core kink over our five years together. He’d earned my submission with my trust.

  This man had bought it. On credit. He’d bought it from my desperation, not from trust. Am I turned on? Or terrified? Maybe both. In the year since Jeffrey’s passing, I’ve been celibate. Doing anything with another man felt like a betrayal. Another Dom even more so.

  The dark collector opens the door and smiles at me, shiny white teeth flashing in his bronzed face. To my wary, melodramatic imagination, he looks like a predator.

  I feel my cock filling. Turned on, then.

  I sink to my knees, clasp my hands behind my back, and look down at his feet. It’s been a year since I’ve been on my knees like this, and even while my heart aches that he’s not Jeffrey standing in front of me, my body sings with remembered pleasure. On my knees means sex, submission, shame, and mind-bending pleasure. “Good evening, Sir.”

  Fingers caress my cheek, tilt my chin up. “We’re not playing yet, pet. We have to talk, set some ground rules. Come into my kitchen.”

  I stand and follow him. He gestures to the bar stools and I sit.

  “Have you eaten anything tonight?”

  I shake my head. “I wasn’t sure…”

  “That’s okay. I’ll feed you. What do you like?”

  I shrug. “Anything. I’m not picky.”

  “Fair enough. I have some vegetables and some lemon chicken leftover from my own dinner. Tomorrow we’ll cook together.” He sets a plate and fork in front of me and gestures I should start eating, so I do, watching as he rolls up his shirt sleeves and starts to clean up after the meal he’s obviously just finished.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?”

  “No, thank you. Not if we’re going to play tonight.” I might be crazy enough to sell myself to him for a weekend, but I’m not stupid enough to do it drunk.

  He reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of water. He uncaps it and hands it to me.

  “Do you have a safeword?”

  I nearly choke. Wow, he really gets right to the point, doesn’t he? The thought of using the word I’d used with Jeffrey makes the edges of my vision go black and my breath come in short gasps, so I offer the generic, “Red.”

  “Yellow if you need me to slow down,” he adds. “You’ve done this before? Played with strangers?”

  “Not in years,” I admit. “But Jeffrey and I…”

  He nods, waving off the end of my sentence. “Do you have any hard limits?”

  I hadn’t, with Jeffrey. He’d owned me, and I’d trusted him completely. I can’t do that with this man. “No blood. No watersports. No breath play. No barebacking—but you can come in my mouth. You can get rough with me and call me names—but don’t call me ‘boy’—that was his name for me.”

  “Fair enough.” He nods. “Gags? Fisting?”

  I shudder. Fisting? I had done it more than once with Jeffrey. One of his most famous paintings was of my ass with his arm buried inside. But that was Jeffrey.

  “It’s been a long time…” I meet the dark collector’s eyes. “I’m okay with gags as long as you don’t cover my nose or otherwise restrict my breath. Fisting…maybe.”

  “I’ll respect your safeword.”

  I take a bite of the chicken, the lemon flavor subtle and bright at once. It’s delicious. “This is wonderful.”

  “Thank you. It’s one of my favorite recipes. It’s nice to cook it for someone else.” A flash of something soft in his face then before the impassive mask returns.

  “Finish your dinner. When you’re done, take off all your clothes.” He points to a small door in the wall. “That’s a laundry chute. Put them in there. You can have them back on Monday morning. Put your dishes in the dishwasher. Then meet me in the living room. On your knees.”

  He walks out of the room, leaving me to stare after him. I’m fully hard now, turned on by the idea of submitting to this cold, handsome man. Aroused, but ashamed of my arousal, which makes it somehow hotter but also bitter. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve missed this. I’ve missed putting my pleasure in the hands of another. I’ve missed sex, and I’ve missed submission.

  As delicious as the meal is, my curiosity has killed my appetite faster than the proverbial cat. I can’t finish my supper. I clean up as best I can, and then I strip and put my clothes in the laundry chute. I take a deep breath and will my shaking body to still.

  I get down on my knees and I crawl.

  ****

  I keep my eyes down as I make my way across the plush carpeting to where he waits for me. In my peripheral vision I can see he is fully dressed, reading something on a tablet. He ignores me. Okay, I know this game.

  I bow my head, hands clasped behind my back, and I kneel for him. I don’t speak.

  A faint whir of air conditioning and the buzz of electronics wind through the air. No other sound breaks the silence in his home. Occasionally, as he reads, he crosses or uncrosses his legs, and the sound of fabric rustling, a sound I’d never notice normally, is violently loud.

  Sweat trickles down my spine, even though it’s cool in his apartment. My knees start to ache, and they burn deliciously from crawling to him across even such soft, expensive carpet. I focus on that burn, on the thousand ways it reminds me for the next three nights I belong to this stranger. My cock s
wells. It’s been a year since I’ve belonged to anyone.

  “How old are you?”

  The question is a jolt to my senses. Startled, I cast about for the answer, but before I can speak, his hand cups my jaw, tilts it so I have to meet his gaze.

  “I asked you a question, pet.”

  “I’m twenty-six, Sir.”

  “You were twenty when you started modeling for Kuyper?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “So young to be in such an intense relationship.”

  “Yes, Sir.” I’ve heard it before. I don’t care. I loved Jeffrey with my entire self.

  “Suck my cock now.”

  “Yes, Sir.” My own cock is hard and already dripping a bit. Is this a betrayal? I can’t tell. I slide my hands up his legs, the fine wool of his trousers soft and slightly prickly under my palms. He groans and spreads his legs a bit. I smooth my hands over his thighs, feeling their strength and the tension making them tremble just a bit. He doesn’t rush me or shove my face into his dick. Jeffrey would have, sometimes. Jeffrey could be rough with me, and it was okay because I needed that from time to time. Needed to know I was his.

  I tug the zipper down on his trousers, reach inside and pull out his cock. It’s fully erect, the head standing proudly out of the foreskin. His skin is a deep bronze color, but here it’s rosy too, copper. Will he taste like a copper penny? Metallic and tangy? I touch the tip of it with my tongue and his back arches off the couch.

  He tastes salty. Clean and delicious. I wrap my lips around him and suckle him, and I’m rewarded with a heavy moan.

  “Yes, pet, take my cock.” He begins to rock into my mouth like he can’t help but move. It’s hot, this super-controlled man coming just a bit undone like that. I fist my hand around the base of his cock and begin to jerk him while I lick and suck at the tip. I slide his foreskin around, nibble at it, slip my tongue under it.