Property of the Fae

by Laxmi Hariharan

  “But I do. All too well.” I bare my teeth, allow my canines to drop. The tips of my ears tingle.

  Her gaze flicks to my ears, then down to my mouth. “You don’t scare me.”

  “You know what I think?” My heart thuds, and a nerve ticks to life at my jaw. “You’re not scared of me, but of what I can do to you, about everything I can make you feel, isn’t that right?”

  “I…” She gulps. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  I inch closer until my body shadows her. “That you can fly away from here any time you want to and yet you will not.” My breath ruffles the hair on her forehead. “And you know why?”

  She shakes her head.

  She’s lying again, but that’s okay. I can speak the truth for both of us. “Because I make you feel alive, make you feel things you’ve never felt your entire life. Make you want to open yourself up to me until you can’t feel that darkness crawling inside you. Until all you can see is me, feel is me, touch is my skin, my breath mingling with yours. My mouth on your breasts sucking on your nipples, my fingers in your pussy, thrusting in and out, making love to your clit—”

  “Stop.” Her shoulders shudder.

  “Why should I?” I lower my voice. “Admit it, that you want me. That you need me to take you until you can’t think anymore. Until all you can feel is my dick inside you, fucking you, ramming you to the hilt, making love to you, over and over again until you explode. Until you can’t think straight until you’re not conscious of anything else but of the joining of our essences, our bodies, our souls—”

  She slaps her palm over my mouth. Color smears her cheeks and her pupils dilate. “Where did you learn to speak like that?” She wheezes.

  “Like what?” I flick out my tongue and lick the skin of her palm.

  She shivers.

  “Like you’re making love to me with your words. Like you are fucking me with your thoughts. Stripping me raw with your gaze—” Her breath hitches.

  “I can do more than that.” I wrap my fingers around her wrist and tug.

  Her palm trails down my chin, and I close my mouth around her finger. She swallows and her breathing grows shallow. “Wha…what do you mean?”

  “I can give you permission to live as you want, allow you to experience everything you need. I can free you of the guilt you feel.”

  Her eyebrows furrow. “Guilt?”

  “Every time you saw a man and wanted to punish him for what your father did to you…you felt guilty.”

  “Now you can read my mind?” She sets her jaw.

  “Close.” I can’t stop my lips from curling up. “I am a chef. Who’s very good at gauging the mood of the person I cook for.”

  “You’re going to cook for me?” Her gaze widens.

  “Told you so already, you need to learn to listen, Fire. Not only am I going to cook for you,” I angle my head, “but by the time I am done you'll be lusting for much more than my food. I’ll help you give in to the needs that have been tearing away inside you, that you didn’t know what to do with. That you didn’t know how to fulfill.”

  Her eyebrows draw down. “You are insane.”

  “Only where you are concerned.” I bark out a laugh. “You understand everything, you simply don’t want to admit it.”

  “Admit what?” The skin stretches over her cheekbones.

  “That you know what I can give you.”

  “Which is?” Her gaze narrows.

  “Freedom, a safe space to be what you want, ask for anything you need, take what you need from me, where you don’t have to think, or decide anything. Where you leave everything to me.”

  “You mean give up my choice?”

  I click my tongue. “Where you are free of needing to decide. Where you let me please you, as I take from you.” I pull back my lips. “Where I bring you to climax, even as I fulfill my desires. Where you exist…just for me.”

  “You mean where you dominate me?”

  “Where you submit to me.” I raise my chin.

  “Isn’t it the same?” She frowns.

  “There’s a difference. You do all the thinking before you enter into this relationship. Once you’re there, you leave everything to me. All you have to do is feel, absorb the emotions, bare your soul, and take what I give. Where you trust me. Can you do that, Fire?”

  She gnaws on her lower lip. “Maybe.”

  “There’s one more thing you need to be aware of.” I hold her gaze.

  “What’s that?” She stiffens.

  “There are no safewords here.”

  7

  Jess

  My skin stretches with anticipation. My nipples harden. What is this man doing to me? I should be afraid of him. Instead, a thrill of desire twists my gut.

  I want to agree; I want to find out what he can do to me. How it feels to bend to this will. Just once, can I stop fighting for what I want? Just once can I submit to someone else? Someone whose will is stronger than mine? Someone who knows how to cause pleasure, how to give pain…and now I am getting all my adjectives mixed up… I mean my sentences. I mean… “Fuuuck!” I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Not that soon, and has anyone told you that you swear too much?”

  “Look who’s talking.” I snarl.

  “It’s different when it comes from a woman. That particular four-letter word should be used in only one context.”

  Anger threads my blood. “You chauvinistic”—I grind my teeth— “macho, egoistical, beast.”

  He snickers. Pure male satisfaction laces his features.

  “Aaargh.” I resist the urge to pound my fist into the bed…this fight is one-sided, for I am resorting to dumb childish tactics. Which also means I am running out of options.

  The mattress dips and he pushes off the bed to stand next to it. I have to raise my chin and crane my neck to look at his face.

  “I see you’re finally getting to know the real me.”

  His voice floats over me from far above. The width of his shoulders shuts out the sight of the room behind him. He props his arms on his waist and his biceps bulge.

  Heat flares low in my belly.

  The man is so much taller than me, so much broader, more powerful… More everything. And that’s the appeal. The fact that he can physically slam me against the wall and fuck the brains out of me until I can’t think straight, and I'd be powerless to do anything but let him have his way with me and... My breath hitches, and that’s exactly what he is offering, except I am not sure about the strings…or the lack of them attached to it. Hmm. That’s a first. So I want more than an empty fuck, so kill me already.

  I choose this time to want more than just physical intimacy.

  I want more.

  I want everything with this twisted alpha Fae. I'd started with the intention of luring him to Boris... but it seems I am the one who is caught in his trap.

  “You are tempted, admit that.” He sounds almost bored as if he goes around making these offers to women all the time. No, it can’t be that.

  I squeeze my fingers at my sides. And what do I care if he does so anyway? My pulse thuds. Yeah, the heart of the matter is that for some reason I do care. I do care very much if he’s taken anyone else as a submissive before me…or if he takes someone after me. And what the hell am I thinking? I can’t be considering his offer seriously, can I?

  “You are allowed to accept, you know.” He lowers his tone. So seductive. So enticing.

  I could almost fool myself that he cares for me. Not.

  Anger threads my gut. I will not let myself be drawn to him. I need to keep an emotional distance from him. I must.

  I spring off the bed, then step forward until I am toe to toe with him. “Stop second-guessing my thoughts.” I stub my finger in his chest

  "I didn’t give you permission to touch me, did I?” His lips purse in that cruel pout, the one that sends shivers of anticipation rippling down my spine. The one that makes my thighs clench. That makes me instantly wet.

 
; His nostrils flare. “It excites you when I order you around.”

  “No.”

  He sets his jaw. “You’re going to have to get used to not using that word, Fire.”

  Everything inside me tenses. Why do I want to obey him? My stomach twists. “And stop calling me that.”

  He clicks his tongue. “We’ll have to work on your attitude, too, so you become a good little submissive.”

  “I am not good. And I am not your submissive. I am not anyone’s submissive.” I jut out my lower lip. It’s childish, but whatever. I am allowed to resort to stupid demeanors if that’s what it takes to stop this Fae from trying to overpower me…which I want. Admit it. Not.

  “You’re right.”

  I blink. “I am?” Under the tip of my finger, his muscles flex. The hardness of his very male chest is so apparent. I want to find out just how corded his muscles are. Just how his pecs are demarcated, how his stomach dips down to meet that arousal, which strains against his pants. Which I hadn’t sneaked a peek at from below my eyelashes—no, of course not.

  “You are not anyone’s submissive.”

  “I’m not?” My voice comes out all cautious. I raise my gaze to his face.

  “You are my submissive, only mine. Mine to do with as I want. Mine to please, to satisfy, to decide what’s right for you.”

  “You’ll decide?” Heat rises behind my eyelids. Something unfurled against my rib cage throbs. My dragon stretches and pushes at the psychic barriers. My skin puckers. My dragon has never reacted this way before. Never wanted to reach out to another through the psychic space. That privilege is for blood relations and my mate. And he is…my mate? N-a-a-h. Nope. No way.

  He lowers his gaze to my finger that’s still pressed against his chest.

  I drop my arm. And no, it’s not because I want to obey him. It’s just self-preservation, that is all.

  “The thought doesn’t please you?” His eyebrows narrow. A furrow appears between them.

  My fingers itch. I want to raise my hand and trace that dip.

  “What have I been trying to tell you all this time?” I fold my arms behind my back.

  “It’s not what you say, but what your body signals to me that counts.” He tips his weight back on the balls of his feet. “The unsaid is more powerful than the spoken word, you know that?”

  His stance is relaxed as if he’s already won this round. There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that insists he’s right. That he can see through all my bluster. And damn if I am giving in to him.

  “All semantics.” I fist my hands at my sides. “You may be a chef, but you are also a master at twisting the meaning of my words until I don’t know what I am saying anymore.”

  He smirks.

  I blink. My insides shiver at the cruelty inherent in that expression. I’ve never hated anyone else as much as him in my entire life.

  “That’s because you don’t?” He rolls his shoulders, looking so pleased with himself.

  “What?” My gaze widens.

  “You don’t know what you need—”

  “But you do?” A nerve flickers to life at my temples, and a low pressure builds behind my eyeballs.

  “Yep.” He raises his chin, every part of him arrogant, dominant. Seems every muscle in him is relaxed. Confidence vibrates off him. He seems larger than life.

  My throat goes dry. My heartbeat races. I cannot give in to him. I cannot. Will not.

  “From now on, you will do what I tell you to do, Fire. You will talk when I tell you. Walk when I command. Eat when I allow. Drink when I permit you. You will wear what I ask you to.”

  “I will not.” My voice comes out hard, and my chin quivers.

  “Most of all, you will spread for me when I tell you.”

  “No.” My thighs clench.

  “You will let me look at you, touch you, play you.”

  “Please…” Was that a no? Yes. Yes, it was.

  “You will allow me to please you.”

  I shake my head.

  “To pleasure you.”

  My stomach flutters.

  “Bring you to climax.”

  Moisture pools between my thighs, and my womb clenches.

  “Most of all…” He lowers his chin, so his glowing eyes fix on mine. His nostrils flare. His shoulders pull back. Every molecule of his body seems to be ready and waiting. And confident, as if he already knows I will accept what is to come. “You will not come, not until I give you permission.”

  “No.” I gnaw on my lower lip. It’s a token resistance. The final gasp of someone who knows she is losing her mind, her will, and all by choice. I have one last chance to stake my territory. One last stance to show him who is in charge. Who is in charge?

  “On your knees, submissive.”

  8

  Tristan

  Her chest heaves. Color flushes her face. Her eyes lock with mine, and I feel the emotions warring inside her. She is not going to obey me…she isn’t. My heartbeat thunders in my ears. Adrenaline spikes my blood, and I hold her gaze.

  “Do it, Fire.” My voice is low. Yet there’s an edge to it. I force all my dominance into my tone. “Do it.”

  She lowers her gaze; her chin firms. Then she bends her knees and drops to the floor. Thank fuck. She kneels in front of me, her head held high, her shoulders squared.

  I step around her and sweep my gaze over her body.

  Her spine is one straight line sweeping down to meet the flared curves of her butt. Her luscious, heart-shaped butt that twitches when I lean in. I bend forward until my face is near her ear. Her shoulders bunch.

  “Good girl,” I whisper.

  Her breathing falters.

  The scent of her arousal bleeds into the air, and fuck me if that doesn’t make me go rock-hard.

  I want to reach out and run my hand down the smooth planes of her back, down over the curve of her hips. I want to follow the same path with my tongue, lick up the bead of sweat that trails down to the dent between her butt cheeks and… Lust grips my lower belly. My groin tightens. My dick strains in my pants. I need to get out of here before I break my own rules.

  I straighten then stalk past her to the door.

  She doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, but I feel her gaze stalk me. “Remember.” I turn to look at her over my shoulder. “You can’t move, not until I allow you to.”

  A nerve throbs at her temple. The skin stretches tight over her cheeks. Her pose is meant to be submissive, but she’s everything but. She’s the most gorgeous, most radiant woman I have ever seen.

  She pulls back her shoulders and I can’t stop my gaze from flowing over the creamy expanse of her neck to the shadowed valley between her breasts.

  Her nipples harden under my scrutiny and she curls her fingers into fists.

  I can’t stop the low chuckle that reverberates up my chest. “I see you have much to learn, my little submissive.”

  She lowers her chin and peers up at me from under hooded eyelids. Oh, she’s feisty and fiery…and so fucking stubborn. She brings out that beast inside me that likes to dominate, that likes to play with its prey, that needs to peel back her layers, slowly, slowly, laying her bare. Her body, her soul…her very spirit. I want it all. “I’ll have you, Fire, make no mistake.”

  She purses her lips; her throat moves, but she doesn’t speak.

  “Only it will be on my terms. On my turf. In the way, I decide. And you can bet that you’re going to enjoy every single aspect of my ministrations.” Another shiver sweeps her body. Her thigh muscles ripple. She’s afraid and yet she can’t wait for what I have in mind for her next. Turning, I push open the door open, then let it snick shut behind me.

  I didn’t want to leave her, only, if I had stayed a second longer, I’d have taken her, and I don’t want it to be that way. So I am a masochist—as if that isn’t clear already, eh? Besides, my Fire, she deserves more than just a quick fuck. I adjust my hardness in my pants, trying to ease the weight of my balls. Mistake. Touc
hing myself sends a surge of intense need pulsing through me. I cup the bulge in my pants and groan. What have I let myself in for?

  I could have just rutted her and put myself out of the misery that had gripped me since the first time I’d set eyes on her. I hadn’t reckoned with my conscience standing in the way.

  Conscience, ha!

  Where had all my good intentions been when I’d walked up to her and flung her over my shoulder and stalked off with her? It had all descended to my dick, making sure that the only thinking I am doing is with that particular appendage. While every other part of me, namely my brain, has descended into some kind of trance. One that has gripped me from the time I’d first scented her. Yeah, there you have it. When I had fought Dante on the last weekly Dare, as I’d gotten a few good punches at him, the aroma of cherries and pepper had wafted over to me. Her scent: one that I’d never smelled before, yet which I had instantly recognized.

  One which had sunk into my blood and gone straight to my dick, and I had known then already that I was fucked.

  I squeeze myself so hard that stars pound behind my eyes. Now I am standing here outside my bedroom, wanking off to the memories of the very woman who I’ve shut in that room. I am officially losing my mind.

  My shoulders hunch.

  There’s only one way out. If I need to last for the time until I’ve broken her down—and that’s not something I plan on giving up on anytime soon; yeah, so it’s going to be more of a challenge than I thought, but hey, I thrive on achieving seemingly impossible goals—so…I am going to break her, only I am going to break myself, too, in the process.

  My leg muscles go rock-solid.

  The truth of my thoughts sinks into my gut.

  I stride up the corridor to my study. Shouldering the door open, I walk to the far end and stumble into the adjoining bathroom.

  Tearing off my clothes, I walk into the shower stall.

  The water from the shower pours over me. It’s cold, and it pounds down on my head, my shoulders…and does nothing to decrease the size of my hard shaft. Fuck this. I grip my cock and squeeze it from the base to the tip and back, and back again. The scent of her is heavy in my nostrils. Her fiery gaze is burned into my brain. I shut my eyes and see her…those fiery amber eyes, the thick blonde hair that frames her delicate face. The sweetness of her breath, the aphrodisiac of her taste. And her cunt, her sweet cunt that leads into her channel, which is wet and yearning for me. To take me in, clamp down on my dick, and milk me and… The pressure builds in my groin, my balls draw up, and a spasm of pleasure rips through me.