Elusive Hero

by Joey W. Hill

  "See there?" he said, low. "As I said, I can overpower you, my lady, and I don't need greater physical strength to do it. I see your need for surrender, and I can bring you to that. It boils down to a willing choice."

  The will. It was all about the will. He'd said that too, hadn't he? She had a formidable will, the will to live when she'd wanted to die, to rule when she'd only wanted to serve. Face to face with him, she felt the strength of a will as great as her own. Perhaps greater, because there was an incredible message pounding through those words. If she surrendered her will to his, his will would care for her. All she had to do was make the choice. Could she do it?

  When she'd first become a spy, then later a vampire, then an overlord--hell, every challenge of her life--she'd learned to deal with those things by taking it minute by minute. Then hour by hour. Day by day. So maybe she needed to do the same here, starting from scratch.

  Moment by moment.

  His eyes were still locked on her face. Under that gaze, she shuddered once. Blinked. Her pulse hammering between arousal and terror, she did the unthinkable.

  She lowered her eyes.

  His fingers flexed on her in reaction. He stayed motionless for at least another dozen heartbeats, letting her feel the gravity of that decision, making sure of it. She wasn't sure of anything.

  "There it is," he murmured. "That click. That first tiny sign that you think you can give me your trust. People think it's deference or subservience, and that's part of it, but as every creature in the wild knows, you don't take your eyes off of what you can't trust."

  Her pulse elevated even more, and he must have detected it. "Easy, my lady. First the right kind of contact."

  Wrapping his hand in her hair, he dropped his other one in between them, trailing his fingers down her upper abdomen, over the indentation of her navel. She licked her lips at the whisper of a touch over her mound and then a tiny sound of need came from her as he found her damp core. He stroked, teasing circles over her clit and the petals of her sex that had her hips lifting to his touch, her nerve endings catching fire.

  He lifted his gaze to hers again, locked. "Come for me, Kaela," he said quietly, "and then you can take however much blood you need."

  His hand on her hair tightened, pulling at the scalp, immobilizing her head, and his clever fingers began to knead and flick. That was all it took. The orgasm surged up against his touch, straining for release. She fought that wealth of feelings, even as he spoke against her ear.

  "Come for me, Kaela. Trust me to take you where you need to go."

  A climax. So straightforward, so easy, but it meant so much. She struggled against the flood of fear, the instinct to fight, but this time as that feeling rose, he anticipated her. He plunged his fingers into her fully, holding her up against the wall with his body weight while working her ruthlessly. He tilted his head once more, taking the artery farther from her greedy lips. As a moan broke from her lips, he chuckled, a faintly malicious sound that sent chills over her spine and made her whole body constrict. His hard eyes pinned her.

  "Don't fuck with me, my lady. This blood comes with a price. Your obedience."

  The words were like bullets, and they struck the target. Her body convulsed, arched, struggled, and the climax strangled its way past her reservations. She cried out, throwing her head back so it hit the stone wall. As she continued to writhe, he closed the distance between them again, cupping her skull to protect it and bringing his throat within reach again.

  "Feed, Kaela. Take what you need."

  "Give...I need to give what I need..."

  He nodded against her temple, understanding her meaning in a way she wasn't sure she did herself. Even so, she bit into him with the manners of a starving wolf. His strong arm banded around her, holding her as she took the first sweet gulp.

  A first step, he'd said. It was a hell of a first step, as precarious as stepping out on a ledge that might give way. For the first time in a long time, she had to remember when to stop, so she didn't drain him. She wanted to drain him. His biggest danger to her and to himself was that he made her forget he was mortal.

  But he was right. Sometime during the past few pivotal moments she'd decided, whatever the consequences, she wanted those ten days. No price was too high. God help him, he'd made it clear he was willing to pay that same price, and she wanted what he could give her too much to deny herself.

  Chapter Four

  At length, his hold on her hair became a stroke. As she let her fangs retract, she licked him, swirls over heated male flesh. She nipped and suckled, her hands gliding over his chest, his biceps. She pushed back abruptly, overwhelmed by all of it.

  "Easy, my lady."

  As he let her down, she pushed away, needing the space. But she was swaying, turning. The world seemed topsy-turvy. When he tried to get close, she evaded him. Stumbled. A vampire never stumbled.

  He stayed at a distance, probably to keep her from staggering in a different direction. She sank down to the floor, trying to get a grip on herself, but it felt like waves were crashing down on her. Each attempt to raise her head, gain control, was knocked asunder by the next wave of disbelief, of feelings that had been held back so long. He must think her a fool, a decades-old vampire cut adrift by simple submission. Yet it was a priceless gift she'd never thought she'd be given again, one that could tear her to pieces with its reality in a way that being deprived of it never had.

  He came to her, stood beside her where she sat on the floor. As he touched her head, her eyes closed. He began to stroke again, exerting a gentle pressure so she gradually leaned in, until her head was against his knee. He was threading his fingers through her loose hair, combing it, tugging on it, outlining the curve of her ear, moving around to her jawline, making her lift her chin. Hooking his thumb in the collar, he traced her soft skin beneath it.

  "That's it. Just give yourself to me, my lady."

  "I'm afraid." Words she never, ever said, now spoken in dawn's semi-darkness to a fantasy, a mysterious stranger who would be her undoing. "I'm always afraid. And alone."

  "You're not alone right now. Are you?"

  "I don't know."

  He knelt behind her, a man like the shelter of a tree. His arm slid around her waist, and his other hand moved from her jaw under her hair, to her nape. With more inexorable pressure, he began to bend her forward, moving with her.

  She was disoriented enough to give him the control, to let him fold her the way he wished. He bent her over her knees, a fetal position that brought her forehead to the floor, his hips cupped over hers, his chest against her back. His arms slid free to circle her shoulders and head, his lips to her crown as he sheltered her like a cave over a hibernating animal, dark and hushed. The heat of him surrounded her, his breath on her hair, his heartbeat against her back.

  With his blood inside her, his scent upon her, she let it happen. Her arms were folded at her sides, and she slid them forward so her fingertips touched his forearms, crossed over her head. She curled her hands over them, brought them in beneath her chin, pulling him in a tighter arc over her. He complied, adjusting so his arms were wrapped over her chest just below her throat. His head was tucked against hers, his mouth cruising along her throat.

  "Do you want me inside you, Kaela?"

  "Yes."

  "Stay still then. Just like this."

  Her fingers tightened on him. Yes, she wanted him inside her, but only if he didn't have to move from this position. His heated chuckle against her ear warmed the cold fear in her. "Figures a vampire would be a pushy sub." But he held onto her with one arm and somehow managed to free himself from his jeans with the other hand, opening them enough that he could guide himself to the slick heat between her folded legs. The press of his body brought her up a few inches off her heels, just enough that he could achieve the desired angle. He fitted the head of his cock there, broad and thick. She quivered, her labia spasming over him.

  "Hot, wet and tight. Just the way I like a sweet, subm
issive pussy."

  Even Jared hadn't spoken to her like that, because they'd been too young, too unsophisticated. Yet Garron's words were raw, primal, anything but polished. "Don't move, my lady. I'm fucking you for my own pleasure. You're serving me. Aren't you?"

  "Yes," she whispered, then closed her eyes tight.

  His lips touched her cheek bone, her jaw. "You're too tense, too afraid of this." He adjusted his hips, slid in another inch. She made a noise of deep need. "Yet your body's screaming for it."

  Her nails bit into his flesh, found blood. He let out a quiet growl, not an admonition, but a reinforcement of the savage act. When he pushed in several more inches, she tried to raise her hips, but he kept her pinned down. "This is all about my pace. My control. Let me take you where you need to go, Kaela."

  She was at least satisfied to hear the strain in his voice, and a breath escaped her at his thickness, his length, as substantial as she'd expected. He was as aroused as she was, and that knowledge shattered her even more. She put her forehead down between her arms as he slid all the way home, stretching and filling her. In this position she had no control over her own pleasure, so as he withdrew halfway, slid back in, the seesawing motion sent crazy whorls of sensation through her clit and pussy, into her lower belly and shooting up into her chest, causing wild flutters to her heart. She began to make helpless, aroused noises.

  "That's it. Let me hear you, my lady. Serve me well. Give me pleasure."

  She couldn't think past her own overwhelming response, but she expected that was what he meant. This spiraling ecstasy seemed to be feeding his own actions, for his thrusts grew stronger. And still he kept her from moving.

  "Please..."

  "Beg all you like, my lady. You're mine to enjoy as I wish. You'll come when I'm ready."

  The angle he was employing kept him out of range of any clitoral massage, yet sent mini-climaxes ricocheting through her cunt, skittering over her like electric current. Her mobility was restricted, her body a tight ball beneath him, yet she was vibrating like a tuning fork.

  "Please..."

  "That's it. All you have to do is beg."

  Her reality was being destroyed, and she was letting it happen. Welcoming it. She fell over that edge, her pussy clenching him hard, sensation spiraling through her, a compressed cyclone in her current position that had her screaming out without any ability to restrain herself. He only encouraged it by rising on his knees, pulling her hips up and increasing the power of his thrusts, rocking her forward like a doll.

  "No...no..." She didn't know what no meant, except she was still afraid and she didn't want him to stop. He didn't, working her through the full orgasm until she was shuddering at his barest move. Even then, he wasn't done. He pushed her back down into that coiled position, his cock still hard and thick inside her. He wouldn't let her hold onto her fear. As she came down from the violent climax, he curved tightly over her again, his voice against her ear.

  "What does your mind want? What does your soul say when it reaches out to me?"

  She couldn't answer that, but he left it there. One more deep thrust that wrested a guttural groan from her and then he was withdrawing from her body and lifting her. He put her back in the bed, himself around her.

  "If you don't let yourself have these ten days," he said at long last, "if you get dressed and leave on the next nighttime plane, do you think that changes anything? You'd regret denying yourself the chance of seeing where this could go. That regret could grow so large it would eat you alive from the inside."

  "You think I'm already past the point of return."

  "Yeah. I think you were there when you decided to make this trip, before you ever stepped foot on the island."

  She knew he spoke the truth, but the pull of the sun, combined with the confused state of her body, half lethargy, half please-fuck-me-into-oblivion, pushed her away from any decisions. His fingers, stroking her hair, her face, her shoulder, made the only decision she was capable of making. She gave herself to sleep.

  SS

  Garron sat in his private room in Club Sin, studying the monitor which showed him the feed from Kaela's room. He'd dealt with some paperwork, checked the readiness of certain toys and pieces of equipment he had in mind to use upon her, but mostly he'd watched her sleep during the afternoon hours. Sitting in his chair, turning it slowly left and right, he kept his eyes trained on the monitor, but his thoughts were covering far greater ground. Toys and equipment were the least of what a good Dom employed to take a sub on the journey. So much of it was a trip of the mind, and to do that right, it was critical to stay several steps ahead of his submissive. Though he found his reaction to her was putting them more neck and neck than he'd experienced in quite a while. Not an unpleasant feeling, just different. Intriguing as hell.

  Once he'd left the bed, she'd gradually migrated back to the center, sleeping on her stomach, her arms spread, one leg bent, the silky limb outside the comforter an unconscious tease. It hadn't taken her any time to take over the bed in his absence. Though he didn't like to think of her facing so many things on her own all these years, he was caveman enough to be pleased with the evidence that there hadn't been anyone sharing her bed, at least not long enough to change her preferred sleeping arrangements.

  They'd made some small progress. Despite his admonition that there was no need to rush anything between them--primarily because it couldn't be rushed--he was far too aware of how short ten days were to cover the emotional transition that needed to happen. The only balls he had in his court were how Vardalos had set the scene, helping her believe she could open up in a way she'd craved for so long, and how much she actually did want to embrace her submission.

  Then there were his actual balls. Which had turned out to be pretty necessary, dealing with a sub who could kill him with less thought than it took him to snap a pencil.

  Fucking her, pleasurable as it was, didn't mean much. A less experienced Dom would have thought that was the major breakthrough. But from his understanding, the vampire world was all about kinky sex that didn't necessarily touch the power dynamics locked in place like armor. The most important event in those hours together had been when she let him curl over her, give her sanctuary, intimacy. A sense of safety that had nothing to do with the differences in their strengths, but the emotional haven she needed. She needed so much more, though, and she hadn't opened that door more than a crack. But it was an important crack. In that same short time, he'd become determined to handle everything that came out of it.

  Vardalos had known that. He knew Garron had been in Eden long enough. His growing restlessness signified that things had healed, that it was time for a purpose. When he was in the military, he'd stayed behind as a contractor when others pulled out because he'd known what needed to be done. Even if it was a lost cause with dwindling numbers, it didn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do. He remembered the eyes of the children, watching the soldiers leave. At that young age, they'd cared nothing for adult politics or zealotry or big talk about self-determination without shit for fire power to back it up. They wanted to be able to play ball in the street, go to school. Not worry if their friends, parents, their dog or themselves would be dead by the end of the day, if another part of their unpredictable life would crumble and be remade in another power-hungry idiot's image of the perfect world.

  He remembered the kids playing near the base, asking the soldiers for candy. Little opportunists. His lips twisted at how innocently and transparently they used their charms. Their simple trust and hope had lodged in his heart. As a Master, he placed a high value on such trust, used that as motivation to earn and deserve it.

  Despite the fact the vampire he was watching had a long history that made her the exact opposite of innocent and transparent, he felt that simple trust and hope reaching out to him from within her. The kind of Master he was had responded to her as if she was the answer to a question he'd been waiting to hear for a really fucking long time.

  He liked Lady K
aela. Liked the way she fought, how unapologetic and yet complex she was, keeping him on his toes. Yeah, he enjoyed the hell out of his job, but this was more than that. He wasn't one of those guys who denied his feelings. He evaluated them in a pretty matter-of-fact way. Which was why he'd always been bemused by those who thought falling for someone was a long process, one that couldn't happen in a heartbeat. He'd known in a heartbeat he would stay in the Middle East, do what needed to be done, and that decision had nearly cost him his life. It didn't change the fact he would have done it again, because he knew that was where he needed to be.

  He'd never met a damsel in distress who could put him through a wall. Yet he looked at her and saw a connection, a signpost that said this was the way he needed to go, whatever the cost. Consequences didn't bother him. Missing a sign post was the real bitch.

  He shook his head and rose. Time for a breather from all the emotional shit. He hadn't let himself go over when she had, and his cock was bitching about that like a shrewish fish wife. Watching her had stirred him up, so what was unfolding inside him was good, straightforward lust. He thought she might be ready to enjoy that as well. Kind of a cleansing, the good dirty kind, before they got back into the real muck again.

  Hell, his vampire might still kill him before the week was over. He grinned at the thought. So no sense in holding back. Before it was over, he'd make damn sure she knew just how demanding a Master he was.

  SS

  Fran always waited to be called before she entered Kaela's room. But she knew Garron was there, sitting in the occasional chair a few feet from the bed, watching her. Without opening her eyes, Kaela imagined sliding out of the bed, going to him on her knees, kneeling between his feet, head bowed, waiting for whatever he desired. Maybe he'd stroke her hair with those strong, capable fingers that calmed things inside her. Maybe he'd open his jeans, force her lips down on his erection and make her service him. Maybe he'd do nothing but make her sit there while she trembled and wondered. Waited on him.