Coffee & Composition Part 1

by A. C. Ellas

  George gave Yeri’s hip a pat then said, “You should try him, Ellie. Really. Let him pleasure you. Scoot down here and he can give you oral pleasure right now.” Again, she did not answer. George didn’t drop the issue, though. “Ellie, you told me just yesterday to use you like a slave. Get over here and spread your legs.”

  Ellie’s acute embarrassment and strong sense of shame filled Yeri’s nostrils. He pitied her even as he hoped she’d simply obey. He had a deep yearning to taste her.

  “No, I can’t. I won’t.” She slid out of bed and fled into the bathroom.

  George sighed. “Women. First, she tells me to use her like a slave then she tells me no. I just don’t get it.”

  Yeri pressed back against George, wallowing in the physical pleasure of their lovemaking, but that didn’t stop him from thinking. “It’s because of me, master. I’m sure of it. She’s afraid of me and jealous of what we share.”

  “I want this rift ended, Yeri. Do whatever you have to in order to end it. Do you understand?”

  Yeri wanted to protest, the trouble wasn’t of his making, he had no control over Ellie’s thoughts. Instead, he said, “Yes, master.”

  George’s action sped up, and Yeri was grateful to attend only to the physical as he accepted the man’s use of him. He was sore already from Devlin, and George was adding to that, but he liked it when George left him sore; it served to remind him that he was the man’s property. He grunted as George’s body slapped against his with each thrust—hard, fast, powerful. He ground himself against the man’s groin, using his body to beg for more, to encourage and accentuate George’s efforts.

  He sensed George’s building tension as fully as George felt his pleasure. His body was totally attuned to George’s, so that when George came, so did he. The doubled orgasm crashed over them in waves of sheer sensation, pleasure so deep and love so pure it was almost too much to bear. George collapsed atop him, pushing him down onto the mattress, and Yeri was content to lay there with George still inside him.

  Eventually, George heaved himself up and gave Yeri’s ass a firm pat. “Go help Marra with breakfast.”

  “Yes, master.” Yeri slid off the bed. George handed him a clean wrap. He put it on, shook himself once to settle his fur, and padded out of the bedroom.

  * * * *

  The Rovani left with a spring in his step that caused George to chuckle. A shower was in order after that strenuous morning workout. He turned toward the bathroom still smiling. The smile died on his lips when Ellie came back out of the bathroom.

  She was wearing a filmy silk dress that accentuated her curves while looking light and airy. Her pursed lips and flashing eyes were what had given George pause. “It’s bad enough that you let him sleep in our wedding bed, but to use him in front of me? To tell him what we’d discussed in our private love life? Have you no respect for me at all?”

  George didn’t know what to say. He settled on, “I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better.”

  It clearly wasn’t what she’d expected. She gaped at him for a moment then all the tension ran out of her body. Gently, she said, “I know you love him, I know you’ve had him for years, but please, try to show some restraint. I don’t want him in our bed; it’s not his place.”

  “Very well.” George shrugged. “If that’s the way you want it, that’s the way it will be.” His glance fell on Lee as the baby stirred. “Do you want to take care of him or shall I call for Yeri?”

  Ellie snatched Lee out of the bassinet. “I’m his mother. Of course, I want to take care of him.” She flounced out of the room, probably heading for the nursery. George sighed and continued into the bathroom.

  Chapter Four

  Yeri came in bearing the coffee service on a tray. There was steam rising from the top of the copper briki, a sure sign that the coffee was boiling, as it should be for proper Greek coffee. George deftly served both Ellie and himself from the platter of tiganites. He was reaching for the sausages when it happened.

  Yeri stumbled.

  It was so fast that George didn’t see it, but the tray and the boiling coffee went flying. Searing hot liquid splashed over Ellie’s arm and leg. She cried out in pain.

  Yeri dropped to his knees and reached out for her. “Forgive me, mistress. Please, I’m sorry.”

  George impatiently brushed Yeri aside and gathered Ellie into his arms. He quickly assessed the damage. Large red blotches liberally covered her forearm and thigh. “I’ll take you to the clinic,” he said. He scooped her up and carried her out of the room.

  “I can walk,” Ellie told him shakily.

  “Humor me.”

  * * * *

  Yeri choked back a desire to sob as he picked himself up. He’d known the instant when things went wrong and had done his best to deflect the falling pot away from Ellie. He’d failed. Most of the liquid had landed on him, as he’d planned, but more than enough had struck the woman, too. The coffee had been at a boil. He reached for the fallen tray, but Devlin stopped him by grabbing a handful of mane.

  “How dare you hurt her,” Devlin snarled at him. The man pulled him out of the dining room toward the staircase.

  Each time Yeri’s left foot pressed to the floor, an intensely sharp pain shot up his leg. He did his best to hide the pain, absolutely refusing to favor the leg. Devlin just about dragged him down the steps into the basement.

  Yeri had an idea of what the man was up to, and he didn’t resist. He had hurt his mistress. He deserved to be punished. He was certain of that. When Devlin led him up to the whipping post, Yeri silently cooperated, pressing his body against the smooth wood and lifting his wrists for binding. Devlin locked the chains to Yeri’s permanent wrist bracelets. Yeri wrapped his hands around the chains and set himself to take his punishment stoically.

  The first crack of the whip lashing against his back caused him to gasp, but he welcomed the pain. Devlin wielded the whip with a heavy hand, pausing between strikes only long enough to set himself for the next powerful blow. Yeri didn’t count the strikes, nor did Devlin try to demand that of him. Eventually, he cried out in pain as the whip lashed across welts and cuts already laid down, but his cries only encouraged the man.

  * * * *

  Marra slowly cleaned up the dining room. She knelt heavily to pick up the fallen coffee service. Fortunately, the ceramic demitasse cups had survived the fall, cushioned by the thick pile of the carpet. That had been such an odd accident. Yeri was so graceful it was hard to imagine him tripping. Her gaze swept the carpet for clues. Abruptly, she paused. The carpet was dark and damp where the coffee had splashed, but there was one spot that was darker, not connected to the coffee stain. She touched it. It was still damp. When she lifted her finger, the tip was red.

  “Blood,” she said to herself. “Isn’t that interesting.” She wiped her finger clean on a rag, picked up the remaining items, and stood just as heavily as she’d knelt. Some days, she felt every single one of her seventy-six years. She carried everything back into the kitchen, still clucking to herself about the accident.

  * * * *

  “You were lucky,” the medic told Ellie confidently. “This could have been much worse.” She had already sprayed medicine on the burns and was deftly wrapping them in snowy white gauze.

  “Thank you,” George said. He had the hand of Ellie’s uninjured arm locked in his grip. She thought it endearing, and the anxious expression, full of worry and love for her, did much to ease her heart. The pain had vanished with the application of the spray. She’d be taking a bottle of it home with her.

  “You’re right, I was pretty lucky.” She only had three burned spots, two on her left arm, one on her thigh, and they weren’t that big. The shock and pain had made it feel much worse than it really was. She glanced at George. “How very odd of him to just trip.” She wasn’t accusing, not yet, but in her mind, Yeri had done this on purpose.

  * * * *

  Yeri huddled in the back corner of the kenne
l. The cool concrete felt good against his aching back but did nothing to soothe his other pains or the pain in his heart. Devlin had thrown him in there after the whipping, he hadn’t resisted, he had hardly been able to stand. The pain in his foot wouldn’t quit, and contrary to popular belief, his other pains didn’t lessen or distract from that.

  He cataloged his hurts as a means for coping. First item, the pain in his left foot, a sharp, throbbing pain that turned into a lance of purest agony whenever something pressed against it. Next item, the searing ache across his chest and upper right arm where the boiling coffee had struck him. The liquid had eventually dried, but the scent of coffee remained strong in his nostrils, a constant reminder of his failure. Final item, the aching throb of his back from the layers of whip lashes, many of which had broken his skin. The blood matting his fur made his back itch and tugged at the skin unpleasantly.

  The physical pains were as nothing to him compared to the emotional pain of having hurt Ellie, of having disappointed George. He knew he’d have to face his master, but his heart quailed at the thought. It had been an accident, truly, but it was still entirely his fault. He had hurt Ellie, George’s wife. His mistress. It didn’t matter that he’d had no control over it. It was his fault that she was hurt. He wanted to weep even knowing that tears solved nothing.

  * * * *

  George brought Ellie home and gently assisted her into the office chair. He’d wanted to put her in bed, but she’d laughingly said that she wasn’t an invalid and she had studying to do. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Please,” Ellie replied, smiling at him. She was already opening her textbook.

  George went to the kitchen. Marra was puttering about, cleaning the already spotless counters with one hand and holding Lee to her shoulder with the other. He felt like an intruder even though it was his kitchen, his house, his baby. He cleared his throat.

  Marra turned to him expectantly. “How is she?”

  “Three second-degree burns, all treated and bandaged. It could have been worse.” George grimaced. He knew Ellie thought Yeri’d done it on purpose, but he wasn’t so sure. “Any idea of how it happened? I wasn’t looking when he tripped.”

  “There was blood on the carpet. How it got there, I don’t know. I wanted you to see it before I cleaned it up.”

  “Show me,” George requested.

  Marra led him to the dining room. He could see the stain in the carpet where the coffee had spilled—hardly any had struck Ellie, from the size of it. She pointed to a darker spot, barely visible due to its small size, unattached to the coffee stain, and about the right place for where Yeri had been standing. George knelt and touched it. It was blood, he was certain of it. But what had caused it?

  “Thank you, Marra. If you could get Ellie some coffee, please? She’s in the study. I need to speak to Yeri.” George’s gaze fastened on other dark spots, all in a trail leading out of the room. Yeri had entered from the kitchen but had left toward the staircase—if those spots were all bloodstains.

  “Of course. Devlin took him downstairs.” Marra turned and walked back into the kitchen.

  George frowned at her back. Why had Devlin taken Yeri anywhere? He shrugged, stood, and went downstairs. He found Yeri in the single kennel that had been installed while he’d been on his honeymoon. He wouldn’t have approved of it had he been asked, and now, the sight of Yeri locked into the thing made his blood boil. The Rovani was curled up against the far back corner as if trying to hide, but there wasn’t any place to hide in there, it was a steel-bar cage four feet wide by six feet deep. The concrete floor was bare, not even a blanket cluttered up the space. “Yeri.”

  Yeri uncoiled and crept to the front of the cage. He didn’t bother standing. He came to a stop, knelt with his head bowed. “Please forgive me, master.”

  George found the latch for the door and discovered that it wasn’t locked. He opened it, stepped into the kennel and knelt beside Yeri. The first order of business was to reassure his friend. “Of course, I forgive you; it was an accident.” He set a hand on Yeri’s shoulder. “I didn’t see it, though. What happened? Why did you stumble?”

  “I don’t know,” Yeri said softly. “It wasn’t a conscious action, master. I would never have permitted mistress to get hurt if I could control it. I tried to direct it away from her. I failed.”

  Thinking about the blood on the carpet, George said, “Let me see your feet.”

  Yeri turned away from him, went to his hands and knees, and lifted his feet up for George. The pads of Yeri’s feet were tough skin, darker than his normally pale flesh. The ball of his left foot was black with dried blood. George touched it, and Yeri’s body flinched in a reflexive reaction. George grabbed the ankle and carefully ran his fingers across the area—he wasn’t trying to torture Yeri, he was trying to find the actual injury. He felt a hard spot, different from the surrounding flesh, but when he probed it more directly, Yeri just about jerked the foot out of his grasp.

  “Reflex action,” George murmured, more fascinated than disturbed. “There must have been something in the carpet. Does it hurt?”

  “Yes, master,” Yeri whispered. As soon as George released his ankle, he curled back around and pressed his forehead to the floor. He didn’t speak, just laid there at George’s feet in a posture of absolute submission.

  It turned George’s stomach. The lighting and position, however, also gave him a view of Yeri’s back. The matted, darkened fur told the tale. “Devlin whipped you?”

  Yeri didn’t move, didn’t reply.

  George tried to control his temper, but the more he looked at Yeri’s back, the deeper his rage grew. “Yeri, yes or no. Did Devlin whip you?”

  “Yes, master.”

  That was all George needed to hear. He shot to his feet. “Get up and come with me.”

  Yeri obeyed silently, first gathering himself then standing. He followed George without a trace of a limp, however. George glanced back but saw only the expressionless mask Yeri wore when he didn’t want anything of his thoughts or feelings to be known. George concentrated on his sense of Yeri, a trick he’d been working on with Taiki’s help. A telempathic bond should work both ways, after all. He managed to understand that Yeri was in a great deal of pain and, typical of his nature, concealing it as best he could. He wasn’t limping only because he refused to show any weakness.

  George led the way upstairs then looked to Yeri again. “Where’s Devlin?”

  Chapter Five

  The anger in George’s scent was overwhelming. Yeri refrained from trembling by force of will alone, but the truth of the matter was that he was terrified. His mistress had been hurt, and his master was deeply enraged. He glanced at George swiftly, not daring to the look the man in the eye before he looked down again.

  “In the study, master.” Although he was primarily an animal telepath, he still knew where every human in the house was without having to think about it. If he cared to extend himself, he could locate every single person he personally knew in the city, but he couldn’t hear the least thought from any of them. According to Taiki, that was why he had remained sane despite living for decades with active, unshielded psi.

  George grunted an acknowledgment and strode through the house with a firm, rapid step. Yeri gritted his teeth and tried to keep up, ignoring the agony that shot up his leg with every step. The more he walked, the more it hurt, and the more difficult it became to keep moving. When they reached the study, at last, it was all Yeri could do to turn his impending collapse into what appeared like a simple kneel.

  Devlin was standing beside the desk Ellie was seated at, whatever he’d been saying was cut off as George entered. The man half turned to face them, his expression one of polite inquiry, but Yeri could smell his fear.

  “You’re fired,” George stated in a flat tone of voice. “Pack your stuff and get out of my house.” His hand came to rest on Yeri’s head, the warmth felt good, but it was the reassurance that Geor
ge wasn’t mad at him that enabled Yeri to relax.

  “What? Why?” That was Ellie, not Devlin. The man was too shocked to speak; he stood there staring at George with his mouth hanging open.

  “I will not tolerate bigotry in my house,” George said evenly, but the anger was readily apparent. “I will not permit any further abuse of Yeri. I don’t care what happened or why, or who was to blame, nothing gave Devlin the right to whip him.”

  “If I overstepped my bounds, I apologize,” Devlin said stiffly.

  George cut off what else he might say. “You did, and this wasn’t the first time. No more chances. Your hatred for a being who has never offered you harm is intolerable to me. Your misguided beliefs are poisoning this household. I want you gone.”

  “But, George, he’s served my family his entire life,” Ellie protested.

  “Good. Then, he knows where to go when he leaves here. I’ll even buy him the ticket to Thessalonika.”

  “It’s not fair,” Ellie continued. “Yeri’s the one who spilled the coffee, not Devlin. He had nothing to do with my getting hurt. Okay, so he overstepped himself by punishing Yeri. It won’t happen again. But Devlin was only trying to protect me. It’s not unreasonable to punish a slave for injuring someone, you know.”

  George glanced down at him, and Yeri flinched at the anger he sensed. It took all of his courage to speak up. He addressed his remarks to the floor, completely unable to look up. “I deserved the punishment, master.” He didn’t much care for Devlin, but Ellie was right. Devlin hadn’t done anything wrong. “Master Devlin was right to beat me.”

  “No, he wasn’t right.” George’s voice was soft and gentle. The anger was mostly gone now, replaced by sorrow and remorse. George knelt down, placed a hand under Yeri’s chin and forced him to look up. “Nobody has a right to whip another person. That’s just wrong.”

  Yeri shuddered as George’s blue eyes stared into him, his fear and sense of shame were overwhelming, and he desperately wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me.” His stomach was clenched in a knot that formed the core of the terror that clawed at his insides. His balls were drawn up tight, and his spinal ridge was flattened down. He felt the tears trickling from his eyes, further shaming him. Why is he doing this? Haven’t I already been punished?