Rogue’s Possession

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Now what?” My voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

  “Whatever you want, fierce Gwynn.”

  “You don’t have any limitations you want to put on me?”

  He shook his head, holding my gaze. “I trust you. Whatever you wish. No repercussions. I won’t attempt to free myself. Until dawn,” he added and I laughed.

  “There we are.”

  “Wouldn’t want you to give me the slip.”

  “Like you couldn’t find me anywhere.” I trailed a finger down the bare skin exposed by his open shirt and he didn’t reply. Not that it had been a question. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

  They vanished and he was naked. Like a schoolgirl, I gasped. I couldn’t possibly be blushing, but my cheeks felt hot. Thankfully, he didn’t tease me for it. Just lay still, a bounty of male beauty spread before me to do whatever I liked with.

  And it wasn’t even my birthday.

  Actually—it could have been. I was born in late August and so the season would match. Disorientation washed over me. I might never again know when my birthday was. Why it was that these small things—the ordinary milestones of life, the aching guilt that I’d left Isabel behind, that she’d never understand why I abandoned her—these were the wounds that continued to bleed. Just when I thought they’d scabbed over, something would carelessly rub against them, sending fresh sparks of pain through my system.

  “Stay with me, lovely Gwynn. Tonight is for indulgence. Save your grief for tomorrow.”

  He was right. Carpe diem and all that. With determination, I marched into the sitting room, then returned with our glasses. They’d helpfully refilled themselves—a trick I hadn’t realized the magic cocktail cart could do. This place would be a fantasyland for some.

  Rogue watched me with glittering interest. I took my time, sipping the excellent brandy and filling my eyes with him. His uncannily long body looked spectacular this way, his wiry muscles tight under that velvety skin. The black pattern on the left side of his face repeated all down that side of his body, thorny loops and swirls over his chest, belly, groin and thigh.

  No hair dusted his chest or groin. His cock, long in proportion to the rest of him, but not freakishly so, lay upthrust on his lean belly, heavy scrotum beneath. I’d read that giving head to guys who waxed was nicer. My chance to find out, should I wish.

  He had nipples, vestigial, as a human male would have. I stroked a curious hand over the unblemished surface of his abdomen, careful not to brush the weeping head of his cock.

  “How can you not have a belly button? Did you not grow in your mother’s womb?”

  He sighed, gazing steadfastly at the ceiling. “You must be the only creature ever who would be examining me like a specimen instead of having your way with me.”

  “Sorry—package deal. You’re the one who made me your consort.” I shook my head so the earrings swung, sending pleasant shivers down my spine. “Besides, you agreed I could do whatever I liked.”

  “I had imagined something more salacious.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Such as?”

  “Such as the brush of your lips on my skin. Taste me, Gwynn. Please.” He undulated a little in his bonds, enticingly.

  Leaning over, I kissed the hollow under his collarbone. He tasted as hot and sweet as the sensual haze filling the air. “Like this?”

  “Ah, yes,” he breathed, a thirsty man tasting a drop of water. “More.”

  “Maybe I should just torment you—let you lie here hoping I’ll touch you.”

  His feverish gaze held mine. “You could, my cruel mistress. I’m at your mercy.”

  Though I knew it for just another game, something about this freed me from worry. I trusted that he would keep to the bargain and stay bound and let me do as I liked. For now, I thought I wanted more brandy.

  Upending the snifter, I poured a trail over his skin, from throat to groin, not caring that rivulets ran over his sides to the glorious bronze coverlet below. He hissed in pleasure, then groaned aloud when I followed the trail with my tongue.

  Rogue tipped his chin back, exposing his throat and allowing me to kiss and nibble all those delightful lines and hollows. I licked down his chest, splaying my hands over his warm skin, feeling like I could consume him. The cat deep inside purred in feral agreement and for once I didn’t mind feeling her there, prowling in my heart.

  Hunger rose in me, liquid and rapacious. I feasted on the feel of Rogue’s ethereal skin, his body moving under my touch. It seemed he loved everything I tried, humming and groaning in masculine satisfaction, his breathing deep and uneven. His thoughts swirled up, teasing mine, dark caresses of sensual emotion, pricking me here, enticing me further there, exciting me to higher levels. Urging me on.

  I needed no urging. With hands and mouth, I draped myself over him, soaking up the wild magic that was as much part of him as his bones and sinews. It filled me, winding with my own magic and fizzing together, black and gold bubbles sizzling against my skin from the inside with nearly unbearable pressure.

  When I pressed my mouth to the pulse where his femoral artery should be, that waltz-beat throbbed strong and true. Only this orchestra had picked up the pace, the cellos and bass thrumming with driving urgency, dark notes of utter abandon. I bit him there and he convulsed, calling my name and crying out for more.

  Crazed, I gave him more, took more. I tasted every inch of him, from the fragile blue-veined skin over his long-boned feet to the graceful points of his hip bones to the shadowed hollows of his collarbone to the winking horseshoe that marked him as mine. I took it in my teeth, sucking on his ear and relishing the way it made him tremble while he panted, now murmuring my name, then imploring me with wordless entreaties

  I straddled him on all fours, as he’d done me. He gazed at me in a delirium of sensuous pleasure, and power zinged through me to know I’d brought him to this extreme.

  “What do you want?” I asked him softly, taunting. We both knew I would decide whether to give it to him. He licked his dry lips, blue eyes nearly black with the passion raging through him. I snagged the little vial of green ambrosia, held it to his mouth and he drank greedily. “Three things, my gorgeous Rogue. Ask for them and maybe I’ll give them to you.”

  His face set into rigid lines, his fingers flexing. For a moment I thought he might sever the bonds that held him, but he didn’t. After all, he’d promised.

  “Why should I ask with no hope of receiving, my cruel mistress?”

  “What can you hope to gain, if you do not ask for it?”

  He bared his teeth at me. “I take. I do not ask.”

  I toyed with one of his nipples and he groaned, dropping his head back on the pillow. “You do not appear to be in a position to take just now, my Lord Rogue. Perhaps if you beg nicely for your three things, I might give you one.”

  He laughed. “Never let it be said that you are not tenacious. I’ll name three—and not those three—and you will give me two.”

  “You know there is one thing I cannot give.”

  “Will not.”

  “Semantics.”

  “Is it, my lady?” He sobered abruptly, no longer drunk with lovemaking but purely lucid, staring into my eyes as if he could penetrate my thoughts. “I don’t think so.”

  Nervous, I sat back on my heels. As that was between his spread and gloriously naked thighs, the regrouping did not give me much peace.

  “Three things then, fair Gwynn, and you decide whether to give any or all to your helpless servant.”

  I nearly laughed, but it caught in my throat at the intense blue of his gaze.

  “You, naked. Your mouth, on my cock. Your loyalty and trust, pledged forever.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me, a dare. An acknowledgment that I would refuse him all of this as I had refused him so much else. I climbed off the bed and took up my brandy glass—full again. One really had to track one’s refills. Rogue’s disappointment at my withdrawal tinged the air like the scent of burnt toa
st. He stared steadfastly at the ceiling again, visibly restraining himself.

  “Rogue.” I called his name softly and his indigo eyes snapped to me. I dropped the gown and stood there naked while he drank me in, his gaze clawing over me with near physical force. Arousal swamped me, drenching and heating me. Without him asking, I pivoted, gratified by the admiration and desire in his face.

  He said nothing when I climbed back up on the high bed and took his cock in my hand for the first time in naked reality. Strong and hot, it thrummed in my grip, velvet soft as the rest of him, corded iron beneath. I held it up, my mouth just over the reddened tip. Rogue seemed transfixed.

  “My people have a saying,” I told him, running my tongue over my lips to wet them. “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

  And I took him in my mouth.

  * * *

  Later in the night, some sound woke me and I flung out an arm to find empty space where Rogue should be, the sheets cool where he’d lain. I sat up, my hair whispering over my bare shoulders, and scanned the midnight room. Nothing and no one.

  Still, the hairs on my arms stood up, pricking my nerves.

  “Rogue?” My voice whispered in the chamber, hissing back from the cold marble. I slid out of bed, the nightgown Rogue had made for me untangling from my legs and falling around me in a slide of silk. When had I put that on? The door to the bedroom stood closed, but light shone underneath.

  I went out into the warm light of the sitting room to find it equally empty. A sudden fancy took me and I imagine that everyone in the castle had vanished and I alone remained, a tortured ghost to roam alone forever.

  “Rogue? Are you here?” I called out, more loudly. One of outer doors opened and a human soldier—I think the one Starling had flirted with, popped his head in. I hastily wrapped my arms over my revealing lace-covered bosom.

  “Is there a problem, milady?”

  “Ah, no.” Suddenly my midnight fears seemed childish and foolish. “I just wondered where Lord Rogue had gone.”

  “Said he had something to take care of, mum. I imagine he’ll see you for breakfast.”

  “Oh.”

  “Good night, milady. Sleep well.”

  Just before he closed it, Darling squeezed through the cracked-open door, broadcasting cheerful thoughts of dancing and sugar-coated mice. I let him coax me back to bed and soothe me to sleep with his special gifts.

  But the feeling of foreboding never completely faded.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In Which I Misplace Something Important

  These notes attempt to quantify something which is possibly, by its very nature, unquantifiable.

  ~Big Book of Fairyland, “True Love”

  When I woke the next morning, the worry crashed in on me with my first waking thought. Darling confirmed that Rogue had never returned—and added some sarcastic thoughts about not caring if he ever did.

  “Don’t say that, it’s bad luck.”

  Starling hadn’t turned up yet. The morning light still slanted low and dim, and nobody stirred outside that I could see. My fretfulness had awakened me early. Early enough that Darling had curled up and gone back to sleep. Or pretended to, in his huffiness. Not at all sleepy now, I found my velvet dressing robe and shrugged into its warmth.

  I rarely missed coffee, but now I wished for a latte, which amusingly popped up in a Starbucks cup, so ingrained was that image in my mind. The sweet creaminess came very close to my memory of the pumpkin spice flavors, and seemed appropriate for the cooler air, the apple orchards waiting for harvest. Cupping it in my hands, I tried to mentally trace the source of my unease.

  Rogue hadn’t been there the past few mornings when I awakened, so this should be no different. Still, after what had passed between us last night...

  My face heated, partly in embarrassment over my unusually wanton behavior and the rest in pleasure. Bringing the powerful and cagey Lord Rogue to excruciating climax with my mouth and hands had been a rush like no other. I wasn’t young enough to still confuse the emotions of such intimacy with love, but I’d thought we’d found a new understanding, a deeper connection.

  I wasn’t the first woman, by any stretch, to wake up alone after giving herself to a man, thinking to find a new beginning only to find that sex had meant the end. Besides which, I knew full well Rogue didn’t have everything he wanted from me. He might think I had given him the third thing as well.

  He might be right.

  I sighed for that uncomfortable truth and fingered the green silk ribbons still attached to the bedposts. I had vague memories of untying him. Of cuddling after. I had a nostalgic feeling of lying next to him, my head on his shoulder, breathing in his scent and touch, not wanting any more than that.

  And then what?

  I frowned at the incongruous paper cup, drained it and wished it away again. Had I fallen asleep then? Why didn’t I remember? Maybe I’d passed out from too much brandy—a daunting thought—but I hadn’t felt drunk. Just a little...wilder than usual.

  Acting on impulse, I untied the ribbons from the bedposts, carefully coiling them into neat spools. I made a little pouch, like the ones for the dragon artifacts, and stored them inside. There had been a kind of magic between us last night, and the ribbons could carry part of that still. Or I was being all romantic and sentimental. Oh well, Starling didn’t need to see what we’d been up to anyway.

  Going to the big armchairs by the windows, I curled up in one and settled my thoughts. Once upon a time, I could never have done this, being the kind of person who really sucked at meditation. Now that silent space my trainers had forced me to create waited for me. I had only to reach into it to find it again. The place where I barely existed to myself. Where I stepped out of my own being.

  As I had with Blackbird, I traced the patterns of my own brain. This time, I knew where the various cortical and subcortical areas should be. Every person’s brain is different, shaped by our experiences, but the structure is generally consistent. I wound my way through my own memories—quite the starburst of emotion around the events of last night. Oh, and connecting to the turbulence of the day’s activities. All my terror and doubt, transforming, turning into new avenues of thought.

  Something to consider.

  I dug deeper, knowing what I was looking for, but trying to set that thought aside, to keep objective. The diligent scientist built in objectivity as much as possible, because there was an insidious tendency to find what you hoped you would. Whether it came from ignoring contradictory evidence or massaging data outliers to fit the trend—if you were invested in a particular outcome, it was more likely to come about. Add the untamed variability of magic to that equation and it became that much worse.

  Aha. And there it was. Black and oily and slick—a dark ribbon attached to my memories of last night, and I could no more sink my claws of understanding into it than I had been able to with Blackbird. Or than I would have been able to with Rogue, for surely he had one too, if I’d looked instead of being distracted with his enticing offer. There was also no knowing how long it had been there. I’d never known to look before. Possibly Marquise and Scourge put it there. Or Lady Healer.

  Somehow, I doubted that, however.

  I left it alone for now. Casting about, I looked for the cat, that other self growing like a mushroom in the dark of my subconscious, but found no trace. I didn’t really think I would. Seeing into my own unknowable mind would be useful—and probably unprecedented. Slowly, I let myself rise up from my deep brain, a diver being careful of getting the bends.

  But I couldn’t shake that greasy foreboding, that sense that I’d taken another step into a morass from which I could never escape.

  I opened my eyes to the cheery light of midday and blinked, further unsettled by the contrast and the passage of time.

  With uncanny prescience, Starling came in. “All done then?”

  “Ah. Yes.”

  She cocked her head at me, looking a bit weary. “Are you all right?”
/>
  “I’m fine. How was the dancing?”

  “Titania, I’m tired!” She flopped into the chair opposite. “What a fun night, but I’m glad we have today to rest before we head to the Port of Blue Mermaids.”

  “To catch a sailing ship?”

  “Of course! Lord Rogue didn’t tell you?”

  “No.” I frowned, searching my memory. We had talked about sailing somewhere, right? “Maybe so.”

  “Something is wrong. Tell me.”

  “Eh. It’s just...” I shrugged. “Did you notice anything odd last night?”

  “Not really and I was up until nearly dawn.”

  “Funny—I woke up once and didn’t hear any music.”

  “Magical soundproofing,” she explained. “Most of the bedrooms at Castle Brightness have it.”

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  Alarm tightened Starling’s dreamy expression. “What happened? Do I need to call the guards?”

  “No, no. It’s nothing like that. I had a restless night and now I haven’t seen Rogue yet today.”

  “Lord Rogue generally turns up in the evening, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes—exactly. So there’s no need to worry.”

  “I’m surprised you’d even think to be concerned about him. I thought you were just as happy not to have him underfoot. Besides, he can take care of himself.”

  Of course she was right.

  “Or—” she tucked her toes up under her and leaned forward, brown eyes sparkling with avid interest, “—have you changed your mind about him? The earrings look great on you and you looked very snuggly with him last night.”

  “Speaking of which—how is your mom doing today?”

  Starling wrinkled her nose at me. “Fine—don’t tell me. Mom is good. She’s kind of over being mad and upset. Getting packed up for the trip is keeping her occupied.”