Cantrips: Volume #1: Minor Magics Crafted to Amuse and Entertain

by Joey W. Hill

  You seem to be imagining quite a few male slaves. No female servants visiting?

  For the first time, there was a thread of amusement in his tense mind-voice, and she managed a nervous sliver of the same in her response. Do you think I like seeing you touch other females, any more than you like the thought of me touching other males?

  You are fine with me touching Amara.

  Not always. I’m fine with it, but...there are times I want you all for myself. To devour you with my eyes, my mouth, with all of me. I cannot get enough of you, my lord. It’s an ache inside of me that never stops. That’s why I can’t bear you being where I’m not.

  It was a remarkable admission, given how far she’d been from that when they met. She was making herself wetter, not only from Amara and Enrique’s stimulation, but from her own imaginations now, despite her fear. She could feel the slickness on her calves, where her buttocks pressed near her heels. He was silent for a few moments, but she didn’t censor herself, letting him feel the throbbing ache she had inside for all of him.

  Sometimes there was no such thing as getting close enough. When he was away from her, she felt like a new amputee, no anesthetic, some vital part of her chopped off, raw and painful, horribly so, such that she might go mad from the pain. That feeling was far deeper and more vast than any fear she carried. In fact, the few times her terrors and depression had overcome her, she suspected it had as much to do with his absence as the ability of her memories to overcome her when he was not there to balance it.

  I need to be with you, my lord. Always.

  He stayed silent, but she felt his weighted attention in her mind, and took it for encouragement. He was listening, considering. So she pushed herself further, made herself look beyond the equipment to the wall behind it.

  Paddles, gags, chastity belts with plugs for both orifices. She thought about the spreader bar that could be put over the shoulders, an unyielding yoke keeping the wrists at shoulder level. It was adjustable, so that the arms could be stretched out straight from the body and held that way. If he locked her in that, she would have to move carefully to serve him. She saw herself tipping gracefully at the bar to pick up his goblet in two fingers. But when she brought the blood, leaned down and twisted her naked upper body to give it to him, he would take the goblet, set it aside and put his hands on her waist. Gathering her in so her knee pressed beneath his spread thighs where he was sitting, he would lean her body into him, cup her breasts and sink his fangs into the left one just above the nipple. As she gasped, her eyes closing with the pain and ecstasy of it, he would hold her there with his strength as he suckled her blood from her breast.

  Descending, his hands would cup her buttocks, play in between them, tease the sensitive nerve endings there so she writhed and gasped against his stimulation. Then he would push her onto her knees, make her take his cock in his mouth. Grasping that bar on either side of her neck, he would use it to push her down on him harder, hold her there with his cock deep in her throat. As he came at last, jetting his seed into her, her cunt would weep, her hands closed into fists of need in their cuffs on the steel bar. Fluids would slide down her thighs as she came merely from the pleasure of serving him, pussy spasming around the emptiness she needed him to fill.

  Habiba... His mind voice was hoarse, and she knew she’d made him impossibly hard. She wanted him to come for her now, wanted him to put his hand on himself and shoot that white, salty cream against his hard, ridged stomach and smooth pectorals, so she could lick it all off, tend to her Master. She would beg for it. She was begging for it.

  More silence, but there was a rough edge to it in her mind, making her suspect he was getting himself under control, restraining himself from releasing as she desired. When he finally spoke, he had an ominous tone, a threat that only made her sex spasm, her breasts ache more intensely.

  There is such a thing as topping from the bottom, Jessica. It usually earns a slave her Master’s fiercest punishment.

  I am yours to do with as you will, Master.

  And you know when you call me Master, it only arouses and provokes me more. I should order you out of that room, make Amara and Enrique escort you if need be. I do not tolerate this type of defiance. You know this.

  She held her breath, waiting, not sure of his mind now.

  My plane will be landing soon.

  Another long pause, and she bowed her head, her hair falling down over her shoulder, teasing the curve of her breast. During her imaginings, her grip had slipped, and she realized she now held the robe beneath her breasts, so that the robe covered very little. The stiff tips of her breasts were jutting with need, her thighs shifted slightly apart so she could smell her arousal. She knew he received those thoughts from her, those pictures, and though she hadn’t deliberately intended to do that, she knew from the blast of heat she received from him that she had indeed pushed him beyond endurance. She just didn’t know what that meant.

  Please, my lord, don’t...

  Be still.

  She tightened her jaw, curbing the desire to retort. Damn it, why was he so stubborn? But even she knew when she might have pushed it a little past where she should. Still, there was that unwise frisson of temptation, with him being so far away... Her fingers trembled on the robe, thinking she might drop it entirely. Her back still had that warm tingle from Enrique’s lash, but she wanted it overlaid with Mason’s punishment. God help her, she wanted to feel the sting of a whip wielded by his hand, feel a single tail strike the old scars on her back, overlay them and tease the tiger tattoo that had been interwoven through them.

  You are a curse upon my very soul. The sound that followed made her wonder if vampires could grind their teeth. Then he spoke again.

  Keep your robe where it is. I am telling Amara to turn up the temperature. I don’t want you cold.

  Despite the cosseting, his voice had become more stern and implacable, such that she despaired, wondering what else she had to do to convince him. She’d pushed herself to the limits of how far she could go without his help. Imagining had been hard enough, and her trepidation rose again, warring with the arousal, creating a tight barbed-wire coil in her lower belly.

  You will stay where you are. You will wait there until I arrive and determine how to deal with your disobedience. Until then, you keep your legs open as they are now, your eyes down so I may gaze through your mind at what is mine. Your stiff nipples, your wet pussy, the blood pounding through your slim neck, every inch of your soft skin. You will sit there and imagine everything I will do to it with my hands, my mouth and my cock when I get there. Do you understand?

  She trembled, tears biting at her throat, but they were mixed with hope. She managed to answer, speaking the words aloud as well as in her mind. “Yes, my lord.”

  Part Five

  Though he’d said his plane would land soon, she knew his definition of soon and hers were different in this instance. It was a good thing the third mark gave a servant’s body even more stamina, not just for exertion, but for stillness, because it took him several hours to get home. She’d actually expected it to take longer, so she’d gone into a near trance, keeping her eyes down, focused on her naked body as he commanded. But she wasn’t idle in that trance.

  While she waited, her mind rewrote the words he’d spoken. And each time she did, she crafted them into a new scenario where she would serve his pleasure. At first, she imagined just the two of them here, alone. He had her locked on a wheel rack, her body arched up toward him, muscles straining, and he was dripping candlewax over her breasts, tiny, artful patters of drops where she flinched and trembled at each burning touch. He would do it until the curves, the sensitive nipples, were fair molded beneath waxes flavored with vanilla, sandalwood, smoke. And then he’d smooth his fingers over those moldings, denying the skin beneath his touch, taunting her as he circled the tip of a hard, wax-coated nipple.

  But she needed to be braver, and so she was. The next fantasy, she was here with him, but others were wa
tching. He attached clamps to her nipples and clit, ran three silken ribbons from each of those attachments and gave the ends to nine in the audience. She had to dance for him as if they were alone, feeling the pressure of those ribbons tighten and slacken depending on which way she turned, how she undulated her hips, arched her back, lifted her foot and turned into the silken restraints. Eventually, he had all the ribbons again, and he bade her stand still as he increased the pressure on those tethers, pulling at the clamps on clit and nipples until the pain and pleasure were excruciating, until she begged him for mercy, to let her come to him. When he gave her permission, he had her turn, wrap herself in the ribbons, so that when she reached him she was immobilized. Then he laid her on a table where they could watch her, reach out and...

  She had to back away from that one, move onto another. She’d also kept those nine watchers in the shadows, their faces blurred. She had to do better than that.

  There was an oak chair in this dungeon room, a large chair for a powerful man. The kind of chair that would have been placed at the head of the table in a great hall. It might be from a medieval time period, for it had artwork reminiscent of that era carved in the tall back. In her next scenario, he sat in the chair and lifted her onto his lap, guided her down onto his cock, holding her back against his body as he faced her outward. The hands came, those faceless guests cupping her breasts, stroking her hair, her face. Fingers teased her parted lips, invaded and explored her mouth, and Mason whispered to her to suck on them. Then they slid down her stomach, a wet trail, and painted that moisture on the stretched lips of her sex around his cock, enhancing the fullness inside her.

  She realized she was imagining all those hands as his hands, as if she were in a room full of Masons, so every touch was his, no matter from which direction it came. She tried to imagine those hands as the hands of strangers, and found she had to accelerate it, like fast forward on the movie player. Then she had to take some time, breathe, get her nerves under control. She had to do better than this, damn it.

  She kept going, thinking up scene after scene, even venturing into dark areas of pain and restraint that made things inside of her stomach flop uneasily, while other parts of her body responded in an altogether different way as she imagined him doing the restraining, inflicting the pain.

  If she kept up at this rate, she was going to have a new version of 1001 Nights laid out in her mind, just like Scheherazade. Only instead of trying to stave off her Fate at her lord’s hands, she was welcoming it. However, if he didn’t get here soon, she might just die from an explosion of bottled-up lust.

  She was doing it to herself, of course. As she crafted her erotic stories, even with the jittering of nerves, arousal ebbed and flowed. Her nipples hardened into points under her gaze. What had dried in tracks on her smooth legs dampened anew as moisture gathered in her pussy, trickled along the pocket of her thigh, teased her knee cap. A few times during her more passionate imaginings, a shudder gripped her like a convulsion. If she tightened up enough, she might send herself over, just from her visions. But she refused herself. That was her Master’s decision.

  He was silent in her mind, but now that he was in range, she hoped he saw every lust-charged scenario. If he would talk to her, he might embellish them with ideas of his own. Not just to share as a story, but as a promised future reality where he would add the ruthless carnality of his vampire nature to the mix, taking each fantasy to an even deeper, more intense level. She was ready for it. She was sure of it.

  She’d reached fifty-six detailed erotic vignettes and staved off several near misses in bringing herself to orgasm when she suddenly felt him. He was home.

  His presence in the house was the difference between a gray shadow, half-dream state and full-bodied color and life, sweeping through her. She gave a soft prayer of thanks for his safe return, for him being a part of her life. It was something she did every time he came back to her and, though he didn’t yet speak to her or give her leave to speak in his mind, he let her feel the reassuring touch of his presence, responding to that fervent thanks with a brief tenderness. No matter how she’d goaded his temper, he loved her. She knew that was what was most important, and she was willing to do whatever he wanted from her, but she couldn’t retreat from this. Tightening her chin, she knew she’d fight him on that, if she had to do it.

  As soon as she had the stray thought, the tenderness became something different, heat with a perilous promise. Despite his acknowledgment of her prayer, his feelings about what she’d done had not mellowed or abated. He was an extremely old vampire for his kind and, although he preferred distance from vampire society, in some ways he was more unyielding on matters of obedience and respect than even the other Council members. She also knew he had a way of considering things from all angles, exploring his options thoroughly before he decided exactly how he would handle a situation. And he’d had hours to decide how he would deal with her.

  Though he didn’t speak, he did open a visual channel into his mind for her. He went to his room first, rather than coming to her first thing. He blocked her from his thoughts, but she saw him leave the suitcase on the bed. Enrique would put his things away for him. She watched as Mason unbuttoned his shirt. Since she was looking through his eyes, she couldn’t see him shrug it off his shoulders, revealing the tiger tattoo that had been marked with his blood to hold the design there, but she could well imagine it. Swallowing on a dry throat, she thought of how that tiger would ripple as he tossed the shirt over a chair. He unhooked his trousers, a simple, casual gesture that sent her pulse rabbiting. As they dropped low on his hips, he was moving with that catlike way of walking he had. The striated terrain of his abdomen would shift, tempting touch, as he moved into the bathroom and--for the love of fucking God--turned on the shower.

  She’d stirred herself to near climax by imagining all the different ways she could serve him, be taken over by him. One of them had featured her on her knees in his shower, taking him in her mouth, the head of his cock pushing deep into her throat. Her eyes were shut from the spray of the water, everything focused on his scent, the steam, the clutch of his hand in her hair. Only she wasn’t really there. She was here, looking through his viewpoint as he ran soap along his broad chest, then down, sliding his hand around the base of an enormously erect cock rising from between powerful thighs, a nest of heavy testicles. Her pussy contracted on itself, weeping anew, and her palms were sweating as she held them in tight fists.

  She wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t cry out or plea. This might be Mason underscoring the control he held as her Master, which, in a torturous way, was an encouraging sign. This was part of her punishment. Still, the size of that erection said he’d most definitely been listening to the different stories she’d imagined. Fifty-six vignettes, filled with salacious details that, for as in depth as she’d thought they’d been, didn’t come close to this mind-view of his body. She’d missed having him sheltering her at night as she slept, how often he touched her and allowed himself to be touched. And now here he was, so close it felt like she could reach down through his gaze and caress that hard organ, the line of hip and thigh. She wanted to be pressed up against him, nipping that chest, curling her hands in his wet long hair, the long copper strands gone to near black in the shower. She’d reach around to soap the muscular buttocks and his hands would close over her wrists as she tried to tease the seam between. His smile, the light in his eyes, could make her heart stutter. He loved it when she played with him like a mischievous child.

  But now she experienced all that through this screen, this distance, that left her hands and her body empty. He was too far away, and she couldn’t bear it another moment. She wanted to get up, run up those stairs, run to that shower. She didn’t, but it was a near thing. She was breathing fast, a sob catching in her throat.

  He didn’t linger overlong there, thank all the gods. He pulled on jeans and a close-fitting long sleeved tee, pushing up the sleeves. He didn’t bother with anything beneath the denim
, and she knew just how good his lower body looked in it. As an Old World male, he wore dress clothes as easily as many men wore jeans, though he looked devastating in both. She preferred him in Bedouin robes most of all. When his arms closed around her, she could find his body through the wide sleeves or open front, if he only wore a tunic. But tonight, the jeans and knit shirt that delineated that mouthwatering physique worked for her.

  He still didn’t come to her. Ordering a glass of wine from the kitchen staff, he partook of it by himself in the dining room. He asked them to light the brace of candles on the table and spent some time studying the tapers while he sipped the wine. As he considered the way the ivory wax dripped down the sides and pooled in the silver catch tray, she wondered if he was imagining her first scenario, dripping hot wax on her flesh. When Melinda, one of the kitchen girls, brought him a small sampling of fruit and cheese, his gaze shifted and alighted on a peach half, the mauve-orange deep color. The fruit was so ripe it glistened with juices where it had been cut.

  Oh, holy hell.

  Jess swallowed as he picked it up, turned it over to the peel side to stroke that light fuzz that was like a woman’s skin. When he returned to the fruit portion, he slid his finger along the valley where the pit had been cut away, leaving just a channel of slick flesh to taste. As he traced that area, he put pressure on it, making the juices swell around his fingertip. It made his knuckles start to glisten, the way they did when he slid his fingers inside of her, stroked the walls of her pussy and made her writhe under his clever touch.