The Cherished One

by Carolyn Faulkner

  It was filled with lavender and pink roses, and the room was decorated in those colors also. It did, perhaps, have small touches of himself here and there in the warmth and quality of the mahogany furnishings. It almost seemed like it had elements of an eighteenth century drawing room. There was a roaring fire in the fireplace, and a big comfy overstuffed wing backed chair in front of it, as well as a very large, lace canopied bed that they never even got to that first night.

  She found herself naked – she never seemed to have any clothes on in these dreams with him - in his arms in the chair in front of the fire, and all he did was stare at her and hold her, as if he couldn’t get enough of just the sight of her.

  He, of course, was in his usual black shirt and black pants. Somehow, being naked while he was clothed made her shiver in his arms, and the sound of his chuckle reverberated in her ear.

  “I like it when you shiver,” Max whispered into that tiny shell of an ear, which only made her do it again.

  When he kissed her for the first time in her dreams, it almost woke her up, it was so shocking, every part of her body contracted and arched almost uncomfortably. That was partly because he did it powerfully, taking her in hand and not allowing he to avoid the kiss at all, holding her head still, claiming her mouth as his, not quite roughly, but in a manner that brooked no possible defiance.

  It was a dream, and she felt free to melt against him, which she did without hesitation, looping her arms around his head, losing her fingers in that mane of black hair as he ravaged her mouth and then went on to plunder her breasts.

  Dear God, she could barely breath with his lips and tongue constantly flicking and drawing out those eager buds till they ached with pleasure, only to nip strongly at them, as if to dampen her pleasure just slightly, to tamp it down just a bit and not allow her to run headlong towards a fulfillment that he intended to control entirely, a thought which he broadcast to her quite deliberately, betting that it would add to her desire, however much she might protest that it wouldn’t possibly, in polite company.

  And, of course, it did. It had her positively mewling, and he reveled in that sound. He’d found his match. He adored controlling her, and she adored being controlled. A match made... well, definitely not in Heaven, considering what his existence had been like for the past several millennia, but somewhere really good.

  It had been too long since she’d been in his arms. Despite the fact this was new, and it hadn’t been more than a few days, really, but as far as he was concerned, any time without her was too long, and he didn’t want to wait any longer. He’d been without a woman for centuries, and he found himself much less willing to wait than he had been in the past.

  Still, he didn’t undress. He liked how blatantly she’d responded to being nude while he was clothed, so he merely made some small adjustments and freed himself, then arranged her so that she was sitting astride him, but he kept himself away from her, for the time being, smiling at the way her lower lip protruded in a pout.

  Before he brought them together, Max ran his hand over her as she sat there before him, proudly nude, breasts tip tilted and heaving, blushing a gorgeous frosted rose hue all over her body which he followed with his fingertips from her collar bone, down over each of those beautiful mounds to each swollen, well loved tip, then carefully not forgetting the underside of each breast which he found was a generally forgotten area but also very sensitive.

  Fawna’s head fell back at the sensations he was causing, making her body arch dramatically, presenting itself to him just that much more so. Those insistent tips had been traveling right to that spot between her legs that was probably dripping down onto him right now, and she wanted to close her legs in embarrassment, but of course she couldn’t, and that only made her blush just that much worse.

  Then his fingers began to move again, and she groaned aloud, knowing she was doing it alone in the night, in her bedroom, that she was literally writhing in her bed as she was writhing on top of him in her dream.

  Those fingertips – callused, she noticed, and wondered fleetingly from what a vampire got calluses – trailed down her tummy slowly, excruciatingly slow and stopped, just above the area where she desperately wanted them to venture boldly forth.

  “Fawna, look at me.”

  Even in her dreams, she was embarrassed and reluctant to do so. She’d never lost her virginal modesties, and this was one of them, but her desires overrode her shyness, and her eyes made their way to his.

  When their eyes finally met, two of his fingers delved into her cleft, and she couldn’t help but grab for the stability of his broad shoulders as her knees literally went weak. He was gratified to find that she was again, dripping with tribute, with which he bathed his fingers and then her clit, rubbing it relentlessly, and thoroughly enjoying the way she moaned and writhed, trying to ride his hand to a completion that he wasn’t about to allow just yet.

  When he withdrew his hand, she made a grab for it with a growl, earning herself a flurry of crisp smacks to her bottom. “Who decides when you climax, Fawna?”

  He heard her quickly indrawn breath, and knew he’d hit another mother load of desire. “You do,” she whispered.

  “Damn right. Next time you reach for my hand like that, I’ll spank you here,” he clutched her privates, “instead of here,” he squeezed a reddened bottom cheek. For a moment, he thought of spanking her and fondling her at the same time, driving her to an orgasm that was part pleasure, part pain, but then he decided that that was better left for another time, and he began stroking her again, distracting her from the fire he’d just set in her rear.

  He was learning to read her as best he could, trying to gage where she was in the spiral, wanting to claim her at just the right point, but there came a time when watching her, hearing her uncontrolled moans, seeing those bobbing breasts and feeling how drenchingly wet she was for him had him nearly out of control himself, and he knew it was now or never, regardless of where she was.

  Max reached for her hips and lifted her, keeping her eyes locked with his as he positioned her on the tip of his manhood, holding her there easily, then watching her eyes pop as he allowed her weight to slowly slide himself inside her, to force her to open her body to him, to allow him to claim her in the most primitive way a man could own a woman.

  When she had taken all of him, to the hilt, and he had moved her legs in such a way that she had no choice but to do so, he growled, “You are mine.” Max began pounding in and out of her, grasping her hips so that she couldn’t avoid the power of his strokes, rasping himself in and out of her, up and over that spot he had so carefully tortured almost to fruition, and within three strokes he felt and saw her go wild with it. She nearly fought him in the midst of her pleasure, pounding on his chest and shoulders, as if she couldn’t bear the enormity of the pleasure.

  But he wouldn’t allow her to escape it as he watched those lacy wings of hers sprout and flutter over them, and indeed, he drove her on to a second, mind shattering explosion that had them fairly flapping before he allowed his own release to overcome him with a howl that, he was sorry to note, caused those beautiful wings to retract suddenly, as if they could not tolerate so animalist a sound.

  It was so raw, so pleasurable it was almost violent in its intensity, but in the aftermath, he simply held her. There were no words.

  The dream ended with her curled up in his arms, in that big overstuffed chair, with the two of them simply staring into the fire, until it faded into sleep for her.

  The next morning, her bed looked like a cyclone had hit it, and her panties were literally soaked. She searched her mind for any trace of his presence, but no more overt presence was there but the usual tinge of him at the back of her mind.

  Still, he continued to visit her in her dreams throughout the week, although they were not all as wondrous as the first. A lot of them, after the first, ended up with her being disciplined – sometimes she was only disciplined, and not pleasured at all, which was the type of dream
she was much less enamored of. Sometimes she was spanked and then pleasured, which was much more to her liking, not that he seemed to be paying much attention, necessarily, to what she liked, although she had to admit that he did tend to have a pretty good memory about her preferences, especially when it came to intimate matters.

  He was scrupulous about not wearing her out, and never occupied her dreams for too long, always making sure she got a good night’s sleep, and if she was having a hard time sleeping, or hadn’t gotten much rest the night before, he did not visit her that night, and the next evening, he made sure to pleasure her to within an inch of her life, which always made her sleep better. He was nothing if not a gentlemanly incubus.

  Chapter Nine

  On the third night after she got home, he came to her in her dreams and brought her back to his bedroom, only this time he bent her over the edge of his bed. In his hand was a very intimidating looking leather belt, which she soon felt the brunt of across her backside. It was unbelievably awful, and yet he seemed to absorb at least some her pain – but not in a way that alleviated it, more in a way that allowed him to experience it through her. Almost feed off of it, as if it was blood. Every stroke and resulting moan or groan or scream only made him hotter, and what was worse was that he would occasionally reach between her legs, which he’d been forced to lash well apart, to the bedposts, in fact, only to prove to her that her protests were lies, because her body loved the lash.

  Every time he found himself there, he would linger where he was, with his hand between her obscenely opened legs to make sure that he reminded her of the ecstasy that he could bring to her that was – unfortunately for her – always just below the surface, ready to be called up at any time, no matter, it seemed, how harsh the punishment.

  But he stopped, of course, just short of the stroke that would take her over that last crest and into spasms of ecstasy. Instead, he took a step or two away from her and aimed that wicked belt at her backside, her thighs this time, instead of her already ravaged hind end, wrapping the buckle end around the palm of his hand, but leaving a goodly length that would provide a solid thwack against her skin, and leave an unmistakable trail behind it, but wouldn’t wrap around to the sensitive sides and fronts of her legs.

  Every stroke had Fawna howling, and trying to stomp her feet within their bonds, not that she actually could. Her backside was throbbing and pulsating and stinging and burning, no matter what his fingers or the wetness between her legs told him, and he was reaching for yet another implement!

  Max showed it to her, of course, knowing that seeing it was almost as bad as feeling it. It was small and thin and white, like a conductor’s baton, and it looked more innocuous than it probably was.

  And she was dead right.

  She couldn’t even howl after he administered the first stroke. The line of fire across her hindquarters was indescribable.

  But then, directly after applying that God awful stripe, he pressed two fingers inside her, along with two other fingers that reached around to the front of her and found that secret spot, bringing her back to writhing at the near peak of pleasure within a shamefully short amount of time. Max leaned forward, over her roasted rear. “As much as you don’t like it, Fawna, Cherie, you like it.”

  She screamed, “NO!” louder than she ever had before in her life, and continued to do so, not that it stopped him, and soon that “no” simply became a scream, first of agony and then of ecstasy, when he repeated the process, and brought her back again. It took just a bit longer each time, because each stroke hurt that much more, but he was always able to get her there.

  Finally, he threw the baton away, released her legs and turned her over, kneeling in front of her open legs as if he was at prayer.

  “No,” Max said into her head as he laid his mouth over that ultra sensitized part of her for the first time, “I’m going to worship.”

  And worship he did, with his mouth, his fingers, and every other part of his body, until he knew she was about to burst with it, and then he rolled, so that she was on top of him, because he loved the sight of those fey faerie appendages floating above them. He knew he would need to control his tendency towards canine howling, and he did it, so she would grace him with the sight of those beautiful wings of hers as she raced into the sun.

  ***

  Max had been trying to be good, trying to be circumspect, to stay out of her mind as he knew she wanted him to, at least during the day. He hadn’t been as good about that as he knew he should have, especially the day she arrived home. High emotion seemed to draw him to her, and she’d been happy and excited to get home.

  Max had heard her thoughts when she’d been talking to her mother and brother, and he found the conversation very revealing and very painful. Her confusion about him, about his motives and her feelings for him, as well as his for her, opened his eyes, helped him realize just what an uphill battle he was going to have in winning her over.

  But it was a campaign he intended to win, and the dream visits he intended to commence would help.

  He deliberately stayed away from her for almost a week after she got home, letting her have some time to get settled and see her family, rather than descending on her like some stalker.

  Besides, he could almost – almost – get his fill over her at night. But not quite.

  Instead, about a week after she’d come back, he surprised her by showing up on her doorstep, which, considering their recent history, was a relatively brave thing to do. He was wearing a gorgeous, lightweight, light gray suit that had to have been designer, and he looked like a runway model. Okay, he looked like two runway models, because he was at least two times beefier than they were. But he was a stunner. He hadn’t gotten his hair cut exactly, but he had had it styled and tamed somewhat, and he looked, on the whole, pretty damned uncomfortable.

  His clothing choices to date had been much more in keeping with his identity as a vampire. Black, black and more black. Black suits. Well made and expensive, but definitely not designer. Heck probably not even of this century, but then, what did he care? He had absolutely no one to impress.

  Dain got to the door before she did, and all he did was stand there, grinning like an idiot, keeping the man on the doorstep while he critiqued the other man’s outfit. “Nice threads, man.”

  Max cleared his throat. “Thank you. Is your sister in?” he asked.

  Only Fawna knew that he wouldn’t have been here if he hadn’t already known she was home. She’d felt him coming and had dashed to the door like an eager schoolgirl. “I’m here.”

  Max gave her a huge bouquet of two dozen lavender roses, already arranged with baby’s breath in a gorgeous Baccarat crystal vase. “Oh, my, they’re amazing! Thank you! Come in, please.”

  Dain raised his eyebrows, earning himself a glare from his sister. He reared back, hands up, trying to look innocent. “I don’t have a problem with him coming in, but Momma’s gonna have something very different to say about it.”

  And he was right. Her mother was on him immediately, practically accosting him while Dain physically restrained her. She was raining hellfire and brimstone down on his head for threatening her family and hurting her daughter and threatened him with dire consequences she was going to see to it personally that he suffered because of his evil actions.

  To Fawna’s surprise, Max managed to appear quite contrite, and even went so far as to apologize to Fawna’s mother, her brother, and herself. He then produced a small, wrapped, blue velvet box, a sure sign that someone had been shopping at Tiffany’s, and when Lilliana unwrapped it, however reluctantly, her mother couldn’t help but be stunned by the gorgeous, delicate little fawn broach she found nestled in the box. “I designed it myself. I wanted to give you something exquisite to remind you of your exquisite daughter.”

  “Well, Mr. – Mr. uh...” She looked to Fawna, then Max for help.

  He smiled down at her, saying, “Just Max, Madame. My surname has been long since lost in translation.” />
  “Well, Max, that certainly is a step in the right direction towards redeeming yourself. You may come in, but I’m going to be keeping an eye on you, and what’s more, her brother is going to be keeping his eye on you, too. I would warn you to mind your manners, or your head will soon be separated from your shoulders.”

  Fawna wanted to sink into the carpet beneath her feet, but she couldn’t. Max, bless him, merely bowed very low as her mother departed in regal fashion. “Madame.”

  Dain wasn’t so easy to get out of her hair. Her attempts to shoo him away weren’t working. “What are you going to do, chaperone us everywhere we go?”

  “If I deem necessary, yes.”

  “Majesty, I do have something for you...” Max went outside to bring in a bigger box than the one he had handed her mother. “I didn’t have enough hands to carry everything.”

  He handed the box to Dain. “I understood from your sister that you are a baseball fan, and that your favorite player is Babe Ruth?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Fawna was thinking that he’d been doing some unauthorized rummaging around in her head, and that she was going to take him to task about that as soon as she could, but she was too intrigued by Dain’s gift to do anything about it now.

  Dain tore off the wrapping paper, creating a mess in the process, of course, and ripped open the box. Inside were a baseball and a bat, both signed by Babe himself. He was over the moon.

  She leaned in to Max’s ear. “Nice job.”

  He didn’t bother to lean back, but whispered into her head, “Thanks.”

  “Why don’t you go play with your new toys, Dain?” She made shooing motions with her hands.

  “Are you kidding? These are going under glass immediately.”

  “Good, why don’t you go call someone about that? Call one of your friends to come and gawk at it. Go somewhere and drool on your new toys, Dain, anywhere that’s not here.”