by Ines Johnson
“Anyway, I wouldn’t expect any Employer of the Year awards too soon,” she says. “You won’t be my boss for much longer.”
“That is assuming I don’t win our latest bet.”
“I don’t think you want to win. I think you just want to prove me wrong.”
Once again, she tries to peer inside me. I want to tell her that it is a futile exercise. There are no depths to me. I like to eat food. I like to eat pussy. And I like to look good doing it.
“What happens when I get the controlling shares of my company back?”
“Then I won’t have anything you want any longer. And you won’t have any need to play my little games anymore.”
She swallows hard. I can see the knot lodge in her throat. I thrill at the knowledge that she might not want this to end. Which is strange. I never want more from a woman. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I sat down for a meal with a woman. Or had a conversation with one.
Marechal fidgets in her chair. I know she’s uncomfortable with the deal we’ve made. I should’ve taken her straight to her bed and begun. Hell, I should’ve laid her out on her lab table and buried my nose in what I know will be a tight cunt. But I love watching her squirm. It’ll make her juices all the more sweet; richer than the Cheval wine she now sips at.
“You’ve never been here?” I ask.
She shakes her head as she toys with her stem.
“You don’t flaunt your wealth?”
“Money doesn’t interest me. Science does. Advancing my business. Taking care of my family. Handling my responsibilities.”
“And shoes.”
We both glance down at her crossed legs. They end in designer shoes. Vintage French. I think I might’ve flogged the designer a few decades ago.
“Are we not going to talk about your sick vines?” she says after the food arrives. “This might be a new disease. One that doesn’t penetrate the inner workings of the plant. We need to collect more samples. We could even publish a paper on our findings.”
Our findings? Fates, if the woman isn’t sexy as sin when she talks science. I hate to disappoint her, but alerting the human population to what’s happening in my vineyard is the last thing I’m about to do.
I don’t need any human attention on my property. Especially not after what I saw in Marechal’s microscope. She couldn’t see it with her human vision, but I saw the signs clearly. My family and I might be well and truly fucked. But I’ll deal with that later.
“You know, there’s a rumor that your land is cursed,” she says.
I try not to chew the inside of my lip. It’s a habit that shows my annoyance. Instead, I cock my head to the side and regard her. “The scientist believes in curses?”
She doesn’t take the bait. But I know her intellectual mind isn’t latched onto the idea either. She’s just doing what she does best; problem solve.
“When I was a kid, there were stories that if you snuck onto Old Man Palmezzo’s vineyard, the vines would eat you up and suck you down into the ground like a Venus Flytrap.”
I say nothing to confirm or deny the childhood tales. There are caverns beneath the vineyard in some parts. My brothers and I went down there when we first came here.
“Today, one of my harvest workers told a different story. She said her people used to own the land.”
“Her people?”
“She’s Native American. Or indigenous? I’m not sure. She said it was her people who angered the god of the underworld, and that he’s the one who won’t allow anything to grow there until he is appeased by… what did she call it?”
I hold tight to my amused smile, but the prickles are crawling up my back. It must be something really bad to make a vampire’s skin crawl.
“Oh, I remember. She said nothing would grow until the night sun greets the dawn. Maybe she means an eclipse?”
“That’s some tale.”
I keep my features placid. There are all kinds of lores in my world. I don’t usually hold truck with curses and myths. But I respect them enough to know that there’s often a grain of truth to them. I’ll discuss this with my brothers later. Right now, I want to focus on the dessert I’ve brought to dinner.
“You’re not going to eat?” Marechal asks.
“I think I will have an appetizer.”
I reach forward and take her left hand. I raise her knuckles to my mouth as though I’m going to kiss them. Instead, I take her index and then middle finger into my mouth.
The fork in Marechal’s right hand clanks to her plate. The restaurant is too full of the hum of dinner conversation for anyone to notice her flub. She doesn’t yank her hand from me. She watches with wide eyes and an open mouth.
After I suckle her fingers, I give them back to her. “Put them in your cunt.”
She blinks as if she’s coming out of a pleasant dream. I can see the moment realization strikes and she comprehends my words. I give her no space to disobey me.
“Now.”
17
Marechal
My fingers tremble as they leave Gaius’s lips. His tongue is pure velvet, a hot sheath that I now ache to taste. But his mouth closes. His lips press together in a firm line.
“Do it,” he commands.
My hand flutters as it glides away from him and back across the table to me. It’s my hand. The nails I trimmed and painted a pale coral a few days ago. On my index finger is the scar from an accident with pruning shears when I was a teen.
My hand is capable. My hand is sure. But my hand is no longer my own. It follows this man’s command and slips under the table.
The din of the restaurant becomes amplified in my ears. A woman at the table to my right lets out a tittering laugh. To the left, a man is standing, his wine glass lifted to start a toast. The hostess seats a new couple. A waiter’s head bobs as he takes down an order. Dishes clatter into a busboy’s bin.
Meanwhile, my hand has rucked up my skirt. As my fingers inch up my inner thigh, they leave a trail of Gaius’s wetness on my flesh. My mind runs away from me, imagining it’s his tongue.
I gasp at the thought.
Gaius grins from across the table.
I’d often wondered why Eve listened to the snake. Later, I learned what a metaphor was. The devil was said to be the most beautiful angel. Easy to see why they changed his character to a spineless creature that slithered on the ground.
“Move your panties aside, minou.”
There’s that pronunciation again. Part of me wants to correct his French. The other part simply wants to listen to his silky baritone make another command.
My fingers do what Gaius tells them to. I shift my bottom on the hard wood of the chair. For a moment, I worry that I sat in a spill. The area beneath me is damp where it wasn’t a moment ago. I shudder to realize all that moisture came from me.
“Run your fingers along the seam.”
My fingers do as they’re told. My index finger starts at the top of my slit. As it moves southward, I feel as though I’m unzipping myself. A cheer goes up to the left of us. The table all raise their glasses as the toast is done.
“Eyes on me.”
I jerk my attention back to Gaius. His eyes gleam as they bore into mine. His unwavering gaze makes me feel as though he not only sees exactly what I’m doing under the table, but what it’s doing to me inside.
I am coming untethered. Unbound. Unconcerned. Touching myself in such an intimate way in a public space is exciting. But not as exciting as the weightlessness of being under Gaius’s command.
“Press your index finger inside that tight, hot sheath, minou.”
There is resistance when I do so. My sheath hasn’t been breached in years. Not by a man, not by me. I have long lost my patience for the fumbling of men down there. I’ve never had the desire to masturbate. I see now I’ll need to rethink both those thoughts.
“Deeper.”
I gasp as I comply. My finger presses further. I’m in up to my knuckle.
“Swirl it
around, get all the good juices for me.”
I do as I’m told. More wetness coats my finger and trickles down into my palm. The sound reminds me of the squishy noise that comes from stomping grapes. My inner walls have the same wet, velvety feel.
“How are you finding everything tonight?”
My back goes rigid as I look over to see the waiter. His gaze is on Gaius and not me. On another night, I would berate the man for his misogynist microaggression. Luckily for him, I have my hands full of other matters.
“Box this up, will you?” says Gaius. “I’m going to finish my meal at home.”
The waiter nods and begins removing the plates. Gaius has not taken his gaze off me. I can tell he’s waiting to see if I remove my hand. I do not. Even if the waiter wasn’t clearing our table, my fingers are sticky with my intimate wetness. And he just took the dinner napkin away.
“Now, give them to me.”
My mouth falls open. Of all the things this man has told me to do tonight, this is what shocks me? Slowly, almost reluctantly, I pull my finger from myself. I have to hold myself still on the seat as it’s soaked with an even bigger puddle now. I need to get that dinner napkin back to cover the mess I’ve made, or I can never show my face here again.
When my hand reappears above the table, it glistens in the dim lighting of the restaurant. It feels as though all conversation has stopped and every eye is on my fingers and the shame that coats it. Though what I’m feeling couldn’t be called shame. It’s too warm, too tingly.
I look to Gaius, waiting for his next command.
He is silent. But the gleam in his eyes shines even brighter. His grins stretches wider. Is that pride?
He leans forward. His lips part. He gazes at me, expectantly. I swallow hard when I realize what he wants me to do.
Once again, my hand trembles as it makes its way to him. I place my index finger on his lip. Gaius’s tongue snakes out of his mouth. It captures my finger and sucks it inside. He licks the top, the bottom, and the sides of my finger. The tip of his tongue hardens as it flicks under my fingernail. He hums a low hum of satisfaction that reverberates through my hand. It travels down my body and zings my core, causing little flutters of the muscles.
Was that an orgasm? I’m not sure. A wave of bliss washes over me, and I feel ready to curl into a fetal position and nap.
I can’t believe I just did that.
I can’t believe I just fingered myself in a dining room and let a man suck the evidence off my fingers. Who the hell am I? And whoever she is, do I want to keep being her?
Gaius’s hand is clasped around mine as we leave the restaurant. He’s rubbing his thumb over the finger I used to touch myself. He said he would make me orgasm ten times. I don’t bother to tell him that he only has nine more times for this night. But I think he knows.
I teeter in my heels on the pavement outside. I’ve navigated fresh earth in heels. But walking next to this man has turned my legs into a wilting vine.
Am I really doing this? Am I really going to let him fuck me to get the shares back?
If I’m honest, it’s not entirely about the shares. I want that pleasure. Not just the pleasure, I want the release. I want that feeling of weightlessness that seems to come whenever he is over me, near me, telling me what to do.
Will he really give me ten orgasms? Is it even physically possible? I know I’m not going to complain while he tries.
He rubs his thumb over the center of my palm. I feel the sensation in my aching core. He could probably finger me with his thumb on my palm and get me off.
This is madness. I’ve gone insane. And I’m fucking giddy over it.
“Did you just giggle?” Gaius asks.
“I… I think I did.”
He looks down at me. My face is upturned to his. I’m a tall woman. One who insists on heels, to boot. His height doesn’t make me feel small. It makes him appear capable of handling me.
I’d thought this man frivolous, self-centered, and reckless. He might be all of those things. But when his attention is focused on me, I feel like the center of someone else’s world. It’s a feeling I’m growing addicted to.
From the corner of my eye, I spy movement. There is something in the shadows. That something has arms and legs, and they’re coming at us.
I don’t think. I react. I have just enough time to shove Gaius away. But he doesn’t budge. Instead, his body blocks mine and I hear a yelp of pain.
I reach for Gaius, already preparing to search for any wound. It’s not Gaius who needs my care. Gaius has the body from the shadows pinned against the wall with one hand. In the light of the alley, I see it’s a kid. A scrawny kid.
Gaius doesn’t appear to care. Those eyes that were gleaming at me a moment ago are filled with rage. His hand is a five-fingered noose around the kid’s neck.
“Gaius, it’s just a child.”
“Men do not attack women,” he growls. His voice does not sound human.
“I wasn’t going for her,” the kid manages to wheeze. “I was going for the bag.”
On the ground is the doggie bag of food the waiter had packed for us, along with the two bottles of expensive wine. Only shards remain of the pricey drinks.
“I was grabbing for the food. I wasn’t going to hurt anybody. I’m just hungry.”
Something flickers in Gaius’s eyes. The rage melts away but what it reveals isn’t exactly clear. Tendon by tendon, he releases the kid. Before the youth can scurry away with the bruises on his neck, Gaius grabs him by the shirt.
Gaius takes the bag with one hand, still holding onto the kid with the other. He reaches into his pocket and drops a few bills into the bag and then hands it to the youth. The kid's eyes grow wide. The moment Gaius lets him go, he takes off running with his prize.
Gaius stands with his hands in his pocket, watching the kid’s retreating form. His gaze is wistful, as though a memory is playing behind his eyes. What memory, I can’t imagine. The Serranos come from old money.
“Are you okay?” He turns to me, looking me up and down. His large hands run over my arms and shoulders, checking me much like I would do to them when Cari or Arnie came out of a scrape.
“I’m fine,” I say.
His gentle probe turns forceful as he grips my shoulders firmly. “What were you thinking, moving in front of me? Did you think I couldn’t protect you?”
My brain is rattled, and it takes me a moment to parse his words from his actions. “I don’t know? I wasn’t thinking clearly. It was probably my maternal instinct. I’ve been raising my younger siblings since I was a kid myself. I don’t know any other way to react.”
Gaius stares at me for a long moment—so long that I begin to squirm under his perusal.
“That was kind of you, to give that kid the food and the money.”
He doesn’t answer, just rubs a thumb over my lip. “I need to make you come. Now.”
18
Gaius
“Eyes on me.”
Marechal’s gaze rises from what my fingers are doing to rest on my face. The honey wine color of her eyes makes me feel drunk. I continue unbuttoning her shirt by feel only, unable to look away.
Could she be a witch? Is that why she’s making me feel desperate for her? I’m old enough to know that real magic exists in this world. Part of me aches to tell this sexy scientist of the unexplainable things hidden in plain sight so that I might watch her bite her plump lips to parse out an explanation.
I don’t bother with any tales of the fantastical. I’m at the end of my rope with the need for her. I’m also at the end of her buttons. I tug her shirttails from her skirt.
Her nipples poke through the lace of her white bra. The buds are dark, like plum wine. I know I’m in trouble if my mouth is watering for such a cheap dessert wine. My dick is throbbing, and now my fangs ache. Marechal doesn’t know it, but I’m going to feast on her in more than one way tonight.
I wonder: if she knew of my blood-sucking tendencies, would sh
e insist on putting me under her microscope? Would I become her lab specimen that she would poke and prod? Hell, the thought almost seems appealing if I get to have her attention on me.
Marechal raises her hands to unbutton my shirt. Before she can land on a single button, I catch both her wrists in my grasp. It’s an old habit. Though there’s an ache in my chest where I want to feel her palms pressed against my flesh, I do not risk it. I cannot. Not if I want to derive any pleasure for myself from tonight. And I do. I plan to get punch drunk off this woman’s pleasure.
I reach for the silky belt of one of my robes. Turning her wrists face up, I began to bind Marechal’s hands. She looks down at my actions, her dark gaze lighting with need even as she questions me.
“What are you doing?” Her voice is breathy, a quiet hum of excitement.
“What I promised you. Ten orgasms. I have a lot of work to do. I don’t want you getting in my way.”
With her hands secure, I pull Marechal to me. She tilts her head back as she looks up at me. There is no fear in her eyes, only desire.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been drunk. My supernaturally fast metabolism doesn’t allow for it. But looking into her Sémillion grape eyes, I feel intoxicated. It’s the only reason I can fathom for what I do next. Because I do something I haven’t done in centuries; I take a woman’s mouth with my own.
I have tasted the finest wines across the world. Nothing compares to Marechal’s lips. She is honey and silk. She is robust and decadent.
Her bound hands are trapped between our chests. Her fingers land softly on my chest. The impact of her small finger pads on my flesh nearly knocks me down.
It’s been so long since I’ve felt a woman’s touch. So long since I’ve craved it. I was still human at the time of my last craving for contact. In the next moment, I came to understand that love was pain, and desire could hurt.
Marechal’s nails scraping against my chest should rattle me. Instead, they ground me in the present moment. I hold still, waiting for a vision of Domitia’s pale face to intrude. But all I see is golden brown skin. All I feel in the scratch of Marechal’s nails is a desire to find purchase.
