by Maren Smith
“Well,” she hedges, “yes. Although to be fair, your phone’s been on two-percent power for a while now.”
Dear God. Beautiful, quick-witted, smart, and psychic. I think I love this girl.
Chapter 10
Aleron
“We’re going to die down here,” Merris says in the dark.
“No, we’re not,” I promise, still the chair on which she sits to protect her from the leeching cold of the stone steps. Now and then, I feel her shivering. The longer we sit here, the worse that is going to get. I have to find a way to get us out, but without light by which to see, my chances of finding something diminishes while her risk of hypothermia grows, starting the minute I put her down.
“We are,” she insisted. “One of us absolutely is.”
“Merris…”
“One of us brought a snack, the other brought a vampire,” she snips. “Tell me, how long can you go without eating before you snap and rip my—”
Catching a fistful of hair at the back of her head, I yank her head back and silence her the best way I can. Kissing her is surprisingly pleasant for me. I rarely find it so. Intimacy has always been a tool for me. Something I can use to get close to my prey. A kiss upon warm lips to sharpen my senses while lulling their own. A finger beneath the chin to tilt the head back, while a short, seductive nibble along the neck takes me to the pulse that draws me most.
I can count on two hands the number of partners with whom I have done more than kiss, and still have fingers left over. None were love matches, although my kind are prone to them. Look at Lucius, Tucson’s very own vampire King—at least among his sizeable if slightly less than devoted nest. He not only mated, but—and quite infamously so—he mated a shifter. I have seen her, from a distance. A lovely, pale-pelted creature. I sincerely doubt theirs is a platonic relationship.
Many among my kind are, however. We drift through the centuries together, isolating ourselves among the food supply as a means of survival, meeting in public only while hunting and only if it can’t be avoided. We smile and we chit-chat, all while masking our grave mistrust of one another until something brings that mistrust to the surface, and then somebody usually dies.
Few matings last forever. In my experience, intellectual bonds are almost always stronger than sexual ones, and yet this feels so very much different from anything I have known before. Her lips are different, soft, supple, yielding beneath my own. The ties of her hair wrapping my fingers hold me every bit as captive as I hold her, drinking in the sigh she exhales as I coax her lips to part.
I want inside of her.
I want to wrap myself in the heat of her eager limbs, feeling the arching, writhing, undulations of her body as my hips rock within the cradle of hers. I want to feel the beat of her racing heart while my chest is pressed to hers, and my hand holds her throat, and my lips and tongue flick and tease and mate with her own, and the spasms of her tight flesh convulse around my cock until we are both too exhausted by it to move one thrust more.
I lift my lips from hers, all but drunk on my own wanting of her.
“—my throat out,” she stubbornly finishes, as if I’d never kissed her at all.
I tsk, but the urge to put her across my knee is tempered by the amusement she sparks. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You’ll be crazed. You won’t even know you’re doing it.”
“I think someone has seen too many horror movies. Do you need to be put on television restriction when we get back to the surface world?”
My grip on the back of her head lets me feel the glare she casts my way. “Like you could ever stop me from doing something if I really wanted to do it.”
“Be careful when issuing challenges you’d rather I not accept.”
Her body is absolutely still on my lap. “I wasn’t issuing challenges.”
I don’t bother answering. We both know she was.
Her little bottom squirms. “All right,” she says, her tone painstakingly neutral despite the very faintest tremble of unease. I’ve pricked her curiosity. I can tell by the quickening in her pulse that she isn’t altogether put off by the idea of being constrained by a few of my rules. “How?”
She rolls her shoulders, shifting as my thumb strokes the side of her neck.
“How, what?”
“How would you stop me? What would you do?”
“Are you seriously asking a vampire you know to be a sadist at an S&M club how he’d choose to curtail you?”
“How do I know you’re a sadist?” she shoots back. “You could be a freaky masochist who likes being tied down and tickled with ostrich feathers.”
I truly am falling in love with her. Her mouth, on the other hand, is about to get her spanked. “No offense, darling, but there is nothing in this world that could ever tempt me to let anyone tie me down.”
“Why not?”
The darkness completely invalidates the incredulous look I give her. “Sadist,” I repeat, hoping my tone will convey how obvious this should be.
“Yeah, but are you really? Or do you just like making people bleed because it’s akin to ringing the dinner bell? I don’t think you’re sadistic at all. Otherwise, why haven’t you hurt me?”
“It didn’t hurt when I bit your clit?”
“Feeding,” she says, completely discounting it.
As much as I would dearly love to point out the scene we played out in Club Toxic’s dungeon, unfortunately she won’t remember it, and I don’t want to have the whole ‘what do you mean you wiped my memories’ argument with her right now.
“See?” she says, as my silence stretches on. “While I don’t doubt for a second that some vampires are sadists, or that you might have done sadistic things in the past, I really don’t think you yourself are a sadist at your core.”
“Oh, darling, you really have no idea.”
“You’re sitting here half-naked on the stairs while I’m on your lap comfortably burritoed in your clothes so I don’t have to be cold. Those are not the actions of a hardcore sadist.”
“How would you know?”
“I read de Sade over summer vacation for extra credit in high school. It was the biggest collective works book I could find, and I wanted to shock the shit out of my English teacher.”
“And did you learn anything?”
“Apart from his being twisted and gross, nothing of any interest. You didn’t even tie me up before you bit me.”
“I left you chained to my bed all day long.”
“Yes, but only so I wouldn’t escape. If one can discount the thorns, your bed was very soft and you were careful to provide me with food and water, and easy access to the bathroom so I wouldn’t be uncomfortable. You haven’t whipped me. You haven’t even spanked me. In fact, every time I get hurt, you take care of me. Does that sound like the actions of a sadis—”
I flip her over my lap so fast all she had time to do is yelp before the flat of my hand finds her shapely ass in the darkness, delivering a flurry of brisk slaps meant to put an end to this ridiculous discussion. I give her only a dozen or so swats, but each one is delivered with a firm arm and she takes them all with little more than shrill gasps and squeaks that echo up the stone steps along with each crack of impact. Then, righting her once more, I calmly straighten my coat about her shoulders and adjust the now disheveled shirt over her lap, tucking it in around her legs and feet to keep her from the cold.
In my calmest tone, I ask, “Are we finished?”
She holds herself quiet and still upon my lap for a full count of three before shrugging her arm out of my coat. Sticking it down between us, every slumbering nerve in my body snaps to wakefulness when she cups the front of my trousers, adjusting her palm upon the full length of my cock. The heat of her tiny fingertips scalds through cloth straight into my balls. The palm of her hand is the most delicious fire.
“Not hard in the slightest,” she decides, taking back her hand with a sniff and settling into my coat once more. “Definitely
not a sadist.”
I can’t move, I dare not. It takes every ounce of control I have not to throw her down right here on these stairs and show her just how hard I am fast becoming, with her touch echoing through my flesh and the heat of her well-smacked ass burning my thighs. I should pick her up and move her off my lap, deposit her on the stairs, move myself as far from her as I can get in the confines of this place, but I won’t. I can’t. There is a vampire on the other side of this door. I’m not about to leave her undefended in the darkness and for no other reason than because my cock feels like misbehaving.
On the other hand, she’s awakened the beast. She can damn well attend it.
My arm hooks her waist, pulling her back up against my chest, and my hand catches her throat, silencing whatever protest she would otherwise give before she can do more than draw the breath for it. The heady thump of her pulse teases my fingertips as I draw her back against me. She stiffens, trying not to resist, but my gentle insistence wins her over. Reluctantly, she relaxes against me, laying her head back on my shoulder as I wish it. I reward her submission with a kiss to that soft, sweet place right behind her ear.
I feel her nervous swallow against my hand as I continue to hold her throat and, with my other, I undress her, pulling my coat off her shoulders but leaving her hands bound within its sleeves.
“Do not move unless I move you,” I murmur behind her ear. “Do not speak unless I allow it. If you wish to stop, your safeword is Rumpelstiltskin. If you cannot speak, tap my hand, do you understand?”
She barely nods.
“Out loud, please,” I remind her, tightening my arm around her waist and pulling her back on my lap until she is forced to straddle my thighs. Her back to my chest, her head tipped to rest on my shoulder, I have the heat of her ass right where I want it. Can she feel how hard I am now? All that I am is hardness, pressed to all the softest parts of her.
“Yes,” she whispers.
Gently, I nip her ear, letting her feel the tips of my teeth. “Yes, what?” I remind her, silkenly.
Her involuntary squirm could have made a saint come, but it’s not a saint’s lap she’s sitting on.
“M-Master,” she stammers.
Good girl.
Undressing her is like unwrapping a present I cannot see. But while the dark might rob my eyes of this experience, my other senses exalt. I bare her to the cold one button at a time until the two halves of my shirt fall open. Peeling the cloth off her shoulders, I leave her arms bound in the sleeves here too and my shirt and coat both puddled around her waist like a forgotten wrap.
My fingers read her goosebumps like braille on the pages of her body—up the side of her arm, across her chest where the soft flesh of her breasts rise and fall as she breathes—it tells a story. So do her shivers as I explore her, the naked swells of her breasts with the buds of her nipples tightening beneath each passing caress of my fingertips, the flinching softness of her belly as I caress downward and pull away the cloth that covers her lap.
She shakes, but this is more than just cold. It’s me she shakes for, and I enjoy every intensifying quiver as I part her legs with little more than a touch to each thigh.
“Wider,” I tell her, returning my hand to the flat of her stomach.
Her breath catching, she opens her legs wide.
Her whole body stiffens when I taste her, flicking the pulse on the side of her neck with my tongue before gracing it with a kiss. Her muscles lock as I open my mouth, but I don’t bite. I suckle and I lay claim, but I don’t feed, and with each pull of my mouth, the tension seeps from her. Hers is a shaky, reluctant sigh as she relaxes against me again.
Right until my hand on her throat tightens and I cut off her air. A few seconds only. Just enough for her to notice, and tense again. Immediately I let her breathe and as she sweeps in that latent gasp, I lay my claim between her legs next.
Her clit will be tender for days yet. I know it’s my teeth she’s feeling there too as I part her folds with my fingers, releasing her scent into the air and allowing the cold to take its most illicit kiss of the wetness I’ve found.
Her hips twitch, the tiniest buck up into my caressing hand as I dip my fingers in all that slick, feminine heat and spread the moisture all over the bud of her swollen clit. She’s fighting herself to hold still—fighting and failing, her luscious body arching as she stifles a moan. Her ass grinds against the bulge of my cock, and I know she definitely feels my hardness now because she’s shifting her hips in an effort to direct how it touches her.
“Naughty girl. Didn’t I tell you don’t move?” I cut off her air again, my other hand caressing her clit in fast, circular strokes. Her hips buck, her heels smacking against a stone step as her whole body tightens.
Again, I relax my hold on her throat after only a few seconds. The caresses continue, quick circles against the very tender tip of her clit until the echoes of her wetness in the dark can be heard right alongside her soft, moaning breaths. Her legs shake all around mine. Her bottom clenches, alternately bucking up into my rapidly stroking hand and cringing back against my captive cock.
I never have been one to tolerate being held against my will.
With a brisk slap to her eager pussy, I let her go long enough to free myself from my trousers. The heat of her ass is the closest thing to heaven I will ever know, and I quickly hook her waist again, lifting her high. Hard as I am, my cock springs forward, the tip sliding into wetness the instant I lower her again.
She moans, her thighs shaking and her ass grinding the whole way down. The twitchy spasms of her muscles lock down on me. Those spasms go wild when my grip on her throat tightens again. She tries to ride me. I rub, teasing her, my fingers on her clit never still and always changing sensation, pinching, caressing, spanking, tickling just to feel her writhing with such abandon, and she is only getting wetter.
I wish I could see her.
Her heartbeat is a frantic drumming that pounds in my senses. I hear it, feel it beneath my fingers, around my cock, beneath my lips as I kiss and suckle that seductive jugular vein on the side of her neck. I’ve never wanted to bite anyone as badly as I do right now, but I don’t. It’s too soon for her.
I want to thrust, to bury myself deep inside her enchanting heat. Neither is going to happen in this position, but baring her to the cold of the air is nothing compared to laying her down in a rock cave. I won’t do that.
So, I deny myself, just like I deny her, cutting her air off again and again. Denial can be exquisite torment. Hers is edging her to completion, teasing her with the raw fury of all that pent-in sensation, allowing her only quick, gasping sips as I change sensations again. Now, I give her the swift, circular clit strokes designed to make her come, but only while I’m choking her. The minute I let go, my other hand stops.
Her shaky gasps become ragged moans, tinged with frustration. She’s trying to choke herself now, catching and holding her breath so I’ll squeeze my fingers and edge her closer still. She grinds, rocks, fights to bounce in what few inches of movement I’ll allow her while I tickle her pretty clit and listen to the beating of her heart.
I know when she’s ready. One last release of her neck to let her catch her breath, but this time my fingers between her clenching thighs do not go still.
I want to bite so badly.
Shutting off her air, I make her come instead. She arches, back bowing, muscles both quaking and straining, convulsing with the shivery spasms that dance along my cock. I take her right to the edge of passing out before I release her throat for the very last time. She’s gasping, choking, whimpering ragged sobs that might yet tip over that edge into honest tears of release when, suddenly, there’s a click and the stone slab blocking our way rumbles into motion.
Light floods the stairwell, blocked by the shadow of a tall, lean man wearing jeans, of all things, and a soft gray sweater. His long brown hair hangs straight to his collar. His narrow face catches the shadows until it seems as if the darkness has cut him int
o angles.
Hands braced to either side of the doorway, he growls, “When I don’t open my door right away, most people get the not-so-subtle hint, and they go away. What they do not do is bang one another on my steps, leaving bodily fluids all over the damn place.” Shoving backwards off the wall, he shakes his head in disgust. “Rude,” he says, and walks away.
Merris
I’ve never been in a tomb before. I don’t know if this actually is one, but Ignacio—Aleron’s very grumpy friend—has carved himself out one hell of a catacomb. Catacomb? More like honeycomb, with bare bulb lights strung on extension cords across the roundish cavern that makes up his den and shadows that drip like black honey down the walls and across the floor, flowing into box-like crevices that notch the vertical bedrock everywhere there’s room enough to make one. All of them are stuffed quite full of books. New books, old books, books without covers and bindings tied with string, scrolls, maps, folded bit of parchments—and all of it is layered in dust.
“The maid service is a little slow here,” Ignacio says coolly when I’m not quite as secretive as perhaps I should be, running my finger through the thick layer at the mouth of one stone cubbyhole.
“Where did you get all this?” I breathe, half in wonder, half appalled. As much as I love to read, I’ve never seen anything like this. The smell is quite musty, making me sneeze each time I lean close enough to try to read. Not every tome has writing on the cover or even enough of a cover left to protect the pages. What words I can make out are rarely written in English. “Have you read them?”
“Of course, I have.” Thoroughly irritated, Ignacio looks from me to Aleron. “Knowledge is power, young lady. There are billions upon billions of words written on these pages. What good does it do if no one reads them? I swear,” he says, shooting Aleron an accusing stare, “we’re hardly better than monkeys. What do you want?”
