Isolde screamed.
Chapter Five
Verity wanted to scream too.
When Nick had walked into the suite she’d wanted to die as well, or at least disappear in a little puff of smoke. But in reality, she’d known she would have to face him.
What surprised her was the look of appreciative heat in his strange gaze. The eyes that were almost black had lit with odd flames as he’d looked her over, lingering at the lace barely covering her nipples.
She’d known the tiny buds had hardened even as he’d stared. She was so sexually aroused by this man it was ridiculous. It was getting worse as he dominated Isolde.
Carefully positioning his blows, Nick was forcing Isolde’s excitement to a fever pitch, flicking the whip around her pussy and her nipples and even finding places in her armpits and on her thighs that made her squirm with pleasure.
She was getting wetter, her legs shining as her liquids cascaded freely. The herbs in the air probably helped too, although Verity knew they were best inhaled directly through the strange Oriental pipe both FitzAdamses used before their sessions.
Gawain was subsiding, sated, in the arms of his two attendants. She’d long since stopped being horrified by anything those three did. No longer was she shocked or embarrassed at the sight of male genitals, nor was she stunned at the inventive ways the lord of the manor found to release his seed. It was as if this suite of rooms contained a different world, a world where sexual desires had deviated to a warped and vicious place of pain and perversion.
Isolde’s cries had become formless whimpers and her hips were thrust forward, flagrantly inviting the lash of Nick’s whip.
And he was good.
So good that Verity ached for the same treatment. Ached to be hurt like that, cautiously punished until her flesh boiled and her pussy exploded.
Tears bleared her vision and she quickly blinked them away, appreciating the little twist to Nick’s wrist as he laid the lash onto Isolde’s red nipple with more force than she was expecting.
She whimpered again, eyes unfocussed and rolling a little now as her orgasm approached.
Verity knew the signs. But this was one night when she’d not have to stand and watch her mistress reach the ultimate pleasure.
A pleasure that was denied Verity.
Oh certainly she could leave and find satisfaction with her own hand in the privacy of her own room. At the beginning, she’d done just that. But it was a hollow feeling, tainted by distaste for Isolde, Gawain and the sexually deviant atmosphere they relished.
It was as if by bringing herself pleasure, Verity was sinking to their level.
Eventually, even the idea of reaching orgasm had lost its appeal.
Until tonight. Until Nick Blaine’s eyes had found hers, until his hand had picked up that whip and until he’d stared at her breasts.
All of a sudden, every fiber of Verity’s being was sexual once more. The months of stifling her urges disappeared and the heat of womanhood burned within her pussy. She wanted. She yearned.
And she knew she couldn’t have.
Silently, Verity slipped from the room. Isolde was near, Gawain was done—what would happen once Nick finished off his job, Verity didn’t know. She simply knew she could not be there to watch.
Especially if Isolde decided that she wanted more. Especially if she decided she wanted Nick’s cock as well as his whip.
It wasn’t out of the question and Verity knew she’d take Nick in front of Gawain with pleasure, perhaps even inviting him to join them or masturbate at the same time—she’d done so before. She gave the word “insatiable” new meaning sometimes.
The door closed behind Verity and once again she offered up a silent prayer of thanks that Isolde’s tastes didn’t include women. That would have been untenable and would have sent Verity out into the world, penniless and homeless once more.
As it was, nights of deviance such as this were a small price to pay for the security of a roof over one’s head and food in one’s belly.
A choked scream from behind the solid door signaled Isolde’s peak.
Verity sighed and turned away toward her own room, her mask dangling from her hand. Her job was done for this night at least. Now she could attempt to rest and banish thoughts of Nick from her brain.
Or try to. It wouldn’t be easy.
Her booted feet dragged as she walked, shoulders slumping and heart heavy. It would seem that the pleasures offered by life were to be denied to Verity Chandler. Which really wasn’t fair.
Her breath seized in her lungs as two strong arms surrounded her waist and a voice sounded low in her ears.
“You left before the end. Not that you missed much, but there are still matters to be settled between us.”
She froze and allowed Nick to turn her around so that he could look at her face. He stared at her, his gaze black and strangely searing. “Oh yes. There are definitely matters to be settled between us, Verity Chandler.”
His grip tightened and he lowered his head, brushing his cool firm mouth across hers, then letting his tongue trace the fullness of her lower lip. “Aren’t there?”
He tasted strange—tangy-sweet and yet harsh—the lure of unusual delights lurking within his mouth. Helpless to resist, Verity opened hers and welcomed him inside. It was what she wanted, after all.
He made a sound, not quite a groan but close, thrusting his tongue deeply in between her lips. He scoured her teeth, learned the surfaces and the textures of her skin even as she discovered his.
A hot need rushed through her, a need to return this pleasure tenfold. She tensed in his embrace and clung to him, suddenly aware of his body—and her own. Dueling with him, her tongue forced past his into his mouth, a cavern of luscious delights she sampled with excitement.
She’d never been kissed like this, never felt such a total immersion in a simple joining of lips.
And yet it was more than that. Their bodies met and melded, his chest pressing hard against her breasts, abrading the nipples and the lace covering them. His hands clutched at her spine and her buttocks, fingers finding soft mounds of flesh through the light silk trousers covering them.
She was wet between her legs now, fabric cold against her hot pussy. And still she wanted more.
“I can smell your body. You want me.” He hissed the words against her lips as his hands fondled her arse, gently demanding her surrender with stroking caresses and quick squeezes that just stopped short of pain.
She thrust her hips against his groin, knowing the hardness would be there. “I can feel your body. You want me.”
Daringly she nipped his lip with her teeth. He sucked in a breath and kissed her again, more cruelly this time, taking with his mouth, letting her know he was not to be denied.
She kissed him back, welcoming his intrusion, meeting his demands with her own and grabbing handfuls of his tight buttocks as she forced their bodies even closer. She was tall enough that they melded perfectly—for the first time she was glad of her height not ashamed of it.
And when his aroused cock clashed against her mound and the wet fabric clung to her pussy, she nearly sobbed with the pleasure of it.
“In here. Now.”
Nick tore his mouth from hers and almost pulled her off her feet as he hurried her to a room at the end of the long corridor. It was a guest suite—his most likely—dark but for a few candles guttering low.
The lack of light was no impediment to Nick, however. He gripped Verity’s arm as he led her inside, closing and locking the door quickly. Not waiting for her to make any sort of response he tugged her behind him through the sitting room and into his bedroom.
“Now.” He whirled around and reached for her corset, fingers brushing against her breasts. With one rough move he ripped it from top to bottom, baring her to his gaze. “Now, Verity.”
Her trousers followed, leaving her in boots and the remains of what had once been clothing. He stripped off his own clothes faster than she’d believed po
ssible, all the while staring at her from the shadows next to the bed. She bent to her boots.
“Leave them. I like you like this. Naked ivory, only the black boots. It’s—” He paused, his eyes hotly running over her skin.
“It’s erotic.” She whispered the words into the silence that had fallen between them. “And I want more.”
Nick’s lust was a palpable thing, hard and choking him, knotting in his chest and suffocating his breath. His cock was rock solid—it had been that way most of the time since he’d first set eyes on the tall and beautiful woman with the luscious, barely concealed breasts.
He’d hungered for those nipples, eager to feel them between his lips and nibble around them with his teeth. Now he knew she desired him in her turn and her scent was driving him crazy with need.
She was staring at him, gaze darting from his eyes to his cock and everywhere in between. She licked her lips, making a sound that only Nick could hear and yet it was as if a drumbeat had begun near his ears.
She was trembling with hunger, every pore oozing the passionate scent of an aroused woman.
“What do you want? Tell me, Verity.” He reached for her breasts and grasped them firmly, squeezing them and fondling the nipples. “Tell me what will give you pleasure.”
She closed her eyes and let her head fall back. “You. Touching me. Doing—things to me.” Her fingers flexed and then fisted as Nick ran a nail roughly over one beaded nub.
“I want to do things to you, Verity.” He ran his hand up her spine and caught her by the neck, holding her head upright. “Anything you want me to do, I’ll do.” He tightened his grip and watched her eyelids as they lifted over a stare vibrating with desire.
Experimentally, Nick found her nipple once more with his thumb and forefinger—and pinched it. Hard.
The pupils dilated in her whiskey brown eyes and she moaned in response, her lips shining and rosy and her body tensing then relaxing. “Yes, Nick. Oh yes.”
He leaned to her face and kissed her roughly, giving her lower lip a sharp nip as he pulled away. Once again she sucked in a breath and this time her hips thrust toward him in a gesture of need. She was heat and fire in his embrace, a blaze that almost melted the ice around his soul.
“Make me feel, Nick.” She quivered urgently against him. “I haven’t felt anything in too long.”
He spun her around and bent her over the bed, her white arse gleaming in the light of the candles. “Can you feel this?” He slapped her, a quick ringing blow on one creamy buttock.
Her arms splayed wide as she sprawled on the satin coverlet. “God, yes. Oh Nick yes…” She wriggled with pleasure.
Nick slapped her again, the other cheek this time, watching as the blood rushed to the site of the punishing blow. He didn’t curb his strength—he sensed desperation mixed with passion in this woman. A silent cry for the touch of another hand, the sting of a caress that brought pain as well as pleasure.
She shifted beneath the force of his smacks, her breasts rubbing the coverlet and creasing it as she moved backward and forward along its soft surface. “Fuck me, Nick.”
Verity sobbed out the blunt words as she continued to move and accept his treatment, her arse now pink with the muddled marks of his hands.
Nick’s cock wept, hard and ready to answer her request. And his fangs were lurking just beneath the surface of his gums, aching to taste her every bit as fiercely as she seemed to ache for him.
He dared not—or did he?
She moved, a quick lithe twist of her body that brought her off the bed and on her knees before him. She reached out, but he intercepted her touch. If she laid her hands on him he was lost and he knew it.
Quickly he grabbed a piece of her torn clothing and within seconds her wrists were lashed behind her back. She gasped then smiled. “Nick, you are the answer to this maiden’s wicked prayers.”
And she bent to his cock, mouth wide.
Oh fucking…wonder of wonders. Nick clenched his teeth, determined to make this last, to make this good for Verity. With every iota of supernatural strength he possessed, Nick held his orgasm in check while she explored him with lips and tongue and the occasional grazing of her teeth.
As if making up for lost time, Verity poured enthusiasm into her movements, sucking Nick’s cock far back into her mouth, running her lips and her face over its length, sipping droplets of desire from the tiny slit and even delving beneath with her tongue to find his balls.
Helpless now, Nick knew his fangs were breaking free, awoken by the feverish passion Verity was releasing within him. Blessing the darkness he simply kept his mouth closed, hoping she was too involved with his cock to notice his unusual dental aberrations.
He would not feed from Verity.
Oh he wanted to. He wanted her screaming his name and climaxing beneath him while he drank them both into oblivion. But something held him back. Something he’d felt when their eyes had first clashed in the inn.
She was too intelligent, too acutely aware of him.
The thought flashed through his mind that Verity Chandler would know what he was. He could not take that risk.
So he would have to merely fuck her insensible. And that he could do with a great deal of pleasure.
He watched her, listened to the soft hiss as her hair tumbled around them both—a counterpoint to the moist sounds of her mouth on his cock. It was music that orchestrated Nick’s delight, heightened his arousal—if such a thing were possible—and would forever be associated in his mind with Verity’s lips.
His otherworldly abilities lent a dimension to his fucking—one he’d never have imagined experiencing before his…encounter with the vicious Thérèse.
But he knew that he’d never come close to this kind of intensity. Never felt quite so…emotional. It was Verity who made the difference.
And Verity he wanted so desperately right now.
Nick stepped back and seized Verity’s shoulders, turning her quickly and bending her once more over the bed. Her wrists were still tied and he kicked her ankles apart, positioning her exactly where he wanted her.
There was no gentleness—no tenderness. Just raw hunger and a savage desire for the ultimate possession.
Nick needed it and knew Verity needed it too. She moaned as he seized a handful of her hair and tugged, pulling her neck taut. “Now, Nick…dear God…”
It would indeed be now.
With his free hand, Nick grabbed his cock and thrust deep between her folds, finding the hot wetness of her sex waiting for his penetration. She was tight—so tight Nick wondered if he was ripping her as he pressed himself inwards.
But she spread her legs even wider and pushed back against him, urging him deeper within her body, welcoming him, bathing him with boiling juices and making soft needy sounds as he took her.
Again and again he thrust and again and again she took him, as lost in the moment as he was, an equal partner in the mutual pleasure of this monumental fuck.
Their bodies pounded against each other, his balls slapping the tops of her thighs, her breasts pressed down into the bed and the crumpled covers. His orgasm neared, a sharp sensation at the base of his spine sending frissons of tingling awareness to his balls and his cock.
Verity was panting now, muscles tensing as her own climax approached. His grip on her hair tightened and Nick held her, bowed and quivering, as he passed the point of no return.
He exploded inside Verity Chandler as he took her over his bed, his fangs lying sharply on his lips, his mind filled with unfulfilled lust for the taste of her blood. While part of him rolled with the spurts of his seed, another part ached for the ultimate conquest and the heated rush of her body’s essence over his tongue and into his soul.
He found the distraction he needed in Verity’s orgasm.
She cried out sharply and shattered, her inner muscles gripping his cock and releasing it so fiercely it diverted his attention away from his blood-hunger and drew his seed from deep in his balls.
> She shuddered, her body hard then soft then hard all over again as the shocks roared through her, great spasms of pleasure that made her sob and fight for breath. Whimpers gave way to mewling cries and Nick marveled at the response of this woman—a response that touched him like no other had in too many dark years.
Moments passed and she still rolled with aftershocks, little tremors of her abdomen that sent tiny waves of pleasure through his cock. He was softening now, but still able to ride the sensations with Verity.
Sensations that awoke something long silent within him.
Nick’s world shifted—changed—in the silence that followed. That which had been darkness now held the possibility of light. The woman beneath him had crossed his path by accident, yet there might be a purpose to their meetings.
For she had offered Nick the one thing he’d thought gone from his life forever—hope.
Chapter Six
Verity woke with a tiny jump, immediately alert and conscious—knowing she was somewhere she should not be.
Her body ached—pleasantly, but ached all the same—and she was smothered by warm sheets and blankets. A weight pulled the mattress down beside her and she gulped, remembering the night before and whose body slumbered silently there.
Cautiously moving her head she saw him, a still form beneath the quilt, face calm and peaceful in his repose.
Her heart lurched, she fought the urge to touch him, to wake him and love him once more. She simply could not. The risk was too great. Already she had gone beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior with him. She had let her suppressed passion free and look where it had gotten her—in bed with her employer’s guest.
Now she truly would merit the title “whore” if anybody found out.
The room was dark, heavy drapes pulled across the windows with deliberate care. It must have been past dawn, but no light entered the room from outside, only the glow from the dying fire lit the shadows and made it possible to pick out details.
Fearing to breathe lest she wake Nick, Verity crept from their bed and gathered the remnants of her clothes. She could not wear them, that was certain, so she reached for the guest robe a servant had left on a nearby chair. It would have to suffice.
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