by Ana Calin
Dressed in a dark designer suit that complimented the athletic V-shape of his torso and his powerful legs, he stretched out his hand and led me to the long table in the dining room. A beast he was, but a magnificent, elegant beast. He watched me with those striking, pale eyes, his dark tresses spilling free to his shoulders, making for a delicious contrast.
I breathed in his wooden scent and lowered myself into the chair he guided under me like a veritable gentleman. My heart pounded in my chest as I watched him walk to the other end of the table.
Sweet jazz played in the background as the she-butler brought dinner. She introduced herself officially as Krista when she stopped by my chair with a white starched cloth folded over one forearm and a plate in the other hand. She placed the steaming food under my nose. It was something sophisticated that looked French and smelled good. My stomach felt tight, but the sound of wine pouring into the crystal glass opened my appetite for intoxication – the only form of relaxation I could imagine in the presence of my crush.
The rich smell of grapes and alcohol infiltrated my brain the way the sight of Damian’s beautiful face did, looking at me from behind dripping candles placed halfway between us in the middle of the table.
Using the most delicate moves in my repertoire, I stabbed a small mushroom with the fork and took it to my mouth. It tasted good, of fine spices. But despite my efforts of focusing on the food, the vintage adornments or the music that flowed seductively in the background, I was still sharply aware of Damian watching me as he sipped from his glass of red wine. My heart pounded uncomfortably in my chest. I dabbed my mouth with the cloth napkin in my lap.
“Does that have any effect on you?” My voice came out shaky.
“Excuse me?” he said.
I cleared my throat. “The wine. You’re invincible to humans and immune to our poisons, so I’m wondering if alcohol can sway you.”
“I can appreciate the taste of wine, and I enjoy its benefits to a certain extent,” he said with a reserved smile. “But it won’t knock me out, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“So it can’t get you drunk?” It sure already went to my head.
“No.”
“What does get you high?”
“Is it just me, or are you growing bold?” he teased.
Indeed, anxiety was gradually subsiding, and my nerves going numb as I drained the third glass. I turned talkative. Though aware, he was once again leading the conversation, inquiring a lot and saying little, the least I could do after everything he’d shared with me was to return some of the honesty.
I told him about the piles over piles of books I used to escape to back then, the suppers alone with Mom, Dad always absent. It felt surprisingly comfortable, talking to him about it and about my secluded evenings deep in the world of fiction, about my oldest friendship with Leona. About our summer nights lying on the beach, music from nearby beach bars in our ears, fueling our dreams as we portrayed our ideal lovers in between giggles.
But when I got to my own questions, Damian would shrewdly redirect the conversation back to me. And then he touched on that particular subject that made me recoil in the blink of an eye – Tony. I refused to elaborate.
“Why won’t you talk about him? Why won’t you go in depth?” he pressed.
“The way you react whenever he’s in question, Damian. Your allergy to him is difficult for me to bear. It’s psychological terror.”
“It’s not allergy. I believe it’s called jealousy.”
My heart jumped out of rhythm. I stared at him.
He raised his glass. “Cheers.”
I took a sip from mine, too.
“What about other men before Anton Anghel?” he asked bluntly, making me choke on the wine.
“What’s with this question all of a sudden?”
“Please, answer it,” he said, as if it tormented him.
“There was nobody before him. Tony was my first and last relationship.”
Astonishment flashed in Damian’s eyes. “You were a virgin until him? Yet another virtue added to your portfolio.” He leaned with his elbows on the table as if I’d become an even more curious case.
“No, no virtue. I wasn’t exactly a head turner as a teenager, so I just didn’t have much opportunity in that regard.”
“You were always a very pretty girl,” Damian countered. “You just looked too young. Boys usually go for riper types.” His lips tightened, and he sank his gaze. I wondered whether he felt guilty because he’d felt attracted to me despite my child-like looks.
He dismissed Krista. She left us drinking in the sight of each other in the candlelight. Damian resumed interrogation in an increasingly penetrating fashion.
“Did you ever have a crush before Anton Anghel?”
“Excuse me, what?”
He went on impatiently. “Who was he?”
I put up my hands and rested back against the chair. “Damian, this is going too fast. It’s making my head spin worse than the wine.”
“Did you ever produce yourself pleasure thinking of him?”
I froze at that question. I countered the shock by draining the wine too fast. My head felt light as Damian leaned back in his chair.
“Come here, please,” he slurred. There was a pained expression in his face, as if something tormented him beyond belief.
“Why?” I managed.
“I need you close, Alice.” His eyes blazed at me.
I couldn’t resist him. I was drunk, and that didn’t help my cause. As I stood, my brain started in circles in my skull, so I kept contact with the table by sweeping two fingers along it to keep balance. I walked to him on unstable stilettos, afraid I might fall flat on my face any second.
“Take a seat,” he said, gesturing to the table.
There was no dish in front of him. His glass of wine rested on the arm of his chair, Damian keeping it there with two fingers. His beastly eyes locked on mine. I leaned on the table, my hands gripping tightly to the edge.
“No, not like this. Sit on it,” he purred darkly.
Blood rushed to my cheeks. I hoisted myself onto the table, the wood scratching the fabric of my dress. The right side of it fell off my leg as I crossed it over the other. For a moment, the bare folded flesh between my thighs must’ve been visible through the dress split, since Damian’s eyes glinted. His jaw tightened and rippled.
I wished the earth would open up and swallow me. What the hell had I been thinking, not to wear panties? My heart drummed so fast that my body shook, and I prayed to God and all saints that Damian didn’t notice.
“Open your legs,” he said, his voice thick. Embarrassed, I hesitated.
“Please, Alice. Open your legs and pleasure yourself.” His gaze shimmered intense in the candlelight, filled with beastly need.
Blood pumped in my temples.
“Do it, Alice. Do it and think of the man you most desired in your life. I want to see you climax for him, and I want to believe I’m that man.”
Chapter Nine
My face was burning as I opened my legs to the point where the table edge scraped my naked back thigh. Leaning back on one hand I let the other one slip between them and touch the warm, soft flesh, avoiding Damian’s eyes.
He bent to the side and placed the wine glass on the ground, then began unbuttoning his shirt. I watched those honey muscles emerge from under it, craving to touch him, to feel him inside of me. My eyes slid down to the bulge in his pants, though I knew we couldn’t make love now. The pills might not yet protect us. But if I could at least watch, the way he did....
As if he read my desires, Damian undid his fly, reached in, and freed his erection. The sight inflamed me and made me cream so fast that I lost a moan. I bit hard into my lower lip as he began rubbing it with his big hand, his knuckles like concrete. I couldn’t believe I got to watch Damian Novac give himself pleasure, not to mention spurred by the sight of me.
My moves intensified, my breathing too. I built up fast, and barely held
it as he spit in his palm and quickened the rubbing, muscular thighs flexing under the fabric of his pants, low groans reaching my ears.
I surrendered to the imminent orgasm, eyes fixed on Damian’s mighty shaft. Waves of pleasure went through me for sweet, intense seconds before my body began to slowly relax. Only then, I dared look into Damian Novac’s face. He seemed to devour the sight of my creamed flesh, lips slightly parted, eyebrows knitted as he masturbated furiously.
I watched him, licking my lips. But he didn’t go the whole way. He bent forward, his big hands sliding under my dress and grabbing my buttocks. I gasped as his tongue licked the juice of orgasm off me.
He continued as if he couldn’t get enough, kissing me there like his life depended on it, making me build up again, hands knotting in his hair. I was highly sensitive from the first orgasm, and Damian sought my pleasure relentlessly, until it became more than I could take. I stiffened, begging for a break. He ignored my pleas and pushed a long, thick finger inside of me, licking and moaning as if I were a delicious meal.
He seemed to sense when the build-up became unbearable, and slowed his rhythm for a short while, then increased it until he drove me crazy again and let me climax, convulsing, and spilling both my juice and my heart.
“Oh, Damian, I love you!” I cried in ecstasy, my body quivering, hands clenching in the silk of his hair.
Only when my pulse began to slow down I found some courage to look into his eyes again. Damian watched me from under his eyebrows, and I flushed with embarrassment.
“I... I....”
He nodded and slowly eased his finger out of me. I winced as he left me empty, my inside still pulsing in the aftermath of climax, my hands disentangling from his hair.
“I understand. In the heat of the moment,” he said.
My head spun, still under the effect of old red wine and pleasure. Though not ready to admit that I’d meant it, that I was crazy in love with him, I decided not to hold back with what I’d offer. I decided I’d show him how I felt. The only problem was that I was so drained that my limbs felt unstable.
“It’s all right. Don’t move,” he said, countering my attempt of getting down from the table. “And keep your legs open.”
He swiped his big palm between my legs, making me wince again, and reviving the pulsing sensation. I refused to believe that my body could respond to him yet again, so soon.
He leaned back and wrapped his hand with my juice around his manhood so tight that his concrete-strong knuckles showed. He began moving his hand up and down, but this time I could feel his stare on my face instead of between my legs. I couldn’t take mine off what he was doing.
“Stand up,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Stand up,” I repeated, allowing all the desire I felt to fill my voice. “I want you in my mouth.”
He hesitated. I stretched out my arms, letting him know I wanted on my feet but didn’t have the strength. He stood and helped me. Now we faced each other, I looking up at him from the level of his chest, he down at me with an uncertain expression.
I went down to my knees, hooking my fingers in his loosened belt and pulling his pants off his hips in the process, enough to free his manhood completely. The way those sinewy, honey hip muscles blended with the top of his thighs made me lick my lips in delight. He looked like a god, magnificent, with the thick and brutal-looking erection that now touched my lips, tasting of me.
Eagerly, I slid all the way to his pubic hair, the crest reaching to my throat. He groaned deeply, barely containing his desire. Greedy for him I sucked forth and back, the pain in my jaw and the way my throat constricted each time it went too deep adding to my lust.
I took his hand and guided it to my hair. It clawed in my chignon, the other one reaching impatient in the cleavage, and kneading my breast. He moaned with pleasure, shoving it deeper down my throat, keeping my head in place. Letting go of all control and taking my mouth like a lord his slave, like I desired him to.
When his shaft began to throb, he pulled out and grabbed it with his hand to keep from coming.
“Where do you want it?” he asked hoarsely, pale green eyes craving.
In response, I looked at him provocatively, like a wanton. He frowned in an attempt to restrain, but I clasped his buttocks and guided him back to my lips. I had great appetite for his salty, metallic sap.
One hand still tight in my hair, he tugged at it, forcing me to bend my head yet further back, and slapped his shaft over my tongue, groaning deep from his chest. He shoved it in my mouth forcefully, until he could no longer hold it. He retreated in time, but his seed still splashed my face, tongue, and neck, thick and viscous, Damian growling like a beast.
My skin tingled with pleasure as I took in the sight of him climaxing until he reached under my armpits and swung me up. I closed my legs around his hips, a stiletto falling off my foot and clattering on the stone floor. Damian wiped his seed off my face, his gaze searching mine. It was intense like the fires of hell, as if he wanted to probe the deepest depths of my soul.
“I’m losing my mind,” he said, low and dark. “What have you done to me, Alice?”
My heart flared and the blood drained from my brain. I wanted to call out to the four winds that I loved him, but before I could draw another breath, his mouth took over mine in a ravenous kiss, one hand cupping my head. We caressed each other, pressing our bodies tighter together, desperate, wanting to become one.
His embrace tightened until my mind clouded. I began to lose consciousness. Damian loosened his hold and set me down on my feet, but kept his supportive arms around me until enough oxygen reached my brain. I rested my head on his broad chest, but as soon as I did, his deep voice thundered in my ears.
“What in the world are you doing here?”
His words couldn’t have been meant for me. He cupped my head in a protective gesture, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the man in a dark suit standing motionless and open-mouthed by the entrance.
“You requested that I reported personally, Damian,” Gino said.
“Still, you should’ve announced your arrival.”
“Forgive me. I didn’t expect—”
“Didn’t expect? You know I don’t live alone anymore.”
I don’t live alone anymore. I realized he didn’t plan on letting me go anytime soon, and the idea gave me goose bumps.
I felt Damian’s hand between us, buttoning up his fly. He slid an arm under my knees and cradled me towards the stairs, keeping my cheek pressed to his skin.
“I’ll be right with you,” he threw over his shoulder at Gino.
I wanted my face on that stone-hard chest all night. I never wanted away from it again in my life. But I knew Gino brought information on Leona.
Damian set me down in the bedroom. I had one stiletto still on, the other foot bare, making one knee bend awkwardly as my feet touched the ground. He clasped my shoulders and looked into my eyes.
“Gino brings news about your friend. Let me have a talk with him.” He kissed my forehead before he turned and closed the door behind him.
I took a hot shower, threw a bathrobe around me, and ran back downstairs determined to take part in the conversation. Determined to get over my feelings of shame at the thought of Gino having seen Damian and me making love, and force myself to bear his presence. In the end, Damian had told him to report to me anyway, should he not be available.
But downstairs, the hall was empty. The dripping candles in the middle of the long table were now spent, orange-glowing witnesses of the passion between Damian and me. The place seemed deserted. Where was everybody?
The Executioner’s Sacrifice
Damian and his men observed a window on the third floor. White light pulsated through a crack between curtains – from the TV, for sure.
A tousled guy hung half out of the kitchen window above their target’s apartment, smoking a cigarette, and scrutinizing the darkness. To him, Damian and his men must have seemed mere
shadows against the schoolyard’s net-wire fence across the parking lot. Still, the Executioner smoothed the side of his leather jacket behind the holster at his hip, his hand poised over a throwing dagger. According to the reports on his desk, BioDhrome’s men lurked all around the block, undercover. For all he knew, the smoking guy could’ve been one of them.
But the man finished his cigarette, threw away the stub, and closed the window. Damian raised his hand, gave the signal, and his men started after him in a silent march toward the building. It had the typical communist architecture that had spread over Romanian cities like a cobweb of concrete, replacing forests and fields back in the day. The regime had fallen, yet, like its oppression, this cobweb endured. Streaks of dampness ran down the building’s walls like rivulets of shadow, marking years of neglect.
The staircase was chilly, the small company’s steps an echoing shuffle. Damian led his team of Upgrades up the stairs, Gino closest behind him. On the second landing, they came to an abrupt stop.
A man lurked in the shadow, behind the mist of moonlight that shimmered over mosaic stairs from a dusty window to their left. He seemed a black beast in a cave, only its eyes clearly visible, eyes made of simple light. Damian alone had seen those eyes before. Up close, they appeared made of glass, colorless, unsettling in a face with strongly marked features, like a well-contoured pencil drawing. But his men could see nothing of that now. Damian’s hand tightened on the dagger’s hilt.
“Viscount,” he greeted evenly.
“Executioner,” an inhumanly deep voice greeted back. The first time he’d heard it, Damian had thought of an ancient god whose words rumbled from deep within the earth. Now it sent a shudder through his men. He could hear them shift uncomfortably, some whispering in surprise.
Silence filled the space between the Viscount and the Executioner, tension suspended in the air. The Viscount spoke first.
“I thought we’d agreed on a different plan.”