by Kim Knox
He glared at me, his beast looking into mine, fire lurking in the depths of his dark eyes. “Is that what you want?”
I dug my nails into his cheeks, jerking him forward. “Would please help?”
The beast in him snarled and my own answered, fire and heat scorching between us. My fangs slid down to press against the edges of my lips. Soon primitive desire would overtake us both in a raw, inevitable surge.
Jager loomed over me, burying himself deep. “You’ll scream for me.”
My teeth pricked the muscle below his collarbone, drawing a trickle of dark blood. I lapped and licked, pulling him into me, my mouth fastened to his skin. Jager groaned, thrusting hard into my body. Fire swept over my skin, hot, searing.
I arched, holding him deeper, unable to deny the surge of my beast, of his as he slammed back into my body again and again. The liquid fire of his blood beat within my veins, coalescing with the building heat of my orgasm.
I fought the rise, the ache in my flesh, the flare of my release. Too soon. I wanted, needed the power of it to hold me, feed me, but the addictive taste of his blood, the strength of his body surrounding me, within me pushed at the coiling heat low in my belly. I clung to him, drinking him, wanting, needing—
A wave of molten heat crashed over my body, ripping my mouth from his skin as I screamed out my release. Jager bit deep into my shoulder, the sensation smashing another orgasm over my trembling body. His muffled cry burned hot against my skin and the tight grip on my body eased, softened. His slow feed, a gentle, exquisite pulse of my blood into him had my head falling back into the soft pillows, hands softening against his hot, damp skin.
I ran trembling fingers through his thick, dark hair. “Jager…” I swallowed as my voice cracked on his name. “I have to…y’know.” My other hand traced over his ribs and I couldn’t say the word. My life as a queen was over. I had to surrender my power to him, kneel before him and take him into my mouth.
Closing my eyes, I let out a slow breath. His tongue laved over the bite marks on my shoulder, healing the wounds. He eased the damp silk from my skin, his clever hands teasing over my ribs, breasts, shooting little aftershocks through my flesh. There was the soft rustle of his own remaining clothes and then he pulled me into his arms, his thigh pushing between mine.
“We sleep,” Jager murmured, tugging warm, soft blankets over our nakedness, and his breath brushed against my temple. “I’ll fuck your mouth later.”
“Make it sound like a chore, why don’t you?”
His mouth curved against my temple. “Nothing about you is a chore, Tate.”
My stomach tightened. Damn it, I didn’t want to like him, but that had sounded like affection in his voice. My sated beast grumbled and I couldn’t deny that the sudden ache in my chest tasted like regret. “Is this what we’ll be like now? With me just one of eight easy fucks?”
“Tate…”
His arms tightened around me, but the offer of comfort only reminded me that I would simply be one of numerous bodies he enjoyed. “Don’t make me watch.” The lump in my throat hurt and my beast flickered at the pain cramping my chest. “Don’t…don’t make me join in.”
Jager pressed his lips to my forehead and the possessive stroke of his hands over my body eased the strain. “From now on, only I will see or touch you, I promise.”
My humor reasserted itself out of self-preservation. “Going to lock me in a box?”
His soft laughter brushed over my damp skin. “Don’t give me ideas, Tate. You’re mine now.” Jager’s large hand slipped over my waist to grip my hip. He pulled me tight against the heat, the strength of his body. His scent threaded through me—spice, sex and the tantalizing hint of the fiery taste of his blood. “So sleep,” he murmured.
A slow sigh escaped me. He’d put off my final capitulation to him. I wanted to be grateful, but he was only putting off the inevitable. “Happy November Eve, Jager.”
“It’s not over yet.”
His words followed me uneasily down into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter Four
I awoke to soft lamplight and a hot mouth on my breast. Jager’s hand slipped over the curve of my belly, stole across the crease of my thigh to dip and find my clitoris. I gasped, twisting my hips against the sudden onslaught.
“Finally, you’re awake,” he murmured, his teeth grazing the delicate underside of my breast. “I had to go ahead and start without you.”
A snort of laughter escaped me. Jager had never looked like a man with a sense of humor. “That’s fine if you want to lick a little further down too…”
He looked up, his beast molten fire in his eyes. “After I’ve fucked your mouth.”
The words were almost a growl. His tongue teased its way down over my stomach, circling my navel as his fingers stroked through my slick flesh. My hand fisted in his hair and everything in me ached to push him down farther, for his mouth, tongue, teeth to be buried between my thighs.
“You ache for it, don’t you?” Jager’s breath stirred the skin below my navel, so close that I could imagine him sinking lower, lower. “You want my hands on your thighs, gripping you, holding you wide open so that my tongue can trace down, curl and lick and lap at you. For me to prick at your skin and drink you…”
His words spread molten fire under my skin, his strong hands brushing over my parted thighs, thumbs pressing into soft flesh. I imagined him there, visualized it, and the image of him became so sharp in my mind I could almost see the dark silk of his hair, feel it cool against my damp body. He would lap and lick me, curling his hot tongue to tease my clitoris, his teeth burning points of ecstasy in my skin.
I arched under him, but his hands held me firm, and his mouth didn’t move from low on my abdomen, his lips burning so tantalizingly close, but so far from where I ached for him to be.
Jager’s strong hands held me down, gripped me as the fiery need for me to have him, have the power of him bow to me raged. My beast wanted it, demanded it. “Jager…” His name was practically a snarl and the prick of his teeth pierced the softness of my belly. The tension thickened, my beast roaring to the surface. I was a queen, I deserved a vampire such as Jager, an intoxicating riot of power and beauty.
His ragged breaths burned against my damp skin. I clung to the image of him, between my thighs, feeding the need of my beast with it.
Then Jager stoked the fire in my veins. “Feel me there, Tate. My tongue, hot and deep inside you. You’d taste sweet, succulent. Honey and fire on my tongue. My power…” His hands gripped my thighs hard enough to bruise. I didn’t care. His power, all that was his would be mine down through eternity. He would be mine. His raw whisper burned against my belly. “My beast would serve you. Only you. Then…then I’d bury my face and eat you ’til you screamed. Making me yours.”
His final words hit me. Yours. Mine, forever.
My spine arched and orgasm smashed over me. I think I screamed, the sound echoing with the roar of my beast. I lost my body in the riot of blinding fire, but there on the edge of my awareness was Jager, his flesh hot against mine, his mouth, his tongue pulling my blood into him. Yes, mine. Forever.
Another crash of flame leapt through my body. I lost all senses, time, everything but the rhythmic lap of Jager’s tongue. Slowly, so slowly I came back to myself and wiped at the tracks of tears staining my face. The bittersweet knowledge that he would never belong to me stabbed a sharp edge into the glory of my release. I sank to the mattress and ran trembling fingers though my damp hair. It’d seemed incredibly real, but it wasn’t. His words were just a game. I pushed down the hurt lying thick in my soul. Maybe I could pretend that wasn’t real either. “You’re evil,” I muttered.
He paused and then grinned against my abdomen. “I know.” His lips, his tongue brushed over my stomach in thorough exploration. “And I will do that.” His gaze flicked up, and dark eyes speared me. “After I fuck your mouth.”
I swallowed. The time had come for me to give up my power to him as o
rdered by his mother, the Queen. I had to remind myself of that, because I wanted nothing more than to shove my fists into his hair and thrust his head down. I wanted his power. I wanted him as my mate.
Jager’s gaze dropped as his mouth sank once more over my breast. He teased the hard nipple. “But first…” His mouth pulled away from my breast with a pop and with easy strength, he rolled me onto my stomach. “I want something else from you.”
I yelped as his teeth sank into my backside.
“There’s not an inch of you that I don’t want to bite,” he murmured, his tongue licking over the wound. His fingers slid between my legs, tracing in a slow slide over my labia, up, up until he paused at my puckered hole. He teased it and my hips bucked. I pushed back and his finger breached the hole, pushing in and pulling out in a slow rhythm.
Tension coiled tight in my belly and I bit down on a soft growl. My beast wanted him to fuck me again. “More.”
“Remember who rules here, Tate.” His fingers stilled, but I pushed back, driving him deep. I groaned.
“Until I kneel.” I shifted my hips and felt the press of another of Jager’s fingers. I caught my hands in my hair and I couldn’t help the soft moan. “Or better yet, you do, neither of us—” His fingers scissored and all ability to speak deserted me.
Jager knelt up behind me, his hot thighs pressing against mine. His fingers stretched and worked me, heat burning deep in my belly. Need gripped me. I wanted him buried inside, pounding against me, hard, the slap of our bodies and satisfied grunts and moans our only sounds.
Jager pulled his fingers free and I cried out at the loss.
“This is better.”
The blunt head of his slicked cock pushed against my ass, Jager pressing it into my stretched hole. He was big. Far too big and my beast ached for him. Heat and fire-edged pain ran through my nerves. My beast growled and jerked my hips back.
I gasped and we both stilled, letting my body grow used to the full length of him buried in my ass. His large hands trembled before he took a tight grip on my hips.
He pulled back, slow, and I almost bit through my lip at the raw sensation, the incredible mix of pain and burning pleasure. His fingertips dug into my abdomen and his low growl had my nipples hard and aching. “More,” I said and his growl deepened.
He slammed into me and my spine arched.
“Faster.”
The flick of his fury echoed in the low snarl that escaped him. His beast had him, controlled him as he pounded into my willing flesh. I met him stroke for stroke, the fire, the urgency gripping me. He buried a hand between my legs, filling me, fingers stroking, fucking and my beast arched my back, shoving me back hard—
Orgasm shattered me, the roar of my beast echoing around the room, mixing with Jager’s sudden snarling release. I wilted to the bed, half dragging him with me, and tried to remember how to breathe. Jager pulled free of my body and drew me back against his damp chest. My legs still trembled and my backside throbbed, but I didn’t care as my beast sank happily down into my soul.
Jager pressed a kiss to my damp hair and his hand cupped my breast, fingers playing idly over my tight nipple. Aftershocks coursed under my skin at his touch.
“It’s not long before dawn, Tate,” he murmured against my ear, skin prickling at the brush of his warm breath. Jager slid his hand from the slow and easy caress of my breast to trace a gentle line along my ribs, waist and hips. “We must make you my escravo.”
Something in his voice pushed cold under my skin. I closed my eyes and fought the sudden cramp in my gut. He had kept his promise of pleasuring me, but that was as far as he wanted it to go. Jager didn’t want another escravo. Hell, he had seven women already, quite prepared to do his slightest bidding, women he had chosen. I’d been foisted on him by the machinations of his mother.
I let out a slow breath. And I would have him in my bed only when he saw fit. No, neither of us wanted this. “I could run, Jager. Hide. You could say overenthusiastic sex on your part drained me beyond endurance, which wouldn’t do your reputation any harm—”
His hand had stilled on my hip, his fingers digging into soft flesh. “You want people to think that I killed you?”
I ignored the undercurrent of anger in his voice. “Wouldn’t that be easier for everyone? Zara has no contest for the ruling throne. You don’t have yet another slave you don’t want and I get…”
“What?”
Not to see you pick a woman every night that isn’t me. But the truth went unsaid. “I’ll be free, Jager. I’ll get my freedom.”
“You know neither of us can do that. If we don’t obey the Queen,” his fingers loosened on my hip and began to caress me with long, easy strokes, “then we have no honor.”
I closed my eyes and let his gentle touch soothe me. “I could live with that.”
Jager pressed his mouth to my shoulder and I felt his smile. “Queens are often a law to themselves.”
My gut didn’t cramp as I murmured, “Time for me to give that up.” I pulled free of him and slid off the bed. A smile pulled at my mouth and the unexpected ease of what I was about to do surprised me. Finally making the decision eased my regret. My gaze slid over his perfection, golden lamplight shadowing his honey skin. “You should wash.”
“We both should.” In one fluid movement, he was off the bed, gripping my hand and tugging me toward the bathroom.
Lights flickered on as he padded into the room, brilliant spots of light sliding over pale terracotta walls. He pulled me toward a curve of wall, the slap of his bare feet echoing around the room. I glanced out of the large window. It looked onto parkland, rolling grass stretching up into a dark forest with the sky losing the deep black of night. Already the stars were fading. Dawn was almost with us.
The splash of water snapped through the first stirrings of panic. Jager stood under a stream of hot water, jets caressing, flowing over every inch of his sculpted body.
My beast growled and I had to agree. He was beautiful. I stepped onto the cushioned floor of the shower, splaying a hand against his chest and watching water cascade over my fingers. I traced the hair flattening to his pectorals and the line of it growing down his abdomen. I pressed my mouth to his nipple, tasting skin and hot water as the shower plastered my hair to my head.
“Washing first,” Jager said, squeezing a cold line of lotion across my shoulders.
I shivered and glanced up, slicking up against him as he rubbed a warm hand down my spine to the curve of my ass. “Are you saying I smell?”
He smirked. “Well, someone had to tell you.”
I pinched him and he yelped, managing to look indignant and shocked. Obviously, no one had ever pinched the Queen’s son before. I grabbed the soap and squirted it over his stomach, lathering his chest, stomach and sliding my hand down to grip his semi-hard cock.
“Tate…”
His growl curled under my skin and it seemed the most natural thing to drop to my knees. I tried not to think about the padding that cushioned the floor, whether it was by design to accommodate a captured reiver…
I slid my palms up the solid muscle of his thighs, his erection so close to my mouth, the urge to flick out my tongue filled me.
“Tate…” He brushed at my soaked hair, pushing it back from my face. His fingers stroked my cheek, his hand trembling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you like this. I wanted—”
I licked the underside of his cock and broke his words. I didn’t need his explanations. With the rising of the sun, I began a new life, just not the one I’d been expecting. Licking at the sensitive head, I sucked him into my mouth, my tongue teasing, sliding, curling. Jager groaned, the muscles in his thighs tensing under my fingers.
Water splashed over my face, ran slick against his skin. He tasted of soap, skin and the first hint of pre-cum, salt-sweet on my tongue. My nails edged over his skin, tracing the crease of his thigh. Jager’s hand caught in the tangled strands of my hair. Over the constant rush of water, his soft, uncontrolled m
oans had my heart thudding. My thumb tip eased over his balls and his fingers clenched.
I took him deeper and his low groan throbbed through me. His hips shifting involuntarily, he thrust into my mouth. My gaze flicked up and through the fall of water, I caught his smoke-dark eyes. Passion edged with pain burned there. He crushed his eyes shut and lifted his jaw, the muscles tight. “Finish it,” he muttered and thrust again.
Surprise had me grabbing his buttocks, meeting his thrusts, taking him deeper. My tongue caught the sensitive head as he drew back, teasing, catching the drops of cum, wanting him now and always. My teeth grazed his skin, drawing beads of his fire-rich blood into my body.
My fingers flexed around his buttocks as the incredible tastes of him mixed within me, burning need down to my core. Taking him into my mouth marked my slavery. The rising sun would seal it. But in that moment, I didn’t, couldn’t care. With my body on fire, water rushing hot over my skin and Jager’s cock filling my mouth, I could live with his domination.
I pushed myself against his thighs, wanting him, wanting him to come inside me. I would be his, whatever way he would take me, I would be his.
“Tate!” The half-growl that came with my name burned fire up through my body, dazzling light and heat in a brief explosion behind my eyes. I gasped, desperate not to bury my fangs and drain him…
And then he came. I swallowed, sucked, licked and finally pulled my mouth free of him, and found Jager dragging me up, holding me in tight, fierce arms, his face pressed into my neck. I couldn’t catch his fast murmured words. I just clung to him. The press of his hot flesh had me sighing.
“I’m sorry, Tate.” Jager pulled back, his hands framing my face. “I didn’t want this. I wanted…” His mouth found mine, hungry and consuming. Breaking free, his forehead rested against me. “I wanted you.”
A smile curved my mouth. My beast curled happy and sated deep in my soul. I really didn’t feel all that different. Maybe…maybe I could live with it. “You have me, Jager.”
“No, I haven’t. I wanted you to be my queen, Tate.”