The cool metal slid lower, edging against her bush, and he inclined over her for a closer view.
'Hold yourself open,' he commanded, his voice firm, but not harsh. Even so, Paula shuddered, her heart a-flutter.
Reaching down, she parted her pubic hair, exposing the delicate, glistening anatomy of her sex. She wrinkled her nose as a gust of woman smell rose up. Rafe smelt it too. She could tell from the way he drew in a deep, deep breath.
With slow, infinite precision, he drew the metal of the cuff down her body and settled it in between her labia. It felt so cold and hard that Paula mewed out loud.
'Shush,' he chided her, working the cold metal up and down, over her clit. The contact was light, almost ethereal, but she felt herself beginning to clench and gather, to rise. She wanted to grab his hand, force the damn thing against herself, rub and rub, crudely and roughly, almost painfully, until she came. But she still felt compelled to resist, as if mentally shackled.
As she fluttered on the edge, Rafe lifted the cuffs away and she moaned like an animal.
'Easy, baby, we've only just started,' he said, leaning and whispering the words right in her ear. Even as she still writhed, he caught her hands and went to work, finally putting the cuffs to their actual purpose. Making her raise her hands over her head, he secured one wrist, then slid the chain through the metal bed railings, before clipping the second cuff around her other wrist.
She was bound.
'How does it feel?' He leant in close, in her face, his eyes shining as if they were polished. He didn't touch her, but just held himself above her, poised. Paula arched her body, reaching for contact, but he slid backwards and knelt up, out of reach.
How did it feel?
Terrifying.
Exciting.
Strangely comforting.
She rattled the cuffs against the rails. They were hard around her wrists and uncomfortable if she fought them. But when she let off the tension and there was slack, they were OK. To ensure she didn't tug involuntarily, she curled her fingers around the rails and clung on.
'Different. I've never done this before.'
'I have.'
'Now why doesn't that surprise me? Do you chain up your massage ladies?'
It just slipped out, and she wondered for a moment if she'd smashed the mood. But he just gave her a wry smile and started tugging at the sash of his robe.
'I never said I was the one doing the chaining up.' He laughed softly as the robe parted and, after slipping the handcuffs key in one of its pockets, he shrugged it off and tossed it away. He was a good shot and it landed across a chair, several feet away.
Which left him kneeling up on the bed but just beyond where she could effectively get to him. And resplendently naked as he leant over and reached into the bedside drawer and pulled out a fistful of condoms. On a hunch, Paula had glanced in there a little while ago and discovered that the Priory was just as well provisioned in contraceptives as it was in everything else.
As she'd done before, she wondered whether he sunbathed naked or used a sunbed. Or maybe his luscious golden skin colour was just natural? Whichever way, his body gleamed in the filtered light, deliciously healthy. There's nothing wrong with you, she thought, trying to convey her conviction to him. I don't believe in that death sentence for a minute, even if you do.
For a moment a tiny frown puckered his brow as if he'd heard her, then he smiled, licked his lips and touched his cock.
Shivers of sexual electricity quivered through her body. She'd expected his tactic would be to touch her and caress her until she was half-mad with just-denied pleasure and wanting him. But it seemed now as if he was taking a different tack.
Slowly, slowly, he caressed himself, carefully stiffening even further an erection that had been mighty in the first place. Licking her own lips, she admired the fullness and the gathering rosiness of his flesh and the way the narrow love-eye cheekily pouted as he pumped himself. Shiny fluid, thin and glassy, quickly coated him.
When he was hard, massive and pointing at her crudely, like a cudgel, he loosened his fingers and seemed to present his erection to her.
Here it is, he seemed to say, look but don't touch.
For a moment, she wondered if he was going to simply ejaculate over her, but a second later it seemed he had other ideas. He began touching himself again, his fingers lightly and leisurely exploring. But not his cock this time, just the rest of his body. Caressing himself as if he loved himself – which he maybe did at this moment. He grinned at her, then blew her a mimed kiss.
Oh, dear God in heaven, how she wanted him! And how perverse and delicious of him to put on such a show.
With leisurely grace, he swept up his hands, ran them over his scalp, ruffling his short hair and tipping his head back as he did so. And with every movement, great or smaller, his heavy cock swayed. Paula clenched her fingers around the metal bed rails, knowing that if she didn't she'd wrench at the handcuffs and hurt her wrists. Rafe's golden skin seemed to call to her and his well-honed muscles purred softly to her fingertips, inviting them to touch and glide and explore.
His majestically rampant cock seemed to shout, You want me, don't you? You want to touch me, you want to hold me. You want me in you!
And Paula's mouth began to water and tingle with the deep yearning to suck him. She was being offered everything beautiful, hard and male, just inches from her reach. He didn't have to touch her or even talk to her. Just the sight of him inflamed her beyond reason, and she cried out incoherently.
Rafe shook his head, then eyed her narrowly. The slow sweet smirk on his sensual lips was a caress in itself. 'What do you want, baby?' he said, his voice a mocking parody of porn-star sleaziness. His eyes were laughing and filled with merriment and, despite her screaming lust for him, Paula couldn't help but laugh right back at him.
'You!' she growled at him, lifting her hips, shimmying at him as enticingly as he'd shimmied at her. 'I fucking well want you! I want you inside me just as much as you want to be inside.' She nodded to his erection, waving slightly, its tip slick with pre-come.
'Patience, baby, patience,' he teased, his hand dropping again to his cock. He plied his fingers over his hardness a moment, then moved towards her. But didn't put it within her reach. Instead he inclined over her and cupped her breasts, fondling them vigorously, his thumbs sliding over her heated skin and flicking her nipples.
Oh, it was so good, but it was also so bad. Between her legs, her sex gnawed at her, demanding contact. She wove her hips trying to press herself against him and secure a bit of ease.
'No, no, no,' he crooned, twisting his body clear of possible contact without faltering a moment in his caresses. His hands and fingers worked cleverly, massaging firmly without ever overstepping the boundary of discomfort.
The delicious teasing went on for just long enough to play havoc with Paula's senses. She was just a ball of unresolved hunger, craving more, more, more ...
Then Rafe kissed her, his tongue sliding in and possessing just as his hand proceeded deftly to her sex. As he as good as fucked her mouth, his fingertip danced upon her clitoris. And as the inevitable occurred and she climaxed hard, he held her to him, sliding his free hand around her waist and lifting her up as he pressed against her.
The orgasm was light and clean and intense. Paula gripped the bed rails hard, rattling them on their fixings as her sex fluttered and clenched repeatedly. She wanted to hold him, desperately, but not holding him only intensified her pleasure.
'Oh, God, please ... please ... I want you,' she gasped as he released her mouth while his fingertips still devilishly plagued her clit. 'I can't take much more of this. I want you inside me. I want to be fucked!'
Rafe laughed. But it was a warm sound, a verbal caress.
'Anything for you, love.' Still chuckling, he rummaged amongst the condom pile and plucked one out, rolling away to put it on.
Paula's shackled fingertips itched to be able to do the service for him. To be able to en
robe his big thick shaft in superfine rubber and touch and caress him in the process. He seemed to be taking an inordinate time about things, even though his movements over his erection were smooth and deft.
As she writhed uneasily against the bed, her hips seeming to have an electrical energy of their own that had nothing to do with her conscious thought, Rafe slid over her and then parted her legs, kneeling between them. Paula whimpered, the stretching of her tendons increasing the tension in her sex-flesh.
Coming up on hands and knees, he drew his hard, latex-covered length over her body, sliding the tip against her skin, across her marked belly, up and down her thighs and into the hollows where her legs joined her torso. Slowly, slowly he dragged his hot flesh over her skin. Teasing, taunting, promising, acquainting her with what would soon be inside her. And as he did, he kissed her face, her throat, her shoulders.
Paula groaned, almost wanting to weep with frustration as her sex wept with it too. She could feel silky fluid sliding out of her as it welled in welcome, making ready for Rafe's sweet cock.
Finally, he stilled, his erection resting lightly against her cleft, simply the heat of it a caress to her burning sex. Looking down into her eyes, his expression was complicated, a chiaroscuro of emotion. She saw playfulness, desire, yearning – but more, so much more. He caught his breath as he reached down and positioned himself, and caught the minted scent of toothpaste in his gasp.
He didn't ask her to beg for him. The teasing was over now. Guiding his penis with his fingers, he pushed right in. In his eyes, emotion flared, and they sighed as one.
Paula longed to hold him, but felt, somehow, that she was holding him with her heart, if not her arms. He felt huge inside her, and right and good. His flesh belonged there, it was his natural home – she felt complete.
With tenderness, with care, but still with huge passion, he began to thrust, whispering sweet, loving nonsense in her ear. As he moved inside her, pleasure bloomed, reborn anew.
And suddenly, it was all so simple. The pleasure. As her body gathered itself, everything was clear and pure, untrammelled. Genetic death sentences and unspeakable supernatural threats couldn't touch them when they were like this. All that mattered was the pleasure and their sudden, unlikely and completely unlooked-for love.
As orgasm bloomed, their cries were mutual, their fates entwined.
A set of bonds far greater than metal joined them now.
Afterwards, without speaking, Rafe released her and, like a long-married couple, they settled down for their much delayed hour or so of sleep. The only unusual part of the process were the cuffs and Paula's bondage.
Rafe still insisted he could stay awake, but they both knew his claim was probably bravado. It fell to Paula, who felt wise beyond her previous limits, to convince him that it was still necessary to keep her bound. The release of pleasure had made her sleepy, but not too relaxed to ignore the same effects in him.
'OK then,' he said, a soft masterful smile playing around his lips, 'but we do this my way.'
When Paula returned from the bathroom, she found the pillows and the bedding radically rearranged and sideways on to the bedhead.
'This way you can lie more comfortably,' Rafe explained, as he moved her into position with her hands in front of her rather than above. Then with infinite tenderness, he wrapped her wrists with strips of cotton from a torn T-shirt, lightly padding them so the metal cuffs wouldn't bite and chafe.
'How's that?' he whispered in her ear as he adjusted the pillows again. Then he slid his warm naked body beneath the sheets behind hers and curved his arm protectively over her, cupping her belly, his fingers curving over the sigil as if to keep Isidora's darkness out.
'Wonderful. Thanks, love.' Paula nestled against him, loving the feel of his soft cock against the back of her thighs. It was quiescent now, but she couldn't help but smile, remembering the power latent in it.
Whatever might happen, she was safe, with him.
Rafe shivered and opened his eyes, not sure whether he'd slept an hour or a minute.
The previous night had been warm, but the morning seemed cold. There was gooseflesh all over his body, despite the thick, luxurious quilt that covered himself and Paula. Even though sunlight was streaming into the room through the slightly open curtains, the air seemed strangely icy and heavy and not quite right.
With a horrible surge of knowledge, he shot up in the rearranged bed and scooted towards the foot of it, his eyes on his still curled-up partner.
She was motionless, her back smooth, soft, normal. He should have felt a surge of love and affection and rich memories of their joining and their sweet sex games.
But all he felt was antipathy and a shuddering revulsion.
Slowly, and with a sleek, sinuous grace despite her shackles, Isidora turned over.
'Handcuffs, Rafe?' she enquired creamily, her green eyes glittering, her smile lascivious. 'I'm sorry I missed that game. What a shame you wasted it on Paula. I'm sure she doesn't appreciate erotic bondage and the exchange of power as much as I do.'
How could I have contemplated co-operating with this creature, thought Rafe, wrapping a sheet around his body. Isidora's form was Paula's, the shape that he loved now, and his blind, unthinking penis couldn't tell the difference and was thickening beneath the bedding that covered his groin.
He wanted to kill her, destroy her, annihilate her for invading the woman he loved. But the fact that they inhabited the same body was agonising. The fury within him locked up his throat and tongue. He couldn't speak.
'Nothing to say, Rafe?' Her voice – Paula's – was utterly seductive, but it left his heart cold.
She tipped her head on one side, her hair swinging like a curtain of blue-black silk. 'Perhaps actions speak louder than words then?'
Twisting towards him, she exhibited the body he adored. Her nipples were dark and erect, exquisitely tempting and, as she parted her thighs, the pungent, complex odour of her femininity wafted towards him. Even the black sigil on her belly exerted an exotic and deeply menacing appeal, almost pulsating against the pale, silky gleam of her skin.
His cock twitched, increasing his horror. In that moment he would have given anything to be a eunuch, sexually unfeeling, yet still capable of devotion and sacrifice for the woman he loved. He would forsake sex for the rest of what remained of his life if it meant he could rid Paula of this evil, evil thing.
'Rafe ... oh, Rafe ... why not give in to it? You know you want me. You can have both of us. For all eternity ... Let's make love now, and then afterwards we can make our plans for the future.' Her lush lips curved, red and tempting. 'For the three of us, Rafe, remember that. You can be the lover of two women, in the best of all worlds.'
He couldn't succumb to her but he mustn't alert her to the plans of Michiko. He couldn't even let her know that her perfidy with the grimoire had been discovered. With difficulty, he manufactured a smile.
'I'd dearly love to accommodate you,' he said, forcing his body to relax and suggest repletion, 'but Paula is a sexier girl than you realise, Countess. We've been making love all night while you've been sleeping.' He moved a little closer, even though his flesh was crawling. Even though this creature couldn't read his mind and, according to Michiko, her powers were limited in this half and half condition, she was still sharply clever and intuitive. 'I'm beat. I won't be able to get it up for a while.'
Isidora eyed him, her tongue sneaking out to moisten her rosy lips. 'Let me help you, lover.' She shimmied her hips again, proffering dark delights, twisted pleasures. 'That's one of my talents, the rousing of men. I'll have you hard again in a matter of moments.'
The horror of it was that she probably could. If he let her touch him. He had to think fast. As she kicked at the covers, to facilitate her seductive writhing, the answer came.
Rafe forced himself to slide forwards, holding her gaze, making his own a sultry, salacious mirror of her own. Controlling himself strictly, he reached for her narrow foot and began to massage
it, thumbs pressing in a circling motion that had often had his Inner Light ladies cooing. With a supreme act of self-discipline, he bent down and kissed her instep.
Isidora cooed too, just as he'd hoped she would. She was devious, evil and determined to get her own way. But at heart she was a greedy sensualist and, trapped in an alien body, she was hungry for sensation. Arching and moaning, she allowed him to nibble and suck her toes.
In between kissing, in between viciously suppressing his nausea and self-disgust, he began to murmur to her. She was clever and evil, but he was clever in his own way too. And he'd done less than admirable things using the power of his voice coupled with the caressing skills of his hands and fingers.
Isidora was a woman, and beguiling women for his own ends was his speciality.
He barely knew what he was saying. He spoke softly and cajolingly, just as he'd done, years ago, when he'd used hypnotism to persuade rich widows to gift him sizeable amounts of cash. He'd got caught and prison had been the richly deserved price he'd paid but at the time the ruse had worked, and worked a treat. Now, fighting for Paula, and for their love, the stakes he was gambling for were infinitely higher.
At first, he could feel Isidora resisting him. He could almost taste her suspicion and she was strong. But his inner anger drove him on, lifting his skills to a new level of guile and subtlety, aided by the talisman. When he described their future, mirroring the very situation with which she'd tempted him, he felt her mellow, yielding to temptation and to flattery.
Yet right on the point of slipping under, she murmured, 'Lover...'
'Yes?' He kept his fingertips moving on her foot, circling and delicately massaging. The technique, his way of inducing a trance, worked as well there as it did on a subject's hand.
'There were some pieces of old paper in the pocket of a robe I had on. Did you find them? They're important to us. I need to know they're safe.'
Never had subterfuge been more difficult. Every instinct in Rafe's body screamed at him to confront her.
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