“I can’t be the first man who has ever wanted to spank you just because we would both enjoy the experience.”
Charlotte looked down.
Shouldn’t like it.
Well, if she was that determined not to enjoy it, it wasn’t going to happen. What she thought she needed and what she really needed were obviously two very different things right then, and nothing short of her safe word would have stopped him proving that to her.
Zachariah brushed their lips together, a gentle little contact that had nothing to do with punishment. Charlotte leaned into his body, seeming to sense the kiss was the opposite of what she feared.
He wrapped his arms around her and encouraged any movement which brought her closer to him. She soon pressed against him from top to toe. He ran his hands down her back, stroking her skin.
Fragile as her body felt under his hands, vulnerable as her mind felt over the bond, it was impossible for him not to be careful with her. He trailed his lips across her cheek, back to her ear in feather light caresses.
Knowledge of the bond put her so off balance her usual ability to be subtle deserted her. She tilted her head back to a painful angle.
He trailed his fingers over her exposed throat. “So beautiful,” he whispered.
No emotion passed across her face at the compliment. The bond offered him a cautiously pleased response, whispering how pleased Charlotte was to think she might have pleased her master.
“Good girl.” Zachariah soothed.
The praise increased the flow of good emotions through the bond. He smiled at her. Her eyes flickered from his eyes to his throat and back again.
Feed?
Zachariah wanted to. He could almost taste the perfection of her blood on his tongue. He licked his lips. His eyes focused on her throat. His mind focused on how she felt.
Feed?
The bond repeated the word to him.
Want me?
The little plea sealed the deal. Zachariah nodded. “Yes, pet. Your master wants to feed now.”
She beamed up at him, her relief too great to hold back behind her usual mask.
Zachariah led Charlotte across to the bed and arranged her just as he wanted her. Lying behind her so they spooned close together, he wasn’t willing to rush in his eagerness to taste her blood.
Starting as gently as he’d ever touched her, he ran his hands over her body and applied teasingly gentle kisses to her neck. She lay very still in his arms, offering him complete access to her body, but nothing more. The feeding was too important to let her remain so passive. If she wanted her master to feed from her body, she needed to really want it.
He let several minutes pass by with nothing more than gentle teasing between them. Zachariah began to slowly harden against her back. Eventually the fear and worry in her mind had to fade away, if only to allow her building frustration more room. None of his touches offered her what he knew his pet craved. He made sure of it.
His hand cupped her breast. His thumb circled her nipple again and again. Zachariah concentrated everything he had on reading the bond, until he caught the perfect moment.
He pinched Charlotte’s nipple sharply between his thumb and forefinger. She gasped and pushed her breast into his hand. Sudden sparkling pleasure spiked across the bond.
In seconds he was completely hard, his erection pressed tight against Charlotte’s buttocks as he absorbed her pleasure. “Do you like that, pet?”
“I like whatever—” she stalled, confusion filling her mind when his touch gentled again and his fingers returned to their teasing.
“If you don’t like a little pain mixed in with your pleasure, I have no interest in hurting you, little pet,” he told her seriously.
Charlotte looked at her master over her shoulder.
Please?
A thought coming through so loud and so clear couldn’t have just slipped across the bond. She was projecting to him. Such voluntary use of the bond deserved a reward. His hand returned to her breast, he scraped his thumb nail across the sensitive bud. It pebbled and peaked for him.
Like.
Zachariah smiled over her shoulder.
Worry returned to her mind for a moment.
Wrong?
“No, pet there is nothing wrong with liking this. Your master is very pleased you do.”
Truth?
“Your master only ever tells you the truth,” he whispered to her. ”You can trust me, little pet.”
She nodded, but he could tell she didn’t trust him at all. Zachariah pushed his disappointment aside, reminding himself she couldn’t read him as he read her. Her trust would only come over time, as he proved he deserved it.
He kissed his pet’s neck and let his teeth trail across her skin. She tried to push her throat against his teeth. As much as he longed for it, he eased his lips back from her neck and trailed his hand down across her stomach to slip between her legs. She spread them eagerly. The heat from her body pressed against his erection as she arched her back and offered herself to him.
She murmured approvingly when he teased her clit, stroking the waiting wetness around the swollen nub of nerve endings.
Want.
Zachariah wanted her body and her blood both. He kissed the side of her neck again, more roughly. He trailed his teeth across her skin toward her jugular. Charlotte tipped her head back, offering him the vein.
Feed!
“Do you want my teeth, pet?” he teased, his fingers working their way inside her, his movements becoming rougher by the moment.
Yes!
“If,” she gasped. “If it pleases my master too...” she trailed off. Pleasure stole her breath again.
Zachariah pressed his teeth against the sensitive flesh again. This time he didn’t just let them trail over her neck. They sliced through her skin. Charlotte whimpered. Her head tilted back, offering him even better access to her blood.
Feels good. Like. More. Want.
He murmured his agreement into her skin as her blood bound them together, strengthening the bond even further. Her blood sped straight into his veins until Charlotte’s presence tingled in every inch of his body. Strength flowed into him. The bond wrapped tight around them both.
Zachariah held her in as tight an embrace as he could without causing her harm.
Tighter.
Increasing his hold just a fraction, he sensed a buzz of electricity shoot through her. His grip was too tight. It had to be painful for her, but he sensed the pleasure in his pet and pushed her further than he ever could have risked before the feeding. He gripped her tighter, until they both knew there would be marks left on her body in the morning, until there was no way she could take a deep breath.
Safe? Yours?
Zachariah closed his eyes. “Yes, little pet. Safe. Mine.”
She was his, his life blood. Zachariah could not risk tightening his hold any further. There was only one way to bring their bodies even closer together.
Slackening his grip for the briefest possible moment, he guided his shaft into Charlotte’s slit. Pressed close against her back, from teeth to toes, he wrapped his arms back around her, catching her wrists in his grasp. She pulled at his grip.
For a moment, Zachariah thought he’d hurt her.
He let go.
Charlotte shook her head. She offered her wrists back to his hands. “Please.”
Please!
He could sense how much it cost her to ask—how afraid she was that he would refuse her just because she wanted it too much.
Want.
The bond relayed the information for her. Charlotte wanted her master. Then she hesitated.
Wrong?
“I’ve got you, little pet.” He had no hesitation in taking her wrists back into his grip and keeping hold of them. She pulled tentatively at his grasp again. He tightened his hold on her.
Relief flooded across the bond.
He pushed into her, harder and faster as his pleasure mixed with Charlotte’s and it became too much for him to
hold back anything. She gasped for breath, moaning her pleasure. She was close too. It would only take the tiniest little thing to tip her over the edge.
“Good girl,” he whispered in her ear. “That’s right, Charlotte, show your master how much you are looking forward to your spanking tomorrow.”
A flash of arousal burst across the bond. The image tipped her over the edge. Charlotte came. Her pleasure took him with her. Zachariah climaxed with his teeth still buried in her neck. He stayed inside her, his shaft softening within her slit as he lapped the last of his feeding from her vein.
Contentment flooded across the bond.
The moment he felt Charlotte start to worry and think of all the things which failed to make her the perfect submissive in her eyes, he stopped her short.
“No.”
Zachariah turned her around in his arms.
Charlotte blinked up at him.
“No, my pet,” he said more gently. “Your master is very pleased with you. You are to trust his judgement and not worry over problems which don’t exist.”
He stroked her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “Hush. Lay quietly with you master and go to sleep.”
She nodded. “Yes, master.”
He brushed their lips together and coaxed her to snuggle more comfortably into his arms. He knew she was trying to stay awake on purpose, waiting for him to fall asleep so she could go back to her worrying.
Zachariah couldn’t let that happen. He stayed awake until he felt her fall asleep across the bond, only then did he fall asleep himself.
Chapter Three
The time was right. Zachariah set aside his book. “Charlotte.”
Kneeling on the other side of the room, she looked up from her task and immediately gave him her full attention. “Yes, master?”
“Come here,” he ordered.
He watched her rise gracefully to her feet. Marks lingered on her skin where he held her so tightly the night before. He studied them as she walked across to him and knelt at his feet. The bond reported the marks caused her no pain. That was satisfactory.
He tilted her head back to look into her eyes, but Charlotte kept her eyes lowered.
“Look up at me.”
His pet reluctantly did as she was told. She looked him in the eye for the first time that day.
“What do you think is the purpose of the bond?” he asked.
The bond answered him before she even opened her mouth.
Punishment.
The answer was so quick and so certain Zachariah knew he wasn’t the only one who had spent time considering the matter. She must have put a lot of thought into the subject while he was out of the house and not able to hear what she was thinking.
“It is not my place to-” she began to say.
Zachariah frowned. “It’s not about punishment, little pet,” he corrected.
“Why else?” Her gaze dropped the moment she realised she whispered the words out loud
“Meaning?”
“Why else would you need to know things I don’t tell you? The bond lets you know what I’m thinking so I can’t hide things from you,” she said softly.
“It lets me know all the things my pet doesn’t feel able to tell me,” he reworded.
“You could ask,” she whispered.
He looked down at her. “But could you answer me? Can you tell your master things you don’t think he wants to hear?”
“I do not lie to my master,” she said with apparent meekness, while anger at the accusation flowed across the bond. “If I break the rules, I tell you. I don’t hide such things from you.”
“Hush. I’m not accusing you of anything.” Zachariah led her to rest her head on his knee and take comfort in her master’s touch. “Yes, you tell me things like that, but sometimes you cannot tell me the most important things. If you break a rule then, yes, of course I wish to know. But it is more important for me to know when you are unhappy or when you need something you don’t know how to ask your master for.”
Don’t want to ask.
“Tell me it wasn’t easier to think that at me rather than say the words out loud,” he invited, knowing if she did it would be a lie.
Charlotte shook her head against his knee. “I do not want to be asking you for things all the time. It is not the way submission should work.”
“You said before submission should work however your master wants it to,” he reminded her.
She nodded against his knee. “It should work to give you what you want—not me.”
“And what if I want my pet to be happy?” he asked gently.
Always happy with you.
Under the cascade of dark curls, he saw a flush rise to her cheek at the thought.
Soppy.
He chuckled and stroked her hair as her disgust with the observation came through loud and clear. “There are worse things in the world to be than a little bit soppy.”
“Asking for things makes it sound like I’m not always happy to serve my master just for the pleasure of service,” she said more seriously.
“It is natural you don’t always like it. Sometimes it is hard to serve another person. To give any man, even your master, so much control over you has to be hard, but the bond will make it easier.”
“Sometimes I like that submission is difficult,” she admitted. “I do not always like to be comfortable and coddled. I like having to work hard to please you—having to be the best submissive I can because you wouldn’t accept anything less from me.”
He smiled down at her. “And sometimes you just like things that feel good.”
Wrong.
She shuffled closer to her master, until her body was pressed tight against his leg. “I don’t want to be that sort of submissive.”
“What sort is that?”
Fake.
“You feel very real to me,” he observed, running his hand though her hair again.
Fake submission.
“And you don’t think this is real anymore? You don’t think the way you kneel at my feet is real?”
Too nice.
“I’m too nice?” he asked, trying to follow her line of thought.
“You sense when something is difficult for me. You’re too nice about everything. You make everything too easy—you stop me from being cold or tired or hurting or feeling anything. When you see my weakness, you help me rather than punish me into being a better submissive.”
His own thoughts had taken Zachariah and his plans for Charlotte in a completely different direction. But now the bond shouted at him and told him very clearly what he needed to do.
Charlotte wanted a master. She needed Zachariah to be her master.
He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “You’re forgetting the other half of the equation, little pet. Reading your mind makes it easier for me to make things easy for you while that pleases me. But it also makes it easier for me to give you what you crave.”
She risked a glance up at him.
Crave?
“Before the bond took hold I had no choice but to be very careful with you. As much as I have studied humans over the years—I am not one of you. I never was sure what would hurt you. Now I know. I don’t have to stop when you might be close to your limits. I know what your limits are, Charlotte, even better than you do. I can take you right to the edge, make you hover on the brink and push you further into the abyss than any human could.”
Safe word.
“Are you saying your safe word, or wondering if I would listen if you did?” he asked, trying to work out what he might have said to make her retreat to the guest room again. The only thing flowing across the bond was pleasure at the future he described.
Wondering.
“Wondering, master.”
“Just because I know what is in your head doesn’t mean I won’t listen to the words on your lips.” He trailed a finger tip over her mouth. “Although I have always liked the way your lips looked stretched wide around a gag. You can spend more t
ime like that now we have another means of communication.”
She blinked up at him.
When?
When had he seen her in a gag? Zachariah slipped his finger into her mouth, thrusting it back and forth until she got the idea and began to work her lips around the digit. “Did you really think the day I brought you here was the first time I set eyes on you, Charlotte?”
Her tongue didn’t hesitate in its swirling pattern, but she stared at him as if he was crazy.
“I watched you for a long time before I chose you to be my pet.”
He touched her cheek. She got the message and stopped working his finger. He left it laying idle in her mouth in casual penetration.
“Look at me, pet.”
She lifted her eyes.
“It does not please me at all when you keep your eyes lowered in my presence,” he said firmly.
Hard.
“Yes, it is hard for you. But a very wise person once told me submission is not always easy—it should be hard because that is what the pleasure comes from.”
She blinked up at him.
Failing is hard.
“Failure is natural,” he corrected. “New skills have to be learnt—at first they will be practised imperfectly. But you will learn to keep your eyes up, just as you will learn how to complete a great many other tasks in exactly the ways I desire them to be performed.”
He took his finger out of her mouth.
“Yes, master.”
Yes!
“You belong to me completely, Charlotte. Never forget that.”
“I won’t, master,” she whispered.
He stared down at her, directly into her eyes. There was as much to be read there as through the bond. There was no pretence in her gaze now. It was as if she had finally given up her mask.
He saw the trust, the desire, and the submission in her eyes.
“It does not please me to have a slave or a servant,” he told her firmly. “If it is in your nature to work, then I will see you have sufficient work to keep you busy.” He gave her a brief moment to respond.
“Yes, master,” she said quickly.
“But you are first and foremost my lover, my submissive. I will not treat you as if I don’t care for you. You are my pet, Charlotte, my life blood—this is not going to change.”
Night of the Senses Page 34