by S. E. Lund
"Can you take me home?" I say, emotion filling me. "I don't feel well enough to work any longer."
He says nothing, taking the highway to get back to my apartment, the rest of the trip passing in silence. When he stops the car in front of my building, I go to the front entrance without saying anything to him. I'm seriously freaked about this power he has over me – the power he wants over me and the way it appeals to something deep inside of me.
"Eve," he says and stops me, taking my arm. "Don't be mad at me. I have to do this. I have to know if you're strong enough. If you can handle this world."
"Well?" I say, and try to slip my arm out of his. "Can I?"
He doesn't say anything for a moment, then shakes his head slowly.
"I honestly don't know yet. I only know I want you to be able to do it."
I look away from his too-intense gaze, those bluest of blue eyes seeming hurt by my response.
"I'm sorry." I'm suddenly feeling too tired from it all. "You have to understand how strange this all is." I struggle to find the right words, avoiding his eyes. "Being able to join minds with someone? It's wonderful and scary. Being in complete submission to someone outside of sex? It goes against my nature. And I'm afraid that everything between us is leading me down a path I'll come to regret."
"I know," he says and nods. "We have to trust each other completely. This connection between us – it builds trust. You have to trust me with your life. I have to trust you with my life." He touches my cheek. "We could kill each other so easily."
We could kill each other. He could catch me unawares and just drink me dry. I could have the stake in his heart in a second. Can I trust him? He's done nothing to raise suspicions in me. He even let me temporarily kill him so that I knew how. The look of concern on his face arouses something in me. Is it fear? Desire? Or is it both?
He removes his hand and stands there on the next step and our eyes are on the level, his face just a few inches from mine and he's so beautiful but I don't know how I feel any longer. The only thing I know for sure is that I want him so much, I'm afraid that I'll do anything to have him.
"I want to come in, Eve," he says, and I can hear the need in his voice and it's not just sexual.
"I need to be alone tonight," I say and it's the truth. I need to be away from him for a few hours so I can sort through these emotions.
"I'm going away tomorrow," he says. "I need you tonight."
He needs me tonight… that makes my insides go all mushy.
"I'm so sad."
He takes my hand and I know it's because he wants to know my sadness.
"I can make you feel better," he says, his voice breathless and his blue eyes narrow. That lopsided grin starts and I close my eyes and can't help but smile in response. He makes that throat sound and takes my head in his hands and kisses my cheeks, one after the other, his tongue touching my skin. I know his thoughts and he wants to touch my skin with his tongue everywhere, especially there… I'm helpless to deny him.
"Eve," he says, his voice solemn. "I want you to stay at my house while I'm gone. You'll be safer there."
I start to protest. "My cats…"
"My servants will take care of them."
I don't want to leave my little apartment, but then I remember my pledge to just submit and I bite back a question, a reason to stay in my own flat.
"OK," I say. "If you want."
"I want." He kisses me. "If you don't, I'll worry about you the entire time I'm away and won't be able to concentrate. We'll go there now. I can send someone over tomorrow to get your things."
"Can't we stop now?"
"No," he says and puts a finger on my lips.
I comply and follow him back into the car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
"There is no remedy for love but to love more."
Thoreau.
We drive out to Cambridge and enter a garage connected to the house. Michel stops and talks to one of his staff, a dark-haired vampire with sharp black eyes and a Hercule Poirot moustache. The man eyes me from under a disapproving frown.
I expect him to take my coat, but Michel seems impatient to take me upstairs to the second floor, where we enter a large bedroom. Against one wall is a huge four-poster bed with a canopy that looks like something out of Buckingham Palace. Michel kicks the door closed and presses me against the wall, pinning my body with his hips, one hand holding mine over my head, his other arm on the wall beside me. I feel his erection against my belly and it sends a jolt of lust through me.
"I'm so ready for you, Eve," he says, his voice breathless. "When you had my wrist in your mouth in the park, I thought I'd lose control right there and ravish you."
That sends a wave of desire through me that makes me dizzy.
"You like the thought of me being your pet, being addicted to your blood?" I say, strangely breathy at the thought myself. "I wouldn't want to be addicted to your blood." But even as I say it, the thought does something upsetting to me – it turns me on completely.
"You just can't lie very well," he says, staring down into my eyes.
"I know." I remember how I felt when I took his wrist in my mouth. "I can't even lie to myself. But I hate the idea, even if a part of my mind loves it. It would be terrible. It would be a tragedy."
"You don't ever have to do it," he says, his voice quiet. "I admit it appeals to me, but I hate the idea of it as well. I hate the idea that I want it. I have to pray very long and very hard about it, Eve. I do a lot of penance for it."
"Hmm," I say, smiling up at him. "I like the idea of you doing penance."
"Oh, I do an awful lot of it. Speaking of which," he says, trying to frown, but unable to wipe off that lopsided grin. "You weren't being a very good submissive tonight. You kept tempting me with your dimples. Several times you ignored my commands…" He raises his eyebrows playfully.
"I need more training," I say, grinning as wickedly as I can manage.
He makes that throat sound and presses his erection against me harder.
"Do you have any idea what that does to me?"
I press back against him. "I think I have a pretty good idea. So tell me how you'd train me."
He cups my cheek, strokes my skin with his thumb.
"I'd issue orders and you'd obey without question, without hesitation. You would do anything I asked without even thinking. If you didn't perform up to my standard, I'd have to discipline you, making you do it until you got it right," he says, all breathy. "If you completely rejected my order, I'd have to punish you. Punishment is for when you don't even try. That would mean you're being a brat and then I'll spank you. Or perhaps, if you were being a brat in order to get me to spank you, I'd not even give you the pleasure of my spanking. You'd be topping from the bottom and someone like me doesn't appreciate that. Then I'd ignore you."
"I don't like being ignored," I say. "But what if I didn't like what you told me to do?"
"You'd simply trust me to know what you really like and don't like and what you can handle. And because of this connection," he says, pressing his forehead to mine, "you could trust that I do know. Even if you lie to yourself. You see why my being able to read you now without you being able to block me is so important?"
"It scares me," I say, swallowing back anxiety. "How omniscient you are. Knowing me better than I know myself."
"But you can know me as well," he says softly. "In a way no normal human can. You'll get better and better at it – listening in, finding things. I've only got an advantage because you're so new at this. I've had eight hundred years of practice."
I look up at him, his blue eyes so beautiful, his dark hair hanging a bit in his eyes, his skin so pale like an angel, and I have to look away. The age thing does something funny to me that I can't immediately understand, and don't want to. I only know it makes me feel weak-kneed and a bit dizzy.
"How do I submit?" I say, barely able to speak, my cheeks hot. "When I'm so used to being in control?"
"Just g
ive yourself permission. Don't question. Don't hesitate. Don't resist. Don't think. Just do."
"But thinking is how I get through the day."
"You don't need to think with me." He takes my chin in his hand and tips my face up, staring into my eyes. "It doesn't mean you're weak. It means you're strong. It means you trust me. A priest understands submission, Eve. Priests aren't weak because they submit to God's will. It makes us strong. That absolute trust provides so much strength and comfort. It's our joy. It could be yours as well."
I could never submit to God because He was just a concept to me. Some distant and abstract idea. But Michel's real. He's flesh and blood and I could submit to him. I close my eyes because this is making me so emotional, my eyes brimming. It's turning me on so much, emotionally and physically, and I feel almost faint, like I'm not getting enough oxygen and I try to breathe in deeply to calm my pounding heart.
"Mon dieu. Je vous trouve très belle," he says, his voice breaking. "You are so beautiful…" He takes my face in his hands and leans down to kiss me, finally, his lips soft on mine, tender, then parting, his kiss becoming more passionate so that my heart races and my body responds. He pulls back and looks in my eyes, and I see so much desire there, so much lust.
"Eve," he says, his voice husky. "Take off your clothes."
I swallow back the impulse to be embarrassed and begin to strip off my clothes, my coat, my sweater, pants and underwear and stand naked before him.
"Turn around and hold out your hands behind your back."
I do, without hesitation, my body warming immediately. I hear his boots on the marble floor and hear drawers open and shut. Then, he binds my wrists with soft rope so that they're confined behind me. Then he turns me around to face him.
"On your knees."
I do what he says, kneeling down, my face level with his hips and I know what's coming. He unbuttons his coat, and pulls it open, then unzips his pants, dropping them to his ankles. He leans over me, his hands spread against the wall.
"Suck me." His voice is low, full of lust.
And oh, that order and the sound of the need in his voice just sends a jolt of lust right to my groin, my muscles clenching and I have to close my eyes for a moment, and try to catch my breath. My own body warms to the look of blatant lust on his beautiful face.
"Now, Eve," he says.
His erection is long and so thick, as pale as the rest of his body and so beautiful, dripping he's so aroused. I lick the head, taking the fluid onto my tongue, then the entire head in my mouth, tonguing it, running my lips over the rim and head, slowly then more quickly, the skin so silky and smooth. I take more of his length in my mouth with each movement and I can feel what he feels and it feels so good, his body becomes my body and I become more and more aroused as he does.
He moans and I look up at him and hold his gaze as my mouth moves over his length, sucking him. He's breathing hard, I'm breathing hard, he has one hand on my head, thrusting his hips in time with my motions, his eyes closing and I know he's so close for he's now rock hard and I'm so wet and aroused.
"I'm going to come," he says, as if warning me. I increase my pace and his muscles all tense, as do mine, his breathing hitches, as does mine, and he groans as he spasms in my mouth and I swallow him, my own body responding, his taste strong and salty, and he's gasping above me, his face almost in pain and I know it's very powerful for him, the feel of my mouth on him as he comes, my tongue on the sensitive head, the look of him inside my mouth. When he's done, I lick him softly, kiss the head, his erection still pulsing but spent.
He pulls me up, leaning his entire body against me, almost falling against me, and kisses me, his tongue touching mine and he tastes himself on me, he feels my arousal, how my body aches and throbs for him. He breaks the kiss and just leans against me for a moment. Then he turns me around and unties the rope, releasing my hands.
"I want you on the bed now," he says, still breathing heavily, his mouth near my ear.
I comply, thinking that now he'll pleasure me as he imagined when he kissed me on the steps to my apartment and it sends a surge of desire through me.
"Maybe a bath first?" I say, thinking I might be a bit sweaty after our night in the dojo and park.
He shakes his head and motions at me with his finger.
"On the bed. Untie your hair."
He stands at the foot of the huge canopy bed as I climb on and unravel my hair, running my fingers through it so that it falls long down my back, over my shoulders.
"Lie on your back and spread your legs wide, bend your knees."
I do as he orders, my legs spreading, only a moment of hesitation and a touch of shyness, for it exposes me to him completely. I wait for him to join me but he doesn't. He just stands staring at me, his eyes on my sex.
"Make yourself come."
Oh, God…
"But I want you to make me…" I say, thinking of his tongue, but then I stop.
"This is your punishment, Eve, for disobeying me tonight," he says, his voice low. "I know you're shy about this. It's my pleasure to watch you masturbate like you were doing when I came over and got into trouble because you're so desirable."
I close my eyes and touch myself, my fingers going right to my sex.
"Slowly," he says. "Touch your body first. Imagine me touching you. I would touch you everywhere, kissing you, licking you, biting you."
His words just make me even more aroused, and I comply, touching my neck where I know he'd kiss me, where he wants to bite me, then down my shoulders to my breasts, which I cup and squeeze, rubbing my nipples between my fingers and thumbs, then lower, sliding my hands over my hips and then to my belly.
I open my eyes to watch him watching me, his eyes half-closed, his lips parted and I think he's becoming aroused again, his hand on himself.
Finally, I touch my thighs softly, on either side of my sex, then slide a finger and then two between the lips of my sex, finding my hard and very swollen clit and rubbing it with the flat of my two fingers, slowly, up and down and around. It feels so good, and I begin to move my hips just a bit, thrusting slightly to increase the pleasure, my eyes closed, my own lips parted.
"Put your fingers inside of your body while you touch yourself."
Oh, God I love how his orders affect me, making me clench with pleasure.
I comply, slipping two fingers from my other hand inside and I'm so slick from everything, they slide in easily and I'm tight and wet. I remember how sweet it felt for Michel when he entered me, how good I felt to him, how tight and hot and wet.
Then he joins me on the bed, and I think he'll surely stop me and take over, but he doesn't. Instead, he just leans over me, watching, his eyes greedy for everything, looking at my face and in my eyes, at my breasts and at my fingers as they move on and in my flesh.
"Tell me when you're close."
I nod, and see his hand on himself and I close my eyes. The knowledge he's watching me while he touches himself arouses me so much, I'm almost there, breathless, my heart beating faster, the sweetness building.
"I'm close…" I say, barely able to speak.
Then he takes my hands away, pulling my fingers out of my body, and he slips his own fingers inside of me, his thumb on my clit, and it makes me gasp in shock and lust to feel him inside of me and his lust joins with mine, increasing it so much, I'm almost coming just from the feel of him.
"I want to feel you come around my fingers," he says, his voice choked. He keeps stroking my clit, thrusting his fingers inside of me, curling them upwards to stimulate me while he strokes me, and then I'm over the top.
"Open your eyes, Eve. Look at me while you come."
I do, staring into his blue eyes so filled with lust, my beautiful fallen priest, and I gasp, oh, oh, oh, my body convulses around his fingers, my eyes almost rolling back in my head from the pleasure.
Then he pulls his fingers out of me and is between my thighs, his cassock-coat still on, shoving himself into me, thrusting ha
rd and fast. He leans over me and my orgasm continues without stopping. Then he's coming again, grunting, his face over mine, and he's unable to keep his eyes open, grimacing as he ejaculates into me. Oh, God, God, God…
He collapses on top of me, his mouth next to my ear, breathing hard, his body trembling. We just lie there recovering, and in a few minutes, he's breathing normally again and he starts to kiss my face, my cheeks, for I'm smiling. Then his mouth finds my neck and I know how much he wants to taste my blood right now, how much he wants to feed, and I feel his teeth sharp and on my skin and I almost tell him to just do it. But the moment passes and he pulls away and rests on his elbows above me, his eyes slowly returning to normal, his teeth retracting.
I glance at him lying on top of me.
"How come you always seem to have your clothes on and I'm always naked?"
He smiles at me.
"As it should be," he says. "It reinforces your submission." But he gets up and removes his coat before lying on his stomach beside me.
"How long will you be away?" I run my hand along his arm.
He examines his hands, rolling Julien's ring on his finger.
"It depends on how things go. I have to negotiate a deal with Soren to use his blood to resurrect Julien. I won't bargain him away for good, but Julien will be his servant for some good amount of time."
"How long?"
"Could be decades. Because we're among the older vampires, it'll be longer and take more to resurrect him. The Ancients have the power, Eve. The rest of us are children in comparison."
"What are they? The first vampires? What's so special about them? There isn't much written about them or any studies."
He takes in a breath. "I'll tell you but you won't believe it."
"The Fallen Angel stuff? I've read that," I say and shake my head. "You're right. I won't believe it. If they're more powerful, it's likely because they're the first to have the mutations. Maybe the mutations have diminished and become milder as time has passed and that's why you younger vampires aren't as powerful."