by Eden Myles
Then Wolf flipped me over so I was lying on my back on the bench. He lifted my skirts again, pushed my legs apart, and then his hands were there, in the wetness between my legs, and I decided that this was the most humiliating moment of my life. “Ah, there’s my good girl,” he said as he crouched over me. “You’re wonderfully responsive, my pet. Beautifully wet, my orchid. My rose. My little courtesan.”
I shifted around, still hiccupping from my cries, trying desperately to find some position that didn’t aggravate the terrible heat of my ass, but Wolf held me down, held me open. Then he was right there between my legs, his ponytail brushing against the quivering insides of my thighs, and I could feel him licking and sucking at my clit, using the same incredible hunger he had used on my breast. I thrashed under him and immediately came, which only made him groan in appreciation as he licked up all my wetness. My cries hitched in my throat, but now for an entirely different reason.
Wolf drew his tongue all along my slit, probing both my openings. He nibbled me with those sharp teeth of his, wetting me all over with his saliva. I bucked my hips against him, against that cruel, tyrannical mouth of his that wouldn’t quit, wouldn’t stop moving, probing. I wanted to run away. I wanted him deeper than that. But he moved up my body until we were face to face. His eyes gleamed metallically, like chips of the moon. He lowered his face and kissed me, his teeth almost frantic as he nipped at my lower lip. The roughness of his cheek scathed my face. To my extreme embarrassment, I realized I could taste myself deep in his hot, meaty mouth.
He turned his head and attacked the side of my neck, kissing, licking, biting at my shivery skin. I breathed roughly, my heart thundering so hard in my chest I could feel the blood pulsing in my ears and I swore my vision turned red around the edges. I had never met a man so into teeth and pain. I’d always thought of pain as something to be avoided. I reached up and buried my hands in his thick, coarse hair, ripped at his ribbon until all that long, straight, silvery-blond Viking hair cascaded down around us. He kissed me hard, bruising my lips, biting at my tongue. He made a low, groaning noise of male pleasure deep in his throat. Meanwhile, I could feel him fumbling with the front of his trousers, and then with a condom.
Even in the midst of this insanity, I realized he cared enough about me to make certain we were safe. Jerrel never had. That’s why I’d wound up pregnant right out of college, with barely any money to support the baby. It had worked out well in the end, because it was my pregnancy combined with my business degree that had helped me launch the magazine. But I didn’t want to think about that right now. Not the magazine, certainly not Jerrel.
I raked at Wolf’s hair, kissed him. “Now…now,” I told him shamelessly, and then remembered to add the “sir” at the end. I didn’t think I could take another round of punishment at Wolf’s hands.
“You haven’t forgotten,” Wolf said, his voice raw and a little hoarse as he kissed me and bit gently at my mouth. He pushed himself up a little ways so I could see what he had for me, what he meant to shove into me, and I shuddered at the sight.
“Nothing, I’ve forgotten nothing,” I admitted. Jesus, how many nights had I lain awake in bed these past few months, just thinking about that night in the restaurant, trying to recall specific details? I would never admit it to Wolf because it would just feed his already overbearing ego, but every time I thought about it, it was all I could do to keep from touching myself. One night I came in my sleep, just remembering it.
He growled against my throat. The sound of his voice touching me so intimately, so dangerously, made all the little hairs on my body stand on end. His hands gripped my breasts through my bodice, squeezing me enough to hurt, and at last I felt that incredible hardness of him probing my opening. Three months. I hadn’t felt this for three fucking months. It felt longer, somehow. A lifetime…
Wolf’s eyes were wild and full of the night, and his face looked bone-white, like a carven mask under the somber light of the moon. I lifted my hips a little to help him. I felt the head of him push into me, followed by the rest. He gave me no warning. He thrust into me so hard that I cried out at the impact as my ass grazed the slats of the bench. The friction was almost worse than the impacts themselves, which were painful all on their own. I bent my knees so the heels of my shoes rested at his ass, trying to relieve the terrible tension, but that just opened me up to him a little more. A natural opportunist, Wolf took full advantage, ramming his way inside me, grunting and growling. Each thrust made me want to scream. Each lifted me off the bench before scraping my raw bottom mercilessly against it. I raked his back, his ass. I tried to pull him down into me.
Wolf grinned against the side of my neck, licked, then bit. Not a love bite. He bit me like a fucking vampire so I cried out, and only the fact that the waves had chosen that moment to crash against the rocks far below us saved us both from being discovered. Holding me down, his teeth embedded in the skin near my clavicle, Wolf pumped himself into me like he was trying to drive his cock right through my body, from one end of me to the other. He growled at the end, really growled like some animal, and twitched and shuddered as he spurted deep inside me. For a moment there seemed to be no end to him, and I lay there on Malcolm’s bench in a kind of half trance, watching the full moon ride high overhead, and just enjoyed the relentless thrusts of this incredibly powerful man shivering and coming inside me over and over like he hadn’t know this kind of release in months.
I was afraid he might go all night, biting me, slaking his lusts inside my body, but eventually he let me go, pulled out and sat up, dragging me up into his lap. He crushed me against his suit, grabbed fistfuls of my hair and held me in place while he kissed me and licked at my lips like he had never tasted anything sweeter or more delicious. The heat he gave off was like a blast furnace, keeping me warm and comforted despite the cutting salt-wind blowing off the ocean.
“Rachaela, sweet Rachaela,” he said, burying his face in my throat and licking the little wound he had made. “Sweet Christ, it’s good to be home.”
***
Fucking vampire, I thought churlishly as I rubbing at the healing bite mark just above my left nipple through the soft, itchy fabric of my cowled sweater. That’s what Wolfgang Beck was. A fucking, sex-crazed vampire.
I looked over the proof copy sheets of Blaze spread across my blotter and tried not to think about it. I’d been thinking far too much about Wolf lately. In a way, I wished he’d stayed in Africa. At least when he was out of the office, I could do overtime. I could stay as late as I wanted, especially if Asia was doing a sleepover at Jerrel’s and there was nothing waiting for me at home except cold pizza and Desperate Housewives. As things were now, I was constantly clock-watching, dreading the approach of six o’clock in the evening like some frightened chick in a horror movie, dreading sundown and the resurrection of her supernatural stalker.
At a quarter to six, Wolf let himself into my office, closed and locked the door, and swaggered over to my desk to settle on the edge. “How does it look?” he asked of the proof.
“Not bad. Not great.”
“Do you know you’re a perfectionist, Rachaela? Obsessive compulsive?”
“You’re one to talk about obsessive compulsive behavior.”
I heard the smirk in Wolf’s voice. “That sounds like a complaint.”
“Merely an observation. You do know you’re obsessed with sex, right?”
“So I’ve been told.”
I glanced up and my heart immediately started knocking in my throat. Just once I wanted to be able to look up at Wolfgang Beck and not have my entire body react like some coquettish schoolgirl who’d never been kissed. I couldn’t even understand it. It wasn’t like he was conventionally handsome or anything, certainly not All-American model material. Everything about him was stark and sharp-edged and almost cruelly drawn. He had a harsh European look, like someone who belonged to the last century, a man you’d see in an old tintype in a drawing room somewhere. I knew none of this was about hi
s money. I had money, maybe not as much as he, but more than enough to support myself and Asia. I couldn’t understand my reactions. I didn’t believe in love anymore, not romantic love, anyway. “And you’re okay with that.”
He offered me a little smile, almost but not quite flashing those ferocious teeth of his. “I enjoy sex. I enjoy the company of women. I find no greater joy than losing myself in the wet velvet heaven of a woman’s body as she comes beneath me. Why do you find that so offensive and unnatural, my pet?”
I looked him over and realized that Wolf was one of the most honest men I had ever met, and that was saying a lot in publishing. I set my pen down. “I don’t find it offensive.” I took a deep breath and let it out slow. “You’re exactly what it says on the label, aren’t you? You don’t pretend to be something you’re not.”
“Why would I want to do that?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
I shook my head with exasperation. “Because everyone pretends to be something they’re not. Nobody’s that open, particularly about sex.”
“Maybe they should be. Maybe there would be fewer misunderstandings, then.”
I swallowed hard. He had a point. “You’re not monogamous, are you?” I said. “What’s the proper term? Polygamous?”
“I prefer the term ethically promiscuous. Polygamy implies a form of marriage, and I don’t believe in marriage.” He watched me carefully, waiting not for my judgment—which he didn’t care about anyway—but my reaction. He’d been very upfront about his sexuality and his general disdain of marriage that night in the restaurant. He slept around, he said. A lot. But from talking to Malcolm and Devon, I’d learned that Wolf was almost pathologically obsessed with safe sexual practices. They said they thought it was because over fifteen percent of the population of Namibia was living with HIV. I kept waiting to feel offended by Wolf’s casual attitude towards sex, but somehow it just didn’t happen. It’s hard to be angry with someone who’s that upfront and honest.
Then he surprised me by saying, “Are you concerned about my other partners? Do you require medical records? If so, I can have them delivered to you by tomorrow.”
“It’s not that, Wolf,” I told him. “I know you’re responsible.”
“What then?”
I tapped my fingers against the proof sheets, then I just spat it out. “How many other…courtesans…are there? I’d like to know.”
“There are only two.”
“Jasmine…and me.”
“Correct.”
“That’s all?”
“If there were others, Rachaela, I would tell you.” He sounded slightly miffed, as if I had accused him of lying.
“And how long do you think this…ménage a trois…of ours will last?”
“As long as it must last, until I’ve decided on a courtesan.”
“And then?”
Wolf’s face blanked of all emotion. “What exactly are you asking me, Rachaela?”
I blanked mine as well. Two could play at this game. “That night at the restaurant when you explained what’s involved in being your courtesan, you made it sound very permanent, very much a…fixed position.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “A gentleman and his courtesan normally pair up for life. I’ve known a few gentleman who have even married their courtesans.”
“So by choosing a courtesan…well, it sounds like the end of the road for your ‘ethical promiscuity.’”
“I’m a gentleman, Rachaela. I take my duties as such very seriously.”
“I guess I just find it ironic that a man who is so opposed to any kind of permanent arrangement would be interested in a…permanent arrangement.”
Wolf looked slightly annoyed. I’d scored a point on him, go me. “It’s five to six. Do you want to finish those proofs?”
I clipped my notes together with the proofs, working quickly and efficiently as the clock ticked quite literally over my shoulder. At six o’clock on the nose, Wolf came around the edge of my desk and said, “Up.” His voice was neither soft nor gentle.
I stood up, and he assumed my chair. As he sank down into the cushioned seat, he rested his hands on my shoulders so his weight forced me down onto my knees in front of him. He held me down while he ran a hand in loving strokes over my hair and face and looked me over carefully as he decided on my conditioning for today.
I tried to decide why I was letting him do this. Why I was letting all this happen. It had to be hormones. Or maybe it was just the divorce papers.
It had taken Jerrel and me months to hammer out the details, but when the papers had finally arrived, Jerrel had added a joint custody clause to them without my approval. He wanted Asia to spend two weeks out of a month with him in the Hamptons. Asia, of course, was ecstatic about the arrangement. I’d immediately contested the clause, and Jerrel had responded by threatening me with more court dates. But I didn’t want Asia’s life that messed up. It was bad enough she was getting in trouble in school. The last thing I needed were her classes—her whole life—being carved up like a fucking Thanksgiving turkey just to feed Jerrel’s ego. Besides, Jerrel wasn’t home half the time, always traipsing off to a tournament somewhere, which meant Asia would be spending most of her time alone. She thought Jerrel would be taking her along with him on his tours, but I knew better. If he did, it would seriously cramp his style with all the groupies he was always picking up. But how could I explain that to Asia? She worshipped her father. I didn’t want to speak against him, and I’d striven to take the higher ground in every instance, but somehow, I’d wound up the villain. I’d spent most of yesterday morning hiding in the office bathroom, crying myself into a migraine headache until Wolf softly knocked on the door, wondering if I was all right.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Just plain…damned.
“My lovely, my beautiful Rachaela,” Wolf said. He spread his legs and drew me up against the hard wall of his body and the harder parts still in his trousers as his hands combed through the heavy reams of my hair. He fisted his hands in it until it hurt, then bent to kiss me. His kiss was gentler than I’d expected, like he was tasting me rather than trying to eat me alive. He kept kissing me until the saliva had welled up between us, and I thought, Yes, this is the reason I’m doing it. To forget for a little while. To feel like something other than Big Boss Mama at the office and the Wicked Bitch of the West at home. I wanted to forget. I needed to forget. It was either that, or I was going to need my Zoloft increased.
For just a few minutes after work, from six p.m. to about a quarter after, I could feel like a woman. I could feel like something desired rather than merely respected or even reviled—depending on whose opinion you asked. Wolf was very efficient in his lovemaking, and so far, our schedule had worked. He never detained me very long. He did bite an awful lot, but I was learning to adapt to that. In a way, I even cherished those bites. Sometimes I’d lay sleepless in bed late at night and just touch them, remembering.
“I love your mouth, mein liebeling. Suck my cock and balls with that sweet mouth of yours.”
I undid his trousers. Wolf, so far as I was aware, was no fan of underwear, so I never had to struggle with him. His cock was thick, bright pink and fully engorged when I took it in my hands. I struggled to wrap my fingers entirely around him. I licked him, tasting his salty sweetness, then slowly took the pulsing heat of him into my mouth. Wolf buried his fingers in my hair and bucked his hips a little so I was forced to take a little more today than I had yesterday. A little pre-cum spurted into my throat. He had been encouraging me to take a little more of him every day. He called that conditioning. He muttered under his breath, something in Afrikaans, but I couldn’t tell if it was a command, an endearment, or simply an exclamation of relief.
I had almost reached the root of him when he pulled out. “Balls, too, Rachaela,” he said rather sternly.
I obediently lowered my head and scraped my tongue across his testes until I heard his breath catch in his throat. I had once thought it was merely a
cologne of his that made him smell this good, like spice and citrus, but I think it was his soap, or shampoo, or aftershave, or a combination of all those things. Or maybe it was just the fact that he had lived so many years in Africa. His skin and the warm, blond fur at his groin smelled like sand and sea and clove and cardamom. I licked him and then took each of his testes in my mouth, carefully sucking on them until I’d made him grunt out words in other languages. I loved listening to him murmuring breathlessly in that singsongy accent—it was the only time he sounded gentle and maybe a little vulnerable. He pulled my hair, making me release him, then held me in place while he thrust his cock back into my mouth. He fucked my mouth while he watched me with a pale, narrowed-eyed concentration that bordered on the devote. He worked himself in and out, a slow, steady rhythm that became increasingly staccato until he finally came in my throat. He made me swallow all of him down, every drop, before dragging me up onto his lap.
I sat on his knee and he kissed me and told me how proud of me he was, how much I had learned these past few weeks, what a good little courtesan I was, how much he enjoyed fucking me. He moved his open mouth over my lips and chin and down over my throat. He stopped where my pulse ticked at the base of my throat and nibbled me there.
“You, sir, are a vampire,” I said, making my statement sound very Jane Austen-esque.
“I’m not a vampire,” he told me, smirking.
“Werewolf, then.”
“I’m not a werewolf.”
“You’re a big, bad, nasty, evil wolf,” I said. I kept expecting to feel stupid saying things like that to him, but somehow being with him made it all right.