Master of Ecstasy

by Nina Bangs

  Still holding her hand, he turned on his side to study her. "And this makes your family happy, seeing ye suffer for what ye believe ye did? Do they sit around in their afterlife speaking of what a wondrous day it has been because ye cried over them?"

  "No. They wouldn't want that." Their clasped hands now rested on her lap. Opening her hand, she glanced at his palm and absently wondered why his lifeline didn't run all the way down his arm. Maybe the line ended at the moment he became vampire. Silly thought.

  "Ah, I understand. Your sadness makes ye happy." He nodded his satisfaction at his reasoning.

  Blythe frowned. What was he getting at? "No, I don't enjoy being sad."

  His gaze suddenly speared her. There was no soothing or sympathy there now. "Then why do ye make yourself suffer if it makes neither ye nor your family happy?"

  "I told you that I owed—"

  "That is the argument of the weak, and ye are not a weak woman." He moved closer as he turned his hand over so that he could once again clasp hers tightly. "Ye must have the strength to accept what canna be changed and instead remember the things about your family that made ye laugh, that made ye family."

  She couldn't look away from his eyes and the truths reflected there.

  "Celebrate your life as they would wish. Live it not only for yourself, but for them. Dinna live it for this Ecstasy Incorporated, because if its leaders had not been so worried about cost, they would have chosen a safer place. If ye must place blame, place it on them."

  Finally, she was able to tear her gaze from his. She thought about his argument.

  He squeezed her hand. "Did Ecstasy know that ye werena happy?"

  She shook her head. "Not a chance. Oh, they run psychological tests each year, but I've taken enough of them to know how to manipulate the results."

  Blythe took a deep, cleansing breath. He was right. She'd been weak, because it was easier to wallow in her misery than to drag herself out of the pit she'd dug.

  She smiled. "You would've made a great shrink, Viking."

  "Shrink?" There was that line between the eyes again.

  Without thinking, she traced the line with her finger. "You're right, and I was wrong." She held up a warning hand. "Now, don't get carried away with that, because I'm usually right."

  Darach released her hand and lay on his back again. He reached out to smooth the cream silk of her gown where it stretched tight across her back. The slide of the fabric beneath his fingers, the faint smoky scent of the candles, and the quiet sound of her breathing aroused him. He tried to ignore the darker element of his enhanced senses, the awareness of her blood coursing beneath the soft skin at the hollow of her neck.

  "Come to me, Blythe." Darach forced himself not to use any compulsion on her. He wanted her to join with him freely. "Let me give ye joy this night." He smiled at her, knowing how his smile could make women bend to his wishes. "Dinna think tonight. Feel."

  She looked at him, a small smile turning up the corners of her lips, and he felt her acceptance in that smile. "Feeling sounds pretty good, but we need to get a few things straight first."

  He forced back a groan. Why could nothing be simple with this woman? But surprised, he realized he wanted her badly enough to agree to almost anything. Resigned, he nodded his agreement.

  "First, I want this totally natural." Absently she ran the tip of her fingernail around one of his nipples.

  His nipple immediately became the center of all that was pleasurable, so painfully sensitive that he felt he would moan if she even breathed on it. "Aye. Natural." What in Loki's flame did that mean?

  "I don't want you in my mind, or in my body." She seemed to think about her words as she moved her finger to his lips, gently tracing the shape of his mouth.

  Darach never wasted opportunities. He clasped her finger to still it, then slowly slid his tongue across the pad while he held her gaze captive. Then he closed his lips over her fingertip, letting her see the intent in his eyes, the joy he took as he circled it with his tongue, and the promise that his tongue could bring pleasure to many other parts of her body.

  As her eyes darkened, he released her finger. "Mayhap ye will explain how I can bring ye pleasure without being in your body."

  "You know what I mean." Blythe used the finger he had released to circle his other nipple, and the damp slide of her finger across his flesh almost put an end to her sexual negotiations. "I don't want you totally inside me like last time, only the ordinary male parts." She seemed to consider this. "Of course, in your case they aren't really ordinary." She pursed her lips as she attempted to make herself clear to him. "I want this to be a completely normal experience, just like any man and woman would have."

  Darach could tell her that joining with a vampire would never be a "normal experience," but she would soon find that out for herself. He nodded. "I have agreed to your wishes, and now I have one thing I desire of ye."

  He almost smiled at her cautious nod. She might trust him in certain matters, but she still did not always know what to expect from him.

  "When I ask ye to close your eyes, I would have ye do so until I give ye permission to open them again." It was a stupid request, but he still found that he could not take the chance that she might look on him with horror.

  Her gaze sharpened. "You change, and you don't want me to see it."

  She was beginning to know him too well. The thought was not a comfortable one. "Sexual excitement causes my blood lust to rise and the change happens whether I will it or not. I can control my desire to feed, but I can do nothing about my vampire form."

  Blythe frowned. "But that first time on the way back from the inn—"

  "Ye closed your eyes. I can choose what images ye see in your mind, but I canna change the reality. If ye had opened your eyes, ye would have seen me in my vampire form." Whatever that might be.

  "You don't think I could take the shock?" She was smiling, but he saw the doubt in her eyes.

  Her doubt solidified his determination that she not see him. "I dinna know, but soon I will have the power to see my reflection. 'Tis something I have looked forward to for centuries."

  "Yeah, I guess not being able to see yourself could cause problems. How do you shave?" She ran her fingers along the side of his face.

  He clenched his jaw. If she continued to touch him, she would see his vampire form whether he wished it or not. "With great pain and much blood. 'Tis fortunate that I heal so quickly."

  Silence fell between them as he waited for her decision.

  Finally, she stood and in one smooth motion slipped her gown over her head, then dropped it to pool at her feet.

  Darach smiled. Most women he had known would have waited with downcast eyes and flushed cheeks for him to slip their clothing off, either from real or pretended timidity.

  Even though the thought of sliding the silk, warm from her body, down the wondrous length of her legs caught at his imagination… and other things, he understood her desire to control what happened between them. His smile widened. The thought of a woman who would not merely allow him to do what he wished with her body, but would demand that she be a full participant in their joining excited him.

  She knelt on the bed beside him, then leaned back on her heels to study him. "Teach me, vampire, the pleasure that has kept you from despair for five hundred years."

  Blythe knew that he would touch her now, and she hungered for it. This lovemaking wouldn't be like the slow, beautiful opening of a flower bud. Forget it. She hoped Darach wasn't expecting that of her. She was in full bloom and about to fall off her stem. She wanted him that badly. It was almost embarrassing.

  Instead of reaching for her, he pushed himself to a sitting position and leaned his back against the headboard. His wicked smile told her he knew exactly what she wanted and was going to make her wait. Blythe didn't want to wait. She raised one brow in a cool, silent question, while she mentally rolled around on the floor, kicking and screaming.

  "Make me want ye, Blythe."
Five hundred years of sensual knowledge shaped what she now read in his expression—eyes dark with carnal promises, full lips that whispered erotic secrets. "Make me want ye without touching me. Invite me in and show me your dwelling, woman from another time."

  Blythe could scuttle away now, run from his sexual challenge, but she wouldn't. It was important that he not be the only one to give pleasure tonight. She wanted to drive out the memory of all the women who had come before her, give him as much joy as he gave her.

  Like, yeah. She could count on one hand the number of lovers she'd had. But a five-hundred-year advantage didn't mean squat when you were motivated. And she was motivated.

  "Watch and learn, vampire." Okay, she'd delivered her big bad boast. "By the way, you never had something like a harem with fifty women versed in a thousand ways to pleasure a man, did you?" She bit her lip at the horror of the thought. She'd be hard pressed to come up with five, but she'd do the best she could with what she had. She cast him a furtive sideways glance.

  His sudden laughter startled her. "Fifty women? What would I do with fifty women?"

  She was sure he could think of something.

  He shook his head, and his hair, shining in the fire's glow, shifted across his shoulders. "Ye fascinate me, Blythe. Ye make it verra hard for me to play the brooding vampire intent on seduction when ye make me laugh in the middle of my enticements."

  And with those simple words, he relaxed her. She smiled at him. "Thank you."

  Sliding from the bed, she stepped back. Blythe was very good at focusing, and she now turned all her attention to her body. What could she do to make him want her? If she could turn herself on, wouldn't that arouse him as well? No other ideas came to mind, so she began to move.

  The slow, seductive movements of the Kovan dance lent themselves to what she wanted. At no time in her life would she have dared perform this dance. She would dare it tonight.

  Bending forward from the waist, she allowed her hair to hang free, hiding her face while the strands swung gently with the subtle side-to-side motion of her hips. She ran her fingers through the strands while she conjured erotic images of Darach in her mind. And as the familiar heaviness low in her belly began to build, she touched her nipples and rolled them between her fingers until they were hard, sensitive nubs.

  Still bent at the waist, she slid her ringers from her knees, up her inner thighs until they met at the already wet, swollen lips guarding the spot she wouldn't touch, that only he would touch tonight. But she could certainly tease.

  Spreading her legs further apart, she changed the sway of her hips to a more suggestive hip thrust. At the same time, she spread the lips so that he could see, imagine.

  "Let me see your face." His demand was hot and thick with his need.

  "Not until I'm ready, vampire-with-no-patience." She'd wanted her response to come out light and teasing, but it ended up slut-husky. Talk about being into your role.

  Slowly she straightened. But before he could see her face, she turned her back to him, bent again at the waist, opened her legs wide, and drew only her fingertips up the backs of her thighs. Then she spread her palms over each cheek and rotated her hips in the age-old invitation to mate.

  Her breath came quickly now as sexual images of Darach played in her mind—his hard thighs spread for her, his sex engorged, ready to thrust into her. She felt a desperate need to fill the aching emptiness, now.

  "Show me your face, Blythe. Dinna make me come to ye." Was there just a hint of desperation in his guttural threat?

  She hoped so. But it was time that he saw her face anyway. That was the whole point of the Kovan dance. Not the sexual movements, but the moment when the lovers saw each other's expressions.

  Straightening, she turned and looked at him. Blythe knew that her face was flushed with sexual excitement, her eyes filled with what she wanted from him, her lips parted as she tried to draw in enough breath to keep her pounding heart beating.

  But her sexy strategy had backfired. Her breath caught on the flare of hunger in Darach's eyes. Eyes that looked somehow different—larger, slightly slanted, with pupils so enlarged that they turned his eyes black. And his lips… She couldn't look away as they parted and he slid his tongue across his lower lip to moisten it.

  "Come to my bed, Blythe, before 'tis too late."

  Too late for what? But she moved to the bed and once again knelt beside him. He would touch her now, and she'd explode in an orgasm to end all orgasms.

  He didn't touch her.

  "In all things sexual, anticipation is part of the pleasure." Reaching out, he drew an imaginary circle around her breast. His finger lingered a breath away from her nipple.

  Close. So close she swore she could feel a shadow of sensation. Her nipple reacted as though it truly had been touched—became hard, aching, sensitive. So sensitive that she had to bite her lip to keep from begging him to…

  "Pain and pleasure are sisters. Waiting, imagining how it will be, is pain. But it increases the final pleasure tenfold." He splayed his fingers and drew them over her stomach, so near that it seemed the air between her body and his fingers heated. "Lie beside me, Blythe." His voice was a hypnotic murmur of invitation.

  It seemed impossible to look away from his intent gaze, impossible even to blink. Somewhere in the teensy section of her brain that still functioned, she duly noted the continuing changes in his eyes—they were large, elongated, still with that intriguing slant. And the pupils were so black that she felt if she made the effort she could see into his soul. But she didn't think that would be a smart thing to do, so she didn't try.

  Still holding his gaze, she lay down next to him. Finally changing his position, he knelt above her. "Spread your legs for me, Blythe."

  Without hesitation, she moved her legs apart, then watched as he skimmed his fingers along her inner thighs, never quite touching her flesh, and paused a whisper away from… She couldn't stand this. She was wet with her readiness, her body open and wanting him to touch her right there.

  She was desperate. If he wouldn't touch her, then she'd do it herself. But even as the thought was born, it died. Nothing would relieve this need, this agony, except his touch.

  Blythe glared at him. "Touch me or I'll hurt you. Bad." She spoke through clenched teeth.

  His smile was slow, mocking, sensual. " 'Tis a terrible threat, yet it holds a certain… attraction." His eyes flared with a hunger that made her shiver. "Tell me what things ye would do with me so I may decide whether the eventual pleasure is worth the risk." His smile faded. "If it gives ye any comfort, I suffer now as much as ye do."

  "I don't think so." Her cranky mutter sounded whiny even to herself.

  A flash of what could only be described as pain touched his eyes. Maybe she was just imagining it, but his face seemed somehow leaner, his cheekbones sharper, his eyes… Something about his eyes…

  "Close your eyes. Now." His harsh command brooked no disobedience.

  Blythe closed her eyes and waited. A thread of fear twined around her heart, her lungs. She breathed hard to rid herself of it, and tried to ignore the rapid pounding of her heart.

  "Dinna open your eyes, Blythe. Ye willna see, but your remaining senses will grow sharper, sensations more intense." His breath warmed the sensitive skin at the base of her throat. "I have waited long for this."

  "Not really. I mean, it's only been a couple of days. You have to work on the exaggeration thing." She swallowed hard. Oops—maybe she shouldn't call too much attention to her throat right now.

  His soft chuckle once again eased her fears. "I dinna exaggerate. I canna remember wanting any woman as much as I want ye, so I have truly waited overlong."

  Silence filled the space between them.

  "I feel your unease, Blythe. Do ye wish to stop?" His voice was calm and even, giving nothing of himself away.

  Instinctively Blythe reached for his emotions. Disappointment. Sadness. And even a touch of the despair she hadn't found before. Searching within
herself, Blythe recognized the same emotions at the thought of not having Darach tonight.

  "You don't escape that easily, vampire. If you don't finish what you started, your immortal status could be in danger." She reached up and laid her palm flat against his body.

  His chest. She could feel the hard pounding of his heart. "This is who you are to me, a man whose heart beats the same as my heart. Okay, so your skill level in certain areas exceeds mine, but not by much. And we don't like the same foods, but that's pretty normal between two people. Oh, and our life expectancies are about the same." She smiled. "So all in all, I'd say we're just a normal couple. In fact—"

  He kissed her. No gentle preliminaries, just a hot, hungry plundering of her lips. Since her mouth was already open, ready to enlarge on their compatibility, his tongue found easy access. He had no interest in exploring. As his tongue stroked her, tangled with her tongue, and generally tried to draw her soul from her body with his mouth, she felt…

  She felt the press of his fangs against her lips.

  He froze as soon as he sensed her stillness.

  Blythe had known this moment would come, knew that her response was important in a way she didn't even fully understand yet.

  Tentatively she slid her tongue the length of each fang, memorized the smooth texture, and recognized the damage each could inflict on a human body. She couldn't repress a small shiver, not so much from fear, but more as a reaction to finally touching what made him essentially vampire in her mind. This was the real deal.

  She faced the reality and accepted it as part of Darach. "Make me remember this, vampire." She touched the tip of her tongue to the sharp point of each canine. "So that even if I live to be a thousand, I'll recall the taste and feel of you. Make this a forever experience."

  "Ye have great faith in my power to please ye." He touched the side of her face with fingers that shook slightly. "As ye should." The amusement was back in his voice.