By My Choice...: A Valentine's Day Story (Valentine's Day Stories) (7 page)

Again, she tried to step from his hold, again he refused to let her budge.
 

“Why did Fabian not bind me?”
 

It was a plaintive cry encompassing all the betrayal, all the loneliness she felt. Why had her friend not wanted her? At least she would have known he would have cared for her, no matter if she turned into a catatonic automaton after tonight. He would have done all to keep her safe, or so she had thought. But he had not wanted her. She only knew there were tears falling from her eyes when his lips caught them. His large hand cradled her head again, guided it into the protection of his neck and just held her through her pain.

“He tried, little one. He did — but whilst he has enough power, there is a sexual component to the ErGer bond. He loves you, very much, but he cannot see you as anything other than a sister.”

The mere thought of Fabian in a sexual context made her shudder, and left her slightly nauseous. Yick. The hard muscles under her cheek shook with laughter.

“I suspect his expression mirrored yours when he tried to look at you from a sexual point of view.”

His elegant fingers stroked through her long hair in a soothing rhythm, his touch enough to give her a moment’s respite. But there was no lasting respite, not really.

“You don’t want me, you just want the power.” It was the simple truth and the spoken words were more a reminder to herself than an accusation to him. But he answered nevertheless, in deed and word. His hand stroked down her back, the caress pressing her hips firmly into him. She felt the hard length of his arousal against her own body, its touch kindling the heated heaviness in her womb to flickering flames. She moaned, unable to keep her hips from rubbing over him, luxuriating in the sensation. He chuckled though there was an appreciative moan below it.
 

“Sweetheart, there are things I want to say to you before we get there, and you are not making it easy for me.”

His large hand flattened on her back, just above the curve of her butt, a warm weight holding her in place, putting an end to her languid undulations against him. His lips stroked over her eyes. It was a gentle reminder to open them. When had they fallen closed? It was harder than it should be possible to prey her lids apart, but she managed to lift them. His green eyes were full of desire — and control.

“I cannot say I wanted you from the first time we have met, Jennifer but I liked you even then.”
 

It was said with a smile and brought to mind that first meeting, her five-year-old self hiding in the garden under a rose bush eating strawberries stolen from the kitchen and congratulating herself on escaping the tight supervision of her nanny. And the tall, beautiful vampire who had positioned himself strategically to hide her when said nanny had come looking for her. He had winked at her and smiled and somehow the memory of that moment, the recollection of the moonlit path and the kindness the royal visitor had given to the little girl, let something relax in her, let her listen to his tone as well as his words. He still had that kindness.
 

“I can also tell you I have not looked at you with dispassion since you passed your teens, no matter how much I chastised myself for wanting you. Yes, I want the power, very much, but don’t deceive yourself into thinking I am not going to enjoy the package that power comes in, or that I would not have made a play for you the next time we would have met. You are mine.”

The last three words had an almost physical impact on her in their absolute confidence. It challenged her natural wilfulness.
 

“I don’t want you!”

It was a lie, they both knew it. Her voice might ring with all the obstinacy, all the stubborn resistance in her character, but it still was a lie. She wanted him, had done so since she had been old enough to see men as men. But even though she had fallen in lust with him very long ago, this did not mean she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, did not even necessarily mean she wanted to act on the lust. She definitely did not want the position of the ErGer, did not want to lose her independence, her emotional and physical distance, her mind to him. She did not want to be so utterly in his, or anyone’s control. It took more courage, more trust, than she was able to give. So she threw the words as a challenge at him, a gauntlet and statement of intent. He accepted it.
 

“You won’t have a choice.” He crooned, his lips playing over the sensitive skin of her ear and drawing an involuntary moan from her mouth as she felt his caress in every pore of her body. “No choice at all. You will be mine tonight, the only question is how it will come to pass.”

She lived in no illusion that he was giving her any choice, asking her for an opinion in the matter. A suspicion supported when his next words whispered over her ear, the touch of his breath a caress that made her tremble.

“I could hold you in my arms until you scream from need but I think it would be harder for you to overcome the injury to your dignity than any fright I might give you. So I will carry you over to the bed and take my time playing with you, preparing you until you are lost in the pleasure of my touch and there will be no space for any fear, any embarrassment, when I take and bind you.”
 

His lips had found her throat, nibbled along it, the sharp incisor’s scratch a counterpoint to his oh so soft lips. She knew she would not escape him, would lose the life she knew in these rooms —
 
and that there was nothing she could do against it. Still, her hands formed fists and dared to hit his chest, barely making him hesitate in his movements. A gentle nip on her shoulder was all the punishment he meted out as he lifted her.

“Fight, little one. Fight as much as you need to. I will enjoy it.”

Life
 

He carried her through an archway, ignoring her flailing fists with the ease of a man more than triple her strength. Only when she managed to split his lip with an errant elbow did he react. All of a sudden she was airborne, tossed through the air like so much wet cloth — it was frightening and exhilarating. A moment of flight she could never gain in her own, a moment of childhood, a sensation still familiar but fogged by time.
 

She impacted the soft surface of a large canopied bed with a yip, bouncing twice before her body stopped moving with the momentum. She was not entirely certain what had robbed her of her breath, the laughter bubbling up or the unexpected flight, the surprise. For that first moment she was disoriented, and disarmed, by the whimsy, the excitement and the pure animal strength. Most importantly, she realised she might fear and hate what he wanted to do — but there was not one ounce of fear of him, as a person, in her heart or mind. It was a sobering thought.
 

She lay there, her breath stolen, her wits frozen, caught between fear and exhilaration. Her eyes skittered over the heavy velvet draperies surrounding the bed in a canopy of emerald and pine, the soft fabrics in hues remnant of the greens of deep forests and high meadows, cradling her in their embrace. The soft candlelight played over the intricate embroideries and shapes in a gentle imitation of sunlight thorough leaves. She fixed on the patterns, the colour, the shape —merely so that she did not have to look at the man with her.
 

Jen knew she could have run, could have jumped from the bed and made it to the door. Possibly. Her brain fixed on that idea for a moment, and discarded it. He was vampire, he would get there before her. A movement caught her eyes even though she tried to ignore the overwhelming presence of the man with her. Holding her gaze he reached behind and pulled the white dress shirt over his head, in a move so male and so common-place it held more eroticism than any blatant display would have done. And he knew it, his eyes told her so. Those eyes, green and devouring, their intensity filled with unchecked need. It took her breath, made her want to reach for him. And in that moment, drinking in the planes and lines of his torso, long lean muscles over strong bones, she had to admit it was not her lack of any chance of success her flight might have which kept her here, it was that kernel of curiosity, of longing, in her soul.
 

“I don’t want this.”

Had she said the words aloud or just thought them? Jen did not know anymore. The bed dipped as he rested one knee on the bottom, the light playing over the corded strength of his shoulders, the shadows and lines of beauty her imagination had hitherto only every painted for her. She loved watching him move, watching the muscles in his abdomen tense as he pulled himself up on the bed, as he slowly crawled up to straddle her. His skin was the pale white of milk but with the brilliance, the sheen, of the softest silk. Her hand wanted to reach for it, wanted to feel, to touch and taste. She did not, dared not. Touching him would be addictive and what was left of her rational mind told her she could not afford this addiction.
 

“I don’t want this.” She repeated, her voice more tentative than she wanted it to be.
 

Her eyes were large and expressing too much, she knew, had always hated it about herself, this inability to hide anything. Now she was glad they could say what she could not.
 

His large hands cradled her cheek, a touch warm and feather-light, his eyes a caress on her skin.This close she saw the yellow flecks in his green eyes, streaks of gold breaking the dark green surface like sun playing over a forest pond, but whilst their depth were normally dark and enigmatic, giving nothing away, now she could see the warmth, the desire, and the regret in them.

“I know, but today neither of us has a choice in the matter — and I cannot say I rue this day. The circumstances, possibly, but never the chance of having you here with me.”

“You don’t even know me.”
 

No bitterness tinged her words, not even sadness, merely a numb acceptance. When his lips stroked over hers, he kissed away the words with a bittersweet tenderness.
 

“No, nor do you know me, at least not well enough to decide to spend the rest of our very long lives together. Does anyone ever? Really? But what I know of you, I admire and like. More than just like. I liked the little girl I met all those years ago, the teenager who once told me to stop sulking when I had lost some unimportant discussion in the Master’s Council.”

Had she actually told one of the most powerful vampires in the land to stop sulking? Sadly enough, she remembered the instance. She groaned, drawing an amused smile from him. That smile reminded her why she had told him; he always appeared more human than most of the other vampires, even the younger ones — until he was not human at all anymore. Still, had she been suicidal as a fourteen year old? She closed her eyes in mortification but that did not shield her from his next words:

 
“And I might be already half in love with the young woman who always kept and eye out for those she thought needed protection, no matter that she herself was the weakest among a court of paranormals.”
 

Her eyes snapped open and she bristled at the last, would have contradicted him, and if only out of principle, but a wave of heat travelled through her body, bowing her back. It was not pleasure, it was not pain, it was akin to both and still so foreign her mind could not make sense of it, could not relate to it. She screamed. In fear? In pain? In confusion? Jen did not know anymore. From a distance she heard the frantic voice, no words just a tone. It mattered not, she could not claw her way back to it.
 

It was the taste, sating something deep and unbridled in her, which gave her a measure of reality. She knew it was his kiss, his lips latching onto hers with a desperation born of helplessness. It was that desperation, that clear sign he was less calm than he tried to make her believe, which had a calming effect on her mind, in the same way as his kiss calmed her body. He might want her power, he might be one of the most powerful vampires in the land, but he also was just as lost in this as she was.
 

“I hate this.”

Under the hands which had come to rest on his shoulders sometimes during the time when her body’s need had taken over her mind, she felt the movement of his muscles, the tension so in opposition to the collected demeanour he portrayed. His eyes, as he rested his brow on hers and feathered her face with the caress of his breath, showed no such emotion; there was only calm confidence — and a plea.

“Let me get you through tonight; just trust me for this one night and then we will sort everything out.”

Not even she could detect any humour in her laughter. She gasped when a stinging electrified her body from where her laughter had rubbed her nipples against his chest to her extremities. Now, there was no question that her moan held more pain than pleasure.
 

“If I trust you tonight, I will be yours, no matter what.”

He did nothing to hide the joyful satisfaction, the triumph, in his eyes but any anger she might have countered it with failed on the stark truth of his next question:

“Do you have any choice?”

Jen knew she was crying only from the burning trail her tears painted along her temples, the gathering dampness of the soft hair along her face, and the gentle caress of his thumbs as he brushed them away.
 

“No, I don’t have a choice.”

When his brow came to rest on hers, his hair surrounded them like a gossamer curtain, shielding them from the world. His lips and their taste of strength and warmth were so close, so near — and immeasurably far away. She did not close her eyes again, and neither did he, she simply rested in this moment of timeless quiescence and with each breath she was caught more.
 

She had no choice, there was no way out which would not lead to her own destruction. If she was an ErGer, and as unlikely as it was it seemed the evidence pointed to it, then tonight she would either bond to him, or another paranormal, one, who did not even hold bonds of friendship with her and those who cared for her. Yes, he could let her go — let her go to find a quiet corner far from any paranormals who might sense her plight (fat chance) and she would spend the night tearing herself apart. If she survived, it would only be to run from any non-human on this planet, as they would hunt her down before Valentine’s Day next year. There was no choice and if it was just because all the alternatives were so much worse.