Master's Flame (32 page)

“You only spend time with me because it gives you the opportunity to taunt me.” She looked away, wishing him to hell.

“In what way am I taunting you? I’m trying to reassure you.”

“By threatening to mount me?”

He made a sound of muted reproach. “It’s not a threat. It’s what’s going to happen in precisely eight days. I’ve been counting down the hours until our wedding night. Such is my hunger to possess you.”

“I want to return to my friends.”

“Look at me and smile then. We must convince people we are happy to marry, not trapped in some unwanted and ill-conceived betrothal.”

She skirted a bed of colorful blooms, trying to smile, and failing. “If you hadn’t dragged me into the woods at your parents’ ball we might have found a way to convince them how unsuited we are. They might have allowed us to marry others of our station.”

“Like your precious Lord Everett? It would never have happened, I promise you. At any rate, I have a larger cock. I’ve seen his. Impressive, but not quite up to my—”

“Oh, no, please.” She pressed her hands over her ears, knocking her hat askew in the process. “I beg you, don’t speak of such things to me.”

“Why not?”

“Because. You know why.” He was impossible. He refused to converse with any modicum of respect. “Can we not reference anything to do with your—your thing—and what shall happen on our wedding night? Can we not discuss it any more until the hour is at hand?”

He turned her to face him and set her hat to rights, biting one side of his lip in concentration. She closed her eyes rather than stare at his mouth, then opened them with a start when he brushed a few strands of hair behind her ear.

“I wonder why you have such a negative regard for the act of sexual congress. It makes me wonder if you haven’t already been mounted by some brute who didn’t know what he was about.”

“I have never been m-mounted before,” she protested, flushing hot. “I am perfectly pure.”

“Are you? Then you’re too pure to realize that being perfectly pure is a very dull state indeed. Do you like when I touch your ear?”

His fingertips lingered, heating the sensitive skin beneath her lobe. She set her teeth and shook her head. “No, I don’t like it.”

“What if I stroked it instead, like this?”

His fingers moved again, not just touching this time, but caressing. She suppressed an instinctive shudder, knowing he watched. She could feel his dark eyes upon her even though she averted her gaze. The strange lilt in his voice, the rasp of his words, the slowness of his caress, the nearness of his body, all of it combined to affect her in some novel, disturbing way.

“I wish you would stop,” she said, meaning to draw a halt to this.

“No, you wish I would continue,” he murmured. “Don’t tell lies.”

She blinked, confused and ashamed, because she did wish it. But she also wished for him to stop. People might be watching, which embarrassed her, but truly, what would they care? They would find it romantic and appropriate, for her fiancé to be touching her this way.

“Please, you disturb me so,” she whispered.

“Do I?” His hand went still, left her and dropped to his side. “Then perhaps there’s hope for the two of us after all.”

The town of Gilford has a Big and Terrible secret hidden in the ground.

Infecting those it touches.

Exploiting their darkness.

Consuming their souls.

It’s hungry. It’s vile. It’s evil.

And it wants out.

Book One: The First Three Rules

Marshal Jon Foster lost his purpose and his sanity the day he saw the image of his dead brother. The distraction saved Jon’s life but cost the lives of innocent people including his best friend and partner. It was a price for survival Jon couldn’t live with and was sure he’d never understand.

Driven by grief and guilt he tried to escape his past by fleeing to a small town in the middle of nowhere. Only instead of peace, the memories festered. Then the offer of a stick of gum from a stranger changes Jon’s life and puts him on a road out of the nightmare he’s trapped in.

Ellis Harper has lived the past twenty years isolated from the outside world and sole caretaker for his mentally disabled brother, Rudy. While Ellis loves his brother, he longs for a life he’ll never be able to have.

Shut away, his days consist of chores, endless cartoons, and games of Go Fish. A world that seemed to have no end until an innocent misunderstanding turns Ellis and his brother into a target for a town bully. It’s a fight Ellis can never win on his own but thanks to a chance meeting with a stranger, he doesn’t have to.

What begins as a new journey in love for both men quickly unfolds into something neither of them could have ever imagined.

Ellis thought of Jon’s soft lips, his gentle hands, and how his touch dancing across his skin made him shiver.

He gripped the doorjamb hard enough to make his fingers ache. What else could Jon do to him? What other memories could he burn into Ellis’s mind to leave him hurting when he left? The list would be endless.

Since he was already going to suffer, why stop at a kiss? “Jon?” His voice trembled.

“Yeah?”

“I think I might like your help, after all.” He hobbled in the direction of the bathroom. Jon would either follow or he wouldn’t.

Ellis stood in the middle of the bathroom with his back to the door. The hinges creaked and a cool draft rolled over his bare feet. The light came on. Ellis squinted but the excruciating pain he expected didn’t happen. Jon shut the door, and a long line of warmth pressed against Ellis’s body.

A caress brushed the back of Ellis’s neck. Jon slipped his fingers under the hem of Ellis’s shirt, feathering a touch across his stomach. The contact all but blistered. Close to Ellis’s ear, Jon said, “Bath or shower?”

With Jon so close, his hands on Ellis’s flesh, he didn’t know.

Jon grazed the shell of Ellis’s ear with his teeth. The sharpness traveled down his body, striking him in his groin.

Jon eased Ellis’s shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor.

“You still haven’t answered me.” Jon licked a hot wet line across Ellis’s shoulder. There no longer seemed to be enough air in the room. “Do you want me to choose for you?”

Ellis nodded and Jon turned on the spigot, filling the room with the sound of rushing water. He pulled the valve. The pipes rattled until silenced by the hush of spraying water.

Clouds of steam turned the air white. Jon made no attempt to conceal his erection, straining the front of his pants. Ellis stared, not knowing what else to do.

Jon unbuttoned the pajama top he wore and slipped it off.

Should Ellis touch Jon, not touch him? And where? How? Jon pulled Ellis’s chin up and pressed their lips together. Ellis didn’t hesitate to welcome Jon’s tongue. He put an arm around Ellis’s back and pulled him closer. The long hard length of Jon’s cock rode against Ellis’s hip. Jon rocked forward, creating delicious friction where his thigh pressed between Ellis’s legs. He wanted somewhere to put his hands and settled on Jon’s upper arms. His hold tightened and he probed Ellis’s mouth deeper with his tongue.

Ellis needed to breathe and at the same time he didn’t care if he never did again.

Jon stepped back and the hunger in his gaze gripped Ellis’s insides.

“Are you sure you’re okay for this?” Jon said.

“Yeah.”

“We can wait.”

“I’m okay. I am. Just don’t stop.”

“I’m going to take your pants off now.”

Pants. Ellis used to know what those were, but he couldn’t think. All he could do was feel, and every nerve in his body came alive with fire.

Jon knelt in front of Ellis and placed a kiss on one side of his navel then licked a line to his hip. When he stopped, Jon looked at Ellis like he was waiting for something.

Since touching Jon seemed to please him before, Ellis ran his fingers over the stubble on Jon’s jaw. Ellis shouldn’t have been able to hear the rasping sound over the roar of water. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he’d imagined it. Maybe he was imagining all of this.

If he was he hoped he never woke up.

Jon loosened the ties on Ellis’s pajama bottoms, tugged, and they fell away, forming puddles of fabric around his ankles. A wet spot had already formed on the front of Ellis’s underwear.

Jon took more time pulling those down. Ellis closed his eyes unable to stand the sight of his cock, hard, leaking, and so close to Jon’s mouth.

His touch slid up Ellis’s thighs to the juncture of his hips. Jon wrapped his fingers around the base. The pressure made Ellis whimper.

“Look at me, Ellis.”

Ellis shook his head.

“Open your eyes and look at me.” The strength in Jon’s words gave Ellis the courage. Jon smiled and flicked his tongue across the head of Ellis’s cock.

He threw his head back. The ache in his balls condensed. “Oh, God.” Jon closed his mouth over the head. The heat, the wet, the suction. Ellis couldn’t hold back. He barked out a cry and came. The surge of pleasure echoed through his entire body, washing away the pain left in his head and the ache in his side.

His entire life.

Embarrassment replaced the euphoria. Ellis’s face burned and he fought to hold back the tears stinging his eyes. He was far more successful at that than controlling his body’s need to come. He bit his lip, making the cut hurt.

“Ellis.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ellis. I told you to look at me.” Jon’s hands tightened on Ellis’s hips. He couldn’t. He would never be able to look at Jon again.

The warmth of Jon’s body traveled upward and he cupped Ellis’s face. His wet lips pressed against Ellis’s. This time, when Jon invaded Ellis’s mouth there was a bitter salty flavor. Ellis opened his eyes and Jon broke the kiss. Cum coated his chin and part of his cheek. A perfectly round dot stuck to his eyebrow.

He dragged his finger through the smear close to his mouth and sucked his finger clean. A breath shuddered out of Ellis and he trembled.

“Let’s get in the shower before the hot water runs out.”

Ellis climbed in, facing the wall while Jon undressed and joined him.

I have to do this. I can do this. I’m not going to give up this chance.

Ellis picked up the soap and the washcloth, but they’d become alien objects that he had no idea how to use.

Jon took them. With his arms around Ellis, Jon worked a lather in his hands.

Soap bubbled between Jon’s thick fingers and ran in clumps down his wrists. Slick like that, how would they feel running down Ellis’s body? What else could Jon do with them and would he?

Jon put the soap back on the tray and swiped the cloth up Ellis’s arms, to his chest, down to his cock. On the way back up, he stopped at one of Ellis’s nipples. Jon made small circles over the bud with his thumb.

Jon kissed the back of Ellis’s neck.

“Do you want me to fuck you now?”

Sex. Ellis tried to wrap his mind around the thought. He knew what it entailed, but, at the same time, it seemed impossible.

“Or maybe you want more of my mouth?” Jon grazed Ellis’s shoulder with his teeth. The sharpness made Ellis push back against Jon. His grip tightened and he growled. The sound echoed though Ellis’s chest.

Jon rolled his hips and his thick cock slid along Ellis’s crack. How could something that big even fit? It would hurt. It could only hurt.

“Talk to me.”

Ellis wanted Jon. He wanted the man close, wanted his touch, but now, the reality of what Jon expected strangled Ellis’s courage. He shouldn’t have done this because he had no idea how to do what Jon desired.

He made some room between them then pushed his fingers between Ellis’s ass cheeks. He clenched his butt muscles and Jon hissed close to his ear. “I think you want me to fuck you.” The man tilted Ellis’s back. It unbalanced him, stripping away any leverage to retreat. Jon pushed harder and his fingertips brushed Ellis’s opening.

“Is lotion the only lubricant you have?” His cockhead replaced his fingers and rubbed against Ellis’s hole.

Lubricant? Lotion?

Jon’s words wouldn’t process.

He slid lower against Ellis’s back and thrust again, pushing his cock all the way between Ellis’s legs to bump the soft spot behind his balls. Then Jon was gone and the shower door squeaked, letting in a puff of cool air. The lotion would be right there on the counter next to the towels. Jon wouldn’t even have to reach for it.

“Hard? Slow? Both?” Jon’s words were warm against Ellis’s cheek.

If he asked him, would Jon stop? Or was it too late? Had he given permission and now, whatever Jon wanted from his body was his to take?

The My Brother’s Keeper Trilogy:

All books are full-length novels and should be read in order. Available now!

Other erotic romance by Annabel Joseph

Mercy

Cait and the Devil

Firebird

Deep in the Woods

Fortune

Owning Wednesday

Lily Mine

Comfort Object

Caressa’s Knees

Odalisque

Command Performance

Cirque de Minuit

Bound in Blue

Burn For You

The Edge of the Earth (as Molly Joseph)

Disciplining the Duchess

Waking Kiss

Fever Dream

Erotica by Annabel Joseph

Club Mephisto

Molly’s Lips: Club Mephisto Retold

About the Author

Annabel Joseph is a multi-published BDSM romance author. She writes mainly contemporary romance, although she has been known to dabble in the medieval and Regency eras. She is known for writing emotionally intense BDSM storylines, and strives to create characters that seem real—even flawed—so readers are better able to relate to them. Annabel also writes vanilla (non-BDSM) erotic romance under the pen name Molly Joseph.