Only Human (23 page)

Alrighty then, time to change the subject. I stayed on the topic of blood, but steered us away from talking about
my
blood. “When you drink from a bag, do you pour it into a glass or suck it out of the bag through the tube, or what?”

He smiled, apparently also happy to have the conversation away from his desire to drink my blood. “It depends. Often I put it in a wine glass, sometimes I add some brandy to it and put it in a brandy snifter. I’ve also been known to put it in one of those insulated coffee holders and drink it in the car on the way to wherever I’m going. Only as a last resort would someone try to use the tubing, it’s so small it takes a long time to drink that way. We’re almost back to the dock, let’s go ahead and walk downstairs, shall we?”

I walked to him and held my hand out to him. He reached for it, accepting it. I had a feeling he was waiting for me to walk to him — he didn’t want to scare me again and he was being careful around me now. I felt bad about that and wanted to show him it was okay. Deep down though, I wasn’t sure it was
really
okay.

Once we were back in the limo, as much as I didn’t want to get back to the heavy conversation, there was a question I wanted answered. “The humans you fell in love with and turned, they aren’t with you now, right?”

“Correct. You want to know what happened?”

“If it’s something you feel comfortable sharing, yes.”

“Knowing how hard it is for humans to stay together for a few decades, can you imagine vampires staying together for hundreds or thousands of years? I am not aware of any couples who’ve lasted longer than five hundred years, and to last that long is rare. Vampire marriage vows are not ‘till death do us part’, but are undertaken with an expiration date. Some couples choose twenty or fifty years, while others go for one hundred, which is the maximum allowed. When they reach the end date, the couple can agree to another contract or go their separate ways. Assets are listed in the original marriage document so each person can keep the things they came into the union with, and couples are required to know how possessions will be allocated as they are purchased during the marriage, so there’s no fighting over property. Most couples leave a vampire marriage on good terms, though unions sometimes end with bad feelings. It is understood that as time passes, individuals may grow apart instead of together. So, the answer to your question is that those relationships ran their course. I’m friends with them all, but I haven’t seen most of them in quite some time. I shared the last city I was in with an ex for several years and there were no problems.”

“How long has your longest marriage lasted?”

“My longest marriage lasted three hundred and twenty-eight years, and did not end by contract, but when my wife was killed. It happened over a thousand years ago.”

“Wow, so you could probably do my job quite well, counseling couples on how to work things out.”

He laughed. “As Master Vampire of my territory I do a lot of counseling and mediating, it comes with the title.”

“Why did Kieran and Gwen come to me, if they could’ve gone to you?”

He grimaced. “I asked them the same question. I wasn’t aware they’d set an appointment or I would’ve forbidden it and then found them someone else to speak with.” He looked out the window and then back to me. “Gwen had heard good things about you, and convinced Kieran you were their best chance. I’m impressed with the solution you came up with, though, it’s similar to what I would’ve recommended.”

“You take your responsibility to your people seriously, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“And now, being under your protection, does that somehow make me part of your territory? Am I supposed to be obligated to follow your orders?”

“Yes, but I’ve already told you I won’t hold you to any of it. As long as you don’t openly defy me in front of my people, it shouldn’t be a problem. If you’re going to defy me and there are other vampires around, ask to speak to me in private.” Almost an afterthought, he added, “Please.”

“I gotta tell you, I don’t like the sound of that.”

“I will not harm you, there is no reason for you to fear me. Let us talk of other things. Judging by your age, I’m guessing you like eighties music, yes?”

The conversation stayed on pretty safe territory for the remainder of the limo ride. We talked of music and movies, things I wouldn’t expect a vampire to keep up with. I mean, wouldn’t it make sense that a vampire would have an era of music that they’d want to listen to, and get stuck in as humans tended to? But no, apparently many of them enjoyed staying up with current trends. Some decades they’d hate the choices and wouldn’t keep up, but then the next decade would be back to their liking and they’d keep up with popular fashion and music again.

When we returned to the plane it didn’t take long for the pilot to have us moving out onto the runway. Abbott gave me a catalog of movies to choose from, and I didn’t want to go through the whole book so I opened it at random and ended up on the F page, where I saw
Fame
,
Flashdance
, and
Footloose
, and told him I’d be happy with any of those. He chose
Flashdance
, and let Steve know of our choice. Once we reached altitude, Steve went to start the movie, and Abbott lifted the armrest between us and snuggled me close to him.

I tentatively let a few shields down, enough to let us get a little intimate but not so many he could get into my head.

He stiffened, his arm around me tightened, and he asked, “Who did this to you?” His voice was soft, but dangerous.

“Did what?” I asked, clueless about what he meant.

“You’ve been hurt. Badly.” He looked down at me, brushed his hand in front of my solar plexus, then held it over my lower abdomen. “Your chakras are burnt, and it’s recent. Did you battle someone today? We could’ve postponed our date, you should’ve told me.”

“I’m fine, Abbott. This is from exercise and conditioning.”

He shook his head. “You smell of the truth, but I’ve never felt anything quite like this. What kind of exercise does this, and to what end?”

Now it was my turn to shake my head. “You’re talking too much. Shut up and kiss me.”

We locked gazes for a good fifteen seconds before he leaned down and took my mouth with his.

I’m not sure when we lost our seatbelts, but he was back to the gentle yet demanding thing and it was doing me in. Somehow I ended up cradled in his lap, his lips on mine, kissing me like I’ve never been kissed. He stood with me in his arms, walked to the back of the plane, and alarm bells sounded in my head.

“Abbott, where are we going? I’m not ready for—”

He interrupted with, “Shhh, it’s okay, I’m just taking us where Steve won’t see us, so we can have some privacy. If you do not wish to take it further, our clothes will stay on. Okay?”

I should’ve said, “No, that’s not okay, let’s go back and watch the movie,” but is that what I said?
No
, of course not, what I said was, “Well, okay.”

So, he took me to a bedroom. With a bed in it. There were also some airline seats on one wall, I guess in case of turbulence you could get seated and buckled in fairly quickly.

“I bet being able to sleep on the way to and from China really helps out with the jetlag. I’m okay going, but coming back is a killer.”

“Vampires don’t have a problem with jetlag, since we die at dawn wherever we are, there are no problems getting to sleep. You’ll note this room has no windows, it’s where I have to stay when we’re flying through daylight.”

He stood me in front of him and released my hair, then smoothed it back and caressed my face. “You’re tense. You don’t want to get on the bed with me, do you?”

“Part of me wants that very much, but the rest of me isn’t sure I want to go there with you, and until I’m sure, I should keep my clothes on.” I sighed and told him the unvarnished truth. “If I lay down on that bed with you, my clothes will not stay on.”

“Well then,” he said with a playful smile, “will you join me in the seats?” As he pulled me down beside him, he continued talking. “I get the idea you don’t really do vanilla sex at all, is that correct?”

“Yes, though your kisses have done more for me than just a kiss should, so who knows, it might actually work with you. But, if the vanilla sex didn’t work then it would make things awkward, and you and I haven’t had the conversations necessary before being Dom and sub or even Top and bottom, so it’s completely out of the question tonight.”

“You need pain to orgasm?”

“Not always, but I need to be dominated, and pain certainly helps with my orgasms. To be honest, I’m not in the right frame of mind to submit to you, I don’t think. Though I have a feeling that’s probably because you haven’t tried to push things in that direction.”

His smile let me know I was right, and then he leaned in for another kiss and Oh. My. God. The man can kiss, and this one was... yeah, he was pulling from his Dominant side on this one, no doubt about it — he took
possession
of my mouth. I reached my hand up to run my fingers through his hair and he pulled back enough to say, “Hands down, Kirsten.”

I immediately put my hand down, and my clit throbbed from the impact of his voice.

He had
The Voice
, the one that gave instructions not to be questioned, only to be followed. Not a mean, angry, or tough voice, but a strong, firm voice with
so
much promise.

“Perfect,” he said, and then went back to kissing me, and now I had to fight to keep my hands from touching him. Just knowing I wasn’t supposed to made my fingers crave the feel of his skin, his hair… but I didn’t want to give him an excuse to punish me, which was crazy since we hadn’t even negotiated for a scene. I knew he’d told me he respected the stoplight safewords, so I could stop this if I wanted, but I
really
didn’t want to.

I pulled back from the kiss. “Abbott?”

“Yes, my darling?”

“Permission to touch you, please?”

“Of course, my darling.”

That had done it, by asking permission I’d acknowledged the Dom/sub relationship. The only way out now would be to safeword. But somehow, I trusted him to not take us where I wasn’t ready to go yet, which seemed silly at this point, but there it was.

The kiss continued for another thirty seconds or so, with me running my hands through his hair and then caressing the top and sides of an ear. This kiss wasn’t slowing, it was ramping up, and I was nearly frantic with lust, though I was doing a decent job of keeping my hips mostly still and not showing just how much I wanted his attention
lower
.

“On your knees, Kirsten, we need to talk before we go further.”

Wow, I hadn’t expected to be on my knees to him tonight. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it, but... if I wanted to acknowledge him as Dominant to me, then I’d have to do it. Damn, this was always hard at the beginning of a relationship. I went to my knees, spreading them slightly, arching my back, chest out, and looking down. He hadn’t given me specific instructions for how to kneel, so I fell back on my training until told otherwise.

“You’re fighting yourself to kneel before me. No need to respond, I can see it and sense it. Please look at me, Kirsten, and speak freely during this conversation.”

He waited for my nod before continuing. “First the safewords — yellow if things are getting to be too much and red if you want the scene to stop. You’re familiar with these, but I want to say it out loud to be sure we’re on the same page. Next, I will not take you where you aren’t ready to go, so I’ll put boundaries on our play this evening until we can negotiate further. I intend to take your dress off, but will leave on whatever undergarments you may have below your waist. I will most likely take my shirt off, but I will leave my pants on. I will give you a small taste of breast and nipple torture but I’ll be careful not to take things too far.” He brushed a stray lock of hair out of my face and his brief touch comforted me.

“If you need to be punished,” he continued, “you’ll receive a bare bottom over-the-knee spanking with my hand. I will then put your undergarment back on and will not touch anything while you are disrobed except to spank your bottom. I do intend to touch your genitals through your clothes, and may expect you to touch me through my pants. Are these boundaries acceptable to you?”

Wow. He’d somehow managed to address my main concerns. “Yes. How should I address you?”

“You will address me as Master Abbott or Master. You will ask for permission to speak. You will ask for permission to touch. You will not orgasm without permission. When given an order, you will either safeword or you will follow the order.
Immediately
. Understood?”

“Yes, Master Abbott.” Damn, how had we gotten to this so quickly?

“Remove your dress.”

I stood, reached back, unzipped the high neck at the back of the dress, and let it fall forward. My heart sped and my legs threatened to go weak, and I took a breath before letting it slide to the floor — with the built-in bra, taking the dress off would leave me bare on top.

“I didn’t give you permission to look down. Look me in the eyes while you undress, Kirsten.”

He wasn’t going to make this easy, and since he could smell arousal, he’d know exactly how much this was turning me on. Every command cranked things up another couple of notches.

I let the dress fall to the floor, bent to retrieve it, but didn’t take it anywhere. He’d only told me to take it off.

“Good girl, you’re used to following instructions.” He reached forward, took it from me, and tossed it on the bed so it landed mostly straight, without wrinkles.

His gaze met mine and then slid down to my chest. “What beautiful breasts.” He wet his index finger and circled my left nipple, making it draw up even tighter than it already was, then repeated it with the right nipple.

“Eye contact, Kirsten. Look me in the eyes.” I heard the steel in his voice, warning me he wouldn’t keep reminding me, and heat flared between my legs.

I looked him steadily in the left eye, not trying to look into both eyes at once since that never worked for me.