The Vampire Queen's Servant (23 page)

He took it, clasping her ankle
and moving around it to stand between her knees. His lady allowed him to reach
up, unpin her hair and set aside the hand-carved wooden barrette holding it.
Jacob stroked his hands through the dark locks, his fingers diving deep to find
her scalp. Her feet curved around his hips, bringing him closer. Lowering his
touch to her waist, he slid her off the edge and into the water, pulling her
against him. He wanted to tell her how much he'd missed her, but he didn't.

Feeling his wet, muscular body
against hers was the closest thing to contentment Lyssa had felt in several
days. Her nerves sighed in relief. She'd given her body just a taste of him and
now all it wanted was more, even knowing denial was in their mutual best
interest. With his cock hard and insistent and pressed between their bodies,
she suspected she was going to lose that battle with her will. At least
tonight. Her clit was already quivering in little spasms at the contact,
begging her to rub.

She avoided his lips, the tender
intimacy of a kiss. Instead, she pressed her cheek against his, wrapped her
arms around his back to anchor herself there. "Fuck me, Jacob," she
whispered in his ear. "Now. No foreplay, no seduction. Just obey your
Mistress."

His hand went between them,
found the crotch of the panties and pulled them to the side, the other hand
going behind to palm her ass and press, pushing her down upon him, driving into
her slow and strong, making her breath leave her in a little gasp as his
thickness invaded her, widening her legs, bringing her down more deeply on him.
She tightened her calves on his back.

"Put your hands on your
head." She ordered "Fingers laced."

As she let go of him, lying back
in the water, using the movement of her arms to keep her above the surface of
the water, she waited to see if he would obey. Did he know how it goaded her,
the rebellious flare of fire in his eyes? Reluctantly, he complied, lacing his
hands behind his head and giving up the use of his body entirely to her.

Using the strength of her thighs
and upper body, she began to pump herself slowly on his length. Up and down.
Stroke after stroke. Not permitting him to move so she could watch the response
build in a hard quivering that jerked all the pleasing muscles of his upper
body and his thighs, a response she could feel vibrating through her, adding to
the sensations she was experiencing. Water rolled over his upper body,
sculpting the pectorals, the curved biceps. She wanted to suck the water out of
his collarbone, brush her cheek along the side of his wet throat.

"You have a marvelous
cock." Her voice had gone throaty, and she saw his arms tighten in
reaction to it. His cock grew even harder inside her, making her gasp. She felt
the soft brush of his testicles against her ass as she moved. His buttocks were
clenched beneath her heels. His gaze was on her face, moving down her throat,
lingering on the way. the pink lace clung to the curves of her breasts, her
nipples now sharp points. Down the slope of her stomach to her stretched sex,
joined with his, the silk of the panties and the movement of the water
interfering with the view but not dampening his absorption in the distorted
picture.

"I want to touch you,"
he said, his voice a growl caressing her nerve endings. It alone made her pussy
ripple on him. In the flex of his jaw, the flare of his eyes, she knew he felt
it. "That's what you want, too."

"Don't tell me what I want,
servant," she responded lightly while her heart hammered against the wall
of her chest. "You stand still while I fuck you. That's all I've given you
leave to do."

It was wrong, she knew it was.
He'd invited her into the water. When he'd touched her foot and moved between
her legs, she'd looked at the beads of water rolling down his body and wanted
to kiss every drop. She wanted to lift her chin and let him suck the moisture
from her throat as well. Take her under and take over, and she couldn't do
that. She had to do it this way, even as she knew she wasn't fulfilling either
of their desires. But it would get some hormones out of the way. A clear head
was the most important thing.

The orgasm was rolling up,
making her lower body rigid. She squeezed him hard, milking his cock with her
inner muscles, and heard him curse. "You'll come for me," she
managed. "At the same time I come."

"No. Not like this."

"Any way I wish. That's
what you must learn. You have no will. No choices but what I give you."

Oh, God, the sensations were
swamping her. She wanted so much more. But this was what she could have. What
she could handle.

The climax was a brutal shove
over the edge of an abyss. Emptiness yawned below but she took what it could
offer, pulling him with her with her skill, hearing him snarl in frustration as
he let go, his body shuddering, his feet trying to hold them steady as the
physical response unbalanced him.

The heat of his semen jetting
seared her, took her up even higher. She pistoned her hips on him hard and fast
now, drawing out his climax as well as her own, gasping out her pleasure, the
rippling spasms passing through tender flesh.

When she opened her eyes, his
chest was rising and falling with the exertion, his hands still laced on his
head, his gaze burning on hers. He was beautiful, every muscle etched out with
his tension, a powerful male animal held only by her will. She withdrew from
him, reaching down to rearrange her panties back over herself. As she thought
of their fluids mingling in her body and the water, the thought made her flush.

"If you can't look at me
with respect, you won't look at me at all," she said sharply. "Lower
your gaze."

"Make me."

She'd pushed him as far as his
pride could stand, apparently. She turned her back on him, moved toward the
edge of the pool. Damn him. Damn Thomas. Damn this emptiness in the pit of her
belly even as her cunt wept with a desire only sated physically. Damn herself
for a fool.

"Goddamn it…"

A splash of water as he lunged,
caught her wrist, turned her around. She could have resisted him, but when he slid
his arm around her waist and brought her up hard against him for the kiss she'd
denied them both, she didn't. He lifted her off her feet, her toes brushing his
calves as he held her by the nape and the waist, his palm pressing against her
hip and buttock. When he covered her wet lips with his own, she tasted chlorine
and man, cooler pool water mixing with the heat of his mouth.

She didn't put her arms around
him. They rested in the water on either side of her, her whole weight held by
him until he guided her thighs up around his hips, taking her back into a
position where she was wrapped around his body, his buttocks under her calves,
heels pressed to his thighs.

"Hold me, my lady," he
muttered against her lips. "I won't betray your trust:"

It wasn't about that. It was
about him learning what the limits of their relationship were, a difficult
obstacle for almost any servant. Most vampires gave their servants more time to
learn it, to understand that the relationship was something different from
anything defined in the mortal world, but she would be asking a great deal of
him very soon, and he had to learn it now. She had to hammer it into him on
every interaction.

But was he partly right? Was her
concern a facade for her unwillingness to open her heart again? It was not
inappropriate to be fond of one's servant, to show him physical affection.

When he lifted his head, he kept
his intense gaze close to her face so it felt as if his eyes had a power to
touch her like his fingers, only deep below the skin.

"Jacob, we're not lovers.
We never will be. You serve my needs. Do you understand that?" She had to
force the words out when all she wanted was for him to cover her mouth with his
again, his tongue testing the sharpness of her fangs.

"Serving your needs fully
is what I intend to do. It's my only desire."

She glanced at him sharply, but
she didn't let him go. Instead, her hands curled around his neck under his wet
hair, her fingertips playing along the steel cords of his shoulders.
"Thomas should have made you understand what that means far better than he
did."

"He knew…" Jacob
paused, and Lyssa wished she couldn't tell how honest he was trying to be with
her, to give her information without hurting her. "Time was short, my
lady! He said he was teaching me what he was most suited to teach."

"Like manicures." Her
tone was brittle even to her own ears. "Oh, Thomas."

"Your proper care was his
primary concern."

"As opposed to his
life." Her fingers clenched, her nails digging into his flesh, seeking to
give pain to balance her own.

"Will denying yourself true
pleasure with me change that?" Jacob's hands increased their pressure on
her hips. "Change anything other than your happiness?"

Happiness was irrelevant at this
point. Pushing out of his arms, she backed to the edge of the pool and turned
away from him, closing her eyes. She stiffened as his hand touched her waist,
slid around her from behind. His cheek rested against her temple as he enclosed
her in the warmth and strong shelter of his body. Nothing sexual, just a
connection of flesh to flesh. "What are you doing?"

"Comforting you, my
lady." His tone, ever patient, telling her what to anyone else would be
obvious. But people did not offer her comfort.

She leaned back into him,
testing it out, even as her mind ordered her to leave his company. She couldn't
regain her balance with him this close. Not in her current state of mind. She'd
commanded armies. Run households the size of a town. Killed when killing was
needed. But her woman's heart could still drive her to her knees, plant a knife
between her shoulder blades.

"You wouldn't serve me if I
wasn't like this," she said suddenly, desperately. "You wouldn't want
to be with me at all."

"I don't understand, my
lady." His fingers stroked her hip bone. "What do you mean?"

"If I wasn't beautiful.
Desirable to men."

He shook his head against her
temple. "No, my lady. That's not the reason. There are many women far more
beautiful. In fact, I'd say you're plain as a fence post. I've seen women with
much nicer breasts. Bigger. Long legs. Fine, firm asses that make a man wish
his hands were permanently glued—"

When he reached down with his
other hand to apparently take advantage of his description, she shoved him
under the water, held him down. Shrieked as he grabbed her legs and hips and
took her under with him. She struggled, thrashed, and he brought them both up,
tossing his head to get the hair out of his eyes, laughing.

"You are impossible,"
she accused, even as she let him hold her about the waist as he treaded
backward.

"I've heard that all my
life, my lady."

"No doubt." She
couldn't keep up with him. His moods were like the gentle waves of the tide on
a shoreline, each cycle rinsing away what was left from the last one, leaving
no remains to mar the next new moment. Why was it was so easy for him to slip
beneath her defenses in ways even Thomas hadn't been able to accomplish?

"What are you doing?"

"Taking you past where you
can touch, my lady. You'll have to cling to me, depend on me for your
life."

"I can walk on the bottom.
I can't drown," she added.

"I can pretend I'm rescuing
you."

Knowing the moment to make her
point had passed, she let it go. Maybe she'd gotten it across, but he was
refusing to accept it. Again, that wasn't unusual for a new servant. What was
unusual was her reluctance to push the issue, knowing the time factors
involved.

The dinner would be the true
test. With others there, it would eliminate the trap of intimacy she kept
stumbling into with him and remind her of her responsibilities. Even though she
suspected it would tear something vital in herself, she had to give him the
scars he would need to survive the strikes inflicted upon him in her world. She
had to know how tough he truly was. But for now…

"I want my manicure, Sir
Vagabond."