The Vampire Queen's Servant (55 page)

He didn't have any interest in
being fucked by a man, never had, but this image, of his delicate, sexy
Mistress using the illusion of a cock to force him to climax, overwhelmed him
in a way he didn't expect. Hadn't Thomas told him she would force him to
explore places in himself he'd never even thought to look?

His cock was pulsing hard.
"My lady… Mistress…"

"You'll come for me, now.
Now," she repeated it sharply, and he groaned, a sound that wrenched from
him as a snarling growl, evolving into a roar as his insides drew taut and he
spurted like a hot geyser. He slammed his hips into the ground, the earth
nowhere close to the slickness of her cunt, but it didn't matter to his
frenetically humping cock. He could imagine it, for she was filling his head
with it. She was remembering their first night, when he had the taste of her in
his mouth, her grinding against his face, her thighs gripping his skull.

It spurred an orgasm that had
already reached an intensity level he'd never known existed. If she'd used
pheromones, he was sure it would have killed him.

When he roared at the intensity,
somewhere out in the night he heard Bran howl. He thought he even felt
vibration beneath him when his seed fertilized the ground. As if the Earth
Herself had responded to the energy rolling over him like an avalanche.

She didn't let her fangs slide
out of him until he at last slowed, breathing hard. Even then she kept her
tongue and lips on the wound, her soft breath in his ear.

As he tried to steady himself in
the aftermath, she stretched out on him, her body quivering with her own
reaction. The curve of her pelvis fitted over his buttocks, her stomach against
the small of his back as she mashed her breasts pleasantly into the upper
broadness of it. Her now completely restored hands folded over the base of his
neck, her fingers tangling in his hair as she laid her cheek partly on them,
partly on him, her lips nuzzling his flesh. Her bare toes rested against one of
his calves, one knee planted between his thighs, close enough to put the weight
of her thigh against his temporarily depleted testicles as she draped over him.

"You haven't let me give
you pleasure." His voice was hoarse.

"You've given me more
pleasure than I've felt in a long time," she corrected softly. "Just
be still and quiet for me now. Let me lie upon you and believe, at least for a
little while, that the world is a place where I could love you the way I want
to."

The words startled him, but her
hair whispered over his shoulder as the breeze picked up again, the strands
drifting across his lips as if trying to underscore her desire for silence.

What you were worrying about
a couple days ago… You
are
wrong in so many
ways to be a human servant. But I want you in a way I've not wanted anything in
a very long time. I keep intending to send you away, and I just can't
.

I wouldn't go, my lady. You
can't make me.

"Yes, I—" She stopped,
and he felt her smile against his hair. He'd smile back if he wasn't so exhausted,
his body drained, his emotions a maze. "We'll argue about it later."

"All right."

The trees rustled above, the
earth a comforting smell beneath him, a restful bed. He drifted and dozed
awhile with her lying upon him, her body shifting on his. All of it integrated
into the languid pleasure of providing her a bed, his body recuperating from
the explosive orgasm. From the effort of offering her all she'd demanded and
everything he wanted to give, and having it rejected again. But he was here.

I'll never leave you, my
lady…

At length, he surfaced. It might
have been a half hour later, perhaps an hour. He was aware of an aura of needy
energy sinking into his body from the heat of hers. As his senses sharpened, he
became aware of the sensual rub of her lips on the back of his neck, the
alternating tensing and relaxing of her hips as she stimulated her clit on the
curve of his buttocks.

He put a hand under him, began
to rise as she held onto him. Slowly he turned, tumbling her to her back,
completing a full circle so he was lying on top of her. She was curiously
docile through it all, watching him. Reaching down between them, he found her
clit and teased it, making her shudder as his cock hardened at her reaction.
Shifting, he moved down her body to frame her petite breasts with tender
reverence before he began to suckle, creating a blush on her fair skin with the
stubble of his jaw. Her legs rose, holding him around the hips as his
stiffening member found her, eased its way naturally in as it grew harder and
he continued laving her breasts. The soft nipples were not so soft now, the
plump weight of her swelling in his hand. He felt the press of her body all
along his. He wanted her to tremble in his arms, climax over his cock. He
wanted to feel her small pussy grip him tightly like the illusion of a
fulfilled promise. It would not sate the longing in his heart, but maybe it
would ease the yearning for a moment or two.

He wasn't afraid of her sending
him away. He was afraid of losing her altogether. The thought of it built in
his mind and he couldn't bear it, the knowledge that it would become reality.
So he kissed and suckled her fiercely, trying to serve her even as tears
gathered in his eyes and he couldn't blink them back.

Something shuddered through her
mind as if the thoughts running through his mind had found a resounding echo in
her own.

This is as close as I can
get to what I truly desire… still only a shallow substitute for what I miss so
keenly. But how can I miss something so much that I've never had
…

When he raised his head, her
eyes were full of pain, so torn that they'd almost transformed back to the eyes
of the creature hidden within herself, the pupils dark and taking over all the
lighter areas. Her hand touched his face, giving him comfort even as her other
hand clutched his arm, holding on as if he was her only hope to keep her from
falling over the edge of an abyss.

He moved within her, keeping his
gaze on her. He would seduce her with his body even as he told her with his
tears he loved her. More than anything. More than his own life.

She tried to turn her face away,
press her cheek to the earth, but he caught her chin. "No. Don't you pull
back. Mark me, my lady. Give me the third mark, and I'll never leave you alone.
Not ever. It's what I want. Have mercy, my lady. Please… don't leave me alone
to grieve you."

Lyssa stared up at him, at the
implacable resolve in his blue eyes. She wondered how her heart could hurt so
much and not crack into a hundred pieces.

There had been a postscript to
Thomas's note, put in as an afterthought. Neither the sentence structure nor
the writing had been smooth, as if he'd been about to suffer an attack right
before he completed the letter and feared he might not emerge from the other
side of it to complete the correspondence.

You have been together
before… Let him make his own decision… He will seem impossibly young to you,
and he is, in so many charming ways. It will help keep you young, but he is
also an old, old soul. Don't deny him his own wisdom, unique and separate from
yours.

"I shouldn't. It's
wrong."

"Yes, you should.
Please."

He'd moved his hand so now it
cupped the side of her face, cradling the weight of her skull. It made her
remember the days she was so weary from her battles with Rex she couldn't even
raise her head to acknowledge the presence of the moon, greet the night, see
the petals of her roses gleam. All she'd wanted as she'd sat there, head bowed,
was to feel his touch on her face. When a man touched your face first, lingered
there, studying you—as Jacob was studying her now, as if he wanted to look at
her just that way forever—it meant he loved you. Or at least it made a woman
think he loved her. Enough that she was willing to give anything. Sacrifice
anything.

Only this time, Jacob was the
one willing to give it all. Sacrifice everything. In the depths of his love for
her, he considered it a gift, not a sacrifice at all.

When she curled her arm around
his neck, he understood, using the tension in his fine stomach muscles to lift
them up so she straddled him, his body still linked to hers. Holding her hand
on his neck, she knew her whole world had become his blue eyes. Steady. Pure.

"You'll need to bite my
throat, here. Over the artery." She brought his hand to it, and hers was
shaking. He squeezed her, reassuring, even as he trembled, too. "Try to
use your canines. It helps with the puncturing. But don't hesitate and worry
about hurting me. Bite down as hard as you can, and drink my blood. I'll let
you know when to stop."

He stared at her, barely
breathing, and yet she couldn't deny she felt almost the same way, swept with
paralyzing shock by what she was about to do, no matter all the reasons not to
do it. The only words or actions she seemed capable of were those that would
put them on a course where there was no turning back.

, He threaded his hand through
her hair. As she helped, pulling the thick strands of it to the opposite
shoulder, he leaned in. But before he went to her neck, he pressed his lips to
hers, keeping his eyes open, the two of them watching each other, the moment so
heavy with intent and change, she couldn't speak.

No
. She wouldn't do this to him.

His cognitive ability denied her
the change of heart. He sensed it a moment before she had the thought, because
even as she had it, he'd wrapped his hand in her hair, yanked her head to the
side and clamped down on her with the savage clumsiness of a young wolf making
his first kill. But on a vampire, the blood exchange of a third mark was far
from the terror a deer might feel beneath the jaws of a predator.

Every time he'd nipped at her or
let her feel the pressure of his teeth she'd felt a surge of intense erotic
reaction for just this reason. It set off an explosive sensation that rocketed
through her the moment his teeth punctured through, finding her blood.

He stilled as her blood filled
his mouth, getting used to it, and then his throat worked as he swallowed.
Once… twice… three times. Before the second mark, it would not have gone down
with such eager ease, but those two marks gave him the intuitive desire, the
hunger for it.

Drawing his hand from the side
of her face, she dipped her head. Not to dislodge him, just giving her better
access to his wrist. In comparison to the other times she'd bitten him she
pricked him almost delicately, letting her grip sink in rather than forcing it
in among the strands of veins and arteries. Her jaw trembled, her body on the
pinnacle of decision. His cock was deeply embedded in her body, holding her
there.

I love you, my lady. Do it.
No regrets. Not now, not ever. If you die tomorrow, I will follow you with only
gratitude for the honor of being your servant forever… your slave, if it's your
pleasure to call me that.

She'd held a drop of it on her
finger once, the fluid that made the third mark possible. Gleaming silver,
reminding her of a ribbon of lightning with the way it glowed. As she released
it now and let it flow into his wrist vein, she closed her eyes and let the
reaction unfold and enfold the both of them, spinning out the energy that would
link them. She would not feel alone or be alone again. For some reason it felt
like the first time in her life she could feel that way, believe it for
certain.

It was like it had been with
Thomas, but so different as well, as if the soul merging itself into hers was
one she'd always known as intimately as her own. He'd just committed everything
to her, so how could she not give him the same? For this moment at least, as
the third mark bound them, she let everything be open, her heart, soul and mind
where he could read and see anything. Feel how very significant this was to
her, the fulfillment she'd missed so much and yet felt as if she was
experiencing it in an amazing new way.

He cried out hoarsely against
her skin as the quicksilver ribbon manifested itself another way, a way she
hadn't warned him about, for of course she'd never expected to do this. Her
hands slipped to his back, feeling the change in the skin, the burning of the
individual design that would display to all that he carried the third mark. Her
mark specifically.

When we first met, you said
a tattoo is something you get when you're sure you'll stand by that belief or
commitment forever.

So I did… Gods, my lady…

She was crying and moving on him
at once, riding him again, going up through a spiraling tunnel, charging into a
star-strewn universe that contained just the two of them, nothing to fear,
nothing else but this moment.

She saw the knight in her mind.
The quicksilver flash of a samurai's blade against the gleam of chain mail, the
tunic of the Crusades. Lotus blossoms and red roses. Hard muscles pressed
against her woman's body. Gentle hands on her face when she'd been a child, his
dark hair loose and curling in her small fingers. He'd sung to comfort her
then, too, only in a Japanese tongue.