Page 100 of Vampire's Choice
He didn’t kiss women. She remembered that, longed for it to change, as he leaned in. He did take a small sip of moisture from the corner of her mouth. He cruised up to her ear and down to her neck. His hands were on her hips, then over her ass, kneading it, which made him move inside and against her in increments that had her needing to pant.
He inhaled more of her energy, then sat back, fingers on her biceps, over the straps holding her arms to her sides. The heels of his hands were against her rib cage. “Lift and lower yourself on me. Do the work while I watch.”
His grasp upon her kept her from toppling backwards or disengaging their bodies, because her normal vampire balance and grace seemed to have deserted her. He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples, another nearly unbearable pressure, as she lifted and lowered herself on him.
“All the way down, all the way up to the tip. Milk me hard. Don’t shirk, or I’ll put you over my lap and spank your ass bloody. I’ll probably do that anyway. Punishment for a vampire needs to be something severe.”
He put his arm behind him, to that table of diabolical toys, and brought back a strap the length of a ruler and studded with uncut gems. When he turned it she saw they’d been fitted into holes in the strap, so the cutting potential existed on either side.
“These represent the chakras,” he said. “Balance is important, right? Charlie chooses interesting toys for the Circus members’ use, and for her Mistress’s.”
He slapped the strap against her thigh, and Ruth jerked as the gems bit into her flesh. He rubbed his palm over the marks they left.
“Keep fucking me, Ruth. I didn’t say stop.”
Her body was so close to climax, and she saw that was his plan…until it wasn’t. When she was so close a bare word would have sent her over, he stopped her and slowly lifted her off. She had tears running down her face, emphasizing how little control she had over…anything.
He turned her over, still wearing that gag and the harness. “While I think even a hundred strikes wouldn’t change your stubborn will, we’ll do something a little less tonight. Maybe. It’s hard to resist marking this.”
He rubbed her ass, played in the crease, teasing her rim. She screamed against the gag as his thumb went lower and pushed into a heated ocean of arousal. She felt the shudder from him, that crazy electrical energy as he drew it in, nourished himself.
“Sometimes small meals are best. Especially when every bite can be savored like this. Every sip.”
He slapped her backside with the strap. Fuck, it hurt. He hooked his thumb in the harness’s collar strap, holding her fast as he started to whip her. Quick repetitions, a pause, an out-of-nowhere hard strike. Again and again.
By the time he reached whatever number he deemed fitting, she was strangling her scream against the gag. The effort sent her into a faint, only to have the pain rouse her again, the demand, the insane, pounding level of arousal. When he harshly ordered her to do so, she climaxed harder than she ever had in her life. Again blacked out, roused by three more strikes against a raw ass that had to be bleeding, or at least would bear a quilted pattern of those gems.
From the thought, she climaxed once more.
When she surfaced from that one, he’d unscrewed the gag and let it fall free, though he kept her other bindings in place. He had one palm wrapped over her face, his fingers against her eyes and cheeks. She sank her fangs into the heel of his hand, and blood flooded her mouth. He rubbed her ass with his hand, pinching her with strong fingers, before he lifted her and shoved her tender pussy back down on him.
He wasn’t asking her to do the work this time. He took over, thrusting into her. While his climax built toward its pinnacle, he released the wrist cuffs from her thighs and the strap on her biceps. Only the breast harness held her. And his sure hands.
When the orgasm gripped him, his arms slid all the way around her. She didn’t question the intimacy, or have any wariness about it. There was no room for distrust right now. She wrapped her arms around him, too, his head against her breasts, her jaw against his hair.
She held onto him through the storm of reaction that carried them beyond the climax, into a dark and drifting place where everything was known and nothing was certain.
It was the way of the world. And what gave it its unbearable sweetness.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
He flew her up into the sky, and Ruth slept in the clouds, in the arms of an incubus angel. Going forward, if he wanted to taunt her, or she pissed him off, he might drop her again. But now he’d always catch her before she hit the ground.
She was pretty sure of it. Mostly.
Resting in the clouds was like being in a drifting boat on calm waters. Sometime during that sleep, he roused her to have her again, doing that wonderful thing with his wings where every thrust took them higher into the sky, penetrated her deeper, made her shriek her pleasure to the whole universe. Then they floated back into their cloud bank and she slept once more.
She woke in her quarters in the security team’s tent. He’d put her there without being noticed, because there were no speculative looks or amused smirks. She would have worried it was all a dream, but her body told her in a hundred ways it most definitely hadn’t been.
She grabbed a shower, a blood meal, then headed for the security briefing for the upcoming performance. She was pleased to be early, but then she saw Marcellus standing between two tents. His head was down, arms crossed and wings folded tight against his body.
He could be praying. But that wasn’t the vibe she was getting, so she changed course and drew closer.
“Is she okay?”
He lifted his head. He’d been somewhere deep inside it, but she didn’t feel like her question was an intrusion. She wouldn’t presume to know what a being like him was thinking, but everyone needed a break from their worries, especially when they were standing-room-only in their minds.
“She had another vision a few hours ago. It was…difficult for her.”