Mastered: Ten Tales of Sensual Surrender (16 page)

Yet when Debra hit the top stair, he saw it wasn’t an issue. Vivian already had tears on her face, and Debra didn’t hesitate, putting her arms around her grandmother so they could cry together.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been here,” he heard Debra whisper. “I think of you every day.”

His father had dispensed plenty of advice when Brian told him he was going to make Debra his first personally chosen full servant.
Stay out of their transition from their old life, son. It doesn’t concern us, and it’s part of how they grow strong enough to serve us three hundred years.

Brian remembered Debra weeping in the garden. Her desire to sleep and never wake, even as she curled her naked body up next to his like a trusting kitten.

Fuck that.

He left the car, but since Debra and her grandmother were still holding onto one another, exchanging murmurs, he paused in the shadows. Reaching out to one of the discarded inventions, he made the propellers rotate. It looked like some type of all-terrain vehicle that might run on windmill power. Another contraption seemed to be a modified vending machine. Jed’s joy in taking mundane things apart only to put them together into something better was a trait his granddaughter had as well.

Maybe he was one of those things.

By the time he approached the door, he’d given both women time to pull themselves together. Debra turned, still holding onto her grandmother. “Grandma, this is Lo—Dr. Brian Morris. I’ve told you about him.”

The fast flash of background in her mind was that she worked with him, that he was a close colleague. Like most human females, Vivian did a double take when she got a look at him in the beam of the porch light. Being excessively attractive was something vampires took in stride. It meant nothing, just a simple genetic fact and a useful tool for spontaneous feeding needs.

As he took her hand with great courtesy, he noted it felt frail and tired. She looked like a woman pushing herself to the edge to care for a dying husband. But she nodded. “Come in. I told Jed you were coming.”

She turned her gaze back to Debra. “I haven’t seen him so excited in a long time. But remember, his energy comes in bursts. He’s likely to nod off on you, but he’ll wake again within a few minutes sometimes. I don’t want him to sleep through your whole visit, but…”

“I won’t tire him out,” Debra promised.

They stepped into a neat, comfortable house, the interior décor reflecting accents and colors reminiscent of homes decades ago. Brian often found the offices and homes of older scientists more comfortable to him for that reason. It was probably why he hadn’t changed his mode of dress much since the 1950s, despite Debra’s teasing.

She’d seemed quite taken with his choice of jeans for the stargazing, though. He’d remember that in the future.

“I made both tea and coffee,” Vivian was saying. “There’s some coffee cake that Deloris Willoughby brought by yesterday. He changes what he’ll eat day to day. He had a few bites of it, but…” Vivian lifted a shoulder. Her chin trembled as she met Debra’s gaze, then she closed her hand over hers. “Go in and see him, child.”

Debra glanced at Brian.

I’ll be right here. If you need me, you just reach out. But take as long as you need. Don’t worry about the time. He’s your grandfather.

She nodded. Squaring her shoulders, she turned and moved down the hallway

Vivian watched her go, then turned to Brian. Before she could speak, Brian gestured. “I have some work I can do, Mrs. Sheldon. It’s late and I have no intentions of making you play hostess when you already have your hands full with so much else. If you wish to join her, please feel free to do so.”

It made her smile, an obvious effort despite being genuine. “You’re very kind. If you don’t mind, I’ll do just that. It’s been so long since they’ve seen one another…”

“Please.” He sat down, drew his handheld out of his coat, as if he were preparing to work. “Let me know if either of you need anything.”

“Thank you.” He could feel her eyes on him, then she disappeared down the hall.

As soon as she did, he put the handheld back in his coat and himself in Debra’s mind fully. There was no way he’d be more than a breath away while she dealt with this. Truth, since the night under the live oaks, there were times he’d had difficulty pulling out at all, as if Debra were a book he’d had in his possession for some time, one he hadn’t read in far too long. Remembering how much he’d enjoyed the first few chapters, he wondered that he’d deprived himself of the rest of the story.

Debra sank down next to her grandfather. He was in a hospital bed, the full-sized bed gone to make room for it in their bedroom. A sofa in the corner bore a neatly folded pile of linens. She was sure that was where her grandmother was sleeping. Jed was so thin, half the size she remembered him. He was a tall man with handsome silver hair, a long face that could smile and crease like a wise, good-natured basset hound. Knowing his resemblance to that particular breed of canine, he’d sometimes bay like one, just to aggravate her grandmother.

Debra curled her hand over his, nearly losing herself to tears again when his long fingers twined with hers. She was crying far more than she ever had these past few days, but there was certainly good cause here. He smelled like sickness, like death. She supposed everyone around a dying family member detected those scents, but to a third mark with enhanced senses, it was almost overwhelming, the emotional and physical impact of it.

She focused on his brown eyes, the same color as hers. “Hi, Grandpa.”

“Little thinker. Still thinking too much.” Letting go of her hand, he brushed a fingertip over the creases in her brow. “Anything come from that thinking? Make anything better?”

“Yes,” she said honestly. “I’m helping…people. And learning so much every day. Learning how much I have to learn.”

“That’s the way of it. It never ends. Just this morning, I thought of the best mousetrap yet. Think Otto would go for it?”

For all the years she’d known him, her grandfather had always had mice. Usually one sleeping in his pocket, or riding his shoulder, taking tidbits from him. There were always a few in the barn, helping with his inventions. Otto was one of the first she remembered.

“As long as it has cheese. And doesn’t pinch any of his legs. Or catches his tail.”

“Yeah. He never forgave me for that one.” Her grandfather chuckled.

“I have my own Ottos. Emilie, Nicolai and Albert.” She told him about the maze of tubes, how the children had helped her. She explained John and Kane as offspring of people who worked in the building next to the lab. Like all servants who had to deal with the human world, she was practiced at generalities that gave partial truths. Her grandfather listened, asked her questions about her work. He was far less lucid than he would have been in a stronger state. But she held his hand, told him about the high level research that went into the Delilah virus, framing it in a human context.

“Things like that should be on the TV as big news.” He scowled. “Instead of which idiot actor is getting out of rehab or showing her unmentionables to the whole world.”

She squeezed his hand, and he chuckled tiredly. “Doesn’t matter to me anymore, though. Don’t care a thing about watching the news. My time is coming, little thinker.”

Her throat closed up. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to die.”

“None of us want to die. But it happens.” He studied her. “This ‘colleague’, Brian Morris. Tell me about him. Is he good to my girl?”

“He’s…” Was he good to her? Yes and no. He wasn’t required to be. But lately…her thinking was changing on that. She’d always hoped and dreamed he’d want to be good to her, cherish her the way she cherished him.

As her grandfather’s brow drew down ominously, she had the alarming impression he might just pull himself right off the mattress even in his weakened state and go after Brian.

“I’ve learned so much from him, Grandpa,” she said hastily. “I thought you were the smartest man in the universe, that I’d never find anyone half as smart. His mind shines like a diamond.”

“Too much to hope I’d never have any competition.” He settled back, gave her a wink. “How did you meet?”

She’d told him how they’d met right after it happened, via phone call. But she didn’t mind telling him again. She’d read him his favorite book over and over, just to sit here with him.

"He was a friend of the director at the Brown Cancer Center. The director let him come in one night to use the lab. You remember I was in charge of the instruments, and since I was working late anyway—”

“As always,” he teased her.

“—I was keeping an eye on him.” Her lips curved as she remembered. “He didn't look like a scientist. He looked like a movie star playing a scientist. Like Paul Walker or Heath Ledger… Someone who puts on a pair of wire framed glasses to look bookish, but he wasn’t wearing glasses.”

Her grandfather’s brow furrowed, his eyes sharpening on her face through the fog she knew was caused by whatever medications he was taking to keep him comfortable. “Your glasses,” he said. “I just noticed. You’re not wearing any.”

She’d been so self-conscious of them in her youth. Thick, coke bottle lenses because her vision had been so poor. After she’d become Brian’s third mark, her vision had become progressively better, such that eventually she’d been able to discard them, though she still kept a pair of readers around when the eyestrain became too much.

“Contacts,” she said. “They finally came up with a way to make some strong enough.”

He smiled at that, patted her hand. “Now you can’t hide how beautiful you are any more. And this Dr. Morris noticed, didn’t he? So what happened in the lab that made him realize how wonderful my girl is?”

She shook her head at that, but told him. “I happened to notice some of what he was working on, and we started discussing it. We spent that whole first night in the lab, didn’t even realize it until it got close to dawn…"

At his invitation, she worked with Brian three nights straight, helping him extrapolate his data, getting his input on her own research, both of them advancing further as a result. The sexual tension grew as well, incidental brushes growing more significant and lingering as they swapped places at a monitor or in front of a microscope. But along with that tension came a relaxed intimacy she hadn’t experienced with any male before. When she ordered her usual Chinese takeout, they talked about a random wealth of topics. He’d declined her offer to order him food, but had taken a bite of dumpling from her hand, his own circling her wrist briefly, caressing her pulse before pulling away.

He’d only restrained himself until the third night, but by then her body was humming with need. In the daylight, when she’d snatched a few hours of sleep at her neglected nearby studio apartment, she’d almost used her hand or vibrator to give herself a climax, but something held her back. She felt like her release…belonged to him.

From the first moment, she’d felt she was his. The way he watched her, how he seemed aware of her every movement when they were together in the lab, as if she was a part of him already, seemed only to underscore it.

That third night, she’d been staring into the microscope, mentioning some variables she’d researched during the day that he might find intriguing. She’d started as his hands molded over her hips, his body sliding against hers as he put his mouth on her neck. His large hand cruised up her thigh, the silk lining of her skirt brushing her flesh as he pushed beneath it and found her sex with capable fingers. The second he touched her, she started to vibrate, and he’d murmured against her ear.

“Now you can come. You’ve been waiting for me to tell you that you can, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she gasped. She came in a matter of seconds, his mouth swallowing her cries as he took command of her lips, stroked her straining body. He cradled her jaw as the aftershocks rocked her, and she remembered jerking at his sharp nip at her throat, another bolt of pleasure spearing through her at the pain.

It wasn’t the kind of memory one shared with one’s grandfather. Though it was indelibly printed in her mind, it was only a quick flash through her head now.

Her grandfather touched her hand. “Is he a good man, Debra?”

“Yes. One of the best, Grandfather. Good like you, though I think he’s still learning how to get there. We both are.”

He nodded. “You don’t see him through rose-colored glasses. That’s good for both of you. Can’t really love someone you set on a pedestal. Loving someone…it’s about knowing them, and that’s a lifelong puzzle. Biggest unsolved question there is. Like living a worthwhile life. I know you’re on the right road. I see worries, but determination… A belief that you’re where you’re…meant to be.”

His eyes were starting to droop, voice starting to slur. “You have to go tonight, don’t you?”

“I can stay longer.” She knew she could. Brian had said so.

Her grandfather shook his head, his eyes opening again with visible effort. “No need for you to be around for this part. This is between me and your grandmother. She has help to carry the load I’ve become. But I’m so glad to see your face once more. You think of your grandfather now and again, all right?”

She cried again then, silent tears. When she hugged him, she felt his thin arm against her back, his fingers so tentative in their brush against her shoulder blade. He’d had such a strong grip. Now she was the one with the strong grip. Holding him, she stroked his hair until he fell asleep. It happened in minutes, just as her grandmother had warned.

She finally made herself straighten. She traced the thin wisp of hair over his brow. Bent and kissed his hand, so limp on the covers. Then she rose, turning toward her grandmother. Vivian was a quiet, brittle statue in the corner. Debra crossed the room to her, held her tight as well, as long as her grandmother needed, a million unspoken words in the embrace.

Brian heard all the thoughts in her head, all the things she wanted to say, all the apologies. She knew this would be the last time she’d see them. She didn’t let go until her grandmother stroked her hair, eased back.