Carrying her out of the study, he took her through the house and down the steps, down that long hallway with the cat mural. Into his bedroom and then onto his bed. When he laid her there, he began to undress her. One item at a time until she was completely naked and he was still fully clothed. He unbound her wrists to get everything off, but then retied them to the headboard. He used longer ties for her legs and bound her ankles to the gnarled wooden branches at the base, her legs parted wide so that the remains of her climax were trickling out, teasing the lips of her cunt. When he stretched out next to her on one elbow, he made it clear he would take all the time he desired to look his fill. Remarkably, it made her body start to feel restless again, as if it could reach a climax again in no time. She should be exhausted.
“What . . . what are you doing?”
“I’m turning in early tonight. For the next few hours, you’ll do nothing but lie next to me. Until dawn, I will touch you, arouse you, make you greedy for another climax, but you’re not going to have another. Not for a while. This is the second part of your punishment. The next time I tell you to say, ‘I will never disobey you, sir,’ you will mean it to the depths of your soul.”
His look gave her those butterflies in the stomach. “I don’t think I could do that again for a while anyhow. The climax part.”
“Hmm. You may be right. But I’ll please myself.” Leaning forward, he began to drop kisses along the curve of her right breast, then the left, working his way around the nipples without touching them. Elisa watched the peaks drawing into intense, tight points, felt her lower belly begin to coil again. Yet when her body began to involuntarily move toward him, trying to beg for his mouth where she wanted it, he gave her a light slap in a most unexpected place, that tender place between her legs. She jumped and he gave her a reproving look. “You don’t move unless I tell you to do it,
atsilusgi
.”
She obeyed, and obeyed, and obeyed, until she was crying again, her body quivering with the most painful need she’d ever experienced. When he finally put his mouth on her nipples, the surge of vicious reaction took her so close to climax, but he would allow nothing but air to touch that part of her body. If it started clenching on its own, trying to create the feeling of touch or friction, he eased off, took the feeling out of reach until she’d calmed. Then he started again. He drank from her as well. Tiny sips from her throat, the inside of her thigh, his hair brushing her sex, his nose briefly nuzzling into that wet, dark place. He told her she smelled like hot need, the most irresistible smell to a man.
He suckled her breasts again. Once, he laid his body full upon hers, stroking along her flanks with his capable hands, the hard evidence of his desire pushed up between her legs, her bare, wet cunt dampening the denim. She’d never imagined anything like this, a man teasing a woman to such a mindless frenzy. He was right. She’d say anything he wanted, just to get him inside of her. But nothing would sway him, because he was teaching her a lesson, making a point. The word he’d said earlier kept sticking in her head.
Master.
He was teaching her how to properly serve a Master. How to serve him.
But to be her Master, he would have to mark her once more. Make her his fully marked servant, bound to him for all eternity. She’d be his forever, the way Dev was to Danny, serving whatever needs she had, public or private, with other vampires or without. It was a life far beyond her simple desires and dreams, and yet he was making her body override her heart, making them both believe they could want anything he desired, a dark magic she couldn’t resist.
He rose up above her now, stroking her breasts, feeding her his fingers, so she could taste herself from where he’d had them inside of her.
Tell me now, Elisa. What’s the lesson you’ve learned?
I will never disobey you, Master. Please . . .
“Please what, Elisa?”
“Please . . . come inside of me.”
“What if I take my own pleasure and don’t allow you to release? Make you continue to suffer?”
“I don’t care. I want to give you pleasure. That’s all I want. Make me suffer, but let me be the one to please you.” She couldn’t bear the idea of that hard cock inside of Chumani’s body. Or anyone else.
“The moment I’m inside that needy pussy of yours, you’ll come.”
“Then let me take you in my mouth.” It was a daring, wanton thing to say, but she’d done it before, for Mr. Collins—
Quicker than she could follow, he’d seized her mouth with his own, his tongue coming in to tangle with hers, overpowering her mind. She whimpered.
You will not think of him or anyone else when you are with me, Elisa. Not ever. Do you want my cock in your mouth? Do you want to swallow my come into your body?
Yes, Master. Please.
“Say it aloud.” He gazed down at her with implacable eyes. “I want to see your sweet lips form those words.”
“I want your . . . cock in my mouth. I want you to come there, so I can swallow it. Have it inside of me.”
“Every drop.”
“Yes. Please.”
He rose on his knees then, opened the jeans. He didn’t give her the pleasure of seeing him fully naked, hadn’t even removed his shirt, but she knew that was part of this, too. The searing pleasure of denial. But when that long, hard cock stretched out just above her face, the tip already glistening slick with his arousal, her lips parted, throat arching as she reached for him, forgetting his rule about not moving. But this time he didn’t seem to mind as much. He guided the head into her mouth, watched with intent eyes and firm mouth as she took him in, and kept taking him, until he reached the back of her throat. She’d learned to relax those muscles, and she did now, giving him greater reach. She wished she could take all of him, all the way to the base, but he was a longer, thicker man than . . . He was long and thick.
His eyes gleamed at her hasty correction. When he began to withdraw, she sucked on him, tasting him with her tongue, savoring his unique flavor. Her body shuddered, saturated with want, craving release, and yet there was such a sweet anticipation to it, she didn’t mind being on this cusp for him.
Thrust and withdraw. He was slow about it at first, making her hypercognizant of the way she must look, her mouth stretched around his girth, the way her eyes pleaded as they looked up at him, wanting more, and more, and more. His face got tighter, the cords of his neck hardening. His thigh muscles rippled in the loosened jeans, and she so wished her hands were free so she could fill her hands with his buttocks, feel them flex and ease in that pumping rhythm. She’d run her hands along the columns of his thighs as she knelt at his feet. His hands would be in her hair, forcing her to do his bidding, whatever he wanted from her. She’d never been so focused on one thing, and so mindless at once.
His cock convulsed in her mouth, and she was ready for him. He became far more rough and powerful then, almost bruising in his hold on her head and throat, but she reveled in it, as well as the jet of heat, the flood of seed he gave to her. A hoarse cry broke from his lips, his body pressed down on her, holding her to his desires.
When he was done, her lashes were wet with the strain of taking him, but she licked and cleaned him thoroughly. He pulled free an inch at a time, waiting for her to do her job properly, until she took a final taste of his salt and musk from the tiny slit at the end. Dropping to an elbow next to her, he let his gaze wander over her flushed, trembling body. If he touched her at all, she knew she’d explode. He cocked his head, gazing down between her legs.
“You’re so wet, your curls there are gleaming with dew, like grass after a rainstorm. I want you to come for me, Elisa, without me touching you. Contract the muscles inside of you, the way your body has been doing on its own. Contract and then release, as if my cock is stretching you, working you hard. Do it while I watch.”
At first it was difficult, to do something consciously that the body did in an involuntary way. But the first time she managed it, a shudder went through her. He showed his fangs, an approval. “Keep doing it. Maybe I’ll take you to the edge, then make you stop.”
She kept doing it, until she was doing it quite frantically, her breath rasping in her throat, hips bucking as if he were thrusting into her in truth. She kept her gaze on his face, goaded by the raw lust in his eyes, as if he’d devour her whole any moment now. Abruptly, he leaned forward as she continued to undulate. His lips parted and the tip of his tongue traced a slow, slow circle around her nipple. Then he gave her a little nip.
She contracted hard, a guttural cry ripping from her throat. He withdrew several inches, watching every expression as her body took over, performing at his demand with nothing more than his eyes stroking her. The climax swept over her so intensely she was shocked to feel a wetness gush onto her thighs like a man’s seed. He bent then, brought his mouth to that offering as she was still going. A full-throated, raw shriek tore from her at the first contact of his mouth.
Inside me, inside me, please fuck me, fuck me . . .
She used his word, because she’d become the feral animal now, no patience for modesty.
He shifted, and she snarled her pleasure as he buried his still-erect cock deep inside of her, seating himself to the hilt. She rocked violently against him, milking everything she could from that moment, her lips drawn back, eyes glazed as he watched her, completely in control of her, of whatever he wanted from her.
But she wasn’t so far gone that she couldn’t see that she’d spun a trance of her own. The hard set of his mouth, the glitter of his eyes, were also pure male animal, lost in everything she was giving him.
Give it all to me.
And she did, until exhaustion claimed her and she wound down, shuddering, trembling, her body suddenly so heavy and drained she could barely do more than murmur as he released her arms and legs and shifted her into a curl inside his arms, the curve of his body.
She fell asleep like that, not thinking a thing about laundry or chores or anything else but Malachi. Something about that gave her a twinge of sadness, but she didn’t chase it. He didn’t let her. He kissed her softly, again and again, an oral lullaby that took her into dreams. For the first time in a long time, she was replete, inside and out.
As she slept so deeply she might have been knocked unconscious, Mal waited, his mind inside of hers. When he felt that tentative touch he expected, he spoke, knowing Elisa was far beyond them both, in dreams.
You’ve been a comfort to her, but I’m here now. Stay out of her head, boy. This is my territory now, and vampires don’t share. I’ll take care of her.
It was a direct, male-to-male warning, and Jeremiah understood it, loud and clear. He withdrew, allowing Mal to settle in with the girl, his mind as well as his body surrounding her. In a couple hours, he’d wake and take her again. Throughout the daylight hours, he’d re-impress the claim and the lesson. Of course, he realized he’d just staked a very obvious claim, one even more significant than the one he’d made the day she arrived. He knew what it meant. Or rather, what it could mean, and what it couldn’t.
One of the things it meant was he had one more question for Elisa, but he had to talk to Danny first. He’d need to be ready to have a strip taken out of his hide for even proposing it, but thinking about Elisa’s earlier thoughts, he figured some things were just worth an ass-kicking.
Wryly he realized he had a touch of nervousness, like a beau going to a formidable matriarch to ask permission to court her daughter. But it wasn’t like that. This was practical, necessary for what was ahead. A big part of him didn’t even want to bring Elisa into it, but he knew it was important. She’d proven to him tonight that she could handle it. There was a room in her heart open that wasn’t in his, and his intuition told him that room would be critical to securing a future for some of her fledglings.
But that was the beginning and end of it. He knew what was in her heart, so close to the surface he could see it, even with a mere second mark. As a vampire, he couldn’t give her that, but he’d never met someone who deserved it more. He wouldn’t take it from her, no matter what. What he wanted to do would be permanent . . . but temporary.
He grimaced. Yeah, he was sure Danny would see it that way.
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