Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

S he left her bench, giving the mother dragon another respectful nod and the disgruntled younger dragon a wave. If he had a cell phone like most teenagers, she expected he'd be using Google Earth to find the nearest flock of Tennessee sheep.

The storage tent flap was closed, and when she lifted it, the interior was dark. Vampires could see in the dark, though. Supply crates were stacked in here, and a couple carts holding folding chairs. As she moved down the aisle they formed, she could sense Merc was here. Was this a familiar hangout for him, in the dark and quiet?

That bothered her, but then her pensiveness over that slipped away. He was behind her.

"Are you afraid of the dark?"

"Not of you, or the dark. But I can see."

"Close your eyes."

He put his hand over them, fingers caressing her cheekbones. As she complied, lashes brushing his palm, he expanded his exploration of her face, her throat, her sternum. As he trailed fingertips down it, the lack of sight increased her sensitivity to his touch, that lovely tingling sensation that tightened her nipples and made her breasts ache to be cupped, kneaded. Held.

Then she stiffened as he returned his hand to her cheek and pushed her face toward his shoulder, exposing her neck. She fought him, but his other arm curled around her waist, and she couldn't dislodge him. He was too powerful. It wasn't even a contest.

This time, he wasn't tolerating a fight. He demanded her submission. Called it forth from her with his inflexibility. Proving it, he spoke against her neck.

"Remember what I said. You don't say no to me. Not now, not ever."

"I won't just give in to you."

"That's different. I like it when you fight me. I like the smell of your hair, your smile. The vulnerable look in your eyes, around your mouth. Your beautiful mouth…"

She paused at the shimmer of energy that came from him. Sexual, but also yearning. Want. Something she hadn't felt from him before. His voice had roughened, suggesting it wasn't something he normally projected.

Or it could be a ruse. She hadn't known him long enough to trust his emotions.

She started to open her eyes, turn her head toward him, but he held her in place. "Keep them closed, Ruth. I won't tell you again. A vampire can heal from having her eyes put out. Don't make me be mean to earn your obedience."

His words were cruel, and yet his touch was tender. The contrast was terrifying. Touch gliding, stroking, undoing things inside her. Letting her draw a deep breath, even as he stole it away.

She rolled her hips against him, playing. Like she was dancing. In answer, he pulled her back against his body and opened her black jeans. He slid his hand into them, under her panties, between her legs, taking over.

He gripped, weighed, stroked. He pressed against her labia, caught and squeezed the petals of flesh. A man hungry for land to call his own, who'd claimed a property and was exploring its terrain, imagining all the potential it would yield to him.

She was already moaning out her pleasure, helpless to do otherwise. "You don't control the pleasure," he whispered, admonishing her for her tease. "I do."

He wasn't using any incubus vibes. She thought about what he'd said earlier, about how it was a part of him. Was he proving he could do this to her without it, even when he wanted to add it into the mix? Or was he saving it for the right moment, to blow her mind?

His fingers targeted the left side of her labia at the base of her clit. Answering her question, an energy slipped off his fingertips, strumming that area. That one limited area, making her undulate against him. He refused to move anywhere else, building the need, making her crazy.

"A woman's cunt has different zones. Focusing on each, one at a time, can give her so many orgasms. Give her so much pleasure…a feast."

"For me or you?" she managed, dropping her head back against his shoulder.

"For both."

The climax rolled up and he pinched her, hard enough to hold her on that shuddering edge. "Ask me for it, Ruth," he growled in her ear. "Ask me to give you pleasure."

She scored her lip with her fang, thrashing against him, against that one pinching hold, which only increased her response, the blood pulsing against his fingers. "No."

"Still trying to say no."

He returned to playing with and stroking the left labia, bringing her up, stopping her short, bringing her back down.

At Lord Marshall's, during vampire dinners with William and Matthew, she'd watched human servants endure forced orgasm torture from their vampire masters before dessert, then prolonged orgasm denial afterward.

Merc was a master of those torments as well.

As he kept cutting her on that edge, he kept a tight band around her with his muscled arm, his hand clamped over her shoulder, forearm pressed between her breasts. Like a seatbelt, holding her in place, refusing to let her get out or escape the need building higher and higher. She was moaning, pleading without words.

"I can do this all night. You are…delicious."

He was taking small sips of her energy, absorbing it, but he wasn't taking a meal. But she suspected if he decided to do so, the longer she delayed the climax, the more of a meal she would give him.

He was holding back for her, because of what she'd said. She was almost sure of it. A dilemma, because she found she liked the idea of nourishing him. Her choice.

"Please."

He stilled. "Please, what?"

"Please…take. Feed."

He didn't respond to that. Not immediately. Instead he put her through another hundred close calls, yanking her back from the edge every time she was about to topple over it.

"Will you hold back your climax until I have drunk enough from you to be satisfied?"

That could be hours, days. She heard the threat of it in his voice. He wanted to test her, wanted to know how deep she'd tear into herself to obey him. He wanted to know what kind of submissive she was.

She wanted to know, too.

"Yes." Tears were on her face. She knew if he took her down that road, she'd work harder than she'd ever worked to resist the pleasure her body was screaming for.

Because he wanted her to do it.

Merc closed his hand fully on her labia and clit, squeezing them in his large hand with proprietary intent. She cried out, startled, as he whispered in her ear.

"Come for me. Right now. Don't refuse me."

The unexpected change in direction broke her control. The climax slammed through her, her body jerking against him. His hand covered her mouth so she could scream out her pleasure without worry the entire Circus would hear.

Then his other wrist was against her mouth.

Do not refuse me.

She sank her fangs into the artery, and took a marvelous swallow of his blood, rich and different. Maybe it would make her sick, like too much human food, but she'd risk that consequence, because it had been a long night and her mind said it was nourishment. It had a heat, a sizzle of magic in it, a metallic blend.

Though her sore body felt the impact of the climax, the pleasure overrode it. She bucked violently in its embrace. Merc's hold shifted, one arm diagonally across her chest, holding her securely, keeping her sore shoulder immobilized.

When at last the climax started to ebb, she was still pulling on his wrist, though she was taking sips now instead of greedy swallows. She was just reluctant to stop, especially when he was stroking her hair.

He eased them to the ground, him on one knee, her legs folded under her, her body in the shelter of his as she drank. When she made herself be done, she licked his wrist, closing the wound for him with the anti-coagulants she had in her tongue. Her body was still vibrating, as if it knew there were plenty more "zones" for him to explore.

She settled though, quiet under his hand. He'd given her what he was going to give her, and she'd done what he'd required. It was unusual, the contentment of this moment. Nothing to do but sit there while he petted her.

"Would you like to fly with me?" he said at last.

"Yes."

"Take off your clothes."

"Are people going to see me naked?"

"No. We'll go too high and fast for that."

She rose. As she removed her shirt, he clasped her waist, caressing her navel, the arch of her rib cage. She liked his hands upon her, large, slightly rough palms, long fingers gripping her. Only when he removed his touch did she take off her shoes and socks and remove the jeans. Bra and panties followed. She could feel his attention on every curve and crevice revealed.

After she had a neat pile of clothes beside her, she reached a tentative hand toward his face. When he closed his hand on it and lifted it for her, allowing it under his control, she touched his lips, his cheekbone, his jaw.

"You've impressed me, Ruth. You haven't opened your eyes. Do so now."

When her lids lifted, his gaze was on her breasts, watching his fingertips trace the curves. It was unsettling, how he did it.

"You act…as if you've never seen a woman's breasts before."

He didn't say anything right away. His slow gliding touches were making her tremble again.

"It's…different," he said. Before she could respond to that, he drew her attention to a small cut on her ring finger. "What's this?"

"I caught it on a burr, on the metal scaffolding in the Big Top."

"You don't heal the way other vampires do."

"No. But I do heal. Just a little slower. It was much deeper when I did it, earlier today."

He stood, tall and strong, before her. "Arms around my neck and waist."

When she complied, caressing the short hair at his nape and the heated skin at his waist, fingers playing beneath the waistband of his jeans, his arms closed around her. He slid them out the back flap of the tent and, before she had to be self-conscious about who might be watching, they were in the air, shooting upward like gravity wasn't a thing.

"How much do you trust me?" he whispered.

"Not a damn bit."

Dark laughter twined around her as he let her go. She was falling, spinning and spinning. When the velocity had compressed her lungs and scrambled her mind, he swooped up beneath her and absorbed the impact of catching her so she felt like a feather landing in the palm of his hand. As soon as she could speak, she was laughing, too. "Let's do that again," she said.

His eyes were on her face, her smiling mouth.

"We do this first. Hold on."

He shifted her so her arms and legs were wrapped around his body. He opened the jeans, and then, her bare breasts pressed to his chest, he drove her still slick tissues down upon his cock. In that same slow, crazy, excruciating way he'd touched her.

He stretched and filled her, held her impaled as she arched back and a cry tore from her throat. As he started to ascend again, every pump of his wings shoved him deeper inside her, a thrusting and retreat that was bliss and torment. When they were so high she thought there was no more oxygen, he dove downward and spun. She tightened her legs over his flexing, taut backside, held on and cried out with every stroke inside her body.

His energy shimmered around her. Though he'd just fed, she could tell he wanted more. More and more. Maybe that wasn't a good idea, but she had a problem. She kept saying no to him primarily because she didn't want to say no. She didn't want to deny him anything, which was beyond stupid. But oh, Great Father, to feel this free, above the earth, with an ocean of pleasure engulfing them, it was heaven. Everything heaven should be.

Take all of it. Take it all.

She didn't think she'd been crazy enough to say it out loud, but suddenly he pulled out of her. Her heart twisted in her chest, as if she'd been denied something vital, something she could never get back and would never stop wanting. She clawed at his hips, trying to pull him back, and he shoved her away, sending her free falling again. She snarled and cursed him, tumbling through the air. The heavy compression of gravity descended upon her again.

He caught her a few feet from a bone-crushing reunion with the ground. She shoved away from him, toppling from his arms and landing on grass. They were in a field populated by sleeping cows, who blinked at the intruders who'd landed unceremoniously near them.

She rose on weak legs and stared at him. Merc stood a few feet away, with hard eyes and tight mouth. His chest rose and fell, betraying his exertion, but it wasn't from flying. It was from keeping himself from doing what he wanted to do.

Take from her until there was nothing left.

Though he'd refastened the jeans, he was still erect, hard and aching. She deliberately licked her lips, moistening them. "If I help with that, with my mouth, will it carry the same risk?"

His dark eyes burned. "Yes. But…it might be less difficult to restrain myself."

She bared her sharp fangs. "Because you know I could bite the shit out of you?"

Wry humor returned to his gaze, mixing with the fire. "No."

"Do you trust me ?" She threw his question back to him, and his more unpredictable side gave further ground, this time to a sinful smile.

"Not a damn bit. But come here."

Good. She was aching and angry, but they were still in this game, this sparring match of wits, needs and wants. Neither of them was going to let female pique or male broodiness interfere with it.

When she stood before him, that fight rose in her, but it warred with other things, too. Something she could let herself give into, just this once, if he would do what was needed to let it happen. She thought he might.

Behind his stare she saw his awareness of it, which was maybe why he drew it out, increasing her anticipation for several bated moments. A cow lowed. Mist rose on a nearby pond. The moonlight reflected on her skin was marked by the shadow of a passing cloud. His gaze followed its passage over her flesh.

"Kneel, Ruth. Serve me."

Yes. Her knees gave way, that twist in her chest a different kind, but no less painful, responding to the conflict between what she was supposed to be, what she actually was, and all it meant in her world. But he wasn't of her world, and this field was far away from all that.

Close up, his cock was as impressive as it had felt. As she opened the jeans and closed her hand over it, she stroked smooth, stretched skin over the shaft, the ridge of the head, and found the moisture at the tip. She sampled that moisture first, ran her tongue around it. She tasted herself on him, which she liked with a territoriality that was all animal.

All vampire.

She pushed her tongue against the slit, then sucked on the ridge, getting familiar. He tolerated it at first, his hand resting on her hair, but then his grip constricted, and he pushed her down onto him. All the way down. She had only a second to adjust, relax her throat, before he was fully in, no mercy or quarter. She choked, but he didn't let up. She was going to adjust or gag as she sucked him off. Her body tightened, her cunt getting slicker against her calves as he issued his next order.

"Hands clasped behind your back. I control this. Not you."

She complied, a whimper in her throat as she gave herself to it. For the very first time in her life, she was fully serving a Dom. The joy and agony could break her heart into a million pieces, because this confirmed what she had always known. She wanted a Master. Needed one. Even if she couldn't have one. Not and survive her world.

Sometimes taking a drink of the best tasting wine was a mistake. Because the longing to have it would last for an eternity.

She let that jagged ache become part of the fierce passion to serve him. Lick, nip, scrape, suck. She tried not to score him with her fangs, but it was her first time doing it like this, with no hands. When she took sexual pleasure on the island, with the second mark servants who gave her blood, she had to pretend she wanted to be in charge. Make her willing donor keep his hands behind his back, like this, or tie him, so he wouldn't touch her. So he'd believe she was teasing him to emphasize she was in control. All while she was really imagining doing this for a Dom, to increase the arousal for herself in a backhanded way.

Merc's body tightened, and her sob of pleasure, of satisfaction, vibrated against his shaft as he released into her mouth. His grasp was painful on her scalp, still not allowing her any retreat. His thigh muscles became rigid, a harsh groan tearing from his throat, telling her the pleasure she was giving him.

Though she was choking on the hot flood of his release, she fought to swallow him down. She also lifted tearing eyes to gaze hungrily upon his arched throat, the movement of his Adam's apple as he dropped his head back on his shoulders.

His taste differed from the salty musk of a human. There was a sweetness to it, like honey and biscuits. Floury and sweet, musky and male. With a tingling edge of magic and electricity.

When he finished, his head lifted, and his eyes were upon her again. His thumb passed over her cheekbone, over the wetness the strain had caused her. Then he shifted his touch to her shoulder to ease her back. He adjusted the jeans.

"You can move your arms."

She kept her head down, trying to steady herself, bring everything back under control. It felt impossible, after letting her desires run so free.

"Ruth…"

She shook her head and rose on shaky legs. She moved a few steps and turned away. She collected the words in her head, arranged them in a way he'd understand. And reinforced it for herself. It was necessary.

"I can have a Dom, but only in moments like this. I can't have a Master. I can't commit to that. There's no room in my world for it. But it's okay. You and I are the perfect match. You have enough shit going on with you; you're not really looking for commitment either. So this will work until it doesn't. I'm good with that. Just so you know. It's fine. It's fine."

Merc watched her have the conversation with herself. She was pulling herself back together, rubbing her face ferociously, pulling her hair back to redo her braid. She wasn't aware of what that did to him, her slim arms raised, the delicate line of her neck and naked back and curve of her ass, the tense set of her shoulders.

He was used to women's tears. When the survival instinct buried beneath the overwhelming weight of their arousal had recognized they were giving their lives to sate his hunger, his need for nourishment, they cried. Even as they were swept away on an ocean of pleasure.

Her tears were different. Self-contained, directed at herself, not an appeal to anyone. He knew about the vampire world's hierarchy, knew none of them were naturally submissive. A female vampire was as dominant as a male one. They capitulated based on proven power rankings, not because they wished to do so.

Ruth was different. He'd picked up on it immediately because what he was gave him an in-depth awareness of the sexual core of every female who crossed his path, the unique shape and nature of it, and all the things connected to that core. He didn't often follow those connections, not wanting that level of intimacy with his food, but, again…she was different.

Over the past few days, he'd listened and watched. From conversations he'd overheard, he'd picked up that she'd spent her life on her family's big cat sanctuary, making only limited forays into the wider world. Which explained how she'd masked what would put her at risk of exploitation and harm in the vampire world. Until now.

She would have been safer if she'd stayed there, but it would deny what was equally a part of who she was. She might be vulnerable, but Ruth was not weak. And she had courage. With no hesitation, she'd protected Clara against a Trad who easily could have killed the younger female vampire.

He hadn't found it so easy. The thought almost made Merc smile.

"Can you take me back to the Circus?" Her voice was calmer. She turned toward him, her expression quiet.

"Yes."

She offered a tight smile. "Thanks for the flight. It was everything I wanted it to be."

Merc moved to stand before her. Her fingers twitched at her sides. "We've covered this. You don't lie to me."

Her look became touched with despair. "It's the best way I know to lie to myself."

He stroked a fingertip along her sculpted cheekbone. The energy vibrating off her was so distracting. She had no idea the temptation she presented to him, to pull all that life energy to him, woven with her sexual desire.

Always before, his restraint had to do with self-preservation. An incubus who couldn't control his hungers was marked for death. He'd carried that mark for some time.

This… He had a desire to protect her. Not to protect himself, but to keep her safe.

"You said you can't have a Master. But here's a thought to consider." He touched her chin, drawing her gaze up to his.

"When you meet the Master who wants you, the right one, he won't give you a choice. You'll be his, no matter your fears."