Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

P lenty of troupe members enjoyed just watching, like she and Clara did. But some were seeking a playmate.

The man who'd asked Ruth the question was one of the newer roustabout hires, so either he didn't know she was a vampire, or that vampires were all dominants.

The muscular and tanned male had a handsome mix of Malaysian and English features. Dark, penetrating eyes, thick hair, and he was on the tall and broad-shouldered side, flattered by the jeans, boots, and long-sleeved snug shirt he wore. His calm assessment gave her that unsettling jolt that a Master's regard always did.

Fortunately, he was human, so it melted away after the first flush.

"We can talk about your preferences." His teeth flashed, his expression honest and straightforward. "I play anywhere from beginner to extreme. I just like having a beautiful woman responding to my hand."

Ruth opened her mouth to answer, but was stopped by a feeling that wrapped around her, a binding so cold it burned the skin at first touch.

It was to keep her from interfering. The main blast of that energy had a target, and it wasn't her.

The Dom took a step back as if pushed. His gaze darted around her. No matter how new he was, if he was part of the Circus, he was aware of how many of its members might express their displeasure using magical means.

She gave him credit. He didn't cut and run. He held his ground long enough for a courteous nod. "My apologies. To you and your Master." Then he moved away.

"I don't believe it."

The frozen rope feeling dissipated, but Ruth still felt its hold in her churning reaction. She did her best to focus on Clara's comment, laced with quiet astonishment. The girl had stayed at the suspension scene while Ruth wandered over to the impact play, but had now rejoined her with the incredulous comment. She hadn't noticed Ruth's predicament, which was probably a good thing.

The fortune teller glanced meaningfully toward the far end of the Big Top. Merc was perched in the scaffolding. He had one fist pressed against a beam, his muscled arm taut as he crouched, balanced by fully outspread wings. The traces of white and gleaming ends flickered with the lightning flashes. Though his expression was shadowed, she could feel his gaze upon her. The echo of his message to the Dom was reverberating inside of her still.

Hands off.

It had caused ripples through the tent. Players and onlookers shifted uneasily and looked around for an imminent threat. Fortunately, after only a puzzled pause, that feeling melted away and they returned to their play.

For Ruth, there was no abatement. It had embedded itself in her pounding heart and trembling lower belly. Maybe because she was holding onto it with both hands.

"As you can tell from our conversation earlier, I've never noticed him here before. He doesn't make his presence known. Apparently, he felt the need tonight."

A slight smile touched Clara's lips, a mix of companionable female humor and concern as her gaze slid over Ruth. "You want me to stay close or make myself scarce?"

"I doubt he's going to leave his perch. But…"

Clara's eyes shifted to her left, and that twinkle in her gaze increased. Ruth's eyes briefly closed.

Merc had landed a few feet behind Ruth.

A very different energy wave happened then. Instead of his incubus vibes ensnaring everyone like a net, it was wafting outward, elevating the sexual play, increasing its pleasure, its intensity, whatever element the players wanted to augment.

An offering they recognized, albeit with surprise toward the offeree. She noted gazes moving toward Merc to warily acknowledge it. One Mistress even nodded her thanks to him before returning to her electrical play. Ruth noticed the sparks from her wand temporarily shifted from a white-blue color to a brilliant flare of silver-limned red. Like Merc's eyes.

Clara swayed at the saturation of sexual energy. "It's like a bubble machine, where the bubbles are full of pheromones. Every pop is like a mini-orgasm. Nice." She shivered. "I'm going to mosey back to my quarters, in case Marcellus gets back earlier. Unless you need me to stay."

She gave Ruth a direct look, then shifted it to Merc. A challenge. Clara had her back if Ruth didn't want to be left alone.

When Ruth felt the gathering of his response, along the lines of what he'd unleashed toward that Master who'd asked if she wanted to play, she turned, her hand landing on his bare chest. "Don't," she said.

A brow twitched, as did a muscle along his throat and shoulder. Ruth had felt a range of emotions in his burst of energy, but his mien was as flat and forbidding as usual.

"Do you consider a friend looking after my welfare an enemy?"

That look dialed down. Offering not just an acknowledgment, but a certain level of acceptance.

Clara let out the breath Ruth expected she hadn't known she was holding. Ruth clasped her hand. "I'm good. But thank you."

Clara withdrew with a tentative smile. Ruth watched her join Charlie at the suspension scene, then dipped her head toward her shoulder. When she lifted a hand to her side, she smiled when she encountered feathers, and Merc didn't tell her she couldn't touch. His wings curved forward, his body close enough he formed that shelter around her she liked.

He was also wearing the jeans she favored on him, frayed and worn so thin they clung to him in distracting ways. She stayed in place, thinking if his feet were bare as usual, she wouldn't want to step on them with the spike heels.

Unless he gave her cause.

When he closed his hands over her wrist, she shivered at the relentless pressure in his grip.

She tightened her muscles to see if she could withdraw, and when he didn't allow it, the bolt of pleasure went straight to every erogenous zone, plus some other less physical places. She drank in the ripples of incubus energy, and the unique essence of Merc that flavored them.

"Trust is a difficult thing," he said. "It comes in increments. Bite-sized. It's difficult to change the habit of self-protection."

He'd noticed her struggle. If Merc hadn't disrupted the conversation, the Master noticing her desires would have startled her enough to withdraw. Maybe even shut him down with a display of vampire dominance that made him question what he "thought" he'd noticed. Even if she had to be rude and offensive about it.

"The desires and needs shown here don't get revealed outside this tent, when that's the wish of the one exercising them. Yvette implements a particular spell to reinforce it. If anyone here would do harm to another with their knowledge, no matter how inadvertently, when they leave the tent, that piece of knowledge leaves their mind. They don't recall it."

"She didn't tell me that."

"It's not widely known, except from those who can detect the shape of the magic, and those who need to know. It also works well as a vetting test for newer employees, or those whose hearts might have changed. Yvette will have Gundar or Charlie ask them a casual question later, and if they don't know the answer because they've forgotten, it tells her they are less trustworthy than she'd hoped. Soon after, they'll be dismissed with a week's pay and find themselves back in the world with no memory of having worked for the Circus."

"She never relaxes her vigilance." All highly placed vampires possessed a certain level of reserve, but Yvette's made more sense than most.

"The Circus is her 24/7 job. Her passion, her home, and her place in the world. And not just for her. She never underestimates the importance of that."

Yvette didn't consider Merc a confidante, so what he was telling her came from those observation skills he'd honed so keenly. "So why do you think she didn't let me know?"

"Perhaps she thought it better to let you decide on your own how much you wished to trust this environment."

She hoped the roustabout would prove trustworthy. Though not what she was seeking, there were other submissives here tonight who would welcome his attentions.

Merc tipped up her chin. The opaqueness in his eyes seemed to be taking up more of the whites, the silver a glimmer on the edges of the dark irises.

"Tell me what you would do, if there was no fear of discovery. Tell me what you fantasize about, in this tent full of fantasies."

She moistened her lips and began to shift her gaze. His grip tightened. "I didn't tell you to look away. Answer the question."

Nerves warred with defensive anger, but her gut told her he wasn't going to tolerate a fight. He was threatening a decisive and quick ass kicking if she didn't answer.

"I don't know. There's so much. And I can't… Even knowing what you told me, my brain freezes. I'm too used to protecting myself. Everything shuts down."

"All right." He let her go.

Irrational and frustrating disappointment flooded her like a caustic poison, but before she could push past that to make a graceful retreat—or say something mean to him to vent her spleen—he'd drawn her against his side, an adjustment, not a withdrawal, and they were aloft.

He landed them in the audience's seating area on the uppermost bench, which had the most shadows. He'd chosen a center ring section, for optimal view of everything happening below. Merc guided her to sit, but he didn't sit next to her. Instead, he took the bench one row below hers and faced her. He clasped his hands between spread knees. "Back straight," he murmured. "Hands braced on either side of the bench. Knees spread. Do it."

A submissive posture, open to her Dom. When she complied, with a brief, quivery hesitation, he touched her knee, making her spread it out another couple inches, which pushed her hips back and her chest out. The dress stretched, but it also slid higher up her legs. If he chose, he could dip his head and see what she didn't wear beneath it.

Instead, his gaze rested on the curves of her breasts in the low neckline before it lifted back to her face. "That dress isn't going to survive the night," he promised. "Start to your left, and look at each scene. You have to watch it until I tell you to move on to the next one. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Start now."

In the left ring, a new suspension scene had started. Depending on the form chosen, the bottom would often feel pain at first, even if the right kind of pain. The key was settling into it, because beyond that pain, euphoria could wait. She'd learned that by talking to one of William's go-to servants who enjoyed suspension play at his hands.

The bottom for this scene was a contortionist, and the Dom wanted to push her beyond her normal threshold to that ecstatic level. He'd drawn her backwards like a hairpin, her head touching her buttocks, arms stretched toward her ankles and tied there. It put her in a teardrop shape.

Multiple ropes created a fan shape above her prominent rib cage, like a hemp bloom balanced on the curve of the teardrop. As he surveyed his work, the Dom caressed the jut of her hip bones and stretched lengths of her thighs. Her sex was pressed against the crotch of the pink leotard she was wearing, the damp labia clearly defined. When the Dom put her in a slow spin, his hand trailing over her, the sub moaned at his touch.

"Move to the next."

Reluctantly, her gaze went to an electric play scene. An arc of white-blue power moved from the top's fingers to the sub laid out on a board, wrapped against it with thin silver cord. His body danced, caught up in a river of shocks being applied along his naked torso.

"Next."

His close regard had her wanting Merc's hands. The posture he was making her maintain didn't allow her that. It was all dependent upon him. Her body shuddered, and he wasn't even touching her. Just watching her watch all of this.

Just as she'd imagined.

Impact play was next. The Dom who'd spoken to her had found a playmate, an equestrian performer. She did acrobatics on the Percherons, plus skits with the unicorns.

They also had a Pegasus in the troupe. Ruth imagined Merc riding Pegasus, the two sets of wings aligned. Had he ever done that? Or were the animals as leery of him as Medusa's snakes?

The Dom had put the rider's hands against one of the steel tent poles and bound them there. He stripped his belt out of his jeans and doubled it. She was clothed, but only in a thin dress with nothing beneath. As the male gathered up the filmy cloth, he revealed neat, firm buttocks. His fingers played over the seam, stroked the curves and her upper thighs. Warming her with his touch, readying her for what would come next, while enjoying the intimate contact.

When the first slap of the belt came, she had her bottom lip in her teeth. Ruth was emulating her, digging into plump flesh, her tongue tasting the moisture against her teeth.

The simplest of scenes so far, and it captivated her.

Merc was gathering intel on what excited her, uncovering those deep desires she couldn't show anyone.

The score music had given way to someone's play list. "Goodbye's Been Good To You" by Teddy Swims. The rough voice and insistent beat matched the insistent sexual percussion throbbing through the Big Top. The Dom matched the beat in his strikes.

"Next," Merc said, after the Dom had administered twenty blows. Her own buttocks throbbed. Her nipples ached. If Merc had touched them, she would have whimpered from the sensation.

"I can't see the next station. There are people in the way. It seems popular."

Merc put his hands to her waist, and they were aloft again. He took her up into the scaffolding, giving her a direct downward view of what she hadn't been able to see.

Those who loved D/s play could be endlessly creative. And the Circus had access to toys and equipment that most didn't. In this case, the claw machine had been brought into the Big Top. On performance days, it was on the midway. A guest inserted a ticket, activated the claw inside, and tried to capture the stuffed toy or trinket they wanted.

In mundane carnivals, the toys were packed down, making it difficult for that to happen. The carnival received far more profit than gave away toys.

At the Circus, the toys were tossed in loosely. Almost everyone won, with less than two tries. The Circus made their nut from sold out shows, special engagements and performances, like with BDSM clubs such as Club Atlantis. Being indulgent with their games meant happy attendees and more return business.

The claw machine had a very different use tonight. The toys had been removed, except for a layer on the bottom. A woman was inside the box, bound to a pole that had been added to the space. Her feet and ankles were buried in that layer of colorful plush toys, but a spreader bar held her thighs apart. Straps bound her hips and waist to the pole, while another was cinched above her breasts, emphasizing the lush curves and tight nipples. Another strap was over her forehead.

Her upper arms were held to her sides at the elbows. Her wrists were cuffed securely together, no slack, and her hands were folded and tied around the handle of a vibrator, the tennis-ball sized head pointing downward.

Those watching were using tokens to move the "arm," a control rod attached to the wrist cuffs. Ruth deduced it must have a dozen settings, because they could apparently rotate it against her sex, make it pump up and down, rub against her clit, or brush and tap it.

The woman had no control. They had it all. To keep going, the participants merely had to keep feeding the machine tokens. If they chose to have merely a "turn," the length of that seemed designed to leave the sub panting and aching for what the next in line would do to tease her.

"There are different contests involved," Merc said. He shifted their positions, so Ruth sat on his knee, his arm around her waist. He slid his fingertips along her breast, brushing her taut nipple. Ruth bit back that cry she'd known would come from his touch.

"Who keeps her on the edge the longest," he continued, his eyes reflecting that intense, predator-in-the-dark gleam. "Or makes her climax the hardest. Or the most quickly."

As she watched the girl writhe, scream and plead through the marathon of erratic stimulation, Ruth's mind locked up. She couldn't speak her needs, but her shaking body told him. He was watching her, but his stillness told her things would move at his pace. When he finally rose and turned her around, a crazy sob caught in her throat. His hand clamped over her ass, his fingertips probing the sensitive seam between her buttocks.

"Hold onto me."

He exited through the open top of the tent. The smooth and sinuous way he angled through the metal frame pieces made her tighten her arms around him. Her smile over it landed on the sharp edge of other things she was feeling.

Vampires should have the ability to fly. Would a child born of an angel and vampire have that ability? Would it be the first of a new race, or had it happened before?

The thought was random insanity caused by an excess of arousal. Vampires were notoriously bad breeders, within their own race or with their human servants, let alone with other races. She didn't know of any successful offspring, except for Dante, Alexis's mate, Clara's merangel friend. Dante was a half-breed vampire crossed with a terrible race from a different world, the Dark Spawn. Though she didn't know all the details, she expected the pregnancy hadn't been a natural thing. Dante, like Merc, had struggled with his volatile nature.

Merc wouldn't have harmed Clara, but he wasn't above using intimidation to take over the moment. She should talk to him about that. Even if she did feel a guilty surge of pleasure when he did it to assert a territorial claim over her.

They were coming in for a landing at that storage tent Ruth was starting to realize was the closest thing Merc claimed as his own quarters on Circus grounds.

"Where do you sleep?" she asked.

"Often the forest. I prefer the trees. Or I anchor myself to a cloud bank and drift with it."

"You can sleep in the clouds?"

"It requires some energy manipulation, which has to be maintained while I sleep. Marcellus showed me how."

A slight smile touched his lips as he read her expression. "Yes, you could sleep with me there. If you behave and I decide you're worth the extra trouble."

She made a face at him. "Me behaving—what you would call behaving—would bore you to death."

Instead of answering that, he put her down, opened the tent flap and gestured her inside. The interior had changed, and the differences had her heart skipping a beat.

The crates were in a semi-circle around a wooden chair, similar to what Yvette had in her tent to "hold court," as Gundar dryly put it. A side table was behind the chair. She could see its edge, but not what might be on it. A mat was on the floor in front of the chair, as were a scattering of white petals that emitted a haunting, hard-to-place fragrance, a wistful memory. Increasing the yearning.

"No one will disturb us here without my knowledge," Merc said, "and I'll be aware of it before they can see us." He met her gaze. "You're safe to be who you are, Ruth."

She reached for flippancy, her true reaction too strong. It would spill over and embarrass her. "So whatever female you planned all this for wasn't available tonight?"

"Stop." His gaze seared her, a stripe of fire across her heart, painful enough to have her stepping back. She wondered if it was made worse by the clash between her ragged emotions and his implacable ones. He wouldn't release her hand, so she had to halt when she reached the end of that tether.

"You don't get to hide. You won't protect yourself here. I won't put up with it. Say the truth."

"You prepared this for me tonight." A million reactions spiked as she forced out the words. They terrified her. "Why?"

"Because I wanted you here, to myself. To have you as I desire. The longer you were in the Big Top, the more painful your yearning for what you want to do, to be, became. I won't put up with that, either. So we explore it here."

She moistened her lips. "What did you have in mind?"

"First we deal with your punishment."

"Punishment for what?"

When his gaze moved over the dress, she made a guess. "Wearing this outfit?"

"No. You wore that for me. There is no punishment for trying to please me and drive me insane at the same time." His attention lifted from it. "You'll earn a worse punishment if you pretend not to know."

"Talking you into feeding fully from me." Yes, the choice had been his, but she had pushed, hard.

Merc dropped her hand and crossed to the table behind the chair. The item he lifted was a ball gag. One with a screw through the ball, a crank on the outside. "After I put this in your mouth and strap it on your head, I turn the screw. It pushes the ball into your throat. Up to three inches. Good training for teaching a sub to take her Master's cock as deep as he wants it to go. You did well the other night, but you could do better."

"You think three inches is far enough?" She tossed out the challenging sass, even as her insides quaked.

He draped his forearms on the top of the chair, the gag dangling in his right hand. His look was a shuddering caress of her exposed skin. The energy drifting off of him was closing around her. "Enough to shut you and that mouth of yours up. Take off that dress that attracted far too many male eyes." His eyes gleamed. "Leave the shoes. Then turn around, your hands clasped and resting on your ass."

She wanted this. Wanted it badly, but suddenly she was frozen, teetering over an abyss containing every worst fear she'd had about making it a reality.

He didn't admonish her, which might have made her get pissy, letting her fear start a fight. Instead, he went for a more devastating tactic.

"Once a servant is bound to the vampire, all choices belong to the vampire. Isn't that correct?"

She managed a nod.

"You can choose me as your Master, make it the rule between us for tonight, but if you want a different choice, you would be wise to run from me."

She didn't run. Not from anyone. And she suspected, no matter what he said, if she ran from him…

She bolted. Proving that whenever they'd played this game, it was a game, him indulging her, he caught her almost before she began to move. He pinned her back against him, his wings brushing her sides. When she tried to stab his feet with the heels, he lifted her and pressed his erection against her ass, through the thin cloth, a reminder that it was just her beneath.

"So you didn't mean it," she said. "I don't get to choose."

"No. You don't." His breath passed over her cheek. She smelled vanilla cake, and wondered if Charlie made extra this time, to plan for his pilfering. "You've taunted, defied and insulted me. All because you knew there were consequences, and that twisted, hot place inside you longed to see what those consequences would be. Kick off the shoes. Now."

When she did, he put her down. "Lift your hair and stand still."

As she raised her arms, holding the weight of her hair in her damp palms, he released the clasp of the slim and sparkling choker, sending it tumbling down with the sternum strap. Then he pushed the dress down, over her ass and thighs, letting it fall around her ankles.

"I thought you promised to shred it," she said, trying to hold onto a bit of humor among the nerves.

"Charlie loaned it to you. I won't cause you the wrong kind of trouble." His touch followed the bumps of her spine. She could feel him staring down at her breasts, lifted and displayed in the satin demi bra. "I knew from how it clung to your ass you had no panties under it. I almost claimed you then. Brought you here. But I wanted to see your reaction to everything, because it would make my cock harder and thicker, and I could demand more from that pretty mouth and tight cunt."

He unclasped the bra and let it fall. He trailed his knuckles along the sides of her breasts, making her skin prickle, her nipples tighten further.

"They don't look as impressive without it."

"Your breasts are everything I want them to be. There is nothing about you that disappoints me."

Her heart stuttered, then went back into full hammer mode. He caressed her arms, still lifted and holding the mass of her dark hair. Until he closed his grip around her wrists and pulled them away. The strands untwisted and tumbled, some falling forward over her breast and nipple.

Stepping back, he adjusted her arms so they were behind her, her wrists in one hand. A gasp escaped her as he pushed against her knee and dropped her to a kneeling position. Then he let her wrists go and put her on all fours, crouching over her, his breath again on her nape. "Show me what your animal instincts are telling you, Ruth," he said.

Trembling all over, she went to her elbows, dropping her head to her forearms, tilting her chin to the left, so he could see her eyes were lowered. She spread out her knees. Lifted her hips.

His breath left him, a harsh whisper that hit the edge of a growl and made her tremble more.

"Good." He gathered up her hair, twisted it in his fist and brought her back up, standing on her knees. He stepped in front of her. When she dared to look at him from beneath her lashes, he was staring at her body even more intently, taking in every inch of flesh, every quiver.

She felt like every emotion was equally exposed. She couldn't handle it. She had to fight.

"No." His grip tightened. "There will be no fighting me tonight, Ruth. Give yourself this. Stay where I put you. Hands behind you again. Knuckles on your beautiful ass."

He eased his grip until she stood on her knees on her own. When he returned to that table, he bypassed the gag he'd left in the seat of the chair when she bolted, but she was sure he hadn't forgotten it.

Then her worry about that was replaced by horror at what he produced this time. "Oh, hell no."

Merc chuckled, dropped to his heels and nipped her shoulder, pricking her sharply enough a drop of blood welled up. The breast harness he carried was pink. My princess was stamped on it in silver.

"It was a last-minute decision from the available toy stock. I'm fine with my tough sub looking girly tonight."

"What if she's not fine with it?" she muttered.

"Refer back to the clause on who owns all the choices tonight." The harness buckled around the throat, the straps running between and beneath her breasts, separating them as he buckled it in the center of her back. Snugly. The look of it didn't matter so much after he did that. The restraint's internal impact was powerful. To save face, she still threw out a warning.

"You call me an Indian princess, and I will neuter you."

He scoffed. Another strap went around her biceps and over her breasts. When he attached it to the harness in the back and tightened it, it arched her back and made her breasts jut out beneath the horizontal hold of the strap. After he spread her thighs out even wider with a shove from his knee, he put a cuff around each, then put cuffs on her wrists and attached them to the thigh restraints.

Except for a very awkward ability to run, she was well and truly caught. He moved to face her, holding her with that fist in the hair again, exerting pressure so she stared up at him. He pressed his erection, still behind denim, against her sternum and throat, her chin on the waistband of his jeans. It was a position meant to intimidate, emphasize the difference in the power they held in this minute.

She wasn't ready for this. She wasn't. She'd fantasized, but had only imagined this in stages…and yet her body couldn't do anything but respond to everything he was doing to her. She was melting from the heat.

"When you give me your fear, your uncertainty, I feel it. Recognize it. Your shaking tells me everything. But if you third mark me, or even second mark me, I could hear your exact words in my mind when you beg me for mercy."

He inhaled, his hand tightening, and she watched him feed on the arousal pumping from her. Now he retrieved the screw gag from the seat of the chair and brought it in front of her face. "Open up, my Indian princess."

She fought him. Tried to jerk away, overbalanced, but used what limited mobility she had to roll, put her face to the ground, away from that gag. He yanked her back up on her knees by the hair, and used her yelp to shove the gag between her lips, his thumb wrenching her mouth open wider so he didn't push her teeth in with his strength.

When he had it strapped around her head, he swung her up in his arms and carried her to the wooden chair. He sat down on it, then put her on the mat, on her knees facing him. He'd thought of her knees, her comfort. To make up for the ways he would be deliberately ignoring her comfort.

"Assume a submissive position, Ruth. Show me how lovely you can be."

His voice had changed to a purr, his eyes glittering. He was proud of her for fighting him. Liked it. She'd given him an appetizer for the full meal she'd offer him tonight. He wouldn't take as much this time, she was sure. Too many things going on in the next few days, plus the third mark question hanging out there.

But she could feed him enough to hold him. He wouldn't be hurting for more, having to take it from a random source where he had to restrain himself far more than he had to do with her.

Beneath that benevolent thought was her aversion to him seeking anything from another female. And the killing rage it inspired. Those thoughts, at least in this moment, made her find her pride and exercise it as he was demanding.

Her back was already bowed back from the harness, but she tightened her core to add to her erect carriage. She lifted her chin, mouth stretched by the gag. Almost tenderly, he cupped the back of her head, then pinched the small crank between his forefinger and thumb. And began to turn it.

She could taste the metal against her tongue as the screw started to lengthen and push the ball into her throat. Her gaze dropped to the erection straining against his jeans. He wasn't a small man. She fully expected he would push the gag in as far as it could go. Training, just as he'd said.

Training her to serve him.

The thought alone could have made her explode into full release. Was it because this was the first time she'd been with someone strong enough to put her in this position? A male she wanted to put her in this position.

A male that she trusted, enough for this. Maybe for more than this. When it came to him, her subconscious was a mystery to her.

He took his time. She could tell he liked watching her expression change, her eyes get a little wider, her body shake more as the ball pushed deeper into her throat. She worked to relax it, to take it, to not panic at the feeling. She didn't have to breathe, she was a vampire, but that air hunger feeling was there when the ability was restricted or taken away. It had to be managed, because the gut would produce the desire to struggle.

His hand tightened on her skull, anticipating it, but she watched his sensual mouth, the set showing his approval, and refused to give in to that false anxiety. Her chest heaved once, resulting in an excruciatingly painful cough against the block in her throat. He held onto her as her body was wracked by it, but then she was past it, and the gag was as far as it would go.

"Nicely quiet," he said. He put his hands on the chair and gazed at her. "You're mine, Ruth. If I want you like this for the next three hours, just to look at you, you would stay still. Wouldn't you?"

This time the choke came from a near sob that surprised her. His eyes darkened and he leaned forward, ran the tip of his finger down her throat. "Answer me, Ruth," he said softly.

She nodded.

He moved his clever fingers down to play with her jutting nipples, trace the harness's outline around them. She swayed at the sensations that speared through her. "I wonder how you would handle climaxing with that in your throat. Even if vampires don't need to breathe, I think you might pass out."

He lifted her onto the chair, changing her position so her legs were wrapped around him, folded behind his hips. Her hands were still bound to her thighs, so he had to steady her, handle all of it.

He opened his jeans, pushed them down enough to free his cock. He fisted it, rubbing the shaft against her clit and lower belly. A whimper vibrated in her chest.

She watched, entirely helpless, as he lifted her and lowered her slick sex down upon him. He went slow, so the discomfort from his size, taking him at that angle, was manageable. When she was seated, her clit spread over him, every inch of her cunt in contact with his velvet heat.

"Your face is so flushed, lips so glossy."

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.