Dominion (Book 1 of The Dominion Series) (32 page)

I peer at the vampire through my eyelashes. He's older, with grey hair and that strange grey skin in the darkness. His lips look almost blue, and his mouth's slightly open, revealing sharp canines. He's in hunter mode.

"You couldn't beat me," Michel says flatly, as if answering an unspoken challenge. "Don't even think of trying."

A surge of adrenaline goes through me and Michel squeezes me as if to calm me. Soon enough, I relax and my heart rate slows once more.

"Don't worry," the vampire says. "I'm not interested in fighting."

Michel doesn't say anything but he does relax his arms around me just a bit.

"She's new," the vampire says. "I heard your conversation and she sounds as if she isn't really your property just yet. That's why I came over. You'll have lots of fun with this one. A real challenge."

"That she most definitely is," Michel says in reply but his voice is brusque and not inviting of any further conversation.

Then the vampire turns and is gone, moving so fast he would have blended into the shadows to a normal mortal, but with my night vision, I can follow him. He's off looking for someone to feed on – some poor blood whore in need of money or a fix of vampire blood.

"You did well, Eve. Congratulations," he says and squeezes me. It feels so good, so comforting. I truly feel safe with him. "You survived your first encounter with a vampire in the field."

He takes my hand and pulls me deeper into the trees. Ahead in the moonlight, I see the same vampire with a woman in his arms.

"That was fast," I say.

"Shh," Michel says. "He can hear you."

We watch as the couple embraces for a few moments and then part, the blood whore going off in the other direction from the vampire. It's a straight exchange – blood for money.

Nothing different from prostitution and it makes me very sad with a sense of moral outrage that women are so vulnerable. Emotion fills me – grief that so many women are compromised, being so poor or addicted, or even just with tragic pasts, that compel them to sell themselves as prostitutes, either for sex or blood.

Michel squeezes my hand. "The oldest profession."

When I think of them, my stomach clenches. Suddenly, I'm fearful because I'm afraid of how easy it would be for me to just lose myself in Michel, become his blood slave as well as his slave in everything. How easily I could become one of these women, desperate, selling myself for it, willing to do anything to get it.

"It's disgusting."

"Why so hostile?"

"I don't like exploitation," I say, suddenly angry.

"You won't become one, Eve. I'd never let you."

"I'm really going to have to figure out how to create mental blocks."

He sighs. "I thought you liked our connection," he says softly. "It's what we vampires do. It's as natural to us as breathing. Just remember that I can't compel you. I can't force you to do anything against your will. You have to choose submission."

"I want to leave," I say, sadness filling me. I wrap my arms around myself.

"We're not done here."

But he follows me, not speaking. This isn't obedience and I'm surprised he's letting me disobey after his stern warning last night. When we arrive at the car, he opens the door for me and I get in, buckling my own seatbelt. Once we're driving and I know no one can hear me, I speak.

"Tell me how I can block you out," I say.

"No," he says after a hesitation, his voice soft. "Until this thing between us is settled, I need complete access to you so I can be certain. But one day, after it is, you can find your own blocks. I can't tell you what they'll be."

We drive for a moment in silence.

"Eve," he says and his voice is firm. "I need to know how you are without you screening things, keeping things from me. I need to know what you're feeling so I can judge if you can do the job. If you can do 'us'."

I stare out the window at the darkened streets. As much as I want him, I don't know if I can do 'us' – at least, not in the way I think it's going to be. In terms of sex it's fine, hot, deliriously so, but in life?

"Can you take me home?" I say, emotion filling me. "I don't feel well enough to work any longer."

He says nothing, taking the highway to get back to my apartment, the rest of the trip passing in silence. When he stops the car in front of my building, I go to the front entrance without saying anything to him. I'm seriously freaked about this power he has over me – the power he wants over me and the way it appeals to something deep inside of me.

"Eve," he says and stops me, taking my arm. "Don't be mad at me. I
have
to do this. I have to know if you're strong enough. If you can handle this world."

"Well?" I say, and try to slip my arm out of his. "Can I?"

He doesn't say anything for a moment, then shakes his head slowly.

"I honestly don't know yet. I only know I want you to be able to do it."

I look away from his too-intense gaze, those bluest of blue eyes seeming hurt by my response.

"I'm sorry." I'm suddenly feeling too tired from it all. "You have to understand how strange this all is." I struggle to find the right words, avoiding his eyes. "Being able to join minds with someone? It's wonderful and scary. Being in complete submission to someone outside of sex? It goes against my nature. And I'm afraid that everything between us is leading me down a path I'll come to regret."

"I know," he says and nods. "We have to trust each other completely. This connection between us – it builds trust. You have to trust me with your life. I have to trust
you
with my life." He touches my cheek. "We could kill each other so easily."

We
could
kill each other. He could catch me unawares and just drink me dry. I could have the stake in his heart in a second. Can I trust him? He's done nothing to raise suspicions in me. He even let me temporarily kill him so that I knew how. The look of concern on his face arouses something in me. Is it fear? Desire? Or is it both?

He removes his hand and stands there on the next step and our eyes are on the level, his face just a few inches from mine and he's so beautiful but I don't know how I feel any longer. The only thing I know for sure is that I want him so much, I'm afraid that I'll do anything to have him.

"I want to come in, Eve," he says, and I can hear the need in his voice and it's not just sexual.

"I need to be alone tonight," I say and it's the truth. I need to be away from him for a few hours so I can sort through these emotions.

"I'm going away tomorrow," he says. "I need you
tonight
."

He needs me tonight… that makes my insides go all mushy.

"I'm so sad."

He takes my hand and I know it's because he wants to know my sadness.

"I can make you feel better," he says, his voice breathless and his blue eyes narrow. That lopsided grin starts and I close my eyes and can't help but smile in response. He makes that throat sound and takes my head in his hands and kisses my cheeks, one after the other, his tongue touching my skin. I know his thoughts and he wants to touch my skin with his tongue everywhere, especially
there
… I'm helpless to deny him.

"Eve," he says, his voice solemn. "I want you to stay at my house while I'm gone. You'll be safer there."

I start to protest. "My cats…"

"My servants will take care of them."

I don't want to leave my little apartment, but then I remember my pledge to just submit and I bite back a question, a reason to stay in my own flat.

"OK," I say. "If you want."

"I want." He kisses me. "If you don't, I'll worry about you the entire time I'm away and won't be able to concentrate. We'll go there now. I can send someone over tomorrow to get your things."

"Can't we stop now?"

"No," he says and puts a finger on my lips.

I comply and follow him back into the car.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."

Thoreau.

We drive out to Cambridge and enter a garage connected to the house. Michel stops and talks to one of his staff, a dark-haired vampire with sharp black eyes and a Hercule Poirot moustache. The man eyes me from under a disapproving frown.

I expect him to take my coat, but Michel seems impatient to take me upstairs to the second floor, where we enter a large bedroom. Against one wall is a huge four-poster bed with a canopy that looks like something out of Buckingham Palace. Michel kicks the door closed and presses me against the wall, pinning my body with his hips, one hand holding mine over my head, his other arm on the wall beside me. I feel his erection against my belly and it sends a jolt of lust through me.

"I'm so ready for you, Eve," he says, his voice breathless. "When you had my wrist in your mouth in the park, I thought I'd lose control right there and ravish you."

That sends a wave of desire through me that makes me dizzy.

"You like the thought of me being your pet, being addicted to your blood?" I say, strangely breathy at the thought myself. "I wouldn't want to be addicted to your blood." But even as I say it, the thought does something upsetting to me – it turns me on completely.

"You just can't lie very well," he says, staring down into my eyes.

"I know." I remember how I felt when I took his wrist in my mouth. "I can't even lie to myself. But I
hate
the idea, even if a part of my mind loves it. It would be terrible. It would be a tragedy."

"You don't ever have to do it," he says, his voice quiet. "I admit it appeals to me, but I hate the idea of it as well. I hate the idea that I want it. I have to pray very long and very hard about it, Eve. I do a lot of penance for it."

"Hmm," I say, smiling up at him. "I like the idea of you doing penance."

"Oh, I do an awful lot of it. Speaking of which," he says, trying to frown, but unable to wipe off that lopsided grin. "You weren't being a very good submissive tonight. You kept tempting me with your dimples. Several times you ignored my commands…" He raises his eyebrows playfully.

"I need more training," I say, grinning as wickedly as I can manage.

He makes that throat sound and presses his erection against me harder.

"Do you have any
idea
what that does to me?"

I press back against him. "I think I have a pretty
good
idea. So tell me how you'd train me."

He cups my cheek, strokes my skin with his thumb.

"I'd issue orders and you'd obey without question, without hesitation. You would do anything I asked without even thinking. If you didn't perform up to my standard, I'd have to discipline you, making you do it until you got it right," he says, all breathy. "If you completely rejected my order, I'd have to punish you. Punishment is for when you don't even try. That would mean you're being a brat and then I'll spank you. Or perhaps, if you were being a brat in order to
get
me to spank you, I'd not even give you the pleasure of my spanking. You'd be topping from the bottom and someone like me doesn't appreciate that. Then I'd ignore you."

"I don't like being ignored," I say. "But what if I didn't like what you told me to do?"

"You'd simply trust me to know what you really like and don't like and what you can handle. And because of this connection," he says, pressing his forehead to mine, "you could trust that I
do
know. Even if you lie to yourself. You see why my being able to read you now without you being able to block me is so important?"

"It scares me," I say, swallowing back anxiety. "How omniscient you are. Knowing me better than I know myself."

"But you can know me as well," he says softly. "In a way no normal human can. You'll get better and better at it – listening in, finding things. I've only got an advantage because you're so new at this. I've had eight hundred years of practice."

I look up at him, his blue eyes so beautiful, his dark hair hanging a bit in his eyes, his skin so pale like an angel, and I have to look away. The age thing does something funny to me that I can't immediately understand, and don't want to. I only know it makes me feel weak-kneed and a bit dizzy.

"How do I submit?" I say, barely able to speak, my cheeks hot. "When I'm so used to being in control?"

"Just give yourself permission. Don't question. Don't hesitate. Don't resist. Don't
think
. Just
do
."

"But thinking is how I get through the day."

"You don't need to think with me." He takes my chin in his hand and tips my face up, staring into my eyes. "It doesn't mean you're weak. It means you're strong. It means you trust me. A priest understands submission, Eve. Priests aren't weak because they submit to God's will. It makes us strong. That absolute trust provides so much strength and comfort. It's our joy. It could be yours as well."

I could never submit to God because He was just a concept to me. Some distant and abstract idea. But Michel's real. He's flesh and blood and I could submit to him. I close my eyes because this is making me so emotional, my eyes brimming. It's turning me on so much, emotionally and physically, and I feel almost faint, like I'm not getting enough oxygen and I try to breathe in deeply to calm my pounding heart.

"Mon dieu. Je vous trouve très belle,"
he says, his voice breaking. "You are so
beautiful
…" He takes my face in his hands and leans down to kiss me, finally, his lips soft on mine, tender, then parting, his kiss becoming more passionate so that my heart races and my body responds. He pulls back and looks in my eyes, and I see so much desire there, so much lust.

"Eve," he says, his voice husky. "Take off your clothes."

I swallow back the impulse to be embarrassed and begin to strip off my clothes, my coat, my sweater, pants and underwear and stand naked before him.