The Vampire Queen's Servant (16 page)

He managed to focus on her, just
in front of and below him. With that inscrutable gaze in place again and no
further conversation, she sank down and put her mouth on his cock, letting her
fangs scrape him.

He reacted violently, throwing
back his head so it rapped against the wood hard, but he barely felt it.

Her location shot his mind to
the thought of where she'd said she'd put the second mark. Each of the marks
had a serious functional purpose. The first mark was a tracking mechanism,
allowing her to know his whereabouts at any time. So while at the time he'd
felt triumph at her decision to give the first mark, he now understood it was
the least impulsive of the marks to give, because it safeguarded her against
betrayal. The next mark would link their minds, allowing her to speak to him
without words. Even more significantly, it allowed her to tap into his thoughts
whether he wanted her to do so or not. From the past few hours, Jacob was
beginning to think it was that mark he needed to be most apprehensive about,
despite the ominous significance of the third. The final mark linked him to her
immortality, prolonging his life three or four times its normal span. However,
as with the other marks, it came with a darker side. Much darker. If she was killed,
he died as well.

He'd asked if the first and
second marks were two-way. Thomas's cryptic reply had been, "when she
allows it." He'd told Jacob she could block his awareness of her whenever
she chose to do so. In short, the marks tilted the scales all her way.

But perhaps there might come a
time when he would know her mind, her heart, whether she willed it or not. When
she would let her defenses down for him. The thought helped steady him.

Nothing else did. Her tongue
teased the underside of his cock, licking as she nuzzled his balls. She didn't
go fully down on it, though he ached to feel the sucking pressure of that
petite, perfect mouth. She rose, her gaze heavy lidded, lips moist.

"You have a nice taste.
You've no idea how it feels to me to see you restrained, going to bed knowing
your cock will ache and leak for me, your dreams full of me…"

Turning away, she went to the
armoire and opened it. Sliding open a narrow drawer, she trailed a finger
through the contents. He heard clinking sounds like metal.

When she turned she had
something in her hand that looked like the double-looped wire harness put on
the neck of a bottle of wine to hold the cork securely. It had three circles in
progressive sizes. The widest one was made of chain and threaded with pewter
beads. The middle circle was a silver cuff, and the smallest of the loops had a
decorative convex cap made of bronze. On the concave side of the cap there was
a two-inch-long thin rod of surgical steel, slightly wider than pencil lead,
except it flared to a bulb-shaped end similar to a Q-tip.

When she opened the door of a
small cabinet in the armoire, a dim light activated within it, apparently to
help her see the array of glass bottles. His lady seemed to have a penchant for
stained glass in her home.

A home he assumed was still
above them, unless she'd distorted space and time so they were in a bubble
somewhere, floating in the universe beyond the range of help or anything he'd
ever known. A man began to have some desperate and strange thoughts when bound
so he couldn't move.

Putting down the object she'd
retrieved from the drawer, she picked up a bottle and poured a thick clear gel
in her hand. When she used it on the small piece of jewelry, he began to
understand, enough to be very concerned about that two-inch slender rod under
the concave cap.

She came back to him then, her
nipples dark smudges, her breasts quivering erotically with her movements under
the stretched hold of the lace, her sex taunting him. As she moved, she
unlatched the three loops, her fingers glistening with the oil.

"Your lack of piercings
didn't surprise me, but the lack of tattoos did." She cocked her head.
"It's rare to see a completely unmarked man your age. Why is that?"

He pulled his attention away
from the thing she was treating as jewelry and he was viewing as a potential
torture device. From the slight smile on her lips, he suspected she recognized
his struggle to focus.

"My brother always said if
you mark your body with a symbol, it means you stand by it forever. Only things
branded on the soul can be branded on the body. So far I've found the only
constant is that everything changes."

"You always have
yourself."

He managed a half smile, even as
his body tensed when she reached for him. "It seems
you
have me now."

"I do," she agreed.
"This rod," her finger caressed it, "is no wider than your
opening, actually a bit smaller, and it's going no further than the length of
my smallest finger. There are ways to relax the opening if you focus, take deep
breaths. Just let it slide in."

He nodded, but kept his eyes on
her face. Her hands gripped him, a cool, slick feeling evoking a moment of
panic he could do nothing about. She outlined the tiny slit at the tip of his
cock with the rod. "Did you know this opening is called the meatus? Do you
think that's why women think of men's penises as pieces of meat?"

He took a breath, then another.

"I won't hurt you, Jacob.
Not past bearing. Trust me, Sir Vagabond. Let go."

He tried. It was startling,
invasive and therefore uncomfortable, but she eased it in with gentle fingers.
The metal bar was as smooth as the arms of the cross beneath his body. She used
her thumb to position the cap on the head of his cock, like pushing in the head
of a tack. Then she ran the chains along his outside length. The quiet
snick
of the broader cuff of the second loop made him jump as she fastened it snugly
just behind the ridge of his head. When the third chain loop cinched around the
base of his cock and scrotum, his balls drew up at the unusual feeling of
restraint. Brushing against his thighs, the extra chain dangled down beneath
them, adding weight to the sensation because of the beads added there for that
purpose.

"Look down now," she
commanded softly.

When he did, he saw her hands
playing with his now well-lubricated cock. He'd lost some of his arousal to
trepidation, but her touch and the intense look in her eyes, reflecting her
great pleasure in adorning him, made it strain back against the chains, causing
pinching. Not unbearably painful, but apprehensively close. She'd made it tight
enough to hold him if he wasn't erect, so increasing the size increased the
feeling of binding. The discomfort reminded him he was hers, as he was sure she
intended.

The bronze disk with a pewter
inlay was centered at the tip of his cock, anchored there by the slender rod
inserted inside him. A pin-wheel of chains ran from it to the silver cuff she'd
clasped behind the flare of his head. The longer chains running down his cock
to the base and his scrotum were interspersed with uncut gems that dug into his
shaft. He was going to pass a difficult day waiting for her to wake.

"You're beautiful."
She said it softly, barely a breath of sound. She sank to her knees and
considered him from eye level, coming close to run her tongue just under the
cap, touching his invaded slit.

Jacob groaned, a primitive wave
of response rolling through his body. He winced as the hold of the jewelry
tightened further. But he couldn't stop himself. Oh, holy Jesus… she was
lapping, nipping at him, her oiled hands stroking over him, squeezing his
balls, fingering at his ass though he reflexively clenched there. Her oiled
finger and the nail stabbed at him, wriggled, got past the tight muscles of his
buttocks to play around the rim.

"Lady… Mercy." He had
no idea what coming with that rod inside him would do, but he'd never been so
aroused and uncomfortable at once. Over all of that, the greatest ache came
from the coil of need in his lower belly, which made him want to bury himself
in her willing cunt as he had earlier. If the past several hours were what
daily life with her would be like, he suspected she'd kill him long before they
ever got to the second mark, let alone the third.

"Do I strike you as a
merciful creature, Jacob?" She nipped at him again, tugging on one of the
chains and inciting a jolt of reaction he felt deep in his testicles. "Do
you know you can get much longer rods? They can vibrate, even make musical
tones when they vibrate against you, like the rims of wine glasses."

"Someone has too damn much
time on their hands," he said desperately.

Rising with a glint in her gaze,
she pushed on the cross. With the release of a lever, she reclined him back to
a forty-five-degree angle. "So you can sleep," she explained the
adjustment. "Perhaps join me in my dreams."

"You're going to leave me
like this."

"Yes." She nodded.
"As I said, it leaves you nothing but time to think." She bent over
him, her hair falling so it brushed his bare chest. Reaching through the
strands, she caressed him again, tapped on the top of the jeweled adornment for
his cock. "But if you sleep, I may come to visit you in your dreams."

He couldn't find words to answer
that, not with the desire hot in her eyes, filling him with the unfamiliar
desire to beg for something. Her mercy… her cruelty. Maybe just her. But he bit
it back. When he said nothing, she turned away with a bemused look.
Extinguishing all but one of the candles in the far corner of the room provided
enough light that when she walked toward the bed, the snug grip of the lace on
her hips showed him the movement of her ass, the shadow of the cleft in
between. Putting a hand to the heavy carved bedpost, she used it to lift
herself onto the high bed. For one agonizing moment, she was on all fours, her
knees wide enough to show him the lips of her pussy beneath the pattern.
Turning on one hip, she stretched out, fanning her hair across her left
shoulder as she lay down on her right side. When she flipped it back, it
created a shining wave on the creamy linen expanse of the pillow.

"I think I'll sleep on top
of the covers." Her gaze lingered on him like a cat enjoying her dinner.
"I expect my dreams will keep me warm enough."

Balancing accounts, memorizing
household duties… Thomas should have drowned him in all the forbidden pleasures
of a Spanish bordello so she couldn't so effectively destroy his concentration
with things he'd never experienced before. Somehow, however, he doubted that
would have helped. What affected his body when it came to her was far more than
physical, and she seemed to exploit that at every turn. On how many men had she
honed the skill?