Elusive Hero: Invitation to Eden (Vampire Queen Series Book 12) (10 page)

She and the others had dragged him from his horse and he’d bled to death. Despite his transgressions, she’d unsuccessfully tried to staunch the wound. Ten days later, Jared’s body had come home in a pine box, on a wagon drawn by a mule and guided by a man who looked as old as she felt when she understood that box held her husband.

At the time, she’d been too numb to realize it, but in the later weeks, months and years of the war, she realized what a mysterious miracle it had been to be able to put her husband to rest. Neither side was prepared for how to handle literally thousands of dead during wartime. A shallow or mass grave was the best fate for most, with far worse for others. The old man would not tell her who had paid him to bring Jared home. She learned that much, much later.

Jared had been her first and only Master. Of course, they didn’t use all the terms they used now. Yet when they made love, when he held her wrists to the bed, her desire would rise like the tides, and he’d noticed it. He was as much of a natural Master as she was a submissive, and they explored so many things together. Playful children, madly in love, so young. Even though he’d been twenty-eight, ten years older than her eighteen years when they married, she knew now how young they both had been. She’d been twenty-two when he died, and she’d thought she’d break apart when she lost her Master, her lover, her husband, her heart.

The grief had given her the strength of hate. She’d walked away from her past and put on the mask of a Union sympathizer. That, and her looks, had allowed her to feed information to the Confederacy, sway some battles. She’d taken greater risks as the war became more desperate, as she began to fear it would all be for naught. Maybe she’d wanted to be killed. Even so, she’d often wondered how it would have changed the war if she’d gotten that last missive through. But she’d been captured, and that failure had weighed on her heavily for a long time.

Because she was a woman and beautiful, she had it better than most, turned into an unpaid camp whore, eventually serving the needs of the captain in charge of the prison camp, as well as his higher ups when they came for official visits.

In the end, the resources of the industrial North triumphed. Decades later she would get past the hate, realizing that humans would forever kill one another on battlefields, the same way vampires would always fight for supremacy within their much smaller world.

But there had to be something left over to make it meaningful. Something real. Her hand settled over the collar on her throat, stroking it.

She realized she was staring at the communicator, sitting on the nightstand. Reaching out, Kaela closed her hand on it, brought it back into the covers with her. She lay there another half hour, wondering.

Turning onto her other side, she fingered the communicator. She knew she was being fanciful, but it seemed to hold the warmth of his fingers. She held it to her cheek, moved it to the pulse in her throat, felt the beat against the metal, the faint hum of the device.

Whatever his motives, Vardalos had gone to great lengths to craft an environment that assured her she could exercise her cravings, but Garron had picked up on her recurring despair that it just wasn’t that easy. What if she couldn’t surmount her defenses to take a single step closer to her desires?

Garron had gotten past the first line. Maybe even the second. But there was still a long way to go. Merely saying—“Look, the stage is set. All you have to do is step onto it and start…acting.”—wasn’t enough. That was the problem, wasn’t it? She could act all day long. She didn’t know how to be her real self.

This was hopeless. She shouldn’t have done this. Because he’d been holding it, she tucked the communicator under her cheek. She liked the way his hand had felt on her face. That at least didn’t get a rise out of her insecurities. Vampires were sensual creatures and indulged that sensuality almost as carelessly as humans breathed.

“Garron Rand,” she murmured. The name rolled off her tongue. Garron meant guardian. It suited him well. He looked like a man who’d been crafted of the clay of warriors, a man who bore the marks of his battles. It was in his eyes as well. He held control because it gave him pleasure, release, and fed a dark need.

We don’t have to rush…
He’d said that, yet he’d also said she could change her mind, go with a pro Dom. But she suspected there’d been a lot simmering beneath that controlled courtesy.

She always took time to figure out her opponents; their strengths, weaknesses and what motivated them. Over the years she’d improved at it, such that she could often size someone up within a matter of minutes. He was a Dom, through and through, and he’d likely be a demanding one. Sometimes cruel. The thought didn’t dismay her, because she suspected he could find the part of a woman’s soul that desired that cruelty. He’d never strike without pleasurable cause.

But beyond that, he remained an intriguing mystery. She believed him when he said this was voluntary, that he wasn’t being paid to top her. Despite her earlier defensiveness, she knew it wasn’t because she was some kind of testosterone challenge for him, a Dom mastering the big, bad vampire.

“Garron,” she breathed again. She wanted to put her fingers between her legs, but that was what she did in the hours before dawn alone. It seemed too sad to do it here.

“Kaela.”

He spoke in her ear, and she jumped, not expecting it. Had she somehow activated the communicator by speaking his name? Or maybe she’d accidentally hit that direct call button, though she hadn’t heard it ring.

“Yes.”

“What do you need?”

She stayed silent. In her world, there was no nervous chatter, no “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to dial you”, especially when she wasn’t sure that was truly the case. “I don’t know. Something.”

She might be seeking something impossible to achieve in a limited time period. A pro Dom might be the best experience she could get. But she wanted something real, and Garron with his ten vacation days was offering her something real. Which made her wonder why it was so important to him. Did Theodosius offer his employees the same chance he offered his guests, to turn a lifelong fantasy into a reality, no matter how temporary? She’d had Jared for barely a blink of her current lifespan, yet it was the greatest treasure her mind held.

“I don’t want a professional Dom.”
I want you.

“I’m glad to hear that, my lady.” Despite the staid response, she picked up the potent undercurrent of a male staking out his territory. It confirmed her earlier suspicions of what she’d detected behind his courteous offer to give her care over to a pro Dom. It made her smile, even as her hand tightened on the communicator, her body curling around it, an unconscious desire to bring herself as close as possible to that stimulating tone.

He’d changed position, his voice more pronounced. “Did you break the threads?”

“No, I didn’t.”

A pause stretched out between them. “So did you call me because you want permission to go to the bathroom?”

“I may not break the threads, but I will hang up on you.”

His chuckle sent intriguing little surges through her body. “So I’ve found a hard limit. You won’t bat an eyelash at fire play, suspension, being caned until you’re bloody or fucked up the ass with a tree branch, but nix on the asking me to go potty.”

“The tree branch might need to be negotiated. And if you ever say ‘go potty’ again, I will not only ask for a pro Dom, I will turn in a scathing evaluation to Mr. Vardalos that says you are an unmannerly jackass with an exceptionally tiny penis.”

His deep-throated laugh made those surges transform into something that swirled and hitched in her chest. “I like that frosty edge to your voice,” he said. “You just barely avoided adding ‘peasant’ to the end.”

“I thought it was implied well enough not to be overstated.” She smiled.

“Makes me want to tie you up and stripe your ass.”

“You have those kinds of fantasies? Lady of the manor and big, brutish stable hand who’s going to take her down a peg or two?”

“Sounds like you have,” he responded. “Which isn’t surprising, since you have to be overlord all the time. Why don’t you tell me about one of those fantasies?”

“Are you my confessor now?”

“I can be anything and everything, Kaela. You already know that. You just don’t know if you can trust me.”

“You haven’t earned it.”

“No. But there has to be a first step.”

He’d gotten serious again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had an equal give and take conversation like this. She didn’t encourage familiarity with Fran, for obvious reasons, and with vampires…same problem. Because she couldn’t afford to slip up.

“All right,” she said at last. And took that first step. “I think I had that particular fantasy for the first time around 1910. I was visiting a business associate in London, and he had a stable full of beautiful carriage horses. He was resisting the introduction of the automobile.”

“Who could blame him? Ford hadn’t come out with the Mustang.”

She smiled again. “There was a man who worked in the stables, a big man who was gentle with the horses but who watched me in a very non-gentle way whenever I came to visit them. I don’t ride but I enjoy watching horses, from a distance. They don’t really take to most vampires.”

“They sense a tiger’s been put on their back.”

“Yes. But I could watch them in the paddock. I remember one day that stable hand was leaning on the fence, just far enough away from me to seem respectful, but close enough to be…a presence. When I looked his way, there was this expression on his face… The way he wiped his knuckles over his mouth, the dirt of a hard day’s work on him…”

“Tell me what you imagined, Kaela.” His voice dropped lower, a part of the darkness swirling around her. She closed her eyes and let it take her.

“I imagined him following me back to the stables. I’d be irritated by the way he was looking at me, and would order him to saddle my horse. I’d be sharp with him, impatient. Instead of obeying as he always did, he’d sneer at me, take liberties. He’d come up behind me, press himself against me, all sweat, the smell of horses and man, put his filthy hands on my breasts, pull open the habit I was wearing. I would turn around, intending to slap his face, use my crop…”

“But he takes it away from you. Tells you that he’s not going to saddle a horse for you until you learn how to ask nicely, the way a lady should. He decides putting you over a saddle for a nice hard ride might work better for him.”

Heat rippled over her skin. She wanted him to keep going, and he did, taking her fantasy away from her and expanding it.

“He’d put his hands in your hair, tug it out of that smooth, perfect twist. He’d yank you over to the saddle he was cleaning before you arrived and started ordering him around. He’d push you down over it, pull up your skirts. You’d be struggling, even as you’re getting more excited, fighting the shameful pleasure of being overwhelmed. What would happen?”

“He’d use the crop on me.” She noticed she sounded a little breathless. “I’d feel the first strike over my underwear, but that’s not enough for him.”

“No. It wouldn’t be. He’d want to see the marks he’s leaving on your pale skin. See how your pussy is getting wet, because after that punishment, what you really want is him to drive his cock into you, fuck you over that saddle, teach you a lesson once and for all. Teach you not to put on airs around him.”

This was insane. Inappropriate.

“It’s sheer fantasy, Kaela,” he said softly at her pause. “Nothing wrong with it at all. Are you wet?”

She thought again about taking that first step. “Yes. And hungry. Really hungry.”

“You have to earn your meal. Are you willing to earn it?”

“I…yes.”

“Nothing as sexy as a woman who makes up her mind and doesn’t back away from it. The communicator has a detachable earpiece. Remove it, put it inside that pretty, delicate ear. The one your stable hand would probably lick and nibble, stick his tongue into, even as you squirmed and tried to bite him. He’d grab your delicate jaw in his big hand, hold you still so he could do it some more.”

A little shaky, she nevertheless lifted her head, looked at the device and figured it out. “Done.”

“Good. Now, put that longer piece between your legs. Make sure the rounded part is against your clit.”

She blinked, but complied. Just the contact of the smooth rounded base was enough to have her pussy flexing at the pressure.

“Cross your ankles, and hold your thighs together.” His voice not only filled her head, but everything below it. “Keeping your legs tight together will keep it up against your clit. Imagine I’ve wrapped rope all the way from your ankles up to your thighs. You can’t spread your legs, no matter how much you want to show your Master how eager you are to be fucked.”

She jolted as it started to vibrate. “What…how?”

“I have the controls to the vibration feature. You won’t come, Kaela. Not without my permission. Now keep telling me about your fantasy. What else does he do to you?”

“What…does he want to do to me?”

“Every inappropriate, dirty thing he’s ever imagined doing to a highborn lady like yourself.” Garron’s voice had thickened with lust. “He wants to see you come from his touch, his mouth, his cock. Every time he watches you ride, every time he sees you from a distance, he’s had fantasies of taking you over, teaching you to surrender to him. Doesn’t matter that he’s just a stable hand. He knows when he has you like this, you’re all his. You belong to him. You give yourself to whatever you both desire. That’s all that matters.”

“Yes. The rest doesn’t matter.”

She pressed her hips into the mattress, lifted up, because the stimulation of the vibrator and his voice, the fantasy, was making it impossible for her to be still.

“Are you moving, Kaela?”

She must have jostled the phone piece. “Just my hips. Not my legs.”

“Don’t move at all. Nothing below the neck. Let it build, make you crazy.” His rough whisper was like fingers skating down her navel and over her mound.

“When you’re pushed over that saddle, he hits you with the crop until your ass is marked with a dozen welts. He doesn’t hold back, even when you cry. The tears and your curses turn him on. He’s tied up your legs, ankles to thighs just like I described. He likes the way you cry out in pain, even as your thighs try to spread, your pussy lips glistening. He takes the head of the crop, slides it into that slick honey pot, rotates it to gather some up and brings it to your mouth, makes you suck on it and taste yourself. He has you lift your chin, close your eyes, and flicks the end of the crop over your lips, your cheeks. Not hitting you, teasing you. He gives you another smart smack on the ass, because you started to lower it. He wants it up high, wants to see your cunt.”