Mastered: Ten Tales of Sensual Surrender (12 page)

Tonight he had. In a way that had her swallowing, hard.

He wore a pair of belted jeans and nothing else. The body she’d enjoyed touching for such a brief time in the bedroom was on mouthwatering display, the sculpted pectorals and tight abs, the shoulders just the right breadth. The jeans weren’t tight, but they were worn enough to cling the right way to groin and ass. He was stretched out on a blanket on his side, head propped up on one hand, his body sprawled out like a lazy predator, an impression enhanced by the sharp focus of his eyes, covering her from head to toe.

“Put on the shoes, then come to me,” he said.

She’d maneuvered on the four-inch stilettos well enough in the halls. Maybe better than well enough. That pendulum sway to her hips the unstable shoes required had been another thing Ja—those she passed—noticed.

Brian’s eyes glinted, acknowledging the wisdom of her self-editorializing. Balancing herself precariously, she put on one shoe, then the other. The only way to walk across the few feet of grass in stilettos would be carefully, on her toes, a mincing gait that made her breasts quiver in a way she could tell he liked. He even pushed himself up on one straightened arm to get a better look. For her part, she couldn’t take her eyes off his bare chest, the corded throat, his muscles layered and stretched over his abdomen, drawing the eyes to denim molded around his groin. He was aroused, evident by the sizeable strain in that area. She moistened her lips.

Right before she stumbled.

She’d never been good with the blasted things, even on solid surfaces. For the most part, Brian had always been fine with her wearing modest one- or two-inch heels for Council events or vampire formal occasions to save her embarrassment. As a result, this was the only pair of spiky heels she owned, purchased early in their relationship when she was learning what vampires liked to see their servants wear. When she first wore them, Brian hadn’t seemed that intrigued, so she’d put them away.

She expected a face plant in the grass. Instead, she found herself caught against that solid chest, his arms around her as he steadied her, drew her back to an upright position that pressed her lace-clad breasts against his bare skin. He smiled down at her. “Kick them off.”

She did. She was average height without them, but right now he felt so much taller.

“Next time I’ll have you wear your canvas sneakers,” he said. “That old ratty white pair you like so much.”

“It wouldn’t go so well with this outfit.”

“I think it goes perfectly with you.” He slid the light coat off her shoulders so she was in bra and panties alone. Then he bent and placed a kiss on her back, below her left shoulder blade.

Directly over her third mark.

The significant, tender and yet possessive gesture made every nerve ending in her body yearn toward that spot, her heart somersaulting. Every full servant bore a mark, a cross between a scar and a birthmark that appeared during the third marking. When he’d fully marked her all those years ago in the lab, her third mark had appeared on her back, positioned over her heart. It looked like an X, with the two top ends thickened.

The shape of the mark was dictated by forces beyond vampire understanding, usually an unmistakable meaning to it. She hadn’t yet figured out what hers was, but just having his mark had always been meaningful enough to her.

He brushed his lips over it again. “Sweet servant,” he murmured. “Down on the blanket. On your back.”

As she complied, he stood over her, watching, and it stole her breath, his arousal prominent against the jeans, his unapologetic virility. It was a side of Brian very few ever saw. This version of it was new to her as well, but entirely welcome.

“I’m glad my servant approves.” He gave her a faint smile tinged with sensual warmth, telling her he wasn’t chiding her. “Spread your legs for your Master.”

She did, and he moved forward, hooking his foot under her right knee and moving it so it bent outward. Understanding, she did the same with the other, so her thighs formed a wide, empty cradle. The position also stretched her panties over her swollen cunt.

“You’re nice and wet already.”

“Yes, Master. For you.”

His gaze flickered up at the uneven sound of her voice. She was trying not to let the emotional interfere, but her heart was starting to race like a freight train. She didn’t want to have a panic attack, wanted to live in the moment and not worry about what this did or didn’t mean. But she couldn’t seem to be objective.

When he stood over her like this, he seemed so much bigger, larger than life. Like when they’d met. But that wasn’t why she’d fallen for him. It was when she realized he was a complicated mix that he’d won her heart. He was a genius, yes. He could also lose ten pens a week because he couldn’t remember where he’d put them down. He’d break off in mid-conversation with a high-ranking vampire simply because he went somewhere else in his head to solve a problem. Though it didn’t happen too often, she’d seen him lose his temper, break the top of a table with his fist. It had been yet another test of the serum cure for the Delilah virus, another failure to find an alternative to killing servants.

She was the one who’d convinced him they needed to take a short break on that project. Give it time to breathe and come back to it. They would find the solution that would save both servant and vampire eventually. She was sure of it.

It had been a while since she’d remembered so vividly that dangerous strength he possessed. He could crush her in his arms, yet she never feared his hold on her. Not for that reason.

She knew he was in her head. She could tell by his changed expression. But he didn’t say anything about those thoughts. He was her Master. It wasn’t his job to reassure or explain. She embraced that idea, even as the gaps it left felt like open wounds.

He dropped to one knee next to her, leaned down and stroked his fingers through her hair, spreading it out on the blanket. “Your hair has more colors of gold than autumn,” he observed. “You never color it.”

“No…I never have.”

Nodding, he traced her cheek, her lips. “And very rarely do you wear makeup. Sometimes for formal events you add some eye liner, shadow, and it makes your eyes even more soulful. They’re like a shy animal’s eyes, liquid brown and watchful, wanting to trust.”

“Master.”
Don’t. Please don’t.

His own eyes darkened. “I’ll do as I wish, won’t I? And you’ll bear it.”

She nodded, choked out a sob as he bent, put his mouth on hers. Not a penetrating, demanding kiss, but a meeting of lips where he nuzzled, breathed into her mouth. It was terribly unfair, that a man this intelligent could kiss like this.

He lifted his head only the necessary space to stare into her eyes. “You’ve been wanting to ask me a question this week. I thought I caught a glimpse of it once or twice, but it’s surrounded by a lot of emotions. I think we’ll both benefit from you being brave enough to walk out of that storm and ask the question.”

No. Don’t make me go through that again. Please.

He touched her face. “If you know one thing about vampires, you know we have a ruthless side. I’m no exception to that.”

No, he wasn’t. She closed her eyes. “Please don’t make me do it, Master.”

“Ask me the question, Debra. Trust me as you did once, long ago.”

That brought her eyes back open. While he still had that implacable look, there was something else there. A desire…a hope. Maybe a need for her to trust him.

He hadn’t earned that. She knew that, rationally. But the plain truth of it was she’d never been able to deny him anything.

Beyond that, sometimes a project turned up data that provided answers for another project. The Delilah virus cure had required in-depth research on the makeup of the servant himself or herself. As such, it had led to a hypothesis, still under investigation, that vampire servants were humans chemically disposed to being servants. Once in contact with a vampire, the human’s irresistible compulsion was to take the path that led to the full marking.

They’d done some preliminary research and found a general marker, but it seemed to have DNA linkages, suggesting many servants might have that compulsion only with vampires of a certain type of compatible anatomy. Chemical proof of soul mates, in a sense.

Remembering that untested hypothesis, as well as his changed behavior this week, the hopes he was trying to unbury inside her, she found the courage to ask the question.

“My lord…Master…did you…” She wet her lips, looked up at the moon. “When you did…what you did, with Lady Carmela, was it because…”

Did she really want an answer to such a painful question?

He slid his arm beneath her, lifting her into a sitting position to put himself behind her, his thighs bracketing her hips. Banding his arm across her chest, he touched his lips to her ear. “Ask it, Debra.”

His chest was a comforting firm brace behind her. Her hand fell on his thigh, nails digging in as she curled her other fingers over his forearm. “Was it to protect me?”

“It would make me seem noble and self-sacrificing if I said yes, wouldn’t it? You might find it in your heart to forgive me. But you would know that’s not the full truth, and I won’t let a lie stay between us.”

She almost heard her heart crack. She would have done the unthinkable, scrambled away, run back to her room and close the door, but he tightened his arm around her. He wasn’t done with her.

I’ll never be done with you.

She might die from the pain of that. She was starting to understand all too well why some servants took their lives.

In a heartbeat, she was on her back on the blanket again and he was leaning over her, looking more menacing than she’d ever seen him. A quick look around told her they were still alone, that he wasn’t bracing for an attack. Which meant that menace was directed toward her. Her heart skipped a beat as he captured her jaw in a bruising grip. The shadows of the night turned his eyes to storm fire. His fangs had unsheathed.

While Brian suffered from it far less than others, a vampire under the age of a hundred could be goaded to savagery, a loss of impulse control hazardous to everyone within reach. It appeared she had provoked it.

She froze, knowing it wouldn’t save her any more than a hapless field mouse, but she couldn’t have run from him anyway.

I forbid it, Debra. If even the thought of taking your life crosses your mind…

Her eyes widened at the terrible look on his face. It mattered to him.

“Of course it matters,” he snarled. “What kind of monster do you think I am?”

When she flinched, he made a visible effort to rein himself back. He sat back on his heels, but straddled her thigh, his other hand braced alongside her hip, keeping her on her back.

She moistened her lips. “Tell me why you did it. Honestly.”

“Except for that night, I’ve always been honest with you. Haven’t I?”

He had. Which was why that night had always held some sense of wrongness, because it felt like he’d lied to her. She’d foolishly clung to the hope Jacob had dangled as to why Brian had done it, but her Master had just taken that slim hope away, denying it was for such a selfless reason. She’d known that anyway. She wasn’t stupid. She just had never been able to figure out the whole of it. But would the truth help or make it worse? She tried to stave off the feeling that the ground was crumbling under her feet.

“He wasn’t entirely wrong. Just not entirely right.” Brian sighed, stroked her jaw, her neck, dropped his touch to the raised curve of one lace-clad breast. Then down even further, trailing along her stomach, a hip bone, the lace of her panties stretched over it. When he slid a fingertip below the edge, she trembled, hating him for being able to make her helpless to his desires when he was tearing her apart inside. His eyes darkened, seeing it, hearing it.

“I am a young vampire,” he said quietly. “Even younger then than I am now. I was fighting for credibility among my own kind, espousing ideas many thought were pointless. Vampires are about politics and power struggles, not about working together to solve problems like fertility and sun vulnerabilities. Or a synthetic blood that might make us less dependent on human blood, just in case someone ever comes up with something even more virulent than the Delilah virus. I’ve always known my desire to research these things weren’t idle curiosity, a personal hobby. Born vampires, the base stock for all vampires, are a terribly endangered species. A fragile one, in some ways.”

He shook his head. “It was essential, especially because of my age—let alone my outlandish ideas—that I always appear completely detached, objective.”

As he spoke, his gaze was sliding over her, an inch at a time it seemed, reminding her how thorough he could be, how detail-oriented. He caressed the other hip bone, making her twitch restlessly. Bending, he kissed her navel, rimmed it with his tongue. She was dying, her throat closed and choking her, heart aching. When she placed her hand on his head to stroke his hair and he turned enough to kiss her palm, she had to choke back another sob.

He lifted his head, met her gaze again. “I’d heard choosing your first full servant is a lot like a first crush. Having a servant to call my own, and one like you…it was a heady mix, such a brilliant woman willing to submit to me, become my servant.” A shadow crossed his gaze. “I spoke to others about it. When I described you to them, how impressed I was with you, how much I wanted you, my feelings must have shown. They teased me. Normal hazing, not even unkind really. But I thought my behavior reinforced what they believed, that I was still going through growth spurts, and my scientific pursuits were simply a phase.

“Then you told me you loved me. You asked if I loved you back. An honest question. You weren’t even nervous, so clear-eyed and direct. In your world, it simply is, right? Two people fall in love.”

Tears trickled out of her eyes and he put his lips to her cheek, capturing one. He cradled the other side of her face, absorbing those tears in his palm.

“It seemed like the test I was waiting for, to prove to them and you that you didn’t have that hold on me. I told myself I was teaching you a lesson, but I was teaching myself a lesson as well. Proving I had the self-control to accomplish everything I intended.”