Beloved Vampire (29 page)

Therefore, he didn’t need the servant’s communication when Jessica started tossing and turning, crying out in her sleep. The nightmare that had started in the dungeon area was returning to haunt her, with more crowded visions of blood and pain, cruel laughter and helpless agony.

How could she escape being drowned completely in such madness? She was capsized in an ocean of it, and each time she struggled back into the flimsy boat she’d created, another wave could submerge her again.

And how could he bear it? Her every cry, every wave of fear and pain, resonated inside him as if it were his own. Was she right? In the end, would it have been better to give her the mercy killing she wanted in Farida’s tomb? When Farida had died . . .

He drew back his lip to snarl at himself.
She isn’t Farida. She can beat this, if you have faith in her.
Perhaps that was why Farida had suffered as she did. Perhaps he hadn’t been strong enough to endure what he must.
Perhaps that is why Allah has
sent her to you.

Ah, by Allah indeed, he was losing his mind, as surely as Jessica was.

Amara, ease her. She responds to sensuality, and a woman’s touch will not frighten her as mine does.

He sensed a hesitation from his servant, a flicker in her mind he ignored because there was no room in his churning brain to hear it, but then Amara rose from the chair where she’d been reading. Going to the bed, she settled on one hip next to Jessica’s restless body.

She stroked the young woman’s hair, traced the delicate shell of an ear, picking up her Master’s desires and following them, a conduit for his need to touch the troubled girl. Down the throat again, a fingertip sliding on the artery, then out to the collarbone.

She’d put her in a light cotton gown, so it was easy for Jessica’s flesh to feel the caress.

Mason stayed in both minds, his willing servant and unwilling one, weighing the dual responses. He’d made it no farther than his upper-level study, but now he was back outside her room, sitting in the hallway, no more than fifty feet from her bed. Dawn was still far off, and he wasn’t going to go below anyway, not when she was like this.

Jess’s dreams paused, disrupted by Amara’s skillful fingers. The woman moved down the sternum, to the abdomen and back up, letting the hint of intimacy draw the attention of Jess’s body in an easy, dreamlike way, taking energy away from the nightmares.

Returning to the neck, she caressed Jess’s throat and the girl’s chin slowly lifted, arched in an unconscious invitation that made Mason’s fingers curl in a fist on his thigh. The throat was one of the most erogenous zones she had, always craving a collar, whether it be of flesh or gems, steel or velvet.

The buttons of the cotton gown slipped free under Amara’s hands until the two sides fell back and Jess’s body was bare, her legs moving restlessly for a different reason. Amara cupped her breasts, thumbs moving slowly, not quite touching the nipples, the teasing touch making them harden and Jessica’s thighs loosen further.

Amara’s mind said she could smell the girl’s arousal. She was wondering where her touch and Jess’s dreams had taken her. Mason knew, and it took willpower to stay where he was. If Amara’s stirring caresses had taken Jess deeper into the twisted carnality of her nightmare, he would have commanded her to stop, but the images in Jess’s mind were now of him. His mouth drifting down her skin, his hair tangled by her fingers as he moved between her legs, tasted the sweet honey gathered on her labia. His tongue nudging her clit, so she arched and spread further for his pleasure, her body begging to be swept away, given pleasure that would drown her, that would not bring fear and pain in its wake.

Amara’s mouth was on her now, following that track, following where his mind had unconsciously bade her go, and he closed his hand into a fist as she molded her hands on Jess’s hips, and Jess’s fingers found Amara’s luxurious mane. Amara loosened her barrette, let the dark tresses of her hair fall against Jess’s flesh. The sleeping woman sighed with pleasure, feeling the fall of Mason’s hair against her skin. Amara made another nip, a tender kiss above her mound, brushing the sensitive bone with her chin. But when Jessica moaned, Amara stopped, for a name had slipped from between the young woman’s lips. Mason.

My lord, come to her. She does fear male touch, but she does not fear yours. You are what she wants.

When Amara straightened, keeping a hand on Jess, she turned her head to find her lord already in the room. She would have smiled, but there was a powerful yearning hovering in the air. Bowing, she slid off the bed, giving way to him. She did not wait for the order to leave, but gathered her book and slipped out the door, closing it behind her.

Mason put a knee on the bed, staring down at Jessica. She was not the most beautiful woman in the world, though she was lovely.

It was the strength in her face, the resilience in the chin, the fire in her eyes when open. Allah, her tears alone had the power to strip him raw, for they were hard tears, tears of fury and anger with her own weakness, not the easy tears of a woman who trusted herself enough to let them fall.

It was not her pain that held him mesmerized, though, but her capacity for pleasure despite it. He had told her to learn to trust him, and here they were, him knowing consciously what that meant, and her unconsciously. It wasn’t what most people understood trust to be, what it meant in the dark regions of her soul. That was the part of her he had to reach to help her trust him, utterly and completely. Consciously, as well as in her dreams.

He hadn’t demanded such faith from a woman in a long time. For three hundred years, he’d been afraid to do so. But at the heart of it all, vampires were closer to beasts than men, and he didn’t question instinct. Territory. The need for blood or possession.

Bending, he placed his lips on her abdomen, and it contracted beneath his mouth.
You are so lovely,
habiba
. Give yourself over
to me. Let me give you pleasure, take away your nightmares.

She stirred, coming out of her dreams into the reality of him, and he sensed her mind drifting between the two. Her fingers found his temple, drifted across his hair.

It’s dark.
“I’m afraid. I need the light.”

“No,
habiba
. You only need to know the dark can hold more than pain and terror.” His lips returned to her belly, soft, persuasive.

The heat of his tongue traced a lazy circle, so that she couldn’t help herself. Jessica did as she wanted, tangling her fingers in the thick copper silk of his mane.

When her hand touched his head, it was a benediction, inspiring thoughts both sacred and profane. Mason took his time, nuzzling her, working his way lower, toward that slick, heated well that spoke of her craving need, which called out to his own.

But she needed him other places as well, and he responded, sliding farther onto the bed so that he could close his hand over one sweet breast. Amara’s gentle touches had not been enough. She needed demand, that barely leashed, near-violent lust that the right female roused in a male, to sweep her away. And though she didn’t trust a male for that, Amara had been right. In this dreamlike state, exhausted, for this one precious moment, she was letting herself trust him.

He read her surprise that he’d anticipated her desire to have her breast touched, and he smiled against her flesh.
You fear having a
vampire in your mind,
habiba
, but you have not been taught the benefits. Anything you desire I can see, feel. It need only
cross your mind and I will give it to you.

He pleasured himself with the weight of the small curve, the sensitive tip that hardened further at his touch, eagerly pressing into his palm as she twisted and arched again. When her thigh rose, a pale column in the semidarkness, it fired his blood further as she tried to hook a heel around his side, pulling him to her. He closed a hand on it, so he could mouth his way along the inside as she shuddered beneath his touch, unable to pull free as he used his strength to hold her. A subtle reminder that she was all his, the dominance too much a part of him to put aside. He had no desire to quell it. With her, he found himself raging to use it in ways he hadn’t in some time, ways that would prove the differences between what she’d experienced before, at the hands of a male who never should have been allowed near her. No male should. Only him.

Her aroma was too much. He turned his face into her waiting pussy and indulged in a long, leisurely lick, gathering her sweet cream on his tongue and relishing her cry of response, the aggressive tug on his hair from her slim fingers. Sliding her leg over his shoulder, he raised her hips to his face, causing her to reach up and grasp the railings of the headboard, an unconscious surrender and anchor both.

Penetrating her with his tongue, he flicked, suckled and ate at that succulent fruit that offered juices to his laving tongue until he was growling. He wanted to score her thighs with the tips of his fangs, make tiny marks of his ownership over the tiger-shaped third mark. It was an urge he barely managed to suppress, conscious on the rising tide of his own desires that she was teetering on a fragile line.

In her mind, he heard whispers of incomprehensible things—needs, fears—and yet one thing for certain.
More, more, more.
She’d been forced to climax so many times, but never had she been given true pleasure, true fulfillment. Her body was so eager, so hot for it, that as he drove her higher and higher, as he’d hoped, it shed the shadows, began to burn fierce and bright, moving eagerly toward what the young female muscles and heated blood wanted.

He turned her then, in an effortless move, bringing her up on hands and knees, and covered her, pressing his still-clothed cock against that damp juncture as he reached beneath her and claimed her breasts again, knowing the blood flow rush would make the nipples even more sensitive. He scraped her nape, but didn’t bite. This had to be all about her, though he wouldn’t deny his own desire was building to a point beyond which he wouldn’t be able to recall himself. He was lost in her desperate need, so strong it overwhelmed his senses. So many things flooding her mind, jumbled emotions, desires, a five-year tsunami too torrential to be handled in one night.

She would need release, night after night after night, until it would ease to a downpour. He would gladly help her weather the storm.

Clothes
. . .
naked. Want you.

When he lifted off her to unbutton his shirt, she surprised him by turning around on her knees, lithe and quick. Grasping both sides of the open collar, she tore it. Her mouth fastened on his chest, tasting him, licking, and when she found a nipple she bit, pressing her body urgently against his, her stomach against his steel erection. Her hands were there now, trying to find the workings of his trousers.

Those whispers were becoming comprehensible, damn it all. She didn’t want to be in this reality. She wanted to be in some strange, out-of-control dream where she could pretend in the morning it hadn’t really been her wanting him this much, wanting to feel like this. She wasn’t ready. Truth be told, maybe he wasn’t either. The intensity swirling in this room wasn’t all from her.

He caught her hands, stilling her.
Jessica.

She looked up at him with wild eyes as she pulled against his hold.
Don’t stop. Don’t stop.

“I have to,” he said quietly.

“No.” She bared her teeth, tried to yank herself from him, tried to fight him. The things in her head became far less complimentary.

In fact, outrageously inventive, such that he would have been impressed, except he was swamped by the raging heat of her frustration and his own.

Scooping an arm around her, he brought her forehead firmly back to his bare chest, cradling the side of her face to hold her still.

She struck at his midsection, but he had the advantage in strength and balance on the mattress. While she subjected her body to a fierce struggle that left her panting, he waited her out. At length she drew her arms in against her, like a bird’s wings crossing over her breasts, hugging herself. He tightened his grip then, creating a cocoon for her against his body. She was still vibrating with her need and it burned in his lower belly, like searing fire held to a vampire’s flesh.

Judging her calm enough, he eased her back to the sheets. She stared up at him, so much swirling in the gray eyes. But as if she couldn’t bear to look at him directly, she turned her head into his fall of hair as he stretched out on her, fully clothed. He guided her face back to him.

You keep looking at me,
habiba
. Or I will stop.

Jessica caught her breath as his hand moved between them, found her wet folds, and began to manipulate her there with consummate skill. She was furious with him, for all she’d wanted was him inside her, and yet at that touch, she couldn’t deny him.

She was glad he hadn’t returned there with his mouth, for that, while incredible, had not met the emotional need of having him up here with her, his body on hers, his gaze close. His broad shoulder leaned over her, his leg trapping one of hers as his booted foot kept the other spread to give him the access he desired. Her lips parted, and her breath clogged in her throat. Fumbling, she found his arm, dug her nails into the hard biceps. She couldn’t bear to look into that face that knew so much about her, but she couldn’t bear for him to stop. So even though she wanted to bury her expression in that acre of muscular chest, so close and emanating heat against her, she stared in his eyes as he’d commanded. An excruciating, sweet torment, seeing how he saw her.

As he built her higher and higher, the breaths and gasps, cries and pleas, wrenched from her throat. It was too much. When her face contorted with her desire and she turned it away, into his neck, he stopped. His hand covered her mound and labia, in a way that had her twitching uncontrollably.

The true purpose of a chastity belt, love. That broad strap, fitted for the shape of your pussy, softened so it will not chafe,
cups you. Yes, it locks you in until your Master wishes to access your sweet pleasures, but because of its restraint you think
of his hand there at all times, possessing you, claiming you as only his. Now look at me. I want to see your face as you
come. Watch you as you scream for me.