Bound Guardian Angel (7 page)

“What did you do to your arms?” Micah tugged
Trace’s cheek with his fingertips and ran the razor up his
stubble.

His arms? He began to look down, forgetting
that he was bound, but he knew what Micah was referring to. He
wanted to know about the cuts and the self-inflicted bites. In his
cell, the self-mutilation had been all that had stood between his
sanity and full-on mutation.

“Well?” Micah cleared the shaving cream from
one side of his face and moved to the opposite side.

“I cut myself. It was how I kept my sanity
without you.”

Without you.
Something Trace never
wanted to endure again.

“The cuts aren’t healing,” Micah said
nonchalantly. “When was the last time you fed?” He wasn’t talking
about food. He was asking about blood.

Trace shrugged. “I don’t know. I lost track
of the days in there, especially at the end.”

“You need blood.” Nothing in Micah’s tone
betrayed what he was thinking, but when he tipped Trace’s head back
to shave the underside of his chin, he bent down and licked the
side of his neck. “You’ll feed from me,” he whispered against
Trace’s skin.

Just the thought of taking blood from his
master—from Micah—sent warmth into his belly, along with a stab of
hunger.

“Micah—”

“I’ll hear no protest. It will be my gift to
you if you please me in our session. And I know you will please
me.” Micah’s lips caressed his neck as he spoke. “I can replenish
myself from Sam later.”

The razor made one last pass over his skin,
and Micah stood without making eye contact, grabbed the towel, and
wiped the remaining shaving cream away.

“How is Sam?” Trace said, his body alive and
eager for more as Micah continued to reawaken his senses.

“Ready for you to rejoin us in our play with
one another.”

In other words, Sam wanted Trace to return
to his role of voyeur to her exhibitionist. “And you?”

Micah disappeared behind him, and Trace
heard the rustle of his cargo pants as he crouched and released his
bound hands. “What are you asking me, Trace?”

Before Trace was sent to King Bain’s
dungeon, he had admitted to Micah that he was attracted to both him
and Sam. How could anyone not be attracted to either of them? They
were beautiful. Just look at Micah. Trace’s gaze drank in his best
friend as he stepped in front of him again. Micah’s face was all
sharp angles, the perfect balance between handsome and brutally
sexy. Black hair hung in lustrous waves past his shoulders, and the
black shadow of facial hair lining his jaw made him look more like
a god than a sloppy bum. Micah was a sculpture of flesh and bone. A
vision. A magnificent work of art worthy of the Louvre.

Trace cleared his throat and rubbed his
thumbs over his wrists. “Are
you
eager for me to rejoin you
in your play with one another?”

A smile teased the corners of Micah’s mouth.
“You’ll just have to wait and see.” He pointed to the floor in
front of the chair. “Now, present yourself to me, slave.”

The time for talk was over. It was time to
revert back to full submission.

Trace dropped to the floor, on his knees, towel
still around his waist, head bowed. He placed his hands on his
thighs and waited. This was it. His dreams were coming true.

Micah’s black Doc Martens entered his field
of vision. “Every Dom you’ve had before me is nothing, slave.” He
paced to the side. “They could never give you what I can. They
never knew you like I do . . . like I
will
.
In time, you will submit to me as you’ve never submitted to
anyone.” He began walking a slow circle around him. “You think you
need pain for your power, but with me, you will come to love it for
what it is. You will love it for the pleasure I infuse within it.”
Micah’s palm caressed the top of Trace’s freshly shaved head, his
hand warm on his damp skin. “You will need it for more than just to
keep your power at bay, Trace.” His hand trailed down to Trace’s
neck and shoulder as he stepped around him from behind. “I will
bleed your mind more than your body, and then you’ll see what true
submission is. The Doms you’ve used before me may have been
capable. Some might even have been superior. But no one can give
you what I can, Trace. You’re mine. You belong to me now. Do you
understand?”

A chill raced up and down Trace’s spine.
“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Very good. From now on, when we’re here, in
my dungeon, you will call me Master. Only here. Not at AKM. Not in
the rest of my home . . . except if you need me in
that way. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

Micah caressed the side of Trace’s face,
across his forehead, and then rotated his wrist and brushed the
backs of his fingers down his cheek as he walked another circle.
“Tonight, I will give you just a taste to get you through your
needs, and then we’ll talk. Since I can’t get inside here, yet”—he
tapped Trace’s head with the tip of his index finger—“you will tell
me your limits, if you have any.” Micah stopped in front of him,
his toes firmly planted directly below Trace’s eyes. If Trace
lifted his head, he would come face to crotch with Micah. “I will
tell you
my
limits now.” Micah reached under Trace’s chin
and urged his head up. As he suspected, Micah’s crotch was only an
inch away from his face. Micah’s expression remained stern.
“Despite what you’re used to from your previous male masters, I
will not fuck you. That part of me is for Sam. Do you
understand?”

Trace nodded, and his chin grazed the cotton
fabric of Micah’s pants as Micah tilted his hips ever so slightly
forward, as if he were teasing Trace with what he’d just vowed he
would never give him. “Yes, Master.”

“Good. And you will not fuck me,
because . . .” Micah’s right eyebrow ticked upward
as his mouth quirked. “Well, because I pitch. I don’t catch.” He
gave a subtle smirk. “But . . .” He slowly lowered
himself until he was crouched in front of him. They were eye to
eye. Hell, they were almost nose to nose. “Oh, but Trace, I will
make you come.” He leaned forward and let his scruffy cheek rub
against Trace’s freshly shaved skin as he whispered in his ear, “I
will use what you told me before you went to prison, about your
attraction to me, as well as to Sam, and I will use it well.”

“Yes, Master.”

Micah’s lips caressed the lobe of Trace’s
ear. “You revealed yourself ever so little that day, but ever so
much.” He ran his lips down Trace’s jaw then brought his face
around so that he looked Trace squarely in the eyes, their lips so
close Trace could feel the warmth from Micah’s skin. So close they
shared the same breath. “To you, these sessions might be about
keeping your power at bay, but to me, they will be equal parts
agony and pleasure. Pleasure no other Dom has ever been able to
give you like I can.”

“Yes,”—
gulp
—“Master.” Trace’s eyelids
had grown heavy. He was more aroused from Micah’s words than his
last mistress had been able to get him by flogging him.

“I will push you, Trace. Not just
physically, but emotionally.
Mentally.
But I will never give
you more than I think you can handle.” He edged closer, and their
lips touched, but not in a kiss. “I will earn your trust, and I
will break you. And you will never want for another master for the
rest of your life.”

“I already don’t want for another master for
the rest of my life,” Trace said quietly, his lips moving against
Micah’s.

Micah grinned, and the tiny lines around his
eyes creased, but he didn’t pull back. “That’s good, slave.” He
inched backward. “And one more thing.”

Trace’s gaze locked drunkenly to Micah’s as
if he were hypnotized, ready to hang on every word Micah uttered.
“Yes, Master?”

“You
will
let me in, Trace. You will
open your mind to me.” He cupped his hand around the back of
Trace’s head, swiped his palm over his cranium and back down, where
he secured his hold against the back of his skull. “I can be so
much more effective if you open your mind to me.”

Trace blinked, swallowed, and then let his
gaze drop away.

Micah abruptly leaned forward and pulled
Trace’s head to his so their mouths crashed together. Micah growled
as he closed his lips over Trace’s in a bruising, possessive
caress. All Trace could do was relinquish and let it happen.

This wasn’t a kiss of passion, nor one of
lust. This was a seal of ownership. One that declared Micah as the
keeper of Trace’s body and soul from here until forever. A promise
Trace readily acquiesced to as he opened his lips and gave himself
over to the power exchange. He was eager to begin this journey with
his new master.

Micah released him and pulled away. “Am I
understood, Trace? Do you understand the importance of opening your
mind to me?”

“Yes, Master.” Trace didn’t know how or
when, but he knew he would eventually have to knock down the
barrier around his thoughts to let Micah see his secrets. Micah was
a tenacious fucker. Now that Trace had agreed to let him in, Micah
would needle, paw, and—eventually—demand Trace to open his
mind.

Just as long as Micah was ready to see
everything.

The good, the bad . . . and
the regretfully ugly.

Chapter 5

I can suck his ass? Really?

Cordray picked up Micah’s words from the
guard’s thoughts as easily as if that SOB were standing right in
front of her.

Rainwater still dripped from her hair and
clothes, the taste of blood still filled her mouth, her vision
wasn’t quite back to normal, and from what she could tell, her lip
had swelled up like a marshmallow. Even so, what Skeletor had done
to her was the least of her worries. Micah had taken Trace without
her permission, which shot him to the top of her shit list.

Granted, from the images she’d picked up
from the guard’s mind, Trace had been one pint shy of overflowing,
and the terror streaming off the guard was enough for her to know
shit had been critical. Micah busting Trace out had been the right
call, especially since she’d been almost an hour late.

Would she ever admit that out loud? Hell no.
But she knew if Micah had waited for her to arrive, Trace might not
have survived.

The idea that Trace could have died tonight
didn’t sit well with her. In fact, it chilled her marrow and struck
fear into her heart, which only added to her irritation. When had
Trace become so important to her?

Okay fine, she’d been drawn to Trace the
moment she first saw him two weeks ago, but that didn’t mean she
cared about him. She was drawn to lots of people. Didn’t mean she
would cry if they died. So then why did the thought of Trace’s
demise hit her emotions so hard?

That first day she’d seen him—when she’d
found him so magnetically intriguing—he had touched her. He’d
grabbed her arm. No biggie for someone else. But for her? Him
touching her had been anything but ordinary. Monumental was more
like it. Because when he touched her, he lit her world on fire. In
an instant, with his hand wrapped around her forearm, life as she’d
known it for eight hundred years ceased to exist. Trace could make
her feel. Hot, cold, pain . . .
aroused
. Name
the physical sensation, and as long as Trace was near, she felt it.
But only with Trace. The rest of the time, she felt nothing at all.
No pain. No pleasure. Just emptiness.

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath as she
spun away from the destruction that had been Trace’s holding cell
and marched up the hall toward the lobby, leaving a trail of
rainwater behind her.

Trace aroused her. And not just because she
could feel him. He aroused her because he was the most powerful
male she’d ever known, and that kind of power turned on any
warm-blooded female with a heartbeat. Her especially, because she
was one tough bitch who didn’t need pussies for lovers. She liked
it rough, because rough allowed her to at least
pretend
she
could feel. But with Trace, she wouldn’t have to pretend. She would
be able to feel every heated caress, every bruising thrust, every
scratch of his fangs. With Trace, she wouldn’t need it rough. Slow
and easy would be good enough to send her into orbit.

Just the thought was enough to make her
girly parts clench.

But her attraction to him was about more
than his power and his ability to awaken physical sensation. About
more than his wicked mixed-blood gifts that roused her awareness.
Her attraction stemmed from the fact that everything about Trace
spoke to every part of her. The low timbre of his voice made her
heart flutter. The square set of his jaw beckoned her teeth to take
a nibble before tasting his lips. His sultry, pale-green bedroom
eyes hinted at carnal mysteries yet to be discovered. And the way
he carried himself—all primal power and unbridled aggression—made
her want to fall on her back and pull him between her legs.

She hated admitting it, but Trace’s soul
called to hers in a way she hadn’t experienced since her youth. Not
since Gideon. But look at how that had turned out. Thanks to the
male vampire’s traitorous call to mate, she’d lost her sense of
touch completely. Until Gideon, she’d felt everything. Cool breezes
over her face, warm water on her skin . . . pain,
pleasure—all of it. It wasn’t until he broke her heart—no,
shattered it—that the world became a numb desert she could
participate in but never feel.

She hadn’t been Gideon’s true mate, but
she’d fallen in love with him as if she were. Then she’d pretended
they’d mated one another anyway. And he’d played along, wishing his
body would spark to hers as much as she did.

But . . . oh, snap! That
spark had fired for someone else. And when it did, neither her love
nor her breaking heart mattered. Gideon was gone. And she’d
transformed into an unfeeling, broken, emotional mess, never to
feel physical touch again.