Claimed by the Immortal (The Claiming) (20 page)

When she turned around, Damien was pulling two long white robes from the garment bag and hanging them. “One for each of us,” he said, giving her a smile.

But only after the shower,
she thought. First she had to do something she’d never done with him before: get naked. She gripped her sweater with shaking hands, prepared to strip, but he stopped her.

“Allow me,” he said. “You won’t be alone long in your nudity.”

She licked her lips, dropped her arms and waited.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured. Leaning toward her, he kissed her again, this time deeply and passionately. Her lingering doubts fled before the thrust of his tongue and the feeling of his hands wandering over her back, breasts and belly. She sighed, the breath caught by his mouth, and felt welcome heat flood her, draining her last doubts.

Some part of her felt she had been made for this moment. It seemed so right.

He moved slowly, carrying her step by step up the mountain of passion. His every move seemed strangely languorous as if they had all the time in the world. She remembered what he had said about spending hours to make sure everything was perfect, and apparently he had meant it.

By the time he began to lift her sweater over her head, her entire body was thrumming with need. Nor did he give her a moment to feel shy. As soon as her sweater was gone, her bra vanished and his hands covered her breasts, teasing and squeezing until she threw her head back and began to melt.

“Gently, slowly,” he murmured.

“You’re not making it easy.”

A quiet laugh escaped him. “Good,” he said. “But there’s absolutely no rush. None at all. In fact, I want to avoid it.”

The butterflies had vanished, leaving nothing in their wake but longing and an impatience she tried to tamp down. Not that Damien was going to let her hurry a single moment.

His hands continued their wandering, fueling the ache deep within her, cherishing her as much as they stirred her. It was as if he were memorizing her every curve.

Then, in an instant so fast she didn’t see it happen, his shirt vanished, and their naked chests met. She had just a moment to enjoy the view of his smoothly muscled torso, then he tugged her close, pressing her breasts to him as his mouth returned to plundering hers in a deep kiss.

Oh, could he kiss!

She lifted her hands and traced the smooth contours of his back, reveling in the strength she felt there, as well as the slight coolness of his skin. He felt solid everywhere she touched him. And for now, he let her touch.

It occurred to her that he must be exercising great restraint right now, considering that he felt it necessary to bind her later to prevent her from waking his predatory nature.

Drowsy with need, she tilted her head back and looked at him from passion-weighted eyelids. “Am I making this harder for you?”

“You are making this an absolute delight.”

Then he knelt, kissing her belly, sending a powerful shudder of longing through her. Never had a touch or kiss there seemed so intimate or exciting.

She felt the snap on her jeans give way, and caught her breath in anticipation as he began to pull the denim down. Its slow scrape against her skin was as sensual as any touch he gave her. She shivered again and resisted the urge to hold his head close, trying to remember why he needed her to be still.

But remaining still was turning into a torture of its own, a very special one.

Lips followed the fabric downward, trailing along her thighs, brushing briefly but so temptingly against the thatch of hair between her legs. The lightest of touches, it ignited her needs to an even higher level. How was she going to stand this for hours? How could she not?

Already she felt as if she had been transformed into a knot of nearly mindless need.

His own clothes disappeared at last, and she managed to open her eyes to take him in. He was a perfect picture of masculinity. His staff was already rigid, assuring her she was not alone at this peak just below heaven, but when she reached out to grasp him, he stayed her hand.

“Soon,
Schatz,
” he murmured. “Soon.”

Then he swept her up and deposited her in the shower. An instant later he stood there with her and pulled the curtain closed.

“We can do this whichever way you prefer,” he said.

“What do you mean?” She didn’t want to make decisions anymore. Talking had become a huge effort.

“We can either wash ourselves or wash each other.”

For an instant, shyness reared its head, but then she realized just how much she wanted to run her hands over every inch of him, to come to know him intimately before it was too late and he tied her up. Soon she wouldn’t have this option.

“I’ll wash you,” she said thickly.

He smiled and passed her the cloth and bar of soap. She wet the cloth and soaped it and began.

His chest and shoulders first, all the way down to his waist. She luxuriated in the freedom to touch him this way and loved the soapy way the washcloth passed over each of his contours. Then, when she reached his waist, she gave him a little nudge to turn him around.

It tickled her that she might be teasing him as much as he teased her. Again the cloth passed from shoulders down to waist. Then she hesitated.

“Everywhere,
Schatz,
” he said with unmistakable emphasis.

Taking her courage in her hands, literally, and helped along by the heavy throbbing of hunger in her own loins, she bent to scrub his legs and feet. Then slowly she straightened and began to rub his buttocks, soaping the cloth once more.

“Everywhere,” he prompted again and leaned forward a bit.

Oh, man. She didn’t know...and then she did. She slipped the cloth into the cleft and rubbed her hand along him, all the way to his testicles, then back again. It thrilled her to feel him shudder with pleasure.

Then he turned, presenting his front. Tenderly, her inhibitions finally gone, she captured his genitals and washed them, drawing her hand and the soapy cloth along his erection. His body jumped in response, and she felt a surge of power at being able to make him respond this way.

Then it was her turn, and she was certain he didn’t miss an inch of her either. When he had her bend so he could attend her bottom the way she had washed his, she felt so exquisitely exposed and so perfectly cherished that she thought her knees would give way from the pleasure.

Then at last he scrubbed her womanhood with a surprising roughness, but the roughness turned out to be welcome, pouring more heat through her veins.

No one had ever learned her this intimately. Ever.

Then he washed her hair and his own, and they took turns standing under the spray until all the soap was gone.

“Are you okay?” he asked her, taking her again in his arms.

“I’m wonderful.”

He smiled. “You certainly are.”

He moved quickly then, turning off the water and stepping with her onto the mat. Then came a new form of delightful torture as he scrubbed her dry with clean towels and squeezed the last of the water from her hair. He wasted a lot less time drying himself.

At this point she’d have walked into the bedroom naked to be bound without a single bit of hesitation. She hadn’t guessed she could sustain such a fever pitch of desire for so long, but somehow he kept her there on a high plateau, every inch of her begging for more.

He draped one of the white robes over her. Only when she was wearing it did she realize that it was two pieces of cloth joined at the shoulders and the waist by ties.

So easy to remove. And his appeared to be just the same.

He took her hand. “Are you ready, Caro?”

She wondered how she could be any readier. She would have gladly fallen on the damp bathroom floor to be taken by him right now. The ache between her legs had grown hard and insistent, throbbing in a way that demanded an answer. How could she want this any more?

“Yes,” she whispered, all she could manage.

He led her slowly into her bedroom, then guided her to lie down on her bed. One by one, he bound her wrists and her ankles, snugly but not painfully, and a new spear of hunger shot through her.

As she lay there, rendered helpless by his bonds, it occurred to her that there was plenty to be said for bondage. She needed to make no decisions—she needed only to experience. It filled her with an even deeper hunger and a delicious sense of freedom.

Damien lit every candle in the room, creating a ring of fire and ring of warm light, bright yet cozy. The candles also helped warm the room even more and kept Caro’s damp hair from feeling chilly around her face.

Then Damien returned to her, his own face looking slumberous with passion, and he reached for the ties at her shoulders.

Her heart quickened, and she drew a breath. Almost instinctively she tried to pull her hands closer to her body and found she could move them only a few inches.

“See?” he murmured. “You are truly helpless to my whims. I promise you will like them, even the unexpected ones.”

Before she could wonder what he meant, he pulled the robe down to her waist, exposing her breasts. She wanted to squirm as the lack of control warred with passion in her. He took one of the vials and sprinkled the contents onto his hands. Then he knelt on the bed, straddling her, and began to rub her with oil, starting just behind her ears and working his way slowly down.

She caught her breath again as her skin seemed to heat. The clenching at her core renewed with a vengeance. Every stroke of his hands painted her with fresh fire, filling her with need.

She felt her nipples harden before he even reached them. She felt her labia swell with eagerness, and then grow damp. She was ready, so ready, but he had just begun.

When his hands at last found her breasts, she thought she would come right then. Almost, but not quite, as he traced her over and over, working the oils into her skin, ratcheting her need to heights she had never imagined.

Then he astonished her by pinching her nipples. At first she cried out, shocked by the sharp pain. But pain quickly gave way to a new kind of pleasure, and with each pinch and twist of his fingers, her hips began to rock in helpless rhythm, needing, no,
demanding,
more.

But still he lingered, tormenting her in the most delightful way, refusing to hurry at all. She forgot everything except the touch of his hands and the endlessly building hunger within her.

* * *

Damien watched her succumb, his own pleasure mounting. The most exquisite torment of all was making himself wait, and he felt it in every cell. His staff was so swollen now it felt as if it might burst, but satisfaction was a long way away.

He gave himself up to the pleasure of drawing out her responses, teaching her new sensations, particularly of how pain could heighten pleasure. He had seen her initial shock when she’d felt him pinch her nipples, but now he pinched even harder and she writhed and groaned helplessly.

And there was more to come.

It had been millennia since he had devoted himself to a woman this way in this ceremony. He murmured the incantations and prayers under his breath so as not to disturb her, but he still remembered them as if it were yesterday. And what he remembered most from his tradition was that women were truly the source of the life force as no man could ever be. While a man played a role, a woman grew life to fruition in her own body as no man ever could.

This woman was full of the life force, and as a man he needed some of it for himself. He had other powers that he could now share with her, but he needed her strength flowing through him as well, the most important strength of all. As a vampire, he knew himself to have less life force than most.

He needed, first and foremost, to unlock that power in them both, to share it between them, and to do that he had to carry her so far beyond the mundane world that the key would turn in the lock all by itself.

He lost all track of time, but time didn’t matter. What mattered was the way she writhed so helplessly under his ministrations, and the way he responded to her arousal. They were headed to a place where time ceased to have meaning, where nothing would exist except themselves, their union and their mutual celebration of life.

She had such beautiful breasts, he thought as he massaged them and pinched them again. Not too large, not too small, firm yet soft to his touch. He paused to place a few drops of oil in her navel and then work them outward and upward.

He liked having her helpless, liked teasing her to an incredible pitch. A vampire in more ways than one, he soaked up her feelings as surely as he would have drunk her blood. They filled him and carried him along with her until her throbbing became his, her need enhancing his own.

Some instinct told him it was time. He pulled away the last of her gown, revealing her beauty in all its glory to his eyes.
Exquisite.
His own body responded with a gripping, hammering need.

Then he bent to oil her legs, starting at her small feet, rubbing between her toes, working the muscles and joints gently until she arched with pleasure. Working his way slowly up and down her legs, he watched the thatch of hair between her legs grow dewy, filled his nose with her scents, so erotic now, and reached for paradise with her.

Finally, ages later, the moment had arrived. He parted her legs gently, turning them outward so that her lovely core was fully exposed to him.

She murmured something, but her eyes were closed, and he saw no resistance in her face.

Kneeling between her legs, so she could not clamp them together, he reached out with oiled hands and ran his fingers along her labia, first on the outermost part, drawing a deep groan from her. Again and again he repeated the caress, watching her swell for him. When at last her clitoris had engorged until it could no longer be concealed, he reached for a bundle of soft leather thongs.

Swinging them gently, he slapped them against her most tender flesh. Her eyes flew open, but her body bucked helplessly. He waited a moment, giving her a chance to object, but she didn’t.

He swung the thongs repeatedly, lightly until she was rising to meet them as if she wanted them. Then he swung them a little harder, knowing they would sting.