Covet (6 page)

Lilah crossed the room to his king-size four-poster bed and his clothes strewn across the midnight blue covers.

She wasn’t under her master’s command. His touch didn’t pain her and she wanted him as much as he needed her. Her bond with Lord Ashville was incomplete.

When Lord Ashville came for him, he would face him.

Lilah picked up his dark silver-grey silk tie and his belt and turned towards him, a wicked smile on her angelic face.

And he would fight him for her.

J
avier rose to his feet, locked the door, and crossed the room to Lilah. She blushed a dark tempting shade of red and held up the tie and belt. The nervous edge to her golden eyes and her scent betrayed her but she didn’t back down. She glanced at the midnight blue silk covers on his bed and Javier obeyed, unable to resist her when she looked so seductive and tempting. He knelt on the bed, crawled into the centre of it, and lay with his head on the feather pillows. The bedclothes were cool beneath him. He closed his eyes, focused so his fangs went away and his eyes changed back, and then looked at her. He raised his hands above his head, placing his wrists close to the carved mahogany headboard, and waited for her.

Lilah didn’t hesitate. She bravely mounted the bed, looked at the elaborate design on the headboard, and frowned. He knew what the problem was. There wasn’t much in the way of places she could tie him to and even if he stretched his arms out, the tie and belt wouldn’t be long enough to secure him to the posts.

He held his hand up, got onto his knees and looked for a weak point in the carved design. Lilah gasped as he punched one hole and then another close to it. He shook his hand, splattering the sheets with blood, and then raised his knuckles to his mouth and licked them.

“That doesn’t exactly make it look as though I forced you into this.” She frowned at him as he turned towards her and then it melted away when she saw his hand. She took hold of it and he could only stare as she raised it to her lips and kissed his knuckles. The sight of his blood on her lips was too much for him to bear. He swooped on them, moaning as he claimed her mouth and tasted his blood. She bent backwards, her hands against his upper arms, clutching him so tightly that he felt her nails digging into his flesh. He groaned again, aroused by the hint of pain, the scent of blood, and the thought of her tying him up.

Lilah pushed him backwards and knelt before him, her breasts threatening to spill out of her dress with each hard breath she drew. Her outfit played havoc with his libido, especially when she leaned towards him, her cleavage on display, and pressed her hand into his shoulder and gave it a shove.

Javier fell backwards onto the bed, staring up at her, a willing slave. He obediently raised his hands to the headboard again, eager to feel the silk and leather against his wrists, binding him. Hungry to be at her mercy.

She tied his right wrist first with the silk tie and it was too soft against his skin. He wanted to feel the bite of it, to feel as though he was powerless.

“Tighter,” he whispered and she blushed again, cheeks blazing, but did as he said. She untied it and tugged it tighter, until it squeezed his wrist and tore a groan from him. He nodded when she looked concerned. He could take it.

When she tied his left wrist with his Italian leather belt, she did it up so tightly that it pinched his skin and squeezed his bones.

Lilah moved towards him until her thighs were eye level with him and he could smell himself on her, smell their combined arousal. His cock twitched against the black towel, hungry to be inside her again, to climax this time, uncaring of the law. She was his. He would make Lord Ashville recognise that.

When she moved to kneel close to his face and reached over the back of the headboard, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her thighs. He stared at them as she fumbled with the tie and the belt, trying to knot them together, tugging his hands forwards so they pressed against the headboard, the splintered wood rough on his wrists.

She looked pleased with herself when she sat back.

“You know these can’t really hold me,” he said playfully and she scolded him with a frown.

“It’s not as though we have real shackles.” Her frown didn’t shift. “You’ll have to play along.”

“I know where to get some.” He smiled up at her. “Knock on Snow’s door and ask to borrow his.”

Her face blanched. His smile widened.

“Do you really think I would let you wander off to see Snow?” His humour died at the thought. Snow was unpredictable. Dangerous. He couldn’t be trusted around anyone, not even his brother Antoine. “It was a bad joke. Maybe we can get some real ones if I make it through this.”

Tears sparkled on her lashes and her shoulders sagged. “Don’t speak like that. He can’t do anything to you now. I made you do this.”

She honestly believed that. It was so sweet of her, so beautiful that she had fooled herself into believing with all of her heart that this made any difference. He nodded, not wanting to see her cry because of him and her fear of what lay ahead for both of them. He would play along just as she had asked and would pretend with her so his heart stopped aching and the tears in her eyes went away. He didn’t want this time with her to be full of sorrow.

He wanted it to be full of love.

He wanted to find Heaven with her before he faced Hell.

Lilah swallowed, rubbed the heel of her hands across her eyes, and drew a long deep breath. Her forced smile didn’t fool him.

“Come here.” Javier nodded his head, indicating where he wanted her.

She leaned over him, settling her hands on his bare chest, and pressed her lips to his. Her soft kiss warmed him, erasing the hurt and fear growing inside him, replacing it with hunger and love. He held the words back, afraid they would be too much for her to handle and she would break under the weight of them when everything between them was so uncertain. When everything was over and she finally belonged to him, he would tell her that he was in love with her and that he wanted her to be his forever.

Lilah kissed away from his mouth, down to his chin and then along his jaw. He wanted to take hold of her and bring her mouth back to his but the tug of restraints around his wrists reminded him that he was powerless to do as he pleased. Lilah was in control now. He had never surrendered control to anyone before. It had always seemed like too great a risk to him. In the few seconds it would take him to break free, whoever he was with could stake and kill him.

Her hand came to rest on the point over his heart and Javier realised that he trusted Lilah. Implicitly. He knew in his heart that he was safe with her and that she would never hurt him.

And he knew that she trusted him too.

She had let him kiss her when his fangs had been out and had kissed him when she’d had his blood on her lips, both times when he could have easily acted on his lust for her blood.

The thought of biting her had his fangs descending again. Lilah paused and he felt her eyes on his mouth. She straddled his waist and leaned over him, her gaze boring into his lips. Her soft fingertips against his lower lip were a command he obeyed, parting them for her and letting her see his fangs. The beautiful look of fascination on her face as she carefully ran a fingertip over one of his canines stole his ability to breathe and he waited, wanting to see what she would do.

She turned her hand so her palm faced him and pressed the pad of her index finger against the point of his fang, and flinched. The coppery aroma of her blood filled his nostrils and then the sweet fragrance of it flooded his mouth. His eyes changed again and he lurched upwards, every muscle tensing, ravenous for a taste of her. She didn’t shy away or flee as he expected. She bravely remained seated astride him and turned her hand again, so the tiny bead of blood on the tip of her finger touched his tongue. The flavour of her exploded in his mouth and his cock strained against the tight confines of the towel. He bucked his hips, aching for some relief, so hard that it hurt, and sucked her finger. His low guttural groan tore a gasp from her and he tugged at his restraints, hungry to drag her down to him and have her.

“Javier,” she whispered and the sound of his name spoken so reverently by her broke through the haze of his bloodlust and sent him crashing back to reality.

He opened his eyes and stared into hers, her finger still held fast in his mouth.

“You can bite me if you desire it.”

How could she speak to him so openly and with such respect when she couldn’t speak of her master like it? It made him feel as though she was already his, and that was dangerous.

Javier released her finger and she took it back. He shook his head and a touch of hurt laced her expression. He wanted to reach up and touch her face when she looked like that, needed to smooth away her pain and make it all better.

“Not yet,” he whispered, his fangs sharp against his tongue. He had meant to say never, that he would never use her like that to satisfy his thirst for blood and she meant more to him than just a source of sustenance to bring his darker side under control.

Not yet. He wanted to bite her but feared it. His touch didn’t hurt her for some reason but he didn’t know whether his bite would. He had heard that biting an owned human caused them excruciating pain, almost triple that of a touch. He couldn’t risk that.

“When all this is over?” she said, as though she had read the desire in his heart again. Did she know him so well that she could see through him and into his soul? Were they tied there, one in heart and soul, joined by their feelings?

He nodded. “When you are mine.”

“I want to be yours.”

Javier rolled his eyes closed, his heart singing sweet mercy. She wanted to be his.

Lilah grazed her hands over his chest and then up his arms to his wrists. She held them and leaned over him, pressing her forehead and nose against his.

“And you will be mine,” she whispered and he shivered and groaned.

“Forever.” He said it without thinking and instantly stilled, waiting for her to scoot away and fear him. She hated her master because he had bonded with her against her will. He feared she would hate him too for wanting to make her belong to him instead.

“Forever.” That word breathed against his lips pained him, but even if forever was only this night it would be enough for him. “For a man tied up, you’re thinking too much.”

Lilah kissed along his jaw, shifting her body down his at the same time, and he groaned his agreement when the apex of her thighs brushed his groin, stirring him back into hardness. He tugged at his restraints again and focused on the fact she had him tied up and at her mercy, and what she was doing to him. She licked the left side of his neck and lightly bit him.

Javier bucked on instinct, a flash of hunger burning up his blood and a deep groan escaping his lips. Lilah giggled and bit again, harder this time, and he snarled. She stilled, her rapid pulse pounding in his mind, the feel of her heart hammering against his chest pushing at his control.

“Gentler.” Javier forced the word out from between clenched teeth, his fangs cutting into his gums.

He feared she would stop completely.

Lilah moved and chased that fear and all reason from his mind by nibbling along his collarbone. She pinned his shoulders to the bed and licked his throat again, tracing up the jugular, and nipped his earlobe. Javier fought to retain control. She lowered her mouth again and bit the curve of his throat.

His blood turned to liquid fire that ignited every inch of him, his balls tightened and his cock quivered a second before the world exploded in bright sparks that burned wherever she touched him, fiercest where her teeth pressed into his flesh.

“Ay, Dios, Lilah,” Javier breathed and relaxed into the bed, his length still twitching. He let his hands hang from the restraints, trying to gather himself and trying not to feel ashamed about what had just happened.

He waited for her to laugh or say something that would crush what little male pride he had left.

She drew back and stared down at him, her pupils wide and dark with arousal. “If a vampire bit you, would you have done this with them?”

He shook his head. No. It was Lilah’s teeth on him that had lit the touch paper and caused him to detonate.

“If I had fangs...” she caressed a line down his throat with her fingertip and then leaned over and replaced it with her tongue, sweeping the soft wet tip of it over the point where she had bitten and sent him crashing over the edge. It tickled his sensitised flesh, sending ripples of echoes of his orgasm through him, “and I bit you... would you come then too?”

“Cristo... just the thought of you doing that... Lilah.” His cock stiffened again, hard and aching for more. He wanted her to bite him, wanted her fangs in his throat and his blood flowing into her. He wanted to be the one to give her those fangs, to bring her into his world as his mate.

She raised herself, drawing her body away from his, and slid her hand down over his stomach to his hard shaft. He groaned as she cupped him through the damp towel, squeezing and teasing him.

“Lilah,” he whispered and couldn’t get the rest of what he had wanted to say out. He wanted to beg her to touch him, to take him inside her again and ride him, to place her mouth on him and suck him. He wanted it all.

She moved downwards, kissing his chest and swirling her tongue around his left nipple. He arched against her, ticklish from his orgasm, and moaned at the feel of her nails raking down his stomach. She shifted one knee between his thighs and her hands left him. Javier looked down the length of his body at her, his temperature soaring at the sight of her in the short black dress, her breasts on the brink of tumbling out as she leaned over him with her backside in the air. He growled, wanting to be behind her, knocking her knees apart and sinking his body into her wet warmth.

Her wicked smile stole his heart.

She tugged the waist of his towel and opened it, revealing his cock. Her gaze fell to it and she ran her fingers down the rigid length to his balls and cupped them. She hesitated then, as though she couldn’t decide or wasn’t sure what to do next. He wanted to tell her to do whatever she wanted with him. He was hers to command, to do as she pleased with and use in her search for pleasure.