Deathless Love (14 page)

She read with fascination. Regardless of the flavor, many of them had mentions of how bringing the spanking dynamic into their relationship had improved their sex life, intimacy, communication and closeness. And the bloggers seemed very supportive with their comments to each other.

She found some sites that were “how to's” on spanking. One site riled her up with biblical references for why a man must be the head of the household and the woman should submit. Even as it riled her up, the idea of having a husband who believed he was responsible for disciplining her turned her on. She remembered how hearing that Dom used to discipline Stella had made her wet.

When the rumbling in her belly finally convinced her to pause for breakfast and coffee she found she was trembling all over—excited, titillated, angry, encouraged. It was so much to process all this new information. She shut the laptop with a snap and busied herself with breakfast.

She dug around the kitchen and decided to make a big breakfast, in case anyone else in the house woke up and felt like eating. She cooked up a package of bacon in the fridge and made apple walnut pancakes with cinnamon and nutmeg. The smell of it lured all three vampires out of bed, looking groggy and curious as they convened in the kitchen to see what she was up to.

“Hungry?” she asked with a bright smile.

“Mmm,” Fox said, sitting down at the table, obviously not hatched enough to speak. She set a plate down in front of him, stacked with pancakes and a few slices of bacon and handed him the butter dish.

Stella pulled the maple syrup out of the fridge and popped the cork on a bottle of champagne, pouring it into flutes with orange juice for mimosas. Kate served Dom and Stella and then sat down with her own plate of food, happy to have cooked for the three vampires who were quickly becoming her closest friends.

“This is delicious,” Dom said with a wink. “Thank you,
amore
.”

“
Si, grazie, amore
,” Stella said with her beautiful fangy smile.

Fox grinned at her. “They'll have you speaking Italian in no time. The trouble is, the Italian they speak is so antiquated that it would get you laughed out of the canals of Venice.”

Dom threw back his head and laughed. “That may be true, Fox.”

After breakfast Fox volunteered to clean up, and Dom tossed her over his shoulder and carried her back downstairs.

“Tell me something,
piccolina,
” he said, tossing her onto the bed.

“What?”

“Did you make those pancakes from scratch?”

“Yep. Why?”

“Well…I don't think we have any wheat flour alternatives in the house, do we?”

She gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth, her belly doing a flip. “I didn't even think of it! Dom, I wasn't testing you, I swear!”

“I believe you,
bambina
. But I still have to spank you.”

She gave him her best puppy dog eyes. “You don't
have
to spank me.”

He smirked. “Yes, I do. It will help you remember next time. Now, be a good girl and take off your clothes.”

She sat on the bed feeling defeated. “I don't
want
to be spanked, Dom!”

“That's the bitch of it, isn't it?” he said lightly. “Come on, if I have to strip you and put you in position, I am going to make your butt even sorrier than it's going to be.”

Her belly flipped again. She scrambled off the bed and pulled off the t-shirt and boxer briefs she had borrowed from Dom since she didn't have a change of clothes there. Dom patted his knee. She went reluctantly to him and he guided her gently over his lap.

“Did you read any of those blogs?” he asked.

Odd time to start a conversation. “Ye-es.” she said from her muffled position.

“I learned all kinds of ways to spank you better. You gotta love the internet, right?” With that, he started spanking, still conversing with her as if they were sitting down over a cup of coffee for a chat. The sting of his hand was quickly turning into that slow burning feeling. “So I'm supposed to give your butt a warm up with my hand or a wooden spoon first,” he said, spanking first one cheek and then the other, over and over again. She flinched and wriggled, but he held her firmly. It seemed like it went on forever, until her entire bottom felt like it was on fire. Then he stopped and rubbed her hot cheeks. “And then I rub for a few minutes.”

“Please, Dom. Please let me up?”

He pulled Kate to sitting on his knee, then swung one leg to the other side of his waist so she sat straddling him. He cupped her hot cheeks in his hands and leaned forward and nibbled at the stiff peak of her nipple.

“Tell me why I should let you up,
piccolina
?

“Um. Because…I'm very, very sorry and I promise it won't happen again?”

He laughed. She was absolutely adorable. “I wonder if I can have sex with you and spank you at the same time?” he mused. Her little body shivered at that and he laughed again. “Come here, let's try.” He stood up and tossed her on the bed, crawling up on it, himself. He knelt, sitting back on his heels and pulled Kate up so she sat down on his erection facing away from him, then he pushed her torso down until her head rested on the bed. She looked uncomfortable, so he grabbed a pillow and stuffed it under her chest. He manipulated her hips, enjoying the incredibly beautiful view of her reddened cheeks spread wide over his lap, the long slender arch of her back. He loved the sprawl of her blond waves on the bed where she lay, face turned to the side, mouth open, eyes squeezed shut. He brought his hand down and smacked her ass.

“Mmm,” she said, moving her hips up and down over his cock.

Smack. He brought it down again.

“A-ahh?” She was panting and pumping her adorable hips, making the most beautiful sight, her slender back arched, her beautiful, reddened bottom undulating in his lap, her face with the look of a woman in the throes of ecstasy.

He started to spank her continuously but lightly, which made her go wild, grinding her hips into him and moaning. It took no time at all to bring her to orgasm with the gentle spanking and sex and afterward he nudged her up to all fours so he could finish.

When he was spent, he fell back on the bed and pulled her little body down on top of his, running his hands lightly up and down her back. She was blissed out for a while, but then she finally stirred. She rested her chin on her hands on top of his chest and gazed at him.

“So, Dom, I'm not sure what to think about those blogs. I mean, it seemed like some of those people really think the man knows best.” She sat up, suddenly and straddled him. “Do you think that?” she said with an accusatory tone.

He laughed. “Of course not. Look, those people exist whether they're practicing domestic discipline or not. From what I read, there are as many different flavors of it as there are people.”

She was still eyeing him suspiciously. “I mean, I don't know what to think. Admitting it turns me on is one thing, allowing my husband or boyfriend to make all the decisions and vowing to obey him is another. I mean, I consider myself a feminist. I wasn't planning on taking my husband's last name.”

He shook his head. “Don't get wrapped up in some philosophical discussion with people you don't even know. Bottom line is that they're all a bunch of spankos and they're making it real with domestic discipline.”

She chewed her lip, then smiled. “You're right. They also all claim that the submission has improved their marriages.”

He nodded. “Well, I can believe that. It certainly is going to end every argument, right? And it's extraordinarily intimate—more intimate than sex sometimes, don't you think?”

She flushed and nodded.

“So I can see how that could pull couples closer or straighten them out if they were having problems, can't you?”

“You've had real domestic discipline relationships,” she said.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I'm not sure they were the same flavor as what's out there today.”

“So do you think that the man is meant to be in charge?” she demanded.

He hesitated. “Listen. Men and women were different then. The whole dynamic was different. The men were real men. Because they were either working their asses off to put food on their family's table, or if they came from privilege, they were responsible for being master to all the servants and serfs in addition to their wives and children. Either way, men
had
to be in charge.”

“Which were you?”

“Which…? Oh. The latter. I was an aristocrat—the Count of Parma.”

Kate raised her eyebrows at that. “Hence your last name?”

“Yep. I had vineyards and a winery—more than a hundred servants and peasants I was responsible for.” He shrugged. “So I was accustomed to giving orders and making sure I was obeyed. “It wasn't that we thought of women as lesser creatures. It wasn't that way at all. We revered them as different. As special.

“But there was an imbalance of power, and it was necessary for things to evolve the way they have. I don't think we've achieved the right balance yet. Now, women are acting like men and men are acting like women and although the laws and society are far more favorable for women, it seems to me like things are still off. I don't know what the answer is precisely, but I think it goes back to celebrating the differences between women and men instead of trying to blur the lines.”

Kate took his hand in hers and brought his fingers to her mouth, nibbling gently on one of them. He smiled at her, fondly.

“Kate, I have to tell you that some of my reservations about our relationship are around these issues.”

She stiffened, as he knew she would. He stroked her thigh to reassure her.

“Obviously it was clear from the start that we were heading into a dominant/submissive relationship. And it seemed to me like you didn't really need any more practice being submissive. And the power balance between us is completely skewed. I'm your boss, for God's sake! Not to mention I'm older, wealthier and of course, physically stronger.”

“So?” she said warily.

“So, I just don't know if I'm good for you. At all.”

He saw an angry look appearing on her face and she moved as if to dismount. He grabbed her hip and pulled her back. “That's why I've been using my dominance to insist on you developing your own assertiveness.”

He felt a flicker of hurt from her, then she stared at him thoughtfully. “You have, haven't you?” she said with a note of wonder. He felt a warm blast of love from her. She lowered her body onto his and nestled her face against his neck, whispering, “Thank you, I think.”

Chapter Eight

It was Dom who had taught Fox about intuition. It was not a vampire skill, per se. Dom had been psychic before he was turned, but using his psychic abilities as a vampire made him physically ill. Even so, he had given Fox the basics of how to tune into his own intuition, before Fox had been turned. After he'd been turned, he'd cautioned him about using those skills, which had never made sense to Fox. From what he could understand, Dom experienced a blackness and a kind of pain when he tapped into his inner knowing. He personally had never experienced any such thing. But he would guess Dom's trouble with it was part of what pushed him to study all the consciousness expansion that he did.

One of the first things Dom had taught him that intuition is not fear. When it comes, it is a calm sense of knowing. Which unfortunately, doesn't mean it won't be about something fearful.

In this case, it was. What was going down in Europe with the vampire community made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. And he was quite certain that very soon it would involve them, too.

He'd been trying to keep Dom engaged and focused on the problem. Which was tricky because it seemed like his budding romance with Kate was something serious. And he didn't want to thwart that—he honestly had never seen Dom so animated, so interested in anything besides his sculpting before. He loved Kate and Dom both dearly. Seeing Dom so changed, so engaged with life for the first time, was pure joy.

But Dom's safety was at stake. All of them were at risk, but especially Dom. He checked his watch: 2 am. Dom should be upstairs soon. That was usually the time Kate went to bed and he reemerged from his bedroom. Sure enough, fifteen minutes later, he heard the door at the top of the stairs open and Dom came out.

“I heard from Randolph again,” he said.

“What did you learn?”

“It sounds like more and more vampires are falling to Roxanna. Vampires who know them report they have lost all of their former personalities and preferences, even memories. They're becoming almost zombie-like. And Dom, she's converting them
by the hundreds
.”

Dom looked at him seriously.

“Randolph's scared. He didn't say so, but I can tell. It sounds like anyone who hadn't been converted is going into hiding.”

Dom sat down and closed his eyes, touching the tips of his fingers together. It was a good sign—Dom did this when he was tapping into his intuition. He was careful not to make any distracting noises as he sat watching Dom's still figure, waiting.

After about fifteen minutes, Dom's eyes snapped open. “She's turning them a second time. Same process as an original turning—taking blood and giving it, just that she's doing it to a vampire instead of a human.”

Dom rubbed his temples, wincing with the pain that using his psychic abilities brought on. “I don't know what she needs the older vamp blood for, though.” He stood up and crossed the room to the bathroom, and Fox heard him throwing up in the toilet.

Fox shut his laptop and stood up as well. “What would help?” he asked quietly, standing in the open bathroom door. “Some water? Tea?”

“Tea. Thanks, Fox,” Dom grunted, rinsing his mouth out with water from the tap. That was one thing to be said about Dom. He might be gruff and overbearing at times, but he was also appreciative and kind. Dom had been part of the Italian aristocracy before he was turned. He'd been waited on hand and foot by an army of servants. There were many—well, there
had
been many more before Roxanna—older vampires who turned and kept scores of younger vampires for the sole purpose of serving them.