Vampires of Noctra(23)

Skye tore the shirt from his body and flung it across the room. "Tell me how."

"It was a long time ago. Too long to remember."

"I doubt that you've forgotten, Captain. Tell me his name."

For some reason, Donté couldn't resist the draw of this man. Something in his voice that commanded. Something that reminded him of a masterful

man so long ago. Before he'd become the walking dead.

"His name was Joshua," Donté answered quietly.

"He was your lover?"

"My first lover. I met him when I traveled to my uncle's plantation in St. Domingue."

"He taught you to enjoy the taste of the whip."

"He taught me to please him."

"How much older was he than you? How did you please him?"

Skye continued to trace the scars from Donté's past, reminding the vampire of another life. A time even more taboo than this one.

"He was forty to my twenty. He was a slave on my uncle's plantation. My God, he was beautiful and big and so powerful. I couldn't resist him."

"And you were?"

"A gentleman who wanted a taste of the primal, the forbidden. To be mastered by a man who mastered none. I gave him what he coveted and he

provided me what I yearned for." Donté couldn't help laughing as he remembered kneeling at the feet of the huge, muscular slave. He seemed so

big, so tall, so deserving of Donté's worship.

Skye pushed Donté toward the wall on the other side of the cabin. Donté heard the jangle of the cuffs he had just removed from Velvet.

Donté allowed himself to be flattened against the wall, permitted his arms to be raised and cuffed, just as Velvet had been that first night Skye had

arrived on the Night Stalker. But he had to wonder if Skye planned to kill him. And why was Donté letting him do this?

"Where do you keep them?" Skye asked. "The whips you have hidden away. No man with scars like yours would be without at least one in his

possession. That kind of hunger wouldn't just disappear."

Donté could already feel his skin tingle. He'd never let any of the other crewmembers use the whip on him. When he'd felt the need, he'd always

done it himself, behind closed doors.

But at this moment he felt the manacle of helplessness. And he wanted to feel the full measure of Skye's flavor of discipline.

"Do you know how to use it?" Not all men understood the intricacies of the whip or had the strength to wield it.

Skye unfastened Donté's pants and yanked them down over his hips, exposing his ass, binding his legs.

He reached around to envelope Donté's penis. "You're hard as a rock already, Lucienne. In anticipation? I wonder." He released Lucienne's cock

and Donté experienced a twinge of regret. "Yes, I know how to use it. Where is it?" Templeton's voice was rough and demanding and Donté

shuddered with desire. He wanted to feel the full force of this man. Needed to know exactly how strong this human truly was.

"In the trunk next to the bed." Why was he trusting this human with his secrets? Exposing his flaws and vulnerabilities?

Skye left him hanging there, totally exposed. Donté could hear him rummaging through the items in the trunk and then there was silence. He could

use his abilities to get free, to sense what Skye was doing. He could take his blood without consent.

But for one moment, Donté wanted to feel human, to remember what it was like beneath the hand of a strong, dominant man. To feel that

vulnerability and the sting of humanness.

Skye trailed the heavy braided ends of the cat across Donté's shoulders. He allowed them to fall over Donté's shoulder, to tease across his tight

nipples. He felt it. Mon dieu, he felt it deeper than he'd ever felt the touch of the whip before.

"Is this the one you use, Lucienne? On yourself? I wonder how often you've flayed your own skin in the intimacy of these quarters so the crew

wouldn't see?" Donté felt the press of Skye's heat against his back. And then a ball of white cloth was stuffed into his mouth. One of his own silk

handkerchiefs. "Is this what you used to muffle your cries? Nothing will compare to what I can give you. Nothing will sear you as deeply. You will

crave it. Again and again. And only I can do this for you."

Donté's whole body tingled at the thought of the anticipated sensations. The feeling of helplessness that bled through him. The wounds and the

pain wouldn't last because he was vampire. But to even feel the intense sensations of humanity for a split second was something his spirit

demanded. Maybe not his soul or his heart, for he had neither. The blackness, the shadow of darkness still wanted to experience dominion of