The Vampire Queen's Servant(29)

Desire knocked into Lyssa like an ocean wave hitting her mid-body, spraying her senses. It was not just the smell of his blood, his heat. It was his defiant look, wrapped up with a gesture that offered her everything. He was challenging her control, recognizing full well she was testing him. He was testing her right back.

Jacob knew it was coming, could envision it happening before it actually did with that curious sense of déjà vu he got, but he forced himself to stay still She surged up from the table. It was like going over the edge of a roller coaster, too fast to follow, everything out of his control as he was slammed up against the side of the sunroom, against the edge of a cabinet there.

He opened his hand, releasing the file so it made a muted tinny sound as it hit the floor. When he swallowed against her hold on his throat, he noted her grip was under his jaw rather than on his windpipe. Apparently he wasn't the first she'd trapped against a solid surface like a mad scientist with a pin and a hapless butterfly. The corner of the cabinet stabbed into his back and hip bone.

Her expression was merciless, hard. "Did you know vampires secrete something like a pheromone that makes mortals unable to resist us? The younger vampires can't control it at first. When they go out at night they avoid crowded areas so they don't cause a spectacle like the Pied Piper. I rarely use it. After so many centuries, if a woman blessed with a vampire's immortal looks hasn't honed her seductive powers to the same potency as a chemical reaction, then she has no right to use either."

"I'll deny you nothing, my lady."

"You deny me your submission." Her eyes glittered, her voice dropping to that cock-teasing whisper.

When he'd faced vampires with his brother, they'd intended to kill him before he could do the same to them. They'd discarded a civilized veneer, becoming 100 percent the savage predators they were. While hurting Lady Lyssa was the last thing he would ever do, he could not deny her sudden ferocity provoked his fighting instinct, which pissed him off. Closing his hands into fists, he suppressed the urge to struggle. Then it occurred to him a different strategy might be needed here.

You must go with your gut. Thomas's words. Lady Lyssa was a master of deception, even above the level of most of her peers. He would be of no use as a servant unless he learned how to cut through all that and get to what she really wanted from him, what she needed him to be. But what if what she wanted and needed was something she herself might not know? Something that might change from moment to moment.

After all, she is female.

"You like the fact I resist," he responded. He matched her seductive purr with a husky growl. He could take disobedience to an art form if it gave her the type of shuddering orgasms that made her keep coming back for more. "That's what's making you wet even now. You want to sink your fangs into me and invade my mind, make even more of me your slave."

Oh, he is such a handful.

Teaching a strong man to submit to her will by his own choice had always enthralled her. Under normal circumstances, that was important. While each vampire handled time differently, all vampires with an iota of wisdom knew the dangers of stagnation. The dreadful, often psychopathic effect of the Ennui took more of their numbers than anything. Ultimately, it was what had taken Rex. The thought disrupted the moment, reminded her that stagnation was irrelevant to her, like so many other things.

Easing Jacob down off the wall, she withdrew her hand, but in a motion that allowed her to trace his collarbone. The man had beautiful, firm skin. A delicious body. Thomas had given her substance and candy both. You bad, bad monk. You learned things from me no monk should know.

Turning away, she returned to her chair and deliberately laid her hand on the towel that was on the table, wiping off the blood that had collected on her fingers. Jacob approached a moment later, rubbing his neck and eyeing her warily as he straddled the stool again.

"I feed on my own terms," she said coolly. "I'll give you the second mark only if that's my desire. If I bind you to me and you prove tiresome, I'd likely kill you rather than exert the energy to sever our link. Therefore, I wouldn't rush me."

A grudging smile tugged at his lips, stirring her further. The man did not have enough control to suppress a smile. How on earth could he exercise the restraint to be her servant? Never mind she was fascinated by the way his lips curved, the appeal of his clever mouth, the genuine intelligence and affability his expression revealed.

"Fair enough, my lady."

They maintained a companionable silence while he finished the filing. When he placed her hands in a basin of warm water, the fragrant oils with which he'd infused it closed over her skin, filled her nose.

"Did Thomas tell you how long he was with me?"

"Yes. And that he would have served at your pleasure for as much as two hundred more years if your husband had not punished him for his loyalty to you." He gave her an even look. "For which you—"

Her hand was out of the water, her fingers pressed against his lips before he could say anything further. "We don't discuss that. Ever."

Despite her sharp command, she took advantage of the contact to trace the oil along his lips. Watching them part in surprised response, she felt her heart twist in a knot of nearly unbearable pain at the simple beauty of it. His fingertips pressed into the table, whitening with the suggestion of a man's rising desire. It made things quiver low in her stomach. So she took her hand away.

"We never speak of that, Jacob. Not unless I bring it up."

And I won't, because if any vampire or anyone connected to my world knows you know about it, your life would be forfeit.

Thomas had obviously had enormous confidence in this man. If she didn't trust her former servant's judgment so much, she'd be cursing the situation far more than she was doing. Thomas had never been dim-witted, far from it. If he'd told Jacob the second most precious secret she guarded, he'd done it to bind his candidate to her even more securely. If he entered her service, Jacob would need the full protection provided by all three marks to keep another vampire from compelling him to tell what he knew of her.

It had been a rather Machiavellian move on the part of her former servant. But if she rejected Jacob, refused to give him the second mark and sent him away, he would not become part of her world. The risk would be far less. You didn't think of that, Thomas, did you? You didn't know my most important secret, the one that makes it impossible for me to give him three marks. A fine dilemma you've given me, my friend.

But she found she couldn't be angry with Thomas's bold presumption. Not when she knew he'd been motivated by love, wanting to impose Jacob on her out of concern for her well-being. She supposed that was part of what had hurt so much about losing him, one of many things. They'd been a family unit, the two of them. Far more than she and Rex had ever been able to be.

If Thomas had sent a clone of himself—quiet, self-effacing, brilliant—she could have easily turned him away. But there was a sensual edge to Jacob that called to her, a fascinating complexity.

He was looking at her too intently, so she brushed a fingertip over his lashes, compelling him to lower his gaze, giving her the sole privilege of scrutiny, as was a Mistress's right. While he didn't deliberately disobey her by lifting his gaze, his hand covered hers in the basin, his thumb stroking the wet dip between her middle and index fingers.

"You know what a sexual submissive is, Jacob?" she asked, forcing indifference into her tone. Turning her hand, she closed it around his fingers, stilling him. "It means you submit to my will in all things. Even if that will is to watch you couple with another woman… another man… or share you with another vampire and his or her servant. It means if my desire is to chain you to a wall and torment you until you beg me for release, and even then deny you for the pure pleasure and amusement of seeing your hard cock suffer for hours, you will willingly do it."

Being whored out to others as she desired, allowing men to touch him the way he'd only allowed women to do. Or to have men or women do things to him he'd not permitted anyone to do. She'd threatened such a thing on their first meeting, but she knew at that point Jacob hadn't believed it was anything more than an attempt to intimidate him. She wondered what he thought now.

It was a long moment before he disengaged himself to wrap her hands in terry cloth. There was a tense pressure as he dried her fingers.

"You're right, my lady. I don't understand what a sexual submissive is."

That he admitted it impressed her. And moved her in a disturbing way. "I'm not surprised," she said without inflection. "I suspect for all your worldly travels, you're a bit old-fashioned, Jacob. A traditionalist. A knight protects a woman. He doesn't allow her to control him."

His hands stilled, his head bowed so the fine silk of his hair shadowed the bearded jaw. "I don't understand what a sex slave is, my lady, but I do understand what an oath of service is. A knight swears fealty to a queen. His life is hers to command. Whether it is to send him to his death or to a worse fate."

Catching him by the jaw, she dug in a little with her sharp nails, bringing his head up. "That would be a worse fate, what I described?"

"Would it, my lady?" The fine lashes lifted so his blue eyes met hers directly, creating a quiver of reaction low in her belly. "Would suffering for your pleasure be so awful? Should I be prepared to bear it the way a political prisoner fears torture?"