How many times had she told herself she would make him wait for that second mark, make him earn it by at least first putting him through his paces at the planned dinner? And how little did it mean now, when she had him beneath her hands, the sound of his blood pumping so close, his heat enveloping her? She knew her lack of restraint was absurd, inexplicable, as well as she knew she was going to ignore everything she'd resolved and do it anyway, right here, right now.
She'd said she'd put her second mark on his thigh, but this was too tempting. Despite the empty scream of protest from somewhere inside of her, something even deeper let go. As the blood flowed into her, the secretion flowed into him.
While the first mark burned, the second was a detonation, convulsing the body as shields and gates to the mind were destroyed. He bucked against her, gasping as her mind flooded through the rubble left by the explosion. Fearless, she plunged into the dark tunnel of his mind the way he had plunged his fingers into her hair to create a bond, an anchor.
All the inhabitants—thoughts, people, emotions—surrounded her. Feelings, family, childhood, a tidal wave of images that would give her everything she wanted to know about him, now and forever. But right now she had a single purpose, one set of images and reactions only.
Putting one hand down to cup him, she wrenched open his jeans to find him enormous, not at all affected by the cold water. She gripped him, insisting, pumping him. His desire to feel everything fully notwithstanding, the climax would make the binding easier. But she also wanted the dark pleasure of his loss of control not just in her hand but in his thoughts. The base male response during the descent into orgasm, which was nothing but a morass of primitive words. She wanted the visceral drive of it, the savagery.
Fuck… fuck her… God… cock… in her wet cunt… ram it into her…
The muscles of his throat were working, his whole body shuddering, his hands clamped on her, bruising.
It had not been this way with Thomas. The second mark had been quiet, almost gentle. She'd been amused by his scholarly attempts to mark every transition as she pushed through the shields of his mind. He'd acted almost as if he was going to prepare a paper on it for a science periodical.
This was pure possession. She obliterated Jacob's shields, bludgeoned them into tiny pieces that became a part of the blood she took into her body. From here forward, she could plunge into this jungle whenever she chose to do so. She knew it would test her. His thoughts would make her feel things she'd never felt before.
She made it brutal. He was right. She reveled in the war between his desire to submit and his need to challenge her invasion. She felt his primitive urge to take back control by invading her mind as she was invading his. While she knew he couldn't do that without her permission, she found she didn't know where her mind ended and his began at the moment.
When she raised her head, he clamped his mouth over hers, sucking his blood off her lips, using his teeth to score her as she brought him to violent climax. His hot seed jetted over her wrist and arm, even the front of her shirt, the warmth contrasting with the cold shower of water.
She savored the insistent rock of his body against her as she drained him and he came to a jerky halt. Against her lips, he cursed her for not letting him fuck her. But even as he did so, his hands gentled and he raised his head to let his gaze sweep her face. There was a wonder there, a reverent awe mixed with an expression that made her feel he was seeing something in herself she'd never seen. Raising his thumb, he brushed blood off her lip and held it there. Slowly, she licked at his fingers with the tip of her tongue, feeling like she'd gone from raging lioness to wary kitten in a blink. These moments, which should be inequitable matches of physical prowess, kept ending up on a playing field where she wasn't so certain she was the victor. Or if it was a playing field at all.
The din outside the waterfall was receding, stern shouts and a whistle indicating mall security was clearing out the rowdy teens, dispersing them from the fountain. Jacob refastened his jeans, working up the zipper. Her fingers whispered over his knuckles as he did it, earning a heated look from him. Taking her hand, he twined it with his a moment before she freed herself to slide the torn shirt off him. Her palms molded over the rounded curves of his shoulders, nails pressing into the muscles of his upper arms. Water beaded on his pale lips and the intensity of his eyes warmed her as she folded the shirt like a towel and laid it over his left shoulder, covering the nipple area where she'd bitten him.
She wasn't alone. He was within and without. As she enjoyed his body, his mind was there, all its rooms and the thoughts that filled them. A never-ending maze of chambers she could explore to whatever depths she chose. He'd given her the gift willingly, as much as he could understand what it was he was offering to her.
Most servants were prepped as he'd been, but until the mark was actually given, they didn't realize the power and vulnerability of it. There were vampires so drunk on that power they plumbed their servant's mind until they drove them mad, goading the rooms holding dark fears and secrets to the surface, giving the servant nowhere to be private with his own soul. Since vampires could exchange a similar mark, and she'd offered it to Rex foolishly, she had a personal insight into the dangers of such probing. It became a battle of wills to keep him locked out, leaving her exhausted.
A human did not have the ability to lock her out once marked, but she was not that kind of Mistress. It was most often used as a functional link, a way to exchange information over distances or in front of others. However, as she'd just shown Jacob, depending on the relationship with the servant, it could become far more. If she chose, she could invite him into her own inner chambers. Of course, delving into her deepest chambers might indeed drive him to madness. Her own sanity stayed only within the barest grasp of her fingertips these days as it was.
Pushing that thought away, she moved gently among his thoughts without really examining them, just letting him know she was there. It was enough for now to see the realization of it in his eyes, feel the tight grip of his hands and let him get used to it.
She'd done the second mark the way she'd done the first, on pure impulse. Was she losing the battle with her own will and loneliness? Was her rational need for a servant leveraging her desire to fully bond with him before he understood what that meant?
No. This was it. Two marks. No more.
Gods, please help me keep that resolve. If you will not do it for me,' do it for him.
* * *
Chapter Twenty
He'd parked his bike near the opera house earlier in the week and hitched back to a convenience store where he was supposed to meet Ingram in a regular car. From there the man was going to drive him the rest of the way back to Lyssa's house.
An elderly woman picked him up. She informed him she was turning eighty on Saturday, could barely see, and too many cars on the road made her nervous. After she asked him to take the wheel until they got to their destination, she talked him into stopping at the drugstore for her prescription and the grocery store for three soft pears and several cans of soup. When they finally got to Ingram, he'd had the man follow him while he drove her back to her house. He ignored Elijah's grin when the woman gave him a kiss on the cheek and two pieces of peach cobbler.
He could have lectured her on the foolishness of picking up someone who could easily overpower her and turning over the car to him to boot. However, he'd learned it wasn't necessarily a lack of common sense that made women act that way.
"A woman knows she's safe with you, Jacob. She just knows." It was Milah, one of the circus tumblers he regularly tossed in the air, who'd first pointed it out to him. "Don't get me wrong. You're not a harmless puppy dog. But you can tell you'd break your own hand before you'd let it hurt a woman."
He definitely wasn't feeling harmless at the moment. When Lyssa's fangs sank into him, she'd entered his consciousness on so many levels he'd almost shoved her away in panic. Instead, he turned that energy to holding steady, getting a grip. A fierce grip with both hands, his hold on her waist tightening as her invasion spread into every corner of his mind, deep into wells of his soul where even he didn't go.
His awareness of her was heightened beyond anything he'd imagined. When Thomas had talked about being connected this way, he'd imagined something like schizophrenia, with voices in his head. He had a certain ability to anticipate someone's needs, an uncanny intuition that had served him well throughout his life, but this went far beyond that. When they left the fountain, he stopped at the hallway leading to the restroom because he knew she wanted to wring out her shirt and re-pin her hair. They'd put the wig in one of his bags. He knew she wanted him to wait here, at the entrance to the hall. So he did as she left him without a word, just a brush of contact on his arm. Since no matter how often he'd studied it tonight he couldn't help watching that tempting little ass, he watched it until it disappeared into the restroom and was startled when she let him feel her pleasure at his regard. Her amusement.
He leaned against the wall, resting his head against the cool tile to ease the odd buzzing sensation. From here he could see the Ferris wheel, the way it tilted on its axis like a top. Somewhat the way his mind was doing, trying to find its balance now that someone was riding it with him.