I understand, my lady. Jesus, but you're teaching me to understand.
It was an unkind observation, but one she couldn't argue. Nor could she move away, not when his angry thoughts were seductive murmured offerings in her mind, matching his movements without. He unfastened the skirt, let it fall to her ankles, then nudged her arm up to remove the oversized silk poet's shirt she'd worn. She'd removed the sash earlier. When he'd come into the room, she'd seen in his mind his reaction to her standing before the fire, the shadow of her curves and nipples outlined through the fabric. It had goaded his cock, but not as much as her haughty and remote posture had.
This was his shirt.
Yes. Tara and Richard knew it. It sent a message.
"It helped you assume his mantle. Made them feel a part of him was still in the room, reinforcing your authority."
"Very good. Yes."
He stripped off the shirt, deliberately balled it up and sent it across the room. She stayed motionless, turned away from him. She listened to the sounds of him removing his own clothes, unzipping the slacks, kicking it all away from him. His knee nudged the seam of her thighs, his arm sliding around her waist. With relentless pressure, he took her down to her knees on the rug before the fire, his body hard and strong and now bare behind her, the heat of his cock pressing against her left buttock. He spread kisses on her neck and shoulders like flower petals drifting over her skin. Romantic, stirring. Fantastical. He eased her back up so she was sitting on her heels. Lifting her hair, he unpinned it, then cupped it in his hands, letting it spill down her back again and again. Dropping her head back, she enjoyed his desire to stroke her hair, feel it pour between his fingers. She closed her eyes, filled with pleasure at the joy he was taking in it, even as his body moved against her, reminding her how empty it was between her legs.
"Jacob…"
"Sshhh, my lady. You obey my will now. You'll let me pleasure you at my own pace, surrender to my desires. I have many desires when it comes to you."
I shouldn't do this. You'll be like a dog I've allowed to misbehave. I'll have to be that much more stern tomorrow to reestablish my authority.
"You relish that, my lady. You like giving me punishment. Your pleasure brings me pleasure. But let me show you what it is to accept my desire for now."
How could she resist him, when he'd done so many things to rouse her tonight? He'd performed to perfection on every level. When he'd defied her, he'd twisted the consequences of his actions with such delectable proficiency she knew Tara, Richard and Brian would not soon forget the evening, and would look forward to the next invitation. They would spread the word, talk about Lady Lyssa's new servant, enhance the impression that she'd not lost an ounce of her allure or power.
But now, despite the fact she'd taken him from fury to humiliation to climax, here he was, seducing her with a tender form of dominance she'd never experienced before. She had the disturbing thought she might truly be helpless to him at the moment.
He kissed his way down her spine, slowly pushing her until she dipped forward on her hands again. He spread kisses over her buttocks, his thumb probing her between, the heated entrance that unleashed so many powerful longings.
"Down on your elbows, my lady. I want to see your perfect ass in the air, your thighs spread and your pussy glistening, hungry for my cock."
He wound his hand in her hair, that clever bondage she would only be able to resist if she overcame vanity, and he knew her too well. She complied, gracefully spreading herself, butterflies quivering in her stomach remarkably at the tension on her hair like a restraint. She knew she was in no physical danger from him. But everything deep within was shaking as if he were threatening the very heart of who she was. All the guards she usually posted to protect her were gone. Her thoughts literally suspended as the tip of him found her and slowly, slowly eased in. Deeper, deeper, and she curved up, meeting him, a cry emerging from her lips as he filled her completely, down into places empty for so long she'd forgotten how vast and dark they could be. Which made it all the more amazing that he filled them. Tightly.
Instead of pinning her the way Rex had done, he dropped over her, his body covering her, hands placed on the outside of her elbows, his hard upper body pressed all along her back and hips, thighs tucked in behind her buttocks. It kept him seated so his testicles pressed against her clit. His breath was on her neck at the top point of her spine. Tumbling her hair over her left shoulder, he tangled it with her fingers, drawing her down lower, shortening the binding he'd made.
He touched his lips to the point of her neck. "You may have the greater strength, my lady."
Now he kissed her shoulder.
"The greater wisdom."
Back to the neck, so that her breath clogged in her throat.
"But tonight you've provoked my will, such that you'll be overpowered by it. I'll bring you such pleasure you'll be my willing slave."
He'd already accomplished that, and he didn't know it. She would have begged him to move, but one thing she knew from such a long life was never to rush something that felt so good.
Jacob. She said his name softly in her mind. He began to move.
Long, slow strokes. Short strokes to tease her clit, but then back to long and slow interchanging strokes that began to inspire low, guttural noises of demand from her, noises he answered in kind as she began to arch back for him, meeting his thrusts. He picked up the pace and the strength, making those deep strokes harder, deeper, more forceful and punishing. Working her hard, covering her like a male predator, sure of his power, seeking his own pleasure but also seeking to make her acknowledge his claim. She saw it flash through his mind. There'd been Rex, and Thomas, and others he didn't want to know about. There were the things she'd made him endure tonight. Richard's touch. The whole performance, her punishment for his disobedience. Through it all, there'd been one word to help him maintain his control. Hearing him utter it in his mind, she lost hers.
Yours. The way he spoke it was a brand he placed on her soul. It was that which pushed her over, taking away her choice so the ripple of her cunt startled her, a strong, hard reaction seizing her in its grip and tearing a cry from her lips as she threw her head back. Baring her fangs to the firelight, she knew her eyes glinted red as her body rippled with the power of the climax. He anchored himself to her with a hand around her waist, continuing to drive in hard, stretching out the length of the climax so a cry became a scream, her breasts heavy and aching until his hand found one and gripped it, giving her even more anchor for the wild thrusting of her hips. He came as she was riding the second crest, and it pushed her onto the wildly rocking sea of a third, her cunt spasming, her clit so sensitive she screamed when his testicles slapped against it over and over, as he shot his seed into her.
"Yours," he said fiercely in her ear. "Yours, no matter who you force me to fuck to prove your damn dominance. All yours, lady. Heart, soul, mind… every drop of my fucking blood is yours."
And every tear, she thought, wondering if he realized that the wetness between his jaw and her cheek came from him.
As Tara had said. Overly sentimental, these Irishmen.
Her Irishman.
* * *
Chapter Thirty
They lay by the fire for the remainder of the night, saying little. She let him doze, knowing he wasn't quite used to her hours yet. It took the human body a long time to adapt to a vampire's schedule.
The third mark made that much easier. The mark she couldn't give him, no matter how strong the compulsion in her to do so was growing. The third mark would give him a much greater level of strength, enhanced senses on many levels. Not to mention the far deeper level of connection. She'd lied to Jacob somewhat on that. While she had been able to disconnect the link between her and Thomas, the awareness of his existence could not be totally blocked from her. She'd known the moment Thomas had died.
What's more, Thomas had known it, because she'd heard his dying words. Perhaps because when she'd felt his life essence slipping, she'd torn away the veil between them, acting on pure emotion, desperately seeking one last touch with him.
Good-bye, my lady.
Then nothing. That chamber of her heart forever empty in a blink, populated with inanimate memories. Dusty bookshops he'd loved, his spectacles sitting on a side table by firelight. Places he'd been with all the evidence of him except his living presence.
Her reverie drifted into a predawn doze, for she woke out of it only as Jacob lifted her, took her to the bed and slid her naked under the covers, arranging them over her.
"You aren't going to lie with me until dawn comes, Sir Vagabond?"
He bent over her, studying her as she reached out. When he pressed his lips to her wrist, she thought she could look at that straight nose, the firm lips and clear, clear blue eyes, for hours. She tangled her fingers in the strands of reddish hair that fell forward over his shoulder. "My lady only has to ask," he murmured as if there was something sleeping in the room he didn't wish to wake. "There's nothing I'll refuse her."
"Until dawn," she murmured back, closing her eyes.
Jacob lay down next to her. She curled against him with the deceptive docility and appeal of a kitten, when a few hours before she'd done everything she could to tear his soul to ribbons. He reflected there was nothing linear about their relationship. They didn't even have the upward consistency of a spiral. He was beginning to sense this was the way she loved, as mercurial as a fairy in truth, choosing by some random path of her own which thought or action she would pursue next. He might as well predict the direction to chase a butterfly through a meadow of wildfiowers so colorful he could barely distinguish between the creature he chased and the nodding blooms.