“Yes,” she whispered, all she could manage.
He led her slowly into her bedroom, then guided her to lie down on her bed. One by one, he bound her wrists and her ankles, snugly but not painfully, and a new spear of hunger shot through her.
As she lay there, rendered helpless by his bonds, it occurred to her that there was plenty to be said for bondage. She needed to make no decisions—she needed only to experience. It filled her with an even deeper hunger and a delicious sense of freedom.
Damien lit every candle in the room, creating a ring of fire and ring of warm light, bright yet cozy. The candles also helped warm the room even more and kept Caro’s damp hair from feeling chilly around her face.
Then Damien returned to her, his own face looking slumberous with passion, and he reached for the ties at her shoulders.
Her heart quickened, and she drew a breath. Almost instinctively she tried to pull her hands closer to her body and found she could move them only a few inches.
“See?” he murmured. “You are truly helpless to my whims. I promise you will like them, even the unexpected ones.”
Before she could wonder what he meant, he pulled the robe down to her waist, exposing her breasts. She wanted to squirm as the lack of control warred with passion in her. He took one of the vials and sprinkled the contents onto his hands. Then he knelt on the bed, straddling her, and began to rub her with oil, starting just behind her ears and working his way slowly down.
She caught her breath again as her skin seemed to heat. The clenching at her core renewed with a vengeance. Every stroke of his hands painted her with fresh fire, filling her with need.
She felt her nipples harden before he even reached them. She felt her labia swell with eagerness, and then grow damp. She was ready, so ready, but he had just begun.
When his hands at last found her breasts, she thought she would come right then. Almost, but not quite, as he traced her over and over, working the oils into her skin, ratcheting her need to heights she had never imagined.
Then he astonished her by pinching her nipples. At first she cried out, shocked by the sharp pain. But pain quickly gave way to a new kind of pleasure, and with each pinch and twist of his fingers, her hips began to rock in helpless rhythm, needing, no, demanding, more.
But still he lingered, tormenting her in the most delightful way, refusing to hurry at all. She forgot everything except the touch of his hands and the endlessly building hunger within her.
Damien watched her succumb, his own pleasure mounting. The most exquisite torment of all was making himself wait, and he felt it in every cell. His staff was so swollen now it felt as if it might burst, but satisfaction was a long way away.
He gave himself up to the pleasure of drawing out her responses, teaching her new sensations, particularly of how pain could heighten pleasure. He had seen her initial shock when she’d felt him pinch her nipples, but now he pinched even harder and she writhed and groaned helplessly.
And there was more to come.
It had been millennia since he had devoted himself to a woman this way in this ceremony. He murmured the incantations and prayers under his breath so as not to disturb her, but he still remembered them as if it were yesterday. And what he remembered most from his tradition was that women were truly the source of the life force as no man could ever be. While a man played a role, a woman grew life to fruition in her own body as no man ever could.
This woman was full of the life force, and as a man he needed some of it for himself. He had other powers that he could now share with her, but he needed her strength flowing through him as well, the most important strength of all. As a vampire, he knew himself to have less life force than most.
He needed, first and foremost, to unlock that power in them both, to share it between them, and to do that he had to carry her so far beyond the mundane world that the key would turn in the lock all by itself.
He lost all track of time, but time didn’t matter. What mattered was the way she writhed so helplessly under his ministrations, and the way he responded to her arousal. They were headed to a place where time ceased to have meaning, where nothing would exist except themselves, their union and their mutual celebration of life.
She had such beautiful breasts, he thought as he massaged them and pinched them again. Not too large, not too small, firm yet soft to his touch. He paused to place a few drops of oil in her navel and then work them outward and upward.
He liked having her helpless, liked teasing her to an incredible pitch. A vampire in more ways than one, he soaked up her feelings as surely as he would have drunk her blood. They filled him and carried him along with her until her throbbing became his, her need enhancing his own.
Some instinct told him it was time. He pulled away the last of her gown, revealing her beauty in all its glory to his eyes. Exquisite. His own body responded with a gripping, hammering need.
Then he bent to oil her legs, starting at her small feet, rubbing between her toes, working the muscles and joints gently until she arched with pleasure. Working his way slowly up and down her legs, he watched the thatch of hair between her legs grow dewy, filled his nose with her scents, so erotic now, and reached for paradise with her.
Finally, ages later, the moment had arrived. He parted her legs gently, turning them outward so that her lovely core was fully exposed to him.
She murmured something, but her eyes were closed, and he saw no resistance in her face.
Kneeling between her legs, so she could not clamp them together, he reached out with oiled hands and ran his fingers along her labia, first on the outermost part, drawing a deep groan from her. Again and again he repeated the caress, watching her swell for him. When at last her clitoris had engorged until it could no longer be concealed, he reached for a bundle of soft leather thongs.
Swinging them gently, he slapped them against her most tender flesh. Her eyes flew open, but her body bucked helplessly. He waited a moment, giving her a chance to object, but she didn’t.
He swung the thongs repeatedly, lightly until she was rising to meet them as if she wanted them. Then he swung them a little harder, knowing they would sting.
Again her eyes widened. “Damien...”
“I can stop, but I don’t want to,” he answered.
She looked at him, drowsy, inflamed, unsure, but then her eyes fluttered closed.
He whipped her again, harder, and a deep groan escaped her. With each flick of leather, he throbbed himself, in time with her pleasure, feeling her need grow. He didn’t know how much longer he would be able to hold out himself, but that was the point.
Caro could scarcely believe she was allowing herself to be whipped in this most intimate fashion, but disbelief gave way quickly to the incredible pleasure every stroke of that leather brought her. Stinging, yet good, carrying her to a place beyond thought and time until all that existed was the ache he kept building with every stroke. Her internal clenching grew painful, more painful than the strokes of that whip. At any moment she would...
Then he stopped. Before she registered that the stinging slaps were gone, she felt his fingers on her, stroking her, slipping inside her, feeding her frenzy with contrasting gentleness. Again and again he just barely rubbed her, opened her, then pulled away.
The next thing she realized, his mouth was on her, licking her every fold repeatedly, dancing around the most delicate bundle of nerves, a bundle that was begging for him. She felt his tongue enter her and arched up against him, wanting him deeper, wanting more, needing more, and desperate for any way he chose to give it to her.