Elusive Hero Read online

  This was hopeless. She shouldn't have done this. Because he'd been holding it, she tucked the communicator under her cheek. She liked the way his hand had felt on her face. That at least didn't get a rise out of her insecurities. Vampires were sensual creatures and indulged that sensuality almost as carelessly as humans breathed.

  "Garron Rand," she murmured. The name rolled off her tongue. Garron meant guardian. It suited him well. He looked like a man who'd been crafted of the clay of warriors, a man who bore the marks of his battles. It was in his eyes as well. He held control because it gave him pleasure, release, and fed a dark need.

  We don't have to rush... He'd said that, yet he'd also said she could change her mind, go with a pro Dom. But she suspected there'd been a lot simmering beneath that controlled courtesy.

  She always took time to figure out her opponents; their strengths, weaknesses and what motivated them. Over the years she'd improved at it, such that she could often size someone up within a matter of minutes. He was a Dom, through and through, and he'd likely be a demanding one. Sometimes cruel. The thought didn't dismay her, because she suspected he could find the part of a woman's soul that desired that cruelty. He'd never strike without pleasurable cause.

  But beyond that, he remained an intriguing mystery. She believed him when he said this was voluntary, that he wasn't being paid to top her. Despite her earlier defensiveness, she knew it wasn't because she was some kind of testosterone challenge for him, a Dom mastering the big, bad vampire.

  "Garron," she breathed again. She wanted to put her fingers between her legs, but that was what she did in the hours before dawn alone. It seemed too sad to do it here.

  "Kaela."

  He spoke in her ear, and she jumped, not expecting it. Had she somehow activated the communicator by speaking his name? Or maybe she'd accidentally hit that direct call button, though she hadn't heard it ring.

  "Yes."

  "What do you need?"

  She stayed silent. In her world, there was no nervous chatter, no "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dial you", especially when she wasn't sure that was truly the case. "I don't know. Something."

  She might be seeking something impossible to achieve in a limited time period. A pro Dom might be the best experience she could get. But she wanted something real, and Garron with his ten vacation days was offering her something real. Which made her wonder why it was so important to him. Did Theodosius offer his employees the same chance he offered his guests, to turn a lifelong fantasy into a reality, no matter how temporary? She'd had Jared for barely a blink of her current lifespan, yet it was the greatest treasure her mind held.

  "I don't want a professional Dom." I want you.

  "I'm glad to hear that, my lady." Despite the staid response, she picked up the potent undercurrent of a male staking out his territory. It confirmed her earlier suspicions of what she'd detected behind his courteous offer to give her care over to a pro Dom. It made her smile, even as her hand tightened on the communicator, her body curling around it, an unconscious desire to bring herself as close as possible to that stimulating tone.

  He'd changed position, his voice more pronounced. "Did you break the threads?"

  "No, I didn't."

  A pause stretched out between them. "So did you call me because you want permission to go to the bathroom?"

  "I may not break the threads, but I will hang up on you."

  His chuckle sent intriguing little surges through her body. "So I've found a hard limit. You won't bat an eyelash at fire play, suspension, being caned until you're bloody or fucked up the ass with a tree branch, but nix on the asking me to go potty."

  "The tree branch might need to be negotiated. And if you ever say 'go potty' again, I will not only ask for a pro Dom, I will turn in a scathing evaluation to Mr. Vardalos that says you are an unmannerly jackass with an exceptionally tiny penis."

  His deep-throated laugh made those surges transform into something that swirled and hitched in her chest. "I like that frosty edge to your voice," he said. "You just barely avoided adding 'peasant' to the end."

  "I thought it was implied well enough not to be overstated." She smiled.

  "Makes me want to tie you up and stripe your ass."

  "You have those kinds of fantasies? Lady of the manor and big, brutish stable hand who's going to take her down a peg or two?"

  "Sounds like you have," he responded. "Which isn't surprising, since you have to be overlord all the time. Why don't you tell me about one of those fantasies?"

  "Are you my confessor now?"

  "I can be anything and everything, Kaela. You already know that. You just don't know if you can trust me."

  "You haven't earned it."

  "No. But there has to be a first step."

  He'd gotten serious again. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had an equal give and take conversation like this. She didn't encourage familiarity with Fran, for obvious reasons, and with vampires...same problem. Because she couldn't afford to slip up.

  "All right," she said at last. And took that first step. "I think I had that particular fantasy for the first time around 1910. I was visiting a business associate in London, and he had a stable full of beautiful carriage horses. He was resisting the introduction of the automobile."

  "Who could blame him? Ford hadn't come out with the Mustang."

  She smiled again. "There was a man who worked in the stables, a big man who was gentle with the horses but who watched me in a very non-gentle way whenever I came to visit them. I don't ride but I enjoy watching horses, from a distance. They don't really take to most vampires."

  "They sense a tiger's been put on their back."

  "Yes. But I could watch them in the paddock. I remember one day that stable hand was leaning on the fence, just far enough away from me to seem respectful, but close enough to be...a presence. When I looked his way, there was this expression on his face... The way he wiped his knuckles over his mouth, the dirt of a hard day's work on him..."

  "Tell me what you imagined, Kaela." His voice dropped lower, a part of the darkness swirling around her. She closed her eyes and let it take her.

  "I imagined him following me back to the stables. I'd be irritated by the way he was looking at me, and would order him to saddle my horse. I'd be sharp with him, impatient. Instead of obeying as he always did, he'd sneer at me, take liberties. He'd come up behind me, press himself against me, all sweat, the smell of horses and man, put his filthy hands on my breasts, pull open the habit I was wearing. I would turn around, intending to slap his face, use my crop..."

  "But he takes it away from you. Tells you that he's not going to saddle a horse for you until you learn how to ask nicely, the way a lady should. He decides putting you over a saddle for a nice hard ride might work better for him."

  Heat rippled over her skin. She wanted him to keep going, and he did, taking her fantasy away from her and expanding it.

  "He'd put his hands in your hair, tug it out of that smooth, perfect twist. He'd yank you over to the saddle he was cleaning before you arrived and started ordering him around. He'd push you down over it, pull up your skirts. You'd be struggling, even as you're getting more excited, fighting the shameful pleasure of being overwhelmed. What would happen?"

  "He'd use the crop on me." She noticed she sounded a little breathless. "I'd feel the first strike over my underwear, but that's not enough for him."

  "No. It wouldn't be. He'd want to see the marks he's leaving on your pale skin. See how your pussy is getting wet, because after that punishment, what you really want is him to drive his cock into you, fuck you over that saddle, teach you a lesson once and for all. Teach you not to put on airs around him."

  This was insane. Inappropriate.

  "It's sheer fantasy, Kaela," he said softly at her pause. "Nothing wrong with it at all. Are you wet?"

  She thought again about taking that first step. "Yes. And hungry. Really hungry."

  "You have to earn your meal. Are you willing
to earn it?"

  "I...yes."

  "Nothing as sexy as a woman who makes up her mind and doesn't back away from it. The communicator has a detachable earpiece. Remove it, put it inside that pretty, delicate ear. The one your stable hand would probably lick and nibble, stick his tongue into, even as you squirmed and tried to bite him. He'd grab your delicate jaw in his big hand, hold you still so he could do it some more."

  A little shaky, she nevertheless lifted her head, looked at the device and figured it out. "Done."

  "Good. Now, put that longer piece between your legs. Make sure the rounded part is against your clit."

  She blinked, but complied. Just the contact of the smooth rounded base was enough to have her pussy flexing at the pressure.

  "Cross your ankles, and hold your thighs together." His voice not only filled her head, but everything below it. "Keeping your legs tight together will keep it up against your clit. Imagine I've wrapped rope all the way from your ankles up to your thighs. You can't spread your legs, no matter how much you want to show your Master how eager you are to be fucked."

  She jolted as it started to vibrate. "What...how?"

  "I have the controls to the vibration feature. You won't come, Kaela. Not without my permission. Now keep telling me about your fantasy. What else does he do to you?"

  "What...does he want to do to me?"

  "Every inappropriate, dirty thing he's ever imagined doing to a highborn lady like yourself." Garron's voice had thickened with lust. "He wants to see you come from his touch, his mouth, his cock. Every time he watches you ride, every time he sees you from a distance, he's had fantasies of taking you over, teaching you to surrender to him. Doesn't matter that he's just a stable hand. He knows when he has you like this, you're all his. You belong to him. You give yourself to whatever you both desire. That's all that matters."

  "Yes. The rest doesn't matter."

  She pressed her hips into the mattress, lifted up, because the stimulation of the vibrator and his voice, the fantasy, was making it impossible for her to be still.

  "Are you moving, Kaela?"

  She must have jostled the phone piece. "Just my hips. Not my legs."

  "Don't move at all. Nothing below the neck. Let it build, make you crazy." His rough whisper was like fingers skating down her navel and over her mound.

  "When you're pushed over that saddle, he hits you with the crop until your ass is marked with a dozen welts. He doesn't hold back, even when you cry. The tears and your curses turn him on. He's tied up your legs, ankles to thighs just like I described. He likes the way you cry out in pain, even as your thighs try to spread, your pussy lips glistening. He takes the head of the crop, slides it into that slick honey pot, rotates it to gather some up and brings it to your mouth, makes you suck on it and taste yourself. He has you lift your chin, close your eyes, and flicks the end of the crop over your lips, your cheeks. Not hitting you, teasing you. He gives you another smart smack on the ass, because you started to lower it. He wants it up high, wants to see your cunt."

  "Oh..." He'd changed the vibration, made it stronger. Her body pulsed with need. She was going to come in no time if he did this. "Garron..."

  "Not until I say."

  She opened her eyes, startled to see him standing at the end of her bed. The early morning sun was flickering on the waterfall, and that, plus a nightlight in the bathroom and her enhanced night vision, let her see him, though he was cast in the dreamlike gray of the mostly dark room. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so absorbed that she'd allowed someone, vampire or human, come upon her unawares. Normally that would have brought her sharply back to earth to marshal her defenses, but as his gaze moved over every inch of her, she saw an unleashed possessiveness that distracted her. Captivated her.

  Moving to the side of the bed, he carefully removed the earpiece, caressing the shell of her ear. Her lips parted beneath that stimulation, his intent focus. "Hands over your head," he said. "Hold onto the bed rails."

  He wasn't asking any questions now, his mind entirely on domination, not negotiation.

  When she complied, he locked his grip over her jaw. His hand was so big his thumb and forefinger slid under her ear lobes on either side, pressed into the base of her skull. He put enough pressure in the hold, she heard her pulse start to pound under the grip. His eyes glittered, mouth in a thin, hard line.

  "If I was that lucky stable hand, I'd wrap a bit in a cloth, put it in your mouth. I'd tie the reins around your head, stretching that sinful mouth. I'd wrap the slack over your forehead, your eyes, the bridge of your nose, tie it all tight. I'd use baling twine for your wrists, rough stuff to abrade your pale skin, so soft and delicate because you lie on cotton sheets and your maids rub fancy creams into it. I'd tie your hands over your head."

  Staying still from the waist down took an act of will so strong she was shaking from it. That, and the fierce look that captured his expression, only made the stimulation of the vibrator worse.

  "I don't ever want to let you go back to your manor." He gathered up the cover, yanked it in one hard pull to the end of the bed, revealing her body in the slick satin of her nightgown. It had ridden up when she placed the vibrator between her legs, when she'd squirmed before he commanded her to be still. The froth of lace at the neckline exposed the areola of one breast. His gaze devoured that, moved down over her hips, her thighs that she was still holding so tightly closed, but oh, how she wanted to spread them. She'd taunted him with the comment about the size of his genitals, but she'd seen and felt enough of his cock to know he wouldn't be a comfortable fit. He'd fill and stretch her, demand that she take him to the hilt.

  The vibration between her legs was driving her lust at every level. That, and his presence in front of her like this. Commanding her. Taking her over. She was under his control, swept along by the fantasy, so immersed she'd let him come into her room without her even knowing he was there.

  She wasn't a vampire who let go of control like this. Had she lost her mind? She knew what she had to do to survive, what she couldn't allow herself. But Theodosius Vardalos, a man she knew nothing about, had said she could, had produced this male who seemed to know just how to reach inside of her...

  Too many coincidences. While one part of her mind had accepted the possibilities enough to get her on the plane, rationality--along with all her caution and fears--surged to the forefront again, a cold shock to her system. How many close calls had she had, when she'd trusted the wrong vampire or person? She knew better than this. Though the rest of her was on this wild rapids ride, her survival instinct refused to believe this could be possible.

  When Garron's grip increased, that instinct seized the reins.

  She wasn't even aware she'd made a conscious decision, which she knew was why she took them both by surprise. Suddenly she wasn't in the bed. She slammed him to the floor, no matter that he was a foot taller and outweighed her by a hundred pounds. She was going to sink her fangs into him, taste his delicious blood, take over, make it clear she was in charge of the situation, that he couldn't take advantage of a moment's weakness, that she was prepared for any contingency...

  "My lady."

  Had he said it more than once? She tried to focus, realized the strap of the nightgown was off her shoulder, fully revealing one breast. Her hair had fallen over one eye, and her fangs were out again. She probably looked like a flesh-eating siren, capable of shriveling a man's testicles with fear.

  Her chest was heaving with so many conflicting desires. She already had his wrist locked in her other hand, her fangs against his pulse. She could tear into it, make him bleed out even as she drank, like enjoying the heavy flow of a water fountain against her lips, heedless of the water wasted, splashing to the ground. She'd take what she needed, enjoy the sparkle of crimson, like the sparkle of sunlight on the waterfall twenty feet away.

  "My lady."

  It was the lack of urgency that penetrated the howling storm in her head. There was no desperation in
his voice. Just firmness. An absolute, unshakable expectation that she'd heed him. The even tone was like a patient but stern father, except the sexual electricity that crackled through her at hearing it was a canyon length away from any reaction she'd ever had to her long dead father.

  "You know..." Garron spoke in the same steady way, quieting the roar of bloodlust, though it, and physical lust, continued to pulse through her. "That stable hand knows the consequences of his actions. Once she's free of his mastery, once she's back in her big house with her comfortable bed and all her servants, his lady will likely come to her senses. She'll order her house servants to come and bind him, have him beaten within an inch of his life. Maybe even have him turned over to the local constable so he can be imprisoned for his presumption. He doesn't care. Primal instinct drives him, along with what he knows lies between the two of you, no matter what heaven and hell throw at them. He embraces it, doesn't cower from it. Or the consequences."

  As she stared at him, Garron reached up. His knuckle brushed her cheek, then he curved his hand around her throat. A move as easy as when he'd wrapped the collar around it, but just like that, once his hand circled her throat, he constricted it in one decisive move.

  "In your world you're taught that it's all force, that the power of the vampire can overcome anything." His gaze flicked over himself, flat on his back and held down with her one hand on his throat and her knee jammed against his upper abdomen, below his rib cage. "That's true, to a point. But you came here, even with all the forces in your world telling you not to do so. You took that risk because, in the end, the heart wants what it wants. It's stronger than any force on earth and will override any power to make its choice. So make your choice."

  Releasing her neck, he closed his hands on her biceps. Drawing her down a few inches toward him, he lifted up, bringing his face close. Now his voice wasn't even. It was menacing, his eyes sharp as swords. "That's the last time you manhandle me. You'll be fed when you learn to ask nicely. And when I've had my pleasure. You're here to serve my needs. Not the other way around. You get only what I give you. I'm the only one in this room who will be taking. So let go of me. Now."