Fine Dining
Every flavor still lingered on my tongue, the familiar cinnamon and vanilla, the dense blanket of chocolate, and the new tastes of spice and heat and salt. Auguste had talked about the food a little, an introduction to each bite, but I’d been distracted by his full mouth and the way his arm crossed over my lap to pin me close as he fed me every piece. It’d taken far longer than an average meal, and I’d savored every second.
“Auguste?”
“Hmm?” He was scanning the table, looking for the next treat. I hoped someone had instructions to take everything that was left over to the dining hall for the other girls.
“Are you going to fuck me in the kitchen or are we going up to my bedroom?” I asked, folding my lips together to keep from laughing.
Auguste stiffened against me, eyes growing wide and black again. He turned his head slowly in my direction, and when those eyes landed on my face, it felt as if I were being drawn into the stare. He blinked, and the slow feel of falling broke.
“It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the wooing,” I said, to soothe his shock. “Only that maybe it’s working too well.”
His face was a little sharper with those blacked-out eyes, as if his cheekbones had slid higher. He leaned in, the hand that rested on the bench behind me sliding up the base of my spine to my waist and holding my chest to his.
“Close your eyes, mon coeur,” Auguste whispered, lips dragging over my cheek. But my eyes had already fallen shut with those pinpoints of pressure from his fingers on my back, the strength there nearly drawing a swoon out of me.
“There is something I want from you,” Auguste said. “And I don’t want you to give it lightly.”
“You can have it, whatever it is,” I said, shrugging.
Auguste huffed against my cheek. “Just a taste,” he said, although it might have been to himself.
One cool hand cupped my cheek, and my eyes opened just long enough to catch a glimpse of his mouth, lips parted and two white fangs peeking out. Then we were kissing. I wanted to crawl into his lap. I think I might have actually tried, but his hand tightened on my waist, holding me still. He drew my bottom lip between his, sucking gently until I was whimpering, wanting more and much faster. Before I could really demand anything, I felt the scrape of his fangs over the inside of my lip and the bitter tang of blood joined the still sweet taste in my mouth.
We both moaned, and either I jumped to press myself against him or Auguste lifted me closer. I twisted over his lap, delighted to already find him growing stiff, hardening quickly as I ground myself against him and he licked away every delicate wisp of blood from my lip.
When he drew away from the kiss, we were standing, although I hadn’t felt the shift.
“Upstairs,” he rasped, and his eyes were blacker than ever.
I nearly argued. I wanted him now. But Auguste lifted me over the bench and turned my back to him, directing me forward, our feet tangling in my skirt.
“I have until dawn to enjoy you, and I want to take every second,” Auguste said. “Go on.”
I would have run the entire way back to my room, but despite Auguste’s urging touches, he was equally distracting from the goal. By the time we made it to the first landing of the service stairs, his arm was wrapped around me, palm cupping at my breast through the dress, mouth sucking and nipping carefully along my neck. I sagged back against his chest as he scraped his nails over my nipple.
“Please,” I hissed. “Here’s just as good.”
My experience said staircases were a terrible place for sex, but my experience also said that Auguste had me wound high enough that it really wouldn’t matter until I was investigating my new bruises by daylight tomorrow.
“Sweet girl,” Auguste purred in my ear before his cool hand slid into the low collar of my dress, hand gripping my breast tight. “I plan on having my own feast before I take you.” His tongue flicked out against my earlobe, and I rolled my hips back against his stiff cock.
“But you’re ready,” I said, grimacing at the plaintive whine in my voice.
“I’m hungry,” he growled, rutting back at me, then he scooped me up off my feet and ran up the next flight of stairs.
I twisted in his hold, nuzzling into his neck, gulping in deep breaths of his scent, dry and musty like fallen leaves. “Another flight up and to the left,” I said, and then occupied my lips with the task of torturing Auguste, kissing and licking his throat. I snapped at his skin with my teeth and he grunted, arms clutching me tighter as he nearly tripped on the last step.
“Underwood was right about you,” Auguste growled out.
“Dreadfully wanton?” I guessed.
“Too good to be true,” Auguste said. “Which door?”
I pointed to my door, and he rushed us inside. There was a fire going in the hearth already, and sparks burst from the wood as Auguste kicked the door shut behind us. He took me right to the bed, laying me down on the coverlet as if I were light as air. When I reached up for the straps of the dress, no longer caring if I did tear the thing as long as it was off and Auguste was touching me, his hands lifted to stop mine.
I narrowed my eyes at him, and he grinned, those bright white fangs glinting at me. “I’m not sure what I think of a man with so much patience,” I said, my mouth running ahead of my brain as usual.
He laughed, crawling up onto the bed to cover me, my back pressed flat to the mattress.
“I am over 300 years old,” Auguste said, bending his head and kissing my jaw and then my neck as I stretched it for him, moving down to my collarbone. “If I had not learned patience by now, I would not still be alive. Besides, desire flavors the blood beautifully.”
He kissed my shoulder, pushing one strap down, leaving soft wet presses over every inch of skin, even as I squirmed beneath him. His knees were on either side of my hips, pinning my legs so all I could do was twist my thighs together for the faintest relief.
“Put your hand under my dress, and you’ll find that desire is not an issue,” I rasped.
I arched my back, and Auguste laughed, plucking down the fabric of the dress to reveal one breast. When his mouth wrapped around my pink, begging nipple, I braced myself, waiting for the sting of his bite. Instead, I found myself melting, turning soft as he suckled and licked and kissed, working his way out in a slow spiral over my skin, then back in again as his hands massaged at my ribs and the undersides of my breasts. I scratched my fingers into his hair, finally relaxing, letting my eyes fall shut.
He struck, quick and sharp, and I shouted at the lightning bright sting of his fangs sinking in, the lower line of his teeth holding me in place for the bite. I felt electrified, my eyes wide open and staring up at the roof of my bed. But when his fangs withdrew and his tongue began to lap and suck, I sagged again.
“Oh god,” I whispered, feeling him drawing on the wound and an answering tug pulling up directly from between my legs. “Oh god, Auguste.”
He hummed, the sound vibrating into my sensitive flesh and making me shiver. He lapped with small licks over my skin before drawing back, sliding the other half of my dress down, and starting over again with the other breast. This time, I was urging him on, curving my spine and digging my fingers into his hair to hold him fast to me. The second bite hurt as much as the first, but already my body had learned to love the ache, begging for the release that followed as he drank from the wound.
He cleaned the bite with sweeps of his tongue and lifted himself off of me. His mouth was bright red, and so was his tongue as it peeked out, cleaning away every trace of me around his mouth. He reached up and took my left hand out of his hair, unfolding my fingers and kissing my palm.