“I did, yes. I’m afraid those days are over for me, but that’s okay. I needed a change in my life. I needed a spark to get my heart beating again.” His hands caught her elbows through the bars, his fingers tightening on her skin. “You aggravate me every day, but you inspire me too. Do you know what it means to inspire a man like me, Valentina?”
Months ago, in his office, she’d fallen to her knees at that question. She did the same now, sinking slowly to the floor.
“Yes, that,” he said, sucking in a breath as her fingers worked at his fly. “It means that, of course.” She released his virile length, drawing it through the space between the bars. It was already rigidly, impressively hard. She began to lick and suck it, and worship it with passionate craving. He moaned as she opened wider, took him deeper. His fingers trembled against her scalp. “It also means I’m in love with you, tesoro mio, and I’m never letting you go.” His words broke off in a groan.
She caressed him, luxuriating in his size and his scent. The skirt of her dress pooled around her knees, red for love, red for passion. He began to work at her buttons through the bars, then stopped her so he could open the door of the cage and come inside. There was plenty of room for two. It was big enough for ten, which made her wonder what kind of parties they might have in their future, but for now, he alone seemed enough to fill the large space.
He shrugged out of his clothes, tossing them aside, and then ripped off her red silk dress with a couple of powerful tugs. She didn’t mind. This was Le Maître after all, the demanding Master in the cage with her, and she melted into white-hot desire. Her pussy went from wanting and aching to positively hurting. He grabbed her face in one large hand and kissed her so powerfully that her jaw ached. Take me, take me, please... His other hand squeezed her breast, then pinched her nipple in a punishing pressure. He backed her toward the bars, his cock prodding against her front. When she couldn’t back up any further, he hoisted her so her legs were draped over his arms, and then he drove into her, balls deep, with one hard thrust.
Valentina remembered this pleasure, and yet the power of it struck her anew. The heat and girth of him spread her open, a conquering sensation that made her legs jerk and tense. His heat contrasted with the coolness of the bars at her back, making her feel trapped in the most vulnerable and exciting way. Violently debased things. Was that what he’d said? This was debasement and yet so much more. He moved into her with barely leashed force, lifting her with each thrust. She clung to him as he kissed her and fucked her, had his way with her like an animal devouring its prey. Just as she was rising to a blinding climax, he pulled from her as abruptly as he’d begun. He turned her around and pressed her hands to the bars.
“Stay. Don’t move.”
She obeyed, opening and closing her fingers against the metal. She knew what was coming next. She’d been put in this position enough times. She heard the lubricant’s cap click open, heard the slippery sound of him applying it to his cock. Her arousal wasn’t dissipating, only growing sharper and stronger. When he came back and delivered a glancing blow to her ass cheeks, she almost went off right there.
“Master, please,” she cried.
“Hush.” He took her hips in his hands. “Who do you serve, ma mignonne?”
“You, Master. I serve you.”
“Show me.” His words were both harsh and soft as silk, soft as the dress he’d torn and left in a heap on the floor. “Show me how you serve me.”
She clutched the bars as he pressed his huge, lubed cock inside her asshole. It hurt, oh, it really hurt because it had been so long since he took her there, but it also felt like the most exciting terror on earth. As he drove deeper, he splayed his hand over her pussy, squeezing it in a possessive grasp.
“You’re mine, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Master. I’m yours.” And where she used to think, I wish you loved me, instead she thought, I know you love me. She could feel it in his breath and movements, in his trembling restraint. Submission had made this act bearable, now love gave it a richness and closeness like nothing else. She belonged to him and he belonged to her, and it was always meant to be that way.
His fingers found her clit and teased it until she bucked back against him. She closed her eyes and words danced in her imagination, black words on a white wall. I belong to Le Maître. No dates, no starting and ending. Just...forever.
He put his hand around her neck and found her racing pulse, then tilted her head back against his chest. “Forever,” he said. Was he picturing the words on the wall too? He would have stared at them also as he fucked her, as he pressed her nose against the letters. “Come for me,” he said as she hovered on the edge.
They orgasmed together in a shaking, bar-clattering climax, his lips pressed against her cheek. Any words on a wall were forgotten. There was only his power and his warmth, and his hands curved over top of hers on the bars.
*** *** ***
For weeks, Michel had fought himself, trying to resist her. Now he had her and he never intended to let her go. He took her to his bed and wrapped her in his arms, not because she preferred it, but because he did. He, this new Michel Lemaitre who had risen from the ashes of Valentina’s flames.
Now he was the ouroboros twisted into a circle. Like the ouroboros, he must regenerate and reinvent himself. For so long, he’d been alone. He’d studied others from a self-erected pedestal and taken from those who enticed him—with their agreement of course. Otherwise, he’d kept to himself. But he could not, would not stay away from Valentina any longer. He was powerless to change the fact that she was his mate, his soul pairing. His legacy, perhaps. Eventually, certainly, his wife.
She shifted back against him and smiled in sleep, her hand flexing in his. He gazed down at her blazing red hair and thought that she even slept with energy. God help him, she was a wild thing. He didn’t want to crush that wildness, but if they were to survive together, she would have to be somewhat tamed. In some things, he would let her be wild, and in others, he would require her submission. He envisioned a benevolent dictatorship, his orders balanced out by his hopeless fascination with her creativity and moods. Perhaps she believed she loved him more than he loved her. She was mistaken.
He stretched in his bed, pulling her closer. He wanted to wake her up and take her again but there was tomorrow still, and the next day. They had all the time in the world now. He had time to stretch out beside her and sleep, then wake to tumble and play with her. They could have breakfast together. Lunch, dinner. They could do that tomorrow, next week, next month. Forever. He would move her things into his Paris home, all her things, no matter how much mess they made, and they would be together as they were meant to be. He would give her spaces to live in all his houses. They would become their houses, his and hers, with cages and playrooms for the times they couldn’t go to the Citadel, and well-lit studios for her art. Then, at night, she would sleep in his bed where she belonged.
All of this was clear as day in his head. Even the challenges were clear to him. Controlling her would be like bottling lightning. In reality, his life with her would sometimes be miserable. There would be fights and misunderstandings. But misunderstandings could be straightened out, and fights...fights could be arousing too. He opened his hand against the curve of her hip, slid his palm forward and down to rest on the heat of her mons. Even in sleep she responded to him, arching against his fingers. Mere seconds of touching and holding her, and he was painfully hard. A small shift, a readjustment, and he slid inside her pussy.
She opened her legs wider, drowsy and pliable. Her wet, hot sheath embraced him and pleasure mixed with an encompassing feeling of connection. He had felt love for her from the very beginning, had only hurt her and denied her because of his history, and his cowardice. Her stubborn bravery had saved them, fire and flame made real.
He opened his mouth against her ear, nibbled at her lobe as her hair tickled him. So soft, all of her so soft and bendy. She was waking up now, moving her hips to meet
him thrust for thrust. She still held his hand. Without guile, she brought it to her lips and mouthed his fingers, closing her teeth on one fingertip. He was bitten, literally and figuratively. His cock surged, his balls teeming at the caress. He wondered what kind of caresses he might train her to do over a lifetime of mastery. So many pleasures to discover. He made her come, once, then again, fucking and playing with her until his own orgasm emptied him out. Replete, warm inside her, he fell into a slumber something like death.
He remembered nothing after that, until he came awake to the feel of her fingers brushing back his hair and tracing across his brow. She lay within his arms, her eyes sleep-tinged and puffy. She was as beautiful drowsy as she was awake.
“Michel,” she said softly, her Italian lilt infusing his name with such novel tones. “Michel, I can still feel you inside me.”
“Get used to it.” He gave her a rough grope as she wiggled against him. When he pulled her closer she closed her eyes, drifting, humming a little. What on earth was she humming? And why?
He studied the woman in his arms and had the unsettling thought that he would never really know her, this La Vampa. If he was to represent her artistically, he would produce his own heart and set it on fire, followed by his brain and then his cock, in that order. Complete destruction.
And that was okay with him, really. Mystery and love, and fire. If this was to be his entire life, he couldn’t be happier about it. He put his face beside hers and let her contented little hum resonate deep inside him, just like her laughter, and her wild, endearing love.
Epilogue: One Year Later
Michel stared at the painting propped against the easel. It looked different than it had looked last week, or last month, or even last year when she’d shown it to him for the first time. Different...and still unfinished.
“It’s not done yet? Really?”
He wasn’t angry, but he pinched her ass through her white silk dress and pretended to be. “You said I could have it as a wedding gift.”
Valentina managed to look both indignant and apologetic. “The rule is that you have a year to give a wedding gift.”
“I thought it was a year to write thank-you cards. Whatever the rule, what are we to do about this?” He pointed to her self-portrait on their bedroom wall, and the empty space beside it. “Our decor is out of balance. Until you finish my portrait and put it there, your portrait appears disproportional.”
She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Master. I know you hate when things are out of whack.”
“I’m going to whack you, little slave girl, if you don’t finish this in the next week or so.”
She skittered away as he followed his pinch with a good-natured smack on her ass. He knew from his groping investigations that she had nothing on under the wispy wedding dress she wore. She turned back to him when she’d put some space between them.