Succumb to Me (22 page)

It was a feather, she realized as the soft
brushing moved on, traveled up the side of her neck and down
again.

A feather. He was stroking her body with a
feather.

Almost the instant that filtered into her
mind, her thoughts leapt to her diary.

“You bastard! You stole my diary---and you
read it!”

A hand clamped tightly over her mouth right
in the middle of the word bastard, cutting her off so that the
remainder of the accusation was a muffled murmur of anger against
his palm. Tsking, he leaned toward her. Teeth dug into the nipple
he had just teased to exquisite sensation, knocking the breath out
of her. She made a frightened sound against his palm, squeezing her
eyes closed against the pain she expected to flood through her at
any moment. Instead, after bearing down slowly until she had
stilled in discomfort, he covered the tip with his mouth, sucking
it like a ripe berry.

Fire coursed through her in a wave that
stunned her. Her lungs felt as if they had collapsed. Tensing all
over, she curled her fingers into the palms of her hands, digging
her nails into the sensitive flesh, but even that was not enough to
pull her mind from the sensations coursing through her from the
feel of his mouth.

Feeling as if she was falling into a dark pit
of live coals, she struggled to evade the heated torture of his
mouth, shifting, bucking, and twisting. Again, he caught the tip of
her nipple between his teeth, pinching warningly, and bearing down
harder and harder until she abruptly went still. When she did, he
covered the tip with his lips again and sucked on it until Melantha
thought she would pass out from the heat that enveloped her. For a
few moments she continued the fight internally, but her resistance
faded rapidly, drained away by the mesmerizing lure of the
pleasurable tension building inside of her until she was no longer
certain whether she wanted him to stop or keep doing it until she
could stand no more.

By the time he lifted his head, she was so
consumed by the need to drag enough air into her lungs through her
nostrils that her mind was liquid with the swirling intoxicant that
filled her blood stream and sizzled along every nerve ending. And
she had lost awareness of everything except the pull of his mouth
on her flesh and the gathering heat and moisture and tremors in her
quim.

Coolness washed over her when he lifted his
mouth at long last and the heated moisture left by his mouth on her
breast seemed to freeze over, sending a shiver through her. Slowly,
his hand eased from her lips. She gasped in a sharp breath of air,
filling her burning lungs, struggling now against the heated stupor
she had fallen into.

As her body cooled, her breathing slowed and
her heart ceased to beat frantically, her body returning
reluctantly almost to normal except for the tension that seemed to
remain stubbornly, she began to wonder if he had left. Even as she
turned her head to try to locate the shadow within the shadows, she
felt the warmth of his breath on her nipple, the one he had already
teased until she thought she would go mad. She gasped in a sharp
breath to protest, but he covered her mouth with his hand at once,
nipping painfully at the nipple that was still swollen to painful
sensitivity.

She cried out against his hand, going still.
“Pain or pleasure. Your choice … as long as you’re quiet. One
scream, one threat of a scream and the choice is no longer
yours.”

Melantha swallowed, nodding her head to let
him know she understood. His hand eased on her lips but did not
disappear, hovering lightly against her lips. Again, his mouth
covered her nipple. She flinched, more than half expecting the pain
of before. Instead, he sucked it, drawing forth the dizzying heat
in a mind sundering rush, more rapidly than before. She fought it,
struggling to keep her wits about her, but he ignored her internal
battle, sucking and teasing the sensitive tip until her will
collapsed beneath the tender assault.

The tremors centering in her quim spread
outward until she was trembling all over, until she felt feverish
from the heat emanating from her body, until she could no longer
remain still. A soft sound of distress escaped her lips in spite of
all she could do.

His hand tightened momentarily over her lips
and then disappeared. He lifted his head.

Disappointment filled her.

Gasping, shuddering, she wrestled with the
pounding waves of pleasure as they slowly ebbed.

“Where is it?”

The question baffled her. She could not
collect her wits enough to make any sense of it at all for many
moments, but as her body began to cool again and her brain began to
function, she remembered what he’d asked her before he’d begun to
torment her with his mouth until she was ready to scream.

He had read her diary.

“The papers that were in the casket,” he
prompted, impatience in his voice now. “Where are they?”

For several moments more, confusion still
gripped her, but abruptly she remembered the yellowed, ancient
looking legal papers she had taken from the box.

The problem was it did not immediately come
to her just where she had put them.

He was not a patient man. She was still
trying to think what she had done with the papers when she felt his
heated breath on her breast again. “No!” she gasped.

She was immediately sorry she had. He covered
her mouth with his hand and nipped at her hard enough it sent a
sharp jolt of pain through her. She stilled instantly, panting
against his palm.

He waited. Just as the pain mellowed into a
spreading warmth, he tugged at her nipple again, began to suck it.
A faint groan escaped her as she felt herself descending again into
the madness, the heat engulfing her so quickly that she was
thrashing restlessly against him in moments. Desperation took hold
of her. Not the need for him to stop, but the need to feel his
mouth on the nipple he had so assiduously ignored until it throbbed
ceaselessly, almost painfully.

She began to think she would lose her mind as
the tugging continued, draining her of her will, of her strength,
of awareness of everything except his mouth and the coiling,
miserable tension in her body that began to demand surcease.

She felt like weeping when he stopped again,
because he had stopped.

“Where is it?”

Her mind snagged on the question at once, but
she was too caught up in the screaming demands of her body to think
of anything beyond that. She licked her dried lips, trying to think
of what to say that might put an end to the torment. “Please,” she
whispered, wondering herself whether she was begging him to stop or
torment her more because she had begun to crave it, the heat of his
mouth, and the faintly rough stroke of his tongue. Her entire body
felt like it was on fire, and she knew instinctively that what it
was burning for was his touch, not the absence of it.

This time when he leaned close, she felt the
heat of his breath on the nipple he had neglected. She held her
breath, hoping he would take it into his mouth, fearful he
wouldn’t.

He nipped at it, gently, but her nipple was
so painfully swollen with need it took no more to send a mixture of
pleasure and pain stabbing through her like a knife. She uttered a
choked cry before she could stop it. “Where is it?”

Melantha was ready to beg him to suckle it as
he had the other sensitive tip, to say anything to get him torture
her more with excruciating pleasure. Before she could moisten her
dry mouth to speak, however, a loud clatter invaded the room, the
sound of someone slamming bodily into the floor at the head of the
stairs.

Melantha jerked all over.

Her torment’s head snapped up. She felt the
movement, felt the sudden tension all around her. He moved away
from her as they heard the sound of someone stumbling over the body
on the floor, or perhaps scuffling with him. She felt the ties
around first one ankle and then the other vanished as he whipped
them off.

“It appears we may have company, for if I am
not mistaken your brother’s guests have decided to retire and I
would just as soon not linger in case they mistake your room for
their own.”

Melantha dragged her legs up as she was
released, curling them close to her body, lifting her head and
staring hard into the darkness as she heard his footsteps retreat
across the room. “You can’t leave me like this!” she hissed,
fearful that whoever was outside the door would hear her.

She caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure at
her window briefly as he thrust the drapes aside.

“Alas I must, but don’t despair. I will be
back. You can count on it.”

Too stunned to discover that she was being
abandoned with her wrists still bound to the posts to think beyond
that and the threat of being discovered, Melantha began jerking and
twisting against her bindings, alternately rotating and twisting at
her wrists. Abruptly, one came free and dropped limply to the bed.
Sharp pinpricks of pain shot through her arm and it took an effort
to roll onto her side and pick at the other binding with her
swollen, nearly useless fingers.

She discovered then that she was not tied at
all. Something soft had been twisted around her wrists and then
tied to the bedpost.

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Jocelyn was proud of herself. She’d prepped
her sister for her absence on the morrow after she’d packed her
things and was even now hurrying across the darkened yard towards
the inn’s stables. As she’d explained her intentions, Ava had
looked at her a bit skeptically, as if she doubted such a thing
would work. Though the lack of confidence stung it didn’t sway her.
And after an unwarranted amount of begging and pleading, Ava had
agreed to hide Jocelyn’s absence for as long as she was able to
once morning came. That was half of the mission completed right
there.

So it was with a light heart that she skipped
into the stables, fully expecting her ‘guardian’ to be fast asleep
after traveling so hard. She had reigned and mounted a sleepy Jet
before that assumption was destroyed.

Blocking the stable’s only exit was a man.
Since the lights from the inn were at his back his face was thrown
into shadow, but for some reason the set of his shoulders, the
careless swagger of his step set off warning bells in her mind.

“Mr. Burleigh?’ She asked, her voice higher
than she’d intended. She tried again. “Why, Mr. Burleigh. What a
surprise. Whatever are you doing out so late? Shouldn’t you be in
bed?”

He was silent and his lack of response
coupled with the fact that she couldn’t read his face sent a bolt
of alarm through her body. He was angry, she sensed that much at
least. But there was something else, something heady and drugging
that she hadn’t felt since the night he’d found her in the hall.
Just the memory of it had her pulse spiking and a strange heat
pooling between her legs. The pit of her stomach tingled with
warning. She didn’t understand. Not the confusion he made her feel,
nor why
he
could make her feel
that way when none other had.

But it was there.

“I couldn’t sleep.” His voice was sardonic.
“So I decided to take Bella down to the docks and see if I could
secure passage on one of the ships.”

She cleared her throat and straightened in
her sidle, trying, unsuccessfully to hide her bags with her
skirts.

“And were you successful?”

“We set sail on the
Gentle Marie
tomorrow at dawn.”

She smiled as if the news pleased her while
her heart beat frantically in her chest.

“Jocelyn.” Her name came out on a
whisper, a hissed warning in the darkness and Jocelyn’s stomach
twisted. “You care to explain to me why
you’re
out so late, Princess?”

Jocelyn tried to hide her shaking hands but
knew it was futile. She’d never been a good liar and the effort it
took not to simply break down in tears and confess made her voice
wobble in a way that wasn’t terribly convincing.

“The moon. Yes, the moon. I’ve always wanted
to watch the moonlight on the ocean waves. I hear it’s beautiful,
and since we’ll be leaving tomorrow it’ll be my last chance to ride
for a while.”

Jocelyn looked at Damon and Damon looked at
Jocelyn, and though she couldn’t tell it in the darkness, his eyes
narrowed to dangerous slits when he caught sight of her bags.

Instantly angry, probably more so than he had
a right to be, or would have been had he been in his right mind to
begin with, Damon reached out and grabbed Jocelyn around one slim
ankle.

She may not have been able to see him, but he
sure as hell could see her and the sight of her flushing face as
his flesh met hers satisfied the petty little monster riding his
back. If his very presence couldn’t cause her sleepless nights,
then at least his touch could rattle her.

It wasn’t much. But for now it was
enough.