The Cherished One Read online

  But he wouldn’t allow her that hidey hole. He would push her past it, every time he was given the opportunity. And it looked like he was going to be given that opportunity quite a bit for the foreseeable future.

  “How long are you to stay here?”

  Although she could barely corral her thoughts to speak, Fawna answered as quickly as she could. “We didn’t set a time limit. I can stay as long as I want.”

  “There are no phones? No Internet? There is no connection or contact with the outside world from here?” Max laid his hand over her nicely warmed bottom, just to remind her to answer him truthfully.

  “No,” she sighed, and the sigh ended in a sob. “It’s not allowed. There’s satellite television. DVR. Video games. Entertainment stuff. That’s it.”

  He had little experience or knowledge of most of what she’d just mentioned. But he knew enough about them to know that they were not communication devices. “Not even anything for emergencies?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Five more swats. “You’re sure?”

  It shamed her to the depths of her soul that she couldn’t suppress an out and out groan before she replied. “AAAhhhhhhhhhhhh! Yes. It’s well hidden and well guarded – or it was.” She was reminded of the bodies she’d seen while they walked there, and of just how alone she was with him, how hopeless and helpless her situation was. The only thing she could hope for was that someone decided to come by, but the chances of that were pretty much nil.

  He swept her mind, finding the truth there. He would, of course, conduct his own search, but he was satisfied that she was telling him the truth.

  “Well, Miss Fawna, then it’s time for us to commence with your spanking.”

  She almost reared back up, but his hand on the small of her back set her right back down. “Commence with it? I thought we were done with it?!” In her desperation, she was practically shouting at him. He had to be kidding!

  This chuckle wasn’t warm chocolate through her veins. It was ice water. “That was for not answering me about this,” he reached between her legs, not rudely or roughly, in direct contrast to his tone of voice, but almost gently, like a man who knows he owns something and can take his time with it, who doesn’t have to hurry but can savor the flavor of his possession.

  His hand was warm where it covered her most intimate parts, and Fawna had a moment of deep regret that she’d allowed Dag to convince her to be shaved. At least it would have been some small iota of protection against this horrible intrusion. His fingers weren’t touching hair, they were touching her. The most intimate and sacred part of her. It made her want to scream and cry, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. At least he didn’t poke or prod her, his fingers didn’t wander. He simply cupped her, as if he had every right.

  Max, of course, could feel all of those raging emotions as they filled her. “I do. What your lover did to mine gives me the right.” He squeezed her, very gently. Fawna flinched, but at the same time, to her utter mortification, her entire body clenched.

  “My, my, my, you are a responsive one, aren’t you? Lucky Dag.” He released her then, and Fawna collapsed against the couch. She’d been unaware that she’d been holding herself quite so tense.

  Oh, why couldn’t the floor open up and swallow her, right now, please?

  He chuckled softly from beside her. “You will have no such release, Cherie. But perhaps, afterwards, another type of release might be arranged...”

  She screamed the word “NO!” at him, at the same time as her body responded to that idea, and he knew it, damn him. He knew it, and it made him laugh.

  Yet he didn’t allow it to deter him in the least from his goal. And he didn’t lecture. He simply spanked.

  And spanked.

  And spanked.

  Fawna had already been crying from the first round, and she started crying again immediately as soon as his hand connected with her butt again. She immediately began to try to pop up, out of position, after he’d only given her about another three smacks. Now, with Dag, getting out of position would have gotten her a whole separate session, that might not even be a spanking, as he also favored certain other types of punishments for her.

  But Max dealt with things differently. He simply reached down with those long arms of his and put the palm of one big hand on the back of her neck, and, immediately, just like that, she was going nowhere. Now all she could do in protest was kick her legs - which did her absolutely no good and simply managed to exhaust her - and to flail at him with the free hand that was on the same side as he was. Fawna quickly discovered that it was like slapping a concrete wall, and somehow she knew that her attempts at causing him harm were merely managing to amuse him, so she stopped.

  She couldn’t believe how God awful this spanking was. It had to be one of the worst she’d ever endured.

  “Thank you for the compliment,” Max interjected into her misery without missing a beat of the rhythm of his swats.

  At least he didn’t simply spank in one spot, but his hand was large enough that he couldn’t avoid catching the same areas over and over again, even though he did seem to carefully alternate cheeks, as if this was something he was quite familiar with doing. What he was doing that was almost worse than the pain he was inflicting was that when his hand when it made contact with her rounded cheeks, his fingers curved just slightly, so that they almost always brushed not quite an intimate area of her, but definitely a more intimate area than she wanted him to be touching.

  It was as if he wanted to remind her, frequently, that he had the right to touch her there, too.

  Which, of course, he didn’t.

  “Oh, but I do, Cherie.”

  “You – ah – oh – do – yeow! – ow! not!” He was ratcheting up the caliber of his strokes as she defied him verbally.

  He ended the spanking with a flurry of sharp, searing swats that left her breathlessly unable to control the way she was wiggling and trying to escape his hold. How she hated to be helpless – even with Dag, whom she trusted with her life, but especially with this man, who she knew would really prefer to see her dead.

  Max let her up at that thought, running it through his own mind and recognizing that there was a certain amount of veracity to it – that there had been, at least, for several centuries. But now, having met and gotten to know her even just slightly, he wasn’t at all sure that that was still true. His estimation of Dag’s selection of mate was rising by the second. Perhaps he would have to rethink his original plan.

  Perhaps. If he continued to find her as enchanting has he had.

  Fawna had immediately upon becoming upright, of course, reached down for her pants and panties, but Max caught her hand and brought it up to his shoulder, holding her against him, pressing her to him by placing that big, punishing palm of his over her ravaged bottom, and lifting her feet once again well off the floor.

  The thought crossed her mind, however fleetingly, that her next damned boyfriend was going to be short, dammit, not that she categorized Max as a boyfriend, but he certainly was taking liberties as if he put himself into that category.

  She caught her breath. He might as well have given her another smack; his touch forced her to crowd against him – exactly where she didn’t want to be. It was the first time she ever really considered him; Fawna had spent most of her time trying to avoid him, but it was damned near impossible at this point.

  He was at least as tall as Dag, if not taller. Darker, definitely, in more ways than one. Black hair, almost too much of it, some hunks that fell rakishly over his forehead. Black eyes that enticed and invited then trapped one in their depths. And a black soul she’d already experienced mingled with her own lightness when those razor sharp incisors slipped into her vein.

  Suddenly, a thought struck her. “Is that how you can read my thoughts?” She remembered that Dag had that gift, but not all vampires did, but it was a connection that was usually established through the blood.

  “Yes.”
r />   Tears filled her eyes again, but for a very different reason than a few minutes ago. “Is that why Dag left? Because you bit me?” She wished, just this once, that she could read his mind, if only so that she could get the answers she sought. She could – in time – accept the fact Dag was gone. But not to know why would be like a knife in her heart to her dying day. He had blindsided her to the extent that she would doubt herself, question every move she made with every man she became involved with from here on out. How could she possibly trust any man ever again?

  Max thought about answering her question, but there were, of course, complications, as there always were with everything about humans, and he decided to distract her instead. “You look famished. Why don’t you put your clothes on and fix yourself some dinner. Is there anything to eat in here? I noticed you didn’t have any bags with you.”

  She knew exactly what he was doing, but the mention of food, as always, had her famished – and depressed even more so - so she allowed herself to be diverted, for the moment as she dressed with all expediency, before he changed his mind. Mercurial things, vampires, given to changes in mood, she knew well, and she wasn’t going to get caught half naked trying to make dinner just because he had a whim. “No, this place is kept pretty well stocked. Dain is in and out of it, although less than he was before my—”

  Fawna clamped her mouth shut. She was cooking and talking to him as he leaned up against the counter, arms folded over his chest, like she had done with Dag so often before. She needed to keep her mouth shut, and somehow marshal her thoughts against him, too, although she knew that was a lost cause.

  “Yes, it pretty much is. Your mind is entirely undisciplined.” He surprised her away from being very insulted by his comment by dunking his finger into the marinade she was making for a steak she was thawing. “You eat?”

  “No, but I like to taste things.”

  “Oh.” She supposed she should offer him something to drink. She figured he probably liked red wine, as Dag did, and her family had quite an extensive wine cellar on one of the lower levels, but then she decided she didn’t want to treat him that nicely, especially considering what he’d done to her.

  That didn’t matter much to him. While she occupied herself with cooking, he disappeared for long enough to find the cellar and a very good, expensive bottle of wine. He didn’t have any concerns about leaving her alone. Her inability to suppress her thinking would have broadcast any attempt at escape, and he would have been able to intercept her easily. He almost found himself hoping she would make that attempt – it would give him another excuse to spank her.

  After popping the cork, he offered her some, which she declined politely, then poured himself a glass and spent the rest of the time avidly watching her cook. She prepared a small steak, seared to medium and served in a quick onion and garlic red wine sauce, thanks to him, freshly steamed petite baby carrots, and garlic mashed potatoes.

  She brought her meal back into the den to take a seat on the sofa she’d so recently been bent ignominiously over, and flipped on the television, finally settling down to watch an episode of Nurse Jackie.

  When she was finished, he turned the television off. He ignored her indignant look, saying, “You asked me earlier if I thought that my...possession of you might have driven Dag away from you.”

  Suddenly, Fawna, who had been determined to pay him as little mind as was possible, was all ears.

  “And yes, I think that was exactly why he left.”

  “Why?” Her voice broke before she could control it. Breaking down was the last thing she wanted to do in front of him, but she couldn’t seem to stop it. “It wasn’t something I had any control over – I couldn’t stop it – I didn’t want it –”

  As much as Max didn’t want to admit it, her pain made his heart clench. He was feeling empathy for a human for the first time in a very long time, and that was the last thing he wanted to feel for her. But there it was. His voice was soft, almost soothing. “Dag knows that better than anyone else besides me. But he also knows how vulnerable you are to us – to our kind. Even more so than humans. You’re only half faerie, and I’m not at all sure how that would affect you, but vampire and faerie blood are not meant to mix. It didn’t hurt me, but –“ he hesitated for only an instant here “- I had intended that it be the death of you. Your half human blood saved you.”

  “My guess is that he realized how close I had come to killing you, how vulnerable you were to me, to death, that probably my next bite – or his – or any other vampire’s – would be the end of you, and he couldn’t take that chance.” Max looked Fawna directly in the eye. “I’d’ve done the exact same thing, in his shoes. He was probably hoping that I’d follow him, and not you.” He smiled, and it was not a pleasant sight. “He was wrong.”

  She had been going to get a brownie slab, long since baked and frozen by her mother, but that look turned her stomach. She took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders. “So you’re going to kill me. Why don’t you just get it over with?”

  Max bowed his head to her. “Those are brave words, Fawna. I wonder. Do you mean them?” He could fell her depression, and the fatalism that it drove her to, although he knew that she was too strong to give in to it for long.

  She shrugged. “I find myself at a bit of a crossroads, and I have to admit to feeling somewhat fatalistic. I’m no spring chicken. I’m thirty-two. Dag and I had been together for almost eight years. He was the love of my life, and yet he’s chosen to leave me flat,” she eyed him warily, “whatever his possibly altruistic motives. And if those were his motives, he could have written me a letter or something, told me about all of that.

  “I’ve never been particularly afraid of death itself; faeries don’t believe in Heaven or Hell. We believe in the cycle of the planet, and that all living things are a part of that,” she put her soda on the coffee table nonchalantly. “If you’re going to kill me, I wish you’d just do it.”

  Max, who had been sitting a ways away from her, moved much closer, a bit alarmed by her statements. “Unfortunately for you, you don’t have control here. I do. If you die, and how it happens are things that are in my hands.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. “And you know just how capable my hands are, don’t you?” Max reached down to squeeze a still throbbing bottom cheek as his lips captured hers, one hand deftly creeping beneath the curtain of her hair to curve around the back of her neck, holding her in place, so that she couldn’t move away no matter how hard she tried, the other snaking around to her mid back, forcing her to arch against him, pressing her generous breasts against his chest.

  The hand at the back of her neck ventured down to those well-presented breasts, seeking and finding the already peaked tips and lazily running the tip of one finger over them, teasing her, that strong arm across her back not allowing for any escape, no matter how hard she writhed.

  And her wiggling was testing his own control, which he liked, so he didn’t even try to dissuade her from it.

  Chapter Five

  It was, as it would happen, just the wrong time of the month, and Fawna’s breasts were excruciatingly sensitive. Dag could, and had, on numerous occasions, brought her to orgasm merely by stimulating just those raspberry buds. And talking to her. She responded to his voice as if he was stroking her clit with his tongue rather than using it to talk to her. His words flowed over his skin like a physical touch, bringing her to a place of pure physical sensation. Sometimes, she’d actually had to ask him to tell her to stop contracting, because she’d gotten scared of the strength of her reactions to him and felt like it would never, ever end.

  Suddenly, all of that stimulation, which had her very close to the edge, was withdrawn, and he pulled her up against him, holding her so tightly that she couldn’t move unless he allowed it, keeping her bottom pressed obscenely against his crotch. “Tell me how you and Dag met.”

  “He – he was a friend of a friend of mine, and we met at a party at her house.”

&nb
sp; “And you were the life of the party?”

  Fawna snorted. “I was hiding behind the potted plant, looking at my watch and wondering what was considered a polite timeframe to stay at an acquaintance’s engagement party. I’m a very happy hermit, thank you.”

  Max was surprised, and that didn’t happen often. He would have pegged her for the party girl type. Apparently, he was wrong. “And what was my old friend Dag doing?” he asked sarcastically.

  That got her angry. “Don’t put it like that. You were never friends. I don’t know anything about your relationship, but I know that without asking.”

  Max didn’t take kindly to being corrected, despite the veracity of her statements. “Answer me,” he warned in a growl.

  Fawna was too lost in her reverie to note the warning. “Hanging around near me. He struck up a conversation, took my number, and we went on a date about a week later.” Max watched her face closely as she was lost in memories, and saw the tear that rolled down her cheek, which she tried unsuccessfully to hide from him. “He sent me a big bouquet of roses the next day. I didn’t know what to do with him. He was so different from any other man I’d met. He never pressured me to sleep with him, and he was so protective and caring, almost too much so, especially when he—”

  “When he what?” Of course he’d pounce on that.

  Her face was bright red, and he already knew the answer, but he wanted her to say it to him.

  Her voice was halting as she said it, and he knew just how embarrassed she was to admit it. “W-when he began spanking me.”

  Max found himself inordinately intrigued. “So how does a woman who, from what I can gather about women nowadays, must consider herself an absolute equal to men, with all of the freedoms and responsibilities therein, who believes in - what’s the phrase - women’s liberation, and all that, reconcile herself with the fact she allows her lover to paddle her very gorgeous bottom for what she must entrust him to decide are infractions? Doesn’t that fly in the face of modern convention?”