Compulsion Ch. 03

She growled again, lower and longer, and the vibration of it--the stretch of her--the sharpness of her teeth--and how she looked up at me, gaze cavernous and ravenous and commanding, branding herself into the back of my mind--

Her fingers held steady as I contracted tight around her. I came in a hot gush across her hand and her mouth. The flat of her tongue was still pressed against me, her coolness heightening every blissful twitch of my nerves.

As the aftershocks faded, she turned back to my inner thigh, now slippery with wetness, and glanced at me sidelong. One last surge of pleasure radiated through me when I fell into her gaze. She nipped at me and I yelped. But she'd only nicked the skin.

"Mm..." Adrian's moan took on a savage note as she pressed her tongue to the tiny wound. "You taste so good."

"So good..." The momentary pinch had already transfigured into strange, achy longing.

She untangled herself from my legs and pulled herself upwards to loom over me. Dark eyes flickered with voracious energy. A cold, pale hand slid up my stomach and between my breasts to rest over my heart. "You can move now. You can scream and struggle and run. You can call me a monster. If you'd like."

I could run. I could try, anyway. But I didn't want to. Instead I put my hand over hers, and pressed it harder against my chest, and stared up into the abyss of her eyes. "If you'd like..."

"No. Your heart is beating fast enough already." Her fingers were biting into me. Like she might rip it right out of my chest. But then her grip eased. "...And I want to make you last."

"Please make me last," I whimpered, turning my head to the side.

Adrian snarled into me. I cradled her, my arms around her waist, under her jacket, under her shirt. Hot palms against cold sides. And then she bit.

I cried out. All week I'd been imagining myself quiet for her, and so on instinct I tried to quell it. My lips pressed together and I moaned as my eyes rolled back and drifted shut.

She drank so deeply this time--it tugged at every pathway in my body, and the blood coursed through us both. Each quickening pulse of my heart surged in my veins, between my legs, and through my mind. She felt it too, didn't she? Her muscles tensed to the same tempo.

Adrian pulled free, too soon, and I held her tighter--take more, I know you want more--and maybe she understood. Or maybe she wasn't thinking of me at all. Either way, her blood-slick tongue against her fresh bite made my back arch and my toes curl.

"Keep going," I begged. "Oh, God, it's so good, Adrian..."

A growl ripped from the very back of her throat as she levered herself up. My blood dripped from her mouth. "Yes, it is..."

"It is..." My hands roved across her back, and along her ribs--and then to her chest, traced the slight contours of her breasts...

"Don't touch. Just feel," she commanded, her voice overpowering and guttural. I went limp. And then her hand was between my thighs, and her teeth were in my neck again.

Just feel. I was so wet and so bloodied and she slid so easily into me, strumming all my most sensitive nerve endings. Her jaw tensed tighter--fangs sank deeper--fingers sank deeper. Just feel. She was such a hot, heavy pressure... between my legs, in my heart, her weight on my chest. Her desire was consuming me, body and blood and mind, burning me up from the inside, leaving me with nothing of myself... Just feel...

I gasped and convulsed beneath her as I came again. Adrian's breath hitched. She unhooked her teeth. Her fingers thrust into me one last time, and I twitched from the overstimulation. Her palm was so warm against my cooling wetness.

She slid off of me to kneel at the edge of the chaise. I curled onto my side towards her, arms draped around her shoulders, as she licked me clean. "Ah... Grace..." Traced her new marks with her tongue. "Oh, you're so sweet..." Fixed her mouth to me and took another pull. "Mm... that's it. No, no, that's it. I'm done. I'm stopping. Now."

Then Adrian let out a rasping breath, shut her eyes, and turned away from me. She was sprawled out on the floor with the back of her head resting against the seat of the chaise. A flush had blossomed across her cheeks. "Mm... I've rather overdone it tonight, haven't I? Ah, well..."

She didn't sound too sorry about it, and I was glad. I didn't want her to be sorry. Just satisfied.

"Oh, but when you come to me like this..." Adrian tilted her head back, and I ran my shaky fingers through her hair. "...With your lovely portfolio, and all dressed up for me, and overflowing with nervousness and hopefulness and lust and life... how was I meant to resist?"

"You weren't," I mumbled. I held her close to me, arm around her neck, and my faint pulse beat between us.

Adrian laughed. She swiped a hand across her mouth and pressed it to her heart, marring her white shirt with a bloody handprint. "In that case, I suppose you got what you wanted, didn't you? Still. You really ought to be careful. You're such a delicate little thing..."

"A delicate little thing," I echoed, frowning. "Well, y'know... anything more than a mouthful is a waste..."

Another lethargic laugh. She was licking me off her fingers. "You're funny when you're delirious."

"I'm delirious." I'm funny. "And you talk a lot, when you're... whatever you are. But it's okay... I like your voice."

"I suppose I do enjoy a captive audience, hm?" Adrian stretched out her arms, flexed her fingers. She slid her sunglasses back on, and then she rose. "Stay. I'll be back in a moment."

I stayed. She was back in a moment.

Adrian propped me up and draped a blanket around me. I clutched it to my throat. "I feel very nearly alive," she told me, "so what does that make you? Drink. It'll help."

She popped the lid off of a bottle of orange juice and tipped it against my lips. I drank. God, it was delicious--sweet and vital as lifeblood. And it did help. I took the bottle from her. A fit of giggles overcame me.

Adrian collapsed down beside me, lanky arm around my shoulders, and I curled up next to her as I fought back my laughter.

"Sorry..." I choked on another mouthful of juice. "But... it just reminds me of, you know, snacks... at Red Cross..."

She tilted me towards her by my chin. "Are you a habitual blood donor?"

"Oh... not really. Not since school."

"Good." She grinned. "Not that I don't admire the generosity of spirit, but you might consider yourself spoken for in that respect going forward, hm? I want you as often as I can get you. And as much as I can get."

"As much as you can get..." My heart fluttered at the thought, and despite the chill that had set into me, despite the creeping fatigue, a warm trace of longing still thrummed at my core. "There's more that you can have..." I touched my hand to her jaw, then stroked down her throat, her chest, her stomach... trailed my fingertips up her thigh...

Adrian shifted under my touch, then interlaced her fingers with mine and placed my hand on my own thigh instead. "No, Grace. I take what I need. More than I need." She sighed, and leaned against me. Her cheek to my hair. "And less than I want. That is the way of it."

"That is the way of it," I agreed with a frown, setting down my juice. Less than she wanted. Wasn't I enough? I guess I knew I wasn't--not with her appetites. She had lots of other women. Other artists, even...

"Adrian...?" I struggled to turn to her, my limbs all loose.

She indulged me with a smile, waited for me to go on.

I clutched at her collar and kissed her, sloppily, drunkenly--the best I could do in this state. My lips were so cold and tingly and she was so sharp and warm. She tasted like me and I tasted like orange juice. Tonight, there were no other women. It was only me coursing through her. Tonight, her arms were around me, and she was kissing me back, and she was mine.

"When can I see you again?" I mumbled against her mouth. "Soon?"

"Soon enough." She pushed me back with a fingertip to my lips. "Let's say... once you finish your next painting. Two weeks should give you more than enough time to heal."

"Enough time," I sighed. Too much time. She could take me again tomorrow. She could take me again right now.

"Are you falling asleep?"

I wasn't. My eyes were just shut. And my mind was going black... so black... black as Cotán, as Goya, as Adrian's lovely, black eyes...

"I'll have Lana take you home." The blip of a sent text message. "Let's get you dressed."

I was limp at first as she put me back in my clothes. But the movement got what was left of my blood going again, and that woke me up a little. Oh, how was I so dizzy...?

"It was a bit different this time," I told her as I reeled. "You were a bit... different. It was... better for you, wasn't it?"

"Didn't I say I liked your anticipation?" She was buttoning up my blouse.

"Right... I guess I have been thinking about you all week..."

"Oh, Grace..." Adrian's gaze burned along my veins as she brushed my curls away from my throat, and then tied my scarf over her new bites. "You really are too sweet for your own good."

*

"Oh, Christ, Adrian," Lana said as she came around the side of the car to open the passenger door. She looked funny from this angle. Adrian had carried me up the stairs, and my head lolled over her arm. "You couldn't have left her enough gas to get home?"

Adrian set me down in the seat and buckled me in--safety first. She adjusted my skirt, covering my bare thighs, and I realized I'd lost my tights. Oh, well. Maybe she wanted to keep them. Maybe I wanted her to keep me. She slid my portfolio onto my lap.

"She'll be fine." Adrian patted me on the cheek, and then hooked a finger under my scarf and pulled me forward. "She'll recover some strength on the drive. Won't you, Grace?"

"I'll be fine," I echoed, gazing up at her. She was so very handsome when she was flushed with my blood. "I'll recover."

Adrian grinned. Her hands cupped my face and she spoke quietly and sharply and just to me, eyes burning behind her glasses.

"It was so lovely to have you tonight. And I look forward to having you again. As soon as I can."

"Soon," I mumbled as my pulse thrummed through the both of us. "Me, too..."

Her mouth found mine. The surge of her kiss seized me, wove through my depleted veins, and throbbed urgently in my heart.

"Paint for me. I can't wait to see whatever you'll show me next." The points of her incisors were against my bottom lip. She drew back, and I lurched forward to follow her.

A gentle hand to my shoulder brought me to a stop, and then she trailed her fingers up my throat and across my cheek.

"Oh, and Grace... I wish you sweet, restless dreams."

Adrian closed the door, and then retreated into the shadowed archway of the gallery's entrance.

"All right, kiddo," said Lana as she started the car. "Where's home?"

I told her, and she pulled away from the curb. My cold hand pressed to the cold window and Adrian receded into the cold dark distance of the night. Then I slumped forward.

"She really did a number on you, didn't she..."

"Oh, yes..." I giggled into my hand. Then I remembered--I had questions for Lana. For someone else who knew Adrian, who kept her secret. It had seemed so urgent for a second back there. Now it faded into the sfumato alcoves of my mind, and all I could think about was...

"Does she... I mean, have you ever...?"

Lana glanced over at me, saw the way my hand rested against my throat.

"Not in the job description." A shiver passed over her and she grimaced. "But... I can still feel it, sometimes, when she goes too long without. The way she sort of... presses in." Her shoulders were up, stiff, guarding her neck. "Creeps me out, to be honest. No offence. Whatever you're into."

"Oh... um... none taken." It was starting to rain, and the city lights played sharply off the water droplets on the windshield. It hurt my eyes. "But... but why do you stay with her, then?"

Lana rolled her shoulders back. "I've had jobs that sucked the life out of me, and this isn't one of 'em, funny enough. Whatever else she is, Adrian's a decent boss." She adjusted the rear-view mirror and her reflection's eye caught mine. "Extremely demanding, obviously. But she pays well. And I never thought I'd give a damn about fine art, but I've picked up on a lot. You know how it is--Adrian talks, you listen."

"Hah. Yeah... I know." I pressed my hands to my temples. A familiar knot of nerves tightened in my chest. Breathe in, breathe out.

Ellie's last text to me... You could at least pretend to listen to me instead of brushing me off. Where did I put my phone...? Ellie was wrong about Adrian, but she was only looking out for me, and she deserved to be listened to. She deserved an apology. She deserved a text back, no matter how anxious it made me.

My fingers were so numb. It made it hard to type properly and I was past caring. elllllie i'm sko sorry.... you're dmy best friend, I love u and i dhon't wabnna fight. let's gdo brunch fthis week. A line of red heart emojis. A thumbs-up might have slipped in at the end there.

Instant reply. Are you drunk again?

I was only half-drunk. The thought made me laugh. But I couldn't tell Ellie about that.

Oh, now she was calling me... I definitely couldn't talk to her. I let my phone fall onto my portfolio in my lap.

I turned back to Lana, who was watching me with concern. "Lana... what is the job description? I mean... what do you do for her?"

"Other than cab half-conscious women around the city? Whatever she needs done, really. Daylight stuff. Pick up her dry-cleaning. She goes through a lot of it." Lana scowled, shoulders to her ears again. "Messy eater."

Another giggle bubbled up from my chest, and it lasted a little too long this time. Lana eyed me. I did my best to muffle it with the back of my hand.

"I help with the business, too, of course," she continued, a trace of pride colouring her voice. "Someone's gotta make sure we don't run out of wine. I've got experience--I ran a dyke bar with my wife, back in the day. Marriage ended when the bar closed."

Maybe I'd normally have thought of something to say to that--or, more likely, felt anxious about not knowing what to say to that. Right now I didn't have the presence of mind for either.

Lana just shrugged and went on. "It was rough. My point is, with Adrian, I have job security. She'll always be around, she's always gonna need someone to pick up her dry-cleaning--and she never thinks about wine." Her lips twitched into a cynical smile. "Dunno what she did before me, or what she's gonna do when she has to replace me someday. Bastard doesn't know how good she's got it."

"She said you're very good," I mumbled.

"Did she, now? Well, maybe she has a heart after all."

I smiled at that. "Yeah..." My eyes drifted shut as I pressed a hand to my own stuttering heart. "I think she might."