Temptation's Kiss Ch. 02

Branwen felt faint, her heart pounding fit to burst, or at least it felt like it, as she knew her heart beat no more. Was this such a betrayal? It was only a kiss…

“Michael,” Adrian said quietly, though his smoky voice was heard easily around the old ballroom. “You never could stand the way I could get a date, could you?”

“That’s not what this is about, Adrian,” Michael replied boldly, “This is about 200 years of being trapped in this godforsaken castle with you for company, and not having felt the touch of another being since the doctors pronounced me dead!”

“Ah!” the vampire replied lightly, looking dangerously amused, “So you think you can have your way with my lady because you are so bored with your undeath?”

“He was not having his way with me,” Branwen growled in his defense, “I started it. Don’t blame him. It was only a kiss!”

“Indeed?” Adrian’s burning gaze turned to her now, “And what else will it only be next, hmmm? I was too easy on you this morning, Branwen, a mistake I will not make twice. You need to be reminded who your Master is. And you,” he pointed at the brooding spirit with a clawed finger, “just remember who is in charge here. I’ll not have you courting every lady I bring out here, or I will have you driven out! Don’t think I can’t do it, you remember what happened to the last ghost that tried that shit with me.”

Branwen’s heart broke as Michael nodded tearfully, picked up his violin and disappeared, but not without sparing her a last loving glance.

Adrian strolled over to stand before her, looking down at her, his arms folded across his back now, his head disarmingly cocked. She could almost hate him, now, as he glared down his long nose at her, but something in his beauty stopped her from really despising him. Although angered with her, obviously, there was the slightest hint of despair in her betrayal that tugged at her heart, a subtle tightening around his jewel-like eyes that was something more than anger, less than sadism by far. She was genuinely sorry she had hurt him, and she could barely understand why.

“I was only trying to cheer him up, Master,” she said softly, “he seemed so…sad.”

“The dead are always unhappy, tesoro mio,” he replied, taking her hand in his and leading her out of the ballroom, followed by almost inaudible violin music and the quiet sobs of the weeping dead. “We cannot allow it to bring us down with them. We are fierce, wild and free of the confines of the grieving dead. Michael will be fine, he always has been a bit melodramatic. Good musician, though.”

“Can I visit him sometimes? He isn’t what you were protecting in the basement, is he?”

“Him?” Adrian laughed, “Hardly. Yes, I suppose you can visit the silly thing once in a while. It’ll keep him from moaning around the place like some wounded animal. You have certainly put a smile on old Bernard’s face, for that matter. But I will not accept a betrayal from either one of you! He would have taken you then and there had I not come in! You are mine, do you understand that?”

Branwen bowed her head, hiding a scowl, “Yes, Master.”

“You needn’t be so angry with me, little one. Would you really want a shade for a lover, anyway? When you have had your first kill, you won’t be able to feel his touch anymore, and what is the fun in that? When I can teach you the ways of the wolf, the bat, the mist… I will teach you to fly, my darling, why would you feel the need for a poor shade that had not the strength to live?”

“What do you mean by that? He said he died of Consumption…”

Adrian paused in his step, and for the first time Branwen saw real emotion on his sharp-featured face. He didn’t look at her, instead looking down at the flagstone floor, his red eyes distant in remembrance that physically pained him.

“I’m sure that’s what he told you. And that’s what we told the doctors that came for him. I tried to change him, to make him one of us that he might roam the night with me forever… His heart could not handle the change; he died in my arms. I could not save him, no matter what I did. I do not regret what I did, and I offer no apologies. The distance between us has been a painful thing at best…”

When he trailed off, Branwen put a hand on his arm, frowning, “You were… lovers?”

He looked down at her sideways, his grin rueful. “Silly, isn’t it? You’d think it was because we were young and stupid that we would allow such a thing to happen. I was already older than any vampire I had ever met, save one… Michael was perhaps 23. Now…we’re inextricably bonded. He cannot leave the castle. I dare not leave it, not for any real length of time at any rate. Nor would I, even if I could. Perhaps that is my damnation.” He sighed, squeezing her hand, and looked off down the hallway at the unseen past, his expression wistful, “Let it never be said that I lied to you, Branwen. I won’t. I didn’t lie to him, either.”

She cast her gaze down, unsure of how to feel about this development, when he gripped her hand again with a grin that suggested he had just thought of something truly diabolic and led her down the hall toward his bedchamber. She almost dug her heels in, but thought again, remembering just how angry he had been with such little transgressions as questions and kisses in the dark, and instead grit her teeth and followed him. He dragged her in the door, slammed it behind them, and threw her down on the bed. She landed with a woof! as the breath was knocked from her lungs, and crawled to the back near the pillows, gasping more out of habit than out of necessity.

He turned to face her, standing by the bed, and shouldered sensuously out of his shirt, his burning eyes never leaving hers. She clutched the lace shawl closer around her shoulders, feeling rather like a victim from some old “B” grade Hammer film, and cringed when he began to chuckle, low and nasty in his throat.

“Ohhh, my darling?” he crooned, crawling gracefully onto the bed before her with a predatory grin, showing his fangs. “You think a little bit of lace will be able to come between you and your punishment? You certainly didn’t look this timid when you still had a heartbeat to still, brazen thing that you are. Now that nothing short of annihilation can kill you, you cower before me?”

“I thought you had no heart to break,” she replied quietly.

He sat back, confusion clouding his features only briefly, then he leapt on her, pinning her to the bed, ripping the beautiful clothes from her until she lay naked beneath him, trembling. He sank his fangs deep into her throat, grabbing her arms in a bruising grip that made her gasp and cry out in pain. “Feel me,” he hissed against her neck, running his tongue, warm again, along the side where her blood spilled. She shivered with pleasure despite her fear and pain as the warmth of his tongue and breath left trails of fire in their wake. She tried desperately to remember the beauty of his ruby eyes, how comforting that warmth had been just the night before, the pale perfection of his skin, and all she could see behind her closed eyes was the dark, cool ballroom, and crystalline human tears caught in copper eyelashes. The vampire kissed her lips, crushingly hard, and she returned it with somewhat timid passion, trying to return his ardor and not get torn to shreds in the process. It was not easy going. His lovemaking was a claiming, a dominance play, and her submission was more out of fear than passion. He entered her roughly, without the finesse he had shown even at his roughest the night before, and even through the pain, the pleasure was exquisite. She gave in to the bestial side of her that loved the treatment even beneath the veneer of terror, and clutched him to her, crying out even as his claws dug deep into her shoulders, his teeth in her neck.

Finally, he knelt up, gripping her arms and shook her viciously. She opened her eyes, shocked and caught in his glowering red gaze, wept.

“You all but loved me last night,” he growled, seeing her tears. “You want the shade so badly? You can bloody well have him, but I tell you right now: You will come to me ‘ere long, and you will make your first kill, and when you do I will be right there. You cannot hold out forever. Have your romance. Know that I am eternal.” With that, he threw her roughly to the bed, again, his expression reckless and cruel, beautiful as a lion in his wrath, and stalked off into the night.

She wanted to call out to him, to call him back, to beg his forgiveness for being so human still, to let him know that she still wanted him… needed him… loved him? Could she truly say such a thing? He would be back. She knew that one thing he had, and she did too, was time. She still did not know her limitations, or abilities, though she was sure they were limited by the same thing that limited her inhibitions about feeling the dead.

Her first kill.

She wrapped her arms around herself to still the trembling, to ease the loneliness, to stop the tears that threatened to come forth again, but she was losing the battle even then. She looked on the tattered remains of her beautiful clothes, and crawled over to the vanity, hoping the velvet dressing gown would still be there. It was! She slipped into the softness and grace of the deep green velvet and stood by the window to watch the moonrise, still clutching her arms around her.

After some time, she heard the soft scratch of a match being lit, and a black candle on the vanity blazed to life. She turned to face the intruder, and was met with soft, amber eyes over gold wire-rimmed glasses. “Michael,” she whispered.

“I heard everything,” he said softly, “Are you all right?”

She bowed her head a little, embarrassed, “Yeah, I’m okay. Just a little scratched up. Nothing that won’t heal pretty quick. At least I have noticed that, if nothing else, about my abilities.”

“You don’t look okay,” he said, approaching her slowly, “I know he’s not an easy man to love. Believe me. I’m sorry I wasn’t completely honest with you about my history; it’s painful to remember. Sometimes it’s nice to think you can rewrite it by praying it wasn’t the way you remember it. I know that’s just not true, especially when there is somebody still around who remembers it the way it was, flawlessly. His memory is picture perfect, of every tiny, seemingly insignificant detail. Remember that about him, if nothing else. Is there anything I can do to help you? I will understand if you want me to leave.”

“No, please don’t leave,” she found herself saying. “Stay with me, if you can.”

He brushed his hand lightly over her eyelids, the moth-wing softness of his fingertips making her close her eyes, and he finished the caress against her cheek, warm and almost alive. He brushed her tears away, and kissed her face tenderly, reverent as he had been back in the ballroom, putting his arms around her and holding her close. Gracefully, he scooped her legs up from beneath her, and placed her gently on the bed, brushing his fingertips in a reminder across her eyelids. She smiled as she felt him lay over her, kneeling on either side of her hips. He planted sweet, soft kisses along her cheeks, down her neck, across her lacerated shoulders and breasts. She flinched a little, but returned his affections, stroking his face like a blind woman ‘seeing’ her lover, running her fingers through his curls. He kissed her lips deeply, tenderly, his tongue soft and warm against hers. He held her close, stroking the pain and fear away with gentle, callused fingers, murmuring soothing words in his sweetly accented, almost musical tones. When she ran her fingers tentatively down his softly furred chest, his breath caught in his throat, and he moaned softly. She had all but forgotten she was the first creature he had touched in 200 years, and she found his self-control to be stunning. With a smile, she pushed him over, and pinned him playfully, her eyes still closed, and began to kiss and nibble his neck and chest as he bucked and writhed beneath her. His scent was still old lavender and cedar, now distilled with the musk of lust, not hidden from her eyes.

“Branwen,” he breathed, his hands clutching her hips spasmodically, “Please, Branwen. Have mercy on me.”

“What do you want, Michael?”

“Please, God, Branwen, make love to me. I beg you. To hell with Adrian, he cannot love you like this. Please.”

She covered his lips with her fingertips to stop his words. She hated to think of what Adrian would do if he had heard him say that. She nodded silently, and reached down to Michael’s trousers to feel his erection straining at the fabric. His hands on her shoulders guided her to lie down beside him, and she felt him working off his clothes. Then, his hands, gentle as they traveled up her thighs, pushing the velvet gown up and over her belly, and somehow the slow, deliberate movement of his fingers exposing her was more tantalizing than any words he could have spoken.

He lay over her again without a word, his face buried in her hair at her neck, and he entered her slowly, smoothly, carefully so as not to aggravate the damage already wrought on her body by the angry vampire. She gasped long as he moved deep within her, her head back, her back arched, her hands clutching his warm, smooth back. He moved slowly, every stroke long, smooth, calculated to feel every last inch of the pleasure he brought upon her, and she cooed in rapture. She could feel him trembling with passion over her, and stroked his bare back, soothingly. With her eyes closed, she could only imagine what he must look like over her, his muscular shoulders, his soft furred chest, his amber eyes, but was so relieved to have such tender treatment after so harsh a lesson she cared little. She would look into his eyes when they finished, and thank him, thoroughly.

He picked up the pace, faster, a little harder, still in smooth, long strokes that drew out great gasps of pleasure from the woman beneath him. Her orgasm brought him clear over the edge, and he groaned, mingling with the suspended howl that tore from her throat in her ecstasy. He collapsed over her, panting, and she stroked his hair for a long moment, nuzzling his ear.

She felt his kiss on her cheek, then his hands pulling her on top of him, guiding her hips to his ready erection as he pleasured her again. His large hands held her hips down, pulling another cleansing climax from her as she writhed over him, sitting back and up.

Finally, he lay her down beside him and just held her as she slept, his breath warm on the back of her neck. At some point in the night he tucked her beneath the covers, and lay beside her, breathing words to her she would never hear, stroking her hair as the moonlight fell across them.