"Yes. Yes, Master."
"One of these days, I'm going to come just from you saying that one word."
She could do the same. She didn't even have to stroke herself. She simply thought "Master" and her whole body tightened with desire.
"Any Master?" He demanded
No...I had a fantasy one for a long time. He had no face...he was a shadow.
How about now?
She couldn't say it out loud, because it would shoot that not-so-delightful shard of poignant impending loss through her heart, but he wasn't in the mood to be kind. He caught the back of her neck again, squeezed. "Answer me, my lady."
"You. It's you."
"Good. Because if you know that, you know I want you to fail and come without my permission. Those switch marks healed way too quickly. I want to spank you here in front of everyone and make them wish they were me."
Or me, she thought, thinking of the submissives who might be watching.
He chuckled at that.
He could play her body so well, so quickly, and her desire for his domination, her eagerness to respond to it, only fueled it. But there were more people filtering into the pool area. More voices, more comments directed toward them. Garron was answering, casual conversation, and she tried not to flinch as chairs scraped, were brought closer. One of the people sitting close was a Mistress whose submissive was in the pool. At length he came to the edge, his wet arms propped on the concrete lip, only a few feet from Kaela. Even with her eyes lowered she could see he was watching Kaela, watching his Mistress, eyes flickering back and forth. He was a young Italian male, with expressive eyes and wet black hair sleek on his skull. She'd seen him get into the pool in an extremely brief white suit that would be transparent when he got out, all those olive-skinned ropy muscles a tempting contrast.
She didn't care about the beauty of the Italian male. She'd seen and known beauty plenty of times. She was more concerned about the people. When another chair scraped and she flinched again, she realized she was nervous and getting more so by the moment.
"May I touch her hair, Master Garron?" The Mistress was speaking. "It's so lovely."
She didn't know what he replied, if he said yes or no. All she knew was she'd turned her head and bared her fangs before she even thought about the wisdom of doing so. Despite the fact she was sure they'd think her red eyes were contacts, and the glimpse of fangs a surgical alteration for role playing, a sub acting as a vampire for Garron, the human woman's reaction was pure survival instinct. The hand was withdrawn quickly and the chair skipped back two paces with her still in it.
Garron, I can't do this. I need out of here. Now.
Easy. He touched the choker, slid his finger beneath it before gently removing the balls from both orifices and detaching the string from the tether. Despite her mental distress, his probing to extract the toys from her wet pussy and stimulated rim gave her an erotic shudder. Wrapping the items in a cocktail napkin, he gave them to a staff member to put in a used toy bin for cleaning and brought her to her feet with a firm hand under her elbow. "Excuse me," he said to the Mistress politely. "This is the first time my sub has been in a public environment, and we've reached our limit for today."
There were polite responses, things she didn't catch, but he was moving her away from the crowded area, onto one of those secluded paths Eden had in abundance even in the 24/7 area. Thanks to Garron's height, he was able to beckon over the foliage at one of the roving staff members. He had the man retrieve her robe. Keeping her head down as Garron put it on her, she tried not to be horrified by how she'd lost control. It had been nothing. Nothing but a woman reaching out to touch her.
Sssh, my lady. Stop thinking so much.
Garron tied the robe loosely at her waist, making her feel less exposed. He removed the tether as well. While a part of her protested, another part, the one that was scrambling to feel more in control, didn't stop him. He put his fingers under her chin.
"Look at me, Kaela."
His tone was neutral, and when she delved into his mind, seeking disappointment, shame, she found none. There was plenty enough of that in her own head.
He jerked her face up without warning, startling her into another hiss, a showing of teeth. She was never this out of control of her aggression. But before she could pull back, he'd slid a fingertip down her face, stilling her with the gentle gesture.
"It wasn't a request," he said mildly.
"I failed here. I can't do this part."
"You failed nothing." His eyes flashed. "Do you want to go back in there? Go back to what we were doing? You won't lie to me."
No, she wouldn't. She'd lied to everyone in the whole world for too long. If she lied to him, she'd be lost. She shook her head. "No. I don't want to go back to the pool with them."
"Why? Stop worrying about my reaction, and your unrealistic expectations, and think."
She narrowed her gaze at the reproof, but she considered the question, trying to get her feet back beneath her. Though there were still people passing, it was at a reasonable distance, leaving them in a quiet bubble. But when she looked back toward the pool area, where all those Doms and subs were grouped, the Doms socializing, the subs on display in a variety of ways, she recoiled.
Her uncomfortable vulnerability made her feel like she was at a vampire social gathering without any of her normal emotional shields in place.
Was it that simple? When she was with him, she could get lost in her head. For a while, when he'd first inserted the balls, she'd been able to hold onto that. But around others... It was too much like the public persona she'd had to put on for so long. She couldn't relax, as if the prese
nce of others was a trigger to don her armor.
Plus she was a vampire. She didn't want to be vulnerable that way in front of...humans.
The shock of that stilled her. Garron was human, but he was different. He'd elicited a unique reaction from her from the beginning. Other humans she still saw as much weaker and even somewhat inferior, if she was being brutally honest. Her submission was a type of solitude, a gift to herself she hadn't had since she'd been a vampire, always on display or on her guard. When she was with just him, she could relax. Or rather, a vital part of her could, enough to surrender to him and be taken to sexual peaks she'd never experienced before him.
Whether it was Eden or Garron himself, it seemed the key that had unlocked this side of her was a key only he could hold. As if he was the only human she thought she could trust. She'd consider the idea absurd, except she'd reacted to him in a way she hadn't reacted to anyone in over a hundred seventy-five years.
An even less comfortable revelation was realizing that, sometime during those many years, she'd differentiated herself from humans, though she'd been one of them.
She lifted her gaze to him, found him waiting for her to get a handle on it. "Kaela, on one level, it's no different from any other submissive," he said. "You all have hard limits, even though it's difficult to accept that at first, because it's all about wanting to lose yourself in the Dom's desires. But you're different as well. You've had to keep your game face on, 24/7, for so long. Hell, even when you were a spy, you had to pretend to be something else."
She lifted a shoulder in uncertain agreement.