For the first time in my life, I felt aroused…sexually turned on…horny.But I still couldn’t get the vision of him leaning over me, getting ready to bite my neck out of my mind.
“Did…did you see it too?” I asked him hesitantly.
He frowned.
“See what? I sure as hellfeltit—like someone electrocuted my fucking cock!”
“I felt it too,” I confessed. “But I don’t know what…what it was.”
He shook his head.
“Never mind—probably just some kind of weird reaction. Maybe the fact that I’m half Braxian and half Naggian and you’re from a Closed Planet or some fucking thing like that. Anyway, give me your hand.” He held out his own hand for mine.
“But what if it happens again?” I demanded.
“It won’t…I don’t think. Let me see your hand, little girl,” he insisted.
I was afraid of getting sexually “shocked” again but the command in his voice wasn’t to be denied. Also, it seemed like I was the only one who had seen the strange “vision” so I couldn’t ask him anymore about that or he would think I was crazy. Reluctantly, I stepped forward and offered him my hand.
He took it in his and I braced myself as our skin made contact for a second time. But to my mingled regret and relief, the odd sensation wasn’t repeated. That didn’t mean my body wasn’t still on fire with desire, though. Just having his big hand enfolding mine made me weak in the knees for some strange reason.
I wondered if the Baron had been affected as strongly as I had and my eyes flickered over the crotch of his tight black trousers. Unlike most Naggian males, he didn’t wear the long, embroidered robes, preferring to dress in trousers, boots, and sleeveless shirts that showed his muscular, tattooed arms.
Sure enough, there was a definite bulge at his crotch—a very large one, I might add. But he seemed more interested in examining my wrist and forearm than in doing anything about our mutual silent arousal. He had pushed the crimson sleeve of his robe up and he was looking at my arm in the glow from the fireplace. As he examined me, his face grew dark.
“I…I know it looks bad,” I stammered. “But I promise, the veins are still good. You can still get plenty of blood from them!”
“Let me see the other one,” he ordered, beckoning for me to give him my other hand.
Miserably, I complied and when he rolled up the other sleeve, his face darkened even more.
“How many clients do you let feed on you on any given day?” he demanded, looking up at me at last.
“R’xs wants me to try and get at least twenty a day,” I admitted. “And since he takes three-fourths of everything I earn, I pretty muchhaveto if I want to make rent and buy anything to eat.”
The Baron—or “Vik’tor” as he had told me to call him—let out a low curse.
“I’m sorry if you don’t like the way my arms look, but they’re the only part of me I can let you bite,” I said quickly, trying to keep him from asking about my neck or my thighs. “I don’t sell blood from anywhere else on my body,” I added and once again the strange vision of him leaning over me and getting ready to bite my neck pushed its way into my mind.
Vik’tor didn’t answer. Instead, he rose abruptly from the chair, making me jump back with a gasp since he was now towering over me.
“Have a seat,” he said and it was an order, not an invitation.
“I, um…okay,” I said meekly. I sank into the wingback chair he had vacated, noting as I did that the smooth leather was still warm from his big body.
“Stay there,” Vik’tor told me. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
He left the small room by a different door than the one I had entered and I heard his heavy boots as a muffled tromping on the rich red carpet outside.
I sat there feeling miserable, wondering what was going to happen to me next. Clearly from the questions he had asked and the way he looked at my mutilated arms, the Baron hadn’t liked what he saw. He probably thought I was offering him “used goods”—something a male of his social status probably wouldn’t accept. He might even make me get dressed and send me right back down to the Central Hub immediately.
Or else he would use my scarred arms as an excuse to want to bite my throat or my inner thigh. Although, at the moment, with the strange surge of lust still coursing through my veins, the idea of letting him drink from my thigh wasn’t nearly as scary as it had been earlier. Or rather, the ideawasstill frightening, but now that fear held a sexual edge that made me tingle all over when I thought about it.
Don’t be crazy, Natalie,I told myself.Even if he does go down there, he’s not going to want to do anything but drink your blood—that’s what all Naggians want, right? Well, mostly anyway…
I had heard from the other Blood Whores who let clients drink from their thigh that a male putting his mouth on a female “down there” was strictly forbidden in Naggian society. Something about a man “lowering” himself to a woman and how it was wrong. (Oh yeah, the patriarchy was alive and well on O’nagga Nine.) But the very fact that it was a “forbidden” act seemed to make some men crave it—at least according to the women I talked to.
Not that I was willing to test that theory with the Baron, I told myself firmly. If he didn’t want to drink from my bruised and battered arms, well, that was just too bad. I wasn’t prepared to offer him access to any other part of my body.