Small, fine-boned, cold. Like his mother's china. When he was little he'd been forbidden to touch it. As a man, he'd learned how to handle delicate things, enjoying the sensation while taking the proper care to keep them from harm.

Despite her strength, which could tear out the concrete foundation of the Eldar if she chose to exercise it, he thought of her as delicate. There were many formidable women, with or without vampire strength. But it was his experience that all of them had a need for love, unless damage to their heart had caused them to wall it off. They all desired to be cherished emotionally, and the art of conveying that through physical touch was one of the most potent ways to do it.

His lady appeared to have some sizeable fortifications around her heart for reasons he knew too well. Even so, he thought he could see a light guiding him through the crevices that still remained in those walls, toward the dark center of her soul.

Perhaps that intuition came from Thomas's many insights into her. Or maybe it wasn't intuition at all, merely the rationalizing stupidity that came with a man's lust. But though he'd woken countless times in the middle of the night bathed in sweat, his cock spent like a teenager's over the dreams he'd had about her, as many or more times the dreams had been about other things. Things that created a deeper-than-physical yearning unable to be assuaged with a grip on his cock. Only the feel of her in his arms would be enough. He let that guide him now.

Thomas had exaggerated nothing, even the way she made this abrupt transition from haughty goddess to merciless sorceress. As overwhelming as she was, he wanted to please her, to give her the gift of losing herself in her own desire. She was so lonely. He felt it from her like a labored heartbeat that made his own chest ache. . So he shifted his lips to her instep, tasted her there, his tongue flicking along the curve as he nuzzled the sole of her foot. When she placed her other foot against his shoulder, he figured she was about to shove him back on his ass. Or through a wall. But when he lifted his lashes, he found she'd gone motionless and was watching him. Turning his head, he brushed his hair along her ankle before he put his mouth against her calf. Slowly, so he conveyed his respect and his intention, he gripped her ankle and lifted her foot from his shoulder, supporting her calf in his other palm as he tasted her, all along the length of that fine limb.

The gauzy points of the skirt brushed his forehead. His nostrils flared when he smelled her response, which spurred his cock like a shot of adrenaline. Steady, mate. Make it about her.

He didn't suppress the male passion that made him nip at her as he reached her knee, her thigh. She arched, a gasp leaving her at the rougher contact, and he did it again, marking her lightly with his teeth. Her other foot moved, rested on his thigh as he squatted before her. Then, not content with that, she slid it under his arm, bent her knee so her leg curved around his bare back, drawing him in. He made himself take his time though, nuzzling the thigh of the leg he still held, working his way up in millimeters. A tiny caress of his tongue, a quick suckle from his lips, then that scoring again, tasting her flesh in his mouth, feminine, silky skin.

Always ask permission.

The recollection of Thomas's instruction was an irritating intrusion. Jacob didn't ask women's permission to drive them to pleasure. He took his cues from their bodies, their gasps, the clutch of their fingers. With her response, he felt an aggressive need to prove he could take over her senses. Perhaps it was because she was challenging him in a way no woman ever had. Or perhaps it was because he sensed against all logic and Thomas's teachings she needed him to try to take her over. But for the moment, he chose to obey Thomas's directive. In his own way.

He made himself look up at her. "My lady, you don't need to tear me limb from limb to destroy me. Just deny me the taste of you now. May I give you pleasure?"

He was already giving her pleasure, on so many levels all Lyssa could think was she wanted his lips to be doing far less talking. But the part of her that still hung grimly to a shred of rationality was reassured by such hard-core evidence of Thomas's tutelage. She suspected her answer was obvious to him, since her eyes could not help but drift down his bare upper body to the hard and impressive evidence of his own desire, revealed by his spread thighs. His cock was a long hard ridge against the hose, held against him only by the tight constraint of the fabric. There was a small wet area marking the tip as she'd suspected.

"Put your mouth on my cunt, Jacob, " she said softly. "Prove to me you want to be my slave. "

Most human servants were not fond of the term, but that was what they were. Bound to her service forever, compelled by an oath to serve whatever need his Mistress demanded of him, a servant could not deny the true nature of the role. So she used it deliberately, watched his gaze flicker, a flare of resistance. But as she moved, intending to push him back from her, he wrapped his arm over her bent knee, his palm hot on the inside of her thigh as he levered it outward and followed the line of it beneath her skirt, the gossamer fabric drifting over him as he worked his way ever closer, his tongue now on that tender pocket of bone and flesh at the joining point of thigh and hip, his jaw brushing the outer labia beneath her soaked panties.

"Vanilla, " he murmured against her flesh as he turned his head. His mouth nuzzled her fully, still separated from her flesh by the panties. She quivered at the contact. "Powder. Perfume. So sweet, m'lady. " His voice was husky, muffled by the fabric rucked up onto his broad shoulders. She curved her legs up on those shoulders, resting her heels along the slope of his back. However, she clutched the arms of the chair, not daring to allow herself the intimacy of touching him with her hands. It had been two years since she'd allowed a man to touch her like this. This was simply bottled up lust, being released with the uncontrolled explosion of anything kept too long under pressure. But God, now she wanted him to keep talking. The trace of Ireland was there the more he got aroused, and it vibrated against her flesh.

Talk, don't talk. Smile, don't smile. My lady, your moods are as mercurial as the weather, and ten times as hard to predict.

Shut up, Thomas. It was her mind imagining what the monk would be saying to her now, but the recollection was so strong she could almost believe he might be standing here, watching them with amusement. She'd no wish for a third party at the moment.

Jacob worked his hand beneath the skirt, hooked her panties, pulling the crotch aside so he could lick and nuzzle her flesh. She sucked in a breath, moved against him. Shoved actually, pressing her wet heat into his mouth, his nose and chin, unable to prevent undulating against the friction of that soft beard. It and the tickle of the moustache were a rough contrast to the moist texture of his mouth, his invading tongue.

Ah, gods... Deep inside of her. He plunged, working her, his lips moving on the outside while that tongue thrust, caressed.

Jacob Green. I give you Jacob ...

He knew her clit better than her own fingers, alternating light butterfly touches of his upper lip against it with the rougher abrasion of his moustache, even as he sealed his whole mouth over her, brought his tongue out to play with her clit before delving in again, fucking her with his mouth in a way that made her think of that big cock prominently outlined in those indecent hose plunging into her cunt, stretching her.

The orgasm detonated in her body as if he'd tripped mines strategically placed at every erogenous point. Her breasts, her lower abdomen, her arched throat, her brain, heart, soul. Even in the soles of her feet, pressed hard against the taut skin of his back, her toes curled into him. Everything screamed with the release so that she had to bite down on her tongue to prevent her vocal cords from doing the same.

Even so, a long moan broke from her, a quiet, broken sound that almost sounded... Pleading.

More, more, more... If I could just be lost like this for a decade, forget everything that's happened...

She wanted to ride that furious wave far out into the ocean so when it melted back into the sea, she'd be left in a place of quiet peace and wild beauty, where nothing was required but simple existence.

He made it easy to imagine such a resting place. As she forced herself to come down in convulsive shudders, her body jerking, he overlooked nothing. He kept going, slowly suckling her sex, alternating with teasing licks, nursing her through the aftershocks and then cleaning her with his mouth, making sure he took every drop of her juice before he gently pulled the crotch of her panties back in place, kissing her over top of them in a way that made her close her eyes, shudder again. Even then he didn't just pull away and leave her immediately without the close heat of his presence. His mouth drifted back over her thigh, down toward her knee as his hands followed the same path, straightening her skirt as he came from beneath it.

She couldn't let herself get so far offshore. Off balance. She had to regain control. This was happening too fast. This wasn't a dinner she'd picked up in a bar.

"Keep your head bowed. Don't look at me. "

She could tell the quick snap of the command startled him as his head began to rise. But she didn't want him to see her in this half-reclined pose, her legs open to him as a woman would with her lover, showing him how he'd taken her to a boneless aftermath. "Did I not please you, my lady?" He obeyed her, though she noted the tension in his shoulders, the splay of his fingers taut on his thighs as he dropped out of the squat onto his knees. He kept his spine straight and shoulders back even as he bowed his head. A warrior being deferential to his queen, but not necessarily submissive. She was aware of the difference, and it confirmed what she'd sensed. Thomas had taught him the proper motions, but Jacob did not truly understand what it meant. Only she could teach him that, If she accepted him.

A human servant could be a lover when she wanted one, someone who met her needs large and small. This man, physically powerful by mortal standards but helpless as a newborn to a vampire, nevertheless had a quiet confidence that made her feel feminine. As if she didn't always have to be strong, the way a woman was supposed to feel around a man she trusted. Yet she could lift him with a finger or rip him apart as she'd threatened.

It had been a long time since she'd felt a violent desire that could drive her hunger to a pleasurably uncomfortable level. But his words, those blue eyes, his impudent caresses, even that inappropriate need to smile so often, were rousing a different sort of hunger. One she'd been willing to forget and do without. Until now.

She was going to take him home.

Damn you, Thomas.