She didn't respond, but neither did her eyes leave him. By the slight press of her moist lips together he knew she'd heard him clearly enough. Keeping his gaze on her, he caught Seanna's arm,rolled her over onto Debra so she lay upon her as a man would. Jacob grasped Debra's legs, lifted them so she had her heels on his back, her thighs alongside Seanna's hips. Only then did he drive his cock into Seanna, into a deep well of pussy so slick and hot it almost made him lose his focus. He held Debra's legs against the black woman's thighs and moved the three of them, pounding hard into Seanna, knowing every stroke rubbed her clit against Debra's as she held herself over her, their nipples brushing, breasts bumping into each other.

It was enough to break Richard's control. He pulled Tara out of the chair, rucked up her tight skirt, tore away her panties and sank into her from behind at the same moment he gripped her shoulder with his fangs. Brian put his hand to Debra's chin, tilted her head back at an angle just short of breaking her neck and claimed her lips, growling into her mouth as she whimpered her need. Seanna could go at any time, but Jacob's gut told him Debra wasn't quite there. His fevered gaze fell on the untouched dessert on Brian's plate and he reached for it, grabbing a fistful of the sauce and brownie together. Lifting Seanna with a firm hand at her throat, he massaged the sauce and moist brownie into those chocolate-colored breasts. When Brian moved down to her throat, Debra watched, mesmerized by the play of Jacob's paler hands against the firm dark skin, the deep brown nipples. The raspberry sauce slid down over them, giving the appearance of blood to hungry, nonhuman eyes.

Keeping one hand below Seanna's jawline, Jacob moved the other down to Debra's clit. He passed his thumb over the sensitive nub before he slid two fingers deep inside of her and began to work her again, his thumb shuttling back and forth across the clit as she bucked beneath his ministrations. Brian bit her.

Her clit spasmed against Jacob's palm. Thank you, Lord Brian. Working his cock in Seanna, Jacob increased his hold on her throat so he was restricting her air, punishing her. Demanding.

"Come for me, you arrogant bitch, " he whispered. Fierce triumph flooded him as she cursed... And her body began to shudder. She cried out, her muscles milking him. He let himself feel it, though he didn't want to. He wanted to stand away from it and remain in control of the situation entirely, but his Mistress had anticipated that when she required he come as well. She would leave him nothing. But he'd succeeded where she'd expected him to fail.

Oh, you're quite wrong about that, Sir Vagabond. I knew you wouldn't fail.

Lifting his attention back to her now, he saw her lips were parted, her fingers frozen on the stem of her wineglass. The way she was turned in the poet's shirt showed him almost all of the curve of her left breast. There was a tiny pen and ink stencil of a rose on it. She'd made him do it, forcing him to discuss with her the more mundane details of the week's domestic duties while he did it. Treating him as casually as if he were a lady's maid, disinterested in a lady's breasts, all the while knowing it was all he could do to keep himself from smearing the ink with the pads of his fingers to grasp her, take his fill of her weight and shape. He was growing accustomed to her small torments, but he realized now they were just preparatory exercises for things like this.

He watched the rose petals flutter with the reaction she was masking so well from the others. But when it came to her, it was as if he couldn't overlook the slightest detail. What others might need time-lapse photography to see... The tiny breath, the slight tremor... He saw and felt it all in a rush of scalding heat through his body. He tortured himself with every feature,every gesture, but it wasn't enough.

He needed something to bring this tableau to a close. As the thought entered his mind, he was afraid she'd withhold it just to enjoy watching him masturbate in front of them all. But he took the leap and tried to ask instead of demand. Even his thoughts felt raw with need, as his voice would have been if he spoke out loud what he was thinking now.

Command me to come, my lady. Only your lips can compel me.

Charming courtier. But the intensity of her expression increased, telling him he'd touched her. Surely your cock is hard enough the stroke of Seanna's cunt would make it explode.

Only the stroke of your words will do that, my lady. My cock aches to explode for you. Within you.

Within every part of her in fact. That soft wet pussy, between her moist lips, in her tight ass...

Perhaps he should not have had those thoughts, because a spark of fire came into her expression. The women were convulsing in aftershocks, still responding to his touch and the feel of his cock, but they were coming down. Her gaze lifted to the grandfather clock ticking in the corner next to the china cabinet.

I have three and a half more minutes to make up my mind, don't I? If you come before then, I'll know your words were just empty flattery, an attempt to hold onto control, rather than the gift of your full surrender.

Seanna's muscles rippled, her ass pushing back into him. "Lick the sauce off of her, " Tara purred. She had her cheek to the table, her arm extended under it like a lazy cat. Richard sat in her chair now, and had his hands on her thighs, holding them open as he ate at her pussy, making her jerk as she spoke breathlessly. "Turn her over. "

Seanna's flexibility would be enough to make most men lose control. As he began to lift her, she simply rose up on her hands and twisted over, turning on his cock like a pin, holding onto his shoulders so he could lift her off Debra, step unsteadily to the side to lay her back on the table. In a smooth movement, he was full hilt in her again. She tilted up, offering her breasts with her cupped hands as she tightened her legs on him, drawing him deeper, making him feel the lock of her legs across his buttocks, the squeeze of her inside. Christ, she was bloody strong. As if she knew what was going on between him and his Mistress, the light of challenge was in her eye. But there was reviving desire there as well, even as her body still quivered with the climax he'd given her.

"You've got a nice cock, Irishman, " she said. "I want to feel it spill inside me. "

He wanted to tell her to shut her mouth, as if she'd said something obscene to him. Instead, he bent over her and put his lips to the curve of her other breast, feeling her arms come around his shoulders, cover his hair in a surprisingly romantic move, reminiscent of his lady's touch... But it wasn't her.

He wanted to throw her off, but instead it gave him an idea. He raised his gaze as he licked the raspberry sauce slowly off the brown swell of breast, suckling then covering her nipple with his mouth, tugging it in, showing his lady by demonstration. He wouldn't think about the clock now. That was irrelevant. Either she was going to be merciful or she was going to be cruel. He had to await her pleasure either way.

Her gaze flickered, acknowledging the truth of that thought. He rubbed his lips in the raspberry sauce then brought his face to Seanna, keeping his attention locked on his lady as she nibbled and nuzzled at his mouth, scoring him with her teeth. He didn't kiss her back, keeping his lips firm and unyielding, but it didn't seem to bother her. If anything, his indifference seemed to goad her to greater efforts. She was lifting her hips from the table, stroking herself on his cock and driving herself back to orgasm even as she yanked him toward the same cliffs edge with the slow pumping motion inside her soaked tissues. He'd kept his hand on Debra's abdomen, a reassuring touch, not wanting to just abandon her, but now Brian pulled her off the table away from him, curling her up in his arms. He laved the punctures in her neck, his hand between her bare legs, penetrating her wetness.

Jacob returned to suckling the sauce off the generous breasts of Richard's servant, noting that her Master watched even as he busied himself at Tara's pussy, his lips slick with her juices, his grip tightening as she began to writhe. Games of power. Who held the reins, and who only thought they did. As his lady watched all of it, Jacob suspected she missed no nuance of what was happening. What the relationships here truly were.

What is it she truly needs me to be? Her mouth says one thing, her mind another. Her heart and soul hold the truth of it, but she holds those out of reach ...

He couldn't help his thoughts, even knowing she was in his mind where she could hear them. She rose, a slow glide. Keeping his eyes on her, he framed Seanna's breasts in both hands, lashing at her nipples, using some of his own strength to drive her up again. Her nails were raking his shoulders, drawing blood, so much like his lady he had to stifle a groan.

Lyssa was a slow, sensuous shadow behind the flames of the dim candlelight. She trailed her hand on Brian's shoulder as she passed him, a mild reminder of her ownership. The scientist stilled momentarily to watch her, then was drawn back into his fascination with his own servant.

Seanna gasped as Jacob changed angle and kept the pace at his own desire. He was getting precariously close, but he knew it wasn't Seanna's welcoming cunt. It was his lady's approach. As Seanna went over that cliff, she left him behind, proving the point.

Expectant pulsing energy rushed to his cock as Lyssa moved behind him. Her hand whispered along his shoulder as it had Brian's, only it changed track, descended. He kept moving as he felt she desired him to do, his upper body flexing, muscles rippling under her touch as he fucked a stranger at her command. Her nails passed over where Seanna had scored him and he shuddered as he felt his lady's lips touch there, her skirt brush the back of his legs. Her hands came to rest on his hips. Pressing against his buttocks, she moved with him, her mound rubbing at the seam of his ass, lower, the tops of his thighs. "Mistress... My lady... " His desire became explosive, his need for release ratcheted up to blazing. He could have gone now, but still he waited... He was following her hands as she tightened on him, released, driving him in and out more slowly, tormenting him not from the dragging friction of Seanna's cunt, but from the control her slender hands were imposing on him. Fondling, directing him, working him as intimately as if she were fucking him. When he licked at Seanna's breasts with all the focus of a blind man, the hair on his forehead brushing the base of her throat, he heard the breath of sound behind him. His lady's breasts, loose in the soft shirt, brushed his back. The hint of a taut nipple, the rough lacings at odds with the silken mounds beneath as she kissed his neck.

Would you like to come for me, Jacob?

Yes, my lady. God, yes.

Then you may. You have three seconds--

It exploded from him before she could complete the sentence. It was all his body had needed. All that mattered was she'd required it, commanded it. He had no ability to explain why he'd made that so important, such that every temptation couldn't push him over the way the whisper of her voice in his mind did now, like a lever flipping.

He rammed Seanna hard against the table, taking her aftershocks up to the intensity of a climax, her body arching impossibly as she screamed. There was pleasure in knowing he didn't have to be gentle, that he could give her pain to assuage some of the shadows snarling in his soul. Relentlessly he kept fucking her, spiraling himself into a darkness he didn't know, at the behest of the darkness behind him.

At the moment he came, it pushed Tara over as well. She screamed, drawing Jacob's attention to see Richard had turned over the oral play to Liam. The blond servant tongued his Mistress frenetically while bent over the dining room chair so Richard could drive into his muscular ass. Liam's guttural response was muffled in Tara's cunt, but it was obvious Richard was not going to be outdone. Both male servants came at the same time. Jacob shifted his gaze away, closed his eyes and thought only of his Mistress. He had no desire to bond with the man who might have been ordered to fuck him. Or that he would have had to fuck the way Richard was doing now. Pleasure and disgust warred within him, but he could not deny his Mistress her pleasure, even to save his own pride.

As Jacob came, Lyssa moved with him, her body firm against his back, hips curved to his. He dropped to one elbow on the table over Seanna. The two women worked him together until he was sure they'd drained every drop he had. When at last they slowed, he had to stay where he was, head bowed, breathing hard, sides shuddering.

"Magnificent, " Richard murmured. "Lady Lyssa, you've outdone yourself this night. "

Jacob felt his lady touch his hair, a lingering contact gone before he could turn his lips to it. She left him as if he were Bran and she'd just made him perform some type of trick. As if the intimacy, the melding of their minds that had driven him to the powerful public climax, had never existed.

When he had the composure to raise his head, Richard sat in Tara's chair again and Liam straddled his knee, facing outward as Richard played with the man's cock. Tara sat on the table, kissing her servant. Liam held her waist as Richard fondled him. Jacob could envision she would eventually straddle the servant and wrap her legs around Richard. Debra was writhing under Brian's touch and softly begging for permission to come, quiet whimpers like a pleading kitten. Brian was absorbed in her response, shaking his head to deny her as he continued to work his fingers on her clit, his fingers wet with her arousal.

Lyssa placed her hands on the back of her chair, as if using the ornately carved wood as a shield for her body.

"I think he met the challenge quite adequately, wouldn't you say, Lord Richard?"

"He's magnificent, Lady Lyssa, " Richard acknowledged. "I'll look forward to tripping him up another time, another way. I'd love to see him and Liam wrestle for the right of who gets to fuck whom. " Amusement crossed his features. "Though I still think he'd be more dismayed by winning than losing. " "Indeed. " Lyssa studied Jacob. "Jacob, clean yourself up and get dressed. You've served me well tonight. Please make sure the floor gets cleaned up. We'll take our coffee in the library. "

"Yes, Mistress. " Jacob pushed himself up, his mind too disoriented from the climax to offer more than the automatic response. Until he realized what he'd called her. His gaze flitted to her to find her green eyes alive with something beyond pleasure, something it oddly seemed she didn't want him to see. She immediately shifted her attention to what Richard was saying.

Somewhere in his fogged brain he knew that was a good thing. Because he wasn't at all certain he wanted to focus too much on what had just happened.

The guests began to rise, apparently responding to her cue and intending to continue their sensual pursuits in the library. Brian lifted Debra's quivering body off him, guiding her as she clutched his arm, her breath shallow with arousal. When Richard took Liam and Tara out the door just behind the couple, Jacob noted he didn't spare any attention for Seanna. Perhaps he was displeased with her for losing his wager. Or he was more involved with Tara and Liam at the moment and wouldn't give thought to Seanna until he wanted something from her again. When he did, he of course would assume she'd be close at hand, a well- trained pet.

Seanna's eyes widened when Jacob took her by the arm, easing her to her feet. Bending, he picked up her clothes and offered them to her. "There's a bathroom just down the corridor. If you'd like to wash up, there are towels there. " He kept his hand at her elbow as she got her bearings. "Are you all right?"

She nodded, then started as Jacob lifted a cloth napkin, pressed it between her legs just as his seed began to tumble from her, keeping it from traveling down her legs. She shuddered at the light touch.

"You're a strange one, Jacob Green, " she observed.

When Jacob glanced at her, he found her expression almost open and friendly. She surprised him by touching the side of his face the way a much wiser, older sister would have done. Closing her hand over the cloth, she took it from him. "I'll take advantage of that bathroom now. My Master will have need of me again before long. He tends to like to release his cock only between my lips. "

Nudity in the dressing area of the circus was one thing. This open carnality was something entirely different and new to him. His lady had known that, fully exploited it tonight. He'd responded to her challenge because it wasn't in his nature to back down, but he found himself somewhat shell-shocked to think about what he'd done. How aroused he'd been by it. By his lady's pleasure in his performance.

You know what a sexual submissive is, Jacob? He remembered her words, uncomfortably.

"It's been a pleasure, Irishman. " A slight smile crossed Seanna's face as she drew his attention back to the present. She ran her fingertips over the flush that had risen on his neck at her bald words. "I fully expect you to be eaten by wolves before I see you again, but I hope I'm wrong. "

As she walked away, her lush hips swayed with such natural sensuality he knew it wasn't feigned. Jacob bent, picked up his clothing. When he looked up, he found his lady standing in the doorway.

The length of the room was between them, the images of what had just happened here. Crockery shattered on the floor, swept there by his temper. He couldn't think of anything to say. Anything he wanted to say.

He gave a clumsy, short bow, eager to head for the kitchen and blessed privacy.

"You think you'll ever have privacy again, Jacob?" she asked softly.

A muscle ticked along his jaw. He felt his teeth grind together. "I have what my Mis--my lady sees fit for me to have. " Damn it. "Tell me, is that what bothers you the most?" she asked after a pause that made the air in the room feel exponentially warmer. "The fact that heeding my will made you harder than you've ever been in your life, or that your cock wouldn't release without my command?"

Maybe what bothers me the most is how you keep refusing to admit what you really want, my lady.

With a curl of his lip that could only be called a snarl, he turned on his heel and headed for the kitchen, leaving her alone in the dining area. He'd intended the insult, but knew she wouldn't call him on it, because they both knew she'd won that round.

The answer to her question had been painfully clear, so that not even a mental response had been necessary.