All good things must come to an end...must they not?

Chapter 20 – Collision Course

Delirious was too tame a word for this.

Thighs splayed obscenely open, embarrassment was forgotten as the pressure of the vibrator being removed sent my body to spasming. My back arched off the bed, and a strangled cry tore free from my lungs.

"My poor little mouse," Taran purred, the brush of his breath, cool against intimate flesh, sending a zap up my spine. "Did I push too far? Are you feeling a little sensitive?'

I shook my head, fingers curling into the duvet as hooded eyes watched Taran's dark head between my legs.

"You didn't push too far. I feel...I feel..."

It was hard to sort out exactly how I felt. Like my nerve-endings had been fried and my my brain had been stirred by a whisk? Or as if my heartbeat centred where Taran's fingers played with swollen flesh, and not my chest. At no point during the night had I considered taking out the device torturing me with bouts of agonising pleasure, not when pleasure also came from proving to Taran I could handle anything he threw at me.

The ghost of a smile stretched my lips. "I feel amazing. I liked it."

He stared up at me with an unreadable expression. I could see the wheels turning in those obsidian eyes, always assessing, always.

Had he doubted I would be able to cope? Had he wanted me to fail?

Propping myself up on my elbows, those thoughts sobered me quickly. Tonight had been a test after all, to see where my boundaries lay? Or maybe it was something else.

A frown cracked the marble sculpture of his face as I continued to study him. Standing to loom over me, he distracted me with a heady kiss, a light touch against the crease of my thigh reigniting the fire in my belly.

"I impressed you," I said, figuring out what was hidden in the reverent way his fingers grazed over my skin.

He nipped my lip. "Don't be too pleased with yourself."

My smile grew in the dark. Forgetting that prideful eyes could see me as well as if the room was lit by the sun. I let my eyes flutter shut again as Taran pulled away to clean and put away his latest toy, happy floating in the bliss that still rushed through my veins. I'd leave the creeping embarrassment about the fact I'd orgasmed in a room full of colleagues and customers to tomorrow.

Half dozing, I didn't open my eyes again until I felt the bed dip, and fingers tug down my skirt to cover me up.

"Here."

A hand at my back helped me sit up to take the glass of water he offered. I'd only intended to take a sip but that first touch of cool liquid sparked the awareness of just how thirsty I was. Taran chuckled as I gulped down more than half, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, more so when I eagerly snatched the wagon wheel he then offered. Chocolate was exactly what this moment needed.

"Wait." He tossed one of my oversized sleep shirts onto my lap, one with a huge rainbow unicorn depicted on the front which I'm sure he didn't pick at random.

My cheeks warmed. I should have gotten rid of that shirt years ago.

Setting the wrapped biscuit down, I slid from the bed to step out of my skirt and peel off my top, too limp and exhausted to care about making a show of it as I slid on the shirt. A raised eyebrow at my clothes on the floor made me scamper to pick them up and fold them away. God forbid a single thing was out of place in his room. Once my hair was scraped into a bun and I was once more situated on the bed, Taran twisted to rest one knee on the mattress.

"I got a call from Gwydion," he began, waiting until my mouth was too full of chocolate and marshmallow to speak. "He thinks his hunters caught the vampire who attacked you - whilst he was in the midst of attacking another poor human of all things - An Toiseach are holding him so we can identify him. Wren got a good enough look, so he'll go as a witness. If he's positively identified, the creature will be questioned, its origins and motives looked into, before it's dealt with. It won't ever be able to hurt you, or anyone else, again. If it has a master, they will be dealt with swiftly too."

Sweetness turned sour in my mouth. I nearly choked trying to swallow the suddenly dry biscuit.

"Okay."

It was all I could think to say.

The implications were all too numerous. All too sudden. A reminder of how I'd found myself here in the first place, what had happened to me, and what would happen. . .

It was all coming to an end far too soon.

I'd look forward to no longer feeling like I had to watch my every step, check every shadow and investigate every sound, of returning back to my flat with Laura, but...

"You will accompany us too."

I couldn't stop from coughing this time, crumbs spewing from my lips. Taran calmly lifted the glass of water to my mouth as if he'd expected such a reaction.

After swigging a few gulps and clearing my throat, I flew to my feet and vigorously shook my head. "No. No, I'm not going. Why do I have to? You just said Wren got a good enough look to identify him, so you don't need me. I don't want to go. I don't want to see it."

Sympathy softened dark eyes, but Taran's lips were pressed into a stern line. He stood to meet me and I felt the change in him as much as I saw the dominant, carnal side he kept in control yank against its chains. "You need to be there. It's you the creature attacked, so you need to positively identify him too, if you can. Apart from that, you need to start dealing with what happened that night. You need to confront it so you can move on."

"So I can move on or so I won't be too terrified for you to finally have a proper taste of my blood?" I snapped. "I see you eyeing up my throat. That's what you really want isn't it?"

My sharp retort was met with a cold, warning look. Taran folded his arms across his broad chest, and I knew that was the only warning he'd give me before he would make our dynamic clear. My accusation wasn't fair. Not when he'd kept his word to keep me safe.

"This isn't about me, Sorcha, this is about you. Once you can look me in the eye and tell me about your attack, and stop waking yourself and Wren up with nightmares, I'll know you have dealt with your trauma," he explained, calm in the face of my panic. "I am in charge, remember? You agreed to submit to me, and I say you need to do this. For yourself. Allow yourself to feel the fear you did that night, come to terms with facing death and surviving, and it won't haunt you anymore. Part of my job as your Dom is to help you grow. To watch you flourish. Not hide."

"I didn't realise this-" I motioned between us. "-whatever this is, extended out of...well...bedroom activities."

His lips quirked into an amused smile.

"What I mean is, I didn't think submitting to you meant handing over control of my entire life. If I want to hide from what happened, why shouldn't I?"

He stepped so we were chest to chest, tugging my arms from around my middle and moving them to my sides. "Because hiding is not you, and I won't have you pretending to be someone you're not just because it's easier. You smile and you laugh with Laura and Ness, but it never reaches your eyes, you're always one thought away from your attack. You may think you're blocking out what happened, think you can keep it locked away, but you can't; believe me, I know.
  "You're carrying the weight of it hidden under a fraying blanket so you can act like you can't see it it's right there, crushing you." He gripped my throat, fingers splaying so his thumb caught the edge of my jaw. "The woman who left her cushy family estate and accepted being cut off financially, even though she'd never worked a day in her life before, and then was brave enough to demand the devil hire her – that woman - she doesn't pretend the moment that changed her life forever never happened."

His words chipped away at my resolve. In turn, that made the horrors I tried to forget rattle in the box I locked up the memories in. However, while I couldn't argue with his logic, he was missing a key part of why I wanted to avoid taking this final step. It would be a final step that decided whether I remained in this world or not. Taran had just said himself I wasn't one to pretend, so how could he expect me to return to a normal life after all I'd witnessed?

Gwydion had hinted that I would never be safe l, not now I was in the know, that returning to normal would be impossible, so where did that leave me if I didn't have Taran's protection to count on?

"Why do you care so much if I'm just another submissive to you?" I murmured, searching his face. "One who won't let you feed from her again, who doesn't understand the rules, one you can't even enjoy in your club like I'm sure you enjoy many others."

Why did you kiss me this morning?

It was as if my words built up a wall around him. Taran's fingers twitched around my throat, tightening before releasing so he could turn away. He ran a hand through his hair before turning to face me again, expressionless mask falling back into place. "Gwydion has demanded your presence, and I'm in no position to deny him. You will go. If not for yourself then only because I am ordering you to. And I am ordering you to because you are mine to order."

Not an answer. Not a true one. He couldn't force me to do anything, he'd promised me that. Promised if he was crossing the line he would stop. And right then, as rubbed my arm and gruesome images of bloody fangs flashed before my eyes, he was more than pushing a boundary.

"I want to use my safeword."

He froze instantly.

All the things we'd done, and I'd never come close, but this conversation was more terrifying than any of that.

Beyond blood and sex, and maybe the passing affection a vampire could have for someone like me, there was nothing, those had been his words. But what about now?

"Tonight, what you did during my shift, was...was it punishment?" I dared to ask.

"What would it be punishment for? Coming home smelling like another man?"

I cut him a look. "You're the one who sent Wren to get me."

"Did you two fall out?"

"We...I..." I licked my lips, remembering how close Wren's had been to mine, then shook that memory away. "So it was punishment then?"

When he hesitated, I was sure I was right, but his lips curled up into the most arresting smile and his voice dropped deliciously low as he murmured, "Do you usually enjoy punishments so much, Sorcha? If you do, I've been handling it wrong and will have to rectify that in future."

In future. Carefully chosen words that promised much and little at the same time.

"However, It won't be very far in future if you continue to argue with me about identifying this lower vampire."

I sighed, all fight draining away.

I knew I had to face the creature that attacked me. I knew seeing it killed it was probably the only way to stop the nightmares. That, I told myself, was the only reason I allowed this argument to end.

"Fine."

"Fine?"

"Yes. Fine. I'll go."

Taran took a predatory step closer. "I don't think I like your tone."

"I'm sorry, Sir."

He let out a strained sigh. "I've never claimed a human before, you know that, don't you?"

"You haven't really claimed me. Wren has, however unintentionally," I answered glumly.

"If you think mentioning him will upset me, you're wrong."

I groaned in frustration and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes in effort to stave of the growing headache. "I'm not trying to upset you, Taran. I'm trying to-"

"To what? To make me angry?"

"You're already angry!"

Storming across the room, he backed me up against the window with a face like thunder. "I'm trying to understand what you're really arguing with me about! What do you want me to say, Sorcha? That now I've had a taste of you, yes, I want to taste you again. I want to know what your blood tastes like while I'm inside you, if you're sweeter after you've been flogged. I want to chain you down to my bed so you can never leave and claim you with my fangs at your throat whether you're ready for me to or not.
  "I could do that. I could make you mine and defend you as the woman who is mine, I could make sure the only one who ever gets to hurt you is me, that I'm the only one who'll know how to draw a sweet scream from your lips." He grabbed my hip and tugged me against him, his fingers bruising into flesh, dark eyes wild and glinting as his voice becoming a throaty growl, "Do you want me to break that trust between us? Shall I stop trying to help you and just take you instead? When I told you if you ever fucked someone else I would kill them, do you think I said that lightly? Do you think that means nothing to me? What the fuck else do you want me to say?"

God I hated the way my body responded. Hated the flurry of adrenaline from our fight that warmed my skin and turned heated anger into an entirely different kind of heat. It wasn't being asked on a date, or to move in, or even a declaration of feelings, but it was enough. For now it was enough. Dark eyes held mine with a hint of challenge, a curious cock to his head as his nostrils flared, most likely catching my arousal in the air. Our frustration with each other combusted in a way I didn't expect. No shouting or screaming, not one barging out the room and leaving the other to seeth.

Instead, we collided.

His mouth came down so hard on mine as to bruise, his teeth piercing my lip before his tongue swept in to claim. The force of his body meeting mine shoved me back against the wall while his arm locked around my waist to drag me back to him. For once he didn't push my hands away. Didn't take so much control as to leave me entirely at his mercy. In fact, as my hands slid under his shirt so my fingers could follow the lines of muscle up his back, and a low sound of pleasure was groaned against my lips, I felt very much like the one guiding this. Because for once, he was the one leaning back so I could tug off his shirt. For once, it was my fingers tangling in soft strands of raven dark hair to pull him back to me. And he let me. He let my fingers trace the lines of tattoos on his skin, his heavy gaze misty, as if in some sort of trance as he allowed me to push him back until his legs hit the bed. He watched with a measure of wariness as I dropped to my knees before him and unbuttoned his jeans.

I wasn't sure I could trust Taran's declarations, his veiled admission that he might want to keep me. If there was a chance this would be my last night here, with him, I was going to make sure it would be one we both remembered. Or at least one that I would without any ounce of shame.

Regret would be unavoidable.