Arcadia Resurgence, Vague Vermillion [best book club books for discussion .TXT] 📗

just for going against the product manager, but also for depriving him of his plaything. Christy even now thwarted him, maring her natural beauty with the aftermath of a hangover - messy hair, smudged eyeliner, bags under the eyes. The elf would not even sit next to her in that state of dishabble. His rage, couple with the eight hours already gone in their war room with guilt trips for every bathroom break or mouthful of food taken, weighed on Eiri. 

He was just about to suggest staying behind to work on the menu logging himself when the Director breezed into the room. "I've had dinner ordered to the cantina for you. Please, go and enjoy it. Hallenwae - a moment of your time?"

She wore, as always, an impeccable suit cut to flatter her hourglass figure, hugging the curve of her hips, cupping the sweep of her breasts. Eiri's breath caught at the sight of her, imaging the lace underneath. Her hair was plaited down her back in an old style that allowed charming wisps to escape, framing her ears and cheeks with ringlets. 

Then those eyes were on him. "Lao, you want to listen in?"

He didn't realize she addressed him until Hall hissed at him to answer. "Ma'am. I would - if it concerns the logging issue blocking next week's test." 

"Stay, then. Hallenwae, give me the rundown." 

The elf, flustered, struggled to navigate their scrum chart, squinting at Eiri's neat handwriting. The vampire was, as ever, patient and silent, waiting. Under her gaze, the elf stirred, blinking furiously to contain his frustration, shaking the leaves of his hair in irritated rustles. When at last, he gave up his incomplete explanation, Eiri started to speak, to clarify, but the Director spoke first:

"It's pointless to launch the test if we're not confident our logging holds up. We don't have budget for custom UI, and I'm loathe to disrupt user experience for a small test. Let's move the marketing sprint up to next week and reassess."

"Director..."

"I'm sure Chandagar will resolve the tracking issue and Lao already has the branding A/B test lined up. We gain nothing pushing a test now, launch-wise. As for milestones, we can bend..." she said, catching Eiri's eye for a fleeting moment, "without breaking." 

Overruled, Hall agreed. He fled the war room to cover his frustration, leaving Eiri to rearrange the notes on the task chart. The Director watched him. He could feel her gaze on his back like the touch of her hand on the small of his back - warm, firm, guiding him. 

"Ma'am," he said, finally. "About the other day."

"Yesterday," she corrected. "It's only been eighteen hours."

"Yes," he agreed. "I want to apologize if... if I offended. I've never encountered one of your kind before, in... that way."

He heard a little stir behind him, felt her gaze leave him. Eiri turned to look at her, leaning against the meeting table, arms crossed over her chest. He imaged, but could not see, the line of cleavage between her breasts deepening under the pressure of her arms. "Don't apologize. I should have explained. I... am here for only a little while, until the launch. There are distractions, plenty of hospitality from my elven hosts. But I, like you, am... particular. I was rather hoping we could share a mutual agreement."

Eiri did not understand what she meant, not completely. She said she wouldn't feed on him. She clearly wanted to have sex with him. But there was something about the way of her now, nervous and unsettled, that hinted at more. 

"Go on," he said.

"I wanted you to... be rough with me." She said the last so softly, he caught himself leaning toward her to hear. "Among my kind, it's not common. Sex, for us, is a proxy for power. We dominate. We control."

She locked her eyes on him again, and he felt it. That deep, yawning pull like walking the edge of a cliff - always tempted to the edge. She's doing that to me, he realized. It was a way to lure prey. 

"If I want, I could compel you to strip naked right now. Crawl across the floor and kiss my feet." The thought crossed his mind as she said it, and he felt his cock stir and his cheeks sting. Simultaneously thrilled and ashamed. But she dropped his gaze and the feeling passed. Had never really been there at all. "It's nothing I want for myself. But... having it the other way around..." 

Eiri found himself drifting closer to her. Did she mean it? Or, like the glamour she caught him in a moment a go, some kind of manipulation? "Go on," he said again. 

Her cheeks flushed, pink spreading across the porcelain cheeks. "It's too... too embarrassing... The things that I want." 

He tried to imagine them. Couldn't. What would a vampire - one of the most powerful creatures on earth - want from a bit of hair pulling? Eiri himself had indulged in light spanking with his freshman girlfriend at the Academy. Was there more to it than that? 

"What would it be like? A... mutual agreement, I mean," he asked, genuinely curious what rules could exist for a mutual relationship between human and vampire. "Is it like a demon contract? Do you... put some kind of mark on me, with your teeth...?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that!" she laughed, a nervous bubbling sound. It lit up her eyes in a way almost human. "It would be - like a typical office romance. Secret. And... not without its privileges."

"Such as?"

She met his eyes again, the blush receding from her cheeks as her dimples puckered them. "I am the Director. I can be good to you. Within reason, of course. Fulbright will ship in six months whether or not our... agreement persists."

Does it mean that much to her? A bit of rough sex? Surely she could get it outside the office...

"Don't misunderstand," she said, and he realized she'd been reading his thoughts. "I am careful. I don't dally. The nature of my desires isn't something I want shared as common gossip, or mocked among my reports. I chose you because you are vulnerable. Uniquely so, on this team. Hall would cancel your visa with the slightest provocation - and I know you're not eager to go home."

"Is that the only reason?" Eiri was surprised to hear himself ask. Pride swelled in his chest, pressing against the rough weave of his shirt, the tightness of the leggings over his hips. He was young, good-looking, fresh out of school and working in one of the best job markets for humans. He wanted her to want him, even if she was a vile murderous creature that preyed on humans. "Did you pick me because I'm weak?"

"No, it wasn't the only reason." She let her eyes run the length of him, gauging the offer his body made to her now. "Tonight, then?"

Pride smothered fear. He agreed. 

...

She handed him a black silk blindfold when he came to her. She did not ask, though she must have intuited the effect her eyes had on him. They met again at her apartment. Her human assistant wasn't there, and the car not outside when he arrived.

Like brushing her hair, he had a learning curve to master with the blindfold. He fumbled a little, tying the straps of the silk behind her head where the scalp met the neck. She was fully dressed, and he felt unsure of how and where to touch her to begin stripping her suit. 

 

He let his fingers linger over her ears. She reached up to touch his hands, clasping them. "How does it feel?" he asked her.

"Good," she said, her voice husky with anticipation. 

Eiri decided to stay behind her. He did not want to catch sight of her fangs in an unguarded moment, and lose his nerve again. He tried instead to think of her as a woman - any woman - there in the circle of his arms. Willing. Waiting. 

Be rough with me, she'd said. He started with her hair, looping the end of the braid around his hand and pulling down. He kept his head by her neck, close to her ear. Away from her mouth. Her head came back against his chest, and she gasped, trembling. 

"And that?"

"Good..." she sighed, a tremulous note slowing the word, straining it. 

With his free hand, he went for her jacket, pulling down one shoulder. She helped him, shrugging the other off and letting the heavy garment fall to the floor between their legs. He stepped closer, feeling the warm, solid presence of her body brush against his thighs, his belly. She wore a waistcoat with fastenings too intricate to understand from his vantage point, looking down as he was at the mound of her breasts obscuring her waist. He tugged at the strap in the middle of her back and said, "Take this off."

She obeyed. And he felt a little thrill of power, seeing her strip the vest off and discard it while he still held her against his chest by her hair. Beneath her sheer blouse, the outline of her bra moved - up and down, up and down - with her breathing. 

I want to see it, he thought. He ran his hand down the front of her shirt, intending to unbutton it. She went to help again, fingers blindly tugging at the mouths that held the mother of pearl beads. Neither had a steady hand, shaking. At last, impatient, terrified the spell might break and she would throw him out, he rushed it - stuffing his hand down the from of the v opening at her neck. His palm scraped over lace, made hot from contact with her flesh. Now he gasped, and involuntarily pressed against her, the swelling mound of his erection at her back.

She moaned again, urging him on. Her hands frozen in the buttons on her shirt. 

He rubbed that forbidden garment, that prison of the flesh the elves reviled, feeling the curves and textures scrape against his skin. He dipped his fingers into the seam where skin met cloth, where her breast spilled over the top of the lace balcony, plunging into the warm, tight confine of the cup. He felt her nipple, hard and puckered, beneath the pads of his fingers. Reaching below the soft underside, he scooped the breast free, hoisting it out to lie atop the emptied lace cup. 

From there, her hands resumed pulling, undoing, parting the buttons from the eye holes to give him more to see, to touch. 

"Please," she whispered. 

He sensed a moment of opportunity, some invitation to fulfill her secret desire. She wanted to be dominated. "Please, what?" he asked.

"T-touch m-me," she stammered, the red flush spreading out from under the black blindfold. 

He tweaked the nipple of her loose breast, let go of her hair to wind the other arm around and cup the trapped one, pressing her back against him. She felt the full length of his hardened manhood now, forced down by the leggings, pointing along her back downward toward where her hourglass hips swept out from the spine. 

Eiri wanted to shove himself into her, wanted to feel her softness yield. They were still standing, three feet from her canopied bed, a tangle of her clothes on the floor. He walked her over to its edge and pushed her down. Instinctively, her hands came out to catch herself and he saw another opportunity, another invitation. He reached for her hands, clasped them, pulled them back behind her, using one hand to pin them together at the small of her back. 

She shifted beneath him, a shadow of her strength threatening to unbalance him. He lifted his hips and realized she was positioning her knees underneath her, lifting her ass to him, the seat of her slacks