Disclaim, Disclaim, Disclaim.
Do not own, Not making money, etc., etc.
This chapter includes Adult material. Rated M for content. Do not continue unless over 18 years of age (who am I kidding?) or if sex offends you. Trust me, you will be VERY offended. No, Seriously. This chapter is basically one big sex scene.
Thank you all who have followed/favorited. I am still sad that no one seems to be reviewing :( But I know my work is being read-it's only the 7th and I've had over 230 views. Just keep in mind, reviews are confirmation that I know you're enjoying what you're reading. If I think you don't like it, I might stop (O.o)
Sebastian let himself in one of the French doors in the front of the house. There were four and he chose one on the side where the study had been placed (which used to be Madame Faustine's old bedroom). He'd been gone for most of the night-which had not been his intention, of course, but he'd made tremendous headway in setting up the filing systems and books and accounts he'd need to fulfill his obligation to his new contract. The pinkish-orange glow of the sun was threatening the horizon as he slipped inside, silent lest he wake the denizens of the house, and let the lock click softly behind him. There were heavy drapes over each of the French doors in the front of the house and he pulled those closed against the dull light once he'd dropped his leather case and keys on the desk in the study.
He made his way around the desk to the door in the back of the room and out into the hallway as silently as he'd entered the house. There was a straight shot from there into the rear of the house where the huge dining room opened up into the overgrown courtyard. He smiled at the sight of Elizabeth and Ciel there, at the extravagant cherry-stained table, both heads pressed against the grain of the wood table top, Ciel's brow furrowed in some terribly serious expression as he dreamed, and Elizabeth's mouth slightly agape, a tiny puddle of drool beneath her lips. The majority of the table had been covered at some point in the night with at least a hundred candles, all white, all in different shapes and sizes and all melted down drastically as if they'd been left alight throughout the entire night.
"How deplorably dangerous..." he muttered. One or two were still burning, he saw with dismay, and made his way silently forward to the table and leaning over, blew them out. He turned to regard his sleeping master and the Mistress Elizabeth with a sour look on his face. "You could have burned to death and my house with you. I'll not be leaving you with this anymore," he mumbled and reached over, snatching the jar of moonshine up from the table between them, noticed their locked hands on the surface of the table, and found himself smiling despite his better judgment. He left them where they were and wandered back down the hallway to the room he'd set up for Menefer.
To all outward appearance, it was a room for a husband and wife, decorated in the appropriate balance of masculine to feminine; mostly neutral toned furniture and trappings and things that he knew Menefer would enjoy. He had put some thought into this, seeing as she would be a significant addition to their little party, and it certainly didn't hurt that he'd anticipated their relationship would take a turn for the intimate as it somehow always had. But, since he'd brought her here-no, since all of them had arrived here-he'd found himself looking on his companions with something akin to distaste.
He was well aware of the reason behind it, of course. And he truly felt as though he couldn't help but feel offended in someway by having the people in this modern part of his life dwelling in the most significant part of his past. He'd resigned himself to get over it. His past was done and over. The people he'd cared for-the wife he'd loved-were gone and nothing in this world or the next could bring them back to him.
He turned the corner of the doorway and gazed at the beautiful Egyptian lying in his bed. He realized with a start that he'd yet to find her something suitable to sleep in. Not that he really minded that she slept in the nude. She'd always preferred that state of undress, at any rate. Caramel skin contrasted sharply with the pristine white sheets and the translucent mosquito netting folded around the bed made her somehow demure and unbelievably erotic at the same time.
Sebastian walked fully into the room, and pushed the door closed behind him. Settling himself carefully on the edge of the bed, without waking the umber-skinned goddess in it, he leaned down and untied his shoes, kicking them off and sliding them partly under the edge of the nightstand on the side of the bed. He peeled off socks and gloves, unbuttoned sleeves, dropped cuff-links into the small wooden box on the top of said nightstand. There was something irritatingly normal about what he was doing. Undressing himself to lie in bed. For how long? Could he stomach the memories of Cybille in this house while he bedded another woman?
This all reeked of a routine he hadn't found himself in in over a century. He'd come home to Cybille every night she'd lived and loved him, and perform this same routine. Undress, bathe, make love, pretend to sleep. Pretend to be human. Hold her against his nakedness while she slumbered and worry about the birth of their child. He would relish the little kicks he could feel against his side when he held her, but part of him hated himself for it. The darkest part of him detested that game where he played the happy human and occasionally, at night when Cybille was unconscious he would get up, and dress, and go outside to the woods around their cottage and find some hapless animal to kill. He'd sneak back in and clean himself and crawl back in the bed with her and wonder how he could love something so deeply and yet be terrified at it's complete insignificance in the grand scheme of things.
He stopped unbuttoning his shirt when he reached the top of his trousers. He stared at the naked woman in his bed. She was long and lean, with gently curving hips and fleshy muscular thighs. Her breasts were heavy but not overly large, and her waist small and tapered, muscled as only a warrior woman's could be. Her eyes were closed in less than blissful sleep and her wide mouth was parted just so, exposing perfect white teeth. The carnelian obelisk rested in the hollow of her throat and her perfect bosom rose and fell gently with shallow breaths. One hand fisted in the black curls that haloed her head and the other grasped the linen sheet that only partly covered her exquisite nudity. Sebastian couldn't stop himself from superimposing Cybille's face over Menefer's. They were built similarly, though Menefer was far taller and Cybille had been blonde; but lying there motionless, it wasn't so difficult for him to do.
He was hard now. He snatched the tails of his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers and tossed the offending garment to the floor. Naked but for his pants that were growing tighter by the minute, he ripped the mosquito netting open and startled Menefer from her slumber. She bit back a scream when her eyes focused on the flaming red orbs in the demon's face as he hovered over her. She was panicked and the demon couldn't blame her for that. She was, after all, about to be raped.
Sebastian reached down and tore the linen sheet from her hand, then grasping the flesh of her hips painfully, he tossed her over to land on her belly in the center of the bed. He climbed in behind her and as she was trying to drag herself up on her hands and knees, he grabbed her hips again and pulled her bottom flush against his arousal. "I know you won't scream, Menefer. Can I trust you?" he growled, leaning in and breathing into the hair that fell over her ear. His breath was like liquid fire as it snaked into her ear and though she was afraid, she quaked with longing, as well.
"No. This Menefer will not." She pressed her face into the sheets beneath her, torn between reveling in the feel of his marble-hard torso pressed against her back and terrified of the marble column that pressed against her bottom through the fabric of his trousers. She hated herself for wanting to be his outlet-hated that she was content if he could close his eyes and pretend that she was someone else. She hated herself for loving him, as twisted as her love was. But she hated him, too. She hated him because she couldn't tell him 'no.'
The warmth of his hardened body left her back and she heard the tell-tale sound of rustling fabric as he opened the front of his trousers and leaned back into her, his flesh aflame with his arousal and pressing into her most sensitive spot. He was rock-hard and it felt as though she was being penetrated by an iron poker left too long in a fire. Tears fell from her eyes when she squeezed them shut and she buried her face in the sheets to stifle her cry of pain. He was deceptively slow at first, burying himself inside her, fingers grasping her hips so tightly she knew she'd be bruised.
He sank in, a shuddering sigh escaping his lips at her velvet warmth as she enveloped him; pushing into her until he was fully sheathed and his hips met her backside flush, skin to skin. Her bottom was pointed up in the air and her head down against the bed and he thought that was a very appropriate submissive position for her to assume considering the current state of affairs. He relished the feel of her around him for another moment, staring at the back of her head and trying with all his might to make her blonde. He closed his hellish eyes and withdrew a fraction, plunging back in hard enough to make her choke back a sob. Cybille never sobbed. This isn't going to work, he thought, pulling out and driving back in yet again. She didn't sob this time. In fact, if he had to hazard a guess, she was even enjoying this-subconsciously, he was sure. He pulled back again and she suddenly clamped down on him with her inner muscles and he realized she was substantially wetter than she had been when he'd first pushed inside her. Another shuddering groan escaped his lips and he rammed himself in to the hilt, grinding against her backside and drawing a moan from her mouth. Her voice was lower, gravelly compared to Cybille's. But as long as all she did was moan... This could work after all.
Marcus had always been rough with her. In all the years they had spent together, she couldn't remember a single time when he'd been gentle and loving when she was in his bed. He was a superb lover, but not the kind to cuddle after the act. Menefer had never questioned his preferences, deciding early into their so-called relationship that she didn't care if he took her roughly or caressed her to her peak-as long as she was allowed to share his bed, it didn't matter. In fact, the gentlest she could remember him being was on the ship when they made the crossing and she'd awoken from fitful dreams of their past to him fondling her in her sleep.
Remembering that suddenly, as the demon plunged into her, awakened her own arousal and she clamped down, daring him to wake up and realize that it wasn't his beloved human wife he was with. Proving herself somewhat in control of her own emotions, she moaned at the sensation of having him fill her-a sensation she had always cherished, even if he had not.
She was steadier now, and she worked her way up to her elbows as he ground against her, his fingers still gripping painfully into the flesh of her hips. She rolled her hips a bit against him and his grip lessened instinctually; he leaned over her and snaked his arms around her middle, pulling her up backwards against his steely physique and proceeded to lift her up and drop her back down on his rigid arousal over and over again until sparks were bursting behind her eyelids and pressure was coiling in her belly.
Sebastian nuzzled through the hair at her neck and sank his teeth into the soft flesh above her shoulder, drawing another guttural moan from her throat; his hands sought out the mounds of her breasts and he weighed them in his palms before kneading them, pressing them against one another, and pulling at their peaks with his thumbs and forefingers. She was practically purring against him now, and try as he might, he simply couldn't keep up the illusion that she was Cybille any longer. She was far more sexual than Cybille had been-and even though he had enjoyed himself with his human wife and had enjoyed pleasuring her above all else, Menefer had a body that begged to be used and he could use her in ways that he never would have dreamed of with Cybille.
Her body was slick with a sheen of sweat-from their activities or simply from the heat rolling off his own in waves, he wasn't completely sure-but he had to dig his fingers into her flesh for purchase as he thrust into her. Her head was thrown back over his shoulder and her own fingers gripped the seam of his trousers on either leg, her legs bent awkwardly beneath the fold of his own as they wrapped backwards around his hips and he supported them both on bent knees. He was far from finished with her but he had the sudden urge to look at her, and with little thought on his own part, he seized her upper arms and flung her to the side. She landed in a heap against the down filled pillows, her face a mask of fear and anticipation. She didn't bother to speak to him, because she didn't expect an answer anyway. She only gazed up at his unbelievably beautiful face and waited as he crawled over her.
Sebastian grappled her thighs and yanked her down toward him as he settled between her legs; Menefer's arms going up to grasp the edge of the headboard as he came in contact with the sopping flesh where he'd been buried inside her body. He teased her for a moment, holding himself in his hand and running the head of his shaft around the sensitive folds of flesh at her core, watching alternately the display of emotions flash across her face and the muscles of her abdomen twitch when he hit a particularly sensitive spot. He enjoyed tormenting her, as much as he had enjoyed pleasuring his human wife. And perhaps, it was one and the same, given their distinctive differences in personality. Menefer enjoyed being tormented. And Sebastian was, if nothing else, one hell of a sadist.
He lifted her hips in the air to meet him and satisfied that she could hold herself up, he parted her folds with one hand and pressed the head of his shaft inside her with the other, using her juices as lubrication to masturbate into her. Her eyes rolled back into her head with the new sensation and her legs quivered with the effort of holding her hips up against his. Sebastian smiled at his innovation and continued to pump himself inside her, happy with his dirty little trick. It wasn't often that he had ever had to rely on this particular exercise for his own sake, but he had had masters and mistresses alike in the past that insisted seeing him do this was insanely arousing. Menefer seemed to be enjoying it without a doubt. Satisfied as he was that she enjoyed it, he wasn't sure if she could continue to hold herself aloft much longer, judging from the trembling muscles of her thighs, so he drove into her full force and caught her hips on the way down, holding her against him as he pumped in and out of her wet warmth.
It seemed she was keeping her promise not to cry out, but he worried at the thin line of blood coming from the corner of her mouth as she bit into her lip trying not to scream. She was in such intense throes of pleasure she didn't even realize she'd bitten her lip through, he thought, amused, and leaning in, he sank his tongue in her mouth, lapping at the blood inside her lips and scraping against her teeth. Her eyes shot open in that moment when he kissed her and she tasted the sweet coppery tang of her own blood and wondered at the pain in her lip and groaned because it was nothing compared to the sensation of him pounding into her and the feel of him bottoming out inside her. And at that moment when she thought she'd surely die because the world around her reeled and light exploded behind her eyes and she felt him spill his seed at the mouth of her womb, she thought she heard him mutter against her lips, "Menefer, I'm sorry."
It was midday when she cracked her eyes open and stretched, delighting in the ache of her limbs and the subtle throbbing between her legs. It had been an eventful morning to say the least, and Menefer rolled about the bed like a cat, repositioning herself to stretch over the other side, knowing beyond a doubt Sebastian would be up and about among whatever duties he held steadfast in accomplishing. She very nearly screamed when she came face to face with the demon, lying there on the other side of the bed, contented smile spread languidly across his face, rust colored eyes brazenly drinking in her naked form.
"What are you doing here?" she squeaked, not really sure why she was frightened of him, but knowing nonetheless his presence here was abnormal.
He chuckled and lifted himself onto his elbow and she noticed finally that he was perfectly nude, the hard planes of his stomach flexing as he bent, the thick corded muscles of his biceps straining under alabaster skin. Oh, gods, he was perfect beyond anything she'd ever dreamed of. But he hadn't answered her question...
"It is such a wonder to wake and find me in my own bed?" he drawled, reaching out with his free hand and pushing the wild curls in her face back behind her ear.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, reflexively reaching for the sheet between them and pulling it up to her chin. "Never once, in all our times together, have I ever awoken to your face!"
He laughed again and collapsed against the pillows behind him, throwing his forearm over his face. "I suppose you are right. I apologize. I'll not let it happen again," he teased, and she took those few moments to truly study his splendid physique.
Sebastian and Marcus had been the same person. And while the Marcus she had fallen in love with had started out somewhat different in build than the demon lying beside her now, the Sebastian she was with was very nearly identical to the Marcus she had given herself to when she was sixteen. His hair was cut differently, and his skin was whiter-almost translucent. She could see the fine networks of blue veins beneath his skin in some places. But the rippled cut of his abdomen, the hard mounds of his pectorals, the ridiculously thick muscles of his arms that were always hidden beneath his dark sleeves-down to the sharp jut of his hipbones and the powerful corded muscles of his legs-those were the same as she had always remembered. Marcus Brutus, the Roman Legionnaire, had been even thicker and more powerfully built. But when his warring ended and he became Marcus, the embodiment of Death at her temple, he'd been thinner-a bit darker-skinned from the Egyptian sun but still drastically paler than the people around him.
This picture of nude perfection beside her was the body of the man she remembered taking her maidenhead when he'd decided she would need to learn to please a man before the pharaoh would take her as a wife. It was the body of the man she'd fallen so very hard for in her idealistic youth. And gods, what a body it was.
"Stay," she mumbled finally, still unsure about his presence, but not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth. She rolled onto her own back and mirrored his pose, draping her arm over her face and suddenly fighting back tears. There was a sudden tickling sensation against her ribs and she gasped and wriggled away from the offending digits as Sebastian feathered his fingertips across her ribs toward her breast. "What are you doing?" she cried, flinging her arm away and turning liquid brown eyes on the demon.
"Why are you crying?" was his retort, and he once again propped himself on his elbow and stared down at the priestess.
"What does it matter? I am lost. I am in a time and place that I do not understand and the only being here that knows me for what I truly am has ignored me but to sate his lust." She rolled onto her side, turning her back on him and trying her damnedest not to burst into hysterics.
"I seem to remember apologizing for that earlier," he replied, reaching out again and dragging the tips of his black fingernails down the length of her spine.
"Is that what you were apologizing for?" she quipped, not able to hide a sniffle. "I thought it was for trying to pretend I was someone else."
"Explain yourself," Sebastian demanded abruptly, rising up to sit against the headboard and leaning over her form menacingly.
"I've always been able to read you, Marcus. You're not the sort to take me from behind unless something else is on your mind. And though you've never been the gentlest of lovers, you've certainly never tried to rape me." She pulled that excuse out of thin air when she realized her quip may have put Ciel in some kind of danger. The tale he'd woven of Sebastian's past in this house was probably not the kind the demon would want considered common knowledge among his makeshift family.
She heard the demon grunt behind her and assumed he'd taken her statement as truth. She felt the bed shift as he moved, then to her disbelief, felt his heavy arm circle around her waist and his nose press into the flesh beneath her ear.
"I promised I would not leave you again, Menefer. And I won't. There are ...ghosts in this house that I have to deal with. And I am sorry that I've been distant since we've arrived. But you must realize that if I didn't care for you in my own twisted way, I would never have helped you escape England and brought you here with me."
Menefer felt the tears pooling in her eyes again and fought back another sob. She could only nod as he pressed a kiss to her neck and crawled out of bed. He knew how deeply she loved him. How could he not? He had uncanny powers of perception and it wasn't as if she'd hidden her feelings from him in the past. He had made it clear to her when she was a child that he couldn't-or wouldn't-love her. He had never tried to discourage her own feelings toward him, even when she'd thrown herself at him the first few times, he'd only told her he wouldn't bed her unless he was ready. She was always warm and willing for him when he decided he was ready. So while he pushed her away physically and emotionally when her own desires surfaced, it seemed to her that he would come crawling back when his lust was roused and she decided those millenia ago that as long as hers was the only body he used for such things, she could live with being only a body to him.
She rolled back over to watch him dress. She could drink in the sight of his naked form regardless that she was angry with him. Muscles flexed beneath taut porcelain skin as he sauntered to the wardrobe in the corner of the room and pulled the doors open revealing rows of perfectly pressed trousers and jackets and shirts. She bit back a grin as she watched his tight bottom twitch when he shuffled his weight from one foot to the other. The broad expanse of his perfect back was corded with muscle as well, and Menefer watched with fascination as those muscles rippled with the mundane task of pulling clothes out of the wardrobe.
"It's disgusting really, how perfect you are," she muttered, wiping away the evidence of her tears from her face and sitting up against the pillows in the bed. The demon turned to regard her with a dazzling smile plastered on his face. She laughed despite herself.
"I suppose that makes you rather disgusting yourself, my dear," he replied and she stared at him in muted shock. He'd said many things to her before but he'd never called her perfect-even if it had been in a roundabout insult. She remembered suddenly a moment ago when he'd told her he did, in fact, care for her 'in his own twisted way'. The stupid smile fell from his face as he pulled a pair of pants from a hanger and yanked them up his legs.
Menefer continued to watch in silence as he buttoned the fly of his pants and snatched a shirt from yet another hanger and pulled his arms through the sleeves. She swung her legs out of the bed and rose, stretching once more for good measure, suddenly very sure of herself and the effect her 'disgusting' body had on the demon's libido. His eyes were glued to her lithe form and his concentration hitched midway through the buttoning of his shirt. He was paused in the middle, his chest bare through the gaping neck and she drifted over to him, stalking like a cat, and grabbed his hands where they'd paused mid-button.
Pulling them down to his sides, she leaned up on the balls of her feet and taking the shirt in her hands, started un-doing the buttons he'd succeeded in pushing through their tiny holes, pressing her body against his and breathing hotly at the base of his throat. "Menefer..." he groaned and she was oh-so-pleased with herself at that moment. He'd never reacted to her attempts at seduction and it was looking like this attempt might actually end in her favor.
"Yes, my lord?" she purred, pulling the shirt back open and sliding her hands up his tight abdomen, coming to rest on his pectorals for a moment before slipping over his shoulders and pushing the shirt back off his frame.
"When one plays with fire, one tends to get burned," he warned, angling his face down at her finally, his eyes alight with hell's own flames. She would be stupid to admit that he didn't frighten her. Especially when he was looking at her like she was his dinner.
"You burned me a thousand years ago," she whispered, pressing her lips against his with shaky breaths. She couldn't honestly say she expected him to respond but when his arms snaked around her and his hands grabbed her bottom and lifted her up against him to wrap her legs around his waist, and when his tongue found its way into her mouth she gasped against him, and found herself forcing a new kind of elated sob back down her throat as he kissed her. Maybe he didn't love her. Maybe he truly couldn't love her. But she could love him enough for the both of them, she thought.