Vylet bent down to his rigid flesh and lightly traced a tongue tip over its head. She took him into her mouth and tasted him- the bitter warmth that tinged his scent, the anger and the fear and 224 eXtasy's Collective Mind the arousal...a heady concoction that might sustain her. She bent deeper over him and her fang traced over his c.o.c.k. He yelped. She lathered him, her mouth a channel of pressure, her tongue a caress, her fang an instrument to bring pain, and that pain... It brought him delight. He wanted the hurting.

Ah! What a surprise! After so many... His darkness of soul would match hers-he enjoyed the pain and he enjoyed the captivity...perhaps he didn't know it consciously, but his darkest desire was to be dominated... And of that particular game, she was mistress.

She pulled back from his c.o.c.k and raised herself on her knees, arching her back, displaying, offering him all that she was.

He was still, deathly still, deeply still. His breath held, his attention centered on her.

She laughed and shrugged off her robe and then straddled him, her body open to his, an inch separating their s.e.x. Her gaze locked with his.

"No?" she asked and smiled as he groaned and closed his eyes. "I think that means yes in any language." She lowered her body to his and he slipped into her, their combined essences easing his pa.s.sage. He was a big man and he filled her to overflowing. She pivoted her hips, clenched him from within, and rode him slowly.

He strained against the leg and wrist restraints, raising his body, meeting her thrusts, but they weren't the thrusts of a man in the throes of lovemaking, but instead of a man silently screaming to be free.

He would be free, but first a lesson must be taught. Vylet covered him with her body and brought her mouth to his. She breathed over him. His eyes blazed-a war within him-to kill her, to love her...

225.

Violet Visions What would be his final decision?

Vylet held her breath. She lowered her mouth to his neck and nibbled, sc.r.a.ping her tongue over his vulnerable flesh. She nuzzled his ear, then lower, to his artery. Her temples pounded, her blood racing, pooling in a pounding pain in the depths of her body, the place now man-filled.

She bit and he screamed and she bit harder and drank.

Stars! This nectar, this ambrosia, this ... it had been too long since she had tasted the power. She closed her eyes and drank and possessed him, with mouth, fangs and body.

Vylet awoke slowly, moaning with pleasure, with satiation and began to stretch. To find that she could not. She snapped her eyelids open and gasped.

She lay upon her bed, wrists and ankles bound, tied with torn strips of her boudoir hangings. At the foot of the bed he sat, naked-unmasked fury in his eyes.

"While you were out of it, b.i.t.c.h, I got free. Now you're my prisoner."

"If you say so."

"Got to hand it to you, b.i.t.c.h, you have some gall."

"Thank you."

"How clumsy, I meant to accuse not flatter."

She laughed. The game had taken a more dangerous, more interesting turn. "How did you get free?"

"While you slept, one of the restraints gave way. It wasn't hard to get rid of the rest." He studied her long and hard. "I don't know what you hoped to achieve by doing this, but it's over and I'm out of here." He stood up and moved to the side of the divan. He put his hands around her throat. "I could kill you, but 226 eXtasy's Collective Mind you'd probably enjoy it."

"Probably," she said. "But you don't have to kill me. Besides, you need me."

"The h.e.l.l I do."

She smiled. Male pride-the same the universe over. "You cannot overcome my servitors. If you leave here, it will be with my consent. Kill me and you remain here forever a prisoner. You have no idea, do you?"

"No idea?"

"Where you are, who you are, why you are here. Ignorant barbarian!"

He slapped her thigh. "At least I'm not a rapist."

"You can hit me harder than that." She laughed. "Rape? I did to you what you wanted, admit it! If you're honest with yourself, then you'll know that what I did was a pale reflection of what you truly desire, deep down, in the darkest places of your desire.

Look now and see that I speak the truth."

She took his mind and dragged him into the hidden recesses of his brain...to the places that he dared not look, did not know existed and he reeled back from her, severing the connection.

"You see?" she demanded.

"What I see is disgusting."

"Disgusting is being kept against one's will, being used for the pleasure of others, to want to die, but forced to live. Forced to sustain the life of another with your own life's blood. To be subjected to such cruelty that death is preferable."

"What you did to me, sweetheart."

"I did not disgust you. I excited you, gave you pleasure."

"And pain."

"Light and darkness-yin and yang. Pleasure and pain.

Opposites always co-exist, it is the universal law that maintains the equilibrium."

227.

Violet Visions "We're into philosophy now?"

"You can be into me, again, if you wish."

"In your dreams. I'm leaving and you're coming with me. But first it's pay-back. And it'll be a b.i.t.c.h. b.i.t.c.h for b.i.t.c.h."

"There is nothing you can do to me that hasn't been done before."

Smiling, Gold climbed onto the bed and knelt between her thighs. He used his c.o.c.k to stroke her slit, to probe it, to find the nub of nerve endings. He teased and he rubbed while his fingers f.u.c.ked her. He leaned over her and took one of her purple nipples into his mouth. He bit gently, his tongue lathering, before he turned his attention to her other breast.

He bit his way down her body and nuzzled apart her curls, his tongue delving, his teeth grazing. She held her body rigid. She would not allow him to know that what he was doing was driving her crazy. This man, this golden human, was an artist in an untrained way, but he held promise...as he held her on the brink of a climax.

"Give in to it. I know you want to. I can see it." He lifted his gaze from between her thighs, triumph in his eyes.

"f.u.c.k you," she said.

"Nope honey, I'm gonna f.u.c.k you." He lay over her and plunged his length into her, a deep thrust that possessed her completely. He rode her fast and rough, then slow and gentle, alternating between the two. His mouth fastened on her neck. He bit and tasted her blood.

Great Stars! Great Stars! At last! Vylet screamed her release and then lay still, as one dead beneath him.

Darkness washed through her, over her, cleansing, healing. A touch, like golden light, brought her awake, a languid awakening-a future full of promise. If she lived... Stars streaked through her mind-she spun in a void, and in that void 228 eXtasy's Collective Mind she heard a voice calling her.

Vylet swallowed hard and opened her eyes.

She lay upon her bed, now freed of restraint. But the silk ties were stained with her indigo blood. Blood streaked her body.

He sat on the edge of the divan, holding a damp cloth to her temple. "You're alive."

"Apparently."

"I thought I'd killed you."

"You did," Vylet said. "You killed what I had become, a monster preying on the lives and souls of men..."

"But why?"

"Why I died, or why I was a monster?"

"Both." He wet his lips with his tongue. Fascinated, Vylet watched the path of his pink tongue over his lips.

"To be possessed by a man as I have possessed and used, this was my punishment, my release. I am a succubus, Golden Man,"

she said. "A vampire-witch, a demon, an eater-of-souls, a consumer of flesh."

"My name's Andraa."

"I prefer Gold. It is your nature."

"My nature, honey, as you've said is dark and dangerous."

"Gold can be burnished, tarnished, but still retain its basic nature."

"Philosophy again." He frowned. "So what happens now?"

"You have freed me, so now I free you. I am no longer the devourer of flesh. I want to be the devourer of life, to experience it all. But first, there are others of my kind to be released from their living death. I must find them, no matter how long and how far I must travel." Vylet pushed up from the bed and with a groan fell back against the cushions.

He raised a brow. "I don't think you're going anywhere soon."

229.

Violet Visions "No, I'm drained."

He grinned. "I didn't drink that much blood."

"Did you enjoy my taste?"

"I've tasted all of you. I find you sweet. Too sweet." He paused. "What's your name?"

"To ask the name of one of my kind, that is a presumption, also a declaration."

"Declaration of what?"

"Commitment," she said.

"I don't commit to anyone, except myself."

"Good. We can both be selfish until we learn to trust the other."

"Oh yeah?"

"I will make a bargain with you, Gold. You have a s.p.a.ceship.

You know how to navigate the stars. I do not. I will engage your services. I have many paths to follow and many souls to free."

"I'm not for hire," he said.

"Not for any price?" She rose on her elbow and shook her hair away from her body. She pouted her lips as she spread wide her legs. His amused gaze raked her from head to toes and back again.

"I've already had you," he said. "It was worth being beaten and bound, but... I'm a free man. Free of you."

"Gold, do you truly think you have had me? Foolish boy!" Her mind touched his and held him captive, stroking him from inside out. She took her awareness to his c.o.c.k and stroked him from inside out. He groaned and shivered. And, to her utter amazement and deepest delight, he touched her mind with his and stroked her p.u.s.s.y from inside out with mind teasings that made her quiver.

He pulled back and regarded her. "You were saying?"

"I think we both have a lot to learn. You are no ordinary 230 eXtasy's Collective Mind human."

"Honey, if you think ordinary and human are synonymous, then I've got a lot to teach you. Besides, my father was a Sensualator."

She stared at him open-mouthed.

He nodded. "Yeah, and you know what that means. When I'm in the mood, I give much better than I get."

"Is that how you were able to free yourself...I've heard no sensualator is ever held captive."

"Unless they want to be, there's no power in the universe that can imprison one of us."

"Then why...how was it that you were captured?"

He spread his hands. "I was weakened from three nights of loving-a very demanding, pa.s.sionate client. I was caught at a low ebb, so to speak. And when I recovered, I was intrigued. It's been a long time since any woman possessed me. Besides," and here his smile became a grin, that ignited his eyes. "Besides, purple is my favorite color."

She kicked him hard in the thigh. "You are impudent."

"Naturally. If you want to impress me, then you're going to have to kick me harder. Slap me, too."

"I will when I have the strength."

His grin faded. "All you had to do was come to me and tell me your problem and I would have helped you. Besides being a s.e.x-technician, I'm also a registered justiciary."