Chapter Three

Estelle Martin was putting a fresh batch of palmiers into the upper part of her double-oven when the bells dangling from the store’s front door jingled.

With a smile of anticipation, she wiped her hands on her apron and moved from the back kitchen to the front of her all-things shop, Dark Dreams, as fast as her matronly, mama-bear form would allow.

It had been many months since Inanna, Gabriel and little Benji had come to see her. Their last visit had been all too brief, given that they were currently dividing their time between New York City and Boston. They only stopped by for a few minutes on their way to some other errand.

“I’ve been waiting—”

She broke off the greeting when she realized that her visitor in the middle of the night was not the ones she was expecting.

Her smile froze for a moment but spread wide again when her guest turned toward her.

It was the handsome, bookish young man who had stopped at her shop some time ago.

She had fed him pastries and tea and given him her favorite comb as a souvenir. They hadn’t exchanged many words, but his presence in her shop had been comforting for a woman who spent her life mostly alone.

“Well isn’t this a happy surprise,” she welcomed warmly. “I didn’t know if you’d find your way back to my little shop again.”

He gave her a small but genuine smile and let her usher him to a seat at an oval tea table.

“I wasn’t sure whether you’d be open at night,” he said by way of greeting. “It’s not safe, especially in this neighborhood… but I’m glad for my stomach in this particular instance.”

He made a show of sniffing the air.

“Is that palmiers I smell?”

“What an astute nose you have,” she replied. “I just put a batch in the oven. But I have some macarons you might fancy while we wait.”

The young man inclined his head, smiling sheepishly now, as if abashed that he was taking advantage of her generosity, expecting to be fed.

Estelle never took money for the treats and refreshments she made, mostly for herself because she had a sweet tooth, and whatever she had left over she donated to the Little Flower Orphanage down the street.

In truth, it would be more fair to say that she baked for the boys and girls at the orphanage and couldn’t resist filching a couple of treats for herself before sending the goods over.

And all the thousands of little trinkets she displayed on the floor to ceiling shelves in her shop were not for sale. But occasionally, when she found the right persons to treasure them, she would give some away.

She alone managed the “shop,” which generated no revenues whatsoever. It was really just an extension of her home in the back, where a small but modern and efficient kitchen, dining area, bedroom and bathroom were hidden from view.

As to safety… it was never a concern. For Estelle Martin was not what she appeared.

After she brought out a tea tray with both coffee and tea and an assortment of colorful macarons, she settled on the seat opposite the young man and fixed him a plate.

“Now, my dear,” she began, “if we’re going to make a habit of this, I should like to know your name at least. But if you’re too shy to share, I’ll simply continue calling you whichever endearment strikes my fancy.”

The young man hesitated and took his time stirring a dollop of vanilla cream into his coffee.

So mysterious, Estelle thought. Surely a name wasn’t too difficult to share, even if he had to invent one.

As a rule, she never pressed her visitors for personal details. She opened her doors to all kinds of wanderers, travelers and lost souls. But she felt that this young man was too alone. Too lonely. He needed someone who knew him just a little. Even if it was merely his name.

“You can call me Binu,” he finally answered.

Estelle almost dropped her tea cup. As it was, the delicate porcelain cup clattered onto its saucer, sloshing some liquid out.

Bīnu.

Did he know what it meant? It couldn’t be a coincidence.

As if hearing her thoughts, he said, “It’s the Akkadian word for ‘son.’ I’m a researcher of ancient civilizations and like to collect phrases and words from lost languages. No one’s called me ‘son,’ before, since I’m sadly an orphan, so I thought I’d like to hear it. But asking for the…endearment… outright seemed too presumptuous.”

He told her this in a teasing tone, said with a disarming, self-deprecating smile, but she heard the sadness and despair all the same.

She gave him her most glowing grin.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Binu,” she said. “And I’m Estelle. You can call me Mama Bear if you like. A great many folks do.”

“Mama Bear,” he murmured, as if testing the words on his tongue.

“Binu, my dear, you mustn’t hold back on the macarons. If you don’t help me with them I fear I’ll add another inch or two to my waist trying to prevent them from going to waste.”

He grinned boyishly at her and plopped one into his mouth, closing his eyes to savor the sweetness that was as light as air, instantly melting in the warmth of his mouth.

Estelle watched him eat with pleasure as she sipped her tea.

She loved feeding people. It gave her the sense of accomplishment others might gain from building empires, winning the Nobel Peace Prize, walking on the moon.

It was the way she chose to make her mark in the world. Feeding one lost soul at a time. Providing them a safe haven whenever they should need it.

*** *** *** ***

Grace noticed the subtle change in temperature in the room; a fragrant musk effervesced from Devlin Sinclair’s skin.

Darker. Fuller.

It went straight to Grace’s bloodstream like a shot of cocaine.

At least she imagined this was the sort of irresistible intoxication to which addicts were enslaved.

She felt enslaved.

Her hands skimmed up his arms to his shoulders, up the strong column of his neck to enfold his face.

It was so dark in her apartment she could barely see what was in front of her. She purposely kept it dark for these sex marathons because her other senses came fully alive when her sight was handicapped. She could better attune herself to each and every reaction in her partner, the better to discover the most efficient ways to make him writhe in pleasure.

And she was better able to use her imagination in the darkness.

She was not a picky woman. Almost any male body would do. Thankfully, none of her partners had smelled bad, were too hairy, had too many fat rolls or sported tiny penises. Cyber geeks, for the most part, were skinny and soft. Too absorbed in their programming obsession to eat well. Too glued to their desks to build any muscle.

She was the orchestrator of both theirs and her own pleasure. She could manipulate even the most premature of ejaculators to hold their stiffness until she granted their release.

And while she conducted her own symphony of sensations, she conjured in her mind whatever ideal male form she wanted. Images of sculpted, perfect marble bodies by the Greeks and Romans. Flashes of paintings by Renaissance masters.

And, yes, a few Giorgio Armani underwear models here and there.

No real man could ever match the ideal of her imagination.

Until Devlin Sinclair. Perhaps he even exceeded it.

She looked into his face now, avoiding his eyes, trying to make out his features with her inquisitive fingers.

Her thumbs roved leisurely over his wide brow, starting from his temples, smoothed across the poetic slants of his eyebrows, down the straight, slightly bumpy bridge of his nose.

Interesting, that tiny bump. So he wasn’t all flawless. Somehow that made him even more perfect.

The sensitive pads of her thumbs dragged back up over his eyelids, closing those bright blue beacons of light, and flirted with the thick, long sweeps of eyelashes that fluttered against his high cheekbones.

Back and forth, back and forth, she dragged her thumbs across those delicate bristles, becoming almost mesmerized by the ticklish sensations until he inhaled a tremulous breath.

Ah. Found another secret.

She kept brushing her thumbs along his eyelashes and added slight pressure at the corners of his eyes while she rotated her hips lazily below, grinding gently down on his lap.

His hands moved from his sides to grasp the arms of the chair. She could hear his fingers digging into the sleek leather. It sounded like the cords of his control unraveling.

But beyond that, he still hadn’t touched her, as if he couldn’t decide how far to let her take this.

By now, her past partners would have already either begged for mercy and/ or grabbed any part of her they could in their frantic pursuit of release.

He did neither.

He simply figuratively dug his heels in and waited for her to continue her exquisite torture.

She gyrated against his hot, hard, quite magnificently proportioned erection while she played havoc with his eyelashes and lids. His body trembled in time with each brush of her thumbs against those lush lashes. Her fluids and his made the drag of her cunny against his cock slick and satiny, sending tiny bolts of electricity all along her swollen labia, and the most delicious buzz against her pearl.

“Come,” he commanded in a low, guttural growl. “Again.”

Gladly, she obeyed, her body releasing in a quivering torrent against his, her sex convulsing around the root of his staff. The pressure of his hardness made it so good.

But not nearly good enough.

When she caught her breath, she opened her eyes and looked into his, unable to help it any more.

“I want you inside me,” she stated clearly, almost demandingly.

But also with a question, because she recognized that he was still holding back. She didn’t want to take him fully without permission, and she wasn’t sure he’d given it. Not explicitly.

She really, desperately, wanted him to say yes.

He held her gaze for the longest time. What was he thinking? What did he see in her?

She was starting to lose herself in those solar eclipses again.

So many delicious secrets. It would take lifetimes to discover them all.

Still, he didn’t answer.

His breathing was deep and rhythmic, as if he’d run many miles, but still had the stamina to run many more. The rise and fall of his wide, hairless chest she detected out of the corner of her eyes only added to her hypnosis.

“Are you certain?” he finally said. “You don’t know who or what I am.”

The vibrating timbre of his voice broke through her trance, making her blink.

“Who are you?” she asked, truly curious, impatient to know.

“What are you?”

He was silent again for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer.

Then, finally, he parted the seam of his lips, just enough to reveal the sharp tips of what looked like two glistening fangs.

*** *** *** ***

Instead of screaming, fainting, running through the wall, as Devlin fully expected her to do at the sight of the unmistakable fangs he revealed, Grace Darling tilted her head to have a better look.

“How odd,” she murmured with a scientific air, lowering her face a bit so that she was eye-level with his mouth, “I’m pretty sure they weren’t there a minute ago. Do they extend and retract on command?”

Devlin couldn’t help the huff of disbelief that escaped his chest.

She tested one of the tips with her index finger and ran the same finger along the row of front teeth between the two fangs as if comparing the consistency and validating the authenticity of the pointy canines.

“Doesn’t feel like inserts,” she said in the same wondering tone.

Devlin collected himself enough to respond, “You have some experience with fangs, do you?”

She tipped her head the other way and sat back a bit to peer at his teeth from a distance, as if zooming in and out would help her better assess the situation.

“You can never tell. I know people with a lot of peculiar fetishes.”

She shrugged.

“But honestly, who am I to judge? I have a few myself. It’s probably abnormal for the average person but it’s normal for the persons with the fetishes.”

She gazed into his eyes again, with the same unblinking intensity she had been demonstrating at intervals throughout the night.

“You’re becoming a fetish for me,” she told him as if in a trance, “I want to make you come in a thousand different ways.”

Whoomph. Devlin’s body promptly erupted into flames.

She said the damnest things. And they had the damnest effect on him.

He drew a deep breath to steady himself. His fingers clawed deeper into the armrests of her chair.

“Are they just for show or do you have a use for them?” she continued to try to unravel the puzzle of his fangs.

Devlin swallowed and replied, “I use them to break the skin and vein of my prey, the better to drink their blood.”

Again, she did not have the reaction one would expect.

“Do you suffer from anemia or have an iron deficiency? Why do you need to drink blood? What happens to the people you drink from?”

A bombardment of questions that were unemotional and detachedly curious.

“I—”

She leaned in close again pressed the pad of her index finger hard enough against the tip of one fang to draw blood.

A growl, deep and feral, resonated like the struck strings of a bass guitar in the pitch black apartment.

“Found another secret,” she said with not fear but delight, “you have two more pleasure points than the rest of the human population. This just added some exponentials in the ways you can achieve orgasm.”

She literally quivered with excitement, and declared in that sultry voice of hers:

“Fascinating.”

Finally, Devlin reached for her, putting his hands roughly on her hips, his fingers digging into her flesh.

“This is not a game, Grace,” he ground out in a guttural snarl, no longer flippant, no longer amused, “If we continue this… if I give you what you want…I will also take what I want, damn the consequences.”

She didn’t hesitate in her reply.

“That’s fair.”

Even with the Consent she just gave him, Devlin held back.

Nothing was going according to his plan. He made sure to be in control of every situation he entered, a lesson he learned the hard way. But for the first time in the hundreds of years since he turned vampire, he was in control of nothing.

Not even his own reactions.

“I want you inside me,” she urged again, sensing his doubt.

Shifting her gaze to his fangs, she said, “In every way possible I want you inside me. And I want to be inside you too.”

She undulated her hips slightly so that the hot, slick opening of her core was pressed against the plump head of his sex.

Slowly, she sank down upon him just half an inch.

They both groaned at the indescribable sensation. It was sooo good. It had never been this good.

Between gasps of pleasure, she looked into his eyes and asked him one last time, “Yes?”

Devlin held her penetrating stare, tightened his grip on her hips and bared his teeth as the last shreds of his control finally snapped.

“Yes.”