Chapter Eight

 

 

 

Valorie jolted awake when she heard someone inside her RV. Without thinking, she went for the knife under her pillow, holding it in front of her as she sat up.

“You keep a knife in your bed?” John asked, holding up his hands.

He’d turned on a light in the living area. His body was a nothing but a dark silhouette, but one she recognized.

“I used to keep demons,” Valorie said. “Once they went away, you bet your ass I kept a knife. What do you want? It’s—” She checked her digital clock. “Okay, it’s only two o’clock in the morning. Not as late as I thought it was, but I just got to sleep, man.”

“I’m a night person. It didn’t occur to me that you weren’t, after some of our evenings,” John said. “Sorry for waking you. I guess it was the light.”

“And your big, skulking body creaking the vehicle. What are you doing here?”

“It’s been half a week, and—”

“You’re pissed off that I haven’t given you the amount of sexing you think you’re supposed to get from me. Is that it?” Valorie said, but she let her knife hand fall to the sheets.

“Would you stop putting words in my mouth? No. It’s not about what kind of sex I’m getting. I mean, it’s inconvenient that I’m not getting any when I kind of expected I’d be getting more, but that’s my problem, not yours. I get it. What pisses me off is that you keep thinking the worst of me when I told you I’ve changed. And I’ve done things to prove I’ve changed,” John said.

“There’s where you’re wrong,” Valorie said. “A few weeks doesn’t prove anything. You’re relieved you’re getting sex, and that makes you more inclined to be obedient. But if you don’t feel entitled to it now, you’ll feel entitled to it after maybe a few more months. A person doesn’t change that fast, not when you’ve been a douchebag for years.”

“No,” he insisted. “You put enough pressure on something, it’ll change fast. We saw it all the time at church, people turning their lives around. It happens. And this place…this place makes a man want to change. It’s like I died a little and had a vision of hell, Valorie. I’ve experienced what happens to guys like me. I’m a different man than I was. You’ve got to believe me.”

“I’m not convinced,” Valorie said. “You take the humiliation and commands like a good boy, but I’m not convinced you’re a completely changed man, fire-eater. It’s going to be a long time before that happens. Now, did you come here to argue your redemption? Because I’m so not the one for you to be having this conversation with, and I want to go back to sleep.”

“You haven’t used my collar in days,” John said.

“The circus hasn’t been open,” Valorie replied, flopping back down on her pillows. She didn’t let go of the knife.

“I didn’t know the collar was for the crowd. I thought it was for us, and you just happened to make it public.”

“Us? There is no us,” Valorie said. “I told you that at the beginning.”

“Mistress and pet is still an us. That’s all I’m saying,” John said, sitting at the foot of the bed. But he didn’t sit anywhere near where her feet were. Smart man.

“The collar wasn’t a wedding ring. I’m not required to give it up when I’m tired just because you need a fuck,” Valorie said. She turned over under the covers and closed her eyes.

“How many times do I have to tell you I don’t need sex from you?” John said.

Even with her eyes closed, she could raise a skeptical eyebrow just fine.

“Okay, maybe I do need sex. Maybe I am uncomfortable. But I’m not here for sex right now. That’s not the only reason I want to be with you, Valorie,” he said. “Can’t I just…help? Whatever’s bothering you, can I help?”

“No,” she murmured.

“Can I stay?” he asked quietly. “No sex. No expectations. Can I stay and help you relax?”

Valorie opened one eye to peer up at him. There were those damn puppy dog eyes again. Valorie wasn’t one to be swayed by scars like some of the girls who came through Arcanium. She barely saw them, actually. But his expressions were somehow enhanced rather than masked by those scars. The way his collar framed the lower half of his face didn’t help her either.

She sighed and closed her eyes again.

“Fine,” she said, kicking off the sheets and tucking the knife back under her pillow. She was wearing a gray T-shirt and boy shorts only because it was cold. In the summer, she slept naked. “Do whatever you like. But we’re not having sex, and I’m going back to sleep. I don’t care how blue your balls get.”

The incubus had been sending out signals as strongly as usual, but it turned out that his magic wasn’t infallible. Valorie was aroused, but God if she didn’t have a single fuck to give for sex right now. Let her nethers tingle all they wanted, her pussy ache, her nipples press against her rehearsal T-shirts. Seriously. No fucks to give. Even if Bell, Lennon and John were to join forces and request a Valorie-focused foursome, she’d have walked out of Arcanium just to get some alone time.

She knew what was wrong. There was no mystery to her mood. She wasn’t interested in sharing her feelings with anyone else, though. Not Bell, who had caused this strife in the first place. Not Lennon, who hadn’t mourned her absence, as though glad she’d cut him off so he could give all his attention to his new mermaid. Not John. A person confided in pets only because they couldn’t understand, and John would be able to understand her all too well.

“Thank you,” John said. The burning man actually sounded sincere, thanking her for not being allowed to shove himself up her ass, even though she’d seen him in profile, and the man needed relief.

He turned her onto her stomach.

“If I take off my pants, are you going to stab me?” John asked.

“As long as you keep your dick to yourself, no. I don’t want it touching me,” Valorie said. “One thing leads to another. You’d only make it worse for yourself.”

“I get it,” he said. “Believe me.”

“Make me believe you,” Valorie muttered, burying her face in the crook of her elbow on the pillow.

She heard the zip and the whisper of skin on skin as he removed his trousers. He unsettled the bed when he sat back down again.

John lifted her right foot and rested the instep on his warm thigh. He brought both hands to her sole to rub his firm fingers into the muscles.

Valorie fought not to groan as he massaged her feet, first one then the other. There was a place in her arches that, when he pushed just right, sent electrical shocks of pleasure throbbing to her clit. She wasn’t a stranger to those areas of her feet, but it had been a long time since they’d been stimulated. If John knew what he was doing to her—and she had every reason to believe that he did, since he devoted an awful lot of time to her feet—he didn’t comment. Nor did he press the matter. Just her soles. Even though her feet rested on his thigh, he didn’t so much as brush his cock against them, either by accident or accidentally on purpose, which meant he was making the effort not to.

She gave him silent points for that.

Sexual surges aside, the rest of her melted under his massage, especially when he moved away from her feet and up her legs. He parted them so that he could kneel between her ankles, but the touch remained sensual without turning suggestive. He dug his fingers so far into her muscle that it sometimes hurt, but then he’d withdraw and it would all be roses again. Her breathing was even, her eyes closed. She drifted between sleeping and waking, drawn down by the sweetness of the massage but held back by the changing reality of his touch.

True to his word, although he slipped his fingers over the edge of her panties, he didn’t get near her cunt. He straddled her hips when he was finished with her legs so that he could start in on her back over her shirt, but he didn’t let his ass rest against her thighs. She wished she could turn over and check whether he was still hard. She wanted to see what he was sacrificing for her. But that would require her to move and acknowledge that she was still awake, and she’d rather stay right where she was than stop him from doing what he was doing.

“You talk mean, Valorie,” he murmured. “Lots and lots of talking mean. Maybe it’s what I deserve or maybe that’s just you. But I knew when Bell handed me over to you that I won the lottery. Whether we have sex or not, it’s insane that I’m able to do this. I don’t know what those demons were thinking. I want to tell you this when you’re not asleep, except then you’d either laugh or throw me out or tell me how bad a man I am. And I guess I am. I have a lot to make up for. But I promised I’d do it all for you. I’ll keep my word. I’d do anything just to be close to someone like you, viper tongue and all. I’ll take it. I’ll take it all and like it. Maybe one day you’ll believe that.”

Sometime when he started to massage her neck and scalp, her hair loose over her shoulders, she finally untethered and slipped off into sleep, mulling on whether he’d known she was awake or not and not knowing what to do about it either way except pretend it had never happened. There was a lot of that going on lately, self-delusion. But there wasn’t much else she could do without her chest hurting so much it made her heart skip.

Sleep was better. Sleep was where she could forget without trying. And what John was doing felt so good that forgetting was that much easier when he made it hard to think at all.

 

* * * *

 

When she woke up again, John had spooned up behind her—possibly in his sleep. He’d remembered to put her sheets back over her, so she was pleasantly heated by his body and enveloped in his arms, but his skin wasn’t touching hers except where he had his fingers on her arm.

There was, however, an undeniable erection pressed against her ass through the sheets and her thin clothing. Morning erection or continued from last night, it was impossible to tell, nor was it relevant.

He’d done what she’d told him he was allowed to do and no more.

She didn’t feel bad about how she’d treated him, but she acknowledged the step forward that John had made. And she’d woken up in a much better state of mind than when she’d gone to sleep.

Valorie turned around in his arms and guided him onto his back. He didn’t protest. She kept her sheets around her body, but she brought her arms out from under them to have full access to his long, lean, strong torso. It wasn’t a massage like the one he’d given her, but she moved her hands over his abdomen with the same sensual, firm strokes. She didn’t dig in, however, and he didn’t wake up yet. He sighed, his eyelids fluttering as she circled his dark nipples with the pads of her thumbs.

When he was asleep, she didn’t have to control him, didn’t have to ensure that he was doing exactly what she told him to do, didn’t have to think about what kind of man he was or what his motives might be. When he was asleep, he was all innocence. Even his cock, darkening the sheets with blots of his pre-cum, was innocent. It didn’t rear up at the promise of power or subjugation. It just wanted someone to touch it and help it come. That was all. Simple. Innocent.

Valorie liked the way his lips parted in a sigh when she trailed her fingers down to his navel, brushing through the dark hairs just above the insistent head of his cock. The way his hips moved upward when she traced the lines of the V almost to the base of the shaft. The way he turned his head against his arm, stretched up over the pillows, when she caressed his inner thigh, knuckles brushing his scrotum. The way he moaned when she ghosted her palm a hair’s breadth from his erection’s feverish flesh. It seemed to strain beneath her hand, as though if it thickened just a bit more, it could touch her.

God, he was beautiful like this. Vulnerability from waking up after a spectacular massage with the amazing specimen of manflesh before her was the only reason she could think of for why she bent down and ran her tongue from base to head of his cock—slow, torturous, wanting her tongue to caress every contour that it could reach, sparing no nerve ending on her way up.

His sighs turned into light moans. He tossed his head on the pillow, his eyelids shut tight, but he still appeared asleep. She thought he’d be more controlled if he wasn’t. And he’d be watching. He’d definitely be watching.

Valorie flicked her tongue along the ridge of the glans, tasting the drips of his pre-cum and swallowing them down as she adjusted her position next to him. She stroked his inner thigh with her thumb as she ever-so-slowly took the head into her mouth, all lips and tongue, practically worshiping him. She’d never gone down on Lennon—he’d been far more interested in going down on her—but she found that she’d missed it since Bell. And as big as Bell had been, his magic helping her accommodate him, John felt more substantial in her mouth. The stretch of her lips and the solidness against her tongue, it was all real, nothing to spread her lips wider or make her throat relax for him. She’d have to draw on muscle memory, because just dealing with the head wouldn’t be enough for her, she could already tell.

“Oh…” he murmured, tossing slightly. “Don’t. She won’t let me.” He threaded his fingers through her hair, although he didn’t seem to know whether to push her away or pull her closer.

Valorie sank down over his erection then pressed her tongue against the underside as she swept back up. “Shhh,” she whispered with her lips against the head. She pressed a kiss to the treasure trail leading down from his navel. She was absurdly amused by the fact that he was telling her no because even in his sleep, he was trying to obey her. “Yes, she will. She’s telling you yes. Just enjoy it.”

“No, I…Valorie. Oh fuck, Valorie…”

She took him in again, the lifting of his hips pushing him into her mouth smooth as honey. She moaned into his cock. He tossed again from the vibrations, muffling his own groans into his forearm. She bobbed over him, shallow movements, then relished his loud cry when she twisted her head down, taking in as much as she could before pulling off him with a gasp. She brought her hand away from his thigh to wrap around the hot, throbbing shaft, pumping him while she caught her breath and took in the unfettered expression of blissful agony on his face.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” she said quietly. “Mistress is feeling like less of a bitch, and pet tastes good this morning.”

When he still didn’t wake up beyond a few more indecipherable murmurs, she held the base of his cock and sank down over him again, going even farther when he bucked up against the back of her throat. She swallowed frantically to keep from gagging. Her breath came harshly through her nose, but she was gratified when her lips touched thumb and forefinger where they held and stroked the base.

His eyes flew open, the whole top half of his body coming off the bed. His arousal throbbed through the cock in her mouth.

“Oh my God,” he panted, disoriented by sudden consciousness as well as overwhelming pleasure. “Oh fuck, is this really happening? Ahhhh…”

She swirled her tongue against the underside as she made her way back up to the head, where she applied such intense suction that he cried out again, jerking his hips up.

“It’s happening, pet. Now just lay back down and let it happen some more. Your Queen has things she wants to do to you,” Valorie said.

“Fuck, I always wanted to wake up like this…” His voice got amusingly high near the end of it. Now that he was awake, Valorie didn’t mind letting him feel her teeth.

She wouldn’t bite down, though, not unless he became more like his old self. Valorie still didn’t believe he’d changed as much as he thought he had, but he had changed some. She could give him that.

It was too early in the morning for anything complicated. Still, she didn’t think John would complain about a simple blow job—stretching her mouth around him until the head nudged her soft palate, stroking the base where it was harder for her to reach, smearing his pre-cum over her tongue like syrup, thrilling in the sounds that he made and the way he had to hold himself back, because she’d caught him at a vulnerable time too. The ache in her cunt turned deliciously keen, but the sheets were twisted around her, and she had her hands full. Valorie pressed her thighs together, poor substitute for real pressure.

“I’m gonna come,” he gasped, with that adorable push-pulling of her hair, telling her to leave if she didn’t want him to ejaculate in her mouth and at the same time begging her to stay. “I’m going to come.”

Valorie moaned as she took him in halfway down. She undulated her tongue over him and sucked his climax into her. He grasped fistfuls of her sheets to hold his hips down while his cock pulsed inside her mouth, hot fluid hitting her throat with each pulse. She swallowed again and stroked the exposed shaft to coax more of his cum into her, thick, salty, each spurt as satisfying to her as a finger through her folds.

Finally he slumped, shoulders and abdomen relaxed. His panting breaths slowed down. He rested his hand on the back of her head, idly stroking her hair as she eased off him. His cock fell from her mouth and listed to the side, glistening. A thin thread of cum attached to her lip before she licked it away.

“I thought you weren’t wanting sex,” John said, looking down at her where she rested her chin on his hip. It was an awkward angle, but he obviously preferred to stay lying against the pillows, not ready to get up for the day after what she’d done for him. “I thought I was still the wrong kind of bad boy and you didn’t want me anymore.”

“I wanted to reward you for last night. Encourage good behavior,” Valorie said. She rolled over and opened the top drawer of her nightstand before pulling out her trusty bullet vibe. She brought her hand under her sheets. She didn’t even bother going underneath her panties.

“I can help with that,” John said, covering her hand over the sheets. His warmth seeped through like liquid. “You know I can.”

“No,” Valorie said. With her free hand, she took his away from where she’d turned on the vibrator against her mound, working it down to her clit in tight circles. She interlaced her fingers with his. “Just stay here a while.”

She let her instincts lead her into an easy orgasm, quick and unadorned, attending to her needs rather than her desires without fuss or frills. She still wasn’t up to sex, in spite of her arousal, because every time she thought of John’s hands on her, Valorie couldn’t help but remember being in bed with Charles.

Valorie had told him to forget. Now she was trying to do the same, and it was so much harder than she’d thought.

Was it going to take her years, like it had when she’d first been taken? God, she hoped she could get over this more quickly than before. She couldn’t imagine having to go through the five fucking stages of grief all over again.

Valorie tucked her cheek against John’s arm as she turned off her vibe and just lay there. It was a rehearsal day, so she was in no hurry to get up, no schedule to adhere to that she couldn’t change, and she’d had trouble getting out of bed for the last few days as it was.

If John was surprised at the gesture, he didn’t comment. He just stayed still, stayed with her like she’d asked, his breathing sometimes aligning with hers, sometimes a counterpoint. He didn’t even hold her. He just gave her something with which to ground herself, an anchor to the present against the current of the past. She didn’t know if he was strong enough for it. But right now, he was all she had.

 

* * * *

 

She still didn’t let John have sex with her, no matter how their joint routines worked him up or worked her up. It occurred to her with some disquiet that part of the reason she kept refusing John was because it wouldn’t be fair to him. Since when did she care about what was fair to John? Since when should she care?

Either way, she wasn’t interested, although she sometimes brought the vibe out and held his hand. Sometimes she rubbed him off. Sometimes he rubbed himself off while holding her hand as well.

John was allowed to spend the night, though, if he came to her RV. On the long, cold winter’s nights, he was a good heater to have. She ascribed the lack of flame bursts during these sleepovers to Bell not wanting his contortionist burned to a crisp by accident—or ticked off as hell because her wardrobe had been charred in the night. All the more reason for John to want to stay overnight with her. All the more reason for Valorie to let him, since he wasn’t going to destroy anything, and she got a warm body to sleep with. Lennon used to kick in his sleep, since having a diurnal schedule wreaked havoc with his nocturnal demonic sleep cycle. John was much calmer.

He never pushed her for more. The closest he came was asking. He accepted her answer when she said no, accepted her hand when she offered it, accepted what contact she gave him when she didn’t.

Over the course of a week, Valorie gradually allowed herself to be pulled back into her usual life, or something close to it.

Yet if she had to be honest, she wasn’t surprised when she stepped out of the back of her exhibition tent after a morning’s work to have Charles standing there, waiting. She wasn’t surprised when he took her hands, stepped forward and kissed her.

She wasn’t surprised at all.