Chapter Eight #6
No, I’ve got something else for him, Leitian thought and gave her order to the bartender.
Leitian wrapped the lapels of her jacket closer and rubbed at her arms to stave off the chill.
The nights were cold and she had not dressed with the intention of spending much time outside.
It was getting late and most of the bar’s patrons had gone for the night.
She was starting to regret not waiting inside, but she did not want to give Sasho an excuse to gossip about her and her alleged suitor.
When Stefan was presented with the glass of water Leitian could not see his reaction, but she heard Irena’s cackle and that was enough.
The bar’s door finally opened and a man stepped out. He was wearing a black puffer jacket, zipped all the way to the top and a wool hat with a pompon bouncing on his head as he walked with a brisk step.
“You’re going the wrong way,” Leitian called after Stefan. “The dorms are this way.”
“I know,” he pushed his hat back. The scars on his lips gave him that permanent crooked smile, and Leitian could see he was doing his best to look remorseful. “I don’t live there. I rent by the club.”
“Ah, yes, the strip club Sasho has only heard about.” Leitian straightened her back and began walking down the street. When Stefan did not move, she called out over her shoulder. “Are you walking me home or what?”
Stefan uttered something unintelligible and scurried after her.
STEFAN, 2010
His fingers dug into her hips and he felt her arch as she rode him, her head tipped back. Earlier when Stefan buried his face in her hair, he inhaled deeply, familiarizing himself with her scent. The whole of her.
“I will have all of you or none at all,” Leitian had threatened, refusing to let him come closer. She had got him to follow her to her dorm and then into her bed, but he had to leave behind the game of pretence, that machismo charade he had tried with her earlier at the bar.
He had taken off his clothes and the eyepatch, letting them fall like discarded skin.
He had fantasised about wooing her, using any pretext to spend time with her between lectures.
He pictured them sitting in the university library: her diligently copying out a bibliography, and him following the movement of her wrist as it gripped the pen, coming up with an excuse to sit closer, to be the centre of her attention.
All the dates and excursions Stefan had planned for them fell apart as he climbed onto the bed and breathed in the scent of her arousal.
Not wanting to break her stride, Stefan ran his hands up her body in a feather-light caress before she slapped him across the face.
“I did not say you can move,” Leitian tsked and her hand closed around his throat. She squeezed lightly and tipped his head back so his eye fixed on nothing but her. “Be a good quiet boy for me, Stefan.”
Stefan had really tried to remember the rules of their game, he really had.
A rather vague memory on how he could look but not touch, and if he wanted something—anything—he was to ask for permission first. It was hard to concentrate when he was fighting with the awareness of how naked and exposed he felt, scars and tears and the grotesque map of his body.
It was not shyness or modesty; he stripped for a living.
It was the way Leitian had looked at him, appraising him in the dim light of the reading lamp, as she sat naked on the mattress, waiting.
I will have all of you or none at all...
Leitian’s words echoed in his mind and Stefan bit the inside of his cheek, savouring the sight of her above him; the way the muscles of her thighs tightened with each thrust and her nails raked across his chest; how her pale skin was now pink, and flushed, and warm.
What would it feel like to be branded by her?
For her human nails and teeth to bite and claw at him, to add to the mementoes already etched into his skin.
When Leitian aligned her body with his and pressed her body to his chest, Stefan wriggled and groaned, brows furrowed with the effort not to move and thrust up, to keep still and let her take him at her own pace.
Her lips were so soft, he craved to kiss and suck at them, part them with his tongue—no more than a fraction, no more than what she would allow.
If Stefan wanted to kiss her, he had to beg.
Leitian had decided to grant him nothing tonight, nothing but a lesson in obedience, and Stefan was failing.
He wanted to tell her how much he enjoyed it, how grateful he was for her careless, cooed pet names and praise.
He wished she had gagged him. That way it would have been easier to keep his lips from smiling, easier to stop himself from opening his mouth at the start of a sentence, desperate to say, ‘Thank you, Mistress,’ ‘Please, Mistress,’ ‘Anything… everything for you, Mistress.’ But she had left his mouth uncovered and free, forbidding him to utter anything beyond a growl or a hum.
This is too cruel, Stefan thought and pressed his lips together, his skin tingling.
“Leitian—” Stefan moaned against her mouth.
She pulled away and straightened her back, her knees digging into the mattress as she resumed bouncing up and down, up and down. Stefan whimpered. There was so much of her he wanted to touch, to kiss and bite. Instead, she kept him pinned down, taking her pleasure from him.
“Let me touch you. Please, I’ll be good!” he grovelled, desperate for more.
Leitian stopped and lifted her hips until the tip of his cock barely grazed her pubic lips, and for one excruciating moment Stefan thought she was going to get up and leave him like this, naked and alone, denied her satisfaction and praise.
“I can be good!” he repeated, his voice dropping to a desperate mewl, and his eye searched hers, hidden in the mass of hair that had fallen across her face and down her perky breasts.
There was a glow around her resembling a halo, encompassing her and the whole room, pulsing in sync with his heartbeat.
Stefan’s body was burning up; Leitian’s palms against his chest were scorching.
“Please...”
The sound that left his mouth was molten, and he saw her brows furrow before she nodded, slowly at first, then with a conviction that made his own breath hitch.
“You may move as you wish,” Leitian said, guiding his hands on either side of her. She was by no means petite, but his hands appeared too big and rough against her flesh; they enveloped too much of her. Yet he was the prey here, ensnarled in her honeyed trap.
She positioned herself on his lap and rubbed her clit against his cock, the wet heat of her excited him even more than when he had been inside her. Now that she had given him permission to act, Stefan found himself suddenly at a loss where to begin.
Leitian felt so fragile, as if she might break between his palms. I can make her stronger, harden her so my teeth and claws would not hurt her.
All it takes is a bite… a scratch when the moon is full, and she will be like me.
A predator that would be his equal and mate; not like Irena or Vasili, but his—and his alone.
The creature that had tainted Stefan had done it to provoke and frighten.
It had not cared if Stefan survived or not, but for Leitian…
Stefan would do anything. He enjoyed being at her mercy, the sigh of her approval when he did good.
He would offer this gift, this animalistic metamorphosis and beg Leitian to let him turn her. He wanted to show her all of him.
STEFAN, 2017
Stefan had designed the coffee shop’s interior with summer in mind: wide windows and glass doors he could slide open and turn into an open space, right there onto the street.
He rotated the potted plants, moving them with the arc of the sun: evergreens, cacti, orchids and ficuses.
Posters by local artists decorated the walls, and magazines were scattered in the nooks and corner tables to browse through if clients fancied reading about coffee, architecture or the odd modern art Stefan’s wife, Lei, loved.
His office and the storage room were on the second floor, his very own organised mess, together with a long sofa he liked to doze on when it was quiet.
Sometimes, rather than closing for the night, Pavel—one of the few werewolves under the pack leader’s tutelage—slept upstairs and Stefan would find him in the mornings, reminding him that the Coffee Bean was not a bed and breakfast.
Despite the Bean’s working hours or seasons, Stefan always showed up at five in the morning to prepare for the day.
He switched on the machines, reset the timers, checked the settings on the grinder, experimented with new blends, and mopped the floors.
He was usually finished by the time Victor pulled up with the morning delivery of pastries.
Some cafés prepared their own food, croissants or sandwiches, but Stefan had neither the space nor the patience to handle any of that.
The arrangement he had with the bakery suited him just fine.
Especially when it also allowed him to keep a close eye on the werewolf who had turned up one day and, reluctantly, joined the pack.
“Can you trust him?” Irena asked, munching on a biscuit, when Victor had first appeared in Tarnovo.
“Better to have him with us than roaming around on his own, right?” Stefan had shrugged, a little irritated with his ability to converse in English; with Victor here, Stefan would have to give lectures and guidance for the pack in English…
unless Victor somehow magically learnt Bulgarian.
Lei used English and Italian on a daily basis for her work, but she was rarely home these days, so whatever struggles Stefan had with his pronunciation and vocabulary, he had to deal with them himself.