Vasil plucked up one of the waxy brown fruits in his finely shaped fingers, but rather than put it to his lips to taste, he held it out for me. I dared a glance at him. Did he mean for me to eat from his hand? My eyes caught on the servants and guards posted on either side of the room.
“Leave us,” Vasil commanded, his voice reverberating off the stone walls like distant thunder. His attendants departed immediately, shutting the doors silently behind them. “Your date,” the lord said, refocusing my attention. I raised my handto grab it, but he pulled away. “Not your hands, Cedrych. Your mouth.”
I swallowed as a sudden flush of heat enveloped me. Fire and ice. Blood rushed to my face, as well as my cock, leaving me light-headed. “You’re serious?” I hedged.
“I am.”
Sighing as if burdened, I leaned forward, straining a little to reach his hand. The way he held the fruit made it impossible for me to dislodge it without my tongue brushing against his thumb and forefinger. He practically forced me to suck the date from his grip. It was degrading and intimate and I didn’t know what to make of it. Or him.
“That’s it, very good,” he coaxed as I chewed the sticky fruit before swallowing it down. I stared up at him, humiliated and aroused and desperately wanting more of his praise. “Try one of these. They come from the trees in my mother’s orchard.” He picked up a slice of golden pear at the peak of ripeness. The fruit was too large to take in one bite so I bit off one piece and then the other.
“Well?” he asked, seeming to genuinely care.
“It’s delicious,” I answered, easily the sweetest pear I’d ever eaten.
“You missed some.” He held out his fingers for me to lick the sticky residue from his knuckles. I did so with diligence. By now my cock was stiff as heartwood, pressing uncomfortably against the lacing of my breeches. I tried to adjust it without him noticing.
“Hands where I can see them, Cedrych,” he said sharply.
“Why?” I asked, even as I laid my hands on the polished table.
“I’m assessing your ability to follow instructions.” He perused the rest of my breakfast before selecting a cube of honey cake. I was already salivating by the time he placed it on mytongue. The sweet sponge melted in my mouth, and his dark eyes stayed trained on my lips as I chewed. I blinked, trying to make sense of what was happening.
“Are there any foods you’re averse to?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I said, then frowned. Why had I called him that?
“While we’re on the subject of titles, ‘sir,’ ‘my lord,’ or ‘master’ are all pleasing to me.”
“Master,” I said with a derisive snort, then realized he was being serious. “Am I to please you?” I asked, dumbfounded by his arrogance.
“I would be immensely satisfied if you tried.”
I couldn’t believe the man’s gall or my own inability to dispute it. “Master is a bit much. Why not Mercier?” I asked, somewhat afraid to even utter his first name.
“Mercier only onveryspecial occasions,” he purred with that same inscrutable smile, then plucked up a strawberry, the reddest and plumpest I’d ever seen. He dipped it in whipped cream, then offered it to me. “The cream first,” he instructed.
“Why?” I repeated. It seemed to be all I could say.
“Because I want to see what your clever tongue can do.”
Face aflame, I licked the cream from the berry, avoiding his gaze for fear that I might disintegrate from sheer mortification. He was enjoying this, that much was clear. Was it the demonstration of dominance or my own quiet suffering?
Some of the cream ended up on my chin and before I could remedy it, Vasil swiped it with his thumb and presented it to me. We stared at one another, the heat steadily building in my loins at his silent challenge. Finally, I acquiesced and licked his digit slowly, staring into his dark eyes as they flared with desire.Who was the one in control, now?Meanwhile, his fingers skimmed my throat, over the ridge of my prominence before tracing my stubbled jaw.
“I think a shave is in order,” he said as if speaking to himself. “We’ll do it in my chambers, before we meet with my commander for my daily briefing.”
“You’re going to shave me?” I asked. Grooming was the job of an attendant, not a lord. The only person who’d ever done that for me was my valet.
“I am,” he answered, selecting a ripe fig this time. “You may have noticed I don’t employ a lot of servants. I have to be able to trust each and every person I let into my fortress with my life and now, yours too. That said, I have a lot of practice, and I think it will set the right tone for the day.”
“What tone is that?”
“Propriety,” he said, then waited as if expecting a rebuttal.
“I see.”
“Do you?”
