Or... maybe it was just me. Zorah Bright, enthusiastic sexual deviant. Yeah. That sounded about right. I would have sighed in resignation if I hadn’t been underwater.
“Why doesn’t it surprise me in the least that you’re a bratty submissive?” Rans asked, once I’d regained the surface and shaken my ears clear of water. “Seriously... I saw that one coming miles away.”
“Asshole,” I told him.
And down I went.
Each time he pushed me under, I let my air trickle out of my nose in a controlled stream, and stewed over a new insult or snotty quip for the next round of repartee. I honestly assumed at first that I’d be able to outlast him. It wasn’t as though he was doing anything all that cruel or physically draining. Once you’d been on a swim team with a dozen other rowdy grade-schoolers—kids who thought nothing of dragging someone down to the bottom of the pool and sitting on them for a full minute before letting them up—being gently dunked a few inches beneath the surface of a bathtub for a second or two wasn’t really that alarming.
Still... there were undercurrents swirling, and not just the ones caused by the tub’s jets. I was becoming aware of a strange inner push-pull between the different parts of myself. One part—possibly the succubus part—knew that the obvious thing to do was relax, suck my gorgeous vampire boyfriend’s cock, and let him rock my world like a tidal wave afterward. Another part—the human part?—was genuinely bothered by the idea of admitting that stubbornness wasn’t going to win this game for me.
Unfortunately, blind stubbornness had essentially been my one and only coping skill when it came to dealing with the world. Without it, I was adrift. I’d spent most of my life fighting things. Emotional neglect. Health problems. Poverty. Supernatural creatures trying to kill me. Refusing to back down from things was basically ingrained at this point, apparently.
And, wow. Somehow this kinky Dom/sub sex scene was in danger of getting way too philosophical for comfort. So... stubbornness it was.
“Stupid-face,” I grumbled, reduced by this point to ridiculous childhood taunts since I’d already used all the good insults.
“You’re reaching now, love,” he said. “Are you done yet?”
“What do you think, artery-muncher?”
Apparently, he thought I needed more water up my nose.
I broke the surface. “English twat!”
He only chuckled. “Leave off. Now you’re stealing my material.”
The finger pressed me down.
I bobbed up and spat water. “Dracula rip-off!”
He gave me an expression of mock hurt. “Oh, now that one stings. I think such a low blow deserves a double dip in return.”
Water closed over me in a rush. I surfaced, only to be pushed right back down again, as promised.
To be fair, I was starting to feel pleasantly fuzzy around the edges by that point—either because of the mild oxygen deprivation or the chronic horniness. My body was heated... aching for sex, and it was growing progressively more needy with each stupid little act of defiance and its resulting quickly delivered punishment.
On some level, I understood that in order to win this game, I would have to give up my illusion of control over the situation. I mean... there was no question that I could stop what Rans was doing at any time. It really was a game—I just had to say the word, or let my barriers drop and start pulling animus from him. But it was slowly becoming apparent that I couldn’t control what he was doing to me. And as much as it rankled, before both of us could get what we really wanted, I would have to give into the inevitable.
Well... sooner or later, anyway.
“Wanker,” I muttered under my breath, and snorted out bubbles as the water tried to rush up my nose immediately afterward.
EIGHT
“ALL RIGHT!” I GASPED several dunkings later, when my search for a fresh insult came up totally empty. “You win, goddamnit. I’ll—cough—suck your freakin’ cock. Geez.”
He only laughed—a low, decadent chuckle. “Bloody hell, Zorah. I originally had you pegged as a switch, you know—but you are really, really bad at playing meek. Try again. I don’t know about you, but I can keep this up all day long, if need be.”
“Dick,” I muttered, even though I’d used that one already.
The payback for mouthing off was not unexpected. But it did result in the water closing over me again.
“Hopelessly, catastrophically bad at it,” he added helpfully, once I’d regained the surface. “Honestly, if your nipples weren’t poking up like a pair of diamond drill tips, I’d worry that you weren’t even enjoying yourself. But, I suppose this must be fulfilling some sort of underlying psychological need to prove your worth via the medium of obstinance.” He paused. “Either that, or you have a hidden breath-play kink. Do you have a hidden breath-play kink?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Shut up. Maybe I’m just really pissed off at you for acting like a twelve-year-old bully at the public pool.”
“Maybe you are.” He smirked and leaned back, reaching behind himself with one hand. “One way to find out, I suppose.”
My legs were still bound and splayed open. Clever fingers sought my opening and plunged inside. The slippery lubrication my body was churning out had continued to outpace the wetness of the bath, and he dragged the evidence of my arousal forward to slide circles around my clit. Without meaning to, I let out a stupid, breathy cry and arched mindlessly into the sensation—
—at which point I managed to dunk myself without any help from him whatsoever, my sensual moan cut off in a flurry of bubbles. His fingers gave another few slow rubs and fell away. My hips bucked upward of their own volition, my body apparently more interested in chasing after his touch than in, y’know, breathing.
Okay... that reaction had probably been a bit of a giveaway, hadn’t it? Whoops.
I surfaced, my clit still throbbing and my cheeks burning hotter than the bathwater. Rans raised an
