Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Which is why I said, “Just fuck me.”

  “You do not wish me to bring you pleasure with my bite again?”

  “Yes, but…we don’t have time.”

  “As you wish.” He used his hands to position my hips, and he began to push his way inside me. I was wet, but tight; my body spasmed around him, as he fought to be inside me.

  His voice came strained, “So tight tonight, so tight. Forcing me to fight for every inch. I love it.”

  I just nodded, not trusting my voice. I should have said no to the sex. We’d fed. Jean-Claude needed us to schmooze the crowd. But I didn’t want to say no. I could have lied to myself and thought that Asher needed this, this time just the two of us, but that wasn’t why I said yes. I said yes because I wanted him inside me. I said yes because I was fighting myself not to beg for another bite. I did want him to pierce me twice. I did want it. I did.

  He had himself inside me, as close as his body would let him. He rested a moment with our bodies wedded to each other. He laid his body across my back, letting me support our weight for a moment. His skin was warmer now, alive with the blood he’d taken from me. His hair fell around me like a shining curtain.

  “Bite me,” I whispered it.

  “What?”

  “Bite me, while you fuck me, take me, take me as only you can take me.” My voice stayed a whisper as if that would make it all right. Make it less weak.

  “As only I can take you?” He made a question of it.

  “Yes,” I said, “yes.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, forced me to hold all of our combined weight. He hugged me, hard and tight. “You do feel my power.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Are you afraid of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Afraid of how much you want me?”

  “Yes!”

  He whispered, “I like that.” He raised himself off me, so that the only part of him touching was the part that was deep inside me, and the barest touch of thighs and hips.

  He drew himself out slowly, so slowly.

  “I’m still tight.”

  “Yes,” he said, “yes, you are.” He drew himself out of me, then used his knees to spread my legs wider. It made me lower my head to the couch, pressing my face to the leather. Asher entered me, shallow, just inside, inside over that sweet spot. He started slow and steady, pushing himself in and out, and always over that one spot. I kept expecting him to speed up or go deeper, but he kept that slow, shallow rhythm.

  I started moving my hips to help, but he put his hands firmly on my hips, kept me from moving. It was strangely like all the ballroom dancing they’d made me learn for the party. A flexing of the man’s hands, a squeeze in one direction or the other, and you knew what he wanted, or thought you did. He wanted me not to move, to let him do the work.

  He spread my legs even farther, forced my body at a higher angle. “Up, Anita, I want you up on all fours.”

  I did what he asked, but my knees were spread so far that my hips protested the angle. It didn’t exactly hurt, but it might if we did it long enough. And through it all he kept up that gliding, gentle rhythm inside my body.

  The orgasm began to build inside me. To build with each caress of his body just inside mine. Building, building, on the gentle touch of him inside me. Most of the time sex was about the ardeur. The ardeur wasn’t gentle. I fed and I fucked because I had to. I realized as Asher took me so carefully, so gently, that it had taught us all bad habits. I loved a good, hard fucking, more even than most women, but just because I could take it didn’t mean that that was what I wanted, not always. This, this was perfect. This was what I had been missing in all the frantic sex. All the emergency feeding had made me forget that gentleness had its own pleasure.

  I fought to stay where he wanted, and not to move, fought to keep my legs spread, fought to hold the pleasure. “I’m close.”

  “Then go.”

  “But…”

  “Go,” he said.

  I might have argued, but he pushed his body over mine one last time and the orgasm caught me. Only his hands digging into my ass kept me from writhing my pleasure around him. He kept me in place, and he kept going, as if I weren’t screaming, digging fingers into the leather. So much pleasure, so much pleasure, that my hands needed something to hold on to. I couldn’t reach him, so I dug nails into what I could reach.

  “Anita, I love you, I love you, I love you!” The rhythm changed. I felt him fight his body, not to lose himself yet. He grabbed my hair and jerked me to my knees with his body still inside mine. It changed the angle, and he didn’t try to stay shallow. He used all the length of him, still pushing gently, still fighting his body not to pound into me. I felt the struggle in his chest and arms as he pulled my head to one side and exposed my neck again. “Now,” he whispered.

  “Please,” I whispered.

  He plunged his fangs into me, locked his mouth around me, and sucked. He stopped fighting his body, let himself plunge into me as hard and fast as he could. He brought me screaming again, brought me with his body, brought me with his bite, brought me with his power. He came inside me with one last powerful thrust. I raked nails down his arms, and screamed myself hoarse.

  He fed at my neck, and as long as he fed the orgasms continued. For me, for him, for us. It was one of the things that made him so dangerous. While you were in the middle of all that pleasure, you could forget. Forget that this was my fourth blood donation tonight. Forget that he shouldn’t open his mouth and let the blood pour down my body, because he was too full to take more. Forget that we were supposed to save something to go outside to meet and greet. Forget everything but the feel of him thrusting inside me, until he poured from between my legs, poured over his own body. Forget until my blood poured down my neck to soak into the dress and the diamonds. Forget until hands pulled us apart, and Asher turned snarling to the room.

  I didn’t snarl. I collapsed onto the couch, because I couldn’t do anything else. I lay there like a broken doll, and even my thoughts circled lazily, white edged as if the world were covered in cotton.

  Someone rolled me over. Remus’s jigsaw face loomed out of the growing dimness. “Anita, Anita, can you hear me?”

  I meant to say yes, but the world went black, and I was floating, and I couldn’t say anything to anyone.

  55

  I WOKE UP in the hospital. Not the human hospital, but the lycanthrope hospital. The building that the local shapeshifters keep for just such emergencies. If they’d taken me to the humans, then Asher might have ended up with an order of execution against him. The downside to going to the furry hospital was that the blood they used for transfusing wasn’t human blood. If you get the right blood type, humans can take in lycanthrope blood, and lycanthropes can take in human blood, but lycanthropes have trouble taking in blood that isn’t their strain of lycanthropy. Since I carry three, I was something of a problem. But since I was also O-negative, there wasn’t a lot of choice. It’s not the most common blood type around, especially in a small hospital like this one.

  Doc Lillian won’t actually tell me what strain of lycanthropy she decided to add to my mix, or if she chose one that I already had. She thinks that if I know what it is, it could influence which beast wins. Since my mental process shouldn’t have anything to do with it, I have no idea what she’s babbling about, but she won’t give in, so come next full moon we’ll see if my mixed bag of furry picks a winner.

  I slept off and on, and when I woke up again, Asher was sitting by my bed. I startled when I saw him, made a little gasp.

  He looked away from me, letting all that long hair fall forward to hide his face completely. He wasn’t flirting, showing that perfect profile. He was just hiding. “You are afraid of me now.” His voice held regret like a light, persistent rain, one you know will go on all day.

  I started to deny it, then stopped myself. Was I afraid of him? Yes. Yes, I was. But not for the reason he thought. I touched the bandage at my ne
ck, and from the feel of it alone, I knew the bite wouldn’t be some polite pricking. He’d gotten carried away at my neck, as he had elsewhere. It wasn’t like collarbone-scar bad, or even the bend of my arm bad, but it wasn’t what the old vamps usually did. It felt like a rookie mistake under the bandages.

  He stood, and the movement looked tired, weary. “I understand, Anita. I don’t blame you.”

  Movement by the door drew my attention. There were guards at the door, and there hadn’t been when everyone else visited me. Remus was one of the guards. I remembered his face just as I passed out.

  Asher started for the door.

  “Don’t go,” I said, my voice hoarse.

  He didn’t turn and look at me; he just stopped moving. He stood, motionless, waiting.

  “Stay,” I said.

  He risked a glance back at me, his eyes peering through the curtain of hair. The hair wasn’t artfully messy, it was just tangled and spilled over his face, as if he hadn’t bothered to touch it.

  I stared at him, that tall figure. He usually had perfect posture, but tonight his broad shoulders were rounded, slumped in defeat. It was as if he were hunched from the cold. I knew that wasn’t it; the dead don’t feel the cold, much.

  “I know you cannot forgive me, but I had to see you. I had to see you…” His words trailed off. He reached out with those graceful hands that tonight had lost all their grace to his grief.

  I wanted to reach out to him, to offer my hand, but I was afraid of what would happen if he touched me. I wasn’t afraid he would turn into some ravenous monster. I was afraid that I would. I’d almost died, and all I could think was, Isn’t he beautiful, isn’t he sad. I wanted to comfort him, hold him. He said I couldn’t forgive him; he was wrong. I had forgiven him, but it wasn’t a conscious thing. It was as if the sight of him just made it impossible to be angry with him. That wasn’t right. That was vampire mind tricks.

  “Why the guards?” I asked, finally, because I didn’t know what to say out loud.

  He blinked at me through the golden strings of his hair. “I do not trust myself alone with you. Jean-Claude agrees.”

  I looked past him at the guards. “Hey, Remus, Ixion.”

  They glanced at each other, then said hi.

  “Remus was the last face I saw before I woke up here.”

  “He came to my call,” Asher said, and his face was miserable.

  “Your call, what do you mean your call? You don’t have an animal to call.”

  “He does now,” Remus said. He hesitated, then walked farther into the room. Ixion stayed by the door. “He called us while he was doing you. The call was…we had to answer. We had to leave our guard duties and go to him.” He looked at Asher, who would not meet his eyes either. “Good thing we did, I guess, but Jean-Claude thinks that the reason it got so out of hand between the two of you was that Asher’s new power came on line.”

  “You do not have to make excuses for me,” Asher said.

  “I didn’t mean to.” Remus gave me a look that I couldn’t interpret, then went back to stand by the door.

  “So you have an animal now?” I said.

  “Yes.” He didn’t look any happier. “I know that you can’t forgive me. I don’t expect you to. I won’t touch you again, Anita; you have my word.”

  It took me a moment to understand what he’d said. “Are you saying that you won’t ever be with me again, as in sex?”

  He nodded, face so solemn.

  The thought of him never touching me again filled me with panic. My pulse sped up, and I fought not to yell at him. How could he deny me? I had to work to make my voice come out calm. “Sit down, Asher, please.”

  He hesitated, then finally sat. “I offer you the only safety I can. I give you my word that I will never touch you again.”

  I couldn’t quite keep my voice steady as I said, “I don’t want that.”

  He finally met my eyes. “What?”

  “I don’t want you to never touch me again.”

  “Anita, you’ve kicked me out of your bed for far less than this. I almost killed you. You can’t forgive that. You don’t forgive anything.”

  He had me there. “I’m working on that, okay?”

  His mouth moved, almost like he fought off a smile.

  “Do you know why I haven’t reached out and taken your hand?”

  “You are afraid to touch me.” His voice spilled despair over my skin the way Jean-Claude could spill pleasure.

  “Yes, but not in the way you mean.”

  He shook his head, hunching over his clasped hands. “I do not want you afraid of me, Anita, not in any way, but I cannot blame you for it.”

  “I’m afraid to touch you, because I’m afraid that I’ll ask you to kiss me.”

  He nodded. “And you fear where that kiss will lead.”

  “Asher.” I said it harder, more like myself, though with a voice that needed water. “Asher, look at me.”

  He just shook his head.

  “Damn it, look at me.”

  It was actually hard to tell through the hair and the dimness of the room, but I think he was looking at me. “What would you have of me, Anita? I have already given up everything I ever wanted. What more do you want from me?”

  “God, you are a gloomy person.”

  That made him sit up a little straighter, his arrogance kicking in. “I am sorry that my manner displeases you so.” He sounded a little angry; good. It was better than despair.

  “You’re right, I should be furious with you. And you’re right that I’ve kicked men out of my life for a hell of a lot less than this.”

  The anger leaked away, and that numbing depression rolled over him again. It was like watching the light fade from him. “Did you ask me to sit so you could grind the knife in deeper?”

  “If I want to grind a knife in, you’ll know it. I’m just trying to talk.” I had to cough to clear my voice. “Is there water?”

  Asher looked around the room. It was Remus who found a pitcher of water and a little cup. He poured it, then hesitated, and finally handed it to Asher. The two men had a moment where you could almost feel the battle of wills, then Asher finally took the cup, and came to the bed. He would not look at me as he offered the water with a little bendy straw in it.

  The water tasted stale, but it was cool, and felt wonderful in my mouth and throat. I raised my untaped arm to help hold the cup. My fingers brushed Asher’s hand. He jumped, as if it had hurt, but I knew it hadn’t hurt. “Have I spilled water on you?”

  “No, just a little on the sheets.”

  “You are the only woman except Belle who has ever made me feel clumsy.”

  Ixion was there with a handkerchief. Asher took it and dabbed at the few spots he’d gotten on the sheets.

  “Is that a compliment, or an insult?” I asked. My voice sounded better, less hoarse. It made me wonder how long I’d been unconscious. I didn’t ask, because if it had been a long time, then Asher would feel worse, and I’d be more scared. I let it go.

  He finished trying to soak the water up, handing the handkerchief back as if he expected Ixion to simply be there to take it. He was, and he did, but the offhand quality of the gesture made me wonder again how long had I been out. “It is neither, just the truth. You have made me feel awkward from the moment I met you.”

  “I tend to have that effect on ladies’ men.”

  He looked at me then. I tried to read his expression and failed. “I am a ladies’ man, am I?”

  “Belle Morte made certain that all of you were good with the ladies.”

  “And the men. Do not forget, Anita, she made certain we knew how to pleasure men, as well.”

  I nodded, and stopped, because the bandages pinched. “I’ve grasped that concept, thanks.”

  “But you are not happy with it.”

  “More puzzled by it.”

  He smoothed the sheets where he’d dampened them. I think he was looking for anything to fuss over, rather than what we we
re doing. I’d never seen him this uncomfortable.

  I did what I’d wanted to do since he walked into the room. I laid my hand on his. He went very, very still under my touch. That awful, unnatural stillness, where it feels like you’re not touching anything alive. He went away from my touch, but I kept my hand on his. If he thought a little weird vampire shit would make me move, he was wrong.

  “Anita,” and his voice tried to be as empty as his body, but failed.

  “I’m not afraid because you almost killed me. I’m afraid because you almost killed me, and I still want to touch you.”

  He drew his hand out of mine. He sat down, but he would at least look at me now. “I have rolled your mind, completely and utterly. I have done what you feared that I would do.”

  “And don’t you want to touch me?”

  “Yes.” He whispered it.

  “You were the first one to realize that just biting me helps me gain control over a vamp. I don’t think it’s just you who’s rolled me.”

  “Are you saying you have gained control of me?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m saying. I just know that I don’t want you gone. I don’t want you to never touch me again. I want us to be together. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

  “Together in what way, Anita?”

  “We’ll just need a spotter,” I said.

  “A spotter, what are you talking about?”

  “A spotter, like you have in gymnastics. Sex with you is so good we need spotters.”

  “So dangerous, you mean,” he said, and he stared at his hands where they lay loose in his lap.

  “I’d do it again, Asher.”

  He looked up then, and it wasn’t a happy look. “Do you really mean that?”

  “Yes.”

  “That should frighten you, and me.”

  “It does scare me, but it doesn’t really scare you, does it?”

  “I’m terrified for your safety, but…”

  “You’ve been a very good boy, haven’t you?” I asked.