Serpentine

by Laurell K. Hamilton

I had to swallow hard and fight to control my voice as I said, "Why are you mad at me for something she posted to Facebook?"

  "She's complaining that you tried to steal another man from her, but she won this time. She seems to think that it was the fact that she was in a bikini and you were wearing too many clothes at the pool."

  The ridiculousness of this woman that we'd just met posting things about me on social media, and that causing a fight between Nathaniel and me, helped my anger start to fade. It was just too stupid a reason for us to fight. "I didn't try to steal Bernardo from her."

  "But you did go down to the pool and talk to him, while you knew we were up here waiting to have a romantic afternoon with you."

  I finally had a clue as to why he was so angry--to him it was just another case of me ignoring him for other people. "I didn't want to go and hold Donna's hand in the first place, remember."

  "So how did it help Donna for you to go down and lounge by the pool with Bernardo?"

  "Are you jealous of Bernardo?" My anger faded even more, because Nathaniel was one of the least jealous people I knew. I glanced at Micah, trying to get some clue as to what was going on. He shrugged and spread his hands, showing either that he didn't know or he didn't want to get dragged into it.

  "Maybe I'm jealous of anything that seems more important to you and Micah than I do."

  "I know we went to rescue the local guy, Andy, and I'm sorry that interfered with our time together. I'll give you that one, but talking to Bernardo was wedding related."

  "And it was so important that it couldn't wait until after we'd had sex?" His voice was rising again, the softness around his mouth vanishing into his anger. I had to fight to keep my hands from turning into fists again, the tension in my shoulders returning.

  My voice came out too soft, too controlled, closer to the way I talked when I was angry on the job and didn't want to lose my shit at a suspect. "If I hadn't given Lucy's message to Bernardo, I'd still be waiting to give the message directly to Edward. I hunted down Bernardo so that I could be up here with you now instead of in an hour."

  "You know Edward's room number. You could have just told him yourself." Nathaniel's tone was sneering. I'd never heard him like this. Because it was so unlike him, it helped me to be less angry.

  "He'd just taken Donna back to the room for makeup sex, and since he'd forgotten to tell her that he was married once before, and she just found out today, the makeup sex is going to have to be fucking spectacular."

  "What did you say?" Micah asked.

  "Edward was married before and didn't tell Donna?" Nathaniel asked.

  "Yeah," I said.

  Nathaniel looked shocked. "Jesus, is the wedding canceled?"

  "It was, until I talked Donna down."

  "Start from the beginning, Anita," Micah said.

  "From where Donna dragged you off for the girl talk," Nathaniel said. He wasn't angry now; he looked shaken. Nothing like a real crisis to short-circuit a fight.

  I told them everything that had happened, including Dixie's being more convinced than ever that she needed to stop the wedding, and her determination to tell Becca. "Lucy told me to find Bernardo and have him warn Edward, so I could be here with the two of you sooner."

  Nathaniel sat down on the edge of the bed and put his hands in his lap, head down and staring at the floor. "I'm sorry I was so terrible when you walked into the room."

  I sat on the bed beside him, leaning my head on his shoulder, taking one of his hands in mine. "I forgive you, if you can tell me what it was all about, so I won't step on that particular emotional landmine again."

  "I'm not sure, not really."

  Micah came to sit down on the other side of him and reached for Nathaniel's other hand, so the three of us sat in a row holding hands. "Before Anita got here, you were talking about our being workaholics, and that you needed more time with us than you were getting."

  I sat up straighter, using my free hand to sweep his hair back so I could see the side of his face. "I'm sorry that we're both working so much."

  "It's not just that."

  "What is it, then?" I asked.

  He glanced at me, and then at Micah. He took a deep breath, let it out, and then took another one as if he were getting his breathing under control for something physical. "Even when you're in town we don't always have sex anymore."

  "We had great sex just yesterday," I said, and almost laughed.

  He gave me an unfriendly look. "We used to have sex twice a day. Now we're lucky if it's once a day." The hurt in his eyes chased the last of the laughter away.

  "Oh, Nathaniel," I said, and leaned in to kiss his cheek, "baby, I'm sorry. If I need to say it out loud, I want you. I always want you."

  "Then why aren't we having as much sex as we were before?" He looked at me with such sadness in his eyes that it made me kiss him again, but he didn't respond with his usual passion. He looked at me, wanting explanations more than affection at that moment.

  Micah said, "I can't speak for Anita, but sometimes I'm exhausted when I come in from a trip. My being tired doesn't mean I don't love you." He kissed Nathaniel's other cheek.

  "I know you love me, Micah, but do you want me?"

  "Of course I do. How can you ask that?"

  "You almost never initiate sex when it's just the two of us. When we were together in Jean-Claude's bathtub was the first time you'd suggested just you and me in months."

  Micah looked surprised, started to say something, and then seemed to think better of it. He sat there for a few seconds, hugging Nathaniel with one arm, while he thought about it. "I hadn't realized it had been that long, but I think you're right." He laid his head on Nathaniel's shoulder and hugged him more tightly. "I am so sorry."

  "If it's any comfort, it's not just you," I said. "Micah and I aren't doing much better with just the two of us."

  Micah raised his head. "It hasn't been months for us."

  "No, but we're both tired, and holding each other sometimes seems like the best thing in the world."

  Micah reached across to take my hand while he kept his arm around Nathaniel's shoulders, which meant we both had to let go of Nathaniel's hands to hug him and hold each other. "Falling asleep in each other's arms is the best thing ever," Micah said.

  "It is great. I love it, too, but I love it most when we fall asleep after having sex," Nathaniel said.

  "Well, me, too," I said.

  "Am I the only who is having problems getting into the spirit of things?" Micah said.

  "After seeing the pictures and knowing what you've been dealing with, I think the case is getting to you," I said.

  "There have been some really hard ones the last six months." His face looked sad. His eyes were almost haunted as he stared at the wall, and he wasn't seeing the honeymoon suite. I knew that look. I had my own version of it. Sometimes the nightmares just pile up so high inside your head that you can't stop thinking about them.

  "I know some of it," Nathaniel said, "and that's why I haven't been pushing this, but the fact that we've been in Florida for hours and still haven't had sex is just depressing. There was a time when we couldn't get into the bedroom fast enough to get our clothes off and fuck like bunnies."

  "We fucked like bunnies this week," Micah said, smiling.

  "Every other day, and that was after months of not having sex with you at all, Micah." Nathaniel looked at him.

  Micah looked uncomfortable and drew a little away from both of us. "I'm allowed to be tired and stressed from work, Nathaniel."

  "You are, but I'm allowed to miss you, miss us together, and to be sad that you find more time to have sex with Anita than with me."

  "We discussed this before I said yes. I'm still not completely comfortable with . . . sex with men. I feel bad that there are things that I still don't do for you that you do for me."

  Nathaniel took his hand and said, "I know I'm your first-ever boyfriend, and that you never expected to be in love with another man. I know that you
're heteroflexible at best, not bisexual like I am. I love that you love me enough to push your boundaries as much as you do, and I told you that because you let me sleep with other men in our polycule, so that I get those needs met elsewhere, that I can live with you not doing certain things with me."

  "I am sorry that I'm still not there completely with you."

  "If we were monogamous, it wouldn't work, but we're not, so I can get my guy-on-guy needs met. But that you don't reach for me as much as you reach for Anita . . . that hurts."

  "I didn't realize it had gotten that bad," Micah said.

  "I think it's because you and Anita are out of town and in town opposite each other a lot lately. When she's with us you think of sex more, because there's a woman in the bed, not just another man."

  "I can't even deny it. I just hadn't realized it."

  "I wasn't going to bring it up on our trip. I thought we'd catch up on all the sex and nefariousness together, but when that didn't happen I just couldn't take it anymore."

  "You needed to tell us," I said.

  He looked at me. "I know you've worked hard to control the ardeur better, Anita. The fact that you can go more than twenty-four hours without having to feed is great for traveling with the marshals, or going out of town to raise the dead, but I miss you reaching out to me like you did before. Feeding the ardeur is such a high."

  "I can't feed on the same people every time without risking draining them to death. I don't want to risk either of you."

  "And I love that you want to keep us safe, but now that you can go longer between feedings, that means that the ardeur isn't pushing us to have as much sex as it was before, and I'm beginning to think the ardeur was the reason we had as much sex as we did."

  "Probably," I said.

  "Passion doesn't stay at the same level all the time," Micah said.

  "It does for me," he said.

  "I don't think I can do sex twice a day, every day, forever," Micah said.

  "I can," Nathaniel said.

  Micah smiled gently and touched Nathaniel's face. "I'm sorry, but I'm not as multiorgasmic as you are."

  "I'm a girl, so I can have sex twice a day, every day, if the scheduling works."

  Nathaniel smiled and kissed me.

  "I'll try to do better, but Anita's right--this case has just drained me. I can't seem to get it out of my head, and that is a serious mood killer."

  "If Anita releases the ardeur, you'll be in the mood."

  "I fed on Jean-Claude before we left, so I don't have to feed, but I can feed again if we all agree to it."

  "Do you ever get full from the ardeur, like having too much chocolate cake?" Micah asked.

  I smiled. "There's always room for chocolate cake."

  Micah smiled back, his eyes filling with heat that had nothing to do with being a wereanimal and everything to do with being lovers. "Yay, cake," he said, his voice low.

  Nathaniel stood up and untied the sash of his robe, proving that he was as naked under the robe as I'd thought. "Eat me."

  "Before or after I release the ardeur?"

  "Yes," he said.

  30

  MICAH TOOK OFF his robe, too, and the two of them lay down on the bed side by side. They were both strong and fit. Nathaniel lifted more weights, so he had more definition, but Micah was lean enough that what muscle he had showed. He might not lift that much, but he did fight practice more than Nathaniel did. It was like looking at two different male ideals--the fit model and the martial artist. Micah would have argued that he wasn't able to practice as much as some of the guards did, but then, he wasn't a bodyguard. He practiced as much as he did because all wereanimal leaders could be challenged to defend their positions. Sometimes one could choose a champion to fight in his place, but most lycanthrope cultures didn't allow that. I worked out to stay in shape for my job, too, and I was just as likely as Micah was to end up with my physicality being the difference between coming home safe and not coming home at all. We didn't talk about it much because there was no point; it was our reality.

  I stood there admiring the view of my two men, and by the time I crawled onto the bed between them their bodies had already started to prove that they were admiring their view of my body, too--or maybe I was being too egocentric, and it was the view of each other's bodies. I didn't care--I loved and desired them both.

  "Release the ardeur, Anita," Micah said as he helped Nathaniel pull me down between them.

  "Before we've done any foreplay?"

  He went up on one elbow, so he was looking down at both of us as we lay looking up at him. "If we get to a certain point and then you release the ardeur, we'll finish like we always do, and that's fabulous, but I'm willing--no, I want--to try something different."

  Nathaniel went up on his elbow on the other side of me so he could look across eye to eye with Micah. "We usually release the ardeur when everyone's dick is where they want it for orgasm."

  "Which means I'll be in someone's mouth or inside Anita," Micah said.

  "I'm okay wherever I end up, and whoever ends up in me," Nathaniel said.

  I was left looking from one to the other as they talked over me. I was okay with that; this was more their issue than mine.

  "That's not true," Micah said. "I'm too wide even for you to want me to do anal on you."

  "But you don't enjoy anal in any way, so unless it's my idea to put you back there, even with the ardeur it won't occur to you."

  "I'm sorry that neither of us likes anal," I said.

  Nathaniel smiled down at me. "I have other people in my life who do, but it does disappoint me."

  "I love you, Nathaniel. I love both of you, and I want to be with you both, really be with you both."

  "I love you even more for trying, but if we release all our inhibitions this early, I know what I'm going to want to do, and if we don't use lube, then even the ardeur can't make that part of the body make its own lubrication, which means it may feel good while we're doing it, but once we sober up from the metaphysics it's going to hurt. I do not want the first time we do anal to be painful."

  "All right, then let's put lube in first, just in case."

  Nathaniel raised his eyebrows at that. "And how do we do that in a way that you'll enjoy?"

  "Get the gloves and the lube and I'll explain."

  "I should say What a wonderful gesture and talk you out of it," Nathaniel said.

  "Why?" Micah asked.

  "Because you don't really want to do this, and you're using the ardeur as sort of getting drunk to relax into it."

  "I love you. We're getting married. I want to try."

  Nathaniel looked down at me. "What do you think?"

  "I think we either try it or we do something more normal for us, and think on it some more."

  He looked back at Micah. "I really appreciate the offer, Micah. I really do. I love you even more for it, but I want the first time to be special, not a drunken orgy."

  "I might not ever be able to do it without the ardeur helping me lower my inhibitions."

  "I know that, but let's work on exploring anal with smaller, gentler things before we go for it, even with the ardeur. I love you too much to hurt you. The same goes for you, Anita."

  "How did I get into this discussion?"

  "You know what they say--everyone has an asshole."

  I laughed, because I couldn't think what else to do. "I already have an opening that works just fine for both of you."

  "We'll discuss it later," he said, smiling.

  "We will, will we?"

  He nodded, grinning.

  "Well, I don't know about that, but I do know that I want one of you to go down on me, and I want to have both of you in my mouth at least once, and I want you inside me."

  "We can do that," Micah said.

  31

  MICAH PUT ME across his face, so I could look down my body and see his eyes looking up at me as he licked and sucked between my legs. We'd put his hair back in a ponytail to help keep it out
of the way. My hands held on to the headboard, because I couldn't reach anyone else to hold on to. Nathaniel was behind me going down on Micah. I prided myself on having control of my gag reflex for deep throating, but Nathaniel didn't have a gag reflex at all. The only challenge for him with Micah was the width, and even there his mouth was bigger than mine. I looked over my shoulder to try to watch a little of it, but Micah did something with his tongue that made me gasp and turn back to staring down into his chartreuse eyes.

  I felt his body shudder and I knew that something that Nathaniel was doing behind me was bringing him close. It almost distracted me from Micah's mouth between my legs, but he was too good at it for me to be distracted for long. He sucked on that sweet spot and I felt that warm weight between my legs growing heavier, and from one movement of his mouth to the next he drew me over the edge and brought me to screaming. I clawed at the headboard and yelled wordlessly, head thrown back. His tongue and mouth kept going until I was trying to find my words to tell him Enough, but I felt his body shudder again, and this time it made his mouth hesitate, lose its rhythm, and I looked down to see his eyes flutter closed, and watched them lose focus, felt his body go from straining to limp, and I knew that Nathaniel had brought him to orgasm, as Micah had brought me.

  Nathaniel was suddenly kneeling behind me, his voice growling in my ear. "You didn't release the ardeur."

  I managed to shake my head. I was still trying to recover from the afterglow of the orgasm.

  He put his lips near my face, so his breath was hot against my skin. "I want you to release it when I'm fucking you."

  I nodded, still having trouble talking.

  Nathaniel lifted me off Micah and half carried, half dragged me down the bed and put me on all fours so that my knees were between Micah's legs, my arms on either side of his hips. I was suddenly staring down at his groin; his body wasn't completely hard anymore, but he still wasn't small.

  I felt Nathaniel pushing himself against my opening. "God, you are so wet. I'm going to fuck you while you lick Micah."

  Micah managed to say, "Too sensitive."

  "I know," Nathaniel said. "That's why I want her to do it. You were willing to let me fuck you in the ass. I think you'll enjoy this more."

  I might have protested, but he grabbed my hair, just tight enough to click that internal switch over so that I wanted to do what he wanted. He pushed himself inside me, and just having him inside me when I was so wet and so sensitive from the oral made me cry out. Nathaniel found a rhythm, pushing himself in and out, sliding over that one spot inside as if he could feel exactly where it was. He used my hair to push my head down toward Micah as he slid himself in and out of me. I licked Micah and found that he was harder than he had been just seconds before. He was enjoying watching us together.