Danse Macabre ab-14

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  smelling her skin and sweat, we couldn't help but want her. She was an ad­diction, and the only way to save yourself was to never take another drink, another hit, another taste of her. I fought free of the memory enough to think, Jean-Claude had been tied to that bed, not me. Too tall to be my body. Too male. Not me, but the memory still burned, still had the power to make his face close down to that carefulness.

  I touched his face, and I let my face show how sorry I was that all those awful things had happened to him. So sorry that I hadn't been there to save him. We were shut down too tight behind our shields for him to read my mind, probably just as well, but he saw what I meant him to see. He came to me with a sigh that was almost a sob. He kissed me as if he would breathe me in through his lips, and I kissed him as if he were the last drop of water in the world and I were dying of thirst.

  I tasted the sweet metal of blood in my mouth. It made him draw back from the kiss. "I am sorry, ma petite...."

  I stopped his apology with a kiss, feeding at his mouth, and he fell into that kiss with his hands on my body, his nakedness pressed as tight to mine as it could be. The only reason his body did not respond was that it couldn't until he fed.

  I drew back from the kiss, my breathing ragged, the taste of my own blood in my mouth. A drop of blood grew and trembled on my lower lip.

  He kissed that drop away, and stared down at me, as he knelt in front of me. His face was fierce and full of some wonder, as if I'd done something amazing. I hadn't. I'd just finally decided to get out of my own way; out of everyone's way.

  I moved back along the bed, with his hand in mine. I pulled him along with me, on our knees, until we reached Micah and Nathaniel's feet. One of the things I'd noticed in dealing with more dian one man in bed at a time was there were only two ways to go about it. Choice one: the men took turns, completely separate lovemaking, except that they both got to watch each other have sex with me. Choice two: they both touched me at the same time, and they did foreplay, or more, with me at the same time. Choice two was harder to choreograph. Harder on the egos involved. It took more con­centration on my part. It was just a higher level of skills needed all around, and a larger dose of secure masculinity, too. I realized now, after Auggie, that there was a choice three, but I didn't think any of us was up to it tonight. I knew I wasn't. I had no idea how to even raise the question to Micah and Nathaniel: would they kiss another man? I mean, when did this sound like a good conversation to have? Never, I think.

  I let go of Jean-Claude's hand, leaving him kneeling, while I lay down be-

  tween the other two men. I traced a hand down their bodies until I touched the smooth heads, the skin so soft but the flesh underneath so hard, so firm.

  Micah made a soft sound as my hand smoothed over the top of him. I looked up at Nathaniel and found his face intent on me. His eyes bright and eager, alit with anticipation. A gentle caress wouldn't do it for him. I had to still my hand on Micah, to wrap my hand around Nathaniel, and squeeze hard. It fluttered his eyes shut and forced small noises from his mouth. I'd found that I could play with two at once if the pressure was the same for both hands, but if one man needed something different, I had to concentrate sep­arately. Micah could rev up to a level that was close to Nathaniel's prefer­ence, but it took time to get Micah in that headspace. Nathaniel came out of the box wanting rougher handling than most men ever liked.

  I went back to playing with both of them at the same time, running my hand up and down the shaft of them, sliding over the head, firm, but gentle. Too hard, and most men experienced the pressure as discomfort; too gentle and it wasn't enough stimulation. It had taken me a while to find a happy medium.

  I loved the sensation of my hand running up and down and around all that velvet muscle. It made me close my eyes, arch my back with the anticipation of it. When I could focus again, I gazed up at Jean-Claude. He knelt where I'd left him, close enough to touch us, but not touching anyone.

  "I want you in my mouth while I play with them."

  He looked at Micah and Nathaniel. "Does everyone agree to this, for I will have to be very close to both of you, to be in the position that she re­quests?"

  I tightened my grip on both the men, just enough to make their eyes flut­ter shut.

  "Non, ma petite, that is cheating. Let them go long enough for them to an­swer without your so-persuasive touch."

  I mumbled, "Sorry." I put my hands on my stomach, and behaved.

  Micah swallowed hard enough for me to hear it, then nodded. "I'm fine with it."

  Nathaniel smiled that lazy cat-with-cream smile that he got sometimes during sex. It usually meant he was going to suggest something that I'd never done, or that we'd never done together, or he was going to make some ob­servation. "I just want to see if she can concentrate on all of us at once. I give it a difficulty rating of eight."

  I frowned at him. "Are you saying I've never attempted anything that took more skill than an eight before?"

  He shrugged. "Remember I did this professionally for a while. My ten on

  this scale is probably stuff that you don't even want to know is physically possible."

  I opened my mouth to ask him, Like what? but decided that he was right. I probably didn't want to know.

  "Let's try," I said.

  Jean-Claude didn't ask again. He simply crawled over my body. He ended with his legs over my shoulders, so that he was sitting in front of my face, which put him exacdy where I wanted him. I traced my hands across the other two bodies. Nathaniel turned on his side first, and Micah followed him. That gave me a better angle, since my movement was about to become limited.

  I wrapped my hands around them, and raised my mouth up to slide over Jean-Claude's body. He was as small as he got, loose and delicate. It always amazed me how something so small could become so large. Nothing on my body could change so much—maybe that's why it fascinated me. I loved the texture when a man was totally soft. Until we shared blood, I could roll that soft, soft flesh around my mouth, suck on it all. Normally I would have tried to draw his testicles into my mouth, too, but with both my hands busy, I didn't dare. Too delicate a work to risk, when I wasn't sure I could concen­trate on it all. I rolled my hands up and down Micah and Nathaniel's bodies while I sucked on Jean-Claude, drawing him harder and faster, over and over, glorying in the fact that I could take all of him in without a struggle. Like this, it was all about sensation. I could roll and flick and suck with my mouth and tongue, able to do things witJi his body that I could never have done with him erect.

  Jean-Claude cried out, his hands clutching at the dark wood of the head-board. He looked down at me, and I rolled my eyes upward to catch that frantic look. That look that said the sensations were almost too much.

  I found a rhythm for all of them, but it was the rhythm of the sucking: quick, fast, as fast as I could do it, over and over and over. I ran my hands over Nathaniel and Micah in that same frantic rhythm, pulling, firm, and quick, over and over and over.

  Micah's hand grabbed mine. "Stop, or I'm going to go." He squeezed my hand, as if I'd made some move to keep going. "Please, Anita, please."

  I looked up at Jean-Claude. His eyes were closed, his shoulders hunched, his body shuddering above me. I realized that though he was enjoying it, it was treading that line between/ee/j- better than anything else and too much. He probably wouldn't have said anything. He'd have let me do it as long as I wanted, but then he'd been trained by someone who was a much harsher mistress than I would ever be. J

  I drew back from his body. He half collapsed above me, his body spas­ming. He rolled to the side, and Micah gave him room. Jean-Claude lay on his back, spine bowing, hands clutching at the black sheets.

  I was left with only Nathaniel in my hand. I looked at his face. Eager, happy. He leaned in toward me. "You win." He moved in for a kiss, but I squeezed him hard and tight. It threw his head back, closed his eyes, spasmed his body. No one else in the bed would have wanted me to squeeze that tight, but he loved
it.

  "What do I win?" I asked. I let him go.

  He gazed down at me with eyes that didn't quite focus. "Everything." He kissed me. It started as a slow kiss, but then he was just suddenly kissing me as deep and hard as he could. I'd forgotten that Jean-Claude had bled me earlier. I knew that part of what made him so eager at my mouth was the taste of my blood. He kissed me as if he would crawl into my mouth, his tongue searching for every last drop of that precious fluid.

  His body pressed on top of mine. He was so hard, so firm, the feel of him trapped between our bodies made me make small sounds into his mouth, as he kissed me.

  He drew back from the kiss. "What do you want?" he asked.

  "You, inside me," I said.

  He gave me a fierce smile, and raised himself up off my body.

  I grabbed at his waist and shoulders. "What are you doing?"

  "You said inside, you didn't say where inside." He crawled over me, his body not touching me, and I knew where he was going.

  "Is this more foreplay or do you want to finish here?"

  "Finish," he said.

  "Without the ardeur, I don't like to swallow."

  "I know," he said, and straddled my chest, leaning forward using the head­board much as Jean-Claude had.

  I stared up the line of his body, his face so eager, so sure of itself. I'd worked a long time to have him look like that during sex. He knew with me he could ask for what he wanted, that his pleasure was as important to me as my own. I cupped my hand under his balls. They were already tight and close to his body. The caress brought his breath in a long sigh.

  I kept one hand on his balls, and spilled the other hand up and over the length of him. He smiled down at me. "What do you want Micah to do while I'm busy here?"

  We'd only very recently begun having sex at the exact same time, Nathaniel, Micah, and me. I'd thought it had been my idea initially, but now, it seemed like Nathaniel initiated it more. I knew what he wanted me to say,

  and truthfully, dawn was going to come, and I had one other man in the bed. Whatever we were going to do, we needed to be doing it.

  I kept playing lightly with Nathaniel, and called, "Micah."

  He crawled until I could see him. He just looked at me with those char­treuse eyes. His face made no demands, but his body spoke for him, so hard, so eager. "You, inside me."

  "We've never done this without the ardeur," he said.

  "I know," I said.

  He gave me a look, then he smiled, and crawled back down along the bed.

  "Suck me while he does it." It was more a command than a request, but I'd worked long and hard to have Nathaniel that commanding anywhere in his life. Hard to bitch about it now. Besides, he was so temptingly close, so hard, so ready. I had to mound the pillows up, a little higher, to get the angle we needed.

  Micah's hands slid over my hips.

  I licked the tip of Nathaniel, slid my mouth over him, took him inch by inch into my mouth, slow, so slow, so we could both enjoy the sensation of it.

  I went down about halfway, then back up. We needed him wetter, so he'd slide better. But there's something about putting that much of a man that far inside your mouth that makes you wet, both above and below.

  Micah's hands spread my legs, his finger plunged inside me. It made me cry out, and shove all of Nathaniel inside my mouth at once.

  He put his hand on the back of my head, held me against him, so that I was trapped, and had a moment of choking around him. It wasn't a gag re­flex; it was a suffocation reflex.

  He let me go, and I fell back from his body gasping for breath, choking. When I could talk, I said, "Don't do that again."

  Micah said, "Are you okay?"

  I nodded, wasn't sure he could see it, and said, "Yeah."

  "You do it with the ardeur," Nathaniel said.

  "We're doing it without tonight." I think the look I gave him was not en­tirely friendly.

  "I'm sorry, but I'm used to being able to do that."

  "Twice, we've done that twice. Twice is not a pattern."

  "I'm sorry," he said, and that look came back to his face, that uncertain, lost look. He started to move, and I grabbed his hips to keep him from mov­ing. He looked down at me, his face so fragile, so hurt, as if all the new bravado were only skin deep: scratch it, and it goes away. I did the only thing I could think of to chase that look from his face. I drew him back into my

  mouth, sucked him fast and hard, until his head went back and his eyes closed. When he looked at me again, he was smiling, but there was still a flinching around his eyes; a shadow of that hurt. There was only one thing that would take that hurt from his eyes, I had to prove I trusted him. I slipped my mouth over him again, and gave myself over to the pleasure of him filling my mouth. I let my face show just how much I enjoyed the sen­sation of all that velvet muscle inside my mouth. The sensation of it wet and slick from my own saliva. But I didn't stop at the comfort point, that point where it just feels good and full. I sucked past that point where my body told me too much. I sucked until my mouth met his body, and there was no inch to spare. I sucked until he was shoved as hard and deep inside my throat as I could manage. I sucked until my body stopped complaining about needing to gag and started to complain about needing to breathe. But I'd learned to be able to fight past that, too. I stayed there, pressed tight and solid against his body, until he looked down at me, stayed until my throat convulsed, spas­ming around the length of him. He stared down at me, his eyes wild, eager, and something more. His hands stayed in a death grip on the headboard, as if he didn't quite trust himself. I drew back from him, coughing, before I could get a good breath. I finally let myself swallow all that extra saliva and lay back, panting as if I were behind on my breaths and had to catch up.

  His body shivered above me, a shiver of pleasure that went all the way up his body, to throw his head back, close his eyes, bow his spine, as if the mem­ory alone were that intense, and for Nathaniel it might have been. He finally looked down at me, eyes slightly unfocused. He smiled, and said, "Thank you." And the look on his face held something much more precious to me than passion; it held soft gratitude, wonder, love, for lack of a better word. There were men who loved me who never wore a look like that. Maybe it was his youth, or his years of therapy, or his lack of hang-ups. What Nathaniel felt he felt down to his toes, no hiding, no holding back, not once he gave himself to someone. It had been one of the things that made him such a danger to himself with the wrong person. With the right person he was magnificient in his abandon. He put the rest of us to shame with our wariness, our unease, our holding back. He was the only one of us who sim­ply gave.

  I gazed up into that face and was happier than I knew how to say that he was in my life.

  I felt the bed adjust, a moment before fingers slipped inside me. Two searching, slender fingers. Those fingers found that certain spot, and began to flick back and forth, back and forth, fast and faster, until the feeling threw my head back, and tore a scream from me. There were other men who could

  do that to me, but no one else was that quick at it. I knew who it was, before I looked past Nathaniel's body to see Jean-Claude kneeling between my thighs. His eyes had bled to solid blue light.

  Nathaniel moved off me, and I had a moment to try to focus and find Micah, before Jean-Claude slipped his fingers back inside me and brought me again, screaming, tearing at the sheets, grabbing for the headboard, grabbing for anything to hold on to.

  I found a hand, and grabbed it, nails digging into the wrist as I writhed. When I could see again, I found it was Micah. He stared down at me with such a look on his face. He spoke, staring down at me. "Wait, Jean-Claude, wait until I'm in place."

  I blinked up at him. "In place where?" My voice sounded as thick and un­focused as I felt.

  He squeezed my hand tight, and said, "I want you to scream your orgasm with me in your mouth."

  I said, "Okay," dien thought enough to say, "Can't deep-throat you from this angle."


  He put his other hand against my cheek, and turned my face to the side, toward his body. "How about now?"

  The way he asked made me smile, and staring at the front of his body so thick, so ready, stole the smile and made me whisper, "Let's try."

  "That's our girl," he said. He put my hand on the headboard, wrapping my fingers around it. He did that when the body part closest to me wasn't somewhere he wanted nail marks.

  Nathaniel came in from the other side; he took my free hand and put it against his hip. One telling me clearly, Don't mark me there; die other one saying, Please, do it.

  Micah turned my face back to him. Nathaniel put my hand higher up his chest, so I could get a running start on his skin. He wouldn't be working at Guilty Pleasures this weekend, so I didn't have to worry about marking him.

  Micah slipped inside my mouth; he pushed slowly, easing his way in, but he already tasted salty, bitter, and sweet all at once. He'd been enjoy­ing the show. That taste meant he wouldn't last as long as he might have, not a bad thing in oral sex with someone his size. Intercourse you want to last as long as possible; orally, duration is not always an asset. Two very different skill sets.

  I moved forward to meet his careful thrust, and it was as if I'd given him permission. He began to tlirust into my moutii, hitting die back of my throat with every thrust, pulling out just before I would have to call uncle. I had a death grip on die headboard, and my hand was mosdy just steadying myself

  against Nathaniel's side, not digging in. I was concentrating too hard on doing Micah to think about doing myself.

  "Now," Micah said, and it took me a second to understand who he was talking to. Jean-Claude's fingers slid inside me, and he found that sweet spot, found it like he knew exactly where it was. He brought me with quick, sure flexing of his fingers, quick, quicker, quickest. I screamed around Micah's body, screamed and thrust my mouth harder and deeper onto him. I rode his body as I rode the orgasm, so that he suddenly didn't seem too big, too wide, but just right. I screamed and thrashed, and drove my nails into Nathaniel's hip, as if I were trying to dig my way through him.