I shook my head. "No, not them."
"Why not love them? They are beautiful and perfect."
I grinned. "Not perfect; handsome, but not perfect. Requiem's too damn moody by half. London, I'm a little embarrassed about him."
"Why embarrassed?"
"Not sure, maybe because I'm not sure I even like him, and I had sex with him." I felt Damian slumping at the table where he sat. Nathaniel
caught his arm, kept him in the chair. Asher had to catch me or I might have fallen.
"You need to feed," he said.
I nodded.
"Then we have talked enough. Tonight I will take care of you, because that is what you do when you love someone."
Heat rose up in my face, and I wasn't sure why.
He laughed, not a magical vampire laugh, but a very masculine laugh. That laugh that lets you know you've pleased them in some very guy sort of way.
"What?" I asked, and wouldn't look at him, because I knew that would make the blush worse.
"You blushed because I said I loved you."
I nodded, and tried to sound churlish, as I said, "So?"
"So, I know you love me."
That made me look up at him. "Just because I blushed?"
He nodded.
"I blush a lot."
He drew me into the circle of his arms. "Yes, but this one was for me." He laid a kiss upon my forehead. "I would like to feed while you feed."
"Haven't you fed yet?"
"No, the blood hunger did not rise."
"Isn't that unusual?"
"Very."
"Then feed." I thought about it. "Though I'm sort of running out of spots for fresh fang marks."
He touched the side of my neck where Requiem's bite lay. He traced his hand over the mound of my breast, dipping a little lower than the corset top until he caressed London's bite. He dipped his fingers lower, so that he touched my nipple. Just that brought my breath in a gasp.
He laughed again, that pleased sound. His hand slid up my thigh, forced me to move my legs apart so he could find Jean-Claude's bite in my very inner thigh.
My voice came breathy, "How did you know it was there?"
"I smelled it," he whispered. "Are you ready for me?"
I nodded, because I didn't trust my voice.
"Then look at me, Anita, look into my eyes."
I looked up slowly, and found his eyes full of light like blue ice, glittering in winter moonlight, all shadows and shimmers. His eyes dazzled me.
He was carrying me, and I hadn't remembered him picking me up. "Where are we going?" I whispered.
"The couch," he said.
"We have to be quick."
He laid me down upon the couch, my knees bent, and him kneeling between them. "We can be quick now, because I know that there will be long later."
"All because I blushed for you," I said.
"Yes." He laid me down on the couch. There wasn't room for him to lie beside me, so he stood, and began to take off his clothes.
"If we take off the corset it will take forever to get it back on."
"The corset can stay." He threw his shirt and jacket on the arm of the couch. He stood there for a moment nude from the waist up. I stared up at him, stupidly, that golly, wow look on my face. I couldn't help it. He was so beautiful, and I knew that the rest of him was just as beautiful. I could look at him with knowledgeable anticipation. It made me shiver just staring up at him like that.
"The look on your face, Anita, mon Dieu, the look on your face."
I had to swallow twice to say, "What do you want me to take off?"
"Panties."
"Just panties," I said.
He nodded, and started unfastening his pants.
My pulse sped up. I had to sit up to take the panties off. It also helped me look away from him while I did it. Was it just that we had never been alone before? Was that this incredible anticipation? Or was it more than that? I wanted him. I wanted him to touch me. My body ached with the need, not just to be touched, but for Asher to touch me.
His hands slid over my bare shoulders, where I sat facing away from him. The smoothing of his hands down my skin made me hold my breath.
He leaned down and whispered, "What do you want?"
"Your hands on my body."
"What else do you want?"
"You inside me."
"What else?"
My pulse was hammering in my throat so hard I could barely speak around it. "Bite me while you fuck me, make me come both ways while you're inside me."
"Inside you both ways?" he whispered.
"Yes."
He grabbed a handful of my hair, and pulled until it hurt, just a little, just enough. "Say please."
"Please."
"I have to take blood to enter you. To bring you a second time with my bite, I will have to take blood again."
I tried to reason that out, and failed, but finally said the only thing I could think to say. "Please."
54
HE PUT US both on our knees on the couch, me facing away from him. His hand wrapped in my hair, hard enough to hurt, drawing my neck back in a clean, straining angle. He pressed his body against the back of mine, used his hips to raise the short skirt so I could feel his body against my bare ass. He plunged his hand down the front of the corset, so he could grip my breast, tight and hard. It made me cry out. He plunged his body against mine, but without blood, he was still soft.
He whispered in my ear, "Your blood will make me a man, again. It will fill my body with life, so that I may fill your body with life."
There was something about what he'd said that should have bothered me, but I couldn't make the thought form. He'd rolled my mind in a blissful rush, and I couldn't make my thoughts march to logic. All the logic I had was in his hands, in the soft push of his body, the growing tension as he held me.
Something stabbed through that lustful calm. Damian reached out to me mth a silent scream. "Anita, damn it, feed!"
It made me slump in Asher's arms.
"What is wrong?"
"Let me feed with the first bite. Let me feed with your power."
"Damian is fading." He made it a statement.
"Yes." My voice was breathy, and not for any good reason.
"I will not fight your power, Anita. I will let you take me, then I will :ake you."
"Yes, but please hurry, please..."
He was too tall to stay pressed as he was, and bite me. He had to ease his )ody back enough to fold that six-feet-and-change frame over me. His hands ensed in my hair and on my breast. The sudden pain seemed to send me )ack into his gaze. My breath was short and eager, when he struck. There vas a moment of pain, then it was gone, washed away in the first orgasm.
Asher's bite was pleasure. It was his gift, his power, and that power tight-:ned my body, and exploded like a wave of warm pleasure across my skin. So
much pleasure, so much, and as long as he fed, it would be wave after warm, thrilling wave. It felt so good, so good, that it spilled out my mouth in long, ragged screams. Somewhere in all of it, the ardeur rose, and fed. It fed through his mouth, his teeth on me. It fed through his hands on my body. I poured the spill of it into Damian, felt him sit up so hard in the chair, that he almost fell off it. Nathaniel steadied him, and got a taste of that pleasurable power.
I fought the energy, fought to send only food, and not the nearly overwhelming pleasure. To send only so much, and no more. It was like trying to meditate in the middle of sex; no wonder I wasn't better at it.
Asher drew back from my neck, breathing hard. "You took a great deal." He sounded shaky, and his bite didn't necessarily cause him pleasure, so that wasn't it.
"Sorry," I mumbled.
He let go of me, and I slumped forward onto all fours, head down. "God, Asher, God."
The couch moved as he shifted position, and the next thing I felt was his hands on my hips, pulling my skirt up. He pressed the tip of himself against me, and there was nothing sof
t about him now. He was hard, and ready, pushing against me.
"Do you still want me to pierce you twice?"
I should have said no. I'd missed so much of the evening. But I didn't want to say no. I wanted to say yes. I tried not to think about Asher much. One, it could cause mini-orgasms at odd moments. One of the side effects of his powers. Two, because I understood why people had been willing to trade everything away just for one more night of the pleasure that only Asher could bring. The rest of the metaphysical sex was great, but it was the affection I had for the people involved that made me want to be with most of them. Emergency food being the exception. I loved Asher, but it wasn't love that made me want to be with him. If I had been less stubborn, I might have chased after him simply for the pleasure. I stayed away from him when I could, because no one could quite do what he could, and it scared me.
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 tiiat 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 gende. 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 widi 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 witli 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 ly-canthropes 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 wh
ich 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 neck, 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.
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?"
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