My own hands were pressed against his chest. I realized that he was still mirroring me, waiting for me to move.
I stared up into his face. I searched that beauty, those dark eyes. There was no pull to them, no power, except the thick black line of his lashes, and the rich color like the sky just before darkness swallows the world when you think all is black, but there in the west is a shade of blue, dark and rich as ink. Beauty had its own power.
I slid my hands up his chest, fingers brushing across his nipples. I stared at his face while I did it, heart pounding in my throat, breath coming too fast.
His hands slid upward, cupping my breasts. The touch of his hands made me gasp. He scooted lower in the water, still touching me. He bent over my breasts and laid a gentle kiss on them. He licked the water off my skin, lips working gently.
I shuddered and had to steady myself on his bare shoulders. All I could see was his long, dark hair bent over me. I caught sight of us in the mirrors. I watched his mouth close over my breast, felt him take me into his mouth as far as he could. Fangs pressed against my breast. For a second I thought they would sink into my flesh, draw blood in a fine hot line, but he drew back. He dropped to all fours in the water, which made me taller, allowed me to look down into his face.
There was no uncertainty in his face now. His eyes were still lovely, still human, but there was a knowledge in them now, a growing darkness. Sex, for want of a better word, but that look in a man’s eyes is too primitive for vocabulary. It’s the darkness we all have inside of us, peeking out. That part of us that we trap in our dreams and deny in daylight hours. He stayed crouched in the water with that feral light in his eyes, and I went to him.
I kissed him, light, a brush of lips. I flicked my tongue along his lips and he opened his mouth for me. I cupped his face between my hands and kissed him, tasted him, explored him.
He came up out of the water with a sound between a moan and a cry. His arms locked behind my back and he rolled us in the water like a shark. We came up gasping. He pushed away from me to lean against the far edge of the tub. I was breathing so hard I was trembling. My pulse thudded at the back of my throat. I could taste it on my tongue, almost roll the beating pulse in my mouth like candy. I realized it wasn’t just my heart I was hearing. It was Jean-Claude’s.
I could see the pulse in his neck like something alive and separate, but it wasn’t only my eyes that could see it. I could feel it like it was my own. I had never been so aware of the blood coursing through my body. The pulsing warmth of my own skin. The thick pumping of my heart. My life thundering inside me. Jean-Claude’s body pulsed in time to mine. It was like he was riding my pulse, my blood. I felt his need, and it wasn’t just sex, but for the first time, I understood it wasn’t just the blood, either. It was all of me. He wanted to warm himself in my body, like holding hands to a flame, gathering my warmth, my life, to him. I felt his stillness, a depth of quiet that nothing living could touch, like a still pool of water hidden away in the dark. In one crystalline moment, I realized that, for me, this was part of the attraction: I wanted to plunge my hands into his stillness, into that quiet place of death. I wanted to embrace it, confront it, conquer it. I wanted to fill him up with a burning wash of life, and I knew in that moment that I could do it, but only at the price of drinking in some of that still, dark water.
“My deepest apologies, ma petite, you have almost undone me.” He sank into the water, leaning against the edge of the tub. “I did not come here to feed, ma petite. I am sorry.”
I felt his heartbeat going away from me, pulling away from me. My pulse slowed. The only heart thudding in my ears was my own.
He stood, water dripping down his body. “I will go, ma petite.” He sighed. “You rob me of my hard-won control. Only you can do that to me, only you.”
I crawled through the water towards him and let the darkness fill my eyes. “Don’t go,” I said.
He watched me with a look that was part amazement, part amusement, part fear, as if he didn’t trust me—or didn’t trust himself.
I knelt at his feet, running my hands up the soaked cloth of his jeans. I dug my nails lightly into the cloth over his thighs and stared up at him. My face was dangerously close to places I had never touched before, not even with my hands. This close, I couldn’t help noticing that he was stretched hard and firm under the tight, heavy cloth. I had a terrible urge to lay my cheek over his groin. I ran my hand lightly over him, barely touching. That small touch brought a soft groan from him.
He stared down at me like a drowning man.
I met his eyes. “No teeth, no blood.”
He nodded slowly. He tried twice before he found his voice. “As my lady wishes.”
I laid my cheek across him, feeling him firm and large against my skin. I felt his whole body tense. I rubbed my face against him like a cat. A small sound escaped him. I looked up. His eyes were closed, his head thrown back.
I grabbed the waistband of his jeans and used it to pull myself to my feet. Water ran down my body, suds clung to my skin.
His hands encircled my waist, but his eyes went lower. He met my gaze and smiled. It was the smile he always had. That smile that said he was thinking wicked little thoughts, things you’d only do in the dark on a dare. For the first time, I wanted everything that smile promised.
I tugged at his jeans. “Off.”
He unsnapped the jeans carefully. He peeled the wet cloth away from his body. If there’d been underwear, I never saw it. The jeans ended up on the carpet. He was somehow suddenly nude.
He was like carved alabaster, every muscle, every curve of his body pale and perfect. Telling him he was beautiful was redundant. Saying golly gee whiz seemed too uncool. Giggling was out. My voice came small and strangled, hoarse with all the words I couldn’t find. “You’re not circumcised.”
“No, ma petite. Is that a problem?”
I did what I’d wanted to do since I first saw him. I wrapped my fingers around him, squeezing gently. He closed his eyes, shuddering, steadying his hands on my shoulders. “Not a problem,” I said.
He pulled me against him suddenly, pressing our naked bodies together. The feel of him hard and firm against my stomach was almost overwhelming. I dug fingers into his back to keep my suddenly weak knees from giving out.
I kissed his chest. I rose on tiptoe and kissed his shoulders, his neck. I ran my tongue along his skin and tasted him, rolling the scent of him, the feel of him in my mouth. We kissed, a nearly innocent brush of lips. I locked my hands behind his neck, arching my body against him. He made a small sound low in his throat.
He slid down my body, arms locked behind my back, holding me against him as he left my arms and left me standing, staring down at him.
He licked my stomach with quick, wet flicks of his tongue. His hands played along my buttocks, teasing. He licked back and forth where stomach ended and lower things began. His fingers slid between my legs.
I gasped. “What are you doing?”
He rolled his eyes upward, mouth still pressed low on my stomach. He raised his face just enough to speak. “You may have three guesses, ma petite,” he whispered. He put a hand on each of my thighs and spread my legs wider. His hand slid over me, exploring me.
My mouth was suddenly dry. I licked my lips and said, “I don’t think my legs will hold.”
He ran his tongue down my hip. “When the time comes, ma petite, I will hold you.” He kissed his way down my thigh. His finger slid inside of me. My breath fell outward in a sigh.
He kissed the inside of my thighs, running his tongue, his lips along my skin. The feel of his fingers between my legs tightened my body, and I could feel the beginnings of something large and overwhelming.
He stood, hand still between my legs. He bent and kissed me, long and slow. The movement of his hand matched his mouth. Slow and lingering, teasing along my body. When his fingers plunged inside me, I cried out, shuddering against him.
He left me standing in the water, a
lone and shivering, but not from cold. I couldn’t even think enough to ask where’d he gone. He appeared in front of me with a condom in his hand like he’d plucked it from the air. He traced the foil down my body.
I touched him while he unwrapped it. I held him in my hands and felt the velvet smoothness of him. The skin was unbelievably soft. He drew himself gently out of my hands with a shaking laugh.
When he was ready, he picked me up, hands on the backs of my thighs. He pressed himself against me without entering, rubbing himself where his hand had touched. I whispered, “Please.” He spread my legs and eased inside of me. Slowly, so slowly as if he were afraid he’d hurt me, but it didn’t hurt.
When he was sheathed inside me, he looked at me. The look on his face was haunting. Emotions flowed over his face. Tenderness, triumph, need. “I have wanted this for so long, ma petite, so very long.” He eased in and out, slowly, almost tentatively. I watched his face until the play of emotions was too much, too honest. There was something like pain in his eyes, something that I didn’t even come close to understanding.
The movements of his hips were still slow, careful. It was amazing, but I wanted more. I brought my mouth up to his and said, “I won’t break.” I pressed my mouth to his hard enough to feel the press of fangs.
He went to his knees in the water, pressing me against the side of the tub. His mouth fed at mine, and there was a small, sharp pain. Sweet copper blood filled my mouth, filled his mouth, and he plunged inside of me, hard and fast. I watched him in the mirrors. Watched his body coming in and out of mine. I gathered him in my arms, in my legs. I held him to me, feeling his body plunging inside of mine. Felt his need.
Someone was making a high moaning sound, and it was me. I wrapped my legs around his waist. The muscles in my lower abdomen spasmed, tightened.
I pressed my body against Jean-Claude as if I would climb through him, into him. I grabbed a handful of his long hair and watched his face from inches away. Watched his face while his body pumped into mine. The emotions were gone. His face was almost slack with need. Blood spilled down the corner of my mouth, and he licked it away, his body tightening against me.
He slowed the rhythm of his body. I felt the effort strain through his arms and back. He slowed. Every time he thrust into me, it was like I could feel it into the middle of my chest. As if he’d grown impossibly large within me. My body spasmed around him, tightened like a hand. He cried out, and his body lost its rhythm. He plunged inside me faster, harder, as if he would meld our bodies together, weld us into one flesh, one body. A wave of pleasure burst over me in a skin-tingling, body-sweeping rush. It burst over me like a rush of cool flame, and still he was not done. Every thrust of his body reached inside of me and caressed things that should never have been able to be touched. It was as if his body could reach the places his voice could touch, as if it were more than his body that plunged inside of me. The world became for a moment a shining whiteness, a melting thing. I dug fingers into Jean-Claude’s back. Noises fell from my mouth that were too primitive for screams. When I realized I was drawing blood on his back, I scratched my own arms. I hadn’t asked what he thought about pain.
I cuddled around him, letting him hold the full weight of my body. He climbed up the edge of the tub, lifting me out of the water. He crawled on all fours to the raised area around the tub with me hanging onto him. He lowered his body and I moved away from him. He slid out of me and was still as hard and ready as when he had started.
I looked at him. “You didn’t come.”
“I have not waited this long to end it so quickly.” He lowered himself in a sort of push-up and ran his tongue down one of the scratches on my arm. He rolled his tongue around his lips. “If you did this for my benefit, I appreciate it. If you did it to keep from damaging me, it was not necessary. I do not mind a little pain.”
“Me, either.”
He slid his body across mine. “I noticed that.” He kissed me slowly. He lay beside me, then scooted until he was lying on his back and I was almost back in the tub.“I want to watch you move, ma petite. I want you above me.”
I straddled his waist and slid slowly over him. It was deeper from this angle, sharper somehow. His hands moved up my body, over my breasts. He lay back underneath me. His long, curling, black hair was almost completely dry. It fanned out around his face in a thick, soft wave. This was what I wanted. Seeing him like this. Feeling him inside me.
“Move for me, Anita.”
I moved for him. I rode his body. He tightened inside me, and I gasped. I watched us in the mirrors. Watched my hips swaying above him.
“Ma petite,” he whispered, “look into my eyes. Let it be between us as it always could have been.”
I stared into his dark blue eyes. They were lovely, but they were just eyes. I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“You must let me inside your mind, as you let me inside your body.” He spasmed inside of me, and it was hard to think.
“I don’t know how,” I said.
“Love me, Anita, love me.”
I stared down at him and did. “I do love you.”
“Then let me in, ma petite. Let me love you.”
I felt it like a drape being pulled away. I felt his eyes, and they were suddenly drowning deep, an endless midnight blue ocean that somehow managed to burn. I was aware of my body. I could feel Jean-Claude inside my body. I could feel him like a brush of silk inside my mind.
The orgasm hit me unexpectedly, opened my mind to him more than I’d planned. Flung me wide open and falling into his eyes. He cried out underneath me, and I realized I could still feel my body, feel my hands on his chest, feel my pelvis riding him. I opened my eyes and for a dizzying second I saw his face go slack, that moment of total abandon.
I collapsed on top of him, trailing my hands down his arms, feeling his heart pound against my chest. We lay quietly for a few moments, resting, holding each other, then I slid off him, curling beside him.
“You can’t hold me with your eyes anymore. Even if I let you, I can still break the hold at any time.”
“Yes, ma petite.”
“Does that bother you?”
He lifted a lock of my hair, running it between his fingers. “Let us say it does not bother me as much as it might have a few hours ago.”
I raised up on one elbow so I could see his face. “Meaning what? That now that I’ve had sex with you, I’m not dangerous?”
He stared up at me. I couldn’t read his eyes. “You will always be dangerous, ma petite.” He raised upward, bending at the waist, bringing his lips against mine in a gentle kiss. He moved back from me just enough to speak, propping himself on one arm. “There was a time when you would have taken my heart with stake or gun.” He took my hand in his and raised it towards his mouth. “Now you have taken it with these delicate hands and the scent of your body.” He kissed the back of my hand ever so gently. He lay back, drawing me with him. “Come, ma petite, enjoy your conquest.”
I held my face back, avoiding a kiss. “You aren’t conquered,” I said.
“Nor, ma petite, are you.” He ran his hands up my back. “I am beginning to realize that you will never be conquered, and that is the greatest aphrodisiac of all.”
“A challenge forever,” I said.
“For all eternity,” he whispered. I let him draw me down into a kiss, and part of me was still not sure if I’d done a good thing or a bad thing. But just for tonight, I didn’t care.
40
* * *
I WOKE surrounded by bloodred sheets, naked, and alone. Jean-Claude had kissed me good-bye and gone to his coffin. I didn’t argue. If I’d awakened to him cold and dead beside me . . . Let’s just say I’d had all the shock I could handle from my boyfriends for awhile.
Boyfriend. That was a word for someone who walked you to your class. It didn’t seem the right word after last night. I lay there, clutching the raw silk sheets to my chest. I could smell Jean-Claude’s cologne on the sheets, on my skin
, but more than that, I could smell him. I cuddled that scent to me, rolled in it. He said he loved me and for a time last night, I believed him. In the light of day, I wasn’t so sure. How stupid was it to half-believe the vampire loved me? Not nearly as stupid as half-loving him. But I still loved Richard. One night of great sex didn’t change that. I think I had hoped it would. Lust may die that easily, but love doesn’t. True love is a much harder beast to kill.
There was a soft knock on the door. I had to reach under two red pillows before I came out with the Firestar. I held it at my side and said, “Come in.”
A man entered the room. He was tall, muscular, with hair shaved on either side, the back left in a long ponytail.
I pointed the gun at him and clutched the sheets to my chest. “I don’t know you.”
His eyes went wide; his voice shook, “I’m Ernie, I’m supposed to ask if you want breakfast.”
“No,” I said. “Now, get out.”
He nodded, eyes on the gun. He hesitated in the doorway, even staring down the barrel of a gun. I made a guess.
“What did Jean-Claude tell you to do?” It was amazing how many people were more afraid of Jean-Claude than of me. I pointed the gun at the ceiling.
“He said I was to be at your disposal, anything you want. He said I was to make that very clear to you.”
“It’s clear. Now, get out.”
He still hesitated.
I’d had enough. “Ernie, I am sitting here naked in a bed, and I don’t know you. Get out or I’m going shoot you on principle.” I aimed the gun at him for dramatic emphasis.
Ernie ran for it, leaving the door open. Great. Now I had the choice of walking to the door naked and closing it, or draping a king-size sheet around me and stumbling to the door and closing it. Sheet. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, with the sheet in front of me and most of my backside not covered, gun still clutched in one hand, when Richard appeared in the doorway.
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 37
