Bullet ab-19

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Richard let go of my legs, his arms sliding out from under me. I felt the bed move and waited for him to move closer to me, but heard him say, “Jean-Claude, trade me.”

  That made me open my eyes and look at him. He was kneeling between my legs, and the front of his body was long, thick, and more than ready. I reached a hand out, rising up off the bed, but he moved back out of reach, laughing. “You do that and I won’t do anything but you.”

  “Do me,” I said voice languorous with afterglow.

  He shook his head.

  “Trade me in what manner, Richard?” Jean-Claude asked.

  “I know how to use a flogger.”

  “I have him in the headspace we need, mon ami. I would not lose ground, not even for so sweet an offer.”

  That made me crawl out from between the pillows so I could see what was going on. Asher was still tied up, but his face was slack, lips half-parted, eyes unfocused. It was close to the look I was fighting off my own face. But his wasn’t orgasm because he was smooth, and erect, and as perfect as the rest of him. He would have argued that because one line of scar traced the edge of his testicles, but it was just something extra to run my tongue over, an added texture, not a blemish.

  Jean-Claude wrapped his arm around him from the back. He was still in the leather pants, but just being held close to him made Asher’s eyes roll back into his head. He had waited a long time for Jean-Claude to touch him. It was ironic that Asher’s power made those nearest and dearest to him afraid to be alone with him physically, but he’d almost killed me, and he’d nearly possessed Jean-Claude in that demonic way. We had a right to be cautious of him, but seeing him there with such reaction to such an innocent touch from Jean-Claude made me realize just how much he needed and wasn’t getting.

  “It’s not just about the pain, Richard,” Jean-Claude said.

  “I know that,” Richard said, and he moved across the bed on his knees, still perfectly nude, though his body was less erect, but even less erect he was still very male as he moved toward the other men. He got close enough to grab Asher’s chin, making him look into his eyes. “You enjoyed watching me go down on her, didn’t you?”

  Asher spoke just above a whisper, “Yes.”

  “I have some of Jean-Claude’s memories. I know that you enjoyed watching other men have sex with your women.” Then, still holding Asher’s chin in his hand, he leaned in and kissed him. It was a soft kiss, almost innocent, and he kept a lot of distance between their bodies, but the look on Asher’s face when Richard drew back from it wasn’t innocent. It was expectant, surprised, happy, and then wary.

  “Can you taste her on my mouth?” Richard asked.

  “Yes,” Asher said, and his voice was that same breathy whisper.

  Richard slid off the bed, and Jean-Claude moved back for him to move behind Asher. I lay on the bed watching the show, because that’s what it was. Richard did understand BDSM; at its best it’s a performance, showmanship counts. Richard moved in behind Asher. He ran his hands down the man’s back. “Nice pattern.”

  “Thank you,” Jean-Claude said. He moved in closer to the two men, and I got to see the three of them standing there, two of them nude, Jean-Claude just in the leather pants and boots, and for a minute I didn’t care about love, or how much my life worked or didn’t; all I could think of was that they were all so beautiful.

  Richard ran his hands over the marks on Asher’s back again, and it was probably just as well that Richard couldn’t see the look on Asher’s face, because just that small touch made him close his eyes and fight not to overreact to the touch, but I knew when someone was trying to be still under someone’s touch.

  Apparently I wasn’t the only one, because Richard leaned his face next to Asher’s and said, “You liked me touching you, didn’t you?”

  Asher didn’t answer. I think he was afraid of what the other man would hear in his voice. He was having enough trouble controlling his face and body. Vampires over two hundred can control everything. The fact that Asher was fighting so hard to stay in some control said just how much the attention from Jean-Claude and now Richard meant to him.

  Richard’s arm slid around Asher’s waist, as he slid his other arm around his shoulder. I sat up, because if Richard was as close to Asher as I thought, I wanted to see it. I wanted to see the lines of their bodies pressed against each other. I crawled over the bed, and didn’t care if it was ungraceful.

  I half-stepped and half-fell off the bed, and Richard’s tanned, muscled body was pressed against the back of Asher’s pale one so that there was nothing but the line of their bodies like two perfect pieces of some light and dark puzzle.

  Jean-Claude was watching them, too, and his face was stricken, that was the only word for it. It was a look made up of want, and surprise, and the same thing I’d felt just a moment before, that they were simply beautiful.

  Richard’s voice fell into that moment. “Tell me you like me pressed up against you, Asher?”

  Asher’s breath came out in a shaking sound, not word, or breath, or scream, but it seemed to hold all the longing you would ever want to hear in a lover’s voice.

  “Good,” Richard said, and he stepped back from the other man. “Now I’m going to beat you while Jean-Claude fucks Anita and you get to watch, and then I’m going to fuck her while Jean-Claude fucks you.”

  I would have protested, or complained, but honestly, it worked for me.

  10

  JEAN-CLAUDE ROSE ABOVE me, nude and perfect, his body moving in and out of me as he held himself above me on his arms. One, he knew I loved watching him go in and out of my body. Two, he was too tall for traditional missionary, or I was too short. His hair spilled over one shoulder in a mass of thick, black curls. I stared down the line of our bodies watching all that pale perfection work in and out of my body. Just the sight of it made me cry out, like a preview of the orgasm to come. A cry from the side of the bed echoed mine and made me turn my head to see Asher, his head thrown back, body spasming in the chains. His body jerked with each heavy blow of the flogger, and then the sound of the flogger sped up until it was one continuous sound and Asher couldn’t react to each individual blow, his body shivering under it all, his eyes fluttering back.

  Jean-Claude shoved himself hard and complete inside me, making me cry out and turn back to him, eyes wide. He held my gaze and began to work faster, deeper, lifting with his hips at the top of each stroke so he was touching everything that made me orgasm from intercourse. The men in my bed were all good, but Jean-Claude could hit not just one spot, but all of them. I felt that wonderful heaviness begin between my legs and knew I was close. The flogging stopped and it made me turn to see, even as Jean-Claude brought me closer to that edge of pleasure. Richard had wrapped himself against Asher’s back again. His tan looked so dark against the paleness of Asher’s body.

  I felt Jean-Claude’s body lose some of that smooth rhythm. It made me look up at him but he was looking at the other men, and the sight of them had made him miss a step. Then he was looking down at me again, and one moment we were gazing into each other’s faces and the next the orgasm took me. It rolled over me, through me, in a wave of warmth and pleasure that made me grab Jean-Claude’s arms, holding on as the sensation of it tore screams from my throat, clawed my nails down his arms, as if I were trying to anchor myself to something solid while the world exploded in white-edged pleasure and my body tried to become the fierce joy of it all. I didn’t exactly pass out, but I wasn’t aware of everything either, and when I could see again, be aware of all of me again, Jean-Claude was smiling down at me.

  I smiled back and took my nails out of his arms. I’d left red lines, some with blood in them, from about his mid-upper arm to almost his wrists. Once I would have apologized for it, but I knew he enjoyed the marks, both the pain/pleasure of it and that he could drive me to pleasure deep enough to bleed him. Most of the men in my life took it as high praise.

  He drew himself out of me and that made me writhe
under him, another smaller orgasm just from that alone. When I could make my eyes focus again he was gone and Richard was above me on all fours, not touching me yet, but looking down at me. His hair was still back in its tight ponytail, leaving his face clean and almost heartrendingly handsome. I looked down the line of his body, but didn’t get as far as normal, because his chest and stomach were striped with blood. For a moment I thought it was his blood then realized it had to be Asher’s. It takes a lot of force to draw blood with a flogger, or one that was corded, or had metal bits. I knew we had both in the toy chest, but hadn’t realized Richard had brought it out to play.

  He leaned just his face down to mine, keeping his body off mine. He kissed me and I could still taste the edge of my own body on his mouth, but there was also a taste of other lips, and I knew that I’d missed at least another kiss or two between him and Asher. I felt a little regret at that and hoped I’d get a chance to see it again. Nothing was ever certain with Richard, so I kissed him with tongue, and lips and teeth, and he responded in kind, collapsing on top of me, our mouths locked and eager around each other. The sensation of his body on top of mine made me cry out and writhe underneath him, but the height difference was too great for the angle that we were kissing, and the best I could grind against was higher up his body than what I wanted to touch. He pulled away from the kiss with my lower lip between his teeth. It made me cry out half in protest and half in pleasure, that edge of good and bad so intermingled that I couldn’t have told you which side the kiss had ended on. Then I felt that warm roll of power and it caressed things deeper in my body than bone and muscle. It caressed along that part of me that was wolf, and I felt/saw the wolf that was that part of my beast open her eyes. She was mostly cream with black markings around her face and ruff so that she looked at a glance like a big husky dog, but once you saw her eyes like amber glass you knew it wasn’t a dog.

  “Richard,” I said, but when I saw his eyes they were wolf amber. His wolf’s eyes were staring at me from that handsome, human face. Maybe I’d spent too much time staring into Micah’s leopard eyes in his own human face, but the wolf eyes didn’t frighten me the way they had the last time he’d been above me like that.

  My wolf started trotting up that long metaphysical pathway that seemed to be inside me, but I knew it was just the way my human mind coped with the beast. I knew in reason that it wasn’t a real path, or real trees that rose above the wolf, but it was what my mind had made to help us all stay sane.

  “You’ll bring my wolf, Richard.”

  “No,” he said, “I won’t, I promise, but I want you to bring mine.”

  I blinked up at him. “What?”

  A sound made us both turn and look at the side of the bed. Jean-Claude was standing behind Asher, and I knew he wasn’t having sex with him, the angle wasn’t right, but I couldn’t see what he was doing to make Asher close his eyes, face nearly slack with pleasure.

  My wolf started to trot, that ground-eating movement that wolves can keep up for miles. Wolves, like early humans, will just walk prey into the ground until they’re exhausted and ripe for the kill. The trouble was that it was my body that the she-wolf would try to eat her way out of; I couldn’t shapeshift, and when one of the beasts wanted out they treated my body like a trap that they needed to dig their way out of.

  “Richard, you’re bringing my wolf.”

  He stared down at me with those amber eyes and I felt his power again, but it was different than I remembered it. His power could sting, or prickle like electricity, but this was just a warm wash of power, gentle but powerful like a curl of warm ocean water rolling through me. His power touched the wolf in me, and she slowed. The only image my mind could form was the wolf being petted, soothed. She lay down beside the path in among the tall, unreal trees, content with the roll of his energy over her.

  “I’ve been practicing helping Gina’s beast not to rise so she can keep the baby. Your weretigers tell me I’m a natural at it.”

  “I didn’t know you were helping.”

  “If our women could have children, that would be a wonderful thing. How could I not help?”

  I thought of a lot of things to say, the mildest of which was that something being a good thing hadn’t been enough if it meant he had to use his beast to do it, but out loud I said, “Yes, it would be.”

  Asher cried out, and we both turned again. Jean-Claude had given the chains more slack and was up behind him on the bed, with both of them on their knees. Jean-Claude’s legs and hips were moving, and I knew that he was finally doing what Asher had wanted for so long.

  “Jean-Claude’s ahead of us. I want to catch up.”

  “Are you asking if I’m okay with it?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought about it, but with the weight of him pinning me to the bed, and my hands tracing the smooth skin and muscle of his back, all I could say was, “We need a condom.”

  He smiled, and it was a version of the smile that had once melted me into my socks, and out of them. “Are they still in the same place?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  He raised enough of him that I could see his body was hard and eager against the front of him. “Wait right there,” he said.

  I waited right there.

  11

  RICHARD WAS ABOVE me, holding himself on his arms, his lower body pushing in and out of me. I realized it was the same position that Jean-Claude had used, but then they were both too tall for straight missionary, or I was too short.

  I watched his body work in and out of mine. He was wide, and straight, and long, and beautiful, and the feel of him between my legs was amazing. I turned my head to the side to scream my pleasure, and I was suddenly looking at the other men.

  The chains were looser now, letting Asher’s body drape forward so that I had both of their bodies in profile, all pale muscled grace. Jean-Claude’s body was pushing its way into Asher while the other man jerked at the chains, his body reacting to the thick, muscled push of Jean-Claude’s. His hair had fallen over his face, so that both of their faces were hidden by the fall of their own hair, one black, and the other gold.

  Richard shoved himself into me in one deep thrust that made me cry out and look up at him. I had a moment to see my face looking up at his, as if I were using his eyes. My eyes were wide, mouth open in a little O of surprise, and I watched pain and pleasure fight across my face. The moment passed and I was staring up into his face again. He looked pleased, eager, with an edge of concern in eyes that had gone back to human brown.

  My voice came out breathless. “Without the ardeur, that may hurt eventually.”

  “Every other woman I’ve been with except one would say it hurts the first time.”

  “With the right prep it’s okay to be that deep,” I said.

  “You orgasm from it,” he said, and began to work his way in and out of me again, faster than he had been before, but not as deep as he could be, at first.

  “With the right prep,” I said.

  He used more hip action, lifting his body up more so that I could see just the line of him in and out of me, moving faster, getting a little deeper with each thrust, until he came to the end of me again, but gentler, so that it was more a touch. The warm weight of orgasm began to build between my legs, deep in my body. The width of him rubbed the sweet spot just inside me, and the head of him began to touch as deep as he could, like a caress, but a little more each time.

  He started to lose his rhythm, head bowing down, shoulders rounding. I grabbed his arms, holding on as the pleasure built, warm, weight, almost . . . almost, and I was saying it, over and over, with my breath, “Almost, almost, almost . . .”

  He fought his body to find that rhythm again, and I was staring into his eyes, watching them lose focus. I watched them swim to wolf amber, and I heard Asher cry out. It turned my head and made me watch him struggle in the chains as his body rode the pleasure.

  Jean-Claude’s hips were still moving, his hand wrapped in Asher’s
hair, the other curved under his shoulder across his chest. I saw Jean-Claude hesitate, and a shudder rolled up his body as he fought to make this moment last.

  Then Richard brought me screaming, bucking underneath him. I felt his arms tremble under my hands as he fought to keep going just that little bit longer. Asher and I screamed together, and only then did they both lose their control, did they both thrust one last time as deep and firm as they could. Our screams echoed each other and the ardeur was just suddenly there on the three of us that carried it. We fed. We fed on the feel of our bodies buried inside each other. We fed on the release of emotion as we finally owned how we felt about each other; there was a moment of honesty so raw that it was like pain, and then there was nothing but joyous release, as if the world were suddenly golden, and edged with white haze, and it all felt good. I felt the chains on my wrists, and my nails gliding down Richard’s arms, and the men inside us both. For one moment it was all one, none, everything in one huge mix of pain, pleasure, confusion. There was nothing but the pleasure of it shared, taken back and forth. I’d shared moments like this with Richard and Jean-Claude, but never during sex, and never with Asher. It was as if all the boundaries fell down, all the shields that kept us safe from one another were just gone. We should have been afraid, but in that moment there was no room for anything but pleasure. It just felt too good to be afraid of it.

  And then we smelled flowers, flowers that weren’t in the room. Roses, and jasmine, and Jean-Claude fought to get us back in control, fought to master us and himself and the pleasure, but it was too late; we were wide open, defenseless, and he and Asher knew now that it had been no accident.

  Belle Morte, Beautiful Death’s voice echoed through us. “I told you they could not resist each other forever.”

  12

  WE WERE STILL in the bedroom under the Circus. We were still in the bed, still wedded to each other’s bodies, but I knew we could all see Belle Morte in our heads like a bad dream. She was dressed in gold, a deep rich satin that made her pale brown eyes look even more amber than they were, but I had Richard’s wolf amber to compare with and I knew that try as she might her eyes were not truly anything but brown. Her brunette hair was curled in careful ringlets on top of her head, to cascade around her oval face. It looked complicated and not touchable, as if she’d yell at you if you messed it up.