Jason

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  J.J. tapped my shoulder. "Enough, she's done," and she laughed.

  I moved back from Jade's body, my hands still on her thighs. I looked up to find Jason grinning down at me. I smiled back at him. He was cradling Jade in his arms in a way that she'd never allowed before, though she honestly might not know who was holding her right now.

  J.J. gave me a one-armed hug. "That was awesome! You learn fast."

  "Being able to see and ask questions made a big difference." I started to let go of Jade's thighs, but looked up at Jason to make sure he wasn't depending on my hold.

  "I've got her," he said.

  I put a soft kiss on her inner thigh that made her twitch a little harder. When I rose up on my knees I could see her eyelids fluttering, not opening, but almost twitching like her hand. She was well and truly gone to her happy place. Yay, fucking, yay!

  Domino said, "If I hold Jade, that frees Jason up to be with someone else."

  I looked at J.J. "He's asking if you're all right with it."

  "Sure," she said.

  He smiled and crawled across the bed and Nathaniel's legs to take Jade from Jason.

  "Please," Nathaniel said, voice tight, almost hoarse, though he hadn't screamed a single time.

  I moved up to look into his face. His eyes were almost frantic. "Please, what?" I asked, smiling and stroking the side of his hair.

  "Touch me," he whispered.

  "Touch you how?"

  "Hand, mouth, pussy, don't care."

  Domino said, "Are you saying when I move Jade, that . . . that you didn't go?"

  "Not yet," Nathaniel said, in that strangely hoarse voice.

  "Wow, just wow, no wonder Anita kept you." He lifted Jade up, and Nathaniel was still long, straight, and so hard with need that he twitched involuntarily without anything touching him at all.

  "I'll second that, wow," J.J. said.

  "I'll third it," Jason said, and grinned. "I have good stamina, but Nathaniel puts me to shame when he wants to hold out."

  J.J. looked at Jason with wide eyes, and then back to Nathaniel, still tied and eager. "Well, um, that's . . . impressive."

  Jason laughed.

  Domino cuddled Jade to his chest. She was aware enough to curl in against him. Her eyes were open now, blinking heavy-lidded, and almost sleepy.

  I stroked fingertips down that nearly vibrating hardness, the lightest of touches. Nathaniel cried out, body straining against the ropes.

  "He won't last much longer," J.J. said.

  "Don't underestimate him," I said.

  She gave me a look. "Really?"

  I nodded. "Really."

  She gave Nathaniel a speculative look.

  "It's okay," Jason said, "he inspires me to be a better man."

  She frowned, clearly puzzled at Jason.

  I said, "He means that when he and Nathaniel are having sex with me, he lasts longer out of competition."

  She turned back to me, eyes wide, and the beginnings of a smile quirking her lips. Her chin glinted dully in the light. We both needed to clean our faces, but first, I planned to get messier. No reason to clean up before I'd finished getting all dirty.

  I started bending over Nathaniel's body. His voice came almost strangled. "Oh, God, no, if you do that I'm not sure I'll last."

  "Then don't last," I said.

  "I want inside you."

  "You said hand, mouth, or pussy, you didn't care which." I smiled at him, and he would probably have called it my "I'm going to make you sorry for that" smile when I was topping him in the bedroom/dungeon.

  "Please," he said.

  "Please, what?" I said, and trailed my fingertips oh-so-lightly over him again.

  He cried out again. "Intercourse, sex, please!"

  I kissed him, gently, where I'd just touched, and his spine bowed as if there were an invisible rope attached to the center of his body dragging him ceilingward.

  His eyes had bled to leopard blue-gray when he looked back at me. His face was as frantic as I'd ever seen it during sex. He was usually so controlled, it was interesting to see him like this; I liked it, or maybe it was just different and I wanted to try the limits of it.

  I bent back over him, intending to lick the length of him and then stop and do what he wanted, probably, most likely, but he did something he'd never done with just me.

  "Hopscotch," he said.

  I raised up and looked at him. "You safeworded?"

  "Yes," he said, in a hoarse voice that held an edge of growl to it.

  "I've never heard you safeword," Jason said.

  "I've only seen Asher make him safeword," I said.

  "Sometimes it's not about pain, Anita. I want you, now, like this," he said, his voice deeper with the edge of the leopard that filled his eyes. He had utter control during sex, during bondage, and with his beast; if he didn't he couldn't have stripped on stage and shifted to his animal form in front of a crowd of customers--read potential victims.

  I stared at one of the loves of my life; something about the scene we'd just done had hit some major switch for him. I'd ask him later, but for right now, I'd respect his general safeword and do what he asked.

  "Jade wants some privacy," Domino said. He moved off the bed with her still curled small in his arms. I could see him tight and ready inside the red silk, but if they were leaving the room, it wasn't my problem. They were lovers, just not usually without me in the room for Jade's comfort. They'd work it out.

  "Okay," I said.

  "Have fun," J.J. said.

  Domino smiled. "She already has, thank you."

  "My pleasure," she said, and grinned.

  His smile turned to a grin.

  Jade murmured something to him, and whatever she'd said made him turn for the door like he had a purpose. I hoped she'd agreed to have sex with just him, but either way, not my issue. I had other fish to fry, or maybe sausage, something like that.

  I looked down at Nathaniel. His eyes had bled back to their usual extraordinary lavender, but his face was still almost frantic with need. Later I'd ask him what about all of it had flipped his switch so hard, but right now I'd see just how long and how hard I could flip that switch.

  11

  NATHANIEL WAS ONE of those men who was longer when he was at his most excited. He could gain two inches in length between "normal" erection and this, but he was also vibratingly hard, like wrapping my hand around rock wrapped in warm, velvet skin.

  I was careful as I used my hand to slide him inside me, not just because with the extra length he would be deeper inside me, but because he'd told me when he got this hard that sometimes the sensations were almost too much, so that the pleasure of being touched bordered on a type of pain, and not one he enjoyed.

  I'd had sex with Nathaniel more times than I could count, but he always felt different when he was this hard, almost like making love to someone different, no matter how much my eyes saw the familiar hair, the eyes, that face, the body all achingly familiar to me, and yet as I slipped him inside me it was like my eyes and my body were telling me two different things, so familiar and not.

  I shuddered as he slid inside me, and my voice shook as I said, "God, you're so hard."

  He nodded and closed his eyes, his breath coming out in a shuddering line that trembled down his body and into mine, as if his whole body had shaken itself. That small movement made me close my eyes and have to fight to find my focus. I was on top, he was tied up, I was in charge; it meant I had to hold my shit together and not get completely lost in the sensations.

  I kept my eyes closed and started rocking my body slowly, getting the feel of him inside me this hard. I added a hip roll, like the real version of what belly dancing promises, that deep abdominal roll, with me gripping and releasing as I rode him.

  He began to move his body with mine, so that he thrust up as I squeezed down, and we began that barely moving dance, rising and falling for each other, until I made a small sound for him.

  I opened my eyes and found him
staring up at me. His eyes held that intensity that only shows during sex, and sometimes violence. I think because both strip us down to the bare essentials, so that we can't hide ourselves anymore, not from the person we're with, or even from ourselves. When the sex is good enough, intimate enough, there is nothing like it. I was still Christian, but I understood in moments like this why so many other faiths used sex as a religious experience. You could bend your knees in church and lie, but face to face, naked with Nathaniel buried deep inside me, there were no lies. I loved him, well and truly, and wanted nothing more in that moment than to be as close with him as I possibly could. I bent over him, changing the rhythm of my hips so I could continue to move for him, and he continued to thrust, but eventually I was bent over his body so that we were touching from groin to chest and I was staring into his eyes from inches away. I had to change the rhythm from that invisible dance of muscles and deep body to thrusting my body over him, so that more of him came out of my body, and I shoved my body down the length of him. He thrust his hips up to meet my body, so that it became more intense as we both found a matching rhythm, and I pressed my mouth to his, so that we could kiss while we made love.

  His tongue thrust into my mouth so that the kiss mimicked what our bodies were doing, all of us inside each other, over and over, again, until I had to tear my mouth from his and scream my pleasure. It made me fight my body to keep the rhythm going, because I knew there were bigger orgasms waiting if we could just both hold on for a few . . . more . . . thrusts.

  J.J. crawled near the head of the bed. She was watching us with something close to the intensity on Nathaniel's face; in that moment I knew she wasn't kidding about voyeurism being one of her major kinks. Nathaniel noticed her, too, and we had a moment of looking at each other. It was a moment where one of us could have wanted more privacy, or less.

  "I like an audience," he said.

  "I know you do," I said, and smiled at him, and I kissed him again, so we could do that dance of eager mouths and bodies.

  He pulled back enough to say, "Fuck me, Anita, please, fuck me."

  I smiled and sat up straighter, so that I was riding just his hips. He started thrusting harder, deeper, using the extra flexibility he had in his hips to force himself deeper than most men could get with the woman on top. The extra length meant he hit deeper than normal, and I had a moment where it made me close my eyes and stop moving, frozen on top of him, letting his body do all the work. I started moving back and forth this time so that he stayed buried as deep inside me as he and I could manage. My rhythm grew faster, almost frantic, and he stopped moving, letting me move over him, as I'd let him control before, but from one moment to the next the orgasm washed over me, through me, tearing screams from my mouth as fast as I could draw breath. I gave myself over to the frantic dance of my body over him, so that one orgasm spilled into the next, until I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began, so it was a long spill of pleasure.

  Nathaniel cried out, his body spasming, arms and legs straining, pulling at the ropes that held him down. The muscles in his arms and chest swelled as his body fought against the ropes, and the orgasm spilled his head back, bowing his back, so that his body half rose off the bed as far as the ropes and my body would allow.

  He fell back against the bed, and I collapsed on top of him, feeling the frantic beats of our hearts in my chest. It was like I was lying on top of water that held a drumbeat of his heart, the pulse of his body, and between one beat and the next I fell through. The shields that kept us apart from each other vanished, and suddenly I felt my wrists and ankles bound with rope, hair spilling across my face, but it was a rougher texture than Nathaniel's hair, and curly feels different against your face than straight. I was feeling my hair flung across his face. I felt "my" body inside hers, growing soft, that afterglow of release helping everything be loose and melting, as if some tension that was always there were gone, and I could finally relax deeply and completely.

  I don't know what Nathaniel felt from me in those few moments of intermingling, but I raised my head enough to feel the curly hair brush and then move from my hair, as I looked both up at my own face and down at his at the same time, so it was like being in two places at once, and then I was back inside myself, and Nathaniel blinked up at me. I wondered if I looked as startled as he did. I came back with his feelings and it was just an amazingly happy contentment, and I knew he'd gotten the same from me. I'd been told by Jean-Claude that my thoughts after sex were--not. It was one of the few times my thoughts quieted, calmed; it was the closest I got to meditating. No wonder I liked sex.

  We stared at each other. "Wow," I whispered.

  He smiled. "Always," he whispered back.

  I smiled back. "Always."

  It was one of those magical romantic moments, but we weren't alone in the room, and the other couple hadn't had their romantic moment yet. J.J. said, "Jason, come here." She was holding her arms out to him.

  He crawled toward her over the bed and put that extra sway into the movement, so he seemed to have more muscles and vertebrae than a human could possibly have.

  "Untie me," Nathaniel said, "want to hold you."

  "I would if my lower body worked right now."

  He smiled, very happy with himself at a job well done.

  Jason changed the direction of his crawl and went back to the ropes around Nathaniel's right ankle. "Get his wrists," he said.

  "I kind of liked the idea of him still tied up while we fucked," she said.

  Jason hesitated in the midst of untying Nathaniel, and then laughed. "You can't stay tied up forever without muscle cramps, or just getting cold."

  "Oh, okay, that makes sense," she said.

  "You're thinking something," Jason said, and I knew he wasn't talking to either Nathaniel or me.

  "Honestly?" she said.

  "Yes," he said.

  I turned my head enough on Nathaniel's chest to be able to watch them. I could only see J.J.'s face and the back of Jason's body. Whatever he saw in her expression, it was lost to me; I didn't know her well enough to interpret it.

  "What?" Nathaniel whispered.

  I whispered back, "Not sure."

  "I'm sorry the group sex is over. I had forgotten how much I fucking love to just watch."

  "Would you rather watch than have sex?" he asked.

  "I'm so hot from seeing it all, and what I have done, it's been amazing, and I want, need, to have sex."

  "Me, too," Jason said, "but . . ." and he left the sentence unfinished so she could finish it.

  "But," she said with a little smile, "I'm sorry that Anita and Nathaniel are done."

  Nathaniel turned his head sort of up and backward to see her. "We don't have to be done."

  "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "He's multiorgasmic," Jason said, and there was no trace of envy, or negative anything, it was just a fact.

  Her eyes went a little wide. "Really?"

  "Really," Jason said.

  "After everything you and Anita just did, and you could go again, this soon?" J.J. said.

  "Untie me and let me hold Anita for a few minutes, and yes."

  She gave him a speculative look and turned to me. "Really?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Impressive, especially for a guy," she said.

  "He is impressive," I said, and smiled, "and the two of them together are an awesome combination."

  Jason turned to flash me a grin; Nathaniel bent at the neck, so I moved into the kiss he offered.

  "I'd like to watch the three of you together one more time, and then when we split into couples, I'd like to go down on Anita."

  "That leaves us with nothing to do," Jason said, "and if I have to watch any more girl-on-girl action without getting some action of my own, I'm going to cry."

  She laughed. "So you and Nathaniel don't"--she made a vague waffling motion with her hand--"touch each other?"

  They looked at each other. "We'll touch during sex if we need t
o steady each other," Jason said.

  "You have high-fived each other over me, when you were particularly pleased with yourselves," I said.

  J.J. laughed. "Really?"

  "More than once," I said, and smiled. It had been a very guy moment, and almost ruined the afterglow for me the first time. Now I understood that it was the same as other male best friends high-fiving over a football win, or anything else they were interested in; sex and dancing just happened to be the two areas they had most in common. Once you gave up the idea that sex was different from any other hobby, it made perfect sense.

  "Nathaniel and I are just best friends, no benefits."

  "Even though Nathaniel is bisexual," she said.

  "His bisexuality doesn't affect my sexuality," Jason said.

  "But you've been with men."

  "I've tried it, and it's just not my thing, but even if I were more heteroflexible than I am, it wouldn't make Nathaniel and me lovers."

  "Why not?" she asked.

  He looked back at Nathaniel. They had a long look between them, and it was Nathaniel who said, "We're best friends, and you can't be best friends if you're fucking each other. It messes up the friendship."

  "Some couples are best friends," she said.

  "No," Nathaniel said, "once you love each other like that, you can't be true best friends."

  "Best friends are who you bitch to about your lovers," Jason said. "Can't do that if your best friend is your lover. It gets in the way."

  She looked from one to the other of them. "So you two have never . . ."

  "No," Nathaniel said.

  "Nope," Jason said.

  "I've never been around two men this comfortable with each other about sex and not have them be ex-lovers . . . I take it back, I've never been around two men this sexually comfortable around each other, even if they were ex-lovers."

  "If we'd been lovers we probably wouldn't be this comfortable," Nathaniel said.

  She nodded, and again I could see her thinking, just not quite what she was thinking about. I was pretty sure it was something sexual and/or relationship based, but that was my only guess.

  "I'd like to have some sexual contact with Anita, oral if she'll agree, but I guess it's not fair to make you keep watching, sweetums," she said, smiling at Jason.