Authors: Laurell K. Hamilton
I licked his neck, a quick flick of tongue, and he gasped for me. I licked harder, and he shuddered. I kissed his neck, and he made a small noise, not of protest, but of eagerness. I opened my mouth wide, and let my breath touch hot upon his skin, and then I bit him. No more foreplay, no more games. I bit him.
He struggled against me, he couldn't help it, and I used his hair and my arm around his body, and the press of my body against his back, to hold him in place. I felt his skin under my teeth, felt the meat of him in my mouth, and underneath that was that frantic beating pulse. I could taste his life underneath his skin, taste it, and know that it was mine, mine if I wanted it. Mine because part of him wanted to give it up to me.
The sensation of that much meat in my mouth was almost overwhelming, and I fought not to bite down and take away all that flesh. I fought not to take everything that he offered in that moment. I bit down, held him as he struggled, held him as his wrists jerked on the chains, as his body began to spasm, and still I sank my teeth into his flesh. The first sweet taste of blood like salt and metal and something so much sweeter filled my mouth, and I felt him convulse against me, heard him cry out. And I fed, I fed the
ardeur,
and hadn't even known it was coming. I fed on his blood, fed on the meat of
his body, fed on his sex, fed on all of him. I fed, and when I looked up from his body, I saw my eyes reflected in the mirror. Black light, with that flash of brown light, my eyes drowned with power.
I let go with my mouth, abruptly, and saw blood on my mouth, on my chin, shining in the lights. I let go of his hair, his body, and stepped back, and I knew that my eyes were still full of that dark light. I was afraid for a second what I'd done, but found that other than a perfect set of my own teeth marks, set like a bloody necklace on his skin, I hadn't bitten through to his pulse. I hadn't hurt him, not more than he wanted to be hurt.
Jean-Claude was standing there, in front of me.
“Ma petite,”
he whispered,
“ma petite.”
But I knew what he was thinking, I knew what he wanted. Bound closer than we'd ever been, it cut both ways. He mouthed something about how did I feel, was I alright, but that wasn't what he was thinking. Not really.
“Say what you want,” I said, “say what you want.”
He stopped trying to be careful, and said, simply, “Kiss me.”
I went to him, and he kissed me. He kissed me as if he were tasting me, as if with tongue and teeth and lips he could drain from me every last drop of Nathaniel's blood and the taste of me along with it. He licked the roof of my mouth and drew a sound from low in my throat. His eyes had bled to midnight blue light, as if the darkest of water held starlight in it.
I caught the glint of my own eyes, and they were still full of light, blind with the darkness of it, except it wasn't blind, it was anything but. It was like being hyperaware of everything, anything. I knew suddenly that as long as the light lasted, that every sense would be heightened. I remembered thinking in the cemetery that to make love like this would either be the most wondrous thing ever, or drive you mad. Staring up into Jean-Claude's drowning blue eyes, I was willing to bet on wondrous.
“We must see to Nathaniel first,” he said, but his voice was hoarse and thick with need.
I nodded. “Yes, Nathaniel first.”
“And then?” he asked.
“Say what you mean,” I said, and my voice wasn't as hoarse as his, but it didn't sound exactly like me either.
“And then there is a couch in my office,” he said.
“I was thinking the desk,” I said.
He looked at me, and even with those drowning eyes, the look was very male. “Either will do for me, but it is you who will be on bottom, so it is your choice.”
“I'll be on bottom?” I made it a question.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because that is what I want.”
“Okay,” I said.
N
ATHANIEL WAS DONE
for the night, there would be no shapeshifting. He was barely conscious in that after great sex kind of way. A few of the customers complained, but not many. Most of them felt that they'd had a show worth the price of admission. We got Nathaniel settled in what the strippers called the quiet room. It had an oversized couch, blankets, low lights, and was just what the name implied, a quiet room, where you could either sleep or get your shit together when things went odd. There were smaller rooms where you could pay to have a private dance, but this wasn't one of them. This was more a room for crashing when you were tired or had to pull a surprise double shift.
I stroked Nathaniel's hair, and asked him, “Are you alright?”
He'd opened his eyes just barely and smiled up at me. I'd never seen his face so content. “Yes, very, yes.”
I told him to enjoy the afterglow, and I put Requiem on the door, because Nathaniel was mine to take care of, and I planned on being busy for awhile.
My eyes had bled back to normal by the time I walked down the hallway toward Jean-Claude's office. He stopped in the hallway and called after me, “Where are you going,
ma petite
?”
I paused at the door and looked at him. “To your office.”
“Your mood is cooler now, and the power has left you.” He was trying to be utterly neutral, and failing just a bit.
I opened the door still looking at him. “Come into the office, Jean-Claude, and lock the door.” I didn't wait to see what he'd do, I went through the door, leaving it open behind me. I went to the desk and hopped up on it. I could have tried for subtle, but it was late, and I didn't feel the least bit subtle. I put my boots up on the desk, my legs apart, and let the skirt ride up as far as it wanted to go. It was outrageously slutty, but the look on his face as he came through the door made me glad I'd done it.
He leaned against the door and locked it, and was unbuttoning his jacket as he walked across the floor. I pulled off the leather jacket and threw it to
the floor. His jacket was on the floor, the fluffy white cravat undone so that his upper neck showed pale. I slipped the shoulder holster off my arms but only had the belt partly undone, when he pulled the shirt over his head, and was naked from the waist up. I finished the belt, but he was at the desk before I got it off, slipping the shoulder holster free and setting gun and all beside me on the big black lacquer desk.
I went to my knees on his desk and fell upon the silken muscle and lines of his chest with hands and fingers and mouth. I licked the cross-shaped burn scar. I drew first one nipple and then the other into my mouth. Rolled them with my tongue, sucked them. Used my hands to mound the flesh of his chest, so I could take more of his nipple into my mouth, more of his breast. Until I could lock my mouth around as much as would fill it, and bit down until he cried out and his hands found my face, drew me away from his body, and to his mouth.
We kissed as we had on stage, as if we were exploring every inch with tongue, lips, teeth. He drew back from the kiss, and his eyes had bled to blue. Mine were still my own, but I didn't care. His hands found my shirt, and he pulled it over my head and bent over me, kissing down the line of my neck, my shoulder, and mounds of my breasts where they spilled up from the black lace bra. He stuck his hands inside my bra and lifted my breasts out so they rested on the underwire, like it was a black frame for the pale mounds of my breasts.
He went to his knees and pulled me to the edge of the desk so he could run his tongue over my breasts. Flicking against my nipples, quick, and light, and wet, until I made small noises. He locked his mouth around my breast and drew as much of my breast as he could between his fangs without nicking me. He sucked, hard and harder, rolling his tongue along my nipple and drawing harder on my breast until he stretched me out in a line that felt so good, but I could feel how careful he was being. It wasn't the first time he'd played with me like this, but it was the first time that I'd known that this was only the beginning of what he wanted. It wasn't like telepathy, or a picture in my head, I just knew. I knew what he wanted to do. What he was fighting not to do.
“Bleed me,” I said.
He rolled his eyes up to me, so he could see my face.
“Bleed me, I know how long you've wanted to do that now. How careful you've been.”
He stopped and released my breast slowly, carefully. He said, “
Ma petite,
you are drunk with the new powers, but tomorrow night, you will not be.”
I shook my head. “Let me feel what it's like to have you stretch me tight
in your mouth and draw just a little blood. I'm not saying that the whole ride will appeal to me, but I am saying that I'm willing to try a little, to see if I'll like a lot, or not.”
He looked strangely suspicious, and I realized that it was my expression in his eyes, more than his, as if I'd taught him that look, and this caution.
“I give you my word that I won't punish you for anything I agree to try tonight. A little blood tonight, only a little, barely a nick, just a taste.” I leaned in toward his face. “I know that you want to feed there now. You never told me.”
“Nor would I have,
ma petite,
you let me take blood so infrequently, that I would never have dreamt to ask such a liberty. When you will not share your neck, why would I think to ask for more delicate parts?”
“I'm offering now. I'd take me up on it, if I were you. Who knows if I'll ever offer again, if you say no now.” I stared into his face from inches away and let him see that there was no conflict here, no doubts, just eagerness. Eagerness to try.
“What has gotten into you,
ma petite
?”
“You, you've gotten into me, or I want you to. I want you inside me, Jean-Claude, I want you inside me. I want you to lie me back across this desk, with my breasts bare and your mark on them. I want you to push yourself inside me and watch the blood flow from the wound that you made. I want you to watch the blood flow fast and faster, while you fuck me.”
“You are echoing my fantasy,
ma petite,
have I taken you over?”
“I don't think so,” I said, but even the thought of it didn't panic me. “Just a little tonight, Jean-Claude, just a little nick.”
He reached around my body, and it took me a second to realize he was undoing the back of my bra. He slipped it off my shoulders, down my arms, and let it fall to the floor. He gazed up at me, and his eyes never got higher than my breasts. I didn't mind in the least.
He cupped my breasts in his hands, gently, reverently, and laid the gentlest of kisses upon each of them. He raised eyes to me that were back to their normal midnight blue, as human as his eyes ever became. “Are you sure,
ma petite,
are you sure?”
I nodded. “Yes, oh, yes.”
He cupped my right breast in his hand, then took just the tip of it in his mouth, a quick drawing of his mouth over my flesh. He sucked and pulled until my nipple was tight and thick under his touch. It brought my breath faster, made my pulse race. He rolled his eyes upward to watch my face, and whatever he saw there reassured him, because he drew hard and fast, made me gasp. Then he drew, slowly, so slowly, more and more of my breast into
his mouth. He'd never taken so much in at once, because to do even this much was to risk drawing blood. His mouth was so warm, so wide, the hard press of his teeth was as distant as he could make it and still hold me in his mouth.
He used his hands to help his mouth, pour so carefully over me, his breath like heat against my skin. He moved carefully off of me, his mouth sliding back until there was much less between his lips. He went back out to the safe distance that he'd been before. He drew just the tip of my breast in his mouth, and he sucked. He sucked and pulled and stretched it out and out, until I made small sounds low in my throat.
He squeezed my breast between his hand, squeezed it, and rolled his eyes up to watch my face. When I didn't tell him to stop, he squeezed tighter, tighter until it felt like he was trying to garrote my breast with his fingers. It hurt, it did, but it was all mixed up with the sucking and the pulling on my nipple, and that didn't hurt, not really. In fact it felt good, so good.
It fell out of my mouth in a voice that was almost a moan, “Yes, please, please, yes.”
He rolled his eyes up again to watch my face, and there was something in those eyes, some knowledge, or warning, and suddenly he bit down, not as hard as I'd seen in his head, but a little. He let the barest tips of those sharp fangs graze my breast as he sucked it, as he squeezed it with his hand. It was sharp, but it didn't hurt. It was lost in the other sensations. His hand squeezing so tight, his mouth sucking so hard, the tiny bit of the fangs was nothing compared to the rest.
He let his mouth slide down my breast until only the nipple was caught between his teeth. But there on the mound of my breast were two tiny dots of crimson. As I watched those two tiny dots began to glide down my skin. He drew my nipple out and out, and we both watched those two tiny trails of red slide down my skin. He pulled on my nipple so hard and so long, that I cried out, “Enough, enough.”
He drew back, gently, and knelt for a moment watching the colors flow on my skin, not just of the blood, but of the marks of his fingers. They faded, but the two lines of blood didn't fade. They glided down my skin, and as the sensation returned to my breast, they tickled down my skin. The feel of that tiny gliding touch, the sight of it easing down my skin, made me shiver.
He smoothed his hands up the insides of my thighs, and it was only as his fingers brushed certain parts that I made real pain sounds. “No manual manipulation tonight.”
He frowned. “Are you hurt?”
I explained as briefly as possible. “Let's just say that the
ardeur
needed
feeding and Requiem was a gentleman. I think we'd both be less sore if he'd been a little less of a gentleman.”
He looked puzzled.
“I'll explain everything in detail, but later, please, Jean-Claude. Take off the pants, I've had all the leather pants up close and personal that I can handle tonight. Let me see you nude.”
He peeled off boots and the leather pants with the practiced ease of someone who wears a lot of them. I'd seen him nude more times than I could count now, but he never stopped amazing me with his beauty. Flawless was the only word I had for him. White and pale, and perfect, as if someone could carve cold white marble and breathe life into it, and plant a blush of color at his groin, where he sat straight and thick and ready. The hair that trailed from the delicate thimble of his belly button down to his groin was as black as the curls that fell around his shoulders. That black, black hair stark and unreal against the whiteness of him.
There should have been gentler words for what I wanted, but all I could think of was how much I wanted him inside me. How much I wanted him to sink that shining color inside my body. “Fuck me,” I said, because
make love
was not what I meant. I wanted the sex that went with what he'd done to my breast. I wanted the sex that matched the blood trailing down my skin.
“Fuck me.”
He bent over me and licked the blood off my chest, not a quick lick, but thick, long movements of his tongue, as if he'd never tasted anything so good and didn't want to lose a single drop. I was making small wordless noises and writhing on the desk by the time he raised his face up and showed me eyes that had drowned in blue flame.
I whispered, “Please, Jean-Claude, please.”
He did what I'd seen in his head, he did what I'd offered. He laid me back against the desk and pulled my hips to the very edge of the wood. My skirt was completely bunched around my waist like a belt. I was still wearing the thigh-highs and the boots, and nothing else. He used his hands to spread my legs apart, then came to me, the tip of him sliding against my opening.
“You are wet, but you are still tight.”
“Fuck me,” I said, “please, just do it, please, please, please, please . . .”
Somewhere in the last
please,
he began to force himself inside me. I was tight, so tight, and so wet. On another night, I would have asked for more foreplay to make that horrible tightness loose, but tonight I wanted to feel him push his way in. I wanted to feel him shove himself inside me.
He pushed himself between my legs, using his hips and legs to drive himself into me. It was just this side of too tight, and I started to struggle
underneath the push of it. Not struggle to get away, but struggle because I couldn't help it. My hands and arms swept over his desk and knocked everything within reach off, including my gun. I wanted something softer to touch, something to scratch and hold on to, but there was nothing but the cool wood of the desk, and that wasn't what I wanted to touch.
When he was as far inside me as he could go, he began to pull himself out, slowly, as if my body were trying to hold on to him, and maybe it was. He drew himself out slowly, and then began to work himself in, just as slowly. If he didn't hurry, I wasn't going to be tight anymore. I wanted that feeling of him forcing himself into my body, and we were going to lose that if he kept being gentle.
“Fuck me, Jean-Claude, fuck me while I'm tight, please.”
“That will hurt,” he said.
“I want it to hurt.”
He gave me a look, then gripped my hips in his hands, let me feel some of that otherworldly strength, and he did what I asked. He drove himself into me, and pulled himself out of me, as fast and hard as he could. It did hurt, and I wasn't ready for it, and it was exactly what I wanted.
He drove himself in as deep and hard as he could, so that the impact of our bodies tore a grunt from my body and a sound in his that I'd never heard before. He trapped my hips under the strength of his hands, and he forced himself inside me, fought the tightness of my body, as if he were piercing my body, making a new hole, because this one wasn't wide enough.