Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Oui, but I am not the voyeur that Asher is, and if I am not to join in completely, I would as soon leave. It is not a complaint, merely truth.”

  “I still think you shouldn’t go that far away,” Micah said. “I don’t trust Belle.”

  Jean-Claude smiled. “Wise, and correct.” He spread his hands wide. “If it were just sex between the three of you I could watch and be content to join the cuddling afterward. But it is the emotional content that makes it difficult to be excluded.”

  I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know that you love me, ma petite, but my arms do not fill you with that last drop of something. I see you with Micah and Nathaniel and that last drop of emotion, or contentment, is there.” He held up a hand as if someone had started to speak. “It is the truth. I do not begrudge it, especially with the news we have had tonight. You will need that bond, but it is”—he shook his head—“discomforting to watch, and know that I am not a part of it.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I mean what do you say to the man you love when he’s just told you that he realizes that you love two other men more?

  “Besides, ma petite, you have expressed doubts about me now. You say you enjoyed our time with Augustine, but your actions state otherwise. I think your cats are what you need tonight, ma petite, not the memory of…” He gave that Gallic shrug, and got off the bed. He stood there adjusting his robe with smooth, nervous gestures. When he was nervous, and not policing his movements, he smoothed his clothes. It was one of the few truly human gestures that had survived centuries of being dead. I liked that he did it, and that he didn’t realize he did it, because once he noticed it, his hands went still, as still as his face.

  The little bit of sex I’d had with Micah and Nathaniel had helped me clear my head. “Do you think that I think less of you for having seen you with another man?” I asked.

  “You have implied it,” he said in a voice that was almost neutral.

  I raised myself up on my elbows. “I guess I did, but I don’t mean it. I think I thought it should bother me, but it didn’t. I tried to talk myself into it bothering me, but the truth is—” I sat up, folding my legs tailor fashion. “The truth is, Jean-Claude, I liked seeing you kiss Auggie. I don’t know how I feel entirely about the rest, but it didn’t bother me at the time, so why should it bother me now?” I shook my head. “I’m not going to talk myself into an issue I don’t have.”

  He gave a small smile, uncertain around the edges. Was it my reaction that had made him uncertain? Or was it that I’d trained him that after a major metaphysical or sexual breakthrough, I pulled back and ran? I guess either way, it was my doing, that uncertain smile. I didn’t want him uncertain. I loved him; I shouldn’t be the one making him insecure, not if I loved him. Sometimes the hardest thing about having so many men in my life wasn’t the sex; the sex we could handle, but the emotional stuff…The emotional stuff was harder. I couldn’t help Richard tonight, because his issues were things I couldn’t really help him with, but this issue, this I could fix, or I could try to.

  I smiled at him, and tried to put into that smile everything a man wants to see in a woman’s smile. I watched his eyes fill up with that dark light that has nothing to do with vampires and everything to do with a man. His smile matched his eyes, confident, sure of itself, anticipatory.

  “What would you have of me, ma petite?” His voice curled over my bare skin like the tickling edge of fingernails. It made me shiver.

  “You’re overdressed,” I said.

  “Are you certain you wish to do this, ma petite? You have never taken three of us before, and the ardeur will not rise again tonight, it has been too well fed.”

  He was offering me an out, but if I said no, then he’d leave the room. I’d already watched Asher and Richard walk out; I did not want to lose another of my men tonight. I needed as many around me as I could manage. Saying it made me almost want to call Asher back, but…I’d never done the full deal with three of my guys at the same time. Four would have to wait.

  “I said, you are overdressed,” and I made it a very firm statement.

  Jean-Claude’s smile widened. “Easily remedied.” He undid the robe, and let it fall to the floor. He stood there pale and perfect. I had seen him nude a thousand times or more, but I never got over the shock of him. It was as if he were some amazing work of art, and I had stolen him away from the museum where they kept him roped off and safe, stolen him so I could run my hands over the smooth, flawless surface of him.

  “You’re too far away,” I whispered.

  He smiled wide enough to flash just a hint of fang. “That, too, is easily remedied.” He crawled up on the bed, and I watched his body, small and loose, more than his face. Until he fed, he’d be small, which meant I could indulge in something that I didn’t get to do much. By the time you get most men out of their clothes they’re not as small as they can get—no, definitely larger.

  “I know what you are thinking of, ma petite.” His voice was chiding.

  “Did you read my mind?”

  “Non, ton visage.”

  He’d said he’d read my face. I was picking up a little French here and there in self-defense.

  He hesitated at my feet, and I realized he was looking at Micah. “And you, Nimir-Raj, what do you say to this?”

  Micah smiled at him. “I’m here to try to make things work better, not make them worse.”

  “I don’t try to make things worse,” I said.

  “Shh,” Micah said, “don’t take it personally.”

  I opened my mouth, realized I was going to start a squabble if not a fight, and I didn’t want to fight anymore tonight. “Fine, I won’t take it personally.”

  “You’re not going to argue about it?” Nathaniel asked.

  I shook my head, and lay back against the pillows. “Nope.”

  Micah and Nathaniel exchanged looks.

  “What?” I said.

  They both shook their heads. “Nothing,” Micah said.

  “Nothing,” Nathaniel said, but he was smiling.

  “I don’t argue about everything.”

  “Of course not,” Micah said.

  “I don’t,” I said.

  “Not anymore,” Nathaniel said.

  I slapped his shoulder.

  He grinned. “Hit me harder, if you want it to hurt.”

  I didn’t hit him again. “You’d enjoy it too much.”

  He grinned wider.

  “I am no longer the only one who is not ready,” Jean-Claude said.

  I glanced down at the other two men. He was right. They definitely weren’t ready to go.

  “We’ve talked too long,” Nathaniel said.

  I waited to be uncomfortable at the thought of three men and just me with no holds barred on the sex. I waited, but the discomfort didn’t come. I lay there and waited to feel overwhelmed, or uncomfortable, but…I just wasn’t.

  “I think I can fix it,” I said, and started to slide lower on the bed, turning toward Nathaniel as I did it. I started kissing my way down his body, then thought of something. I looked back at Jean-Claude where he knelt on the bed. “You didn’t ask Nathaniel’s opinion.”

  “Micah is your Nimir-Raj, Nathaniel is not.”

  “But he’s still my sweetie.”

  “It’s okay, Anita,” Nathaniel said, petting my shoulder. “Thanks for thinking of me, but I’m okay with not being asked.”

  I looked up at his face with my face almost to his groin. If it seemed an odd time for a in-depth talk he didn’t complain. “Why are you okay?”

  “Jean-Claude is right, I’m not anyone’s leader, and I’m okay with that. If we were all completely dominant our happy little domestic situation wouldn’t work.”

  “But just because you’re not dominant doesn’t mean that your opinion doesn’t count.”

  “No,” he said, and gave a little laugh, “no, but it does mean that I don’t have as many opinions.”

  “But
…”

  “You want me to be more dominant?” he asked.

  “I’d like to know how you feel about this, yeah.”

  “Suck my dick, so we can fuck.” He was smiling while he said it.

  I blinked at him for a second or two, then shrugged, and said, “Okay.”

  20

  I DID WHAT he wanted, and a lot more. I used hand and mouth to get both Micah and Nathaniel back to the smooth hardness that they had been before all the soul searching. I didn’t want any more soul searching tonight. I wanted to touch and be touched. Sex was the only time I let myself go. Let all the worries, the issues, everything wash away. When I had sex I just concentrated on the sex. It was the only time I was truly in the moment with no hesitation and no other thought.

  I held them both in my hands. When I’d first tried to play with them both at the same time, I’d found that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t concentrate on both hands equally, and when you’ve got a handful of the most delicate bits on a man’s body, you want to be able to concentrate. But practice makes perfect, and I could do it now. I could hold each of them in my hand and stroke and play with them. I’d finally found something I was ambidextrous at.

  Jean-Claude stayed sitting at the foot of the bed. He made no move to join us. I looked at him, that careful face. He’d made his position clear. He didn’t just want to watch. I’d never tried to entertain three of the men at once. Cuddling, blood sharing, but not for sex.

  I went to him where he sat so still, his back touching the foot of the bed. He’d gone as far away as he could without leaving the bed. Had he thought I would make him watch and not touch him? The very blankness of his face said yes, he had. I had a memory, not a vision, just a memory. It just didn’t happen to be my memory, not originally. I saw Belle in her big bed, so similar to this one. She had two other vampires with her. I was watching her from the foot of the bed where she had tied me to the posts. I could feel the pull in my shoulders where the ropes were a little too high for comfort. But she didn’t want me comfortable. She wanted me punished. Tied to her bed where she had taught me, us, what true desire could be. Bound, helpless, knowing that I could not touch her, and that no one would touch me. When we’d been far away from her, we could resist wanting her, but standing there, smelling her skin and sweat, we couldn’t help but want her. She was an addiction, and the only way to save yourself was to never take another drink, another hit, another taste of her. I fought free of the memory enough to think, Jean-Claude had been tied to that bed, not me. Too tall to be my body. Too male. Not me, but the memory still burned, still had the power to make his face close down to that carefulness.

  I touched his face, and I let my face show how sorry I was that all those awful things had happened to him. So sorry that I hadn’t been there to save him. We were shut down too tight behind our shields for him to read my mind, probably just as well, but he saw what I meant him to see. He came to me with a sigh that was almost a sob. He kissed me as if he would breathe me in through his lips, and I kissed him as if he were the last drop of water in the world and I were dying of thirst.

  I tasted the sweet metal of blood in my mouth. It made him draw back from the kiss. “I am sorry, ma petite…”

  I stopped his apology with a kiss, feeding at his mouth, and he fell into that kiss with his hands on my body, his nakedness pressed as tight to mine as it could be. The only reason his body did not respond was that it couldn’t until he fed.

  I drew back from the kiss, my breathing ragged, the taste of my own blood in my mouth. A drop of blood grew and trembled on my lower lip.

  He kissed that drop away, and stared down at me, as he knelt in front of me. His face was fierce and full of some wonder, as if I’d done something amazing. I hadn’t. I’d just finally decided to get out of my own way; out of everyone’s way.

  I moved back along the bed, with his hand in mine. I pulled him along with me, on our knees, until we reached Micah and Nathaniel’s feet. One of the things I’d noticed in dealing with more than one man in bed at a time was there were only two ways to go about it. Choice one: the men took turns, completely separate lovemaking, except that they both got to watch each other have sex with me. Choice two: they both touched me at the same time, and they did foreplay, or more, with me at the same time. Choice two was harder to choreograph. Harder on the egos involved. It took more concentration on my part. It was just a higher level of skills needed all around, and a larger dose of secure masculinity, too. I realized now, after Auggie, that there was a choice three, but I didn’t think any of us was up to it tonight. I knew I wasn’t. I had no idea how to even raise the question to Micah and Nathaniel: would they kiss another man? I mean, when did this sound like a good conversation to have? Never, I think.

  I let go of Jean-Claude’s hand, leaving him kneeling, while I lay down between the other two men. I traced a hand down their bodies until I touched the smooth heads, the skin so soft but the flesh underneath so hard, so firm.

  Micah made a soft sound as my hand smoothed over the top of him. I looked up at Nathaniel and found his face intent on me. His eyes bright and eager, alit with anticipation. A gentle caress wouldn’t do it for him. I had to still my hand on Micah, to wrap my hand around Nathaniel, and squeeze hard. It fluttered his eyes shut and forced small noises from his mouth. I’d found that I could play with two at once if the pressure was the same for both hands, but if one man needed something different, I had to concentrate separately. Micah could rev up to a level that was close to Nathaniel’s preference, but it took time to get Micah in that headspace. Nathaniel came out of the box wanting rougher handling than most men ever liked.

  I went back to playing with both of them at the same time, running my hand up and down the shaft of them, sliding over the head, firm, but gentle. Too hard, and most men experienced the pressure as discomfort; too gentle and it wasn’t enough stimulation. It had taken me a while to find a happy medium.

  I loved the sensation of my hand running up and down and around all that velvet muscle. It made me close my eyes, arch my back with the anticipation of it. When I could focus again, I gazed up at Jean-Claude. He knelt where I’d left him, close enough to touch us, but not touching anyone.

  “I want you in my mouth while I play with them.”

  He looked at Micah and Nathaniel. “Does everyone agree to this, for I will have to be very close to both of you, to be in the position that she requests?”

  I tightened my grip on both the men, just enough to make their eyes flutter shut.

  “Non, ma petite, that is cheating. Let them go long enough for them to answer without your so-persuasive touch.”

  I mumbled, “Sorry.” I put my hands on my stomach, and behaved.

  Micah swallowed hard enough for me to hear it, then nodded. “I’m fine with it.”

  Nathaniel smiled that lazy cat-with-cream smile that he got sometimes during sex. It usually meant he was going to suggest something that I’d never done, or that we’d never done together, or he was going to make some observation. “I just want to see if she can concentrate on all of us at once. I give it a difficulty rating of eight.”

  I frowned at him. “Are you saying I’ve never attempted anything that took more skill than an eight before?”

  He shrugged. “Remember I did this professionally for a while. My ten on this scale is probably stuff that you don’t even want to know is physically possible.”

  I opened my mouth to ask him, Like what? but decided that he was right. I probably didn’t want to know.

  “Let’s try,” I said.

  Jean-Claude didn’t ask again. He simply crawled over my body. He ended with his legs over my shoulders, so that he was sitting in front of my face, which put him exactly where I wanted him. I traced my hands across the other two bodies. Nathaniel turned on his side first, and Micah followed him. That gave me a better angle, since my movement was about to become limited.

  I wrapped my hands around them, and raised my mouth up to slide o
ver Jean-Claude’s body. He was as small as he got, loose and delicate. It always amazed me how something so small could become so large. Nothing on my body could change so much—maybe that’s why it fascinated me. I loved the texture when a man was totally soft. Until we shared blood, I could roll that soft, soft flesh around my mouth, suck on it all. Normally I would have tried to draw his testicles into my mouth, too, but with both my hands busy, I didn’t dare. Too delicate a work to risk, when I wasn’t sure I could concentrate on it all. I rolled my hands up and down Micah and Nathaniel’s bodies while I sucked on Jean-Claude, drawing him harder and faster, over and over, glorying in the fact that I could take all of him in without a struggle. Like this, it was all about sensation. I could roll and flick and suck with my mouth and tongue, able to do things with his body that I could never have done with him erect.

  Jean-Claude cried out, his hands clutching at the dark wood of the headboard. He looked down at me, and I rolled my eyes upward to catch that frantic look. That look that said the sensations were almost too much.

  I found a rhythm for all of them, but it was the rhythm of the sucking: quick, fast, as fast as I could do it, over and over and over. I ran my hands over Nathaniel and Micah in that same frantic rhythm, pulling, firm, and quick, over and over and over.

  Micah’s hand grabbed mine. “Stop, or I’m going to go.” He squeezed my hand, as if I’d made some move to keep going. “Please, Anita, please.”

  I looked up at Jean-Claude. His eyes were closed, his shoulders hunched, his body shuddering above me. I realized that though he was enjoying it, it was treading that line between feels better than anything else and too much. He probably wouldn’t have said anything. He’d have let me do it as long as I wanted, but then he’d been trained by someone who was a much harsher mistress than I would ever be.

  I drew back from his body. He half collapsed above me, his body spasming. He rolled to the side, and Micah gave him room. Jean-Claude lay on his back, spine bowing, hands clutching at the black sheets.

  I was left with only Nathaniel in my hand. I looked at his face. Eager, happy. He leaned in toward me. “You win.” He moved in for a kiss, but I squeezed him hard and tight. It threw his head back, closed his eyes, spasmed his body. No one else in the bed would have wanted me to squeeze that tight, but he loved it.