I grabbed Requiem's arms, dug my fingers into his flesh. "Damian is dying, and I don't know how to save him."
"Simply raise the ardeur and feed."
"I don't know how to do it, without the ardeur pushing on me. Shit."
"Do you mean you do not know how to raise lust for me?"
"Nothing personal, but I don't know you."
"There is no shame in not being a creature of casual lusts," he said.
"Damian is dying," I whispered it, because I could feel it. I could feel him beginning to pull away from me. He was trying not to drag me to the grave with him, so he was shielding as best he could.
"I can raise lust in you, Anita, it is not the ardeur , but it is one of my gifts."
If we'd had time I would have asked him what the difference was, but we were out of time. "Do it, help me feed. Don't let me kill Damian, not like this."
"Drop your shields, or I am helpless to bespell you." He cupped the side of my face in his warm hand.
Damian felt like a cold wind in my head. I dropped my shields, and two things happened at once. Requiem's power crashed into me. It was as if that power had been pushing at me all night, and I simply hadn't felt it. He couldn't have gotten past my shields, he was right, but without them... without them, I was suddenly wet, soaking through what panties I had. It left me breathless, helpless, staring up at him, my body already moist and ready for him. It wasn't lust, it was like hours of really good foreplay packed into seconds. The second thing that happened was my own special little power went, wow. It was as if his power complemented the ardeur , as if it were a key to the lock, or maybe all of Belle's line were like this, that we could bring each other.
Whatever the reason, whatever the cause, the ardeur roared back to life. And I felt it smash into him the way his power had hit me. His eyes drowned in bright, blue flame, like gas lights sparkling in his skull. Our mouths met, and this kiss wasn't gentle. This kiss was like feeding. Like we were trying to suck each other's souls from between our lips. The thought brought the memory of what the Dragon had shown me, had tried to get me to do, but it was distant and gone. It wasn't souls we were after.
I fed on him and shoved it down that cold line to Damian. I heard him in my head, "Anita," but still he was cold, still he lay in someone's arms.
The Jeep skittered around a turn and stopped. Graham yelled from the front seat. "What the fuck are you two doing back there? My skin is crawling with it."
My hand was on the seat belt a second before Requiem's. The seat belt unsnapped, and he spilled me to the seat with him on top. He was suddenly grinding me against the seat, and I was suddenly very aware that the front of the leather pants were laced up tight. Those lacings began to rub against me. I tore the side of the thong panties and pressed naked against the front of his leather pants.
He hesitated, as if afraid he'd hurt me, but I pulled at him, made him collapse on top of me. He looked down at me with eyes like drowned flames, and whatever he saw on my face seemed to decide him, because he slid hands on my naked hips, cupped my ass, and angled me up against the front of his pants, so the leather bindings rubbed directly onto the most delicate of places.
The sensation bowed my spine, threw my head back. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pressed myself tighter against the front of him, dug that strangely smooth roughness in against me.
That distant spark was growing brighter. I shoved the energy into Damian, shoved the feel of it, the heat of it, and knew he was awake. Knew he gazed up at the world through eyes that had swum to green flames.
His voice sounded soft in my head. "Anita, what are you doing?"
"Feeding."
Requiem did something with his hips that brought me back into my head, my skin. I knew I was still giving energy to Damian, small bits of the pleasure, but I was back to gazing up at Requiem. His hands, his arms were around my waist, his groin pressing into me, the leather braiding rubbing up and down the front of my body. He rotated his hips and rubbed back and forth between my legs. I could feel him swollen and thick behind the leather.
I let my head fall back, so that my upper body draped backward, my hair trailing along the seat, and was staring upside down when the door opened. Graham stood looking down at me. He went to his knees, as if he meant to kiss me, but Requiem picked me up, moved me out of reach. He put one hand under my shoulders and lifted, so that my back was pressed against the back of the seat. I was suddenly trapped between his body and the seat in a way that I hadn't been before. The push of his body was firmer, harder, rougher. It was as if he'd spread me wider with the push of his body, peeled back the layers of my most intimate places, until the leather braiding rubbed directly on those spots, that spot.
It was as if he knew exactly what he'd done, because he looked down at me with those burning eyes, and said, "Does it hurt?"
"No, not yet." I put my hands on his shoulders, and would have drawn him down to a kiss, but he drew back, and stroked himself against me, so hard, so rough, so smooth. The leather was wet from my body, from how wet he'd made me. If I'd been a little less wet, he'd have hurt me, but it didn't hurt. He began to pivot his hips, rubbing his groin against mine, beginning to rub across me, not just back and forth, but around, rolling himself over me, around and around, over and over. That bright spark of pleasure began to build inside me. It all felt good, but it was at the height of his stroke, as his groin brushed over that one small point, that the spark grew. It grew as if he were feeding some tiny flame. Every stroke, every rub of the leather, soaking wet from my body, every time he touched me there, the spark flared bright, and brighter. It was as if fire had weight to it, and that bright light grew heavy inside my body, until I could feel the brush of that heat every time he moved over me. Until it was as if my lower body became heat and weight, nothing but the building pleasure, and then finally at the height of one of those rough strokes, all that heat and weight spilled over me, through me, washing like heat across my body. Spilling in screams from my mouth, dancing down my hands, so that I ripped his shirt until I found skin to drive my nails into.
It was only then that he drove himself against me hard enough that it was almost pain. Hard enough that I felt his body convulse against me through the leather of his pants. His hands were on the back of the seat, holding us in place, but his neck was bowed, his eyes closed, and his body pinning me to the seat as if he would press himself through the leather and find himself inside me. His body convulsed a second time, and he crushed me against the seat, and the cry I gave him was part pleasure and part pain.
It was only then that the ardeur truly fed. It had gotten small bits, but not what it needed, not what I needed. Requiem had been controlling himself with an iron will, and that iron will had kept me out of something that I needed. Only with his release had all his walls come tumbling down, and the ardeur had roared into that breach, and fed.
His body collapsed down the seat, so that he was resting on his legs, still on his knees, still with my legs wrapped around him, but no longer pushing us against the seat. His shoulders slumped, and he pressed his face against the top of my head, one hand on the back of the seat, and the other around my waist.
I could hear his heart racing, feel his pulse against the side of my face, where his neck lay, warm and close above me. If I'd taken blood from him it would have left him colder, but the ardeur wasn't blood, and it didn't mind sharing its warmth with those who fed it well.
I felt Damian like a warm wind inside my head. He blew me a kiss. "Thank you, Anita, thank you." Then he pulled away, and there was someone touching his arm, taking his hand. He let them lead him onto the dance floor, and I was alone inside my head with Requiem still holding me.
"Oh, God," it was Graham, still kneeling in the open door of the Jeep. "Why wouldn't you share, Requiem, why wouldn't you share?"
Requiem turned his head, slowly, as if even that small movement were an effort. "She is not mine to share."
Graham laid his head on his arms on the
seat, almost as if he would weep.
I spoke staring at Requiem's chest, where the lovely green shirt had been ripped away, and there was a glint of scarlet from my nails. The sleeve on his right arm was ripped away too, and there were more marks there. I said the only thing I could think of, "Did I hurt you?"
That made him laugh, and then wince as if the laughter hurt. "I think, m'lady, I should be asking that of you." He eased me off his body, and himself to the floorboard, so that I was sitting on the seat, and he was kneeling in front of me. It was almost exactly how we started.
He moved down, until he was sitting flat in the floor, with his back against the opposite door from where Graham was still kneeling. "Did I hurt you?" he asked.
"Not yet," I said, but even as I said it the endorphins began to fade, and the first ache began. It was suddenly harder to find a comfortable place to sit on the seats.
"I have hurt you," he said, "and I am a clumsy fool."
I eased until I was sitting more on one hip. "Fool, I don't know you well enough to answer, but clumsy, that I know is a lie. You may be a lot of things, but clumsy isn't one of them."
"You compliment me, even as I see your discomfort."
"Why didn't you just take off the pants and fuck her?" Graham asked. His face looked more in pain than either of ours.
"I told her to let down her shields, and she did it. She trusted me, but she did not understand what my power can do."
"You told me that it was lust," I said, and my voice still sounded lazier than normal, almost sleepy.
"Yes, but it is not seduction as Jean-Claude and Asher can do. It is simply lust."
"It was like hours of really good foreplay all at once. It felt wonderful."
"But it is purely physiological, purely of the body. My gift does not touch the mind, only the flesh."
"What's wrong with that?" Graham asked.
"If a woman's body reacts to my power, but her mind does not, I see it as little better than rape, and I have never been interested in such things." He sighed. "Anita did not want to have intercourse with me, she made that clear. She'd offered me blood once tonight, but she needed to keep the rest for herself. I was hoping to be able to stop sooner, but you kept demanding more. The ardeur did not quiet as I had hoped."
"I could feel it," Graham said, "it was amazing, like what you did to me earlier, but more. It felt like if I could have just touched you, it would have been more."
Requiem said, "More, yes, it would be more."
"What could be more than orgasm?"
He looked at me, and I looked at him, and neither of us looked at Graham.
"I knew it," Graham said, "I fucking knew it."
"I obeyed Anita's wishes. We did not have intercourse, we saved her vampire servant, and the ardeur has been fed."
I looked at him as he sat on the floorboard. He still looked elegant, but sort of dissipated, like an elegant rake. If he'd unfastened those leather pants and made it intercourse, I wouldn't have said no, because truthfully, I'd thought that was all that would save Damian. Or maybe I was just too American, and only intercourse meant sex. Maybe. But whatever the reasoning, Requiem had behaved himself in circumstances where most men wouldn't have. He got a lot of brownie points for that. If I'd had a gold star, I would have pinned it on him.
I did the next best thing. I kissed him on the cheek and said, "Thank you."
43
Graham double-parked in front of Guilty Pleasures and said he'd valet the car for me. I let him do it, which said just how well I was feeling. I was better, but I'd shoved a lot of the last feeding into Damian, and apparently, not kept enough for myself. The learning curve on the new version of the ardeur was going to take some getting used to.
Requiem offered me his hand to help me out of the Jeep, and I took it. I was stiff and more than a little sore, and since he'd helped get me that way, it seemed fair he help me out of the Jeep. Besides, I couldn't just flounce out of the Jeep like normal. I had no underwear on, and one of my great goals in life was not to flash anyone tonight by accident.
Clay, the new blond werewolf, was at the door. A trio of women were chatting him up. A man in coat and hat slipped past his back and into the club. Clay didn't seem to notice. He was far too busy staring at the redhead's chest.
He noticed us in time to suddenly usher the women into the club, before we got there. He stood, one hand on the opposite wrist, as if he'd been doing it all night. But everything about him screamed kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Requiem had a little trouble with the steps leading up to the door, too, which let me know that vampire or not, he might have a few rubby spots of his own. When we were at the top, even with Clay, I stopped long enough to say, "All those women better be of age, Clay."
He looked surprised, either at the thought of it, or that I'd seen him. "They're over twenty-one."
"You see ID?"
He looked perplexed. "Well, Maria said that her friend had left her ID at home. I know Maria."
I shook my head. "You better hope someone catches her friend inside." I let Requiem lead me past the puzzled werewolf.
It was 1:00 in the morning, but when Requiem opened the door, the sound of many people in a small space, having a very good time, spilled out around us. It was hot inside the doors, and it wasn't caused by the heating system, it was just that many bodies in a small space. I couldn't see if Nathaniel was on stage yet, because my view was blocked by a curtain of black-shirted security.
Buzz was talking to the three women. "If she doesn't have ID, she doesn't get in."
"But Clay told us it would be alright," the redhead said, and I assumed it was Maria.
"Maria," Buzz said, "you know the rules. No exceptions, not even for regulars."
The man who'd come in just ahead of us was facing two of the largest security guards I'd seen. One was as blond as Clay, and the other was very, very brunette, as in African American brunette. They were both over six feet, with a shoulder spread that was nearly as wide as I was tall. They made Buzz look small, and I wondered where they'd been when Primo was beating everyone's ass.
The brunette said, "You are not allowed in here."
"I have a right to see my own son," the man said.
"I told you, Marlowe is not dancing tonight. He called in sick."
Marlowe was Gregory's stage name, and he only had one biological unit that called itself his father. The man who'd sexually abused them as children, pimped them out to other pedophiles, and even put them in films. I knew he was in town, but we had a restraining order against him. Alright, Gregory and Stephen did.
I patted Requiem's hand and said, "Excuse me a minute." I went to the big security guards. Buzz saw me moving, and he gave the three women over to someone else to usher outside. He followed me. You'd think he didn't trust me not to start trouble.
"Excuse me," I said, "are you Anthony Dietrich?"
He turned, then had to look down, as if he'd expected me to be taller. "Who's asking?"
The creepy thing was that he had their eyes. Those beautiful cornflower blue eyes stared out of a lined and aged face. He was close to six feet tall, and the face was flat and harsh, not the delicate bone structure of the boys. Only the eyes staring out of a stranger's face.
The eyes shook me, so that I stood there staring for a second, and it was Buzz who said, "The boys have a restraining order against you. You can't enter this club without violating it. Charon, Cerebus, get his ass out of here. Don't hurt him, but get him out."
The two big men took an arm apiece, lifted, and carried him, without his feet touching the ground, out the door.
I turned to Buzz. "Does he try to get in here often?"
"A couple of times, whenever Harlow or Marlowe are scheduled."
I shook my head. "That is just so... wrong."
Buzz nodded, then took a deep breath and shook his shoulders, like a bird settling its feathers. "I'm going to have to talk to Clay."
"You talk to h
im, then send him to me, because I want to talk to him, too."
He looked at me. "Okay, but Brandon saved a chair by the stage for you, and I think he'll be very disappointed if you don't at least catch the end of his act."
It took me a second to remember that Brandon was Nathaniel's stage name. "Oh, yeah, sorry, got distracted."
"The fact that that piece of shit keeps trying to get in and watch his sons strip distracts me, too."
I nodded. "Yeah."
"Requiem will take you to your seat. Enjoy the show."
The vampire was just suddenly at my elbow, and I let him lead me through the crowd, but my eyes were back toward the door. What did Anthony Dietrich want with Gregory and Stephen? What could he possibly want from them after all these years? They were too old for a pedophile to be interested in them, weren't they?
I bumped into a chair and had to apologize to the woman who sat in it, and pay more attention to what was in front of me than what was behind. It was worth paying attention to.
Nathaniel was on stage. I don't know what I'd expected. I knew he stripped. I knew he performed. But I'd never seen him do it.
It wasn't that Nathaniel was shy, but he was quiet, gentle. The person on stage was neither of those things. He stalked, he strutted, and he danced. It was similar to what he'd taught me, moving to the beat of the music, but this was the real deal. Him throwing himself around the stage, springing up in the air, and spilling himself back down, every movement fluid and graceful, and amazing.
He was down to a cream-colored G-string. It left his ass bare and held him tight in front, so that he filled the cloth, and I knew him well enough to know that he was already excited. That he liked what he was doing. His eyes sparkled with it, his face shone with a fierce joy. He threw himself into the air again and landed in a push-up position. The audience screamed.
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