[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade (66 page)

“I was told you were here to feed the
ardeur
.”

“We both know that's a lie,” he said, voice soft and close. “I'm here because it broke my heart to know that you slept with the Wicked Truth.”

I started to say something angry. He said, “Hush, I can't help feeling the way I feel, my evening star. I have asked Jean-Claude to find me a new city, one where I can be someone's second-in-command rather than a distant third.”

I turned around then and searched his face. “You're telling the truth.”

He gave that slight smile. “I am.”

I hugged him then, molding our bodies together the way you do with someone when you've lost count of how many times you've been together. You know each other's bodies. You know the music of their breathing when sex perfumes the air. I hugged him to me and realized that I would miss him. But I also knew he was right.

He stroked my hair. “It helps to know that you will miss me.”

I raised my face to look into those blue eyes with their flash of green around the pupils. “You know I find you beautiful and amazing in bed.”

He nodded and gave that sad smile again. “But all your men are beautiful, and all of them are good in bed. I want to go somewhere that I have a chance to shine. A chance to have a woman love me, Anita, just me. You will never love just me.”

“I'm not sure I will ever love just anyone,” I said.

He smiled a little wider. “That is something, to know that you frustrate Jean-Claude, too. I never thought to see anyone who could resist him.”

I frowned up at him. “I haven't exactly resisted.”

“You are his lover, his human servant, but you are not his.”

I started to step back, and he hugged me closer. “He said almost the same thing on the phone. Do I have you to thank for that little talk?”

“I told him why I needed to leave, and he agreed. That is why I am here in Las Vegas, to see if I would like to visit.”

“I don't think it's your kind of town.”

“Nor I, but it is a start. I will see their show, and I will dance, and women will think me beautiful, and they will want me, and eventually I will want them.”

“There isn't enough of me, Requiem, not to date all of you. I can have sex with this many men, but I can't be everyone's lady love; no single woman could.”

He nodded. “I know. Now, kiss me, kiss me like you mean it. Kiss me like you'll miss me. Kiss me, quick before dawn, because when you finish hunting your killer, I won't be going back with you. If I don't like Vegas, then the Master of Philadelphia is looking for a second, and she's requested a man of Belle's line if she can get it.”

I looked up into his face and realized this really was it. He meant it. I went up on tiptoe, and he lowered his face to mine. I kissed those lips, gently at first, like you'd touch a work of art, afraid to scratch it, and then I let my hands and mouth kiss him the way he was meant to be kissed. Kiss him the way you kissed someone when the touch of their mouth, the weight of their hands, the rise of their body was like food and drink to you. I couldn't give him my heart, but I gave him what I could, and it wasn't a lie. I loved his body, and the press of his sad poetry; I just didn't love him. God knows I'd tried to love them all, but my heart just didn't seem to stretch that big.

He drew away first, laughing, eyes bright with the attention. “It is too close to dawn for me to do justice to such a kiss. I know you do not let even our master sleep in your bed once he dies for the day, so I will go to my box. I will send warmer bed partners to you, so that you will not be alone, and you can feed when you wake.”

“Requiem,” I started, but he touched fingertips to my lips.

“She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that's best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

I wasn't sure why, but I felt the first hard, hot tear trail down my face. He moved his fingers from my lips to catch my tears. He kissed them from his skin, then kissed them from my face. “That you would cry for my parting means much.” Then he left, closing the door gently behind him.

I went to the bathroom and started getting ready for bed. I'd wash the tears away. I wasn't even sure why I was crying. I was just tired. I heard noises and turned off the water, to have Crispin call out. “It's us, Anita.”

I had a moment to wonder who “us” was, because Crispin didn't know any of the other wereanimals who had come from St. Louis, or not well enough to bring them to bed with him. I'd found that heterosexual men are very picky about who they bring to bed, boywise. It's more about friendship than sex. More about trust, than lust. I thought about peeking out and seeing, but it seemed like too much trouble. So tired. Crispin and whoever would still be there when I was done. I came out of the bathroom wearing the robe off the door, which covered me from shoulder to my toes. The two men in my bed were wearing nothing but the bedsheet at their waist. Two naked men in my bed, both cute enough. Problem was, one of them I'd never seen nude.

 

 

CRISPIN WAS AS lean and muscled as I remembered him. He sat up with a smile, the sheet pooling into his lap, so that I could see the side of his hip, and knew for certain there was nothing between him and my sheets. His short, curly white hair was backlit by the lamp, so that the light played in the curls, forming a shining halo of white. He gave me that crooked smile that dimpled just one side of his mouth. He might look like an angel in my bed with his halo, but if it was an angel, it was fallen.

Domino lay on his back on the other side of the bed, one arm stretched over the pillows, touching where I would have to lie. His black and white curls were framed against the white of the pillow. I realized that his hair was mostly black. Hadn't it been closer to an even mix before? His eyes were brilliant orange, the color that fire can have, but fire doesn't have veins of gold running through it. Fire doesn't blink long lashes at you, and try for a neutral face when its eyes give it away. The eyes held need, longing.

I waited to be mad, but I wasn't. Suddenly, of all the people in Vegas, I couldn't think of any two other men that I'd rather have curled up between. I'd told Truth that Belle Morte's line can only be as powerful as the vampire doing it is willing to be cut, but it was more than that. I could only go as deep into someone's heart as I was willing to let them dive into mine. I had all this power, and no idea how to protect myself from having that two-edged blade cut me to the bone.

All I could think when I saw them was
home
. A deep feeling of contentment, that Crispin hadn't earned yet, and Domino was a stranger to me. But sometimes you meet a stranger, and from the moment you see him there is a connection, almost a memory, as if that skin, that scent, has been on your sheets before, like an echo. I should have fought it, argued with it, but I was so tired. My eyes burned with it.

I said the only thing I could think to say. “I don't need to feed yet.” My voice sounded small and uncertain. I cleared my throat sharply, tried again. “Nothing personal, but I'm . . .”

“Tired,” Crispin said, “we know. We can feel it.”

I looked past him to Domino. I could feel his uncertainty, and how much he wanted this to be all right. I didn't have anything left to fight with; it felt fine, good, strangely okay. For once in my life, I didn't question it. I didn't ask,
Can you both behave yourself if we're all naked?
because they were wereanimals, and naked doesn't mean sex to them. It just means you aren't wearing any clothes. It was my human mind that made it dirty.

I undid the robe's sash and walked toward the bed. Crispin smiled, but Domino watched that thin line of my body that he could glimpse as I moved. Maybe being naked wasn't just not having clothes for him in that moment?

He spoke, and his voice was rough, so that he had to clear his throat before he finished. “Sex would be wonderful, but I feel your tiredness like some great weight pulling you down, and pulling at us. Let us hold you, Anita, just hold you.”

I studied his face for a breath or two. He lifted his hand from the pillows and held it out to me. I let the robe fall to the floor and crawled onto the bed between them. Crispin helped me slide under the covers, then slid his body along my side, so that I could feel that it wasn't just Domino who was going to have trouble sleeping.

I stared up at Crispin, where he lay propped up on one elbow, grinning at me. “There's this beautiful naked woman in bed with me, and I'm a guy.”

That made me smile. Then the bed moved, and it made me turn to see Domino moving toward us. His face was uncertain, as if he wasn't sure he'd be as welcome. Neither was I.

He had more bulk to his upper body than Crispin, and with them both propped up on elbows, I realized that the few inches of extra height Crispin had were all in the waist. Domino was keeping a few inches of distance between us rather than rubbing his body against me like Crispin. I appreciated the restraint.

I reached up to touch his hair. The curls were soft, but not as soft as Crispin's white. “Wasn't your hair more evenly white and black before?”

He smiled. “I've shifted to black tiger between then and now; when I come back to human form, my hair reflects the fur color of my last shape.”

I stared up at him. “You can shift to white tiger
and
black?”

He nodded, rubbing his head against my hand, so that I stroked his curls more, the way you'd pet a cat that rubbed against your hand. It moved my hand from his hair to the side of his face, and he laid his cheek against my hand, pressing, so that I held his face. His eyes closed, and his face went almost slack, as if some weight had suddenly gone from him.

I rose up to kiss him, but it closed that small distance between us, and I could suddenly feel that he was not only happy to be in the bed, but so hard and eager that it made my breath catch in my throat and a small sound of surprise escape me.

He drew away from me. “I'm sorry, Anita, I can't help the reaction.”

I shook my head. “It's not . . . Oh, hell, don't apologize for being male, Domino. I like it.”

He smiled, almost embarrassed.

I found my hand sliding down the front of his body. His eyes closed again, and his head went back, as if it had been a long time for him.

Crispin seemed to read my mind. “The White Tiger Clan prides itself on being pure blooded. Our queen is happy to find black tiger blood, but most of the females of our clan won't risk bringing a nonpure offspring into the world.”

I stared up at the man who was still looming a little over me. My hand had frozen at his upper stomach. He still had his eyes closed, but he started to turn away, started to roll over.

I stopped the movement with my hand on his shoulder and chest. “There is nothing wrong with you, Domino. You're beautiful.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Handsome, then,” I said.

He gave me an almost shy look. “I can't believe that.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one who's ever mattered has treated me like it's true.”

In that moment I knew, tired or not, I couldn't be that tired. “I'm going to say something I will probably never say again.”

He looked at me, all cautious again.

“We only have time for a quickie.”

He grinned in surprise.

I smiled back. “I really do need to sleep before the police call me and we have to hunt the bad guys again, but I want you to know that it's no reflection on you. You are handsome, and if what I just felt against my hip is any indication, all the body is pretty damn good.”

He actually looked embarrassed, dunking his head. I'd have estimated him at about thirty, but he was acting younger. Maybe in this one area he was, through sheer lack of experience.

I touched his face, turned him to look at me. “Make love to me.”

“Making love takes time to do it right,” he said.

I grinned. “All right, fuck me.”

He looked startled.

Crispin said, “Her pillow talk is usually straight to the point.”

I turned my head so I could frown at him.

He shrugged the one shoulder in the air. “Well, it's true.”

I frowned harder, then turned back to Domino. “Whatever word you want to use.”

“Just like that?” he asked.

I nodded. “Just like that.”

“Why?”

“Because I want that lost look out of your eyes.”

“Why do you care what look I have in my eyes?”

“Because the wound cuts both ways.”

“What does that mean?”

“Shut up,” Crispin said, “and take the offer, so we can all sleep.”

Domino flashed him a less than friendly look, then looked back down at me. “I've spent my life not being able to trust the women around me. Only the survivors would touch me, never my own clan.”

“I'm a survivor,” I said.

He shook his head. “No,” and he leaned down over my hair and took a long, deep breath. “No, you smell like me: dark and light, all at the same time.”

I slid my hand farther down his body and found that he wasn't trembling as hard as he had been; all the talking had softened things. I wrapped my hand around him and squeezed gently. It fluttered his eyes shut and sent his breath out in a sigh.

“Enough talk,” I said.

He had to swallow before he could whisper, “Okay.”

I continued to work him with my hand as he came down for a kiss, and suddenly he was kissing me. He kissed me as if my lips were food and he were starving. My hands were on his back; my legs slid down his thighs to wrap around his lower legs. He laid his full weight on top of me while we kissed, fiercely, completely. His body was back to that trembling hardness. Just the feel of him on the outside of my body, pressed between us, made me cry out.