Cravings (10 page)

I was okay with my tuxedo jacket going bye-bye. I was okay with Damian's
green coat sliding to the floor, even if it did leave his upper body pale and
naked, with the fine muscles gliding under skin the color of fresh, white
sheets. Nathaniel was the problem, or rather my confusion about him. I ran my
hands up the unbelievable warmth of his skin, but the look in his lavender eyes
was too much. I did not love Nathaniel, not the way I needed to, but the look in
his eyes left no doubt how he felt about me. This was wrong. I could not take
this from him, if he were in love with me, and I was not in love with him. I
could not do it.

I pulled my hands away, shaking my head. Damian was molded against my back,
but the moment I pulled away from Nathaniel, his eager hands slowed. "Shit," he
whispered, and leaned his face against the top of my head.

Nathaniel's eyes went from shining with love, to something darker, older. He
put his hands on either side of my face, cradling me. "Don't pull away," he
said.

"I have to."

"If it's not sex, it will be blood, Anita, can't you feel it?" Damian asked.

I could feel something. It was as if this time it was I who put up the
shields. But there was still something large and frightening on the other side.
Something that I had put in process, but not on purpose, something that was
hungry. It didn't care what it fed on, but it would, eventually, feed on
something.

Damian's hands were still on my shoulders, but he'd leaned his body back
enough so we no longer touched anywhere else. "Anita, please…"

I turned in Nathaniel's hands, so that I could glimpse Damian's face. "It's
wrong, Damian."

"The sex, or who the sex is with?" he asked.

I took a breath to answer him, but Nathaniel's hands closed round my face. He
turned me back to look at him, and I was suddenly almost painfully aware of the
strength in his hands. A strength that could have crushed my face rather than
cradled it. He was so submissive that he rarely reminded me of how very strong
he was, how dangerous he could have been, if he'd been a different person.

I started to say, Let go of me, Nathaniel, but only got as far as, "Let go,"
before he kissed me. The feel of his lips on mine stopped my words, froze my
mind. I couldn't think, couldn't think about anything but the velvet feel of his
mouth on mine. Then something seemed to break inside of him, some barrier, and
his tongue thrust into my mouth as deep and far as it could go. The sensation of
him thrusting that much of himself that deeply into me tore my shields away, and
since no one else was fighting, the ardeur roared back to life. It roared back
to life on the edge of Nathaniel's lips, his hands, his need.

There was a confusion of ripping cloth, buttons snapping and raining down on
us. Hands, hands everywhere, and the sound of clothing ripping. My body jerked
with the force of my clothes being ripped away, and my hands were ripping at
their clothes. It was as if every inch of my skin craved every inch of their
skin. I needed to feel their nakedness glide over mine. My skin felt like a
starved thing, as if I hadn't touched anyone in ages.

I knew whose skin hunger I was channeling. It wasn't just sex that Damian
had missed. There are needs of the body that can be mistaken for sex, or lead to
sex, but it isn't sex that they are about.

There was one leg left of my pants, pooled around my ankle. My vest flapped
open, and the shirt was in shreds. It was Damian's hand from behind that grabbed
a handful of my panties and pulled, ripping them off my body, leaving me nude
from the waist down. I might have turned around to see how much clothing he
still had on, but Nathaniel was in front of me. His shorts had been shredded. By
me I think. He knelt on the floor in front of me, naked. I almost never let
Nathaniel be nude around me. It had been one of the reasons I'd been able to
resist taking those last steps with him. Just keep your clothes on and nothing
too bad will happen.

Now, he knelt in front of me, and all I could do was gaze up the line of his
body. His face with those amazing eyes, that mouth, the line of his neck
spilling into the wide, hard flesh of his shoulders, the chest that showed the
weight lifting he'd been doing, the curve of his ribs under muscle leading my
gaze to the flat plains of his stomach, the slight dimple of flesh that was his
belly button, the rich swell of his hips, and finally the ripeness of him. I'd
seen him totally nude and excited only once before. I didn't remember him being
this wide, not quite this long, of course he hadn't been pressed this tight to
his own stomach, as if the very ripeness of his flesh was almost too much to
contain. He seemed thick and heavy with need, as if the lightest touch might
make him spill that ripeness out and over me.

I started to reach for him, but Damian chose that moment to brush the head
of his own ripeness against the back of my body. The movement made me writhe,
and lower the front of my body, raising myself upward to him like an offering,
like something in heat. The thought helped me swim back up into control, at
least a little. I'd never even seen Damian nude, and now he was about to plunge
that nudeness into my body. It seemed wrong. I should see him first, shouldn't
I? There was no logic to the argument. No logic left to anything, but it made me
turn my head, made me look at him.

The blood red of his hair spilled over his shoulders so that it framed the
unbelievable whiteness of his body. He was narrower of shoulder, of chest, and
his waist seemed to go on forever, smooth and creamy, like something you should
lick down, until you found the center of his belly button, and just under that,
the length of him. He rode out from his body, so it was harder to judge length.
He seemed carved of ivory and pearl, and where the blood ran close to the
surface he blushed pink like the shine inside a seashell, delicate and shining.
I realized in that moment that he had been paler in life than any vampire I'd
ever seen nude, and his body was almost ghostlike in its coloring, as if somehow
he wouldn't be real.

Nathaniel's face brushed mine, brought my attention back to him. He had knelt
down so low that his face, like mine, was almost touching the floor. He pressed
his cheek against mine and whispered, "Please, please, please," over and over,
and between each please, he kissed me, a light touch of lips; please, kiss,
please, kiss. With his kisses and his voice warm against my face, he brought us
both up to our knees again. I'd been so aware of his face, his mouth, his eyes,
that I hadn't thought what kneeling this close would do until his nude body
pressed against the front of mine. Until the thick, solid length of him pressed
between us, pinned against my stomach by the push of our bodies. He was so warm,
so unbelievably warm, so warm, almost hot, and the push of him against my body
was so solid, as if he were fighting not to push himself through the front of
me. To make a new opening, anything, anything, just to be in the warm depths of
my body. It took me a second to understand it was Nathaniel's need I was
feeling. That he did want that badly, but it was my wanting, too. My wanting and
denying that want, that helped make this moment what it was. Over all that was
Damian at my back, his body one huge piece of need. Nathaniel and I were being
drowned in Damian's skin-hunger. So lonely, so terribly lonely. And under that
was Damian's fear. Fear that this would not happen, that he would be exiled back
to his coffin, with all this undone. His loneliness was like a theme underneath
his lust, and I had a glimpse of a room high in the castle. A room that
overlooked the sea. Silver bars upon the windows, heavy with runes, and the
sound of the surf always through the windows, so that even if he turned away, he
could still hear it. She'd given him one of the best rooms in the castle as his
prison, because she had a way of knowing what things meant to you. A way of
knowing what would hurt the most. It was her gift.

Someone kissed me, hard and fast, forcing my mouth open, pushing his tongue
so far in I almost choked, but it brought me back, brought us all back from that
lonely room and the sound of the sea on the rocks below.

Nathaniel drew back enough to say in a harsh whisper, "Happy thoughts, Anita,
happy thoughts." Then his mouth was on mine, tongue, lips, even teeth light
against my own lips, so that it was more eating than kissing, but it brought a
whimper from my throat, a small helpless sound of pleasure.

My hands were on his body, following the flow of his shoulders, his back, and
the smooth silken curve of his ass. The back of his body filled my hands, and
the front of him was like heat wrapped in flesh, as if we'd burst into flame.

Damian's hands were on the back of my bra; somehow it had survived that first
rush. He snapped it open, and the front of it fell against Nathaniel's chest.
Hands spilled over my breasts; one from behind, and one from the man pressed
against the front of my body. Damian's touch was delicate, stroking. Nathaniel
wrapped his hand around my breast and dug his nails into my flesh. It was
Nathaniel's hand that bowed my back, tore my mouth away from his, and forced a
scream from my mouth.

Damian hesitated, pulled back from that scream, though he had to feel that it
was pleasure and not pain. He didn't like to hear women scream. And just like
that we were back in his memory. There was a room underneath the castle,
torches, darkness, and women, any woman that she thought was prettier than she.
No one was allowed hair more yellow than hers, eyes more blue, or breasts
larger. These were all sins, and sins were punished. A rush of images; piles of
yellow hair, wide blue eyes like cornflowers, and the spear that put them out, a
chest as pale and fair as any he'd seen, and the sword…

Nathaniel screamed, "Noooo!" He reached past me, and grabbed a handful of red
hair. He jerked Damian so hard against me, that just feeling the hard length of
him made me writhe between them. "Happy thoughts, Damian, happy thoughts."

"I don't have any happy thoughts," and on the heels of that statement were
other dark rooms, and the smell of burning flesh.

I was the one who screamed this time, "God, Damian, no more. Keep your
nightmares to yourself." The memory that had gone with that smell had dampened
the ardeur. I could think again, even pressed between both their bodies.

"Tell him to fuck you," Nathaniel said.

I stared at him. "What?"

"Order him to do it; then he won't be conflicted."

It seemed almost ridiculous to be huffy, kneeling pretty much nude between
two nude men, but it was still how I felt. "Maybe
I'm
conflicted."

"Almost always," he said, and smiled to soften the words.

Damian's voice came, low and heavy with something like sorrow. "She doesn't
want to do this. She wants me to help her stop the ardeur, not to feed it.
That's what she really wants, I can feel it, and that's what I have to do."

"Anita, please, tell him."

But Damian was right. He was the only port in a storm of sexual temptation. I
valued his ability to make me not feel the ardeur. I valued that more than
anything his body could do for me. And because I truly was his master, and that
was my true wish, he had to help me do it. The coolness of the grave rose
between us, and it wasn't frightening this time. It was soothing, comforting.

"Anita, no," Nathaniel said, "no." He put his face against my shoulder. The
movement put his body further away from mine, and that helped me think, too.

I turned to look at Damian, though I didn't need to see his face to feel the
overwhelming sadness. The sense of aching loss that seemed to fill him, like
some bitter medicine. But the look on his face drove the sorrow home like a
blade thrust through my heart. It hurt to see anyone's eyes full of such pain.

I turned to face him still held lightly in both their arms. Nathaniel put the
top of his head against my naked back, shaking his head. "Anita, can't you feel
how sad he is? Can't you feel it?"

I looked into Damian's cat-green eyes and said, "Yes."

He turned his face away, as if he'd shown me more than he was comfortable
with. I touched his chin and brought his face back to me. "You don't want me,"
and there was a world of loss in those words. A loss that tightened my throat,
made my chest hurt. I wanted to deny it, but he could feel what I was feeling.
He was right, I didn't want him, not the way I wanted Nathaniel, let alone the
way I wanted Jean-Claude or Micah. What do you say when someone can read your
emotions, so that you can't hide behind polite lies? What do you say when the
truth is awful, and you can't lie?

Nothing. No words would heal this. But I'd learned there were other ways to
say you're sorry. Other ways to say, I'd change it, if I could. Of course, even
that was a lie. I wouldn't lose the cool reserve that Damian could give me, not
for anything.

I kissed him, and meant for it to be light, gentle, an apology that words
could not make, but Damian thought he'd never get this close to me again. I felt
a fierceness rise up through him, a desperation, that made him tighten his grip
on my arms, made him thrust his tongue into my mouth, and kiss me hard and
eager, and angry.

I tasted blood, and assumed he'd nicked me with his fangs. I swallowed the
sweetish taste of the blood without thinking. Then I could smell the ocean,
smell it like salt on my tongue. We drew back enough to look into each other's
faces, and I saw the trickle of blood trailing over his lower lip. Nathaniel had
time to say, "I smell seawater." Then the power flooded up and up, and smashed
us against each other. It ground us against the floor like a wave cracking a
boat against the rocks. We screamed, and writhed, and I could not control it. If
I'd been a true master, then I could have ridden it, helped us all, but I'd
never meant to mark anyone. Never meant to be anyone's master. We were being
swept away and I didn't know what to do. The inside of my head exploded in white
star bursts and gray miasma. Darkness ate at the inside of my head. If I'd been
sure we'd wake up again, I'd have welcomed passing out, but I wasn't sure. I
didn't know. But it didn't matter; darkness filled up the inside of my head, and
we all fell into it. No more screaming, no more pain, no more panic, no more
anything. My last clear thought was the realization that I'd accidentally drunk
the blood of a vampire I was tied to by three marks. His blood had been the
fourth mark. The one step Jean-Claude, Richard, and I had denied ourselves—now
I'd done it by accident, God help us all.