Лорел Гамильтон - The Harlequin

It was just going to be awkward to ask. One of the other reasons that Requiem and London were in the room was that they had more centuries of experience with the ardeur than I did. As victims, true, but still they knew it in ways I'd only begun to glimpse.

I put a hand on Donovan's chest, to push him away, to give me breathing space. We were in a hurry, but we weren't in such a hurry, were we? I mean, if he were dead, he wouldn't be king. Sometimes the ardeur was a very literal thing. But I'd forgotten that the white hairs on his chest weren't hair, but feathers. The moment my palm touched the silk of the feathers and the heat of his chest, I forgot what I was going to ask. My hands found his body, and he was hot to the touch, as if his temperature had spiked.

«Your skin, it's hot.»

«I told you, you took my control away.» He leaned in as he said it, keeping his shoulders up, but lowering his head for a kiss. I could feel his heart thudding against the palm of my hand. I could feel it in a way that I hadn't been able to feel since the ardeur was new to me. I felt his heart like it was something holdable, as if I could reach into his chest and cup it, caress it. I was suddenly very aware of all the blood rushing through his body. I could hear it, feel it, like warm ribbons running just under his skin. I could smell it, hot, metallic, sweet. I had closed my eyes so I wouldn't see his face, watch him kiss me, but it wasn't the human part of me that was the problem. Closing my eyes didn't take away the feel, the weight, the scent of his skin, and of what lay so close under all that flesh.

He kissed me. He kissed me for the very first time, and I didn't care. I moved away from those soft lips, and kissed my way along the line of his jaw. Kissed my way onto his neck. He seemed to take it as an invitation, because the hard length of him pushed between my legs. I opened for him, but put my hand on the back of his neck, holding his neck close to my kisses. His hair was the softest I'd ever touched, but it meant almost nothing to me. I could smell what I wanted, smell it like candy just under his skin.

He pulled against my hand. His voice was strained as he said, «Anita, I need a better angle.»

I kept my hand pressed into his neck, brushed by that soft hair, held him where a few kisses more would put me where I wanted to be. I felt him now, pushing against my opening, but not quite there. Normally, that distracted me from other things, but not tonight. Almost without thinking I moved my hips, my legs, angled my body for him. He entered me, and that did distract me. It made my eyes fly open wide, made me cry out and writhe underneath him. But I never let go of the back of his neck. I pressed my face in tight against his, as I raised my hips off the bed, my legs in the air so he could push himself in and out of me. I cried out under the strength of his body.

«Let me rise, Anita. Let me look at you.»

«No,» I whispered, «not yet.»

He pushed against my hand at his neck again. I put my other hand on his back. I held him in place and kissed over the pulse in his neck. It jumped and beat against my lips like something alive. Like a trapped bird in a cage of flesh. I would set it free. I would let it pour into my mouth, and… There was a moment of sanity, a heartbeat of, no, then Jean-Claude's power breathed through me, his hunger, both his hungers, and there was no more doubt. There was only the press of Donovan's pulse against my mouth, his body thrusting inside mine, my hips rising to meet him, and my mouth on his neck.

I bit him and tried to be gentle, but gentle wasn't what I wanted, wasn't how I felt. The sensation of his flesh in my mouth, caught between my teeth, as I bit slowly down, harder, and harder, felt so good. But what I wanted to do was bite more, take more of his flesh into my mouth, into me. The fluttering heat of his pulse like a frightened butterfly beat against the roof of my mouth. It was like a caress, urging me on, begging me to free that dancing bit of life.

Donovan lifted me up off the bed, his arms locked around me as he went to his knees. The movement startled me, made me ease back from the biting.

His voice was shaky. «Too much teeth, Anita.»

He knelt on the narrow bed, his arms wrapped around me, his body no longer inside me. My legs were wrapped around his waist. I must have done it automatically when he moved. He'd stopped making love to get me to stop trying to eat him.

His neck had a perfect impression of my teeth like a purplish-red bruise in the white perfection of his flesh. Blood traced down his shoulder and back where my nails had gone into that smooth skin. I could have said so many things, but the one thing I said was the one that amazed me most. «You broke the ardeur's hold.»

«I may not be a predator, Anita, but I'm still a king; that means I have to give myself to you. You can't just take it.»

«I'm sorry,» I said.

«It's all right, I'm not angry. Just don't tear my throat out, or carve my back up, okay?»

«I'm not sure she can help it,» Micah said. I looked out from the man in my arms to find not just Micah but all the men crowded around the bed. Remus seemed to be arguing with Requiem and London. Too low to hear, but body language said it all. I met Micah's eyes and asked for help with a look. I'd thought of Donovan as just meat, just food. The sex hadn't been enough to distract me from blood, and meat.

Donovan asked, «What can I do to keep myself safe?»

Requiem came to the bed, his black cloak tight around him. «If you are strong enough to sit up with her as you did, then you are strong enough to hold her down.»

«We can't guarantee your safety, Reece,» Remus said.

Donovan looked at the guard. He shifted his grip from my waist to lower, but there was no wavering, as if he could have held me forever. It answered whether the swanmanes were stronger than normal humans; they were. «I know you cannot guarantee my safety.»

«She could tear your throat out before we could move,» Remus said.

«If it gets that out of hand, we interfere,» Micah said.

«Interfere how?» Remus asked.

«Grab her, help Donovan hold her down.»

«The ardeur will spread to anyone who touches her,» Remus said.

Micah nodded. «I know.»

Remus shook his head, a little too rapidly. «I can't do my job then. I can't keep Reece safe.»

«Because you won't risk the ardeur spreading to you.» Micah made it a statement, not a question.

«Yes,» Remus said.

«Then leave,» London said.

«We need a senior guard in here,» Remus said. «Who do I send in my place? Bobby Lee is still in South America. Claudia, no. Who replaces me?» He sounded tormented, torn between duty and what? Duty and fear? Duty and the ardeur ?

«We are out of time for niceties, Anita,» Requiem said. «I speak for the vampires. If the lesser among us are to be saved, it must be now.» There wasn't a poetic allusion in the statement. Things were bad when Requiem stopped quoting poetry.

It was almost as if his words brought the ardeur crashing back. One moment I was almost neutral in Donovan's arms, the next I was kissing him as if I'd crawl into his mouth. My nails just seemed to automatically dig into his back again. The feel of his flesh parting under my nails made me cry out in pleasure, and him in pain. I tried to tone down what I wanted to do to him. I tried not to bite at his mouth but only kiss, but the effort had me making small frustrated noises against his lips.

He pressed us back to the bed, his weight suddenly pinning me down. My legs were still wrapped around his waist so his body was already pushing against my opening. I fought to concentrate on the sex instead of flesh and blood. But the sex was tangled up with the feel of my nails in his back, my mouth at his lips. I wanted that hard press of flesh to shove its way inside me, but almost more I wanted to bite his lips and draw blood. I wanted blood more than sex. I was feeding for Jean-Claude, but the ardeur wasn't his first hunger.