Лорел Гамильтон - Incubus Dreams

Saying it once, was wishful thinking, twice, and I tried to look inside myself. Tried to see theardeur without raising it. I needed some kind of metaphysical gas gauge, but all I could find was an emptiness in the center of me. A place where something should have been, and there was nothing.

“I feel it,” I said.

“I don’t feel tired, now, Anita. I feel new.” He moved gently against me. “Say yes.”

“Let me go, and maybe,” I said.

“I like holding you down. I like us both holding you down,” he growled against my skin.

“I thought you didn’t like to be in charge,” I said.

“I don’t usually, but today I do. Today I love the feel of your body under mine. I love feeling you fight not to struggle, not to panic. I can taste your self-control on my tongue. I want to lick it away.”

“Nathaniel,” I said.

“Say yes, Anita, just say yes. Feed theardeur, then you can shower, while we go looking for other things to eat.”

“What other things?” I asked.

“There are supplies deeper in the underground,” Jason said, “we’ve got too many wereanimals in here now not to be stocked up.”

“Stocked up on what?” I asked.

He leaned in, hands still on my wrists. “Nothing human, nothing illegal, promise.” He licked my face, a quick flick of the tongue, and then he laughed, and it wasn’t masculine, it was just Jason making a joke. Jason who would make a joke on the way to hell, even if it meant extra time and a worse punishment. No matter what form he was in, he was still Jason.

That thought made a tension go out of my shoulders, out of my body, that I hadn’t even realized was there. It was still Jason under all that fur and claws. It was still Nathaniel rubbing his cheek against me.

Once upon a time I’d begged Richard to show me his beast. But when he did it, I hadn’t been able to deal. It took me a long time to realize that Richard had shown me his beast in the worst light possible, because part of him didn’t want me to be able to accept the beast, because he couldn’t. I’d run from him after seeing him eat Marcus. I’d run from him to Jean-Claude, because the vampire had seemed less the monster that night.

Was I still the same person who hadn’t been able to deal? Was I still the person who could deal with the handsome prince, but not the beast? Was it beauty, more than love, that moved me?

Nathaniel pushed gently against me. “If you don’t feed now, who will you feed from?”

“Graham really is just down the hall,” Jason said. “He’ll be in human form because Meng Die won’t do him furry. She won’t even sleep with him furry.”

I didn’t want Graham. Was it just the human form I was in love with? Was it some anthropomorphic idea that I loved? Shit. These were just not the kind of relationship questions that the magazines gave you answers to. Did Miss Manners have an answer for being freaked by your boyfriend’s animal form? I doubted it.

Jason drew his claws delicately away from my wrists. “I’ll get Graham and send him down.”

“No,” I said, and reached for his furred forearm. The fur was so soft, and his arm was so real. “No, I don’t want Graham.”

Jason gave me another of those looks, that said, you’re joking.

“You don’t do furry, Anita.”

“But I do Nathaniel, and I do you, on occasion.”

He grinned, though it wasn’t exactly the same coming from the wolf muzzle. “On occasion.” He sank back down in front of me. “You want me to be your puppy tonight?”

“I was thinking more that we’d just fuck,” I said.

His face was either more expressive than any wolfman I’d met, or it was still enough Jason that I could read his face. He was still under there, somewhere. I’d surprised him, not in a bad way, but I’d truly surprised him.

Nathaniel pushed against me, and he whispered against my cheek.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” I said.

He made a sound that was half-growl, and half pure eagerness. He raised up just a little, and then plunged himself between my legs. I was screaming before he’d finished, and not in pain. He was bigger, thicker, more, and all those extra bits were plunging inside me.

He brought me with the size of his body, the rhythm of his hips, and the flash of white claws like small knives against the tenderest parts of my body. The thought of what those claws could do to me if they wanted to, brought me struggling under him. Everything that I’d fought not to do, I now let myself do. I struggled, I screamed, I fought, and he held me carefully, delicately, but with no doubt that he could have torn me to pieces if he’d wanted to. It was both the most delicate of lovemaking, and the most dangerous. Not because of what he did, but because of what he could have done.

He raised me to my knees, cradling me against his body with his arms, and I caressed my hands over those arms, those muscles, that fur, so soft, and so different from the wolf. I pet him, not like you’d pet a dog, but like you’d pet a lover. I felt his rhythm change, knew he was close, felt his body strain not to claw me to pieces. Felt the dainty press of the tip of each of those claws, as he held them against my flesh. I came watching the pinpoints of those blades begin to crease my skin, almost, almost cutting, almost, almost piercing, almost, almost killing. At the last moment, he retracted the claws and held me hard and fast against his body, with the fur and padding of those hands lost somewhere between leopard and man.

Theardeur fed. Fed on the strength of his body, the heat of his skin, and the spill of his seed, which spilled hotter inside me than anything I’d ever felt from a man.

A thought cut through my mind, He isn’t a man. The words weren’t angry, but the emotion that came with them felt like it would burn a hole through my skin. Rage, such rage, and I knew who it was before the door opened.

Richard strode through the door, and his energy flung across the room like hot sparks from a fire. It hurt where it touched my skin, like small biting insects. What do you say when you find your ex-fiancée fucking a leopardman? Richard knew just what to say. “The last time I saw anything this sick was in one of Raina’s porno movies.”

Jason rolled off the bed and faced him. I think he was trying to give Nathaniel time to stand up without me attached to him. Or maybe he was trying to give me time. Whatever his motive, he stood between me and his Ulfric, and that wasn’t the wisest thing he’d ever done.

Brave, even gallant, but not wise.

Richard’s power filled the room like scalding water. Nathaniel rolled off the bed, and I wondered if the air was as heavy and hard for him to breathe as it was for me. The thought was enough. I knew that he felt Richard’s power like something you had to fight to walk through, like Richard’s power was some sort of storm, a blizzard, or a sandstorm. Something that would blind you and take your life, unless you found shelter.

My shelter was crouching between the bed and the door. The wolfman was tall and broad and dangerous. Richard in his human form should have looked frail, but he didn’t. He could have been a foot shorter, and with that much power rolling off of him, he would have seemed huge.

“Get out of my way, Jason. I won’t ask again.”

“Tell me you’re not going to hurt her, or Nathaniel, and I’ll move,” he said it in a deep growling voice that would have given any red-blooded human pause, but Richard wasn’t human.

Nathaniel was off the bed and moving toward them. Richard would hurt Jason enough to get him out of the way, but he’d hurt Nathaniel for other reasons. Reasons he might never admit out loud, but I didn’t want to see it. I called Nathaniel back to me.