Лорел Гамильтон - Cerulean Sins

"Like the beast, if you accept it, it doesn't beat the hell out of you."

He gave a small smile. " Oui, ma petite. »

The ardeur drew me to my feet, and I wasn't shaky anymore. I was steady in my desire. I moved through the hot, thigh-deep water, my jeans clinging to me like a second skin, my jogging shoes sliding through the thickness of the water. I stood touching him only with my gaze. The strength of his thighs, the loose swelling of his groin, skin there slightly darker in color than the rest of him, the line of black hair that traced upward, around his belly button, to the smooth lines of his chest with the pale circles of his nipples, and the flat whiteness of the cross-shaped burn scar. I came to the grace of his shoulders, the line of his neck, and finally the face. I was never sure how to look upon his face and not be overwhelmed. If it had just been the dark glory of his hair, I could have borne it, but his eyes, his eyes, the darkest blue they could be and not be black. They were the richest blue I'd ever seen. His eyelashes were so thick they were like black lace. The bones in his face were delicate, small and finely chiseled, as if whoever had made him had paid attention to every curve of his cheek, every turn of his chin, every sweep of brow, and finally the mouth. His mouth was simply beautiful. So red against the whiteness of his skin.

I touched his face, traced the edge of it from temple to chin, and my fingers clung to the beads of water on his skin, sticking, so that touching him wasn't smooth, or easy. The ardeur was still inside me like a great warm weight, but I'd welcomed it this time, welcomed it chasing back Richard's beast, and I could think, though only about the man in front of me.

I stared up into that face and said what I was thinking, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" I slipped my hand behind his neck and began gently to bring him closer as if for a kiss, "And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" I turned my face and swept my hair aside, exposing my neck, "Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!"

He spoke, "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it: Thinkest thou that I who saw the face of God, and tasted the eternal joys of heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells in being deprived of everlasting bliss!"

The quote made me turn and look at him. "That's from Dr. Faustus, too, isn't it?"

" Oui. »

"I only know the one quote," I said.

"Let me give you another. 'I kissed thee ere I killed thee, no way but this, killing myself to die upon a kiss. "

"That's not Marlowe," I said.

"One of his contemporaries," Jean-Claude said.

"Shakespeare," I said.

"You surprise me, ma petite. »

"You gave me too big a clue," I said, "Marlowe and Shakespeare are about the only contemporaries that people still quote." I frowned up at him. "Why are you fighting me on this?"

"Today with the ardeur riding you, you say feed. When your mind has cleared, you will call foul, and I will be punished by your regret." A look of such longing and frustration crossed his face. "I want more than almost anything to share blood with you, ma petite, but if I take it now when you are intoxicated, you will refuse me later more adamantly than ever."

I would have liked to argue with him. I would have liked to find another quote from someone to help persuade him, but my control over the ardeur wasn't as good as his, yet. Just staring up at all that beauty was making me forget. Forget what little poetry I knew. Forget logic, reason, restraint. Forget everything but his beauty, forget everything but my own need.

I didn't so much kneel as fall down his body. The hot water soaked through my shirt, my bra, my body, holding me in the heat of it, as I gazed up the length of Jean-Claude. He looked down at me, and still his eyes were human, normal, lovely to look at, but I wanted more.

I leaned my face in towards him, slowly, for a kiss on the mouth.

" Ma petite, there is nothing you can do until I have fed."

I laid a gentle kiss on his groin.

He closed his eyes, and his breath came out in a careful sigh. "I am not saying it is not pleasurable, but I will be of no use to you."

I took him in my mouth, and he was small and soft, so I didn't have to fight to get all of him inside. I loved the sensation of him when he was small, not just because I wasn't fighting the erection to breath and swallow, but the difference in texture. There was nothing on a woman's body that had this feel to it. I rolled him gently around in my mouth, and he shuddered. I sucked gently, pulling with my lips, rolling my eyes upward to watch him throw back his head, his hands convulse, grabbing at empty air.

I pulled back enough to whisper so that my breath caressed the wet skin of his groin, "Feed, so we can both feed."

He shook his head and looked down at me, and there was a look I hadn't seen much on his face. Stubbornness. "Pleasure I will take from you, ma petite, but not blood, not while the ardeur rides you. If you still wish to be embraced after the ardeur is fed, then I will gladly, joyfully, comply, but not like this."

I slid my hands up the smooth wetness of his hips. "I need to feed now, Jean-Claude, please, please."

" Non, " and he shook his head at me, again.

The ardeur had been ready to be gentle, as gentle as I'd ever felt it, but being denied didn't make it, or me feel gentle. Angry, stubborn, cheated. I tried to think past it, and couldn't. I'd been good, so good for so long. I hadn't fed on Caleb, and no one would have screamed at me for it. I hadn't fed on Nathaniel, and he was my pomme de sang. I wanted him to go another day before he got munched on. I didn't like that he'd passed out at the club.

I hadn't bothered Jason, who had been too weak to argue. Once I felt Jean-Claude wake, I knew what I wanted. I hadn't even seen the other men I passed to get to this room. They hadn't existed for me. Now he was denying me, refusing me, rejecting me. Some small distant part of me knew that wasn't true, it wasn't even fair, but that was a distant voice. The voices in the front of my head were screaming, fuck him, feed on him, take him.

I'd fought until there wasn't enough of me left to fight. There was nothing but the need, and the need had no mercy.

I covered him with my mouth again, and I did something that I could only do when he was at his smallest. I drew his balls, gently, into my mouth, so that I held all of him inside my mouth. It was the most amazing sensation to be able to hold him, to flick my tongue on the loose skin between his testes, to roll the delicate eggs of his body against my teeth and cheeks. He filled my mouth this way, so wide, impossibly wide, but because there was no length to match it, I wasn't choking or fighting to breathe. It was as if I could have held him inside me like this for days. I sucked on him, the shaft, the balls, all at once, fitting my mouth around the base of him, so that my lips formed a seal against his body, and I sucked him, licked him, rolled him, explored him. I looked up and found his eyes had bled to blue at last, but I didn't care anymore. I closed my eyes, wrapped my hands around the smooth tightness of his buttocks, and gave myself over to the joy of it.

I heard his cries, felt his body shudder and quiver under my touch, but it was distant. His flesh filled my mouth, rolled so easily under my tongue. I'd always enjoyed the sensation of him when he was loose, but I'd never been able to indulge myself, because after a few touches, like all men, he didn't stay small.

I wrapped my mouth close and closer to the base of him and grazed my teeth ever so lightly there. There, the base of all of him, so that to bite too hard would take it all. I knew what an act of trust this was for him. I bit just hard enough to make him cry out, then pulled gently against his body, using mostly lips for pressure.