Crimson Death
Page 43

 Laurell K. Hamilton

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   I screamed for him, then felt him beginning to suck. Nathaniel raised his mouth from my thigh, my blood decorating his lips. He growled up at me as he leaned over to lick between my legs. I both wanted him to and was afraid for him to; how much was his beast in control? How much of him was in there as he began to lick over that most intimate part of my body? He’d left a bloody imprint of his teeth on my thigh. I didn’t want that there, but with Damian feeding at my neck it was like I couldn’t talk, couldn’t do anything but make small noises. Nathaniel loved me; he would never hurt me more than I wanted to be hurt. I trusted him. I trusted him. That’s what I kept telling myself as he brought me writhing to my orgasm between them as the vampire drank me down, and the wereleopard licked the last bit of orgasm from between my legs and then grabbed more of me in his mouth, so I was like meat between his teeth, as he began to bite down.
 
 
13

   NATHANIEL LET ME feel the grip of his teeth around the meat of me, his teeth pressing in slowly like a threat, or a promise. Damian’s body was growing thicker against the back of me. He drew back from my neck and took a long, shuddering breath as if he’d come up for air. The feel of his body shuddering against me made me shudder in return, which moved the part of me between Nathaniel’s teeth. It pulled more and it was all my fault. Nathaniel half growled and half laughed with me still in his mouth. I fought not to writhe from it while his teeth closed slowly down. It still didn’t hurt, but the game was the promise of hurting to come without ever actually doing it. Damian tightened his hand in my hair and across my body, more reflex than choice as his body reacted to mine, but I liked it and let him know it, whispering, “Yes, Damian, yes.”    Nathaniel bit down a little harder, and I said, “No, Nathaniel.”
   He bit down more.
   It made me gasp, but I said, “Yellow,” which meant to ease up.
   He bit down even more.
   I called, “Red!”
   He stopped biting down and, with one more long lick across me, moved back to gaze up at me with flower-colored eyes, which tried for innocence but held too much evil mischief to be believed.
   He stood up and I was suddenly sandwiched between both men. Nathaniel put his arms around both of us, encouraging Damian to push himself even tighter against the back of me and pulling himself as tight against the front of me. The combination made me writhe between them, which made them both harder and thicker, so hard that I wondered if it was painful to be that hard. If I remembered later I’d ask, but right that second the sensation of all that hardness pressed so tight against me was almost overwhelming. I cried out just from that.

   Nathaniel licked my neck where Damian had bitten me. The vampire licked over it, and then they took turns licking over the wound, until I cried out half in protest and half that it felt good, but I wanted them to do other things.
   Nathaniel leaned over my shoulder and it was Damian’s body suddenly startling that helped me realize he’d kissed the vampire, before I turned my head to watch. In all the negotiating Damian had done, he hadn’t mentioned kissing the other man as either a negative or a positive. Anything not talked about in detail gave you room to maneuver. Damian was immobile in the kiss but hadn’t pulled back. I wasn’t sure if he was enjoying it or so shocked he’d frozen.
   Nathaniel took the lack of protest as consent and kissed him thoroughly, putting more lip action into it. He wasn’t a mind reader, so until Damian said something he had no way of knowing that the other man’s body had gone so still and that he was less happy to be pressed against me. I loved watching the two men kiss from inches away, while I was sandwiched between them! But was I supposed to tell Nathaniel that Damian might not be enjoying it, or was the vampire supposed to speak up for himself?
   Jean-Claude’s power whispered through my mind. “Ma petite, why have you not fed?”
   “We’re too controlled,” I said out loud.
   Nathaniel turned to me, kissing me with the taste of the other man still on his lips. He drew back enough to say, “I can fix that.” He lowered his mouth to my breast and began to kiss and suck on it the same way he’d kissed my mouth, as if he wanted to lick the taste of every inch of me. It was the way he’d kissed Damian, so he could bring the scent and taste of his mouth to mine.
   He drew my nipple out with his teeth in a line of flesh that felt so good, it was almost pain, almost but not quite. Damian’s body was pressed tight against me again. I was making small, eager noises as Nathaniel sucked my breast, then turned to the other breast, whispering, “Oh, look, a second one.”
   “Be less controlled then, ma petite,” Jean-Claude whispered through my head, as Nathaniel began to suck at my breast as if he were trying to feed from it. Since lycanthropes fed by biting off chunks of flesh I had to call, “Yellow.” He eased down to a point where it felt good again, and I moaned for him. Damian pressed harder against my ass, and I rubbed against him, feeling him grow achingly hard. I wanted him inside me, wanted it so badly. It was as if all the months of avoiding each other, of letting him be with Cardinale and not us, were concentrated down to this one moment in time. Desire . . . It was as if desire were a drug that someone had injected straight into our bodies.
   “Fuck me,” I said.
   “Fuck her,” Nathaniel said.
   “Please,” I said.
   “Fuck her,” Nathaniel repeated, kneeling down in front of me, letting the water pound against the front of my body and pour over his head, plastering his hair against the back of his body like a second skin. He pushed his hands against my hips, driving me even harder against Damian’s body.
   Damian cried out, “Gods!”
   “No more control,” Nathaniel said, “no more waiting.”
   There were too many words in the sentence. I couldn’t think with Damian pressing against me, his hands cupping my breasts. Nathaniel’s fingers digging into my hips, his body covered in water and the drowning color of his own hair. “What?” I asked.
   Nathaniel stared up at me, and the lavender of his irises spilled out over his eyes, so that he stared up at me blind with his own power. “I want this,” he said.
   “I want this,” Damian said. I turned to look over my shoulder to find that the vampire’s eyes were a solid, shining green.
   “We want this,” they said, and their voices echoed each other just a second out of sync.
   “We want this,” I said, even as I knew that I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that was true.
   “Ma petite, lower your shields and let them inside.”
   “I don’t know how,” I said.
   “I do,” Nathaniel said.
   I stared down into his flower-colored eyes and said, “What?”