Cerulean Sins (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 11)

He turned on his side so we lay there facing each other, but not touching. "If I never get to do this again, I wanted it to be good."

I had to close my eyes, to fight off another urge to writhe on the bed. I let out a long, steadying breath, then opened my eyes again. "Oh, it was that. I had a really good time, but are you always this vigorous? Not every girl likes to be pounded into the mattress."

"I've seen the men you've been sleeping with, Anita, I knew I could be as hard and fast as I wanted to be, and not hurt you."

I frowned at him. "Are you implying that you're small?"

"No, I'm saying that I'm not huge. I'm good sized, but some of the men in your bed are more than good-sized."

I blushed. I hadn't blushed the entire time we'd been making love, and now I blushed. "I don't know what to say, Jason, I feel like I should defend your ego, but . . ."

"But inch for inch I know where I stand, Anita." He laughed, and slid an arm under my shoulders. I let him bring me into the curve of his shoulder. I slid my hand across his stomach, my other arm underneath the small of his back, my leg sliding over his thigh. We cuddled, almost as close now as we had been earlier.

"You were wonderful," I said.

"I noticed how wonderful you thought I was." He raised his free arm up so I could see the fresh bloody scratches I'd put down his arms.

I widened eyes at him. "Does your other arm look that bad?"

"Yes."

I frowned, and he touched my forehead. "Don't frown, Anita, I'm going to enjoy every mark. I'll miss them when they heal."

"But . . ."

He touched fingertip to my lips, to keep me from finishing. "No buts, just amazing sex, and I for one want to feel the aches and pains of it as long as I can." He touched my arm where it lay across his stomach, raised it so I could look at it. There were nail marks, some of them seeping blood, some just red and raised. "These aren't my marks."

Of course, once I saw them, they started to hurt. Why is it that small wounds don't hurt until you see them? "Actually," I said, "they are your marks, or at least a sign of a job well done. I don't remember ever marking myself up this badly."

He gave that low masculine chuckle with an edge of laughter that was pure Jason. "Thanks for the compliment, but I know that whatever I did, it can't be half as wonderful as what Asher and Jean-Claude did a few hours ago. No amount of inches, or talent, will put a man in that league."

I shivered, hugging him. "That's not necessarily a bad thing."

"How can you say that? I've felt a fraction of what Asher did to you, and it's . . ." he seemed to be searching for just the right word, he finally said, "wondrous, mind-blowing."

"Yeah," I said, "the kind of pleasure you'd do almost anything to experience again." My voice sounded less than happy.

Jason touched my chin, raised me to look at him. "Are you thinking of not going back for more?"

I tucked my face against his shoulder. "Let's just say that I'm not completely happy about it."

"Why not?" he asked.

"I don't know exactly." I shook my head as much as I could pressed against him. "Truth, is that it scares me."

"What scares you?"

"Sex is great, Jason, but this . . . what Asher can do with his bite." I tried to put it into words, and knew that whatever I said would fail to describe it. "Asher feels like a Master Vampire in my head, his level of power, but he has no animal to call. He can do the voice trick like Jean-Claude, but that's a minor power. I was a little puzzled, I mean, he feels like a master, but where's his power?" I shivered again. "I found out."

Jason rested his chin on the top of my head and said, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that his power lies in seduction, sex, intimate play. He can't feed off lust the way Jean-Claude can, and he doesn't cause lust in those around him the way Jean-Claude does, but damn, once the preliminaries are out of the way, he can cause such . . . pleasure. It really is something that people would kill for, sign their fortunes away for, do whatever Belle Morte wanted them to do, just as long as Asher would keep visiting their beds."

"So he's like this amazing lay," Jason said.

"No, you're an amazing lay, Micah is an amazing lay, I'm not a hundred percent sure that Jean-Claude is as good as I think he is, because I'm not sure anymore how much of it is true talent and how much is vampire powers. I did not have intercourse with Asher. We just shared blood."

Jason moved so he could frown down at me. "I'm sorry, but the wolf knows these things. It wasn't just Jean-Claude I smelled when I walked into the room."

I blushed again. "I didn't say Asher didn't have a good time, I just said we didn't have intercourse."

"And your point is what?" he asked.

"My point is that if that was only taking blood, I'm afraid to have real sex with him. I mean how much better could it be?"

He gave a laugh that held an edge of giggling, almost a giddy sound. "I'd love to find out."

I raised up on one elbow. "Are you telling me you'd do Asher?"

He frowned, the laughter still glinting in his eyes. "I was a little confused for awhile about exactly what my preferences were. I mean I've been Jean-Claude's pomme de sangfor about two years now. It's amazing when he feeds, Anita, a-fucking-mazing. Enjoying being with him this much made me think I might be gay." He traced his hand down my shoulder. "But I like girls. I'm not saying that with the right person bisexual isn't a possibility, but not if it means never being able to do this again. I like girls." He drew "like" out into a multisyllabic word.

It made me laugh. "And I like men."

"I noticed," he said, still with a trace of laughter in his voice.

I sat up. "I think we've cuddled enough."

He touched my arm, face serious again. "Are you really not going to bed Asher?"

I sighed. "You know how you said Jean-Claude is so amazing when he takes blood."

"Yeah."

"Jean-Claude says that Asher's bite is orgasmic, literally. So that means that Asher's bite is more pleasurable than even Jean-Claude's."

"Okay," he said. He propped himself up on pillows, hands folded across his stomach as he listened to me.

I was sitting Indian fashion, still nude, and it didn't seem to matter. It wasn't sexual now, just comfortable.

"I've had sex with Jean-Claude, but never allowed him to take blood with it."

"Never?" he said.

"Never."

He shook his head. "You are the strongest willed person I've ever met. No one else would have refused the double pleasure, not this long."

"You haven't done both with him," I said.

He grinned. "It's considered bad form to fuck your pomme de sang,unless they initiate it. If they initiate it, then it's an extra treat, and only if they've been good."

"You sound like you asked him about this."

"I did."

I raised eyebrows at that.

"Oh, come on, Anita, I've slept with him longer than you have. You'd have to be more of a flaming heterosexual than I am to not wonder."

"He turned you down?"

"Very politely, but yeah."

I was frowning. "Did he say why?"

Jason nodded. "You."

I couldn't frown any harder, so I tried to stop, but I was puzzled. "Why me? You've been his pommelonger than I've been his girlfriend, and a hell of a lot longer than I've been his lover."

"By the time I asked, you were dating. He seemed to think that you would dump his ass if you found out he was doing another man."

"You're making my head hurt," I said.

"Sorry, but if you don't want the truth, don't ask." He settled the pillows more comfortably at his back. "But you've managed to avoid answering my original question."

"What was it?" I asked.

He looked at me. "Don't try to be coy, Anita, you're so bad at it."

"Fine, Asher, what to do about Asher. I made sort of promises to them both that we'd find a way to be a menage a trois, or would that be a menage a quatre."

"Who's your fourth?"

"Micah," I said.

"Darn," he said.

I frowned at him.

"Couldn't help myself, sorry."

"If I go back on that promise we'll lose Asher."

"What do you mean, lose?"

I explained about Asher's plans to leave.

"So if you don't come across, he's gone."

"Yeah."

He frowned, laughed, then shook his head. "Let me think this through. His bite is overwhelmingly orgasmic, mind-blowing pleasure. You think that if you fuck him while he takes blood that it will be even more amazing."

"Yes," I said.

"Why is this a problem?" Jason asked.

I hugged myself. "I'm afraid, Jason."

He sat up beside me. "Afraid of what?"

"Afraid of being . . ." I hesitated, tried to find a the words, and finally, "I'm afraid of being consumed."

He frowned. "Consumed, I know what the word means, but I don't understand what you mean by it."

"Aren't you afraid of wanting one of them so badly that you'd do anything to have him with you?"

"Do you just mean vampires, or people in general?"

I rested my chin on my knees. "Vampires, of course."

"No, you don't mean just vampires, you're afraid of wanting anybodycompletely, aren't you?"

I wouldn't look at him. "I don't know what you mean."

He pushed my hair back behind my ear, but it was too thick to stay. "Don't lie to Uncle Jason, you didn't mean just vampires."

I looked at him, hugging my legs to me. "Maybe not, but the point is the same. I don't want to want anyone so much that if they aren't with me, I die."

A look passed through his eyes that I couldn't read. "You mean you're afraid of loving anyone more than life itself?"

"Yes."

He smiled, and it was gentle, and a little sad. "I would give one of my less favorite body parts for a woman to care for me as deeply as you do for Nathaniel."

I started to protest that I didn't love Nathaniel.

Jason touched a finger to my lips. "Stop. I know you haven't given yourself over heart and soul to Nathaniel, but then you haven't given yourself over heart and soul to anybody, have you?"

I looked away, because watching that patient, grown-up look in his eyes was uncomfortable to say the least. "One of my goals in life is, just once to have a woman look at me the way you watch Jean-Claude. The way you and Jean-Claude watch Asher. The way you watch Nathaniel. The way Nathaniel looks at you."

"You left Micah off the list."

"You and he have this comfort level that you don't have with any of the others, but it's almost as if the comfort comes at the expense of something else."

"What?" I asked.

"I don't know, I've never been in love, how should I know."

"So, what, I'm not in love with Micah?"

"That is not my question to answer."

"I cannot be in love with four men at once."

"Why not?"

I looked at him.

"It's not a rule," he said.

"It would be ridiculous," I said.

"You fought Jean-Claude, because you were afraid of him. Then Richard came along, and I think you loved him, really loved him, and that scared you, so you backed off. I think you dated them both to keep from falling in love with either of them."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it?"

"Originally, Jean-Claude said he'd kill Richard if he didn't get a chance to woo me too."

"And why didn't you just kill Jean-Claude then? You don't tolerate ultimatums, Anita, so why tolerate that one?"

I didn't have an answer for that, or at least not a good one.

"Richard grows more distant, more caught up in his own personal angst, which leaves the field open for Jean-Claude. So suddenly you have Nathaniel bunking with you. I know, I know, he's your pomme de sang,your house leopard, but it was still interesting timing."

I wanted to tell him to stop, to not say anymore, but he didn't, he kept on. I'd never thought of Jason as relentless before.

"Somewhere in all this, Asher comes up on the radar, maybe it's Jean-Claude's old memories, maybe not. But whatever caused it, you're drawn to him, but he's so full of anger that it's not a threat. He's almost as full of self-loathing as Richard is. Then suddenly Richard walks away for real this time. You're left with just Jean-Claude, and Nathaniel, but Nathaniel isn't enough of a romantic threat to keep Jean-Claude at bay, and suddenly there's Micah. Out of the blue, instant lust, instant housekeeping. You have Micah, and now Jean-Claude is back to sharing you with someone else, and you're safe again. You can't fall madly in love with Jean-Claude, or anyone else, because you've divided your world up into different parts with each of them. Because no one man has your whole world, no one man can rock your whole world."

I got out of the bed, tugging the sheet around me like a robe. I suddenly didn't want to be naked in front of Jason anymore.

"I thought it was all accidental, and it was, and it wasn't. You're terrified of belonging to just one person, aren't you?"

I shook my head. "Not of belonging to just one person, Jason, of wanting to belong to just one person."

"Why, why is that so frightening to you? Most people spend their lives wanting exactly that, I know I do."

"I loved someone once with my whole heart, and he stomped on it."

"Please, not the fiance in college. Anita that was years ago, and he was an asshole. You can't spend the rest of your life nursing one bad experience."

I was at the foot of the bed now, wrapped shoulders to feet in the sheet. I was cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature. "It's not only that," I said, voice soft.

"What is it then?"

I took a deep breath in, let it out slow. "I loved my mother with my whole heart and whole soul, she was my world. She died, and it nearly destroyed me." I thought about everything he'd said, and I couldn't argue with it, and I couldn't pretend it didn't make sense. "I never want to put my whole world in any one person's hands again, Jason. If they die, I won't die with them."

"So you'll hold a little of yourself back from everybody."

"No," I said, "I'll hold back a piece of myself for myself. No one gets all of me, Jason, no one, except me."

He shook his head. "So Jean-Claude gets sex, but no blood. Nathaniel gets intimacy, but not intercourse. Asher gets blood but not intercourse. Micah's getting intimacy and intercourse, what are you holding back from him?"

"I don't love him yet."

"Liar."

"I lust after him, but I don't love him yet."

"And Richard, what did you hold back from Richard?"

I stood there wrapped in the damned sheet, feeling the world sinking away to a small screaming thing. "Nothing," I said, "I held back nothing, and he dumped my ass."

Jason just sat there for a second or two, then he got off the bed. I think he meant to hold me, comfort me.

I put out a hand to stop him. "If you hug me, I'm going to cry, and Richard has gotten the last tear out of me that he's going to get."

"I'm sorry, Anita."

"Not your fault."

"No, but it wasn't any of my business either. I don't have the right to psychoanalyze you."

"You're just jealous," I said, and I tried to make it light, joking, and failed.

"About what?" he asked.

"That I have so many people that I could be in love with, if I'd only give that one last inch."

He sat back down on the edge of the bed. "You're right, damn it, but you're right. I am jealous, but I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't understand until the moment you said how afraid you were of being consumed. I want to be consumed, Anita. I want someone to come along and burn me up."

"You're a romantic," I said.

"You make that sound like a dirty word."

"Not dirty, Jason, just useless." I started for the door. "I'm going to get cleaned up, help yourself to the upstairs shower if you want." Jason called to me, but I kept walking. I'd had all the pillow talk I wanted for one day.