Danse Macabre (Vampire Hunter 14)

Claudia spoke from the edge of the room, where she and the rest of the bodyguards were so quiet. We were close to kicking them out of the room. Okay, I was close to kicking them out. "I think I can catch this one," she said.

I looked at her. "Go ahead," I said.

"Jean-Claude feeds from a man the same way he feeds from a woman. Most vampires differentiate when they feed. Heterosexual vamps take more liberties with opposite-sex victims. Homosexual vamps take more liberties with same-sex vies. Jean-Claude doesn't differentiate, do you understand?"

"When have you seen him feed on other women?"

"Aha," Claudia said, "and that is exactly why he doesn't feed on women except at the clubs, in public. You'd be jealous of other women if he took them in private, but you aren't jealous of men. You don't see them as sexually competitive for Jean-Claude's attention."

My head was beginning to hurt. "You're giving me a headache, Claudia."

"Only because you don't want to think this one through."

"You're saying that Jean-Claude likes both men and women, but because I'd be jealous of women, he takes mostly men. I get it, I get it."

"Thank you, Claudia," Jean-Claude said.

"You're welcome."

"Do I apologize to anyone, everyone?" I asked.

"Just take off the robe and get in bed," Nathaniel said. "Silk is cold without another body to warm it up."

I smiled at him, shook my head, and started to undo my robe. I stopped, and said, "Everyone that's not getting in the bed, outside."

"If it's an invitation..." Graham started.

"Can it, Graham," Claudia said, and went for the door.

He hesitated, but he followed her. Lisandro was already going for the door. Claudia had sent most of the others out when things calmed earlier. Probably sent them to watch over our "guests." The bodyguards piled out. The door shut, and we were alone.

Micah crawled onto the bed, on the other side of Nathaniel, leaving room for me. "You're looking a little overdressed," he said.

I undid the sash and let the robe fall to the floor. I crawled up onto the silk with the help of their hands. They pulled me down between them, so their na**d bodies pressed in against me. There was a moment where I had to close my eyes. The sensation of their warm, bare skin sliding against mine was almost overwhelming. It was like wrapping myself in a favorite blanket with my favorite stuffed toy in my arms, and my gun close at hand. Sandwiched between Micah and Nathaniel was the safest, best place I'd ever known.

Nathaniel kissed me. My arms slid around his shoulders automatically. He took that as an invitation to press his upper body against mine. Micah's hand slid across my hip, until his hand found the inside of my thigh. He stroked his hand back and forth, and without thinking about it, I moved my leg so he could reach other things if he wanted to.

My hands slid down Nathaniel's back, found the curve where his waist met lower things, traced the two dimples in his very lower back. The kiss had grown into something more, and his body responded to that promise, swelling where he lay trapped against my hip. The feel of him hard and firm against me made me shudder into his mouth.

He drew back enough to watch my eyes fluttering open and shut. "You are my most favorite toy."

It was more effort than I would have admitted out loud to focus on his face. Micah's hand kept stroking my thigh, as if he was coaxing me to open my legs for him, but I'd already done that. His fingers kept trailing on that last inch before he touched intimate parts. I wanted him to touch me. Wanted his fingers to finish that teasing promise.

"I thought you were tired," Micah whispered, but his mouth was just above my neck, so hot, so close.

"I was." My voice was thick, but not with sleep.

"What do you want?" he breathed against my neck. That alone made me shiver.

"Touch me."

"I am touching you." His fingers trailed just below where I wanted him to touch, back and forth, back and forth, but not the back and forth I wanted.

"Please, Micah. No more teasing."

His fingers slid over me, and that first touch drew small sounds from me.

"So eager," he said, and he rose up enough to see my face. His own face was eager, too, but there was also a soft wonder to his face. He raised his hand from between my legs to touch, lightly, along my face. "I love that look on your face," he said.

"What look?" I whispered.

He smiled. "That look." He leaned in for his own kiss. Nathaniel's hand curved over my breast, as Micah's mouth found mine. Nathaniel's touch made me more eager at Micah's mouth, so that the kiss was more than it would have been. I fed at Micah's mouth, my hand running over his body. I tried to use both hands, but Nathaniel caught my hand, pressed it to the bed, so he could lower his mouth to my breast. He filled his hand with my breast, pressing it until it was just this side of pain. His tongue flicked over my nipple. Micah's tongue slipped inside my mouth, tasting me. Nathaniel's mouth slid over more of me, and he sucked, hard and fast. It brought me screaming off the bed, screaming my pleasure into Micah's mouth. I tried to raise my other hand off the bed, but Nathaniel held it trapped. He bit my breast, and I raked nails down Micah's back. Nathaniel let go of my other hand, and bit me harder. Not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to dance that line between pain and pleasure. I put a matching row of scratches down his back, and they let me go.

I lay gasping on the bed between them, trying to focus my eyes around the white, cottony edges of the world. Micah said, "That was fun."

Nathaniel said, "Mmmm." He flicked his tongue across my nipple, quick and gone.

I writhed across the bed, my hands grabbing at the silk sheets. "Oh, God!"

A hand caressed my ankle. That one quiet touch opened my eyes, made me gaze down my body to find Jean-Claude kneeling there. He was still wearing the robe, belted tight. His face was neutral, pleasant. "Micah invited me to touch you, but I've found that it is your invitation I need." Translation: sometimes in the midst of all the men, I got pissy if someone touched me without my saying yes first. Just because one of the men was touching me didn't mean that everyone got to touch me equally. A girl's got to try to draw a line somewhere.

"You can't have intercourse until you've fed again," I said.

He smiled. "So American. There are other ways to pleasure a woman."

"But you won't be able to..."

His hand slid up my calf, the most delicate of touches. "I will be content, ma petite."

"We can stop now," Micah said, "if you want. This was fun."

I gazed down his body and saw just how fun he thought it was. He was long, and thick, and ready, and long and thick for Micah was very long and thick indeed. I glanced down at Nathaniel, and found him just as ready. No, he wasn't as big as Micah, but then the only one of the men who could compare was Richard. Though Richard didn't seem as aware of it as Micah.

Nathaniel was definitely more, just not as more as Micah. Not in length anyway, but in width, well, yeah. Men are hung up on length; trust me, girls pay attention to width, too. Frankly an inch or two less length wasn't always a bad thing; depended on what you wanted to do with it.

I ran fingertips over both of them, and just that light touch made them shudder, and me writhe. "So pretty," I said, "seems a shame to waste them."

"We'll get more," Micah said.

"I agree with Anita," Nathaniel said, grinning.

Micah smiled at him, a bright flash of teeth in his tanned face.

"I will join Asher." Jean-Claude began to slide off the bed.

"Don't go," I said.

He looked at me; it was a very searching look. "I do not have the patience of your two cats, ma petite. They have served blood for Asher and myself more than once, then watched us have our way with you."

"We had to save them for the ardeur the next day, or next night," I said.

"Oui, but I am not the voyeur that Asher is, and if I am not to join in completely, I would as soon leave. It is not a complaint, merely truth."

"I still think you shouldn't go that far away," Micah said. "I don't trust Belle."

Jean-Claude smiled. "Wise, and correct." He spread his hands wide. "If it were just sex between the three of you I could watch and be content to join the cuddling afterward. But it is the emotional content that makes it difficult to be excluded."