The Harlequin (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 15)

Chapter Fifteen

ONE OF THE younger guards was bent over the tub. I couldn't remember his name in that moment. He looked up and seemed startled, as if he hadn't expected us. "Remus told me to fill the tub." He sounded a little breathy. I remembered his name then: Cisco. He was eighteen, and I'd declared him too young to guard my body. But it hadn't been his age alone that had made me suggest he go elsewhere. He'd had problems around the sex and me. Apparently he was getting his second chance to see if he could be cool around the sex.

"We'll take it from here," Richard said.

"Remus was really clear that I am to follow every order exactly."

I sighed. "Cisco, just go."

He took his hand out of the water, shaking droplets off it. "Okay." His eyes were too wide, his face too bothered by us. He was a wererat; no lycanthrope should have this much problem around nudity. But it wasn't the nudity, I didn't think, but the fact that we were going to have sex. That bothered him. I'd declared that I was a twenty-one-or-older zone. Cisco's face made me think I needed to make that rule stick.

I got a flash of the gun at his hip as he moved past us. Remus said Cisco had one of the best scores on the firing range of any guard. But high scores weren't the only thing you needed to be a bodyguard.

The bathroom door closed, firmly. Richard stood there, holding me as if it were effortless, as if I weighed nothing and he could have done it all night. Sometimes it bugged me to know how much stronger the men were than I was, but not this morning. This morning it seemed comforting.

"Can I say something without you getting mad?" Richard asked.

I tensed, I couldn't help it. "I don't know."

He sighed, but he said it. "Cisco seems too young to be doing this."

"I agree."

He moved his head against the top of mine, as if he'd glance down at me if my face was where he could have seen it. "You agree?"

"Yeah, he's been weird around me since..." I didn't say it out loud, because I didn't want to upset Richard either. But Cisco had been in the room when I'd had sex with London, one of our British vamps, for the first time. Cisco had had trouble not seeing me as a piece of ass since that moment. He was young, young in ways that weren't just about how old he was. "Since he saw some stuff," I finished, and hoped Richard would let it be.

He did. He carried me to the edge of the tub. The water was very loud, rushing into the huge tub. Jean-Claude had explained to me that the swan spout that filled it was hooked up to a system that filled the tub extra fast. I had a tub almost that big at home, and apparently my system was like his, a quick fill. Since I had bought the house with the tub and system in place I hadn't realized there was anything special about it. High-tech tubs, who knew? Richard hugged me, and again I got a flash of that amazing strength. "I want to check the water, but I'm really enjoying carrying you."

"Me, too," I said.

He rested his face against my hair. "Really?"

"Yes," I said, and I would have whispered it, except the water was loud enough that true whispering wasn't possible.

He stepped into the water with me in his arms. I laughed and lifted enough to see his face. "Shouldn't you check the temperature first?"

The look on his face made the laughter leak away. Eager, amazed, just so many emotions. Lately when we'd been together the only thing I'd seen in his face had been lust. We'd both shut down our emotions, kept ourselves safe. It had had that feel of sex at the end of a relationship, when sex is all you have left, and it isn't enough.

"The temperature's fine," he said, his voice soft. He knelt down, still holding me. He folded all that six feet and change down into the water, and just above his waist the water hit me. It was warm, almost hot. The water slid over my body like another set of hands, gliding, exploring. He was right, the temperature was fine.

He whispered against my hair, "How much do you hurt?"

"I ache all over."

"We'll get cleaned up first, then let your body soak in the water. Hot water helps." He kissed my forehead, then lowered us both down into the water, so that he was almost floating with me held across his chest. He let go of me with one arm, so he could half-swim, half-pull us to the water faucet. My legs trailed out into the water, but the rest of me was held tight to his chest. He sat down against the side of the tub. The water came to his upper chest, which meant it was almost chin deep to me. He kept me pinned to the front of his body, and I was okay with that. Touching was good.

"Enough water?" He made it a question.

"Yes," I said.

He reached back and turned off the water, then settled down with me cuddled against the front of his body. The height difference was enough that to keep my chin above water I couldn't cup my body against anything but his chest and stomach, with the rest of my body mostly floating. It was probably just as well; if too much of him touched me, I tended to get distracted. We were going to let some of the aches and pains drift away before we got distracted. He kissed the side of my face, and I settled into his arms, and the warm, warm water.

It was relaxing, or should have been, but there was a kernel of me that couldn't relax completely. What was wrong?

"What's wrong?" Richard asked.

"Nothing."

"You're tense."

I sighed. "I don't know."

His hand slid down the side of my body to cup my hip. "It seems like unless we're having sex, you get tense when we're alone."

"I don't mean to," I said.

He wrapped his arms around me and forced my body lower as he rose, so that certain parts of his anatomy were touching me. He wasn't as hard as he got, but even partially erect he was a special treat. The feel of him pressed to the back of my butt felt wonderful. It made me writhe against him, which made his body react, growing, moving against my body. It was all involuntary, and I loved knowing that I affected him like that. He pushed against me, and it brought a small sound from my lips.

"So quick, so eager. God, I do love that about you." He whispered it against my face.

"I wanted to make love to you months before you'd say yes."

"I was afraid." He nuzzled my neck, biting just a little.

That little biting made me writhe more. The aches and pains were starting to fade under the first wave of endorphins, those happy little chemicals. "Afraid of what?" I whispered.

He bit harder, and my spine bowed with it. "You."

"Why?"

He cupped his mouth around the side of my throat and bit down. I cried out for him; my nails clawed at his arms. I finally had to say, "Enough, enough."

He eased back and turned me in the water so that I was facing him. He drew me in against the front of his body, and he was hard and eager now. The feel of him against the front of my body made me cry out.

He cupped my ass, pressed me harder against the front of him. I pushed at his body, almost like I wanted to get away, but that wasn't what I was thinking. It was just almost too much, for some reason. The feel of him so eager, so big, trapped between our bodies. It was almost too much.

He shuddered, head back, his voice panting, "God, Anita, God, I love the way you react to me. I do love it!"

I wrapped my body around him, pressed the length of him against the most intimate part of me. It made me cry out and press myself tighter against him.

He pushed me against the side of the tub and moved his hips away enough to try to angle himself for my opening. I didn't protest, until the tip of him started inside and my body let me know that the combination of water - which is not a lubricant - lack of foreplay, and his size meant this wasn't going to work.

I half-patted, half-slapped his chest. "Too big, you're too big."

"The water," he said, breathy. He leaned his hands on the sides of the tub, face down, the head of him still inside me. "If you release the ardeur, we can do it."

"But I'll be sore afterward, and so will you."

He moved his hips a little, and the sensation, even tight, made me catch my breath. "Not too sore," he said.

"Yes," I said, "trust me. I don't want to be walking funny tomorrow."

He raised his head enough to frown at me. "We've never done it before like this - how can you be so sure?"

Shit. I stared up at him with his body halfway inside mine and didn't know what to say. The truth was Micah and I had done it, but that seemed impolitic, to say the least, in this moment. I tried to think of something that wouldn't make him feel bad. But I waited too long.

He said, "Just say it, Anita, just say it."

"I want to make love with you, Richard. I don't want to fight."

He pulled back enough so he wasn't inside me anymore. He stayed with his arms on either side of the tub, framing me. The look on his face was cautious now, almost as if he were steeling himself for bad news. It wasn't the look I wanted on his face right now.

"Say it, Anita." His voice sounded tired.

"I tried it with someone else."

"Why did it hurt?"

"Don't make me say this, Richard, please."

"Say it," and his voice was harsher now.

I sighed. "Fine, because he was too big for it not to hurt."

"Who?"

"Don't do this, Richard."

"Who?" This time it was a demand.

I gave him angry eyes. "Who do you think?"

"I don't know; you've added at least two men to your list, and I've never seen either of them erect."

I ducked under his arm and half-swam to the other side of the tub. "Tell me what you want me to say, Richard."

"Is it your two new vampires?"

"Are you wanting to know how you measure up to Requiem and London? Is that what you're actually wanting to know?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I guess I do."

I crossed my arms under my breasts, the water helping, since they floated. "I cannot believe you're asking this."

"It's an easy question, Anita."

"Do you actually want to know if you're bigger than they are?"

"I'm so jealous of them that I can't see straight, so yeah, I want to know. I want to know that I'm still the best-endowed man in your bed."

"You know, I don't actually get out a ruler and measure everybody."

"So they are big."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." I covered my face with my hands. "No, no, they aren't as well endowed as you are. Happy?" I lowered my hands and found that it wasn't a happy look on his face.

"Then who is?"

I'd managed for months not to have this discussion, this specifically, with anyone. Of course, it would be Richard who pushed it. "Micah, okay? Micah."

"Is that why you love him?"

"Jesus, no, Richard, you should know better than most that a really big cock is not enough to win my heart."

"Then why him? Why are you living with him and not me?"

I sighed. We weren't going to have sex. We were going to have therapy. Sweet Mary, Mother of God, I did not want to do this. "Don't do this, not now, not today."

"I need to understand what went wrong before I can move on, Anita. I'm sorry, but I do."

I shook my head and tried to settle into the water, but it wasn't soothing anymore. It was just wet. "Fine. Do remember, I'm living with Nathaniel, too. You always seem to forget him, or discount him."

"He's not dominant, Anita. In the world of wereanimals that makes him discountable."

"But in the world of my affections, Richard, he is not discountable."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't, and I'm sorry you don't, but it's still the truth. I'm living with Micah and Nathaniel, not just Micah. The fact that Nathaniel isn't a dominant doesn't make me love him less."

"How can you sit there, like this, and tell me you love someone else? Don't you know how much that hurts me?"

"You wanted this talk, not me. I wanted to make love. I wanted to clean up, feed the ardeur, and be together, but you had to get all hung up on the size of everyone's equipment. I know it's a guy thing to worry about that, but this wasn't the time to bring it up."

"You're right, it was stupid, but I'm stupid around you, Anita. You make me say things, do things, that I know are bad for the relationship."

"I don't make you do anything. You choose to say and do things that spoil stuff. Your choice, not mine."

"Fine, you're right. I choose to say and do this shit. I could have let it go and we'd be having sex right now, and it would be great sex. But I really do want to know what Micah has that I don't. What magic does he have that made you move him into your house, live with him, when you wouldn't do it for me?"

God, we were going to do the big fight. The fight I did not want to do this, ever, but I especially didn't want to do this with the Harlequin in town, and heaven knew what nasty surprises headed our way. "Jean-Claude explained to you that it was partly vampire powers that drew Micah and me together."

"You're a succubus, a vampire that feeds on sex; yeah, he told me."

I saw something on his face. "You don't believe him."

"I don't believe it's permanent. I think if you could get enough space between yourself and Jean-Claude's power, it would go away."

"Richard, this isn't Jean-Claude's power anymore; it's mine."

He shook his head, his arms crossing over that lovely chest. "You aren't a vampire, Anita. You can't have vampire powers. They're still part of the triumvirate we have with Jean-Claude."

"Richard, this is real. You can't wish it away."

"What, that you're some kind of sex-crazed demon? I don't believe that. It's more of Jean-Claude's power, or Belle Morte's, or even Marmee Noir. Jesus, Anita, you have had so many vampires running through your mind, you don't know what is you and what is them anymore."

There was some truth to what he was saying, but... "Richard, I have forged a triumvirate of power with Nathaniel and Damian. That's me, not Jean-Claude. That's real."

He shook his head again. "There's got to be a way to undo it."

I just stared at him. This was not the talk I thought we'd be having. "Richard, I am a succubus, me, not Jean-Claude, not Belle Morte, not Mommie Dark, me."

"Humans can't be succubi."

"Maybe not, but then humans can't have a vampire servant or an animal to call, and I have both of those."

"Because you're Jean-Claude's human servant."

"Richard, you saw what happened when I tried to undo that connection. I would have died and taken Nathaniel and Damian with me."

He settled back into the water, giving me angry eyes. "Jean-Claude told me the theory. That your version of the ardeur helps you see the deepest desire in someone's heart and grant it, and make them into what you most need. Micah needed his people safe; you killed Chimera for him. You needed what from Micah?"

"A helpmate, a partner, someone to help me run the furry coalition, and help me run the wereleopards that I'd inherited when I killed their old master."

"I could have been your partner," he said.

"You didn't want to be my partner. You want your own life, not to be just an adjunct to mine."

"What does that mean? That I won't give up my job for you?"

"That I needed someone to do the coalition full time, and you have your career."

"That can't be all Micah is to you."

"He's there for me, Richard. He's there for me and the people I love. He doesn't fight me all the time. He says yes more than he says no."

"And I just say no."

"Sometimes."

"Nathaniel needed to belong to someone; now he belongs to you. I get that. But what did he do for you?"

"I needed a wife," I said.

"What?"

"I needed a 1950s wife to make my life run smooth. I needed someone to be my wife, and he's really good at it."

"And I want you to be my wife, is that it?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Why didn't your ardeur look into my heart and see what I most needed, and make us into the perfect couple, too?"

"I thought Jean-Claude explained all this to you."

"I asked him why not me, and he said the power was unpredictable. But that wasn't the truth, was it?"

"Not all of it," I said, and cursed my vampire lover for being a chickenshit.

"Tell me all of it," Richard said.

"Micah knew what he wanted: his people safe at any cost. He said from the moment he came to me that he'd do anything, be anything, to be in my life. The ardeur made that happen for him. Nathaniel wanted a home and to be loved for himself, not just for sex, and the ardeur made that happen. Both of those desires are very clear. Do you know what you want most, Richard? Do you have one single heart's desire?"

"I want you."

I shook my head. "That's not your deepest darkest wish, Richard."

"I should know what my deepest wish is, Anita."

"Richard, if a genie appeared before you right now, what would you wish? Really, truly, if you could have anything, what would it be?"

"You."

"Liar," I said.

He sat up, and that otherworldly energy swirled through the room. "How dare you?"

"Richard, be honest with yourself. What would you have if you could have anything, no matter how impossible?"

He blinked at me, and the energy level in the room seeped away. He stared at me. "I don't want to be a werewolf."

"That's your deepest wish, Richard, and the ardeur can't give you that. I can't be that for you, so the ardeur doesn't work between you and me, because what you want most doesn't have anything to do with sex and love."

He stared at me and sat back in the water, almost like he was faint. "Oh, my, God." He whispered it.

"We thought at first you were just too conflicted for the ardeur to pick and choose, but I was the one who figured it out."

"You're right," he said. A look of soft horror covered his face. He looked at me, and such pain filled his eyes. "I did this to myself."

I shrugged.

"I was so afraid I'd become a monster that I took the inoculations against lycanthropy. That's how I caught it."

"I know," I said softly.

"And I lost you because I hate what I am more than I want you."

"You haven't lost me, Richard."

He looked at me, and I had to fight to keep meeting that look. "You'll never be just mine. We'll never have a life together."

"We can be part of each other's lives, Richard."

"Not in the way I want."

"Maybe not, but, Richard, don't throw away what we have. Was it so bad last night, sleeping with all of us? Was that so awful?"

"No," he said, "and if I hadn't been in bed with you, then Marmee Noir could have done something awful to you. You need me to protect you."

"Sometimes, yes."

"But I can't live with two other men, Anita. I can't share my bed with them every night. I just can't."

My eyes felt hot, my throat was tight. Damn it, I would not cry. I managed to say, "I know."

"Then where do I fit in your life?"

"Where do I fit in yours?" I asked.

He nodded. "That's fair." But that was all he said.

I sat on my side of the tub feeling lost and horrible. Only Richard could make me feel this bad; only he managed to cut me this deep. Damn it.

I felt Nathaniel like a distant tug. He wasn't feeling well, which meant that Damian, in his coffin, would be feeling worse. Damian hadn't woken for the day yet, and I needed to feed the ardeur before he tried to wake. Jean-Claude had explained to me that if one morning I didn't have enough energy to make Damian's body wake, he would never wake again. He would simply remain dead, forever.

"I've got to feed, Richard, now. Nathaniel is starting to feel bad, and I won't risk killing Damian."

Richard nodded. I expected him to say he'd get someone else for me to feed on, but he didn't. "We need to do enough foreplay so you can feed from me."

"We're fighting, that's not good foreplay."

"Are you saying you don't want to be with me now?" He said it low, careful, as if he were balancing a world of emotions on a very thin stick. One wrong comment and the stick would break and the world would fall. Shit.

"I'm saying I don't have time for lengthy foreplay. I need to feed, right away. I'm trying not to cry; that's not conducive to sex. Not for me, at least."

"I'm sorry, Anita."

"Don't be sorry, Richard. Fix it. Fix yourself, fix us, or don't fix us. But whatever you're going to do, we need to do it now. I won't risk lives because we're having another fight."

He nodded his head as if that were fair. Maybe it was. He started moving toward me through the water.

"What are you doing?" I asked, and sounded suspicious.

"I want you to feed off me, Anita."

"I'm pissed and hurt, and that doesn't lead to sex for me."

"If I leave you'll still be pissed and hurt. You'll still have trouble concentrating on the sex, won't you?"

I couldn't argue his logic. I almost said, But the others are smaller than you, and this is one situation where bigger isn't better. But I didn't say it out loud. I didn't want to hurt him that badly. I also knew that if Richard and I couldn't come to some kind of understanding, one day we'd be finished as a couple. He'd always be Jean-Claude's wolf to call. He'd always be bound to us in a triumvirate of power, but we'd be broken up. It would be like being trapped in a relationship with someone you'd divorced but could never completely get rid of. A little slice of hell, that.

He was kneeling in front of me, the water just above his waist. The edges of his hair were wet, but the top was still dry, and still held some of the slick stuff that had gotten on us when I ripped Travis into his animal form. Truthfully, a little mess wasn't enough to take away from how handsome he was, but the constant fighting was. The picking at it all, and his deep unhappiness with being a werewolf, that was unattractive. I gazed up at him, all that way to the nearly heart-stopping face, so handsome. Handsome enough that I'd have been embarrassed around him in high school. But handsome and well-endowed wasn't enough to keep letting him hurt me like this. I stared up at him, and for the first time my heart did not leap up, and neither did my libido. I was tired of the fighting. I was tired of his inability to accept our reality. He didn't believe I was a succubus. He thought it was something that would go away if we got me away from Jean-Claude. Didn't he understand that there was no going away from Jean-Claude, not for either of us? His comments said no, he didn't understand that, and that made me sad.

He stood up. He stood up with water dripping down his body. I was suddenly staring at a certain part of his anatomy with water drops decorating it. We all have our weaknesses, and one of mine was water. Richard had dated me long enough to know that. He was betting that seeing him wet was enough to distract me from being mad at him. I had a moment to decide to hold on to that angry sadness, or do what I wanted to do. Do what the suddenly rapid pulse in my neck wanted to do. I felt Nathaniel sway against a wall. I went to my knees, steadied my hands against the warm, wet sides of Richard's thighs, and lowered my mouth to his body.