Bullet (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 19)

JEAN-CLAUDE ROSE ABOVE me, nude and perfect, his body moving in and out of me as he held himself above me on his arms. One, he knew I loved watching him go in and out of my body. Two, he was too tall for traditional missionary, or I was too short. His hair spilled over one shoulder in a mass of thick, black curls. I stared down the line of our bodies watching all that pale perfection work in and out of my body. Just the sight of it made me cry out, like a preview of the orgasm to come. A cry from the side of the bed echoed mine and made me turn my head to see Asher, his head thrown back, body spasming in the chains. His body jerked with each heavy blow of the flogger, and then the sound of the flogger sped up until it was one continuous sound and Asher couldn't react to each individual blow, his body shivering under it all, his eyes fluttering back.

Jean-Claude shoved himself hard and complete inside me, making me cry out and turn back to him, eyes wide. He held my gaze and began to work faster, deeper, lifting with his hips at the top of each stroke so he was touching everything that made me orgasm from intercourse. The men in my bed were all good, but Jean-Claude could hit not just one spot, but all of them. I felt that wonderful heaviness begin between my legs and knew I was close. The flogging stopped and it made me turn to see, even as Jean-Claude brought me closer to that edge of pleasure. Richard had wrapped himself against Asher's back again. His tan looked so dark against the paleness of Asher's body.

I felt Jean-Claude's body lose some of that smooth rhythm. It made me look up at him but he was looking at the other men, and the sight of them had made him miss a step. Then he was looking down at me again, and one moment we were gazing into each other's faces and the next the orgasm took me. It rolled over me, through me, in a wave of warmth and pleasure that made me grab Jean-Claude's arms, holding on as the sensation  of it tore screams from my throat, clawed my nails down his arms, as if I were trying to anchor myself to something solid while the world exploded in white-edged pleasure and my body tried to become the fierce joy of it all. I didn't exactly pass out, but I wasn't aware of everything either, and when I could see again, be aware of all of me again, Jean-Claude was smiling down at me.

I smiled back and took my nails out of his arms. I'd left red lines, some with blood in them, from about his mid-upper arm to almost his wrists. Once I would have apologized for it, but I knew he enjoyed the marks, both the pain/pleasure of it and that he could drive me to pleasure deep enough to bleed him. Most of the men in my life took it as high praise.

He drew himself out of me and that made me writhe under him, another smaller orgasm just from that alone. When I could make my eyes focus again he was gone and Richard was above me on all fours, not touching me yet, but looking down at me. His hair was still back in its tight ponytail, leaving his face clean and almost heartrendingly handsome. I looked down the line of his body, but didn't get as far as normal, because his chest and stomach were striped with blood. For a moment I thought it was his blood then realized it had to be Asher's. It takes a lot of force to draw blood with a flogger, or one that was corded, or had metal bits. I knew we had both in the toy chest, but hadn't realized Richard had brought it out to play.

He leaned just his face down to mine, keeping his body off mine. He kissed me and I could still taste the edge of my own body on his mouth, but there was also a taste of other lips, and I knew that I'd missed at least another kiss or two between him and Asher. I felt a little regret at that and hoped I'd get a chance to see it again. Nothing was ever certain with Richard, so I kissed him with tongue, and lips and teeth, and he responded in kind, collapsing on top of me, our mouths locked and eager around each other. The sensation of his body on top of mine made me cry out and writhe underneath him, but the height difference was too great for the angle that we were kissing, and the best I could grind against was higher up his body than what I wanted to touch. He pulled away from the kiss with my lower lip between his teeth. It made me cry out half in protest and half in pleasure, that edge of good and bad so intermingled that I couldn't have told you which side the kiss had ended on. Then I felt that warm roll of power and it caressed things deeper in my body than bone and muscle. It caressed along that part of me that was wolf, and I felt/saw the wolf that  was that part of my beast open her eyes. She was mostly cream with black markings around her face and ruff so that she looked at a glance like a big husky dog, but once you saw her eyes like amber glass you knew it wasn't a dog.

"Richard," I said, but when I saw his eyes they were wolf amber. His wolf's eyes were staring at me from that handsome, human face. Maybe I'd spent too much time staring into Micah's leopard eyes in his own human face, but the wolf eyes didn't frighten me the way they had the last time he'd been above me like that.

My wolf started trotting up that long metaphysical pathway that seemed to be inside me, but I knew it was just the way my human mind coped with the beast. I knew in reason that it wasn't a real path, or real trees that rose above the wolf, but it was what my mind had made to help us all stay sane.

"You'll bring my wolf, Richard."

"No," he said, "I won't, I promise, but I want you to bring mine."

I blinked up at him. "What?"

A sound made us both turn and look at the side of the bed. Jean-Claude was standing behind Asher, and I knew he wasn't having sex with him, the angle wasn't right, but I couldn't see what he was doing to make Asher close his eyes, face nearly slack with pleasure.

My wolf started to trot, that ground-eating movement that wolves can keep up for miles. Wolves, like early humans, will just walk prey into the ground until they're exhausted and ripe for the kill. The trouble was that it was my body that the she-wolf would try to eat her way out of; I couldn't shapeshift, and when one of the beasts wanted out they treated my body like a trap that they needed to dig their way out of.

"Richard, you're bringing my wolf."

He stared down at me with those amber eyes and I felt his power again, but it was different than I remembered it. His power could sting, or prickle like electricity, but this was just a warm wash of power, gentle but powerful like a curl of warm ocean water rolling through me. His power touched the wolf in me, and she slowed. The only image my mind could form was the wolf being petted, soothed. She lay down beside the path in among the tall, unreal trees, content with the roll of his energy over her.

"I've been practicing helping Gina's beast not to rise so she can keep the baby. Your weretigers tell me I'm a natural at it."

"I didn't know you were helping."

"If our women could have children, that would be a wonderful thing. How could I not help?"

I thought of a lot of things to say, the mildest of which was that something being a good thing hadn't been enough if it meant he had to use his beast to do it, but out loud I said, "Yes, it would be."

Asher cried out, and we both turned again. Jean-Claude had given the chains more slack and was up behind him on the bed, with both of them on their knees. Jean-Claude's legs and hips were moving, and I knew that he was finally doing what Asher had wanted for so long.

"Jean-Claude's ahead of us. I want to catch up."

"Are you asking if I'm okay with it?"

"Yes."

I thought about it, but with the weight of him pinning me to the bed, and my hands tracing the smooth skin and muscle of his back, all I could say was, "We need a condom."

He smiled, and it was a version of the smile that had once melted me into my socks, and out of them. "Are they still in the same place?"

I nodded. "Yes."

He raised enough of him that I could see his body was hard and eager against the front of him. "Wait right there," he said.

I waited right there.