Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 27)

“Do you dominate him?”

“No, he’s my top.”

“He is your dominant?”

I shook my head. “I’m a switch, which means I like to go both ways in the dungeon. I can bottom, but I don’t do complete submission.”

“She bottoms harder than most submissives I’ve ever been with,” Nicky said.

I so wanted out of this conversation, but if we were going to have it, I’d be a grown-up about it. “I cannot imagine a set of circumstances where I would be willing to be tied up with Olaf in the room, let alone with him topping me. I have to trust someone completely to give myself to them like that, and I don’t know how I would ever be able to trust you like that, Olaf.”

“Even if I let you release the ardeur on me?”

I looked at Nicky. “You tell me. Does the ardeur make you safer as a lover for me?”

“The ardeur is what turned me into your Bride, so yeah.”

“She feeds the ardeur on the rest of us, and it hasn’t turned us into Brides,” Angel said.

“And she has Brides that she has never had sex with,” Pierette said.

“I think I make Brides when I’m desperate. It’s like a Hail Mary pass.”

“So you’ve never tried to make a Bride when you weren’t in dire straits?” she asked.

“No.”

“So Anita could feed the ardeur on me and not turn me into her Bride?” Olaf asked.

“I believe so,” Pierette said.

“Only if I felt safe, and like I said, I can’t imagine a set of circumstances where I would feel safe with you like that.”

Olaf looked at Nicky. “If she had not unleashed the ardeur on you, would you have hurt her that first time you fucked her?”

“No, I can enjoy sex without pain.”

“So can I, but that is not my question.”

“Was it gentler lovemaking than I would have done on my own without her magic?” Nicky asked.

“That is what I am asking,” Olaf said.

“It was gentler.”

“But still satisfying?”

“The ardeur is a rush. It makes every touch more intense.”

Everyone in the room nodded except Edward and the two SEALs. Edward caught it in time to say, “I don’t let her feed on me.”

“Why not?” Olaf asked.

“I am not food, not even for her.”

Olaf nodded as if that made sense to him.

I was never, ever going to have sex with Olaf, but I didn’t say so out loud, because we were still trying not to pull the pin on the grenade. But it was like a game of chicken between a car and a train. If you didn’t get off the tracks, eventually you were going to lose.