Danse Macabre (Vampire Hunter 14)

I looked up slowly, and found his eyes full of light like blue ice, glittering in winter moonlight, all shadows and shimmers. His eyes dazzled me.

He was carrying me, and I hadn't remembered him picking me up. "Where are we going?" I whispered.

"The couch," he said.

"We have to be quick."

He laid me down upon the couch, my knees bent, and him kneeling between them. "We can be quick now, because I know that there will be long later."

"All because I blushed for you," I said.

"Yes." He laid me down on the couch. There wasn't room for him to lie beside me, so he stood, and began to take off his clothes.

"If we take off the corset it will take forever to get it back on."

"The corset can stay." He threw his shirt and jacket on the arm of the couch. He stood there for a moment nude from the waist up. I stared up at him, stupidly, that golly, wow look on my face. I couldn't help it. He was so beautiful, and I knew that the rest of him was just as beautiful. I could look at him with knowledgeable anticipation. It made me shiver just staring up at him like that.

"The look on your face, Anita, mon Dieu, the look on your face."

I had to swallow twice to say, "What do you want me to take off?"

"Panties."

"Just panties," I said.

He nodded, and started unfastening his pants.

My pulse sped up. I had to sit up to take the panties off. It also helped me look away from him while I did it. Was it just that we had never been alone before? Was that this incredible anticipation? Or was it more than that? I wanted him. I wanted him to touch me. My body ached with the need, not just to be touched, but for Asher to touch me.

His hands slid over my bare shoulders, where I sat facing away from him. The smoothing of his hands down my skin made me hold my breath.

He leaned down and whispered, "What do you want?"

"Your hands on my body."

"What else do you want?"

"You inside me."

"What else?"

My pulse was hammering in my throat so hard I could barely speak around it. "Bite me while you f**k me, make me come both ways while you're inside me."

"Inside you both ways?" he whispered.

"Yes."

He grabbed a handful of my hair, and pulled until it hurt, just a little, just enough. "Say please."

"Please."

"I have to take blood to enter you. To bring you a second time with my bite, I will have to take blood again."

I tried to reason that out, and failed, but finally said the only thing I could think to say. "Please."

54

HE PUT US both on our knees on the couch, me facing away from him. His hand wrapped in my hair, hard enough to hurt, drawing my neck back in a clean, straining angle. He pressed his body against the back of mine, used his h*ps to raise the short skirt so I could feel his body against my bare ass. He plunged his hand down the front of the corset, so he could grip my breast, tight and hard. It made me cry out. He plunged his body against mine, but without blood, he was still soft.

He whispered in my ear, "Your blood will make me a man, again. It will fill my body with life, so that I may fill your body with life."

There was something about what he'd said that should have bothered me, but I couldn't make the thought form. He'd rolled my mind in a blissful rush, and I couldn't make my thoughts march to logic. All the logic I had was in his hands, in the soft push of his body, the growing tension as he held me.

Something stabbed through that lustful calm. Damian reached out to me with a silent scream. "Anita, damn it, feed!"

It made me slump in Asher's arms.

"What is wrong?"

"Let me feed with the first bite. Let me feed with your power."

"Damian is fading." He made it a statement.

"Yes." My voice was breathy, and not for any good reason.

"I will not fight your power, Anita. I will let you take me, then I will take you."

"Yes, but please hurry, please..."

He was too tall to stay pressed as he was, and bite me. He had to ease his body back enough to fold that six-feet-and-change frame over me. His hands tensed in my hair and on my breast. The sudden pain seemed to send me back into his gaze. My breath was short and eager, when he struck. There was a moment of pain, then it was gone, washed away in the first orgasm.

Asher's bite was pleasure. It was his gift, his power, and that power tightened my body, and exploded like a wave of warm pleasure across my skin. So much pleasure, so much, and as long as he fed, it would be wave after warm, thrilling wave. It felt so good, so good, that it spilled out my mouth in long, ragged screams. Somewhere in all of it, the ardeur rose, and fed. It fed through his mouth, his teeth on me. It fed through his hands on my body. I poured the spill of it into Damian, felt him sit up so hard in the chair, that he almost fell off it. Nathaniel steadied him, and got a taste of that pleasurable power.

I fought the energy, fought to send only food, and not the nearly overwhelming pleasure. To send only so much, and no more. It was like trying to meditate in the middle of sex; no wonder I wasn't better at it.

Asher drew back from my neck, breathing hard. "You took a great deal." He sounded shaky, and his bite didn't necessarily cause him pleasure, so that wasn't it.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

He let go of me, and I slumped forward onto all fours, head down. "God, Asher, God."

The couch moved as he shifted position, and the next thing I felt was his hands on my hips, pulling my skirt up. He pressed the tip of himself against me, and there was nothing soft about him now. He was hard, and ready, pushing against me.

"Do you still want me to pierce you twice?"

I should have said no. I'd missed so much of the evening. But I didn't want to say no. I wanted to say yes. I tried not to think about Asher much. One, it could cause mini-orgasms at odd moments. One of the side effects of his powers. Two, because I understood why people had been willing to trade everything away just for one more night of the pleasure that only Asher could bring. The rest of the metaphysical sex was great, but it was the affection I had for the people involved that made me want to be with most of them. Emergency food being the exception. I loved Asher, but it wasn't love that made me want to be with him. If I had been less stubborn, I might have chased after him simply for the pleasure. I stayed away from him when I could, because no one could quite do what he could, and it scared me.

Which is why I said, "Just f**k me."

"You do not wish me to bring you pleasure with my bite again?"

"Yes, but... we don't have time."

"As you wish." He used his hands to position my hips, and he began to push his way inside me. I was wet, but tight; my body spasmed around him, as he fought to be inside me.

His voice came strained, "So tight tonight, so tight. Forcing me to fight for every inch. I love it."

I just nodded, not trusting my voice. I should have said no to the sex. We'd fed. Jean-Claude needed us to schmooze the crowd. But I didn't want to say no. I could have lied to myself and thought that Asher needed this, this time just the two of us, but that wasn't why I said yes. I said yes because I wanted him inside me. I said yes because I was fighting myself not to beg for another bite. I did want him to pierce me twice. I did want it. I did.

He had himself inside me, as close as his body would let him. He rested a moment with our bodies wedded to each other. He laid his body across my back, letting me support our weight for a moment. His skin was warmer now, alive with the blood he'd taken from me. His hair fell around me like a shining curtain.

"Bite me," I whispered it.

"What?"

"Bite me, while you f**k me, take me, take me as only you can take me." My voice stayed a whisper as if that would make it all right. Make it less weak.

"As only I can take you?" He made a question of it.

"Yes," I said, "yes."

He wrapped his arms around me, forced me to hold all of our combined weight. He hugged me, hard and tight. "You do feel my power."

"Yes," I whispered.

"Are you afraid of it?"

"Yes."

"Afraid of how much you want me?"

"Yes!"

He whispered, "I like that." He raised himself off me, so that the only part of him touching was the part that was deep inside me, and the barest touch of thighs and hips.