Cravings (3 page)

When I came out, Nathaniel was still at the table, but it was Jason with him,
not Micah. Jason and Nathaniel were leaning so close together that their heads
nearly touched. Jason's short blond hair seemed very yellow against Nathaniel's
dark auburn. Jason wore a blue dress shirt that I knew was only a shade or two
bluer than his own eyes. His suit was black, and I knew without seeing him
standing that it was tailored to his body, and probably Italian in cut.
Jean-Claude had paid for the suit, and he was fond of Italian-cut designer suits
for his employees. When he wasn't dressing them like they were extras in a
high-class porno movie, anyway. For a mainstream wedding, the suit worked. Jason
also worked at Guilty Pleasures as a stripper, and Jean-Claude did own the club,
but it wasn't that type of employment that let Jason rate designer clothes
tailored to his body. Jason was Jean-Claude's
pomme de sang
.
Jean-Claude did not think I treated Nathaniel with enough respect for his
position as
my pomme de sang
. I had let Micah and Nathaniel go shopping
with Jason for dress clothes, and I footed the bill for my two boys. It had been
outrageous, but I couldn't let Jean-Claude be nicer to his kept man than I was
to mine. Could I?

Technically, Micah wasn't a kept man, but the salary he drew from the
Coalition for Better Understanding Between Furred and Non-Furred didn't cover
designer suits. I made enough money to pay for designer suits, so I did.

I had time to wonder what Jason and Nathaniel were up to, talking so close
together, like conspirators. Then I felt, more than saw, Micah. He was across
the room talking to a group of men, most of them cops. He shook his head,
laughed, and started across the room, toward me. I didn't get much chance to see
Micah from a distance. We were always so close to one another, physically. Now I
was able to watch him walk towards me, able to admire how the suit clung to his
body, how it flattered the broad shoulders, the slender waist, the tightness of
his hips, the swell of his thighs. The suit fit him like a roomy glove. Watching
him move towards me, the suit was suddenly worth every penny. The music stopped
before he reached me, some song I didn't recognize. He joined me at the table.
Jessica Arnet was gone.

 

NATHANIEL sat on the other side of me, putting me in the middle. He sat so
that the line of his body touched mine as much as possible. There was a time
when I'd have made him give me breathing space, but I understood the
shapeshifter's need for physical contact now. Besides, making Nathaniel move
over an inch when he slept mostly naked in my bed nearly every night would have
been silly. Jason just stood and looked down at all of us. He looked unnaturally
solemn, at least for him, then suddenly he broke into a grin. Now he looked like
himself.

"It's after midnight, we thought you'd be outside feeding the ardeur." His
grin was way too wicked to match the mildish words.

"I'm able to go longer between feedings," I said, "sometimes fourteen, or
even sixteen hours."

"Oh, pooh," he said, and stamped his foot, pouting. It was a wonderful
imitation of a childish snit, except for the devilish twinkle in his eye. "I was
hoping to take another one for the team."

I frowned at him, but couldn't make it go all the way up to my eyes. Jason
amused me, I don't know why, but he always had. "I don't think we'll be needing
your services tonight, thanks for offering though."

He gave an exaggerated sigh. "I am never going to get to have sex with you
again, am I?"

"Don't take this wrong, Jason, but I hope not. The sex was amazing, but what
put you in my bed was an emergency. If I can't control the ardeur better than
that, then I'm not safe to be out in public alone."

"It was my fault," Nathaniel said, voice soft.

I turned my head and was close enough to the side of his face to have kissed
his cheek. I wanted to make him move, to give me more room, but I fought the
urge off. I was just being grumpy. "It was my fault if it was anyone's,
Nathaniel."

Micah's so-calm voice came from my other shoulder, "It was Belle Morte's
fault, the wicked, sexy vampire of the west. If she hadn't been messing with
Anita, trying to use the ardeur to control her, then it wouldn't have risen
hours ahead of schedule." Belle Morte, Beautiful Death, was the creator of
Jean-Claude's bloodline. I'd never met her in physical person, but I'd met her
metaphysically, and that had been bad enough. Micah laid a hand across my
shoulders, but managed to put his hand on Nathaniel's shoulder, too. Comforting
us both. "You haven't collapsed since Anita's been able to stretch the feedings
out more."

Nathaniel sighed so heavily that I felt the movement against my body. "I
haven't gotten stronger, she has." He sounded so sad, so disappointed in
himself.

I leaned in against his shoulder, enough that Micah was able to literally hug
us both at the same time. "I'm your Nimir-Ra, I'm supposed to be stronger,
right?"

He gave me a faint smile.

I laid my head on his shoulder, curving my face into the bend of his neck,
and getting that whiff of vanilla. He'd always smelled like vanilla to me. I'd
thought once it was shampoo, or soap, but it wasn't. It was his scent for me. I
hadn't had the courage yet to ask Micah if Nathaniel's skin smelled like vanilla
to him, too. Because I wasn't sure what it would mean if I was the only one who
found Nathaniel's scent so very sweet.

"You want to ask Anita something," Jason said.

Nathaniel tensed against me, then in a small voice, he asked, "Do I still get
my dance?"

It was my turn to tense. I couldn't control it, it was involuntary. Nathaniel
got very still beside me, because he'd felt it, too. I didn't want to dance,
that was true, but I had promised Micah and Nathaniel. "Sure, dancing sounds
great."

That made Micah and Nathaniel pull back enough to look at me. Jason was just
staring down at me. "What did you say?" Nathaniel said.

"I said, dancing sounds great." Their astonishment almost made it worthwhile.

"Where is Anita, and what have you done with her?" Jason asked, face mock
serious.

I didn't try and explain. I just stood, and offered my hand to Nathaniel.

After a second of staring at it, and me, he took it, almost tentatively, as
if he were afraid I'd take it back. I think he'd come ready for an argument
about the dancing, and not getting one had thrown him.

I smiled at the surprise on his face. "Let's dance."

He gave me one of his rare full-out smiles, the one that made his entire face
light up. For that one smile, I'd have given him a lot more than just a dance.

Of course, my good intentions lasted about as long as it took to be escorted
onto the dance floor. Then suddenly I was expected to dance. In front of people.
In front of people that were mostly cops. Cops that I worked with on a regular
basis. No one is as merciless if you give them amunition, no pun intended, as a
bunch of policemen. If I danced badly, I'd be teased. If I danced well, I'd be
teased worse. If they realized I was dancing well with a stripper, the teasing
would be endless. If they realized I was dancing badly with a stripper, the
jokes would be, well, bad. Either way you cut it, I was so screwed.

I felt fourteen again, and awkward as hell. But it was almost impossible to
be awkward with Nathaniel as your partner. Maybe it was his day job, but he knew
how to bring out the best in someone on the dance floor. All I had to do was let
go of my inhibitions and follow his body. Easy, maybe, but not for me. I like
the few inhibitions I have left, thank you, and I'm going to cling to them as
long as I can.

What I was clinging to now was Nathaniel. Not much scares me, not really, but
airplane rides and dancing in public are on that short list. My heart was in my
throat, and I kept fighting the urge to stare at my feet. The men had spent an
afternoon proving that I could dance, at home, with only people who were my
friends watching. But suddenly, in public in front of a less than friendly
audience, all my lessons seemed to have fled. I was reduced to clinging to
Nathaniel's hand and shoulder, turning in those useless circles that have
nothing to do with the song, and everything to do with fear, and the inability
to dance.

"Anita," Nathaniel said.

I kept staring at my feet, and trying to not see that we were being watched
from around the room.

"Anita, look at me, please."

I raised my face, and whatever he saw in my eyes, made him smile, and filled
his own eyes with a sort of soft wonderment. "You really are afraid." He said it
like he hadn't believed it before.

"Would I ever admit to being afraid, if I wasn't?"

He smiled. "Good point." His voice was soft. "Just look at my face, my eyes,
no one else matters but the person you're dancing with. Just don't look at
anyone else."

"You sound like you've given this advice before."

He shrugged. "A lot of women are uncomfortable on stage, at first."

I gave him raised eyebrows.

"I used to do an act in formal wear, and I'd pick someone from the audience
to dance with. Very formal, very Fred Astaire."

Somehow, Fred Astaire was not a name that came to mind when I thought of
Guilty Pleasures. I said as much.

His smile was less gentle and more his own. "If you ever came down to the
club to watch one of us work instead of just giving us a ride, you'd know what
we did."

I gave him a look.

"You're dancing," he said.

Of course, once he pointed out that I'd been dancing, I stopped. It was like
walking on water; if you thought about it, you couldn't do it.

Nathaniel pulled gently on my hand, and pushed gently on my shoulder, and got
us going again. I finally settled for staring at his chest, watching his body
movements as if he'd been a bad guy and it was a fight. Watch the central body
for the first telltale movements.

"At home you moved to the rhythm of the song, not just where I moved you."

"That was at home," I said, staring at his chest, and letting him move me
around the floor. It was damn passive for me, but I couldn't lead, because I
couldn't dance. To lead you have to know what you're doing.

The song stopped. I'd made it through one song in public. Yeah! I looked up
and met Nathaniel's gaze. I expected him to look pleased, or happy, or a lot of
things, but that wasn't what was on his face. In fact, I couldn't read the
expression on his face. It was serious again, but other than that… We stood
there, staring at each other, while I tried to figure out what was happening,
and I think he tried to work up to saying something. But what? What had him all
serious-faced?

I had time to ask, "What, what's wrong?" then the next song came on. It was
fast, with a beat, and I was so out of there. I let go of Nathaniel, stepped
back, and had turned, and actually gotten a step away, before he grabbed my
hand. Grabbed my hand and pulled me in against him so hard and so fast that I
stumbled. If I hadn't caught myself with one arm around his body, I'd have
fallen. I was suddenly acutely aware of the firmness of his back against my arm,
the curve of his side cupped in the hollow of my hand. I was holding him so
close to the front of my body that it seemed every inch of us from chest to
groin pressed against one another. His face was painfully close to mine. His
mouth so close it seemed a shame not to lay a kiss upon those lips.

His eyes were half-startled, as if I'd grabbed him, and I had, but I hadn't
meant to. Then he swayed to one side and took me with him. And just like that we
were dancing, but it was different from any dancing I'd ever done. I didn't
follow his movements with my eyes, I followed them with my body. He moved, and I
moved with him, not because I was supposed to, but for the same reason a tree
bends in the wind, because you must.

I moved because he moved. I moved because I finally understood what they'd
all been talking about; rhythm, beat, but it wasn't the beat of the music I was
hearing, it was the rythymn of Nathaniel's body, pressed so close that all I
could feel was him. His body, his hands, his face. His mouth was temptingly
close, but I did not close that distance. I gave myself over to his body, the
warm strength in his hands, but I did not take the kiss he offered. For he was
offering, he was offering himself in the way that Nathaniel had, no demand, just
the open-ended offer of his flesh for the taking. I ignored that kiss the way
I'd ignored so many others.

He leaned into me, and I had a moment, just a moment, before his lips touched
mine, to say, No, stop. But I didn't say it. I wanted that kiss. That much I
could admit to myself.

His lips brushed mine, gentle, then the kiss became part of the swaying of
our bodies, so that as our bodies rocked, so the kiss moved with us. He kissed
me as his body moved, and I turned my face up to him, and gave myself to the
movement of his mouth as I'd given myself to the movement of his body. The brush
of lips became a fullblown kiss, and it was his tongue that pierced my lips,
that filled my mouth, his mouth that filled mine. But it was my hand that left
his back and traced his face, cupped his cheek, pressed my body deeper against
his, so that I felt him stretched tight and firm under his clothes. The feel of
him pressed so tight against my clothes and my body, brought a small sound from
my mouth, and the knowledge that the ardeur had risen early. Hours early. A
distant part of me thought, Fuck. The rest of me agreed, but not in the way I
meant it.

I drew back from his mouth, tried to breathe, tried to think. His hand came
up to cup the back of my head, to press my mouth back to his, so that I drowned
in his kiss. Drowned in the pulse and beat of his body. Drowned on the rhythms
and tide of his desire. The ardeur allowed, sometimes, a glimpse into another's
heart, or at least their libido. I'd learned to control that part, but tonight
it was as if my fragile control had been ripped away, and I stood pressed into
the curves and firmness of Nathaniel's body with nothing to protect me from him.
Always before he'd been safe. He'd never pushed an advantage, never gone over a
line that I drew, not by word or deed; now suddenly, he was ignoring all my
signals, all my silent walls. No, not ignoring them, smashing through them.
Smashing them down with his hands on my body, his mouth on mine, his body
pushing against mine. I could not fight the ardeur and Nathaniel, not at the
same time.