Cravings (7 page)

My pulse was jumping in my throat like a trapped thing. I didn't want to
touch him, because I wanted to touch him so badly. In a way, this was part of
the attraction between Jean-Claude and me, as well. What I'd taken for lust and
new love was also partly vampire trickery. A trick to bind the servant to the
master, and the master to the servant, so that both served the other willingly,
joyfully. It had bothered me when I first realized that part of what I felt for
Jean-Claude was somehow tainted with vampire mind games, though it wasn't on
purpose from Jean-Claude's point of view. He couldn't help how it worked on me
any more than I could help how it worked on Damian.

He was standing so close I had to crane my neck backward to see his face
clearly. "I want to touch you, Damian, but you're acting awfully funny tonight."

"Funny," he said. He moved in so close that the edges of his coat, the poofy
satin of his pants brushed the thick cloth of my tuxedo pants. "Funny, I don't
feel funny, Anita." He leaned his face close to mine, and whispered his next
words, "I feel half-crazed. All those women touching me, rubbing themselves
against me, pressing their warm," he leaned in so that his hair brushed my
cheek, "soft," his breath felt hot against my skin, "wet," his lips touched my
cheek, and I shuddered, "bodies, against me."

My breath shook on its way out, and my pulse was suddenly loud in my ears. It
was hard to concentrate on anything but the feel of his lips against my cheek,
though all his lips were doing were resting lightly against my skin. I swallowed
hard enough that it hurt, and said, "You could have gone with any one of them."

He laid his cheek against mine, but it meant he had to bend over more, which
moved his body farther from mine. Compromise. "And could I trust that their
windows were proof against sunlight?" He stood up, and put a hand on either side
of the cabinet behind me, so that I was trapped between his arms. "Could I trust
that they would not harm me, once the sun rose and I lay helpless?"

I tried to think of something to say, something helpful, something that would
help me to think about something other than how much I wanted to touch him. When
in doubt be bitchy. "I'm getting a crick in my neck with you standing this
close." My voice was only a little breathy when I said it. Good.

Damian put his hands around my waist, and just the solid feel of his hands
around me stopped whatever else I meant to say. It stopped him for a moment,
too. Made him bend his head down, eyes closed, as if he were trying to
concentrate, or clear his mind. Then he lifted me, suddenly, and sat me on the
edge of the counter. It caught me off guard, and he had put his hips between my
knees before I could react. We weren't pressed together, except for his hands on
my waist, but we were one step away from it.

"There," he said, voice hoarse, "now you can see me better."

He was right, but it hadn't been what I meant him to do. I wanted breathing
space, and instead my hands were free, and he was a hard thought away. My hands
came to rest on his arms, and even through the heavy material of his coat I
could feel the solidness of him. It was as if my hands had a mind of their own.
I traced up the line of his arms, found his shoulders, and ended with my hands
on the broadness of those shoulders, with his hair tickling along the back of my
hands. There was something about my hands on his shoulders, or the silk of his
hair on my skin that made me bend towards him. I wanted a kiss. Simple as that.
It seemed wrong to be this near and not touch him.

He bowed his head towards mine. His eyes were like deep green pools, deep
enough to drown in. He whispered, "You have but to tell me stop, and I will
stop."

I didn't say stop. I slid my hands to the smooth pale line of his neck, and
the moment I touched his bare skin with mine, I was calmer. I could think again.
That was his gift to me, as my servant. He helped me be calmer, more in control.
When I was touching him, it was almost impossible for me to lose my temper. He
lowered my blood pressure, helped me think.

I cupped his face between my hands, because I wanted to touch him, but what I
gained from his centuries of controlling his own emotions was that when he put
his lips against mine, I was not lost. Not overwhelmed unless I wanted to be
overwhelmed. It wasn't that I felt nothing, because it wasn't possible to be
enfolded in Damian's arms, pressed against his chest, have his lips caressing
mine, and be unmoved. You'd have had to be made of stone not to melt into that
embrace, just a little. But, as I'd gained calmness from him, he had begun to
gain back the passion that he'd lost over the centuries. A passion not just for
sex, but any strong emotion, because the master that made him tolerated no
strong emotion, save fear. She'd beat everything else out of him over more
centuries than most vampires ever survived.

He drew back enough to see my face. "You're calm. Why are you calm? I feel
crazed, and you give me peaceful eyes!" He grabbed my upper arms, and dug his
fingers in until it hurt, and I still felt calm. "It is cruel fate that makes
you calmer and calmer the more we touch, and drives me more and more wild." He
gave me a small shake, his face was raw with emotion. "I am being punished and I
have done nothing wrong."

"It's not punishment, Damian," and even my voice was low and calm.

"Jean-Claude says that if you wished, you could gain calm only when you
needed it. That you could touch me and enjoy touching me, but not be trapped
behind this mask." His fingers were digging in so hard, I was bruising.

"You're hurting me, Damian." My voice was still calm, but there was an edge
of heat to it, an edge of anger.

"At least you feel something when I touch you."

"Let go of my arms, Damian." And just like that, he released me, let me go as
if my arms had grown hot to the touch, because he could not disobey a direct
order from me. Whatever that order might be.

"Take a step back, Damian, give me some room." I was angry now, even with the
rest of his body touching me. When he did what I told him, and was no longer
touching me at all, the anger filled me up and spilled over my skin like heat.
God, it felt good. I was used to being angry. I liked it. Not the most positive
thing to say, but still true.

I started to rub my arms where he'd squeezed, then stopped. I didn't like
letting anyone know how much they'd hurt me.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, and he was holding his own arms. I
thought for a moment he was feeling my pain, then realized he was hugging
himself to keep from touching me.

"No, you just want to fuck me."

"That's not fair," he said.

He was right, it wasn't fair, but I didn't care. Without him touching me, I
could be as unfair as I wanted to be. I wrapped my anger around myself. I fed it
with every petty impulse I'd fought for days. I should have remembered that one
control is much like another. That if you throw away one kind of control, it
makes other kinds harder to hold onto.

I unleashed my anger like you'd unleash a rabid dog. It roared through me,
and I remembered a time when my rage had been the only warmth I allowed in my
life. When my anger had been my solace and my shield. "Get out, Damian, just go
to bed."

"Don't do this, Anita, please." He held his hand out to me, would have
touched me, but I moved back, just out of reach.

"Go, now."

And with that he couldn't help himself. I'd given him a direct order. He had
to obey.

He walked out, tears glittering in his green eyes. He passed Nathaniel in the
doorway.

I hadn't let myself get this angry in so long. It had felt good for a few
moments, but I was already beginning to regret how I'd treated Damian. He hadn't
asked to be my servant. The fact that I'd done it accidentally didn't make it
any more right. He was an adult person, and I'd just ordered him to bed like he
was a naughty child. He deserved better than that. Anyone did.

The anger pulled back, and even my skin felt cooler. The term hot with anger
was very real. I was ashamed of what I'd just done. I understood why, in part. I
so did not need another man tied to me by metaphysics that demanded a piece of
my bed, or at least my body. I didn't need that. I especially didn't need a man
who might not even be capable of feeding the ardeur. Because even in the middle
of the worst of the ardeur, Damian's touch could cool that fire. With him
holding my hand, the ardeur could not rise, or at least it could be put away for
hours. So why didn't I paste Damian to my body? Because of how much more he
wanted from me than I was comfortable with giving. I could not use him to help
me fight the ardeur if I wasn't willing to give in to that skin hunger we both
felt for each other.

Nathaniel padded into the room, wearing nothing but a pair of silky jogging
shorts. He'd taken his braid out, so that his thick hair spilled around him like
some kind of cape. "Are you alright?"

I started to say, I owe Damian an apology, but I didn't say it, because in
that one breath, the ardeur rose. No, not rose, engulfed, drowned, suffocated. I
suddenly couldn't breathe past the pulse in my throat. My skin felt thick and
heavy with it. I don't know what showed in my eyes, but whatever it was, it
stopped Nathaniel where he stood, froze him like a rabbit in the grass that
knows the fox is near.

The ardeur spilled outward, like invisible water, hot, wet, and suffocating.
I knew when the power hit Nathaniel, because he shivered. Goose bumps broke on
his body, as his very skin reacted to the power.

I'd shoved the ardeur down once tonight, and that had a price. I'd refused
the touch of my servant, and that had a price. I'd embraced my anger, and let it
spill out onto someone I cared about. That had a price, too. I didn't want
Nathaniel to be the one who paid that price.

I didn't remember crossing the room, but I must have, because I was standing
in front of him. His eyes were wide, so wide, his lips half-parted. I was close
enough to see the pulse in his throat beating against the skin of his neck like
a trapped thing. I leaned in towards him, leaned just my face until I could
smell the warm vanilla scent of his neck. Close enough to taste his pulse on my
tongue like candy. And I knew this candy would be red and soft and hot. I had to
close my eyes so that I didn't lean my mouth down to that point, didn't lick
over his skin, didn't bite down and free that quivering piece of him. I had to
close my eyes so I wouldn't keep staring at that pulsing, jumping… My own pulse
was too fast, as if I would choke on it. I'd thought that feeding the ardeur on
Nathaniel was the worst I could do, but the thoughts in my head weren't about
sex. They were about food. Thanks to my ties with Jean-Claude and Richard, my
werewolf ex-fiancé and the other third of our triumvirate, I had darker things
inside me than the ardeur. Dangerous things. Deadly things.

I stayed perfectly still, trying to master my own pulse, my own heartbeat.
But even with my eyes closed, I could still smell Nathaniel's skin. Sweet and
warm and… close.

I felt his breath on my face, before I opened my eyes.

He had moved in so close that his face filled my vision. My voice came soft,
half-strangled with the needs I was fighting, "Nathaniel…"

"Please," he whispered it as he leaned in, whispered it again as his mouth
hovered above mine, he sighed, "Please," against my lips. His breath felt hot
against my mouth, as if when we kissed it would burn.

His lips this close to mine had done one thing. I wasn't thinking about
ripping his throat out anymore. I understood then we could feed on sex, or we
could feed on meat and blood. I knew that one hunger could be turned into
another, but until that moment, where I could almost taste his lips on mine, I
hadn't realized that there would come a point where
something
must be
fed. I did not feed Jean-Claude's blood lust, though there was a shadow of it in
me. I did not feed Richard's beast, with its hunger for meat, but that lived in
me, too. I held so many hungers in me, and fed none of them, except the ardeur.
That I could feed. That I did feed. But it was in that heartbeat, as Nathaniel
kissed me, that I understood why I hadn't been able to control the ardeur
better. All the hungers channeled into that one hunger. Jean-Claude's
fascination with the blood that ran just under the skin. Richard's desire for
fresh, bloody meat. I had pretended I didn't carry their hungers inside me, not
really. But I did. The ardeur had risen to give me a way to feed, a way that
didn't tear people's throats out, a way that didn't fill my mouth with fresh
blood.

Nathaniel kissed me. He kissed me, and I let him, because if I drew back from
it, fought it; there were other ways to feed, other ways that would leave him
bleeding and dying on the floor. His lips were like heat against my skin, but
part of me wanted something hotter. Part of me knew that blood would be like a
scalding wave in my mouth.

I had a sudden image so strong that it made me stumble back from him. Made me
push away from that warm, firm flesh.

I felt my teeth sinking into flesh, through hair that was rough and choking
on my tongue. But I could feel the pulse underneath that skin, feel it like a
frantic thing, the pulse running from me, like the deer had run through the
forest. The deer was caught, but that sweet, beating thing lay just out of
reach. I bit harder, shearing through the skin with teeth that were made for
tearing. Blood gushed into my mouth, hot, scalding, because the deer's blood ran
hotter than mine. Their warmth helped lead me to them. Helped me hunt them. The
heat of their blood called me to them, made their scent run rich on every leaf
they passed, every blade of grass that brushed them, carried that warmth away,
betrayed them to me. My teeth closed around the throat, tore the front of it
free. Blood sprayed out, over me and the leaves, a sound like rain. I swallowed
the blood first, scalding from the chase, and then the meat that still held the
last flickering of pulse, a last beat of life. The meat moved in my mouth as it
went down, as if it were struggling, even now, to live.