Anita Blake 15 - The Harlequin (23 page)

He bit harder, and my spine bowed with it. "You."

"Why?"

He cupped his mouth around the side of my throat and bit down. I cried out for him; my nails clawed at his arms. I finally had to say, "Enough, enough."

He eased back and turned me in the water so that I was facing him. He drew me in against the front of his body, and he was hard and eager now. The feel of him against the front of my body made me cry out.

He cupped my ass, pressed me harder against the front of him. I pushed at his body, almost like I wanted to get away, but that wasn't what I was thinking. It was just almost too much, for some reason. The feel of him so eager, so big, trapped between our bodies. It was almost too much.

He shuddered, head back, his voice panting, "God, Anita, God, I love the way you react to me. I do love it!"

I wrapped my body around him, pressed the length of him against the most intimate part of me. It made me cry out and press myself tighter against him.

He pushed me against the side of the tub and moved his hips away enough to try to angle himself for my opening. I didn't protest, until the tip of him started inside and my body let me know that the combination of water—which is not a lubricant—lack of foreplay, and his size meant this wasn't going to work.

I half-patted, half-slapped his chest. "Too big, you're too big."

"The water," he said, breathy. He leaned his hands on the sides of the tub, face down, the head of him still inside me. "If you release the
ardeur
, we can do it."

"But I'll be sore afterward, and so will you."

He moved his hips a little, and the sensation, even tight, made me catch my breath. "Not too sore," he said.

"Yes," I said, "trust me. I don't want to be walking funny tomorrow."

He raised his head enough to frown at me. "We've never done it before like this—how can you be so sure?"

Shit. I stared up at him with his body halfway inside mine and didn't know what to say. The truth was Micah and I had done it, but that seemed impolitic, to say the least, in this moment. I tried to think of something that wouldn't make him feel bad. But I waited too long.

He said, "Just say it, Anita, just say it."

"I want to make love with you, Richard. I don't want to fight."

He pulled back enough so he wasn't inside me anymore. He stayed with his arms on either side of the tub, framing me. The look on his face was cautious now, almost as if he were steeling himself for bad news. It wasn't the look I wanted on his face right now.

"Say it, Anita." His voice sounded tired.

"I tried it with someone else."

"Why did it hurt?"

"Don't make me say this, Richard, please."

"Say it," and his voice was harsher now.

I sighed. "Fine, because he was too big for it not to hurt."

"Who?"

"Don't do this, Richard."

"Who?" This time it was a demand.

I gave him angry eyes. "Who do you think?"

"I don't know; you've added at least two men to your list, and I've never seen either of them erect."

I ducked under his arm and half-swam to the other side of the tub. "Tell me what you want me to say, Richard."

"Is it your two new vampires?"

"Are you wanting to know how you measure up to Requiem and London? Is that what you're actually wanting to know?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I guess I do."

I crossed my arms under my breasts, the water helping, since they floated. "I cannot believe you're asking this."

"It's an easy question, Anita."

"Do you actually want to know if you're bigger than they are?"

"I'm so jealous of them that I can't see straight, so yeah, I want to know. I want to know that I'm still the best-endowed man in your bed."

"You know, I don't actually get out a ruler and measure everybody."

"So they are big."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." I covered my face with my hands. "No, no, they aren't as well endowed as you are. Happy?" I lowered my hands and found that it wasn't a happy look on his face.

"Then who is?"

I'd managed for months not to have this discussion, this specifically, with anyone. Of course, it would be Richard who pushed it. "Micah, okay? Micah."

"Is that why you love him?"

"Jesus, no, Richard, you should know better than most that a really big cock is not enough to win my heart."

"Then why him? Why are you living with him and not me?"

I sighed. We weren't going to have sex. We were going to have therapy. Sweet Mary, Mother of God, I did not want to do this. "Don't do this, not now, not today."

"I need to understand what went wrong before I can move on, Anita. I'm sorry, but I do."

I shook my head and tried to settle into the water, but it wasn't soothing anymore. It was just wet. "Fine. Do remember, I'm living with Nathaniel, too. You always seem to forget him, or discount him."

"He's not dominant, Anita. In the world of wereanimals that makes him discountable."

"But in the world of my affections, Richard, he is not discountable."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't, and I'm sorry you don't, but it's still the truth. I'm living with Micah and Nathaniel, not just Micah. The fact that Nathaniel isn't a dominant doesn't make me love him less."

"How can you sit there, like this, and tell me you love someone else? Don't you know how much that hurts me?"

"You wanted this talk, not me. I wanted to make love. I wanted to clean up, feed the
ardeur
, and be together, but you had to get all hung up on the size of everyone's equipment. I know it's a guy thing to worry about that, but this wasn't the time to bring it up."

"You're right, it was stupid, but I'm stupid around you, Anita. You make me say things, do things, that I know are bad for the relationship."

"I don't make you do anything. You choose to say and do things that spoil stuff. Your choice, not mine."

"Fine, you're right. I choose to say and do this shit. I could have let it go and we'd be having sex right now, and it would be great sex. But I really do want to know what Micah has that I don't. What magic does he have that made you move him into your house, live with him, when you wouldn't do it for me?"

God, we were going to do the big fight.
The fight
I did not want to do this, ever, but I especially didn't want to do this with the Harlequin in town, and heaven knew what nasty surprises headed our way. "Jean-Claude explained to you that it was partly vampire powers that drew Micah and me together."

"You're a succubus, a vampire that feeds on sex; yeah, he told me."

I saw something on his face. "You don't believe him."

"I don't believe it's permanent. I think if you could get enough space between yourself and Jean-Claude's power, it would go away."

"Richard, this isn't Jean-Claude's power anymore; it's mine."

He shook his head, his arms crossing over that lovely chest. "You aren't a vampire, Anita. You can't have vampire powers. They're still part of the triumvirate we have with Jean-Claude."

"Richard, this is real. You can't wish it away."

"What, that you're some kind of sex-crazed demon? I don't believe that. It's more of Jean-Claude's power, or Belle Morte's, or even Marmee Noir. Jesus, Anita, you have had so many vampires running through your mind, you don't know what is you and what is them anymore."

There was some truth to what he was saying, but… "Richard, I have forged a triumvirate of power with Nathaniel and Damian. That's me, not Jean-Claude. That's real."

He shook his head again. "There's got to be a way to undo it."

I just stared at him. This was not the talk I thought we'd be having. "Richard, I am a succubus, me, not Jean-Claude, not Belle Morte, not Mommie Dark, me."

"Humans can't be succubi."

"Maybe not, but then humans can't have a vampire servant or an animal to call, and I have both of those."

"Because you're Jean-Claude's human servant."

"Richard, you saw what happened when I tried to undo that connection. I would have died and taken Nathaniel and Damian with me."

He settled back into the water, giving me angry eyes. "Jean-Claude told me the theory. That your version of the
ardeur
helps you see the deepest desire in someone's heart and grant it, and make them into what you most need. Micah needed his people safe; you killed Chimera for him. You needed what from Micah?"

"A helpmate, a partner, someone to help me run the furry coalition, and help me run the wereleopards that I'd inherited when I killed their old master."

"I could have been your partner," he said.

"You didn't want to be my partner. You want your own life, not to be just an adjunct to mine."

"What does that mean? That I won't give up my job for you?"

"That I needed someone to do the coalition full time, and you have your career."

"That can't be all Micah is to you."

"He's there for me, Richard. He's there for me and the people I love. He doesn't fight me all the time. He says yes more than he says no."

"And I just say no."

"Sometimes."

"Nathaniel needed to belong to someone; now he belongs to you. I get that. But what did he do for you?"

"I needed a wife," I said.

"What?"

"I needed a 1950s wife to make my life run smooth. I needed someone to be my wife, and he's really good at it."

"And I want you to be my wife, is that it?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Why didn't your
ardeur
look into my heart and see what I most needed, and make us into the perfect couple, too?"

"I thought Jean-Claude explained all this to you."

"I asked him why not me, and he said the power was unpredictable. But that wasn't the truth, was it?"

"Not all of it," I said, and cursed my vampire lover for being a chickenshit.

"Tell me all of it," Richard said.

"Micah knew what he wanted: his people safe at any cost. He said from the moment he came to me that he'd do anything, be anything, to be in my life. The
ardeur
made that happen for him. Nathaniel wanted a home and to be loved for himself, not just for sex, and the
ardeur
made that happen. Both of those desires are very clear. Do you know what you want most, Richard? Do you have one single heart's desire?"

"I want you."

I shook my head. "That's not your deepest darkest wish, Richard."

"I should know what my deepest wish is, Anita."

"Richard, if a genie appeared before you right now, what would you wish? Really, truly, if you could have anything, what would it be?"

"You."

"Liar," I said.

He sat up, and that otherworldly energy swirled through the room. "How dare you?"

"Richard, be honest with yourself. What would you have if you could have anything, no matter how impossible?"

He blinked at me, and the energy level in the room seeped away. He stared at me. "I don't want to be a werewolf."

"That's your deepest wish, Richard, and the
ardeur
can't give you that. I can't be that for you, so the
ardeur
doesn't work between you and me, because what you want most doesn't have anything to do with sex and love."

He stared at me and sat back in the water, almost like he was faint. "Oh, my, God." He whispered it.

"We thought at first you were just too conflicted for the
ardeur
to pick and choose, but I was the one who figured it out."

"You're right," he said. A look of soft horror covered his face. He looked at me, and such pain filled his eyes. "I did this to myself."

I shrugged.

"I was so afraid I'd become a monster that I took the inoculations against lycanthropy. That's how I caught it."

"I know," I said softly.

"And I lost you because I hate what I am more than I want you."

"You haven't lost me, Richard."

He looked at me, and I had to fight to keep meeting that look. "You'll never be just mine. We'll never have a life together."

"We can be part of each other's lives, Richard."

"Not in the way I want."

"Maybe not, but, Richard, don't throw away what we have. Was it so bad last night, sleeping with all of us? Was that so awful?"

"No," he said, "and if I hadn't been in bed with you, then Marmee Noir could have done something awful to you. You need me to protect you."

"Sometimes, yes."

"But I can't live with two other men, Anita. I can't share my bed with them every night. I just can't."

My eyes felt hot, my throat was tight. Damn it, I would not cry. I managed to say, "I know."

"Then where do I fit in your life?"

"Where do I fit in yours?" I asked.

He nodded. "That's fair." But that was all he said.

I sat on my side of the tub feeling lost and horrible. Only Richard could make me feel this bad; only he managed to cut me this deep. Damn it.

I felt Nathaniel like a distant tug. He wasn't feeling well, which meant that Damian, in his coffin, would be feeling worse. Damian hadn't woken for the day yet, and I needed to feed the
ardeur
before he tried to wake. Jean-Claude had explained to me that if one morning I didn't have enough energy to make Damian's body wake, he would never wake again. He would simply remain dead, forever.

"I've got to feed, Richard, now. Nathaniel is starting to feel bad, and I won't risk killing Damian."

Richard nodded. I expected him to say he'd get someone else for me to feed on, but he didn't. "We need to do enough foreplay so you can feed from me."

"We're fighting, that's not good foreplay."

"Are you saying you don't want to be with me now?" He said it low, careful, as if he were balancing a world of emotions on a very thin stick. One wrong comment and the stick would break and the world would fall. Shit.

"I'm saying I don't have time for lengthy foreplay. I need to feed, right away. I'm trying not to cry; that's not conducive to sex. Not for me, at least."

"I'm sorry, Anita."

"Don't be sorry, Richard. Fix it. Fix yourself, fix us, or don't fix us. But whatever you're going to do, we need to do it now. I won't risk lives because we're having another fight."