Jason, Jean-Claude's pomme de sang, was great, but he couldn't feed both me and Jean-Claude every day. I needed to find someone else to fill the spot, or maybe a couple of someones, until I got more control of the ardeur.
Graham had been one of the local men that Jean-Claude had encouraged me to "interview" as my new pomme de sang. Jean-Claude thought that if I'd "interview" them a little more intimately, I'd have a new pomme by now. He'd called me stubborn. Asher had called me foolish, to refuse to sample such bounty. Maybe it was foolish. I hadn't told Ronnie that all the men in my life had given me a short list of other men to try out. She'd have freaked even worse than she already had, because if Louie had been that generous with her, she'd have been a happy camper. But Ronnie wasn't me, and what might have made her happy just seemed to confuse me.
Of all the men who had come to my bed, to sleep and cuddle, Graham had been the most pushy. He'd made it clear he wanted more from me than I wanted to give. Of course, if I hadn't been so stubborn, he'd be in the running for would-be daddy. The thought made me cold down to my toes. Let's hear it for not fucking everyone who bunks over.
"I beg forgiveness, lupa." His face still showed the shock of hearing me invoke Bolverk, but the words were not begging words. Not really. To beg forgiveness among the wolves meant only one thing—something closer and more intimate than I wanted from Graham—but if I refused the gesture, then it would be a breach between us, one that could grow and eventually harm Richard's pack. Shit.
"Then beg, Graham." My words didn't come out uncomfortable, they came out angry. Anger was always my shield. I was trying to learn other things to hide behind, but anger was still my tried and true, and for that moment, it worked.
He stood, and standing he towered over me. So broad, so muscled, so big, but there was fear in his face. Finally, he believed that I might, if he pissed me off enough, hurt him. That I might have the right to hurt him. It was not a bad thing to see fear on his face. He was overdue for it. We'd tried being nice, Micah, Nathaniel, and me, but some people won't take nice treatment. If a person won't take nice, there are always alternatives.
He could have used the submissive gesture to take me in his arms, but he did it the way it had been shown to me. He touched my face lightly with his fingers, just enough to steady himself. If we'd been in public he would have laid a very light kiss against my lips, but we weren't in public so it got to be more interesting. He leaned over me, and the prelude was too like a kiss for my comfort.
It made me want to back up, but I was dominant to him. A dominant does not back away from a submissive, no matter how much bigger he is. It's not about size and strength. It's about who's tougher, and no matter how big he was, Graham was not the toughest person in the room. Not even close.
He bent down, and down, his mouth hovering over mine so that I could feel his breath warm against my lips. I think even at the last second he thought about stealing the kiss I'd never allowed him, but he thought better of it. He did what he was supposed to do, though frankly the kiss would have been less embarrassing. In some ways, at least.
He was supposed to lick across my lower lip. It was a version of the gesture a submissive wolf uses toward a dominant. It's based on the food-begging behavior of wolf pups. But saying all that didn't change the fact that his fingers were gentle against my face, and his breath was warm against my mouth. The tip of his tongue touched my lip, and slid across it. Wet, gliding, sensual, wetter than the first real kiss should be. Wet, as if I'd taken a drink of wine and spilled just a little across my lower lip. Just enough so that I had to lick across my lip in an echo of what he had just done to me. As if I were drinking down the touch of his mouth.
He shivered, his breath trembling on the air. "That was nice."
"It was supposed to be you begging the forgiveness of your pack's lupa," I said, but my voice was a little shaky, and not nearly firm enough.
He gave a quick smile, the one that ruined the hip-tough-guy image, and made him look his age. Graham had yet to see twenty-five. "I do ask forgiveness, but it's still the most you've ever let me touch you."
I shook my head and pushed past him. Micah and Nathaniel followed me. Nathaniel was carrying the overnight bag that held, among other things, the pregnancy tests. I knew when he came out of the store with them why I'd put off buying them. It made the whole problem more real. Stupid, but it did.
"You've slept in the same bed with me, Graham," I called back over my shoulder as I headed for the big door that led underground.
"Sleeping's not what I want," he said.
I stopped at the door, and just turned and stared at him. The other men moved to either side to let me see him better.
Graham looked at me, his eyes peeking through the silky fringe of his overly long bangs. It always made me think of an animal peering at me through the grass. The upper layer hadn't been this long when I met him.
"I do not need your shit tonight, Graham."
"Why are you always mad at me?"
"I am not always mad at you, Graham."
"If you're not mad at me, then why don't you like me better?"
"I don't dislike you, Graham, I just don't want to fuck you. I'm allowed not to fuck you, even though you want to fuck me."
"Don't fuck me then, just feed the ardeur off me. Feed it the way you fed off Nathaniel for months without intercourse."
I shook my head. "I don't want to introduce the passion of the ardeur to someone I'm not keeping. It's cruel."
"The ardeur is the greatest orgasmic experience that any of the vampire lines can give to a mortal." Graham's face was full of such eagerness, his hands reaching out to the air as if he could draw the ardeur out of it, and hug it to him. "I just want to know what it feels like. The real deal, not the little tastes I've had by accident. Why is that wrong, Anita? Why is it wrong to want that?"
"She's afraid you'll become addicted," Micah said, voice soft.
Graham shook his head. "I've never been addicted to anything in my life."
"Lucky you," Nathaniel said.
"Please, Anita, don't go to strangers to feed the ardeur. Don't go to strangers when there are people right here who would do almost anything to feed your need."