I mumbled, «Sorry.» I put my hands on my stomach, and behaved.
Micah swallowed hard enough for me to hear it, then nodded. «I'm fine with it.»
Nathaniel smiled that lazy cat-with-cream smile that he got sometimes during sex. It usually meant he was going to suggest something that I'd never done, or that we'd never done together, or he was going to make some observation. «I just want to see if she can concentrate on all of us at once. I give it a difficulty rating of eight.»
I frowned at him. «Are you saying I've never attempted anything that took more skill than an eight before?»
He shrugged. «Remember I did this professionally for a while. My ten on this scale is probably stuff that you don't even want to know is physically possible.»
I opened my mouth to ask him, Like what? but decided that he was right. I probably didn't want to know.
«Let's try,» I said.
Jean-Claude didn't ask again. He simply crawled over my body. He ended with his legs over my shoulders, so that he was sitting in front of my face, which put him exactly where I wanted him. I traced my hands across the other two bodies. Nathaniel turned on his side first, and Micah followed him. That gave me a better angle, since my movement was about to become limited.
I wrapped my hands around them, and raised my mouth up to slide over Jean-Claude's body. He was as small as he got, loose and delicate. It always amazed me how something so small could become so large. Nothing on my body could change so much — maybe that's why it fascinated me. I loved the texture when a man was totally soft. Until we shared blood, I could roll that soft, soft flesh around my mouth, suck on it all. Normally I would have tried to draw his testicles into my mouth, too, but with both my hands busy, I didn't dare. Too delicate a work to risk, when I wasn't sure I could concentrate on it all. I rolled my hands up and down Micah and Nathaniel's bodies while I sucked on Jean-Claude, drawing him harder and faster, over and over, glorying in the fact that I could take all of him in without a struggle. Like this, it was all about sensation. I could roll and flick and suck with my mouth and tongue, able to do things with his body that I could never have done with him erect.
Jean-Claude cried out, his hands clutching at the dark wood of the head-board. He looked down at me, and I rolled my eyes upward to catch that frantic look. That look that said the sensations were almost too much.
I found a rhythm for all of them, but it was the rhythm of the sucking: quick, fast, as fast as I could do it, over and over and over. I ran my hands over Nathaniel and Micah in that same frantic rhythm, pulling, firm, and quick, over and over and over.
Micah's hand grabbed mine. «Stop, or I'm going to go.» He squeezed my hand, as if I'd made some move to keep going. «Please, Anita, please.»
I looked up at Jean-Claude. His eyes were closed, his shoulders hunched, his body shuddering above me. I realized that though he was enjoying it, it was treading that line between feels better than anything else and too much. He probably wouldn't have said anything. He'd have let me do it as long as I wanted, but then he'd been trained by someone who was a much harsher mistress than I would ever be. I drew back from his body. He half collapsed above me, his body spasming. He rolled to the side, and Micah gave him room. Jean-Claude lay on his back, spine bowing, hands clutching at the black sheets.
I was left with only Nathaniel in my hand. I looked at his face. Eager, happy. He leaned in toward me. «You win.» He moved in for a kiss, but I squeezed him hard and tight. It threw his head back, closed his eyes, spasmed his body. No one else in the bed would have wanted me to squeeze that tight, but he loved it.
«What do I win?» I asked. I let him go.
He gazed down at me with eyes that didn't quite focus. «Everything.» He kissed me. It started as a slow kiss, but then he was just suddenly kissing me as deep and hard as he could. I'd forgotten that Jean-Claude had bled me earlier. I knew that part of what made him so eager at my mouth was the taste of my blood. He kissed me as if he would crawl into my mouth, his tongue searching for every last drop of that precious fluid.
His body pressed on top of mine. He was so hard, so firm, the feel of him trapped between our bodies made me make small sounds into his mouth, as he kissed me.
He drew back from the kiss. «What do you want?» he asked.
«You, inside me,» I said.
He gave me a fierce smile, and raised himself up off my body.
I grabbed at his waist and shoulders. «What are you doing?»
«You said inside, you didn't say where inside.» He crawled over me, his body not touching me, and I knew where he was going.
«Is this more foreplay or do you want to finish here?»
«Finish,» he said.
«Without the ardeur, I don't like to swallow.»
«I know,» he said, and straddled my chest, leaning forward using the headboard much as Jean-Claude had.
I stared up the line of his body, his face so eager, so sure of itself. I'd worked a long time to have him look like that during sex. He knew with me he could ask for what he wanted, that his pleasure was as important to me as my own. I cupped my hand under his balls. They were already tight and close to his body. The caress brought his breath in a long sigh.
I kept one hand on his balls, and spilled the other hand up and over the length of him. He smiled down at me. «What do you want Micah to do while I'm busy here?»
We'd only very recently begun having sex at the exact same time, Nathaniel, Micah, and me. I'd thought it had been my idea initially, but now, it seemed like Nathaniel initiated it more. I knew what he wanted me to say, and truthfully, dawn was going to come, and I had one other man in the bed. Whatever we were going to do, we needed to be doing it.
I kept playing lightly with Nathaniel, and called, «Micah.»
He crawled until I could see him. He just looked at me with those chartreuse eyes. His face made no demands, but his body spoke for him, so hard, so eager. «You, inside me.»
«We've never done this without the ardeur,» he said.
«I know,» I said.
He gave me a look, then he smiled, and crawled back down along the bed.
«Suck me while he does it.» It was more a command than a request, but I'd worked long and hard to have Nathaniel that commanding anywhere in his life. Hard to bitch about it now. Besides, he was so temptingly close, so hard, so ready. I had to mound the pillows up, a little higher, to get the angle we needed.
Micah's hands slid over my hips.
I licked the tip of Nathaniel, slid my mouth over him, took him inch by inch into my mouth, slow, so slow, so we could both enjoy the sensation of it.
I went down about halfway, then back up. We needed him wetter, so he'd slide better. But there's something about putting that much of a man that far inside your mouth that makes you wet, both above and below.
Micah's hands spread my legs, his finger plunged inside me. It made me cry out, and shove all of Nathaniel inside my mouth at once.
He put his hand on the back of my head, held me against him, so that I was trapped, and had a moment of choking around him. It wasn't a gag reflex; it was a suffocation reflex.
He let me go, and I fell back from his body gasping for breath, choking. When I could talk, I said, «Don't do that again.»
Micah said, «Are you okay?»
I nodded, wasn't sure he could see it, and said, «Yeah.»
«You do it with the ardeur,» Nathaniel said.
«We're doing it without tonight.» I think the look I gave him was not entirely friendly.
«I'm sorry, but I'm used to being able to do that.»
«Twice, we've done that twice. Twice is not a pattern.»
«I'm sorry,» he said, and that look came back to his face, that uncertain, lost look. He started to move, and I grabbed his hips to keep him from moving. He looked down at me, his face so fragile, so hurt, as if all the new bravado were only skin deep: scratch it, and it goes away. I did the only thing I could think of to chase that look from his face. I drew him back into my mouth, sucked him fast and hard, until his head went back and his eyes closed. When he looked at me again, he was smiling, but there was still a flinching around his eyes; a shadow of that hurt. There was only one thing that would take that hurt from his eyes, I had to prove I trusted him. I slipped my mouth over him again, and gave myself over to the pleasure of him filling my mouth. I let my face show just how much I enjoyed the sensation of all that velvet muscle inside my mouth. The sensation of it wet and slick from my own saliva. But I didn't stop at the comfort point, that point where it just feels good and full. I sucked past that point where my body told me too much. I sucked until my mouth met his body, and there was no inch to spare. I sucked until he was shoved as hard and deep inside my throat as I could manage. I sucked until my body stopped complaining about needing to gag and started to complain about needing to breathe. But I'd learned to be able to fight past that, too. I stayed there, pressed tight and solid against his body, until he looked down at me, stayed until my throat convulsed, spasming around the length of him. He stared down at me, his eyes wild, eager, and something more. His hands stayed in a death grip on the headboard, as if he didn't quite trust himself. I drew back from him, coughing, before I could get a good breath. I finally let myself swallow all that extra saliva and lay back, panting as if I were behind on my breaths and had to catch up.