There was something about my hands on his shoulders, or the silk of his hair on my skin that made me bend toward him. I wanted a kiss.
Simple as that. It seemed wrong to be this near and not touch him.
He bowed his head toward 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 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 on to.
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. Nathaniel gave me neutral eyes, a careful face. “Micah had to go.”
I nodded, because I didn’t trust my voice. 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 termhot 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 theardeur. Because even in the middle of the worst of theardeur, Damian’s touch could cool that fire. With him holding my hand, theardeur 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 theardeur 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. They were his version of jammies. 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, theardeur 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.
Theardeur 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 theardeur 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.
12
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 toward 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 theardeur 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, I had darker things inside me than theardeur. 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 it would burn when we kissed.
His lips this close to mine had done one thing. I wasn’t thinking about ripping his throat out anymore. I understood then that 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 wheresomething 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 theardeur. 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 theardeur 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. Theardeur 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.