Cravings (4 page)

I saw what he wanted. I felt it. Felt his frustration. Months of being good.
Of behaving himself, of not pushing his advantage. I felt all those months of
good behavior shatter around us, and leave us stripped and suffocating in a
desire that seemed to fill the world. Until that moment I hadn't understood how
very good he'd been. I hadn't understood what I'd been turning down. I hadn't
understood what he was offering. I hadn't understood… anything.

I pulled back from him, put a hand on his chest to keep him from closing that
distance again.

"Please, Anita, please, please," his voice was low and urgent, but it was as
if he couldn't bring himself to put it into words. But the ardeur didn't need
words. I suddenly felt his body again, even though I stood feet apart. He was so
hard and firm and aching. Aching, because I'd denied him release. Denied him
release for months. I'd never had fullblown sex with Nathaniel, because I could
feed without it. It had never occurred to me what that might mean for him. But
now I could feel his body, heavy, aching with a passion that had been building
for months. When last I'd touched Nathaniel's needs this completely, he'd simply
wanted to belong to me. That was still there but there was a demand in him, a
near screaming need. A need that I'd neglected. Hell, a need that I'd pretended
didn't exist. Now, suddenly, Nathaniel wasn't letting me ignore that need
anymore.

I had a moment of clear thinking, because I felt guilty. Guilty that I'd left
him wanting for so long, while I had my own needs met. I'd thought that having
real sex with him would be using him; now suddenly that one glimpse into his
heart let me understand that what I'd done to him had used him more surely than
intercourse. I'd used Nathaniel like he was some kind of sex toy, something to
bring me pleasure, and be cleaned up and put back in a drawer. I was suddenly
ashamed, ashamed that I'd treated him like an object, when that wasn't how he
wanted to be treated.

The guilt hit me like a cold shower, the proverbial slap in the face, and I
used it to pack the ardeur away, for another hour or two, at least.

It was as if Nathaniel felt the heat spill away from me. He gave me those
wide lavender eyes, huge, and glittering, glittering with unshed tears. He let
his hands drop from my arms, and since I'd already dropped my hands away, we
stood on the dance floor with distance between us. A distance that neither of us
tried to close.

The first shining tear trailed down his cheek.

I reached out to him, and said, "Nathaniel."

He shook his head, and backed away a step, another, then he turned and ran.
Jason and Micah tried to catch him as he rushed past them, but he avoided their
hands with a graceful gesture of his upper body that left them with nothing but
air. He ran out the door, and they both turned to follow. But it wasn't either
of them who had to chase him down. It was me. I was the one who owed him an
apology. The trouble was, I wasn't exactly clear on what I would be apologizing
for. For using him, or for not using him enough.

 

I caught up with the men in the parking lot.

"Nathaniel says you didn't want to dance with him," Micah said.

"Not true," I said, "I danced, twice. What I didn't want to do was play
kissy-face in front of the cops."

Micah looked at Nathaniel. Nathaniel looked at the ground. "You kissed me
earlier in front of Detective Arnet. Why was this different?"

"I kissed you to give Jessica the clue to stop hitting on you, because you
wanted me to save you from her."

He raised his eyes, and they were like two pretty wounds, so pain-filled.
"So, you only kissed me to save me, not because you wanted to?"

Oh, hell. Out loud I tried again, though the sinking feeling in the pit of my
stomach told me that I was going to lose this argument. Lately, around
Nathaniel, I always felt like I was doing something wrong, or at least not
right. "That isn't what I meant," I said.

"It's what you said." This from Micah.

"Don't you start," I said, and I heard the anger in my voice before I could
stop it. The anger had been there already, I just hadn't been aware of it. I was
angry a lot, especially when I wasn't comfortable. I liked anger better than
embarrassment. What's a girl to do if she can't get angry and she can't run away
from the problem? Hell if I know. Some of my wise friends encouraged me to be
honest, emotionally honest with myself and those closest to me. Emotional
honesty. It sounds so harmless, so wholesome; it's neither.

"I don't want to fight," I said. .There, that was honest.

"None of us do," Micah said.

Just hearing him be so calm helped the anger ease away. "Nathaniel pushed it
on the dance floor, and the ardeur rose early."

"I felt it," Micah said.

"Me, too," Jason said.

"But you don't feel it now, do you?" Nathaniel said. His eyes were almost
accusing and his voice held its own thin edge of anger. I wasn't sure if I'd
ever heard him that close to being angry.

"Anita is getting better control over the ardeur," Micah said.

Nathaniel shook his head, hugging himself tight. "If it had been you, she
would have just come out into the parking lot and fed."

"Not willingly," I said.

"Yes, you would," he said, and his eyes held the anger his voice had held.
I'd never seen those lavender eyes angry before. Not like this. It was strangely
unnerving.

"I would not have sex in the parking lot of Larry and Tammy's wedding
reception, if I had a choice."

That angry gaze searched my face as if trying to find something. "Why not
feed here?"

"Because it's tacky."

Jason patted his arm. "See, it isn't you she turned down, it's that she
doesn't want to fool around at Larry's wedding. Just not her style."

Nathaniel glanced at Jason, then back at me. Some strange tension that I
didn't quite understand seemed to flow away from him. The anger began to fade
from his eyes. "I guess you're right."

"Well, if we don't want to be fooling around in the parking lot, then we need
to get going," Micah said. "The ardeur doesn't like being denied. When it does
come back tonight, it won't be gentle."

I sighed. He was right. That bit of metaphysical bravado on the dance floor
would have all sorts of consequences later tonight. When the ardeur rose again,
I would be forced to feed. There would be no stuffing it back into its box. It
was almost as if, being able to stop the ardeur in its tracks, to completely
turn it off once it had filled me, pissed the ardeur off. I knew it was a
psychic gift, and that psychic gifts don't have feelings and don't cany grudges,
but sometimes, it felt like this one did.

"I'm sorry, Anita, I wasn't thinking." Nathaniel looked so discouraged that I
had to hug him, a quick hug, more sisterly than anything else, and he responded
to my body language and didn't try and hold me close. He let me hug him, and
step away. Nathaniel was usually almost painfully attuned to my body language.
It was one of the things that had allowed him to share my bed for months without
violating those last few taboos.

"Let's go home," I said.

"That's my cue to part company," Jason said.

"You're welcome to bunk over if you want," I said.

He shook his head. "No, since I'm not needed to referee the fight, or for
sage advice, I'll go home, too. Besides, I couldn't stand listening to the three
of you get all hot and heavy and not be invited to play." He laughed and added,
"Don't get mad, but having once been included, it's harder to be excluded."

I fought the blush that burned up my face, which always seemed to make the
blush darker and harder.

Jason and I had had sex once. Before I realized it was possible to love
someone to death with the ardeur, Nathaniel had collapsed at work and been off
the feeding schedule for a few days. Micah hadn't been in the house, and the
ardeur had risen early. Hours early. It had been interference from Belle Morte,
the originator of Jean-Claude's bloodline, and the first, to my knowledge,
possessor of the ardeur. It only ran through her line of vamps, nowhere else.
The fact that I carried it had raised very interesting metaphysical questions.
Belle had wanted to understand what I was, and she had also thought it would
raise some hell. Belle was a good business-y vampire, but when she could take
care of business
and
make trouble, all the better. So it hadn't been my
fault, but my choices had been limited to taking Nathaniel and possibly killing
him, or letting Jason take one for the team. He'd been happy to do it. Very
happy. And strangely our friendship had survived it, but every once in a while I
couldn't pretend it hadn't happened, and that made me uncomfortable.

"I love the fact that I can make you blush now," he said.

"I don't."

He laughed, but there was something in his eyes that was more serious than
laughter. "I need to tell you something, in private, before you go running off,
though."

I didn't like how suddenly serious he was. I'd learned in the last few months
that Jason used his teasing and laughter as a shield to hide a rather insightful
intelligence that was sometimes so preceptive it was painful. I didn't like his
request for privacy either. What couldn't he say in front of Micah and
Nathaniel? And why?

Out loud I said, "Okay." I started off to the far side of the parking lot
away from the Jeep.

When the shade of the trees that edged the church parking lot lay cool above
us, I stopped and turned to Jason. "What's up?"

"The thing on the dance floor was sort of my fault."

"In what way, your fault?"

He actually looked embarrassed, which you didn't see much from Jason. "He
wanted to know how I got to have sex with you, real sex, the very first time I
helped feed the ardeur."

"Technically, it was the second," I said.

He frowned at me. "Yeah, but that was when the ardeur was brand new and we
didn't have intercourse, and there were three other men in the bed."

I turned away so the dark would help hide the blush, though truthfully he
could probably smell it hot on my skin. "Sorry I brought it up. You were
saying?"

"He's been in your bed for what, five months?"

"Something like that," I said.

"And he's not had intercourse yet. Hell, he's not had orgasm, not real orgasm
with like release and everything."

I couldn't blush harder or my head would explode. "I'm listening."

"Anita, you can't keep pretending that Nathaniel isn't real."

"That's not fair."

"Maybe not, but I had no idea that you weren't at least doing him orally or
by hand, or watching him do himself. Something, anything."

I just shook my head and looked at the ground. I couldn't think of anything
good to say. If I hadn't just had my metaphysical peek inside Nathaniel's head,
I would probably have gotten angry, or rude. But I'd seen too far into
Nathaniel's pain, and I couldn't pretend anymore. Couldn't ignore it.

"I thought that by not doing the final stuff that it would make it easier for
him when the ardeur gets under control and I don't need a
pomme de sang
anymore."

"Is that still your idea, to just dump him when you have enough control that
you don't need to feed?"

"What am I supposed to do with him? Keep him like a pet, or a really big
child?"

"He's not a child, and he's not a pet," Jason said, and the first hint of
anger was in his voice.

"I know that, and that's the problem, Jason. If the ardeur hadn't come up I'd
have been Nathaniel's Nimir-Ra, and his friend, and that would have been it.
Now, suddenly he's in this category that I don't even have a name for."

"He's your
pomme de sang
like I'm Jean-Claude's."

"You and Jean-Claude aren't fucking, and nobody gets upset about that."

"No, because he lets me date. I have lovers if I want them."

"I've been encouraging Nathaniel to date. I want him to have girlfriends."

"And your not-so-subtly encouraging him to look at other women made him turn
to me for advice."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"He doesn't want to date other people. He wants to be with you, and Micah,
and the vampires. He doesn't want another woman in his life."

"I am not the woman in his life."

"Yes, you are, you just don't want to be."

I leaned against one of the narrow tree trunks. "Oh, Jason, what am I going
to do?"

"Finish what you started with Nathaniel, be his lover."

I shook my head. "I don't want that."

"The hell you don't. I watch the way you react around him."

"Lust isn't enough, Jason. I don't love him."

"I'd argue that, too."

"I don't love him the way I need to."

"Need to, for what, Anita? Need to for your conscience? Your sense of
morality? Just give him some of what he needs, Anita. Don't break yourself doing
it, but bend a little. That's all I'm asking."

"You said the thing on the dance floor was sort of your fault. You never
explained that."

"I told Nathaniel you don't like passive men. You like a little dominance, a
little pushiness. Not much, but enough so that you aren't the one that says,
Yes, we'll have sex. You need someone to take a little of the responsibility off
your shoulders."

I stared at him, studied that young face. "Is that all it is for me, Jason? I
just need someone else to help me spread the guilt around so I can fuck?"

He winced. "That isn't what I said."

"Close enough."

"Get mad, if you want, but that isn't what I said, or what I meant. Get mad
at me, but don't take it out on Nathaniel, okay?"

"I was raised that if you had sex it was a commitment. I still believe that."

"You don't feel committed to me." He said it as if it were just a fact,
nothing personal.