25

Micah tried to lure me out of the bedroom with the promise of breakfast and claiming that I couldn't hide in there all day. I think it was the hiding comment that got me. I accused him of saying it deliberately, and he said, "Of course I did. Nathaniel isn't expecting you to fall on your knees and propose. He's happy the way things are."

"No he's not. He wants sex."

Micah offered me his hand and looked way too serious. "I don't understand why you hold that last part back from him."

I didn't take his hand. In fact I crossed my arms over my stomach and frowned at him. "'That last part,' you make it sound like it's nothing."

He knelt in front of me. "Anita, I love you, you know that."

Actually, I didn't know that. People act like they love you, but how do you ever know it's real. I didn't say it out loud, but something about the look I gave him, or my body language must have said it for me, because he moved in close. Close and closer, until he was sitting in my lap with his legs wrapped around my waist. It made me laugh, which was probably why he'd done it.

We ended up with my arms around his waist, and he put his hands on my shoulders. His legs locked behind my back, pressing him up against me, about as close as he could get. "You do realize that from this position, sex won't work, unless we trade equipment."

"It's not always about sex, Anita, sometimes it's just about being close."

"Now isn't that the girl line," I said.

"Not if you're the girl, and I'm the boy."

I felt my face going all serious and unhappy. "I don't know how to do this."

"What?" he asked.

"Richard's right, I don't know how to be in love. I'm not good at it."

"You're great at everything but admitting it," he said. He wiggled himself in even tighter against me, so that I could feel that he was getting happy to be there.

"You're trying to distract me."

"No, I'm trying to keep you from getting angry."

"Angry about what?" I asked, and my hands were sliding down his back as I said it. It was hard to be this close to him and not have my hands wander.

"Just angry. You get angry whenever you're uncomfortable, and what happened in the kitchen is going to hit a lot of buttons for you."

My hands slid past his belt, to touch the top of his jeans. I'd once thought you had to be in love to be able to touch someone like this. It had been a nice thought, I'd liked it, and it had made me feel safe. My hands traveled down the rough fabric of his new jeans, but underneath was the solid swell of his ass. He had a good ass, round and tight, smaller than I liked, but definitely there. I'd told him he needed some ass just to balance out the front of him. Truthfully, Nathaniel had a rounder, fuller ass, more like a woman's, tight and firm, but round. I liked men with booty. My least favorite thing was a man who had severe white-man's ass, where the jeans just bagged over the butt. I wanted something to hold on to, something to sink my teeth into. When I said I liked meat on my men I didn't just mean one thing.

I'd buried my head against his chest, my hands cupping his ass. He rocked himself against me, just a little. Was this love? Was the fact that I could touch every part of him and he could touch every part of me love? Or was it just lust?

I raised my face up enough to touch the skin of his neck, so warm, so sweet. I'd been raised that you only loved one person at a time. If I loved Jean-Claude, I couldn't love Micah. If I loved Micah, I couldn't love anyone else. The only person I was really able to say I love you to without hesitating was, strangely, Asher. I was beginning to suspect that was because Jean-Claude loved him, had loved him for centuries, when they weren't hating each other. In Jean-Claude's arms channeling feelings back and forth for him and Asher, then I could say love and mean it. But here and now without Jean-Claude to push me, the word stuck in my throat like it would choke me to death.

Sometimes I thought I loved Micah, but that's not the way a person wants to hear love declared. Sometimes is worse than not.

I put one hand in the middle of his ass, so that one finger could rub back and forth even through the jeans, but my other hand slid up his back, got tangled for a moment in the thick curls of his ponytail, then touched the warmth of his neck. I knew who was inside my head, even as I put a hand in Micah's hair and pulled his head to one side, so his neck stretched long and clean. Because we were almost the same height, his neck was just in the right position for me to lick along the meat of it. So warm, so incredibly warm. I wrapped my mouth around his neck, felt the pulse of his blood under his skin, and set teeth into that warmth.

Micah cried out, but not in pain. He ground himself against me tighter, giving me more of his neck, like an eager woman would press against a man. I set my teeth into his skin and fought the urge to bite down, to draw blood. Jean-Claude filled my head with images. Images of him and Asher, and Julianna, Asher's long-dead human servant. There was sex, but there was more laughter, more games of chess, and her doing needlework by the fire. There was more holding than fucking. Images of him and me, and Asher, but also of Micah. Micah's neck under his fangs, while I watched them both. Jean-Claude coming to find both of us asleep in his big bed, curled on the silk sheets, Micah's brown curls lying so close to my black curls that he could not tell where one ended and the other began. Jean-Claude let me feel his emotions, as he drew back the sheets and felt the first breath of our warmth. The sensation of him sliding his cold body between us, and how we moved in our sleep, waking slowly to his hands on our bodies. How much he valued that Micah would simply give him blood and not argue, or make less of the gift and the need than it was. Of how much it meant to him, that he could turn from Micah's willing, still bleeding body, to my body, and pierce me in a different way, while Micah watched, or helped. Seeing it from Jean-Claude's point of view was uncomfortable and made me want to slide away, but he whispered through my mind, while my mouth tasted Micah's skin. "If this is not love, ma petite, then I know nothing of it. If this is not love, then no one since time began has ever loved. You ask yourself What is love? Am I in love? when what you should be asking, is What is not love? ma petite. What is it that this man does for you that is not done out of love?"

I wanted to argue, but Jean-Claude was too close in my head, and Micah's neck was between my teeth. So many hungers could be fed off this flesh, so many needs, so much... so much. The sweet tang of blood trailed across my tongue, and it brought me back into myself, helped me pull back before I hurt him. But he collapsed around my body as if we'd finished sex. He shuddered against me and let his breath out with a sigh.

I held him with my arms at his back, or I think he'd have fallen. He'd given himself completely to me. He hadn't tried to protect himself or worried that I'd eat his throat out, and he should have. But he'd trusted me. Trusted me not to hurt him more than he enjoyed. I'd never bloodied him before, never gone past teeth marks and hickeys. It had felt so good to hold his flesh between my teeth and not to stop, until I tasted that first blood.

He gave a shaky laugh and said in a hoarse voice, "Nathaniel's going to be jealous."

"Yeah," I whispered, "he's always wanting me to mark him." The thought that came was, Would it kill me to give Nathaniel some of what he wanted? Not kill me, no. The question was, would it break me, and if so, how much? Jean-Claude's echo in my head was, "Perhaps it will not break you, ma petite, perhaps it will heal you, and him."

"Get out of my head," I said.

"What?" Micah asked.

"Sorry, nothing, just babbling to myself." Jean-Claude did what I asked, but his laughter trailed inside my head like an echo for the rest of the morning.

26

I was in the kitchen eating biscuits with butter and honey slathered all over them. The biscuits were good, but the show was Gregory. He was still in leopardman form, but he was eating biscuits. Have you ever watched someone eat bread with teeth that are designed for tearing out the throats of gazelles? It was interesting. If he'd just put the whole biscuit in his mouth at once it would have been okay, but he didn't. He ate the rounds of bread dripping with butter and red currant jelly in pieces, delicately. Except that his jaws weren't made for delicate, so his fur was spotted with jelly, and he kept licking it off with an impossibly long tongue. It was disturbing, distracting, and vaguely fascinating. Like a combination of Animal Planet and Food Network.

It was good that I had something to amuse me, because Nathaniel was being very unamused. I'd known he might be upset about me marking Micah's neck, when he'd practically begged for me to do it to him, and I'd refused, but I had no real clue how upset. He'd been banging things around the kitchen. A cabinet door didn't just close, it slammed. Opening the refrigerator was a chorus of bangs, slaps, and the like... I didn't even know that plastic food containers could make that much noise.

In between slamming things around, he was agreeing with everything Gregory said, but his tone of voice sounded like he was fighting. "We've been advertising a leopard for tonight, if they can't have me, you're it," Gregory said, then licked that long pink tongue all the way around his "muzzle."

"Fine, it's not like I'll be doing anything else tonight." Somehow I thought that last was directed at me.

Micah was giving me the look, the one that said as clearly as if he'd spoken, fix this. Why was it always me that had to fix it? Because I was usually the one who screwed it up in the first place. Oh, that was why.

My teeth marks were imprinted into Micah's neck. The marks had been smeared with Neosporin, but he hadn't had to bandage them. Good for him, and for me. I'd stopped before I'd hurt him too badly. It was actually less blood than the one and only time I'd let myself mark Nathaniel. It had been when the ardeur was new and I was still trying to find ways to feed it that didn't involve intercourse. Silly me.

The last straw was when he took the butter dish off the table, before everybody was finished with it. Gregory grabbed for it, and claws were wrong for grabbing china. The plate fell and broke all over the floor. The butter slid across the floor in a long yellow line, like a really nasty snail trail. I don't know what I would have said--probably something not helpful--but just then the phone rang.

"Someone else get that," Nathaniel said from the floor where he was wiping up the mess, "I'm a little busy."

Micah just kept eating his breakfast, I think because he was upset with me for not saying something to help Nathaniel feel better. Problem was I didn't know what to say. So I got the phone.

"Anita, it's Ronnie."

"Ronnie, hi," and I was thinking furiously. Oh, yeah, I wasn't the only one having personal problems. I still couldn't believe that she'd turned down Louie's proposal. Out loud I said, "How ya doing?"

"Louie left a message on my phone, so I know you know." She sounded defensive.

"Okay, you want to talk about it?" I didn't take offense. It wasn't me she was mad at.

She blew out a loud breath. "Yes... no... I don't know."

"You can come here, or I'll meet you somewhere." I was using that careful voice, like the one Micah used so much on me.

"I'll bring bagels," she said.

"You could have homemade biscuits when you get here, instead." I said.

"Homemade biscuits? You didn't make them, did you?"

"No, Nathaniel did."

"Can he cook?"

"Actually, yes."

I could almost feel her doubt wafting over the phone.

"Honest, he's really good at the baking stuff."

"If you say so."

"Well, we'd starve if they waited for me to cook."

She laughed then. "That is the God's honest truth. Okay, I'll be there soon, save some biscuits for me."

"Sure thing."

We hung up.

I stayed by the phone for a second or two, watching Nathaniel's angry back at the garbage can where he was depositing the broken dish and dead butter. I'd never realized that a ponytail could bob angrily.

Micah looked at me, and the look was eloquent. It said, fix this, fix this, or I'll be mad at you, too. There are a few downsides to having two men living with you. When they both get pissed at you at the same time is one of them.

Nathaniel stayed by the cabinet, hands on the edge of it, and his entire body radiated his anger. I'd never seen him this angry. It should have made me mad, but it didn't. He could be angry if he wanted to be, I guess.

I tried to think of something useful to say. He'd gone from being happy as a domestic lark to being as pissed as I'd ever seen him. The only thing that had changed was the mark on Micah's neck. He'd lived through Micah getting intercourse and orgasm, while he, Nathaniel, got almost nothing. So why was that one over-enthusiastic hickey the breaking point for him? I thought and thought until I could feel a headache beginning just between my eyes. Then I had a good thought--it was almost insightful. I don't usually get too insightful without talking to smarter and wiser friends. But suddenly there it was, the truth, I think.

I walked over to him and touched his shoulder. He jerked away from me. He'd never done that before. It scared me. I didn't want him that angry at me, ever. Micah was right, I had to fix this. But how?

"Nathaniel..." It was as if saying his name opened the floodgates.

"I can't live like this. You give me an inch, and then you take it away. Orgasm today, but only because of some metaphysical shit. You'll find an excuse not to do it again. You always do. He gets intercourse and orgasm, and I get nothing. But you marked me, me. Not him, me!" He was still staring at the cabinet, while he ranted louder and louder. "It was all I had. All I had!" He had to pause to take a breath, and I rushed into that small silence.

"I'm sorry." I said it fast before he could catch his breath.

"I don't know why I keep hoping..." He hesitated, stopped, then turned to me slowly. "What did you say?"

"I said, I'm sorry."

His face softened for a second, then hardened, and he narrowed his eyes at me. He looked positively suspicious. "What exactly are you sorry about?"

"I'm sorry you're upset."

"Oh." And he was off again, ranting.

I touched his arm, and he didn't jerk away this time, but he kept listing all the things I wouldn't do for him, or with him. It might have been embarrassing if I hadn't been more worried about stopping the fight than almost anything else. "You have to go to work tonight," I said.

That stopped him, because I think it made no sense with his train of grievances. "What? Yes, what about it?"

"If you didn't have to work tonight, I'd take you into the bedroom now and mark you, if that's what you wanted."

He pulled away again. "I don't want you to do it just because I'm mad. I want you to do it because you want to, because you'd enjoy it, too."

God, he could be so demanding. I actually had to stop and count slowly in my head, because this whole dominant-submission thing hit my buttons badly. I'd done enough research to understand that the world of dom and sub was a lot bigger and more varied than I'd believed. That there were people out there that considered my love of nails and teeth during foreplay and sex to be perverted. That they considered even that bondage. I liked teeth and nails during foreplay and sex, I really did. It wasn't pretend, and it wasn't just for Nathaniel's sake. Once I thought it through to that point, I wasn't angry with him. I wasn't mad about what he wanted; I was uncomfortable because I enjoyed it. I knew that now, and I embraced it all the way through my head. Well, I wasn't quite there yet.

I tried for honesty with him and myself. "I'd love the feel of your neck under my teeth. I'd love to sink my mouth around all the meaty parts of you and bite down until I was afraid I'd hurt you." I felt heat rush up my face, and I had to close my eyes to finish it. "I loved the feel of you in my mouth. I loved marking you, but I wasn't ready to admit it. And it still makes me uncomfortable, but it's not because it's you, it's because it just seems so... so, I don't know..."

"Perverted," Gregory suggested.

I opened my eyes to glare at him. "Don't help me, Gregory, okay?"

"Sorry."

"Do you mean what you just said?" Nathaniel asked, and his voice was oddly empty, as if he were trying very hard not to be angry or hopeful.

I met his face, and even his eyes were being careful. I hated to see him managing me that hard, as if he were afraid if he appeared too eager I'd run. Problem was, he might have been right. I realized I'd been doing my own version of what Richard was doing. I wasn't running from as much of myself as he was, but if I hadn't had the ardeur to push me, I might have been. If I could have pretended as cleanly as Richard could, I would have. That I could at least admit to myself. The ardeur had made that impossible. But this wasn't about the ardeur. This was about Nathaniel and me, and the happy little domestic arrangement that we had.

I'd waited too long to answer. Nathaniel's eyes filled with such sorrow, and he turned away. Oh, hell. I grabbed his face between my hands and went up on tiptoes to make up for that three-inch height difference. I'd startled him so that he stumbled back into the cabinets. I plastered myself against the front of his body and kissed him. I kissed him as if I were eating him. I set my teeth into that lovely lower lip and bit down, not enough to mark, but enough to draw a small sound from his throat. I leaned back from the kiss enough to see his eyes wide and unfocused. His hands gripped the cabinet behind him so tight, they were mottled. It was almost as if he was afraid he'd fall.

I was breathing a little hard myself. My voice was shaky when I said, "That wasn't metaphysical shit. That was just me, just you."

His eyes closed, and a shudder ran through him from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. He swayed, and if I hadn't caught him around the waist, I think he'd have fallen. His arms slid around me, and he laid his head on my shoulder. He hadn't exactly fainted, but he was limp in my arms. I realized, he was totally passive. I knew in that moment I could do anything I wanted to him. The thought didn't excite me, it scared me. I had enough trouble running my own life, I didn't want someone else's. But I kept my doubts to myself. He had enough of his own without me sharing.

"You promise," he whispered, "promise you'll mark me tonight."

He'd said the P word. Shit. "I promise," I whispered it into the vanilla warmth of his hair.

He drew a deep breath that moved his bare chest up and down along my clothed one. My body reacted to it, whether I wanted it to or not. Nipples hardening from the brush of him.

He drew back enough to see my face, and the look in his eyes was all male, and brought heat in a rush up my face. It sped my pulse in my throat. He was submissive, but underneath all that was something that could have been very dangerous, and it was there in his eyes now, that promise of disaster.

"Come to the club tonight, see my act, please."

I shook my head. "I work tonight."

"Please." The please was more than just a word, it filled his eyes. He wanted me to see him on stage, surrounded by screaming fans. Maybe he wanted to impress on me that even if I didn't want him, others did. I guess I'd earned having my face rubbed in it.

"What time do you go on?"

He told me.

"I can catch some of it, but probably not all of it."

He kissed me, hard and strangely chaste, and bounced toward the door. "I'll need to see if my costume is ready for tonight." He turned at the door with that eager look still on his face. "What if I turn furry, will you still mark me?"

"I don't do furry," I said.

He poked his lip out at me, like a spoiled child.

"You are so damn pushy, you do know that, right?"

He smiled.

"I don't do furry."

"But if I'm not furry, you'll do it?" Something about the way he asked it made me suspicious, but I nodded.

"Yes."

He vanished into the dimness of the living room. "I'll see you tonight at the club."

I yelled after him. "If there's another murder, all bets are off. Murder takes precedence over watching my boyfriend strip." There was that word again, boyfriend.

I heard Nathaniel's laugh trail down the stairs. It reminded me of another man in my life, who'd left me with a laugh this morning. I was just amusing the hell out of everybody today.