Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [257]
He walked around the table, fingers trailing on the backs of the chairs. “And I am one of the vampires that they have been pressing their bodies up against all night.”
“Hannah is still managing the club, right?”
“Oh, yes, I am merely a cold body to send into the crowd.” He was around the table now, to the island that separated the working area of the kitchen from the rest of the room. “I am merely color, like a statue, or a drape.”
“That’s not fair. I’ve seen you work the crowd, Damian. You enjoy the flirting.”
He nodded, as he came around the end of the island. Nothing separated us now but the fact that I was still leaning against the far cabinets and he had stopped at the end of the island. The urge to close that distance, to wrap my hands around his body, was almost overwhelming. It made my hands ache with the need, and I ended with them pressed behind me, pinned by my body the way Nathaniel had leaned against the Jeep earlier.
“I enjoy the flirting very much.” He traced pale fingers along the edge of the island, slowly, tenderly, as if he were touching something else. “But we are not allowed to have sex while we work, though some of them beg for it.” The emerald of his eyes spread and swallowed his pupils, so that he looked at me with eyes like green fire. His power danced along my skin, caught my breath in my throat.
My voice started out a little shaky, but I gained firmness as I talked, until the last was said in an almost normal voice. “You’ve got my permission to date, or fuck, or whatever. You can have lovers, Damian.”
“And where would I take them?” He leaned against the island, arms crossing over that expanse of pale chest.
“What do you mean?”
“I have a coffin in your basement. It is adequate but hardly romantic.”
He could have said a lot of things that I’d expected, but that wasn’t one of them. “I’m sorry, Damian, it never ocurred to me. You need a room, don’t you?”
He gave a small smile. “A room to use for my lovers, yes.”
Then I realized something. “You mean like bring strangers here. People you’ve just picked up, and have them like sleep over, be at the breakfast table in the morning?”
“Yes,” he said, and I understood the look on his face now; it was a challenge. He knew I wouldn’t like the thought of strangers coming into the house, much less facing a strange woman that he’d simply brought home to fuck, first thing in the morning.
I had a tiny spurt of anger, and that helped me think. Helped push back that need to touch him that had nothing to do with the ardeur, and everything to do with power. “I know you had a room at the Circus. Maybe we could arrange something with Jean-Claude, so you could take lovers back there.”
“My home is here, with you. You are my master now.”
I cringed a little at the master part. “I know that, Damian.”
“Do you?” He pushed away from the island and came to stand just in front of me. This close the power shivered between us. It made him close his eyes, and when he opened them, they were still drowning emerald pools. “If you are my master, then touch me.”
My pulse was jumping in my throat like a trapped thing. I didn’t want to touch him, because I wanted to touch him so badly. In a way, this was part of the attraction between Jean-Claude and me, as well. What I’d taken for lust and new love was also partly vampire trickery. A trick to bind the servant to the master, and the master to the servant, so that both served the other willingly, joyfully. It had bothered me when I first realized that part of what I felt for Jean-Claude was somehow tainted with vampire mind games, though it wasn’t on purpose from Jean-Claude’s point of view. He couldn’t help how it worked on me any more than I could help how it worked on Damian.
He was standing so close I had to crane my neck backward to see his face clearly. “I want to touch you, Damian, but you’re acting awfully funny tonight.”
“Funny,” he said. He moved in so close that the edges