Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [319]
“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