Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [347]
I knew I was feeling better, because faintly, I could hear what Nathaniel was feeling. Not a sound, but I had no word for sensing another person’s feelings. He was scared, excited, frustrated, confused, unsure, scared, unhappy, worried. I felt each emotion like a cobweb blown across my body in the dark. Nothing to see, and when you brush at it, it breaks apart and blows away, as if it wasn’t there at all. Animals didn’t have this many emotions all at once. Confused and scared, yes, but not the rest. The rest was still too much for my beast.
Nathaniel’s free hand fumbled at the waistband of my panties. My skirt was already pushed up around my waist on its own without any help from him. He pulled my panties down to my knees, but since he was working one-handed, they came down in fits and starts, and it was anything but smooth. He growled his frustration against my skin, and it caught my breath in my throat, made me go weak at the knees. He used my hair like a handle, making it clear that if I went down on the floor it would hurt. It helped me stay on my knees. Helped me concentrate, and that helped me slide a little more inside my own skull.
I wanted to say his name. It seemed like that would help. But I couldn’t think of his name. Couldn’t say it out loud. It was as if name were an alien concept. Smell, his smell, that I knew. I tried to say it, and it took me three tries before I whispered, “vanilla.”
He’d wrestled my panties down almost to my knees. But at that one word, he stopped. He kept his hand on my hair, but he lifted his mouth from my neck, just enough so that his breath caressed like heat on the wound he’d made. “Anita, can you hear me? Are you in there?”
Was I in there? It seemed like too hard a question for me. Was I in there? I think I took too long to answer, because the next thing I felt was his belt smacking against my bare butt. His pants fluttered against me.
The beast ground my hips against him, but not to slow him down. The thoughts weren’t this clear, but it amounted to: He’d bested us in a fight, he’d earned the right to mate. I knew now why the big cats fought before they mated. You had to prove you were strong enough. That old biology imperative to only breed with the best, with the male that can give your offspring the genes they need to survive.
The leopard didn’t mind. She was ready. I, on the other hand, had a problem. Of course, I couldn’t remember what it was. Couldn’t think. Because the human part of me agreed that Nathaniel had earned his right to be here. He’d saved us. Saved all the nice people outside the office door. Office, that was it. I didn’t want to fuck at work. That was it. I moved away from Nathaniel’s body. I pulled away from him, and his fear skyrocketed. He had no way of knowing that it was the human me that was wanting to pull away. The beast smelled that rush of fear, and let out a sound in my throat that I’d never heard come out of me. It wasn’t a human sound.
He pulled on my hair so hard that it brought a gasp from my throat, but strangely, made me relax. It hurt, but it felt good, too, and gave an echo of that wonderful peacefulness that had happened when he bit the back of my neck.
He brushed the head of himself against my body, and the beast writhed for him. He whispered, “The angle’s wrong.” Then he used my hair like a handle and his other hand to put me on all fours on the floor.
The leopard crouched down in front of him, giving him my ass like we were in heat. He pulled my panties the rest of the way down my legs, got them tangled on the