Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [461]
Their lips worked gently at each side of my neck, soft kisses. Nathaniel’s body was so warm pressed the length of mine, warmer than any blanket, better than simply being held in someone’s arms. Jason’s hand smoothed along the edge of my hip, and I couldn’t help but cuddle into the feel of his touch. That one small writhing movement seemed to affect Nathaniel’s body. He was suddenly heavier than he had been, heavy in the way Richard’s kiss had been in the memory. Nathaniel’s hips pressed in against me, and as with the remembered kiss, he pushed against me, and I had a choice of opening to him, or keeping him outside my body.
Richard’s beast had left through a kiss. I could only kiss one of them at a time. The thought came that I could do other things, and still kiss. But I’d had enough of threesomes and more. My battered morals had had about all the multiples they could handle for awhile. That little voice whispered, but it feels so good. And the voice that I’d learned at my grandmother’s hand yelled, Slut! You work so long and so hard to listen to your inner voice, but sometimes guilt or habit makes you listen to those other voices—the ones that beat you down. Sometimes you just can’t shake them.
“I need to give my beast to my cat,” I said, and my voice was thick, slow. I tried to draw my hand out of Jason’s, but he held on. He whispered into the bend of my neck, “I’ll be your cat.”
Nathaniel whispered against my other cheek, “I’m her cat.”
Jason’s voice against my skin, “I’ll be your doggy then.” He licked along my neck, and it made me writhe, but I shook my head, just a little, turning my head so I could see the side of his face.
“Not tonight, Jason.” This time when I pulled my hand, he let me go.
His blue eyes came into my vision, and he kissed me, long and deep, and my beast lay quiet. “You taste like blood and other men’s kisses,” he whispered, as he pulled away.
My beast woke inside me, as if it had only been napping. It woke and tried to spill upward. It filled my body like someone trying on a coat that was far too small. I could feel it stretching out inside me, feel it filling me, like hot water spilling up and up inside me until it filled every inch of me, and still there was more to come. It poured and poured, if water could have bones and muscle and anger. Because when it found that there were limits, that my skin did not burst, my bones did not bend, my body did not give, the beast began to rage inside me. It slashed with claws and fought with muscles that should have been metaphoric but felt all too real. It was trying to tear its way free of the cage, and the cage was my body.
I screamed, screamed and struggled, but you can’t fight something that you can’t touch. Nathaniel was still on top of me, eyes wide and frightened. He started to slide off of me, but I grabbed his arms, and managed to say, “Kiss me.”
If it had been almost anyone else, they would have argued, but he didn’t. He put his mouth against mine, and the next scream was muffled into his mouth. I willed the thing inside me into him. I tried to force it, but it was panicked, and could not hear me. It was like a wild animal, cornered, it heard nothing, but its own fear.
I tore my mouth from Nathaniel’s and simply screamed. Jason was there, a hand on either side of my face, and the moment he touched me, the beast hesitated. The cat paused long enough to sniff the air, as if wondering what he was.
I looked up at Nathaniel with Jason’s hands still holding my head. “Try again, kiss me.”
He kissed me, and this time I was able to kiss