Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [338]
I ran my tongue across his belly where it vanished into his pants. He shuddered. I moved to the open skin on his hip and worked down. When the scars ended at mid-thigh, so did I. I stood, and he watched me, watched me almost afraid of what I would do next.
I had to stand on tiptoe to reach behind him to the braid of his hair. It would have been easier from behind, but he’d have taken it as a rejection. I couldn’t turn away from the scars, not even if that wasn’t what I was doing at all. I loosened the braid. I separated the strands of hair, then had to lean my body against his just to steady myself while I combed my fingers through the golden strands. There is something very personal to touching a person’s hair in the right situation. I took my time, enjoying the feel of it, the extraordinary color, the thick richness of it between my fingers. When his hair fell in waves around his shoulders, I lowered myself flat-footed. My calves were cramped, too long on point.
I put into my eyes what I saw, that he was beautiful.
Asher kissed me on the forehead, a light touch. He held me against him for a moment, then stepped back. “I cannot capture you with my eyes. Without that or the throes of passion, it would only cause you pain. I can feed on anyone. What I saw in your face, no one else could give me.” He looked out at Jean-Claude. They stared at each other for a long moment, then Asher stepped out of the circle, and I made my way back to Jean-Claude.
I sat down beside him, knees tucked under, skirt smoothed back. He hugged me and kissed me on the forehead as Asher had done. I wondered if he was trying to taste Asher’s mouth on my skin. The thought didn’t bother me. Maybe it should have, but I didn’t ask him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
The Traveler came to his feet as if by magic, just suddenly standing. “I don’t think we could be more astonished if Anita had conjured a dragon from thin air. She has tamed our Asher and paid no blood for it.” He glided to the open floor space. “Yvette is not so easily sated.” He smiled at her as she rose to her feet. “Are you, my dear?”
She ran her hands through Jason’s hair as she glided past. He jumped as if she’d stung him, which amused the hell out of her. She was still laughing when she turned with a swoosh of white skirts and held her arms out to him. “Come to me, Jason.”
He huddled in on himself, curling into a little ball of arms and elbows and knees. He just shook his head.
“You are my choice, my special one,” Yvette said. “You are not strong enough to refuse me.”
An awful thought occurred to me. I was willing to bet that Jean-Claude hadn’t covered rotting on people as a no-no. Jason might not recover from another embrace from the messily dead. I leaned into Jean-Claude and asked, “You did cover torture, no outright torture, right?”
“Of course,” he said.
I stood. “You can feed on him, but you can’t rot on him.”
She turned cool eyes to me. “You have no say in this.”
“Jean-Claude negotiated for no torture. Rotting on Jason while you feed is torture to him. You know that. It’s why you want him.”
“I want my bit of werewolf blood, and I want it exactly the way I like it best,” she said.
Richard said, “You can feed off of me.”
“You don’t know what you’re offering, Richard,” I said.
“I know that Jason is mine to protect, and he can’t endure this.” He got to his feet, splendid in his new tux.
“Has Jason told you what happened to him in Branson?” I asked. Jason had been having a forced tryst with two female vamps when they began to rot. They turned into long-dead corpses while he was still lying naked with them. It was his worse nightmare, almost a phobia now. I’d witnessed the event, even had those dead hands on my body when I waded in to rescue him. I couldn’t blame him for being terrified.
“Jason told me,” Richard said.
“Hearing