Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [480]
I shuddered in his hands from the feel of his mouth. Eyes closed, my hands limp at my sides, letting him do it all. His hands slid, very slowly, from my face. He never stopped kissing me as his fingertips slid down my bare shoulders. His hands hesitated over the shoulder straps for the spine sheath, as if he didn’t know what to do with it.
I opened my eyes, started to lift my hands up to help him. He grabbed my hands and held them down at my sides. “I’ll figure it out,” he said softly.
I stared up at him. I could barely breathe around the need. I wanted his naked skin pressed against mine. I grabbed one of the tears in the T-shirt and ripped it wider. “Off.”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
I wanted to fall on him like a ravening wolf, and he was so controlled. I could feel his need. Feel his need as great as my own, and yet he could kneel there, so close, so very close.
“Everyone out,” Richard demanded.
I’d forgotten that we still had an audience. I hid my forehead against Richard’s chest. My hands slid behind his back, trying to press myself against him.
Asher said, “What of the other wolves?”
“I made a pact with Verne. It’s over except for this.”
I stared past Richard’s broad shoulder into Asher’s scarred face. His face was carefully blank, empty, unreadable. I had a thought: what was he hiding? But most of my thoughts were the scent of Richard’s skin. The smell of fresh blood. The clinging scent of earth and pine and leaves. The light, salty dew of sweat on his body. There was no room for regrets. There was only the warmth of his body pressed against mine.
“If you take her like this, it will be very like rape,” Asher said.
“I’m going to try very hard for it not to be,” Richard said.
Asher gave a small sound that might have been a laugh. “Bon heur,” he said, and left. Good luck, he’d said. He’d said it in French, and it made me think of Jean-Claude.
So close to the warmth of Richard’s body I could feel him hard and ready, and I thought of Jean-Claude. I wanted to wrap myself in Richard. I wanted to pull him around me like a blanket, but what would my other lover say? That thought pushed the munin away better than anything else had.
Months in Jean-Claude’s bed, and I still wanted Richard. I wanted Richard, not Raina, not munin. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly I couldn’t think about anything but the feel of him in my arms. But it wasn’t fair, not like this. Not with Raina riding me.
She poured over me like a warm bath. This was her price. This. That she be here with us for the first time. That even this would always be part hers. My skin ached to be touched. My body hurt with a need I’d never known.
When the door closed behind them, Richard pulled me away from his body. He held me away from him with his hands on my forearms while I struggled to get closer. I needed him. Needed him.
I reached for him, crying, “Richard, please, please.”
He spun me around until I fell against the foot of the bed. He put a hand in the middle of my back, keeping me turned away from him. He slipped the shoulder straps of the spine sheath off, sliding them down my arms. He threw the sheath across the room to bang into the wall. Then he leaned over me, a hand on either side of the bed. He leaned his face over until his hair brushed my face. He molded his body against mine, arms wrapping my arms against my chest. He held me with his body and his arms, pressing us so close I could feel his heart beating against my back.
He whispered against my cheek. “If at any time you want to stop, say so, and it’s over. I’ll go.”
I made a small sound very like a whimper, and said, “Fuck me, Richard, fuck me, please.”
A shudder ran through his body from toes to head, and his breath fell out in a long sigh. He pulled back enough to undo the back of my bra, then he slid it slowly off my shoulders. He used the bra straps to lower my arms