Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [928]
I raised up enough to kiss his chest, and he went very still above me. I knew in that instant that he wouldn’t try and regain control of my arm. I bit him, gently, and his breath went out in a soft, sharp sound. I licked my way up his chest, with him still holding my left arm, his lower body still pinning mine. I ran my tongue over his nipple and felt his breathing quicken. I locked my mouth around his nipple and bit into the skin, the flesh underneath. He shuddered above me, his body jerking enough that I had to be careful not to break the skin. But I held on as he moaned above me, and when I drew back, I saw that I had left a near perfect imprint of my teeth behind.
I lay back against the bed and stared at the bite mark on his chest, with his nipple in the center of it, and a thrill went through me, a wave of pleasure at the sight of it, and a feeling of . . . possession. I’d marked him.
I drew my left wrist out of his hand, and he didn’t fight me. He stayed propped above me on his arms, his hips pressed against me, his hair in a cascade around us. He stared down at me, and his face was raw with need. I didn’t need anything else to tell me how much he wanted me to finish what I’d begun.
I raised up enough to kiss him, and his lips trembled against mine. The kiss was long and full, and a sound came low in his throat, and he suddenly collapsed against me, his full body weight pinning me to the bed, our mouths, our arms, our bodies locked together in a warm, vanilla-scented nest of his hair, like being rolled in warm satin. Nathaniel kissed me as if he would climb inside me through my mouth, and I opened for him, let him explore me, taste me, touch me. It wasn’t his hand underneath my top, kneading my breast, that brought me to my senses. It was my hands down the back of his shorts, cupping the smooth curve of his buttocks. It helped me swim back into control, to fight down the desire, the hunger. Where the hell was Jason? I stopped kissing Nathaniel, stopped touching him, while his hands, his mouth, explored my body. His need was so strong, so strong. I could not leave the bed. I could not walk away. I was not that strong.
“Nathaniel, stop.”
His mouth was on my breast through the satin of the top. He didn’t seem to hear me.
“Nathaniel, stop!” I grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled him away from me. The front of the top was wet where his mouth had been. His eyes didn’t seem to focus on me. It was as if he didn’t see me at all.
“Nathaniel, can you hear me?”
He finally nodded. “Yes.” Anyone else would have protested being stopped, but he simply looked at me, eyes beginning to focus. There was no resentment on his face, no anger. He simply did what I told him to do and waited for me to say more. I didn’t understand Nathaniel; even knowing his heart’s desires gave me no real understanding of him. We were too different, but today that difference might help us.
I would not, could not have sex with Nathaniel. But I couldn’t stop completely either. I had to feed. I had to sink my teeth into his flesh, had to bathe in his lust, had to. “Get off me.”
He rolled onto his back, gazing up at me, lying in a pool of his hair, like a shining auburn frame around his body. I wanted to see all of him framed against his hair, and all I had to do was drag his shorts down the curve of his hips. The image was so strong I had to close my eyes, take deep breaths. The need to touch him lashed through me, almost painful, as if the ardeur could force me to do it. And maybe it could. But I would control how I touched him. I would control at least that much.
I opened my eyes and found him gazing up at me with those impossible lilac eyes. “Roll over onto your stomach,” I said, my voice hoarse.
He rolled over without a single question, and I was reminded how absolutely helpless he was