Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [131]
“No,” I said.
Jason said, “This is the first time you’ve felt the ardeur yourself, Richard. You’re power-drunk.”
“Anita, look at me!”
“No!”
He kissed me then, and it didn’t matter that I didn’t look at him. For the ardeur, a kiss was as good as a glance. Maybe better.
He kissed me, and all the lies flowed over my anger, cooled the rage, and filled me with a sweet certainty that nothing could ever hurt me while I was in Richard’s arms.
51
ONE MINUTE, I was safe; the fear, the anger, all of it fell away. It was as if Richard’s arms, his mouth, his body were food, drink, air, and every good thing all rolled into one person.
The next minute, I was drowning. The kiss that had been like air, sweet and pure, was suffocating me. The arms that had felt so safe were a trap from which I had to break free.
I went from melting into his body to fighting with everything I had to get away.
Richard fought to keep kissing me, holding me. But there were other hands on my shoulders, helping me fight. Not by fighting Richard, but helping my mind, me, fight. Richard’s hand went to my hair and tried to keep my face pressed to the kiss, but another hand was there, another arm, helping pull me away, another body pulling me backward.
Jason’s fear washed over me with his touch. Fear of what Richard was doing. Not just fear of Richard’s new vampire powers, but fear of how I felt in his kiss. Fear of the drowning, perfect obsession of love.
Jason felt my emotions, felt what Richard made me feel, and I felt Jason’s terror of what he said he wanted. Terror of being consumed by one person. Fear of belonging to just one person. Jason said that his heart’s desire was this, but he lied to himself. In one suffocating, drowning, hand-filled moment he and I both knew he did not want it. The thought of only one person forever made his blood run cold.
I was caught between the two of them. Two men strong enough to rip me apart, literally. It was like being a baseball bat in that childhood ritual where you try to be the hand on top of the wood. Except this bat was helping break free of one set of hands. I pushed at Richard, fought his grip, until more of me was cradled in Jason’s arms, and only one hand was left digging into my upper arm.
Jason and I were on the floor, with his back against the side of the bathroom doorjamb. He held me as close as he could, even his legs wrapped around my waist from behind. I could feel his heart thudding against my back, taste his fear like something metal on my tongue. I didn’t have to be able to see his face over my shoulder to know his blue eyes were wide, his lips parted, and his skin pale.
Richard was on his knees, staring down at us. His eyes had bled back to his normal brown. “I can feel how afraid you both are of me.”
“You tried to mind-fuck me, Richard. You tried to take my choices away.”
“I want you to want only me, Anita. I want it so badly that it drives me mad sometimes. I hate the thought of you with other men.”
I wisely kept my mouth shut, because I knew that he enjoyed watching me with Jean-Claude, sometimes. He liked sharing with Jean-Claude, sometimes. But, as with much of Richard’s inner life, he didn’t want to accept it. If I’d asked him, he shared me with Jean-Claude because he had no choice. He did it rarely, because he didn’t like it. Right? Not necessarily. I thought he did it so rarely because he was afraid that he did like it.
“You’re hurting my arm, Richard.”
He looked at where his fingers had made imprints in my skin, as if he didn’t remember he was doing it. He let go, and sat back on his heels, still kneeling. He looked puzzled.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
Jason just kept holding me, while his pulse started to slow.
“If Jason hadn’t interfered, you would have done anything I wanted. But I believed it, too, Anita. I believed in that happily-ever-after moment again. I thought marriage and kids and…”
“I felt you think it,” I said.
“But you thought it, too.” He looked at my face, and he was so sincere, so full of his truth.
“You made me think