Cerulean Sins - Laurell K. Hamilton [54]
My ardeur drank Jean-Claude up through the warm moistness of my body, through the skin wherever it touched his. His ardeur drank me down, pulling down the long shaft of him like a hand inside my body taking things away. My ardeur drank Asher down, absorbed him where he lay on my skin, sucked him in as he pulled at me. The feel of his mouth locked on my neck was like a trap, the ardeur sucking him down through his mouth, and he, sucking my blood, feeding, swallowing, drinking me down. As long as he fed, he brought orgasm in one crashing wave after another, wave after wave of pleasure, and it wasn’t until Jean-Claude cried out underneath me that I realized, through his own marks, he was able to feel what I was feeling.
Asher rode us both, rode us and brought us, rode us and brought us, until when he drew back there was blood pouring from his mouth and I knew he’d taken more than he needed merely to feed. It wouldn’t kill me, but in that one shining moment I wasn’t sure it mattered. It was the kind of pleasure you’d beg for, kill for, maybe, maybe even let yourself die for.
I collapsed on top of Jean-Claude, twitching, unable to control my body, unable to do more than shiver. Jean-Claude lay trembling underneath me. Asher collapsed on top of us. I felt him tremble against my back. We lay shaking, trembling, waiting for one of us to be able to move enough to walk, or scream, or anything. Then dawn came, and I felt their souls slip away, felt their bodies go slack and empty. I was pressed between the frantic pulse and warmth of their bodies, the fluids not even cooled on our skin, and suddenly, Asher was heavy, and Jean-Claude was totally limp under all the weight.
I struggled to get out from between them, but my arms and legs weren’t working yet. I did not want to lie here while their bodies cooled. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t get Asher off of me. I couldn’t make my body work. How much blood had I lost? Too much? How much?
I was dizzy, light-headed, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the sex, or if Asher had truly taken too much blood. I tried to push him off of me, I should have been able to do that, and I couldn’t. The first edge of nausea hit me, and I knew it was blood loss. I touched my neck and found that blood was still seeping from the puncture wounds. That shouldn’t have been happening. Should it? I never donated blood voluntarily. I didn’t know how long the wounds should bleed.
I tried to lift with my arms, like doing a push-up, and the world swam in streams of colors, dizziness threatened to engulf the world. I did the only thing I could think of—I screamed.
14
THE DOOR OPENED and it was Jason. I don’t think I’d ever been so happy to see him. I managed to say, “Help me.” My voice sounded weak and scared, and I hated it, but I also was feeling nauseous and dizzy, and that wasn’t post-coitial languor, it was blood loss.
Now that I could see again, I realized I was drenched in blood—and other things—but it was mainly the blood that was worrying me, because it was all mine.
Jason rolled Asher off of me. He moved with that boneless ease that only a truly dead body has. I don’t know what the difference between sleep and death is, but you know instantly when you move even an arm whether it’s death, or whether it’s sleep.
Asher lay there on his back, his hair spilled around his face like a halo, crimson blood glittered on his chin, his neck, his upper chest. The scars didn’t take away from the beauty of him nude. They weren’t the first thing you noticed, or even the third. He lay, drenched in my blood, like some fallen god, come down to death at last.
Even sick from loss of blood, I could not find him anything but beautiful. What the fuck was wrong with me?
Jason had to help me slide off of Jean-Claude, catching me in his arms, holding me like you’d hold a child. I was nude, he’d just dragged me from a bed where I’d obviously had sex with two men, yet Jason hadn’t made a single quip, or joke. When Jason had this much