Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [197]
It was only then that he drove himself against me hard enough that it was almost pain. Hard enough that I felt his body convulse against me through the leather of his pants. His hands were on the back of the seat, holding us in place, but his neck was bowed, his eyes closed, and his body pinning me to the seat as if he would press himself through the leather and find himself inside me. His body convulsed a second time, and he crushed me against the seat, and the cry I gave him was part pleasure and part pain.
It was only then that the ardeur truly fed. It had gotten small bits, but not what it needed, not what I needed. Requiem had been controlling himself with an iron will, and that iron will had kept me out of something that I needed. Only with his release had all his walls come tumbling down, and the ardeur had roared into that breach, and fed.
His body collapsed down the seat, so that he was resting on his legs, still on his knees, still with my legs wrapped around him, but no longer pushing us against the seat. His shoulders slumped, and he pressed his face against the top of my head, one hand on the back of the seat, and the other around my waist.
I could hear his heart racing, feel his pulse against the side of my face, where his neck lay, warm and close above me. If I’d taken blood from him it would have left him colder, but the ardeur wasn’t blood, and it didn’t mind sharing its warmth with those who fed it well.
I felt Damian like a warm wind inside my head. He blew me a kiss. “Thank you, Anita, thank you.” Then he pulled away, and there was someone touching his arm, taking his hand. He let them lead him onto the dance floor, and I was alone inside my head with Requiem still holding me.
“Oh, God,” it was Graham, still kneeling in the open door of the Jeep. “Why wouldn’t you share, Requiem, why wouldn’t you share?”
Requiem turned his head, slowly, as if even that small movement were an effort. “She is not mine to share.”
Graham laid his head on his arms on the seat, almost as if he would weep.
I spoke staring at Requiem’s chest, where the lovely green shirt had been ripped away, and there was a glint of scarlet from my nails. The sleeve on his right arm was ripped away too, and there were more marks there. I said the only thing I could think of, “Did I hurt you?”
That made him laugh, and then wince as if the laughter hurt. “I think, m’lady, I should be asking that of you.” He eased me off his body, and himself to the floorboard, so that I was sitting on the seat, and he was kneeling in front of me. It was almost exactly how we started.
He moved down, until he was sitting flat in the floor, with his back against the opposite door from where Graham was still kneeling. “Did I hurt you?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I said, but even as I said it the endorphins began to fade, and the first ache began. It was suddenly harder to find a comfortable place to sit on the seats.
“I have hurt you,” he said, “and I am a clumsy fool.”
I eased until I was sitting more on one hip. “Fool, I don’t know you well enough to answer, but clumsy,