Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [246]
Jason laughed, and strangely that masculine chuckle translated just fine through the wolf’s throat. The sound made me look at him. He flashed fangs as he said, “Don’t be afraid, Anita.”
“Then let me go,” I said, and my voice was nicely calm, barely a tremor. If they’d been human they wouldn’t have been able to taste my speeding pulse, or smell my fear. But they weren’t human.
Nathaniel collapsed his body on top of mine, and he was taller, broader, more muscled, or muscled in places he hadn’t been before. It was like a different body pressed against mine, one I’d never touched. The fur was thinner on his chest, stomach, groin, but the skin was warmer, almost hot against my naked body, as if in this form his blood ran hotter.
He licked my shoulder, and a sound very like a small squeal came out of my mouth. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing, just my breathing. Not on the feel of his body, or of Jason’s hands with their not-so-retractable claws tickling my wrists. I breathed, breathed while a tongue that was rougher than Nathaniel’s licked in long, thick sweeps across my shoulders and upper back.
When I opened my eyes again, my pulse was normal, and I realized that Nathaniel was cleaning off the clear goop that he and Jason had gotten on me. He growled next to my ear, “We got you messy.”
“Yeah,” I said, and my voice was a whisper.
He settled his hips against my thighs and did a small, powerful movement, somewhere between a wiggle and a push. He was suddenly resting against my ass, and I could feel that he was different there, too. Bigger, it felt like, but I might just have been scared. Everything seems bigger when you feel threatened.
He made a sound by my face, sort of a snuff, not like he was sniffing me, but like it was a noise that I should have understood. “You’re hungry. Hungry like we are. I can feel it.”
I fought to keep my pulse nice and normal, my breathing even. I wasn’t going to do anything to escalate this, not if I had a choice. “I’m not hungry,” I said.
He leaned harder against me, sliding lower between my legs, not inside, but moving that way. The thought sped my pulse, I couldn’t help it. He rubbed his furred cheek against the side of my face. “You need a shower.”
“Okay,” I said. At that point I’d have agreed to anything that would get me on my feet and out from under the two of them.
“We’re not going to eat you, Anita,” Jason said. “If that was really an option Jean-Claude wouldn’t have trusted me with you, you should know that.”
I raised my face and met those wolfish eyes. “Sorry, but you guys going all tooth and claw on me, makes me wonder.”
“We won’t hurt you,” Jason said.
“Then let me go,” I said, and my voice was even, normal, my pulse slowing down.
“Not yet,” Nathaniel said, with his face still pressed against my face.
Jason looked at him. “Why not?” he asked, before I could.
“Because she still needs to feed the ardeur.”
I wouldn’t have thought that a wolf face could show that much incredulity, but Jason’s did. “Anita doesn’t do furry.”
The leopardman on my back moved his hips another fraction of an inch down. He pushed against me, not inside, but knocking at that most intimate of doors. “You are empty inside, I can feel it. I couldn’t feel it before.”
Saying it once, was wishful thinking, twice, and I tried to look inside myself. Tried to see the ardeur without raising