Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [257]
He looked shocked, then horrified. “You’re saying Clair is right. I was too rough. I did hurt her.”
I shook my head. “Did she ask you not to be so vigorous during the lovemaking?”
“She never asked about my . . . technique at all. She just blew up and said I was too rough. That I enjoyed making her beast come. That I enjoyed her clawing me up. That I enjoyed making her a monster. That I always made love like an animal no matter what shape I was in.”
Eeeah. I said what I was thinking, “Did Clair mean to hurt you as much as possible, or was it just an accidental hit?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, that if I were trying to hurt you as much as possible, I couldn’t do better than that.”
“I think she just meant it. I mean if I’m having sex rough enough for Raina, then how can it be anything but rape to anyone else?”
I shook my head and waved a hand in front of his face, so he’d look up and at me. “Don’t ever use the word rape to me again, Richard, because you don’t do that. If you’re with someone who likes sex the same way you do, then it’s just good sex.”
“But rough,” he said.
I shrugged. “You don’t start out rough, but yeah, you usually end up there, but it was never anything I didn’t want to do. All Clair had to do was ask for what she wanted, but she treated you like so many women treat men, like you should be able to read her mind. You aren’t a mind reader, Richard, just a man, and men are usually less able to read a woman’s mind than another woman is.”
“I’m not a man, Anita, I’m a werewolf. I’m an animal.”
I grabbed his upper arms. “Don’t let me hear you say that, ever again. You say animal like it’s a dirty word, Richard, it’s not. But until you own that it’s not, don’t let anyone make you feel that bad about yourself.”
He smiled then, a little sad around the edges, but it was a real smile. He touched my arms with his hands, and I pulled away. I was so not going to hug and make up. I would help him through this, if I could, but we were not a couple anymore.
“If I didn’t hurt you, then why did you pull away just now?”
I hugged my arms tight and paced a little farther away from him. “You came here for truth, fine, here’s truth. We’re not a couple anymore, Richard, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel . . . oh, hell, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
“And what would that be?” His voice was back to being guarded.
“You were very clear at my house yesterday. I was in your head, Richard. I know what you were thinking, what you were feeling. I was there inside your head.”
“Then you saw what I wanted to do to you.” He turned away, so that all I could see was the back of him in jeans, and the jean jacket that was a few shades bluer than the jeans. His hair was beginning to have waves, but it still looked shorn to me. “It was sick, Anita. I wanted you afraid of me. Having you afraid while I fucked you, would have been . . . would have—”
“Just flat done it for you,” I finished for him.
He turned and looked at me. His eyes were desolate, as if something in them had died. “Yes, yes, exactly.”
“Richard, every lycanthrope I know is a little confused about the fear response, food, and sex.”
He shook his head, and it must have been too vigorous, because he winced. “But no lycanthrope I’ve met, except for Raina and Gabriel, thought fear was an aphrodisiac.”
“Since I’ve met some of the same lycanthropes that you’ve met, I know that’s not true. What is true, is that Gabriel and Raina were the only ones willing to admit it to anyone and everyone.”
“No, no,” he said and stalked toward me, his anger starting to rise in a warm prickling wash. “No one else wanted what they wanted, not like that. Not the real thing.”
“Aha,” I said, then apologized for saying aha, “but the point is, you said not the real thing. I’ve met a lot of shapeshifters who are into