42

I was cold by the time we got to the Jeep. Graham had to drive, and I wouldn't ride without a seat belt, so we worked out a compromise. I rode in the backseat with the blanket, and Requiem did his best to cuddle with me while I was strapped into the seat. Which was a lot harder than it sounded.

He started with his arm around my shoulders, his body pressed as close to my side as he could get. The blanket spread over us. He was warm, warm with the blood he'd taken from me, but his wasn't the heat of the werewolf, and sitting side-by-side wasn't as warm as sitting in someone's lap. By the time we'd pulled out of the cemetery I was shivering. A mile or so down Gravois and my body started to do those little involuntary spasms.

Requiem gripped my hand under the blanket. "Your hand is cool to the touch."

"Yeah," I said.

He wrapped his arms tighter around me, and the blanket slid off. He grabbed it, tried to spread it back over us both. "Allow me to unbelt you. Allow me to hold you as Graham did."

"If"--and I had to fight past chattering teeth--"we get in an accident, I could die."

"It is true you are no vampire and couldn't survive a car crash, but it is also true that a vampire that goes too long without a feeding, cannot die. They may whither, as a grape upon the vine, but they will spring back to plump, ripe, life with the first taste of blood. I fear that you will not."

My teeth began to chatter as if I was sitting on snow instead of in a car with the heater on high and a warm man wrapped around me. I was so cold that my muscles were beginning to ache from it.

"Allow me at least to cover more of your body with my own. I know you felt that the position lacked a certain dignity, but allow me this liberty, I beg of you."

I would have said, no, but my teeth were shaking so hard I was afraid I was going to chip one of them. He took the silence for a yes, and slid to the floorboard. He burrowed under the blanket and laid his head against my stomach, his arms wrapped around me.

I fought to tell him, move, but the involuntary muscle movement eased, and my teeth stopped sounding like castanets. He'd been right, with more of his body against mine, it was warmer. Not a lot, but maybe just enough. I was still cold, so cold, as if I were ass-deep in the snow and more was falling all around me. I'd thought freezing to death was an easier way to die. You just fell asleep. This wasn't easy, and I didn't feel the least bit sleepy. A little scared, but not sleepy.

I wanted to be warm. I wanted heat. I needed something warmer.

Requiem's voice came from under the blanket, his upper body completely hidden under the gray folds. "The shivering has slowed."

"I noticed," I said, and it was nice to just be able to talk without risking a tongue injury.

He snuggled his face against me, an oddly catlike gesture. I'd had enough of the wereleopards rubbing over me to know what I was talking about. "I would do anything that my lady required."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, and I was feeling better enough to sound suspicious.

He laughed and pressed his body against my legs hard enough that my knees moved just a little apart. His body was covering my legs, but that one little movement was like the beginning of something. It's hard for most men to keep their thoughts above the waist when they're touching below the waist, no matter how innocently. He was a vampire, but he was still male. I guess I couldn't fault him for thinking about it, as long as thinking was all he did.

"I'm feeling better than I was. I don't think we need any heroic measures."

"The tone of your voice, the stiffening of your body," he said from under the blanket, "such disapproval, as if you think I will try to ravish you."

"Let's just say that I'm not the trusting sort." Though it felt a little silly talking to a lump under a blanket, when the lump was wrapped around my body. It did lack a certain dignity.

He laid his head against the side of my body, because he was too tall to lay his head in my lap with so much of him covering my legs. His hands wrapped around the back of my body, sliding between me and the seat. It was way too intimate for my tastes, and not long ago, when the ardeur was hungry this much up-close-and-personal would have raised it, but there was nothing. Nothing but the warmth and movement of him, and the awkwardness of having a near stranger that close to me. But I could think. I felt like crap, but him this close didn't bring it on. I'd fed on him earlier tonight, and even that thought didn't raise anything through the chill. If I'd felt better, I would have been happy. The ardeur wasn't my master anymore. It couldn't make me do impossibly embarrassing things anymore. Yeah, maybe I had to feed it, but it could be on my own terms. Or close to my own terms.

I sat there with a gorgeous male curled around my body, and smiled. Even cold and aching with emptiness, I was still happy. Still willing to trade that overwhelming heat for this cold waiting. Because it was a waiting that I could feel now. The ardeur wasn't gone. It was like a fire that had burned down to cold ashes, but there was still life in the heart of that dying wood. It just needed a good poke and stir, and there would be flames, oh, yeah.

Just thinking that hard made it curl to life, a tiny flare. I squashed it. Pressed it down. Not yet, not yet.

Requiem raised his head against my body, so that the top of his head brushed my breasts, but through the leather jacket it wasn't much of a touch. The jacket was bulky enough that it could have been accidental on his part, though I doubted it. If Requiem was anything like Jean-Claude and Asher, then he was very aware of where his body was, and what it was doing. But I let it go. I wasn't that cheap a date for the ardeur anymore. Yea!

I felt Damian. I would like to say, I heard him, or saw him, but that wouldn't be true. I felt him. He was sitting against a wall, and he was cold, so cold. Colder than I'd ever been. I called to him, "Damian, Damian what's wrong?"

I didn't hear him answer, but I felt his body, felt that aching cold at the center of it. Why, what was happening to him? What was wrong? "Damian, what's wrong?"

"Did you say Damian?" Requiem asked.

"Yes, he's hurt. He's so cold, so cold, that he's collapsed against a wall. There are people around him, but I can't see who. He's so cold, so cold."

Requiem knelt upward, pushing his head out of the blanket and meeting my eyes. "You are his master now, Anita, you make him live. Your energy makes him live."

"Oh, shit."

"Yes, you can refuse the ardeur's call, but you are cold to the touch, and it is your warmth that gives warmth to Damian, in a way that goes far beyond sharing blood."

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat. "Shit, shit, shit."

"Will you let him die for embarrassment's sake?"

I opened my eyes. "That question would have a lot more merit if you weren't the one kneeling by my knees."

He put his head to one side, and a curious look came over his face. He looked as if he'd say something, then shook his head as if he'd decided better of it, and I was almost certain that what came out of his mouth wasn't what he'd thought of first. "Are you able to feed the ardeur without intercourse, or donating blood?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then allow me to offer myself as a tiding over snack until you reach the club and your pomme de sang."

"Define snack," I said.

Damian screamed through my head, and I got a confused glimpse through his eyes of a blond woman bending over him. It was Elinore, one of the new vampires. She was speaking, but he couldn't hear her anymore, only watch her lipsticked mouth move, noiseless.

I grabbed the front of Requiem's shirt. "Out of time. Damian needs... needs to be warm."

"Then let me share my warmth with you," Requiem whispered it as his face bent toward mine. As happened so often, tonight I didn't have to explain, or give detailed instructions. He just grasped what was needed, and acted.

His lips touched mine, and the kiss was gentle, and no liberties were taken, his tongue stayed nicely in his own mouth. Of course, that did nothing to raise the ardeur.

He drew back and searched my face with his gaze. "You are still cold in every way."

I nodded, and down that long metaphysical line, Damian called out for help. He was dying, not like a human dies, but like you watch a flame fade from lack of oxygen. It was as if some invisible spark were being blown out inside him. I was his spark now, and I didn't know how to fix this.

I looked up at the man in front of me. He was handsome enough, but without the ardeur's heat, he was still a stranger, and I didn't lust after strangers. I had to be seduced not by the color of someone's eyes, or the flawlessness of their face, but by a smile that had become dear to me, a conversation so familiar that it had become like music to me. Familiarity never bred contempt with me, it made me feel safe, and until I felt safe, I did not lust after people, at least not in the front of my head, and it was the front of my head that I needed. I'd finally found the lock for my subconscious, which meant I had to bring the ardeur out on purpose, not just get out of its way, or stop fighting it, but truly had to coax it to life. Again, I hadn't thought what it would mean to control the power to this degree. I seemed to spend my life not understanding the mess I was making until it was too late.

I grabbed Requiem's arms, dug my fingers into his flesh. "Damian is dying, and I don't know how to save him."

"Simply raise the ardeur and feed."

"I don't know how to do it, without the ardeur pushing on me. Shit."

"Do you mean you do not know how to raise lust for me?"

"Nothing personal, but I don't know you."

"There is no shame in not being a creature of casual lusts," he said.

"Damian is dying," I whispered it, because I could feel it. I could feel him beginning to pull away from me. He was trying not to drag me to the grave with him, so he was shielding as best he could.

"I can raise lust in you, Anita, it is not the ardeur, but it is one of my gifts."

If we'd had time I would have asked him what the difference was, but we were out of time. "Do it, help me feed. Don't let me kill Damian, not like this."

"Drop your shields, or I am helpless to bespell you." He cupped the side of my face in his warm hand.

Damian felt like a cold wind in my head. I dropped my shields, and two things happened at once. Requiem's power crashed into me. It was as if that power had been pushing at me all night, and I simply hadn't felt it. He couldn't have gotten past my shields, he was right, but without them... without them, I was suddenly wet, soaking through what panties I had. It left me breathless, helpless, staring up at him, my body already moist and ready for him. It wasn't lust, it was like hours of really good foreplay packed into seconds. The second thing that happened was my own special little power went, wow. It was as if his power complemented the ardeur, as if it were a key to the lock, or maybe all of Belle's line were like this, that we could bring each other.

Whatever the reason, whatever the cause, the ardeur roared back to life. And I felt it smash into him the way his power had hit me. His eyes drowned in bright, blue flame, like gas lights sparkling in his skull. Our mouths met, and this kiss wasn't gentle. This kiss was like feeding. Like we were trying to suck each other's souls from between our lips. The thought brought the memory of what the Dragon had shown me, had tried to get me to do, but it was distant and gone. It wasn't souls we were after.

I fed on him and shoved it down that cold line to Damian. I heard him in my head, "Anita," but still he was cold, still he lay in someone's arms.

The Jeep skittered around a turn and stopped. Graham yelled from the front seat. "What the fuck are you two doing back there? My skin is crawling with it."

My hand was on the seat belt a second before Requiem's. The seat belt unsnapped, and he spilled me to the seat with him on top. He was suddenly grinding me against the seat, and I was suddenly very aware that the front of the leather pants were laced up tight. Those lacings began to rub against me. I tore the side of the thong panties and pressed naked against the front of his leather pants.

He hesitated, as if afraid he'd hurt me, but I pulled at him, made him collapse on top of me. He looked down at me with eyes like drowned flames, and whatever he saw on my face seemed to decide him, because he slid hands on my naked hips, cupped my ass, and angled me up against the front of his pants, so the leather bindings rubbed directly onto the most delicate of places.

The sensation bowed my spine, threw my head back. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pressed myself tighter against the front of him, dug that strangely smooth roughness in against me.

That distant spark was growing brighter. I shoved the energy into Damian, shoved the feel of it, the heat of it, and knew he was awake. Knew he gazed up at the world through eyes that had swum to green flames.

His voice sounded soft in my head. "Anita, what are you doing?"

"Feeding."

Requiem did something with his hips that brought me back into my head, my skin. I knew I was still giving energy to Damian, small bits of the pleasure, but I was back to gazing up at Requiem. His hands, his arms were around my waist, his groin pressing into me, the leather braiding rubbing up and down the front of my body. He rotated his hips and rubbed back and forth between my legs. I could feel him swollen and thick behind the leather.

I let my head fall back, so that my upper body draped backward, my hair trailing along the seat, and was staring upside down when the door opened. Graham stood looking down at me. He went to his knees, as if he meant to kiss me, but Requiem picked me up, moved me out of reach. He put one hand under my shoulders and lifted, so that my back was pressed against the back of the seat. I was suddenly trapped between his body and the seat in a way that I hadn't been before. The push of his body was firmer, harder, rougher. It was as if he'd spread me wider with the push of his body, peeled back the layers of my most intimate places, until the leather braiding rubbed directly on those spots, that spot.

It was as if he knew exactly what he'd done, because he looked down at me with those burning eyes, and said, "Does it hurt?"

"No, not yet." I put my hands on his shoulders, and would have drawn him down to a kiss, but he drew back, and stroked himself against me, so hard, so rough, so smooth. The leather was wet from my body, from how wet he'd made me. If I'd been a little less wet, he'd have hurt me, but it didn't hurt. He began to pivot his hips, rubbing his groin against mine, beginning to rub across me, not just back and forth, but around, rolling himself over me, around and around, over and over. That bright spark of pleasure began to build inside me. It all felt good, but it was at the height of his stroke, as his groin brushed over that one small point, that the spark grew. It grew as if he were feeding some tiny flame. Every stroke, every rub of the leather, soaking wet from my body, every time he touched me there, the spark flared bright, and brighter. It was as if fire had weight to it, and that bright light grew heavy inside my body, until I could feel the brush of that heat every time he moved over me. Until it was as if my lower body became heat and weight, nothing but the building pleasure, and then finally at the height of one of those rough strokes, all that heat and weight spilled over me, through me, washing like heat across my body. Spilling in screams from my mouth, dancing down my hands, so that I ripped his shirt until I found skin to drive my nails into.

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, that I know is a lie. You may be a lot of things, but clumsy isn't one of them."

"You compliment me, even as I see your discomfort."

"Why didn't you just take off the pants and fuck her?" Graham asked. His face looked more in pain than either of ours.

"I told her to let down her shields, and she did it. She trusted me, but she did not understand what my power can do."

"You told me that it was lust," I said, and my voice still sounded lazier than normal, almost sleepy.

"Yes, but it is not seduction as Jean-Claude and Asher can do. It is simply lust."

"It was like hours of really good foreplay all at once. It felt wonderful."

"But it is purely physiological, purely of the body. My gift does not touch the mind, only the flesh."

"What's wrong with that?" Graham asked.

"If a woman's body reacts to my power, but her mind does not, I see it as little better than rape, and I have never been interested in such things." He sighed. "Anita did not want to have intercourse with me, she made that clear. She'd offered me blood once tonight, but she needed to keep the rest for herself. I was hoping to be able to stop sooner, but you kept demanding more. The ardeur did not quiet as I had hoped."

"I could feel it," Graham said, "it was amazing, like what you did to me earlier, but more. It felt like if I could have just touched you, it would have been more."

Requiem said, "More, yes, it would be more."

"What could be more than orgasm?"

He looked at me, and I looked at him, and neither of us looked at Graham.

"I knew it," Graham said, "I fucking knew it."

"I obeyed Anita's wishes. We did not have intercourse, we saved her vampire servant, and the ardeur has been fed."

I looked at him as he sat on the floorboard. He still looked elegant, but sort of dissipated, like an elegant rake. If he'd unfastened those leather pants and made it intercourse, I wouldn't have said no, because truthfully, I'd thought that was all that would save Damian. Or maybe I was just too American, and only intercourse meant sex. Maybe. But whatever the reasoning, Requiem had behaved himself in circumstances where most men wouldn't have. He got a lot of brownie points for that. If I'd had a gold star, I would have pinned it on him.

I did the next best thing. I kissed him on the cheek and said, "Thank you."

43

Graham double-parked in front of Guilty Pleasures and said he'd valet the car for me. I let him do it, which said just how well I was feeling. I was better, but I'd shoved a lot of the last feeding into Damian, and apparently, not kept enough for myself. The learning curve on the new version of the ardeur was going to take some getting used to.

Requiem offered me his hand to help me out of the Jeep, and I took it. I was stiff and more than a little sore, and since he'd helped get me that way, it seemed fair he help me out of the Jeep. Besides, I couldn't just flounce out of the Jeep like normal. I had no underwear on, and one of my great goals in life was not to flash anyone tonight by accident.

Clay, the new blond werewolf, was at the door. A trio of women were chatting him up. A man in coat and hat slipped past his back and into the club. Clay didn't seem to notice. He was far too busy staring at the redhead's chest.

He noticed us in time to suddenly usher the women into the club, before we got there. He stood, one hand on the opposite wrist, as if he'd been doing it all night. But everything about him screamed kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Requiem had a little trouble with the steps leading up to the door, too, which let me know that vampire or not, he might have a few rubby spots of his own. When we were at the top, even with Clay, I stopped long enough to say, "All those women better be of age, Clay."

He looked surprised, either at the thought of it, or that I'd seen him. "They're over twenty-one."

"You see ID?"

He looked perplexed. "Well, Maria said that her friend had left her ID at home. I know Maria."

I shook my head. "You better hope someone catches her friend inside." I let Requiem lead me past the puzzled werewolf.

It was 1:00 in the morning, but when Requiem opened the door, the sound of many people in a small space, having a very good time, spilled out around us. It was hot inside the doors, and it wasn't caused by the heating system, it was just that many bodies in a small space. I couldn't see if Nathaniel was on stage yet, because my view was blocked by a curtain of black-shirted security.

Buzz was talking to the three women. "If she doesn't have ID, she doesn't get in."

"But Clay told us it would be alright," the redhead said, and I assumed it was Maria.

"Maria," Buzz said, "you know the rules. No exceptions, not even for regulars."

The man who'd come in just ahead of us was facing two of the largest security guards I'd seen. One was as blond as Clay, and the other was very, very brunette, as in African American brunette. They were both over six feet, with a shoulder spread that was nearly as wide as I was tall. They made Buzz look small, and I wondered where they'd been when Primo was beating everyone's ass.

The brunette said, "You are not allowed in here."

"I have a right to see my own son," the man said.

"I told you, Marlowe is not dancing tonight. He called in sick."

Marlowe was Gregory's stage name, and he only had one biological unit that called itself his father. The man who'd sexually abused them as children, pimped them out to other pedophiles, and even put them in films. I knew he was in town, but we had a restraining order against him. Alright, Gregory and Stephen did.

I patted Requiem's hand and said, "Excuse me a minute." I went to the big security guards. Buzz saw me moving, and he gave the three women over to someone else to usher outside. He followed me. You'd think he didn't trust me not to start trouble.

"Excuse me," I said, "are you Anthony Dietrich?"

He turned, then had to look down, as if he'd expected me to be taller. "Who's asking?"

The creepy thing was that he had their eyes. Those beautiful cornflower blue eyes stared out of a lined and aged face. He was close to six feet tall, and the face was flat and harsh, not the delicate bone structure of the boys. Only the eyes staring out of a stranger's face.

The eyes shook me, so that I stood there staring for a second, and it was Buzz who said, "The boys have a restraining order against you. You can't enter this club without violating it. Charon, Cerebus, get his ass out of here. Don't hurt him, but get him out."

The two big men took an arm apiece, lifted, and carried him, without his feet touching the ground, out the door.

I turned to Buzz. "Does he try to get in here often?"

"A couple of times, whenever Harlow or Marlowe are scheduled."

I shook my head. "That is just so... wrong."

Buzz nodded, then took a deep breath and shook his shoulders, like a bird settling its feathers. "I'm going to have to talk to Clay."

"You talk to him, then send him to me, because I want to talk to him, too."

He looked at me. "Okay, but Brandon saved a chair by the stage for you, and I think he'll be very disappointed if you don't at least catch the end of his act."

It took me a second to remember that Brandon was Nathaniel's stage name. "Oh, yeah, sorry, got distracted."

"The fact that that piece of shit keeps trying to get in and watch his sons strip distracts me, too."

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Requiem will take you to your seat. Enjoy the show."

The vampire was just suddenly at my elbow, and I let him lead me through the crowd, but my eyes were back toward the door. What did Anthony Dietrich want with Gregory and Stephen? What could he possibly want from them after all these years? They were too old for a pedophile to be interested in them, weren't they?

I bumped into a chair and had to apologize to the woman who sat in it, and pay more attention to what was in front of me than what was behind. It was worth paying attention to.

Nathaniel was on stage. I don't know what I'd expected. I knew he stripped. I knew he performed. But I'd never seen him do it.

It wasn't that Nathaniel was shy, but he was quiet, gentle. The person on stage was neither of those things. He stalked, he strutted, and he danced. It was similar to what he'd taught me, moving to the beat of the music, but this was the real deal. Him throwing himself around the stage, springing up in the air, and spilling himself back down, every movement fluid and graceful, and amazing.

He was down to a cream-colored G-string. It left his ass bare and held him tight in front, so that he filled the cloth, and I knew him well enough to know that he was already excited. That he liked what he was doing. His eyes sparkled with it, his face shone with a fierce joy. He threw himself into the air again and landed in a push-up position. The audience screamed.

Requiem lowered me to the chair by the stage and lifted the reserved sign off the seat before I sat on it. I forgot to smooth my skirt down in back until I touched the cold chair. I had to sit up enough to smooth it down and not put my bare cookies on a chair that someone else would have to sit on later. Just politeness. But my eyes never left the stage.

Nathaniel did push-ups, then his hips dropped lower, and his body came up, and he did a movement that managed to look like he was fucking the stage, and at the same time, was a bigger movement than that, like a wave that went from his head to his feet. Over and over again, until the women in the audience were almost hysterical. A woman two chairs to my right was pulling down her blouse, flashing her breasts at him.

He crawled across the stage in that way that the wereanimals had, as if they had muscles in places that humans didn't. It was graceful and dangerous, and utterly sensual, as he slinked on all fours toward the end of the stage.

From the back, with his legs tight together, he looked nude. He laid his head on the floor, and the ponytail of his auburn hair spilled out around him like a cloak. He stayed that way for a moment, in a tight ball that looked so terribly nude. Then the music changed and his head flew up, his hair spilling in an arc through the air like a shining spray of colored water, until it fell around his back, and I realized that he had it up in a high, tight ponytail. So that the hair bounced and moved with him. He used it like it was a piece of costume, to hide his body, to peek pale flesh through it, then to swirl it around him so that the hair itself was the show for a moment, then he began to do that sensuous crawl around the stage, and people began to put money in the thin strap of his G-string. There was already a pile of money at the far end of the stage, as if he'd been getting it all along, but only now was he letting them slip the bills in so close to his body.

One woman pulled on the G-string, pulling it away from his body, and he cupped his hand over the front of him, to hide, and I almost got up. Almost rode to his rescue, but he didn't need to be rescued. He kissed her, and she let him move her hand away from his clothes and sat back like he'd stunned her. He joked and chastized and flowed through their hands like muscled water. He was always almost close enough, but never quite where they reached, if they were reaching where they shouldn't have.

I watched the other women, and the one or two men, and I felt something. Lust, I think, it was lust, but it was as if their lust was solid enough to grab, to pull out of the air itself and wrap around my body like a coat. Jean-Claude's voice whispered through my head, "Ma petite, do you want to know how to feed on their lust, to feed without touching?"

"You know I do," I whispered.

And it was like before with Primo, it was as if he stepped inside my skin almost, so that I suddenly knew what he knew. I knew how to open myself up and pull in the thick air. It wasn't like breathing, and it wasn't like feeding when I touched someone, it was closer to literally pulling at the air with metaphysical hands and dragging the lust hand over hand and pulling it inside me. It was the oddest sensation, as if the lust were silk or satin and I pulled it inside my body, as if silk scarves could pass through a hole in my skin. The sensation felt like I'd made a wound in my body and was pulling things through that wound. It was a sensation just this side of pain.

Jean-Claude's voice in my head, "It will not be so uncomfortable when you have practiced it."

"It feels awful."

"But are you feeding?" he asked.

I had to think about it, because all my attention was on how disturbing it felt to draw the lusts of strangers inside me. But once I thought about it, I realized I was feeding. I felt less cold than I had, but... "Do you ever fill up this way?"

"It keeps one from starving, but it is not a meal, no."

I don't know what I would have said to that, because suddenly Nathaniel was in front of me. I think he was repeating himself, but I hadn't heard him the first time. "I said, do you want to come play with the kitty?"

Jean-Claude was gone from my head, and I'd stopped feeding from the audience. Everything just shut down, everything but the lavender eyes staring at me from the edge of the stage. His hand was held out. Women's voices were calling, "I'm not shy... pick me, if she doesn't want to go. Brandon, Brandon, she doesn't want you, but I do..."

I put my hand in his, but I made a face to show just how uneasy this whole thing made me. I didn't like to dance where strangers, or even friends, could see me. Being dragged on stage at a strip club was so far beyond my comfort level. Until that moment, I hadn't really thought about what it would mean to mark him tonight. On stage, in front of people. Eek!

I stumbled going up on the stage, because I remembered the short skirt and the lack of anything under it, so I was very ladylike getting up on stage. Trouble was the stage was too high from the floor to be that ladylike, so I stumbled, and he caught me and gave me a look. That look gave me a last refuge. That look said, If you can't do this, I'll let it go. He would have, too, but I also knew that if it wasn't me, it was going to be someone else. Truthfully, I wasn't sure how I felt about watching him get pawed, or paw another woman. The fact that I thought flaunting myself up on stage would be a lesser evil than watching someone else flaunt themselves at Nathaniel, said clearly that my priorities had become skewed.

They'd brought a chair up on stage, and I hadn't seen it. The money was missing from his G-string, I think he'd put it with the pile at the end of the stage. I hadn't seen that either, which meant that I'd missed some of the act while I was feeding off the audience.

He led me to the chair and sat me down in it with a flourish of his arm. I looked up at him and knew that the look on my face was suspicious. It said clearly, What are you going to do to me?

He laughed, and it was that full-throated laugh that turned his face from handsome to something younger, more innocent, for lack of a better word. I valued that laugh, because I didn't get to hear it often. If me sitting here like this made him feel that good, then it just couldn't be that bad.

He put a hand on the back of the chair on either side of my shoulders, leaning his face very close into mine. I could see the eyeliner around his lavender eyes now and realized that there was mascara there, too, not a lot, but his eyes didn't need a lot to go from beautiful to freaking amazing. "You're not allowed to touch me, and I'm only allowed limited contact with you, but your hands need to stay on the chair most of the time." His lips showed the shadow of the smile that gleamed in his eyes.

I don't know what I would have said to that, because the music came up, or maybe it just began, and he started to dance. It had been spectacular enough from the edge of the stage, up this close, it passed from spectacular to embarrassing. It didn't matter that I slept with him almost every night, or that I'd seen him more nude than this more than once. It mattered only that it was in public, and I didn't know what to do.

He started by writhing over me with his hands still on the back of the chair. His chest was so close to my face that it was harder not to have my lips touch him, than to touch him. I'd seen him use his body before, but not like this. It was as if every muscle from shoulder to groin was capable of moving independently, and he was using every one of them. It was amazing, and in private I would have told him so, but here and now, I blushed.

He sat in my lap with his legs wide around the chair, his hands still on the back of it. If he'd just sat, I could have handled it, but of course he didn't. He moved his hips around my lap, like he was stirring something, but the movement didn't stop at the hips, it danced up his body, so that it was a bigger movement and more of the crowd could see it, as if there was any doubt what he was pantomiming.

My face was hot, as if my skin would burn if you touched it.

He leaned in against my hair, where I'd hidden my face, and whispered, "I'll stop and pick someone else if it's too much."

I raised up enough to meet his eyes. "Pick someone else?" I said.

"The act doesn't change," he whispered, "just who's on stage." The smile was gone from his eyes. He was serious again. I'd killed the smile in his face, or my embarrassment had. God.

I touched his face, cupped the edge of his cheek against my hand. I looked into those suddenly serious eyes, while the music beat and pulsed around us. In that moment there was no crowd. There was nothing but his face and my decision. I forgot the people, forgot that I was supposed to be embarrassed, forgot everything but that I wanted him to smile again.

"No, don't pick anyone else. I'll try. I'll really try."

He gave me that flash of smile that I'd only recently known he had in him, and he dropped to his knees in front of me. His hands played lightly on my knees, and he began to spread my legs apart, but he was still dancing to the music, even on his knees, and he saw the problem before the rest of the audience did.

He put his body between my knees and leaned in enough to say, "You're not wearing anything."

I had to smile at the almost surprised embarrassment on his face. It was nice to know that he could be embarrassed. "Nope," I said.

He laughed again, and raised up high on his knees, his hands on the back of the chair again. He thrust against me, not touching, but it must have looked worse to the audience, because they yelled and screamed and began to throw money onto the stage.

He didn't so much fall down my body, as spill down it, again that sense of liquid grace that the wereanimals had when they wanted to. He ended with his face in my lap, across the stretched fabric of the skirt, his upper body actually hiding the rest of me from the audience. The skirt had ridden up enough that everyone knew I was wearing black lace thigh-highs. His hands traced up my hose, above the boots, across my knees, and up my thighs, until his fingers came to the edge of the lace.

His fingers traced just above the lace, played along the bare skin of my thighs. He turned his head in my lap, just enough so that his lips were close to my bare thigh, and he kissed the inside of my thigh. That one small touch made me shudder, and close my eyes in a sigh.

He was up while my eyes were closed, hands putting my knees together so when his body moved, I wasn't flashing anyone. He danced behind me, and suddenly his hair feel over my face and body like an auburn waterfall. I was suddenly drowning in the vanilla scent of his hair.

He whirled around me, touching me only with his hair, then he had my hand in his and pulled me hard and fast out of the chair, so that I was forced against his body. It was like a move in a dance but more forceful, if you wanted your partner to stay on her feet. If he hadn't caught me, I might have fallen, but his body was there, and my hands were on that body, I couldn't help it. I just caught myself with his arm and chest, but the sight of me touching him like that sent more money onto the stage, and raised the frenzy of the women grouped around the stage.

His other hand had gone to the back of my skirt and tugged it down. He made it look like he was taking liberties when it was the exact opposite. Whatever they thought he was doing, they liked it.

The music had slowed, changed, and he was suddenly dancing with me. It was almost a waltz, and he did three quick turns across the stage, and we were back at the chair. He used my hand to whip me out from his body and have me facing the back of the chair. He put my hands on the curved back of the chair, then put his body as close to mine as he could. He was close enough that I could feel the tightness of him pressing against the back of my skirt.

He whispered against my hair, "This would be easier if you were wearing underwear."

I started to turn and ask what would be easier, but his hands covered mine, trapping them against the curve of the chair, and he suddenly started pressing that tight part of him against my ass.

I'd said he pantomimed sex before, but I'd been wrong, because he was doing it now.

He thrust against the back of my body, with his hands trapping mine against the chair, and his body curved over me. With my legs together he wasn't brushing up against anything that Requiem had hurt. With my legs together, the angle would have been wrong if we were actually trying to have sex, but that wasn't what the show was about. As he'd said hours ago, it was an illusion, the illusion that they could have him. The illusion that he could bring someone up on stage and have them in front of everyone else.

The cloth of the G-string was satiny, but what lay inside that satin was hard and firm, and all I could think of was earlier in my office. Of the feel of him inside of me for real. Of him pushed inside me as far as he could go, of him sliding in and out of my body, of him stroking over that spot inside me, of the feel of him so careful, so delicate, so very strong, as he moved inside me. My imagination was suddenly not my friend. Because between one breath and another, the memory overwhelmed me, and suddenly that heavy warmth spread from low in my body to spill over my skin in a dance of goosebumps. I spasmed against the chair, against Nathaniel's body. His body was still bent over mine, and the weight of him rode me as I spasmed, as I orgasmed. It was a small one, no screaming, no clawing, just that helpless spasming, and not much of that by my standards.

He whispered against the side of my face, his breath almost hot. "Anita..."

But the next moment there was movement behind us, I felt it like a disturbance of air, and there was a sound I didn't know, and a sharp sound of something heavy hitting flesh. Nathaniel's body reacted to the blow, spasmed, almost like mine had. A second blow came, and this time words, Jean-Claude's voice, "Bad cat, very bad cat. Away from her bad cat, away from her."

Nathaniel's body responded to every blow, almost like it was a miniature orgasm. His body tightened around me, as if the feel of my body next to him while Jean-Claude whipped him was something he didn't want to lose. But Jean-Claude drove him off, with a joking voice, and Nathaniel made sure my skirt was in place before he let Jean-Claude drive him across the stage.

I was left holding the chair, so weak-kneed I didn't trust myself to move yet. Jean-Claude had a small many-tailed whip in his hand. Nathaniel crouched and crawled across the stage, and Jean-Claude beat him. It was like an odd version of an old-time lion tamer act, except the chair served an entirely different purpose.

"You are a very bad kitty-cat, very bad. How do we punish our bad kitty?" For a second I thought he was asking me, but he wasn't. The women around the stage started to chant, "Tie him up, tie him up, tie him up."

Jean-Claude smiled, as if that had never occurred to him, but what a good idea it was. At a gesture from him, chains descended from the ceiling. I hadn't noticed them in the welter of lights and cables. Oh, hell, I hadn't even looked up.

Two bare-chested waiters, wearing only leather pants, came up on stage and dragged Nathaniel to his feet. They chained his arms spread wide, wrists above his head.

Jean-Claude came to me, walking so that his hips rolled more than they should have. He touched my arm and whispered, with a smile that did not match the words, "Are you alright, ma petite?"

I nodded and whispered, because I knew he'd hear me. "Flashback."

"Not as strong as those that our Asher can give."

I shook my head.

"Interesting," he said, "are you well enough to finish this show?"

"I promised," I said.

His smile widened, and his voice was suddenly that room-filling, jolly sound, "Now, you may help us punish our bad kitty. You may make him pay for taking liberties." I got a shadow of what he was doing to the audience. When he said "punish," it was a sharp pull on the body; "bad kitty" made you think of very naughty things; "pay," and more money hit the stage; "liberties" had a lascivious lilt to it that made the audience do that nervous giggle, like what they were thinking was worse than anything they'd seen tonight.

I just nodded and let him take my hand. That one touch was both a mistake and a help. It made me feel less shaky, but it also opened me to him more. Touching just his hand was more distracting than touching so much more on most men. He led me a little dazed across the stage, until we were standing behind Nathaniel, facing the bareness of the back of his body.

Jean-Claude let go of my hand and went to him. He touched the bare back. "You may hit him here"--his hand slid down Nathaniel's back to his buttocks--"or here. He has been a bad kitty, but we don't want to damage him. He is far too pretty for that."

The audience agreed with him, most of them.

Jean-Claude handed the whip toward me. "I don't know how to use a whip."

"First, it is a what, my sweets?"

Most of the women yelled, "Flogger!"

"And second, it would be my pleasure," and that one word slithered over my skin, and apparently over the other women as well, for they squealed, "to show you just how it works." And every word seemed darker, more suggestive than it should have.

He tried to show me first by simply using it on Nathaniel. He made the heavy leather tails blur and blossom against Nathaniel's skin. Nathaniel reacted to every blow with a spasm that went from his fingers to his toes and everything in between. I could see enough of his face to know that those closed eyes and parted lips weren't from pain. Jean-Claude whipped Nathaniel, or I guess flogged him, until his skin was pink in places and the stage was littered with money at their feet.

He leaned close to Nathaniel's face, said something, and Nathaniel said something back, then Jean-Claude turned to me. He held the flogger out again. "He's such a bad kitty."

I shook my head.

"Shall I show her how it's done?" he asked the audience, and they yelled louder, and I wished I'd just taken the damn thing and tried, but too late now.

He put the flogger in my hand and pressed his body against the back of mine, with one arm around my waist and the other hand on the hand that held the flogger. It was the way lecherous men stand when they try to teach you how to golf or swing a bat. He swung my arm back and tried to make me give that sharp crack against Nathaniel's body, but it wasn't sharp, it was sort of flabby.

"You must relax and let me do the work, ma petite." Loud enough for the audience, he said, "Relax, my sweet, relax, and we will show him pain, and perhaps more." The "perhaps more" was like a whisper in the dark against your skin.

I let out the breath I was holding and tried to relax, never my best thing. But I also knew that if I didn't relax, this part of the show would last longer, and I wanted this part over. It was sort of demeaning, like I was a girl who couldn't swing at the ball without help. Okay, maybe I didn't know how to use a flogger, but I really didn't need this much help.

We got a couple of good blows in, enough to make Nathaniel shiver in his chains. Then Jean-Claude stepped away from me, leaving the flogger in my hand. "Give the bad kitty what he wants." And what he said was not what it felt like in my head, or on my skin, or deeper in my body. The women around the stage and farther into the room made small noises. Shit.

I threw the flogger at Jean-Claude the way you'd throw a baseball bat when you want someone to catch it. He caught it by the handle like I'd known he would. "I know what the bad kitty wants, and I am going to give it to him."

The women made "ooh" and "aah" sounds, and several said, "you go girl!" One yelled, "lucky bitch!" I walked to Nathaniel and stood in front of him. His eyes were only partly focused. He'd liked the flogger. I'd known sort of academically that he would, but seeing it in his face was different. It bothered me, and I wasn't sure if the entire thing bothered me, or if what bothered me was that this was something he liked this much, and I wasn't sure I was willing to do it for him. I let the doubts go, because what I was about to do was something I could do, and wanted to do, and had promised to do.

I looked up at the chains and just wasn't familiar enough with the concept to know, so I asked Jean-Claude, "Does this swivel?"

"It can," he said, "why?"

"Because they'll want to see his face."

The audience liked that, and they shouted more encouragement, but I didn't need it. I don't know why, but suddenly I was calm. I wasn't bothered that we were in public, or that we were on stage. It was very peaceful inside my head, very calm.

The waiters turned Nathaniel around so that he faced the audience. His eyes had gone back to almost normal. I could see his face reflected in the distant glass of the far wall. I'd never really noticed how much shiny surface there was all around until that moment, when I could watch Nathaniel's face and mine.

I grabbed his ponytail, grabbed it and wound it around my hand, tight, tight enough that he gasped. I think the audience screamed, but the sound of them was receding, pulling away, and leaving me in a well of silence, where the only noises were Nathaniel's breath and mine.

I pressed my body along his back, tucked him tight against me, so that his ass pushed against my stomach and my breasts pressed into his back. I kept my hold on his hair, and used it like a handle to keep him from moving, pulling harder if he shifted his weight, until he hung suspended, afraid to move, eager not to. I had to go on tiptoe to get the angle I wanted for the smooth expanse of his neck. I put my free hand around his upper chest, holding us tight together. I used his hair to stretch his neck to one side, to give me as much of that smooth, delicate flesh as possible. His breathing had already changed, already sped in anticipation.

I licked his neck, a quick flick of tongue, and he gasped for me. I licked harder, and he shuddered. I kissed his neck, and he made a small noise, not of protest, but of eagerness. I opened my mouth wide, and let my breath touch hot upon his skin, and then I bit him. No more foreplay, no more games. I bit him.

He struggled against me, he couldn't help it, and I used his hair and my arm around his body, and the press of my body against his back, to hold him in place. I felt his skin under my teeth, felt the meat of him in my mouth, and underneath that was that frantic beating pulse. I could taste his life underneath his skin, taste it, and know that it was mine, mine if I wanted it. Mine because part of him wanted to give it up to me.

The sensation of that much meat in my mouth was almost overwhelming, and I fought not to bite down and take away all that flesh. I fought not to take everything that he offered in that moment. I bit down, held him as he struggled, held him as his wrists jerked on the chains, as his body began to spasm, and still I sank my teeth into his flesh. The first sweet taste of blood like salt and metal and something so much sweeter filled my mouth, and I felt him convulse against me, heard him cry out. And I fed, I fed the ardeur, and hadn't even known it was coming. I fed on his blood, fed on the meat of his body, fed on his sex, fed on all of him. I fed, and when I looked up from his body, I saw my eyes reflected in the mirror. Black light, with that flash of brown light, my eyes drowned with power.

I let go with my mouth, abruptly, and saw blood on my mouth, on my chin, shining in the lights. I let go of his hair, his body, and stepped back, and I knew that my eyes were still full of that dark light. I was afraid for a second what I'd done, but found that other than a perfect set of my own teeth marks, set like a bloody necklace on his skin, I hadn't bitten through to his pulse. I hadn't hurt him, not more than he wanted to be hurt.

Jean-Claude was standing there, in front of me. "Ma petite," he whispered, "ma petite." But I knew what he was thinking, I knew what he wanted. Bound closer than we'd ever been, it cut both ways. He mouthed something about how did I feel, was I alright, but that wasn't what he was thinking. Not really.

"Say what you want," I said, "say what you want."

He stopped trying to be careful, and said, simply, "Kiss me."

I went to him, and he kissed me. He kissed me as if he were tasting me, as if with tongue and teeth and lips he could drain from me every last drop of Nathaniel's blood and the taste of me along with it. He licked the roof of my mouth and drew a sound from low in my throat. His eyes had bled to midnight blue light, as if the darkest of water held starlight in it.

I caught the glint of my own eyes, and they were still full of light, blind with the darkness of it, except it wasn't blind, it was anything but. It was like being hyperaware of everything, anything. I knew suddenly that as long as the light lasted, that every sense would be heightened. I remembered thinking in the cemetery that to make love like this would either be the most wondrous thing ever, or drive you mad. Staring up into Jean-Claude's drowning blue eyes, I was willing to bet on wondrous.

"We must see to Nathaniel first," he said, but his voice was hoarse and thick with need.

I nodded. "Yes, Nathaniel first."

"And then?" he asked.

"Say what you mean," I said, and my voice wasn't as hoarse as his, but it didn't sound exactly like me either.

"And then there is a couch in my office," he said.

"I was thinking the desk," I said.

He looked at me, and even with those drowning eyes, the look was very male. "Either will do for me, but it is you who will be on bottom, so it is your choice."

"I'll be on bottom?" I made it a question.

He nodded. "Yes."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because that is what I want."

"Okay," I said.

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