Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #21)
Page 21MICAH, NATHANIEL, AND I retired to our bedroom. Admittedly, we had a California king bed now, which meant a longer than normal bed to accommodate all those over-six-feet-tall lovers. The length certainly wasn't for any of the three of us; we were so not over six feet. So, there was room for more than just us, but I didn't want extra company today and everyone seemed to sense that. Maybe it was the giant-sized dose of tired that hit me after we finished breakfast. I just wanted to wrap my two main squeezes around me, and have them as close to me as possible. Something about seeing so much death makes you want to celebrate life, or drink heavily, and I didn't drink.
I put my equipment bags on the far side of the bedroom by the big chair that held some of my stuffed toy penguin collection. There was a chance I might get called up if they found the other daytime retreat of the rogue vampires, and I'd have to grab and go. So I didn't lock the weapons up in their various safes and lockers. The Browning BDM stayed in its bed holster at the headboard for me to grab, and there were actually a couple of other hideaways in the bedroom, but I didn't usually keep the whole arsenal out like this. There was barely room for the two bags on the far side of the bed and walking room.
I had a choice of stepping on some of the penguins that sat on the floor, or the weapons in the bags. I stepped on the penguins, but I didn't like doing it. I finally gave up going around to the side of the bed I usually got in on, and decided to go over the footboard, rather than step on any more of the penguins. I know it was silly, and they were just stuffed toys, they couldn't feel me stepping on them, but... the penguins had been my only comfort objects for years, and they still meant something to me. I had more in storage, because there just wasn't room for all of the toys once we got the bigger bed, not unless we wanted to be wading through toy penguins, or stepping on them, which upset me, or tripped us, so... I'd given up some of my penguins for a bigger bed and more real people. I never regretted the trade.
Sigmund, my penguin sleeping buddy for years, had pride of place on the chair, but he didn't sleep in the bed anymore. I had enough living, breathing comfort objects; I didn't need stuffed animals anymore, now that I had the real thing.
That real thing was already in the bed, one of them lying with the sheet modestly at his waist and the other totally and comfortably naked on top of it. Once upon a time I'd made Nathaniel get under the sheet, but he'd worn me down, or maybe I enjoyed the sight of him so naked, so beautiful, on top of my sheets, in our bed, with Micah tucked in beside him hiding some of his amazingness with that thin bit of sheet. It was just so them.
I stood at the foot of the bed looking at them, and even after three years I still had that urge to say, "Wow, this is all really mine?" Some days I felt luckier than I deserved, and some days I felt just lucky enough.
Micah had taken the tie out of his hair so that it fell in loose, tight curls around his face and shoulders. His hair was that color of brown that starts life as a pale blond and darkens as you get older. He'd confirmed that he'd had a head full of nearly kinky blond hair as a toddler, but now it was a tiny bit less curly and a rich, dark chestnut brown. Nude, his upper body showed the muscle that he fought to put over a bone structure that was almost as delicate as my own. The muscle was there in the swimmer's wedge of his shoulders, the arms, the chest, down that slender waist where the white sheet made his summer tan look darker, though not too dark. Micah tanned to a point and then just stopped. It was like his skin loved running outside, shirtless. He ran at the indoor track some of the time, but he preferred to run outside, even in temperatures, both cold and hot, that made the rest of us go for the nice, even, no-ice, no-heatstroke indoor track.
He blinked those chartreuse eyes at me. Most of the cats had a neat line of demarcation between the colors in their eyes, like Cynric did between his two shades of blue, but Micah's leopard eyes were more "human" with the green-gold of them shifting, mingling, changing in the light, depending on what color was close to his face, his moods. It was closer to what hazel eyes do on some people than the kitty-cat eyes most had. In that moment his eyes were very green, but it was a rich, olive green, with that undercurrent of gold like leaves shining in sunlight.
Nathaniel made some small movement, snuggling down into the bed beside Micah, and suddenly I was looking at my second yummy boy. His hair was still back in its long, serpentine braid, but though having sex with all his hair unbound could be done, it also tended to tangle around things like body parts, and one of us was forever putting a knee, arm, back, ass, on all that hair and trapping him in midmovement, so at least for the beginning of sex he'd taken to keeping it braided. Sometimes the point was to play with the hair, and then he'd undo it, but for sleeping and a lot of the sex, you wanted all that auburn goodness bound in some way. He liked hair bondage, too, which I was a little puzzled by because it so didn't work for me, but it worked for him, and sometimes kinky sex isn't about understanding your lover's kinks, but just about honoring them.
He was lying on his stomach so I could see the long, bare line of him from broad shoulders to the muscled spread of his back, V-ing down to his waist; the rise of his ass, which managed to be tight and round and lush; the swell of his thighs, the muscles of his calves, and his feet, where he had pushed his toes under the blanket that was folded at the foot of the bed. He did that a lot, just part of his feet under covers, but nothing else. I'd asked him why he did it, and he'd said he didn't know, he just liked doing it. Answer enough, I guess.
He blinked those big, lavender eyes at me, and smiled that smile. It was part mischief, part happy, and all sex. The look caught my breath in my throat, and things low in my body tightened enough for my breath to shudder out between my lips when I finally remembered to breathe.
Seeing the two of them in my bed, knowing I could touch any part of them I wanted, with pretty much any part of me I wanted to, just made me happier than I could say.
"Happy, I'm just happy."
The smile widened, and then he got that almost-shy look in his eyes, ducking his head, but with the eyes coming back up so you saw that a part of him knew his own worth. I was never sure if the shyness was an old habit, or if the shyness had always been intermingled with that dark, almost predatory look, and I wasn't talking about his beast. It was just the look that some men have in their eyes, their faces.
Nathaniel smiled at us both in a happy, possessive look. There was nothing shy about him when it came to sex, or knowing just how beautiful he was; his problem when he came into my life had been that those were the only parts of him anyone had valued. I was the one who learned to love him without sex. It had been a first for him that Micah and I loved him for other things; the fact that he was gorgeous and great in bed was more icing and not the whole cupcake. Though it was very sweet, yummy icing, and honestly if a cupcake doesn't have icing on it, what's the point?
"You're overdressed," he said.
I looked down at the oversized sleep shirt that fell nearly to my knees. It had Christmas penguins on it, and wasn't the most attractive look, but I didn't have a robe that didn't look like lingerie here, and somehow with Gina, Zeke, and baby Chance staying with us, the sleep shirt seemed better for that last trip to the bathroom than the short red robe that was on the back of the door.
"I need a robe that won't scar the kiddo's psyche," I said, looking down at the ice-skating penguins.
"We need another bathroom," Micah said.
"I like the idea of a master bathroom off a master suite," Nathaniel said.
"We talked about this; if we do that, then we have no bedroom while the remodeling is going on," I said.
"We stay with Jean-Claude, and let Gina and Zeke continue to stay here so Chance can have his sunshine, and they can oversee the remodeling," he said.
I frowned at him. "You've been thinking about this."
I don't know what I would have said, because Micah said, "You are still overdressed."
I looked at him, frowning still, then smiled. "Hey, at least my legs are showing; you're the one under the sheet."
"You're both too covered up," Nathaniel said. "I'm the only one who's naked." To prove it, he sat up on his knees, and I got a view of things that no customer at Guilty Pleasures ever got to see. He grabbed a handful of sheet, jerking it off Micah, as he crawled toward me. He bent over the footboard, grabbing me around the waist, lifting, and putting his other arm under my thighs as he did it, so he picked me up at the same time, scooping me over the footboard and half-tossing, half-falling to the bed, so that I was suddenly between the two of them. We were all laughing as Nathaniel's hand slid underneath the sleep shirt. He stayed on the outside of my thigh, then the outside of my hip, my waist, and moved slowly higher. I wasn't laughing when his hand caressed my breast, but I was still smiling, and so was he.
Micah moved onto his side beside me, and his hand traced up the other side of me, to mirror Nathaniel's movements, until they both had a breast apiece, and the smiles began to slip to something more serious, but no less good.
It was Micah who tugged on the shirt and began to lift it up my body. It was Nathaniel's turn to mirror him. I raised my butt up so they could wiggle the shirt up higher and finally pull it over my head and arms. Micah tossed it on the floor and gazed down at me. "That's better," he said, voice already going deeper, not with inner leopard, but simply maleness.
I was suddenly lying there naked, staring up at both of them. They stared back, the green-gold eyes and the lavender. There was a growing darkness in both sets of eyes. That look that all men I've ever been with get in their eyes. A look that is certain of you, certain you won't say no, and that in this moment you are theirs. Maybe not forever, maybe not exclusively, but theirs, nonetheless, because even in the most submissive man there is something primitive that makes him want to possess you, even if it's just a night, an hour, a moment. Women may have their own version of the look, but if they do, I'm not near a mirror at the critical moment, and my very limited experience with women hadn't shown me the same look in their eyes. I'm not saying it's not there, just that I haven't seen it.
Micah kissed me, and this time he didn't have to worry about scarring anyone's psyche, so it was lips, tongue, and finally teeth, set delicately into my lower lips until I cried out for him, and a low purring growl trickled out from between his human lips, and into mine, so that I drank the sound of his purr down my throat as if the sound had taste, and substance. What did Micah's growling purr taste like? Cinnamon; he tasted like hot and sweet. I knew it was the new mouthwash, but it made his mouth taste like candy.
Nathaniel smelled like vanilla, always, to me, and as he pressed himself to me, that sweet scent mingled with the cinnamon, and the two of them together, Micah's mouth, and Nathaniel's skin, were like Christmas sugar cookies, vanilla, with that sprinkling of cinnamon on the top, red hots melted into the sugar - sweet and spicy and warm in the mouth.
Nathaniel licked across my nipple, a light flick of tongue, and then began to suck, harder, until it was hard enough for me to cry out softly. Micah kissed me again, while Nathaniel brought small sounds from me as he sucked one breast, and played with the other. It was as if Micah ate the sounds from my mouth, as Nathaniel sucked hard, and harder, his hand squeezing, rolling the nipple between finger and thumb, and finally pulling on the nipple, as he bit my breast. I cried out and Micah's kiss acted like a gag, muffling the sound. I felt his hand slide over my hip as he continued to eat the sounds of pleasure from my mouth. Nathaniel opened his mouth wider, taking as much of my breast into his mouth as he could, before biting down; his hand cupped my breast, digging his fingers in, as his teeth dug into the other breast. When I made small, eager sounds, he did it harder. The feel of his teeth pressing hard and harder into the flesh of my breast bowed my back; his fingers bruising made me writhe into Micah's kisses, and then Micah's hand slid over my thigh and between my legs.
His fingers brushed me, and I spread my legs wider, so he could reach more of me. He played his fingers over and around me, not just going for that one sweet spot like it was a button, but exploring me with his fingers the way his lips explored my mouth.
Nathaniel set his teeth into my breast, his fingers almost crushing into the other breast. I was on the verge of having to safe-word on the breast play, but Micah's deep kisses kept me from saying anything, just as his fingers found that one sweetest of spots and began to play with it. The growing sensations between my legs kept the pain of the breast play on that thin line between amazing pleasure and actual pain. Every time I started to make too much noise, or sound as if I were going to say a word, Micah plunged his tongue into my mouth, caressing deeper, biting at my lips, and then turning it back into a gentler kiss, so that I knew he wouldn't let me safe-word. His kisses were my gag, and the thought that I couldn't tap out, couldn't say no to what Nathaniel was doing at my breasts, upped the sensation of it, helped me begin to slide into that place where what would hurt like hell becomes thrill and pleasure, and an intensity that nothing else seemed to touch, and all the time Micah played between my legs, never losing his rhythm now that he'd found it, even as he kept me muffled, helpless to say Stop. If we'd never done this before, it might have been too much; he and Nathaniel wouldn't have known my body, known my reactions even without words, so they could play right on the edge of what I could take, what I would enjoy.
I felt Nathaniel between my legs, but he wasn't using his fingers. I felt the head of him rubbing against the parts that Micah had just finished playing with, and he made me cry out again, my upper body coming up off the bed, like a puppet pulled abruptly to life, and then the strings were cut again, and I lay boneless, half-blind with the afterglow of the orgasm. Then Nathaniel began to push his way inside me, one exquisite inch at a time, until he was as deep inside me as he could go, his body pressed tight and solid.
I fought to focus on him as he rose above me, his hands bracing his upper body so that he arched over me. I gazed down the line of our bodies and he began to pull himself out of me, and then in, before he'd finished the first stroke.
I whispered, "Oh, God!"
He found his rhythm, in and out, slow, deep strokes, but not too deep, until I felt that warmth begin to grow again, and then he brought me again, and I writhed underneath him, my hands grabbing for his arms, ready to paint my pleasure in scratches, but Micah caught my hands and gave me his arms to push my nails into, but he partially pinned them, so I couldn't rack my nails down his skin, just dig the tips into his arms.
Then Nathaniel began to move faster, sliding in and out. I gazed down our bodies, watching the long, smooth shaft of him working in and out of me, and just the sight of it made me cry out again. I marked Micah's arms again, and then Nathaniel angled his hips, and now at the end of each stroke he touched as deep inside me as he could, hitting that one spot deep inside, and it was yet a different kind of orgasm, one moment all strokes and depth, and then suddenly impact that pushed me over the edge again, and this time the writhing was more of a fight, so that Micah held me down so that I couldn't scratch Nathaniel. He enjoyed nails and teeth, but he was supposed to be onstage that night, and my nail marks lasted on his skin. He needed to be unmarked, and we'd learned that I enjoyed being held down, so Micah held me down and let me paint his arms in little bloody half moons.
Micah's head was turned away, his curls across my face, so that I saw Nathaniel's face through Micah's hair. I watched the concentration on Nathaniel's face, that distant internal look as he fought his body to last, to keep going, to give me as much pleasure as he could, before his own body reached its limit. Then his eyes opened wide, and his hips began to do more than just in and out, adding a sort of sideways motion to each stroke like the difference between throwing a pitch hard and fast over home plate and a curveball. He didn't last long when he started doing that, but that was okay, because neither did I. He brought me with that extra bit of movement, and while I was screaming at the headboard, his body thrust one last time as deep inside me as he could, and the first orgasm hit the second, and I held on to Micah's arms, as if my nails in his flesh were an echo of Nathaniel's body pinning me to the bed.
Nathaniel pulled himself out, which made me shiver, but I was too far gone in afterglow to do much more. I was back to eye-fluttery blindness. He collapsed beside me, breathing hard and laughing softly. "That... was... amazing."
I could only nod.
I felt Micah's mouth against my face, and thought he was going to kiss my cheek, but he didn't; instead he spoke in a voice gone growling deep. "My turn."