The Harlequin

Chapter Fifteen

ONE OF THE younger guards was bent over the tub. I couldn't remember his name in that moment. He looked up and seemed startled, as if he hadn't expected us. "Remus told me to fill the tub." He sounded a little breathy. I remembered his name then: Cisco. He was eighteen, and I'd declared him too young to guard my body. But it hadn't been his age alone that had made me suggest he go elsewhere. He'd had problems around the sex and me. Apparently he was getting his second chance to see if he could be cool around the sex.

"We'll take it from here," Richard said.

"Remus was really clear that I am to follow every order exactly."

I sighed. "Cisco, just go."

He took his hand out of the water, shaking droplets off it. "Okay." His eyes were too wide, his face too bothered by us. He was a wererat; no lycanthrope should have this much problem around nudity. But it wasn't the nudity, I didn't think, but the fact that we were going to have sex. That bothered him. I'd declared that I was a twenty-one-or-older zone. Cisco's face made me think I needed to make that rule stick.

I got a flash of the gun at his hip as he moved past us. Remus said Cisco had one of the best scores on the firing range of any guard. But high scores weren't the only thing you needed to be a bodyguard.

The bathroom door closed, firmly. Richard stood there, holding me as if it were effortless, as if I weighed nothing and he could have done it all night. Sometimes it bugged me to know how much stronger the men were than I was, but not this morning. This morning it seemed comforting.

"Can I say something without you getting mad?" Richard asked.

I tensed, I couldn't help it. "I don't know."

He sighed, but he said it. "Cisco seems too young to be doing this."

"I agree."

He moved his head against the top of mine, as if he'd glance down at me if my face was where he could have seen it. "You agree?"

"Yeah, he's been weird around me since..." I didn't say it out loud, because I didn't want to upset Richard either. But Cisco had been in the room when I'd had sex with London, one of our British vamps, for the first time. Cisco had had trouble not seeing me as a piece of ass since that moment. He was young, young in ways that weren't just about how old he was. "Since he saw some stuff," I finished, and hoped Richard would let it be.

He did. He carried me to the edge of the tub. The water was very loud, rushing into the huge tub. Jean-Claude had explained to me that the swan spout that filled it was hooked up to a system that filled the tub extra fast. I had a tub almost that big at home, and apparently my system was like his, a quick fill. Since I had bought the house with the tub and system in place I hadn't realized there was anything special about it. High-tech tubs, who knew? Richard hugged me, and again I got a flash of that amazing strength. "I want to check the water, but I'm really enjoying carrying you."

"Me, too," I said.

He rested his face against my hair. "Really?"

"Yes," I said, and I would have whispered it, except the water was loud enough that true whispering wasn't possible.

He stepped into the water with me in his arms. I laughed and lifted enough to see his face. "Shouldn't you check the temperature first?"

The look on his face made the laughter leak away. Eager, amazed, just so many emotions. Lately when we'd been together the only thing I'd seen in his face had been lust. We'd both shut down our emotions, kept ourselves safe. It had had that feel of sex at the end of a relationship, when sex is all you have left, and it isn't enough.

"The temperature's fine," he said, his voice soft. He knelt down, still holding me. He folded all that six feet and change down into the water, and just above his waist the water hit me. It was warm, almost hot. The water slid over my body like another set of hands, gliding, exploring. He was right, the temperature was fine.

He whispered against my hair, "How much do you hurt?"

"I ache all over."

"We'll get cleaned up first, then let your body soak in the water. Hot water helps." He kissed my forehead, then lowered us both down into the water, so that he was almost floating with me held across his chest. He let go of me with one arm, so he could half-swim, half-pull us to the water faucet. My legs trailed out into the water, but the rest of me was held tight to his chest. He sat down against the side of the tub. The water came to his upper chest, which meant it was almost chin deep to me. He kept me pinned to the front of his body, and I was okay with that. Touching was good.

"Enough water?" He made it a question.

"Yes," I said.

He reached back and turned off the water, then settled down with me cuddled against the front of his body. The height difference was enough that to keep my chin above water I couldn't cup my body against anything but his chest and stomach, with the rest of my body mostly floating. It was probably just as well; if too much of him touched me, I tended to get distracted. We were going to let some of the aches and pains drift away before we got distracted. He kissed the side of my face, and I settled into his arms, and the warm, warm water.

It was relaxing, or should have been, but there was a kernel of me that couldn't relax completely. What was wrong?

"What's wrong?" Richard asked.

"Nothing."

"You're tense."

I sighed. "I don't know."

His hand slid down the side of my body to cup my hip. "It seems like unless we're having sex, you get tense when we're alone."

"I don't mean to," I said.

He wrapped his arms around me and forced my body lower as he rose, so that certain parts of his anatomy were touching me. He wasn't as hard as he got, but even partially erect he was a special treat. The feel of him pressed to the back of my butt felt wonderful. It made me writhe against him, which made his body react, growing, moving against my body. It was all involuntary, and I loved knowing that I affected him like that. He pushed against me, and it brought a small sound from my lips.

"So quick, so eager. God, I do love that about you." He whispered it against my face.

"I wanted to make love to you months before you'd say yes."

"I was afraid." He nuzzled my neck, biting just a little.

That little biting made me writhe more. The aches and pains were starting to fade under the first wave of endorphins, those happy little chemicals. "Afraid of what?" I whispered.

He bit harder, and my spine bowed with it. "You."

"Why?"

He cupped his mouth around the side of my throat and bit down. I cried out for him; my nails clawed at his arms. I finally had to say, "Enough, enough."

He eased back and turned me in the water so that I was facing him. He drew me in against the front of his body, and he was hard and eager now. The feel of him against the front of my body made me cry out.

He cupped my ass, pressed me harder against the front of him. I pushed at his body, almost like I wanted to get away, but that wasn't what I was thinking. It was just almost too much, for some reason. The feel of him so eager, so big, trapped between our bodies. It was almost too much.

He shuddered, head back, his voice panting, "God, Anita, God, I love the way you react to me. I do love it!"

I wrapped my body around him, pressed the length of him against the most intimate part of me. It made me cry out and press myself tighter against him.

He pushed me against the side of the tub and moved his hips away enough to try to angle himself for my opening. I didn't protest, until the tip of him started inside and my body let me know that the combination of water - which is not a lubricant - lack of foreplay, and his size meant this wasn't going to work.

I half-patted, half-slapped his chest. "Too big, you're too big."

"The water," he said, breathy. He leaned his hands on the sides of the tub, face down, the head of him still inside me. "If you release the ardeur, we can do it."

"But I'll be sore afterward, and so will you."

He moved his hips a little, and the sensation, even tight, made me catch my breath. "Not too sore," he said.

"Yes," I said, "trust me. I don't want to be walking funny tomorrow."

He raised his head enough to frown at me. "We've never done it before like this - how can you be so sure?"

Shit. I stared up at him with his body halfway inside mine and didn't know what to say. The truth was Micah and I had done it, but that seemed impolitic, to say the least, in this moment. I tried to think of something that wouldn't make him feel bad. But I waited too long.

He said, "Just say it, Anita, just say it."

"I want to make love with you, Richard. I don't want to fight."

He pulled back enough so he wasn't inside me anymore. He stayed with his arms on either side of the tub, framing me. The look on his face was cautious now, almost as if he were steeling himself for bad news. It wasn't the look I wanted on his face right now.

"Say it, Anita." His voice sounded tired.

"I tried it with someone else."

"Why did it hurt?"

"Don't make me say this, Richard, please."

"Say it," and his voice was harsher now.

I sighed. "Fine, because he was too big for it not to hurt."

"Who?"

"Don't do this, Richard."

"Who?" This time it was a demand.

I gave him angry eyes. "Who do you think?"

"I don't know; you've added at least two men to your list, and I've never seen either of them erect."

I ducked under his arm and half-swam to the other side of the tub. "Tell me what you want me to say, Richard."

"Is it your two new vampires?"

"Are you wanting to know how you measure up to Requiem and London? Is that what you're actually wanting to know?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I guess I do."

I crossed my arms under my breasts, the water helping, since they floated. "I cannot believe you're asking this."

"It's an easy question, Anita."

"Do you actually want to know if you're bigger than they are?"

"I'm so jealous of them that I can't see straight, so yeah, I want to know. I want to know that I'm still the best-endowed man in your bed."

"You know, I don't actually get out a ruler and measure everybody."

"So they are big."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." I covered my face with my hands. "No, no, they aren't as well endowed as you are. Happy?" I lowered my hands and found that it wasn't a happy look on his face.

"Then who is?"

I'd managed for months not to have this discussion, this specifically, with anyone. Of course, it would be Richard who pushed it. "Micah, okay? Micah."

"Is that why you love him?"

"Jesus, no, Richard, you should know better than most that a really big cock is not enough to win my heart."

"Then why him? Why are you living with him and not me?"

I sighed. We weren't going to have sex. We were going to have therapy. Sweet Mary, Mother of God, I did not want to do this. "Don't do this, not now, not today."

"I need to understand what went wrong before I can move on, Anita. I'm sorry, but I do."

I shook my head and tried to settle into the water, but it wasn't soothing anymore. It was just wet. "Fine. Do remember, I'm living with Nathaniel, too. You always seem to forget him, or discount him."

"He's not dominant, Anita. In the world of wereanimals that makes him discountable."

"But in the world of my affections, Richard, he is not discountable."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't, and I'm sorry you don't, but it's still the truth. I'm living with Micah and Nathaniel, not just Micah. The fact that Nathaniel isn't a dominant doesn't make me love him less."

"How can you sit there, like this, and tell me you love someone else? Don't you know how much that hurts me?"

"You wanted this talk, not me. I wanted to make love. I wanted to clean up, feed the ardeur, and be together, but you had to get all hung up on the size of everyone's equipment. I know it's a guy thing to worry about that, but this wasn't the time to bring it up."

"You're right, it was stupid, but I'm stupid around you, Anita. You make me say things, do things, that I know are bad for the relationship."

"I don't make you do anything. You choose to say and do things that spoil stuff. Your choice, not mine."

"Fine, you're right. I choose to say and do this shit. I could have let it go and we'd be having sex right now, and it would be great sex. But I really do want to know what Micah has that I don't. What magic does he have that made you move him into your house, live with him, when you wouldn't do it for me?"

God, we were going to do the big fight. The fight I did not want to do this, ever, but I especially didn't want to do this with the Harlequin in town, and heaven knew what nasty surprises headed our way. "Jean-Claude explained to you that it was partly vampire powers that drew Micah and me together."

"You're a succubus, a vampire that feeds on sex; yeah, he told me."

I saw something on his face. "You don't believe him."

"I don't believe it's permanent. I think if you could get enough space between yourself and Jean-Claude's power, it would go away."

"Richard, this isn't Jean-Claude's power anymore; it's mine."

He shook his head, his arms crossing over that lovely chest. "You aren't a vampire, Anita. You can't have vampire powers. They're still part of the triumvirate we have with Jean-Claude."

"Richard, this is real. You can't wish it away."

"What, that you're some kind of sex-crazed demon? I don't believe that. It's more of Jean-Claude's power, or Belle Morte's, or even Marmee Noir. Jesus, Anita, you have had so many vampires running through your mind, you don't know what is you and what is them anymore."

There was some truth to what he was saying, but... "Richard, I have forged a triumvirate of power with Nathaniel and Damian. That's me, not Jean-Claude. That's real."

He shook his head again. "There's got to be a way to undo it."

I just stared at him. This was not the talk I thought we'd be having. "Richard, I am a succubus, me, not Jean-Claude, not Belle Morte, not Mommie Dark, me."

"Humans can't be succubi."

"Maybe not, but then humans can't have a vampire servant or an animal to call, and I have both of those."

"Because you're Jean-Claude's human servant."

"Richard, you saw what happened when I tried to undo that connection. I would have died and taken Nathaniel and Damian with me."

He settled back into the water, giving me angry eyes. "Jean-Claude told me the theory. That your version of the ardeur helps you see the deepest desire in someone's heart and grant it, and make them into what you most need. Micah needed his people safe; you killed Chimera for him. You needed what from Micah?"

"A helpmate, a partner, someone to help me run the furry coalition, and help me run the wereleopards that I'd inherited when I killed their old master."

"I could have been your partner," he said.

"You didn't want to be my partner. You want your own life, not to be just an adjunct to mine."

"What does that mean? That I won't give up my job for you?"

"That I needed someone to do the coalition full time, and you have your career."

"That can't be all Micah is to you."

"He's there for me, Richard. He's there for me and the people I love. He doesn't fight me all the time. He says yes more than he says no."

"And I just say no."

"Sometimes."

"Nathaniel needed to belong to someone; now he belongs to you. I get that. But what did he do for you?"

"I needed a wife," I said.

"What?"

"I needed a 1950s wife to make my life run smooth. I needed someone to be my wife, and he's really good at it."

"And I want you to be my wife, is that it?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Why didn't your ardeur look into my heart and see what I most needed, and make us into the perfect couple, too?"

"I thought Jean-Claude explained all this to you."

"I asked him why not me, and he said the power was unpredictable. But that wasn't the truth, was it?"

"Not all of it," I said, and cursed my vampire lover for being a chickenshit.

"Tell me all of it," Richard said.

"Micah knew what he wanted: his people safe at any cost. He said from the moment he came to me that he'd do anything, be anything, to be in my life. The ardeur made that happen for him. Nathaniel wanted a home and to be loved for himself, not just for sex, and the ardeur made that happen. Both of those desires are very clear. Do you know what you want most, Richard? Do you have one single heart's desire?"

"I want you."

I shook my head. "That's not your deepest darkest wish, Richard."

"I should know what my deepest wish is, Anita."

"Richard, if a genie appeared before you right now, what would you wish? Really, truly, if you could have anything, what would it be?"

"You."

"Liar," I said.

He sat up, and that otherworldly energy swirled through the room. "How dare you?"

"Richard, be honest with yourself. What would you have if you could have anything, no matter how impossible?"

He blinked at me, and the energy level in the room seeped away. He stared at me. "I don't want to be a werewolf."

"That's your deepest wish, Richard, and the ardeur can't give you that. I can't be that for you, so the ardeur doesn't work between you and me, because what you want most doesn't have anything to do with sex and love."

He stared at me and sat back in the water, almost like he was faint. "Oh, my, God." He whispered it.

"We thought at first you were just too conflicted for the ardeur to pick and choose, but I was the one who figured it out."

"You're right," he said. A look of soft horror covered his face. He looked at me, and such pain filled his eyes. "I did this to myself."

I shrugged.

"I was so afraid I'd become a monster that I took the inoculations against lycanthropy. That's how I caught it."

"I know," I said softly.

"And I lost you because I hate what I am more than I want you."

"You haven't lost me, Richard."

He looked at me, and I had to fight to keep meeting that look. "You'll never be just mine. We'll never have a life together."

"We can be part of each other's lives, Richard."

"Not in the way I want."

"Maybe not, but, Richard, don't throw away what we have. Was it so bad last night, sleeping with all of us? Was that so awful?"

"No," he said, "and if I hadn't been in bed with you, then Marmee Noir could have done something awful to you. You need me to protect you."

"Sometimes, yes."

"But I can't live with two other men, Anita. I can't share my bed with them every night. I just can't."

My eyes felt hot, my throat was tight. Damn it, I would not cry. I managed to say, "I know."

"Then where do I fit in your life?"

"Where do I fit in yours?" I asked.

He nodded. "That's fair." But that was all he said.

I sat on my side of the tub feeling lost and horrible. Only Richard could make me feel this bad; only he managed to cut me this deep. Damn it.

I felt Nathaniel like a distant tug. He wasn't feeling well, which meant that Damian, in his coffin, would be feeling worse. Damian hadn't woken for the day yet, and I needed to feed the ardeur before he tried to wake. Jean-Claude had explained to me that if one morning I didn't have enough energy to make Damian's body wake, he would never wake again. He would simply remain dead, forever.

"I've got to feed, Richard, now. Nathaniel is starting to feel bad, and I won't risk killing Damian."

Richard nodded. I expected him to say he'd get someone else for me to feed on, but he didn't. "We need to do enough foreplay so you can feed from me."

"We're fighting, that's not good foreplay."

"Are you saying you don't want to be with me now?" He said it low, careful, as if he were balancing a world of emotions on a very thin stick. One wrong comment and the stick would break and the world would fall. Shit.

"I'm saying I don't have time for lengthy foreplay. I need to feed, right away. I'm trying not to cry; that's not conducive to sex. Not for me, at least."

"I'm sorry, Anita."

"Don't be sorry, Richard. Fix it. Fix yourself, fix us, or don't fix us. But whatever you're going to do, we need to do it now. I won't risk lives because we're having another fight."

He nodded his head as if that were fair. Maybe it was. He started moving toward me through the water.

"What are you doing?" I asked, and sounded suspicious.

"I want you to feed off me, Anita."

"I'm pissed and hurt, and that doesn't lead to sex for me."

"If I leave you'll still be pissed and hurt. You'll still have trouble concentrating on the sex, won't you?"

I couldn't argue his logic. I almost said, But the others are smaller than you, and this is one situation where bigger isn't better. But I didn't say it out loud. I didn't want to hurt him that badly. I also knew that if Richard and I couldn't come to some kind of understanding, one day we'd be finished as a couple. He'd always be Jean-Claude's wolf to call. He'd always be bound to us in a triumvirate of power, but we'd be broken up. It would be like being trapped in a relationship with someone you'd divorced but could never completely get rid of. A little slice of hell, that.

He was kneeling in front of me, the water just above his waist. The edges of his hair were wet, but the top was still dry, and still held some of the slick stuff that had gotten on us when I ripped Travis into his animal form. Truthfully, a little mess wasn't enough to take away from how handsome he was, but the constant fighting was. The picking at it all, and his deep unhappiness with being a werewolf, that was unattractive. I gazed up at him, all that way to the nearly heart-stopping face, so handsome. Handsome enough that I'd have been embarrassed around him in high school. But handsome and well-endowed wasn't enough to keep letting him hurt me like this. I stared up at him, and for the first time my heart did not leap up, and neither did my libido. I was tired of the fighting. I was tired of his inability to accept our reality. He didn't believe I was a succubus. He thought it was something that would go away if we got me away from Jean-Claude. Didn't he understand that there was no going away from Jean-Claude, not for either of us? His comments said no, he didn't understand that, and that made me sad.

He stood up. He stood up with water dripping down his body. I was suddenly staring at a certain part of his anatomy with water drops decorating it. We all have our weaknesses, and one of mine was water. Richard had dated me long enough to know that. He was betting that seeing him wet was enough to distract me from being mad at him. I had a moment to decide to hold on to that angry sadness, or do what I wanted to do. Do what the suddenly rapid pulse in my neck wanted to do. I felt Nathaniel sway against a wall. I went to my knees, steadied my hands against the warm, wet sides of Richard's thighs, and lowered my mouth to his body.

Chapter Sixteen

I LICKED THE water off him with the tip of my tongue. I drank water from the looseness of his body, licking water from the testicles where they hung so heavy and large. I licked and drank the water until his body lengthened and hardened. I couldn't reach the tip of him now, not without wrapping my hand around the base of him and lowering all that hardness toward my mouth. He made small noises for me, and when I gazed up his body, the eyes that looked back had changed to wolf amber. Sex was supposed to be about losing control, but all lycanthropes could never completely lose control - because to lose control for them meant to change shape. At least once a year some new lycanthrope lost control and cut up a lover during sex. Sometimes the lover survived, sometimes they didn't, sometimes they got to be furry, too.

I drove my mouth over him until my lips met my own hand. I used the hand to squeeze and pulse around him, but it also kept me from having to try to take all of him in my mouth. I could deep-throat, but it wasn't always the most comfortable position, not with someone Richard's size. I could raise the ardeur and do it, do it all, but...

I rose off his body, enough to talk. "I'd raise the ardeur and finish like this, but you're too strong. You keep me out except during intercourse."

He looked down at me, and it was almost a look of pain. "I want you to do whatever you want to do."

"Will you lower your shields and let me feed?"

"I'll try."

I shook my head and squeezed him tight at the same time. It threw his head back, made his hands reach to empty air for something to hold on to. He liked to hold on to things when we did this. But his hands found only air, and he looked down at me with a shudder that ran up the length of his body. Just feeling him shudder in my hand brought a cry from me. "God, Richard, God!"

He reached down and grabbed my arms, pulled me up out of the water. I had to let go of him as he came out of the water with me in his arms. He threw me onto the marble around the tub edge. It was cold and hard, and I started to protest. Richard's fingers found my opening. He shoved his finger inside me, and just doing oral sex on him made me wet, but the water had kept me tight. Even one finger seemed big. He moved it in and out and around, and I cried out for him.

He put two fingers inside me, and he actually closed his eyes, concentrating, searching, until he found that spot, no bigger than a fifty-cent piece, that spot just inside and to the front of the opening. He found it, and flicked his fingers back and forth across it. There hadn't been enough foreplay for a full-blown G-spot orgasm, but it still felt good, so good. It made me spread my legs wider for him, made me angle my hips for him. He took that for the invitation it was, and drove his fingers inside me harder and faster, until I cried out for him again.

"You're wet," he said, in a voice that was a little strangled with need.

I nodded, breathless.

He started to angle himself to enter me, but I put a hand on his chest. "Condom."

"Shit," he said, but he went to his knees and riffled through the pile of towels behind us. Condoms lived in the bathrooms and bedrooms of any place I was alone with the men. The pregnancy scare in November had made me unwilling to count on just the birth-control pill. He was cursing under his breath by the time he got the condom on, but he turned back to me, his body hard, eager. Just the sight of him like that, knowing what we were about to do, made things low in my body tighten. Small orgasms before he even entered me.

Even wet and eager, he had to work himself inside me. I writhed around him, just from the feel of him working his way inside. I gazed up at him, let my eyes see his face, the wolf eyes in his face as he fought himself, his arms supporting him above me, so that most of his body was above me, so that I could see him as he pushed his way into me.

"Feed, Anita, feed, please."

A please like that usually meant that a man was close. I called the ardeur to life. I called it, like coaxing a spark to life, to flame, to burn. The power spilled over me, through me, and into him. The ardeur poured over us in a warm wash of power. It opened my body to him so that he could push in and out of me. I could watch him in the mirrored walls around us, his body above mine, pushing in and out, in and out. He knew with the ardeur on us he didn't have to be careful, and he wasn't. He pushed all that length into me as hard and fast as he could. He grabbed my hips, lifted my lower body off the marble, held me in his big hands as he pounded himself into me, so hard and fast that our bodies made a wet, thudding noise. The end of him found the end of me, so that each stroke hit as far into my body as it could, and still he came in and in, so hard, so fast, he was almost a blur in the mirrors. He wasn't human, and he had speed and strength that wasn't human. Once he'd worried that he'd hurt me, but we'd found that I wasn't human-fragile anymore. We'd found that Richard could be as rough as he wanted, and he wouldn't break me. He was that rough now, then he found a new speed, a new hardness. It was as if he'd always been holding back, and I just hadn't known it. Faster, harder, until he was a blur in the mirrors, pounding himself inside me, until I cried out, orgasming around him, body spasming. I felt his body spasm inside me, felt his body buck against mine. All movement ceased, his head flung backward, eyes closing. His fingers dug into my ass, holding us both in that moment, as his body spasmed and went inside mine, with him buried as deeply inside my body as was possible to be. In that frozen moment, as our bodies rode each other, the ardeur fed. I fed. I fed on Richard's energy, fed on the part of him that was wolf, and human. I fed on all of him, took in every last delicious inch of his power, as I took in every last delicious inch of his body. When he let himself go like this, he gave so much energy.

He lowered me back to the edge of the marble tub. He slid out of me, and even that made me writhe. He collapsed onto his side, because there wasn't enough room for his shoulders otherwise. He lay gasping with his head near my waist. I managed to move my hand enough to touch his hair, but that was all I could manage. My pulse was still thundering in my ears.

He found his voice first. "Did I hurt you?"

I started to say no, but the endorphins were fading around the edges. There was already an ache beginning between my legs. To Micah I would have said, A little, but to Richard I said, "No." He had more issues than Micah did.

I felt his hand slide clumsily over my thigh, as if he couldn't quite make his hand work just yet. He brushed between my legs. I said in a voice that was half-laughing, "Not again, not yet."

He raised his hand so I could see that he had blood on his fingertips. "Did I hurt you?" His voice sounded surer of itself and less post-coital.

"Yes, and no," I said.

He managed to raise himself up on one elbow. "You're bleeding, Anita. I hurt you."

I looked at his fingertips. "A little, but it's a good hurt. I'll remember what we did with every ache."

His face closed down, and he stared at the blood on his fingertips as if it were an accusation.

"Richard, it was wonderful, amazing. I didn't know you'd been holding so much of yourself back."

"I should have kept holding back."

I touched his shoulder. "Richard, don't do this. Don't make it bad when it was good."

"You're bleeding, Anita. I fucked you so hard you're bleeding."

I thought of one thing to say, but wasn't sure if it would make things better or worse.

He moved away from me to sit on the edge of the tub with his legs dangling over the side. He washed the blood away.

"I'll be all right, Richard, honest."

"You can't know that," he said.

I rose, and I ached, deep inside my body. Maybe more than normal. I rose enough to see the blood on the marble, but there wasn't much of it. "If this is all the blood, then I'll be fine."

"Anita, you've never bled after sex before."

Truth time; I prayed that it was the right choice. "Yeah, I have."

He looked at me, frowning. "No, you haven't."

"Yeah, I have, just not with you."

He started to say, "Who... Micah?" He said the word like he wasn't happy to say it.

"Yes."

"This much blood?" he asked.

I nodded and sat up; now that the endorphins were leaving at a rapid rate, the marble felt cold. I held my hand out to him. "Help me back into the tub."

He took my hand almost automatically, as if he did it because it was there more than because he wanted to. He helped me slide back into the tub. I made a small pain noise. I was hurt, no doubt about that, but I wasn't broken. I'd had this hurt before with Micah. I didn't want it this rough every night, but I could do it, and when it was the right time, it was amazing.

"Has he hurt you this badly before?"

"It isn't hurt the way you say it, Richard. I'm not hurt, I hurt; it's not the same thing."

"I don't see the difference."

I lay back in the water, easing into it, letting the abused parts of my anatomy relax a little at a time. Strangely, the ache inside me was the only ache. The muscle soreness was gone, washed away on a wave of sex and the ardeur. Good for that.

"I wanted to fuck you, Anita. I wanted to fuck you as hard and fast as I could, and I did."

"Didn't it feel wonderful?" I asked.

He nodded. "It did, but if I hurt you, then think what I could do to someone who doesn't have vampire marks to make them harder to hurt. Think what I could do to a human woman."

I settled back into the water enough to wet all my hair, then sat up so I could look at him. He looked so sad, lost. "I've heard the stories, Richard. Broken pelvises, crushed organs, women and men who needed surgery to put themselves back together."

"When we're with humans we always have to be careful of them."

"So I've been told."

"I didn't know if you could take this, Anita. I didn't know if I would break you. The thought that I might fuck you until I pushed my way into parts of your body that should never be touched, excited me. I didn't want to do it, but the possibility of it excited the hell out of me. How sick is that?"

I blinked at him, not sure what to say. "I'm not sure it's sick at all. You didn't do it. You just thought about it. The thought excited you, but you didn't rip me apart to make it come true. I think maybe it's like a lot of violent fantasies: if the reality happened, it wouldn't be sexy at all, but the thought of it, a violent thought in the middle of sex, can drive the sex to the next level."

"Weren't you afraid of me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I trusted you not to hurt me," I said.

He took off the condom and said, "There's blood on the condom."

"I'm not hurt, Richard, or at least no more than I wanted to be." Truthfully, maybe I was more hurt than I wanted to be. A pleasant ache between the legs was fine, but I was starting to hurt somewhere close to my belly button. That usually meant you'd overdone it. But I couldn't say that to Richard.

He looked at me. "You flinched just now."

I closed my eyes and floated back in the water. "I don't know what you're talking about," I said.

I felt the water move, knew he'd gotten in the tub. I sat up, but he was already standing over me. There was something menacing about the way he loomed over me. Most of the time I could ignore how physically large he was, in every way, but sometimes, like now, he made me see it. He wasn't trying to be intimidating, or I didn't think he was. Not on purpose, anyway.

That otherworldly energy began to flow off him as if the water were getting reheated. I moved so I was sitting against the side of the tub. Standing up wouldn't help; he'd still loom over me. Besides, my stomach, or rather lower things, were beginning to cramp. I wasn't entirely certain I could stand up without bending over. That wouldn't help the situation. Was I hurt? Was I really hurt? Not a question I wanted to have to ask.

"You're hurt, really hurt, aren't you?"

His question was a little too close to what I'd just thought. We could accidentally share thoughts and feelings. I fought to put the shields back in place. Sex can bring them crashing down.

He knelt in the water, putting an arm on either side of me. He leaned in, the heat of his power beating against my body. It made things low in my body tense, and that hurt. I fought not to make little pain sounds. I managed not to, but Richard put his face against the side of mine and whispered, "Are you hurt?"

"Please, Richard." I whispered it.

"Are... you... hurt?" His power pulsed through me, and this time I made a small sound, but not a good one.

"You're going to raise my wolf if you don't control your power better." I said it through gritted teeth. One, I was hurting; two, I was getting angry.

He leaned in against my face and drew a deep breath. He was smelling my skin. His power was like a warm, wet heat pushing against me. I was shielding as hard as I could against him, his power, all of it. I thought of rock, stone walls to hide behind and put them in his metaphysical way.

He spoke against my cheek, his breath hot on my skin. "Pain has a smell to it, did you know that?"

"No. Yes." I'd smelled it myself once, twice, when the beast was first prowling around inside me.

"Are... you... hurt?" He said each word, slowly, carefully, his lips brushing against my cheek as he spoke.

Another cramp hit me, and I fought not to bend over my stomach. I fought to sit in the water, with him pressed against me, and not react. He'd implied he could smell I was hurt. Most lycanthropes can smell a lie. I said the only thing I could say: "Yes."

He kissed my cheek and said, "Thank you." Then he stood up and climbed out of the tub. He reached for one of the towels in the pile that always seemed to be in the bathroom.

"Where are you going?" I asked, though frankly I was ready for him to go.

"Away from you," he said.

I let myself fold over the next cramp. I didn't fight that it hurt. He wanted to be a bastard, fine. When I looked up again, he had the towel wrapped around his waist. He'd swallowed all that otherworldly energy, as if when he covered his nakedness, he'd covered more than just his body.

"I'll send for a doctor."

"No, not yet."

"Why not yet?"

"Because it may pass."

He frowned at me. "You sound like you've done this before."

"I've had cramping before - not this bad, truthfully - but it faded."

"Micah." He said the name like it was a curse.

"Yes." I was tired of protecting Richard's ego. Frankly, in that moment, I was tired of Richard.

"He always gets there before I do."

"There isn't a single thing that Micah got to do that you didn't have the chance to do first."

"My fault again," he said.

"Your choices," I said. I couldn't keep the strain out of my voice. Fine, let him know how much I was hurting.

"I love that," he said.

I frowned up at him, my hands pressed over my abdomen. "What?"

"That sound in your voice, I love it. The last time I heard it was in Raina's voice."

I frowned harder. "What are you talking about?"

"You know that she was a sexual sadist, and God knows she was, but she also liked pain. She liked rough sex from both sides; dishing it out and being the dish."

I couldn't frown harder so I said, "I actually did know that. I have some of her memories, remember."

"That's right, you carry her munin, her ghostly memory."

The munin were the ancestral memories of the werewolves. When a wolf died, they ate a little bit of the deceased and made them a permanent group memory. For real, not just ritual - though most werewolves couldn't "talk" as directly as I could with Raina's munin. It was supposed to enable you to access memories, get advice, but Raina had done her best to try to possess me for real. I had almost complete ability to keep her contained inside me. She wasn't like the beasts, or the ardeur. Raina was something I could keep caged. Using her powers, that was chancier.

"You used her to heal the cross burn in your hand. Maybe you could use her to heal yourself now?"

I looked at him. The cross-shaped burn on my hand was a shiny, permanent scar. Raina's ability to heal was something I had retained.

It had been one of the reasons that Richard had made her munin, instead of leaving her body to rot. She'd been a sexual sadist and tried to kill us both, but she had been powerful. So I could sometimes use her abilities to heal myself and others, but the cost was always high. I could cage her inside me, ignore her, but if I let her out, well, she demanded payment. Her payment was usually painful, or sexual, or both.

I shook my head. "I don't think that would be a good idea right now."

"Have you ever seen memories of her and me together?"

"Some. I try to steer clear of them."

"The last time I was able to do what we did today was with her." He looked at me, his face almost peaceful, waiting.

"You miss her."

"I miss some things about her. Remember, Anita, I was a virgin. I didn't understand how unusual what she was teaching me was."

"Nothing to compare it to," I said.

"Exactly."

"There are other sexual positions where you can be as rough as you want, and I won't hurt this much afterward, Richard. Part of it is that you don't do it this rough during the ardeur. The ardeur steals my ability to guard myself."

"Don't you understand, Anita? I hate, and I love, that I hurt you. I love the sound of strain in your voice. I love the thought that my body did this to you. That just flat does it for me. That I was so big, so powerful, so violent, that you're hurt inside. You're right, if I hurt you enough for hospitals, it wouldn't be fun. That I wouldn't enjoy. Raina tried to get me to enjoy that level, but for that she had to turn to Gabriel."

Gabriel had been in charge of the local wereleopards before I had to kill him. He'd being trying to rape and kill me, on film, at the time. Raina had been offstage urging him on. They'd made a lovely couple, in that lower-circle-of-hell sort of way. I'd sent them to hell together on the same night; talk about a double date.

"Yeah, Gabriel liked it serial-killer bad."

"So did Raina," Richard said, "though not her body, not for the worst of it."

"I'm told a good dominant in the bondage and submission scene never asks of their sub what they aren't willing to do to their own body."

"That's the rule," Richard said, "but we both know that Raina wasn't a good dominant."

"No," I said, "she wasn't."

"The cramping easing?" He made it a question.

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"Your face is smoothing out. You're not clutching as much at your stomach. And I watched Raina work through the same kind of pain, a lot. She said one of the things she liked about me was that I could be as rough as she wanted in exactly the way she wanted it."

"For future reference, don't ever fuck me this hard in that position again, okay?"

He nodded. "What position do you like?"

I opened my mouth, closed it. Tried to think of how to phrase it. "I don't like it this rough on a nightly basis. After a session even close to this rough, it takes a day or two to feel like doing it again."

"You'll have to feed the ardeur in a few hours."

"There are gentler ways to feed it, Richard."

"Not with Micah there isn't."

"Well-endowed doesn't mean you can't be gentle, Richard."

He nodded. "You're right."

We stared at each other a moment. Something on his face made me say, "Raina really fucked you up, didn't she?"

He nodded. "Yes, she did. When she found out I enjoyed it rough, she wanted to make sure I'd never be able to get my needs met anywhere but with her. She meant to keep me, Anita, and if she hadn't tried to include Gabriel, I might have stayed with her."

"No, you wouldn't have," I said.

He gave me sad eyes. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because you're a good person, and if it hadn't been Gabriel it would have been someone or something else. Raina couldn't resist pushing people past their boundaries. She'd have kept pushing until she broke you; it's what she did."

He nodded and took in a breath deep enough that it rocked his broad shoulders. "I'll clean up in the group showers."

I wanted him to go, but... He'd tried so hard. He'd actually saved me from Marmee Noir. "You can clean up here."

He shook his head. "No, I can't."

The way he said it seemed odd. "Why not?"

"Because I like the idea I hurt you. I like it a lot. I don't trust myself not to hurt you again."

"I'd say no, Richard. You respect no?"

He nodded. "But I also know the effect we have on each other. I don't trust myself not to try to seduce you again, so that I can push myself inside you while you're still bleeding from the first time." He closed his eyes and a shudder ran down him from head to feet. I didn't think it was because he was repulsed by what he wanted to do; no, it was a shudder of anticipation. He was being honest with me, with himself, about what he wanted.

"I like it rough sometimes, Richard, but not that rough. Sorry."

He nodded and gave me a sad smile. "Raina helped me enjoy intercourse too rough for anyone else. She made Nathaniel like pain in a way that most people wouldn't even survive."

"I know."

He shook his head. "No, you don't. You think you know, but you can't imagine it. I saw some of what she taught him to enjoy."

"He doesn't talk like you ever saw him with her," I said.

"Blindfolds, earplugs, nose plugs; you can't see, hear, or smell who's in the room. She invited me over once, tried to get me to help her, but torturing was never anything I liked. Raina found that disappointing."

I swallowed and tried to think of something useful to say; nothing came to mind. "I don't know what to say to that."

"I don't know why I told you that. Did I want to shock you? Did I want you to think less of Nathaniel? Less of me?" He shook his head and started for the door again.

I was ready for him to leave because I didn't know what to do with the mood he was in, and I really didn't want more sex. The hard cramps had passed, but I was hurting, and would be for a while.

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "Do you realize that most of the men in your bed are ones that she was with?"

"I hadn't thought about it."

He turned and looked over his shoulder at me. "Jean-Claude was with her and Gabriel; it was the price she demanded from him. You know she made Jason a werewolf?"

"Yeah." I'd actually shared that memory with Jason. She'd tied him to a bed and cut him up while she fucked him. She hadn't cared whether he lived or died. I'd been inside her head on the memory, and she hadn't cared. She really was serial-killer material, because her pleasure had meant more to her than Jason's life.

I got a whisper through my head. "Think harder, Anita."

I shivered, and that made my lower body hurt. "Go, Richard, go, okay?"

"What's wrong?"

"I think I need not to think about her so hard."

"She talked to you?"

I nodded.

"You think you have her under control, and maybe you do, but you might just think on this. Jean-Claude, me, Jason, Nathaniel, all of us were hers first. Maybe there's a reason you're attracted to her old lovers." With that very unsettling thought, he left, closing the door behind him. I was happy that Richard was doing therapy; it was helping, honest. The trouble was, he seemed to want me to do therapy with him, and that I wasn't ready for.