I rode Jean-Claude's body, while Asher's body rode mine. Jean-Claude's hands were on my waist, holding me in place, steadying me, directing me, the way you lead a dance partner. One of Asher's hands propped him up on the bed but the other had spilled up to cup my breast, his hand kneading, pulling, just this side of pain.
I felt the building pressure inside me, that feeling that preceded the explosion, and I didn't want it yet, not yet. I wanted Asher, the way I wanted Jean-Claude. I wanted, needed him to pierce my body. "Please, Asher, please, be inside me, please!"
He drew my hair to one side and bared my neck. The ardeurflared through me. "Yes, Asher, yes."
That warm deep well was filling up, up inside me, there were only seconds to have him join us. I wanted his release with ours. I wanted him with us.
There seemed like there was something else I should have been remembering but it was lost in the pounding of Jean-Claude's body, the rhythm of my hips, the feel of his hands on my waist, Asher's hand on my breast, tight enough for pain now, the feel of him so solid, so wet from his own body, so that he moved in a channel of his own moisture, yet I knew he had not come.
He raised the hand from the bed and cupped my head to one side, holding it, straining my neck in a long, clean line.
It was as if they knew, they both knew what my body was about to do, as if they could smell it, or hear it, or taste it. At the moment that that warmth spilled over the edge, as the first drop of it spilled over my skin, tightened my body; Asher struck. There was one moment of sharp pain, and the pain fed into the pleasure, and I remembered what I had forgotten. Asher's bite was pleasure.
I rode that pleasure over and over and over until I screamed out, wordless, soundless, skinless, boneless, I was nothing, but the warm spilling pleasure. There was nothing else.
Jean-Claude came screaming, his nails digging into my skin, and that brought me back, reminded me I had a body, that skin contained me, that bones and muscles rode the body underneath me. Asher came in a scalding wave against my back, as his mouth stayed locked on my throat. We fed on one another.
My ardeurdrank Jean-Claude up through the warm moistness of my body, through the skin wherever it touched his. His ardeurdrank me down, pulling down the long shaft of him like a hand inside my body taking things away. My ardeurdrank Asher down, absorbed him where he lay on my skin, sucked him in as he pulled at me. The feel of his mouth locked on my neck was like a trap, the ardeursucking him down through his mouth, and he, sucking my blood, feeding, swallowing, drinking me down. As long as he fed, he brought orgasm in one crashing wave after another, wave after wave of pleasure, and it wasn't until Jean-Claude cried out underneath me that I realized, through his own marks, he was able to feel what I was feeling.
Asher rode us both, rode us and brought us, rode us and brought us, until when he drew back there was blood pouring from his mouth and I knew he'd taken more than he needed merely to feed. It wouldn't kill me, but in that one shining moment I wasn't sure it mattered. It was the kind of pleasure you'd beg for, kill for, maybe, maybe even let yourself die for.
I collapsed on top of Jean-Claude, twitching, unable to control my body, unable to do more than shiver. Jean-Claude lay trembling underneath me. Asher collapsed on top of us. I felt him tremble against my back. We lay shaking, trembling, waiting for one of us to be able to move enough to walk, or scream, or anything. Then dawn came, and I felt their souls slip away, felt their bodies go slack and empty. I was pressed between the frantic pulse and warmth of their bodies, the fluids not even cooled on our skin, and suddenly, Asher was heavy, and Jean-Claude was totally limp under all the weight.
I struggled to get out from between them, but my arms and legs weren't working yet. I did not want to lie here while their bodies cooled. I couldn't get up. I couldn't get Asher off of me. I couldn't make my body work. How much blood had I lost? Too much? How much?
I was dizzy, light-headed, and I couldn't tell if it was from the sex, or if Asher had truly taken too much blood. I tried to push him off of me, I should have been able to do that, and I couldn't. The first edge of nausea hit me, and I knew it was blood loss. I touched my neck and found that blood was still seeping from the puncture wounds. That shouldn't have been happening. Should it? I never donated blood voluntarily. I didn't know how long the wounds should bleed.
I tried to lift with my arms, like doing a push-up, and the world swam in streams of colors, dizziness threatened to engulf the world. I did the only thing I could think of--I screamed.
14
The door opened and it was Jason. I don't think I'd ever been so happy to see him. I managed to say, "Help me." My voice sounded weak and scared, and I hated it, but I also was feeling nauseous and dizzy, and that wasn't post-coital languor, it was blood loss.
Now that I could see again, I realized I was drenched in blood--and other things--but it was mainly the blood that was worrying me, because it was all mine.
Jason rolled Asher off of me. He moved with that boneless ease that only a truly dead body has. I don't know what the difference between sleep and death is, but you know instantly when you move even an arm whether it's death, or whether it's sleep.
Asher lay there on his back, his hair spilled around his face like a halo, crimson blood glittered on his chin, his neck, his upper chest. The scars didn't take away from the beauty of him nude. They weren't the first thing you noticed, or even the third. He lay, drenched in my blood, like some fallen god, come down to death at last.
Even sick from loss of blood, I could not find him anything but beautiful. What the f**k was wrong with me?
Jason had to help me slide off of Jean-Claude, catching me in his arms, holding me like you'd hold a child. I was nude, he'd just dragged me from a bed where I'd obviously had sex with two men, yet Jason hadn't made a single quip, or joke. When Jason had this much ammunition but didn't tease, things were bad.
I laid my head against Jason's shoulder, and that helped the dizziness, made the world a little less shaky. He started to turn me away from the bed, but I said, "Wait, not yet."
He stopped moving. "What?"
"I want to remember this."
"What?" he asked again.
"The way they look together." They both lay on their backs, but whereas Asher looked like some fallen death god, Jean-Claude looked like a god of a different kind. His thick black hair lay in a heavy mass around his head, carelessly arranged like a dark frame for that pale, pale face. His lips were half-parted, his lashes thick as lace upon his cheeks. He lay as if he had fallen asleep after some great passion, one hand across his stomach, the other at his side, one knee bent, so that he seemed almost displayed. Only Jean-Claude could die and look this pretty while he did it.
"Anita, Anita," I realized that Jason had been talking for awhile. "How much blood did they take?"
My voice came out hoarse, my mouth was dry. "Not they, only Asher."
He settled me closer in his arms, almost like he was hugging me. His leather jacket creaked as he moved. His bare chest was very warm against my na**d skin. "He didn't just feed." Jason sounded disapproving, which you didn't hear much.
"He got caught up in the moment, I think."
He shifted me so that he could free up a hand to touch my forehead, which seemed silly since I was nude, but we often fall into habit when we're stressed. You check someone's temperature on their foreheads, even if they're naked.
"You don't feel feverish. If anything you feel a little cool."
That made me remember something, and the fact that I'd forgotten said I was feeling worse than I knew. "Is my neck still bleeding?"
"A little."
"Should it be?"
He carried me towards the bathroom. "Have you never been bitten this badly before?" He opened the door with his knee and one hand, and carried me through.
"Not without passing out afterwards, non." I frowned. "Did I just say, non,instead of no?"
"Yep," he said.
"Shit," I said.
"Yeah," he said. He sat on the edge of the huge black marble tub, balancing me in his lap while he turned on the water. The water spilled out of a silver swan's mouth, which I'd always thought was ostentatious, but hey, it wasn't my bathroom.
The nausea had passed, the dizziness was waning. "Down, put me down."
"The marble is cold," he said.
I sighed. "I need to find out how well my body's working."