Cravings Read online

  I smiled at the surprise on his face. “Let’s dance.”

  He gave me one of his rare full-out smiles, the one that made his entire face light up. For that one smile, I’d have given him a lot more than just a dance.

  Of course, my good intentions lasted about as long as it took to be escorted onto the dance floor. Then suddenly I was expected to dance. In front of people. In front of people that were mostly cops. Cops that I worked with on a regular basis. No one is as merciless if you give them amunition, no pun intended, as a bunch of policemen. If I danced badly, I’d be teased. If I danced well, I’d be teased worse. If they realized I was dancing well with a stripper, the teasing would be endless. If they realized I was dancing badly with a stripper, the jokes would be, well, bad. Either way you cut it, I was so screwed.

  I felt fourteen again, and awkward as hell. But it was almost impossible to be awkward with Nathaniel as your partner. Maybe it was his day job, but he knew how to bring out the best in someone on the dance floor. All I had to do was let go of my inhibitions and follow his body. Easy, maybe, but not for me. I like the few inhibitions I have left, thank you, and I’m going to cling to them as long as I can.

  What I was clinging to now was Nathaniel. Not much scares me, not really, but airplane rides and dancing in public are on that short list. My heart was in my throat, and I kept fighting the urge to stare at my feet. The men had spent an afternoon proving that I could dance, at home, with only people who were my friends watching. But suddenly, in public in front of a less than friendly audience, all my lessons seemed to have fled. I was reduced to clinging to Nathaniel’s hand and shoulder, turning in those useless circles that have nothing to do with the song, and everything to do with fear, and the inability to dance.

  “Anita,” Nathaniel said.

  I kept staring at my feet, and trying to not see that we were being watched from around the room.

  “Anita, look at me, please.”

  I raised my face, and whatever he saw in my eyes, made him smile, and filled his own eyes with a sort of soft wonderment. “You really are afraid.” He said it like he hadn’t believed it before.

  “Would I ever admit to being afraid, if I wasn’t?”

  He smiled. “Good point.” His voice was soft. “Just look at my face, my eyes, no one else matters but the person you’re dancing with. Just don’t look at anyone else.”

  “You sound like you’ve given this advice before.”

  He shrugged. “A lot of women are uncomfortable on stage, at first.”

  I gave him raised eyebrows.

  “I used to do an act in formal wear, and I’d pick someone from the audience to dance with. Very formal, very Fred Astaire.”

  Somehow, Fred Astaire was not a name that came to mind when I thought of Guilty Pleasures. I said as much.

  His smile was less gentle and more his own. “If you ever came down to the club to watch one of us work instead of just giving us a ride, you’d know what we did.”

  I gave him a look.

  “You’re dancing,” he said.

  Of course, once he pointed out that I’d been dancing, I stopped. It was like walking on water; if you thought about it, you couldn’t do it.

  Nathaniel pulled gently on my hand, and pushed gently on my shoulder, and got us going again. I finally settled for staring at his chest, watching his body movements as if he’d been a bad guy and it was a fight. Watch the central body for the first telltale movements.

  “At home you moved to the rhythm of the song, not just where I moved you.”

  “That was at home,” I said, staring at his chest, and letting him move me around the floor. It was damn passive for me, but I couldn’t lead, because I couldn’t dance. To lead you have to know what you’re doing.

  The song stopped. I’d made it through one song in public. Yeah! I looked up and met Nathaniel’s gaze. I expected him to look pleased, or happy, or a lot of things, but that wasn’t what was on his face. In fact, I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It was serious again, but other than that . . . We stood there, staring at each other, while I tried to figure out what was happening, and I think he tried to work up to saying something. But what? What had him all serious-faced?

  I had time to ask, “What, what’s wrong?” then the next song came on. It was fast, with a beat, and I was so out of there. I let go of Nathaniel, stepped back, and had turned, and actually gotten a step away, before he grabbed my hand. Grabbed my hand and pulled me in against him so hard and so fast that I stumbled. If I hadn’t caught myself with one arm around his body, I’d have fallen. I was suddenly acutely aware of the firmness of his back against my arm, the curve of his side cupped in the hollow of my hand. I was holding him so close to the front of my body that it seemed every inch of us from chest to groin pressed against one another. His face was painfully close to mine. His mouth so close it seemed a shame not to lay a kiss upon those lips.

  His eyes were half-startled, as if I’d grabbed him, and I had, but I hadn’t meant to. Then he swayed to one side and took me with him. And just like that we were dancing, but it was different from any dancing I’d ever done. I didn’t follow his movements with my eyes, I followed them with my body. He moved, and I moved with him, not because I was supposed to, but for the same reason a tree bends in the wind, because you must.

  I moved because he moved. I moved because I finally understood what they’d all been talking about; rhythm, beat, but it wasn’t the beat of the music I was hearing, it was the rythymn of Nathaniel’s body, pressed so close that all I could feel was him. His body, his hands, his face. His mouth was temptingly close, but I did not close that distance. I gave myself over to his body, the warm strength in his hands, but I did not take the kiss he offered. For he was offering, he was offering himself in the way that Nathaniel had, no demand, just the open-ended offer of his flesh for the taking. I ignored that kiss the way I’d ignored so many others.

  He leaned into me, and I had a moment, just a moment, before his lips touched mine, to say, No, stop. But I didn’t say it. I wanted that kiss. That much I could admit to myself.

  His lips brushed mine, gentle, then the kiss became part of the swaying of our bodies, so that as our bodies rocked, so the kiss moved with us. He kissed me as his body moved, and I turned my face up to him, and gave myself to the movement of his mouth as I’d given myself to the movement of his body. The brush of lips became a full-blown kiss, and it was his tongue that pierced my lips, that filled my mouth, his mouth that filled mine. But it was my hand that left his back and traced his face, cupped his cheek, pressed my body deeper against his, so that I felt him stretched tight and firm under his clothes. The feel of him pressed so tight against my clothes and my body, brought a small sound from my mouth, and the knowledge that the ardeur had risen early. Hours early. A distant part of me thought, Fuck. The rest of me agreed, but not in the way I meant it.

  I drew back from his mouth, tried to breathe, tried to think. His hand came up to cup the back of my head, to press my mouth back to his, so that I drowned in his kiss. Drowned in the pulse and beat of his body. Drowned on the rhythms and tide of his desire. The ardeur allowed, sometimes, a glimpse into another’s heart, or at least their libido. I’d learned to control that part, but tonight it was as if my fragile control had been ripped away, and I stood pressed into the curves and firmness of Nathaniel’s body with nothing to protect me from him. Always before he’d been safe. He’d never pushed an advantage, never gone over a line that I drew, not by word or deed; now suddenly, he was ignoring all my signals, all my silent walls. No, not ignoring them, smashing through them. Smashing them down with his hands on my body, his mouth on mine, his body pushing against mine. I could not fight the ardeur and Nathaniel, not at the same time.

  I saw what he wanted. I felt it. Felt his frustration. Months of being good. Of behaving himself, of not pushing his advantage. I felt all those months of good behavior shatter around us, and leave us stripped and suffocating in a desir
e that seemed to fill the world. Until that moment I hadn’t understood how very good he’d been. I hadn’t understood what I’d been turning down. I hadn’t understood what he was offering. I hadn’t understood . . . anything.

  I pulled back from him, put a hand on his chest to keep him from closing that distance again.

  “Please, Anita, please, please,” his voice was low and urgent, but it was as if he couldn’t bring himself to put it into words. But the ardeur didn’t need words. I suddenly felt his body again, even though I stood feet apart. He was so hard and firm and aching. Aching, because I’d denied him release. Denied him release for months. I’d never had full-blown sex with Nathaniel, because I could feed without it. It had never occurred to me what that might mean for him. But now I could feel his body, heavy, aching with a passion that had been building for months. When last I’d touched Nathaniel’s needs this completely, he’d simply wanted to belong to me. That was still there but there was a demand in him, a near screaming need. A need that I’d neglected. Hell, a need that I’d pretended didn’t exist. Now, suddenly, Nathaniel wasn’t letting me ignore that need anymore.

  I had a moment of clear thinking, because I felt guilty. Guilty that I’d left him wanting for so long, while I had my own needs met. I’d thought that having real sex with him would be using him; now suddenly that one glimpse into his heart let me understand that what I’d done to him had used him more surely than intercourse. I’d used Nathaniel like he was some kind of sex toy, something to bring me pleasure, and be cleaned up and put back in a drawer. I was suddenly ashamed, ashamed that I’d treated him like an object, when that wasn’t how he wanted to be treated.

  The guilt hit me like a cold shower, the proverbial slap in the face, and I used it to pack the ardeur away, for another hour or two, at least.

  It was as if Nathaniel felt the heat spill away from me. He gave me those wide lavender eyes, huge, and glittering, glittering with unshed tears. He let his hands drop from my arms, and since I’d already dropped my hands away, we stood on the dance floor with distance between us. A distance that neither of us tried to close.

  The first shining tear trailed down his cheek.

  I reached out to him, and said, “Nathaniel.”

  He shook his head, and backed away a step, another, then he turned and ran. Jason and Micah tried to catch him as he rushed past them, but he avoided their hands with a graceful gesture of his upper body that left them with nothing but air. He ran out the door, and they both turned to follow. But it wasn’t either of them who had to chase him down. It was me. I was the one who owed him an apology. The trouble was, I wasn’t exactly clear on what I would be aplogizing for. For using him, or for not using him enough.

  I caught up with the men in the parking lot.

  “Nathaniel says you didn’t want to dance with him,” Micah said.

  “Not true,” I said, “I danced, twice. What I didn’t want to do was play kissy-face in front of the cops.”

  Micah looked at Nathaniel. Nathaniel looked at the ground. “You kissed me earlier in front of Detective Arnet. Why was this different?”

  “I kissed you to give Jessica the clue to stop hitting on you, because you wanted me to save you from her.”

  He raised his eyes, and they were like two pretty wounds, so pain-filled. “So, you only kissed me to save me, not because you wanted to?”

  Oh, hell. Out loud I tried again, though the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach told me that I was going to lose this argument. Lately, around Nathaniel, I always felt like I was doing something wrong, or at least not right. “That isn’t what I meant,” I said.

  “It’s what you said.” This from Micah.

  “Don’t you start,” I said, and I heard the anger in my voice before I could stop it. The anger had been there already, I just hadn’t been aware of it. I was angry a lot, especially when I wasn’t comfortable. I liked anger better than embarrassment. What’s a girl to do if she can’t get angry and she can’t run away from the problem? Hell if I know. Some of my wise friends encouraged me to be honest, emotionally honest with myself and those closest to me. Emotional honesty. It sounds so harmless, so wholesome; it’s neither.

  “I don’t want to fight,” I said. There, that was honest.

  “None of us do,” Micah said.

  Just hearing him be so calm helped the anger ease away. “Nathaniel pushed it on the dance floor, and the ardeur rose early.”

  “I felt it,” Micah said.

  “Me, too,” Jason said.

  “But you don’t feel it now, do you?” Nathaniel said. His eyes were almost accusing and his voice held its own thin edge of anger. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever heard him that close to being angry.

  “Anita is getting better control over the ardeur,” Micah said.

  Nathaniel shook his head, hugging himself tight. “If it had been you, she would have just come out into the parking lot and fed.”

  “Not willingly,” I said.

  “Yes, you would,” he said, and his eyes held the anger his voice had held. I’d never seen those lavender eyes angry before. Not like this. It was strangely unnerving.

  “I would not have sex in the parking lot of Larry and Tammy’s wedding reception, if I had a choice.”

  That angry gaze searched my face as if trying to find something. “Why not feed here?”

  “Because it’s tacky.”

  Jason patted his arm. “See, it isn’t you she turned down, it’s that she doesn’t want to fool around at Larry’s wedding. Just not her style.”

  Nathaniel glanced at Jason, then back at me. Some strange tension that I didn’t quite understand seemed to flow away from him. The anger began to fade from his eyes. “I guess you’re right.”

  “Well, if we don’t want to be fooling around in the parking lot, then we need to get going,” Micah said. “The ardeur doesn’t like being denied. When it does come back tonight, it won’t be gentle.”

  I sighed. He was right. That bit of metaphysical bravado on the dance floor would have all sorts of consequences later tonight. When the ardeur rose again, I would be forced to feed. There would be no stuffing it back into its box. It was almost as if, being able to stop the ardeur in its tracks, to completely turn it off once it had filled me, pissed the ardeur off. I knew it was a psychic gift, and that psychic gifts don’t have feelings and don’t carry grudges, but sometimes, it felt like this one did.

  “I’m sorry, Anita, I wasn’t thinking.” Nathaniel looked so discouraged that I had to hug him, a quick hug, more sisterly than anything else, and he responded to my body language and didn’t try and hold me close. He let me hug him, and step away. Nathaniel was usually almost painfully attuned to my body language. It was one of the things that had allowed him to share my bed for months without violating those last few taboos.

  “Let’s go home,” I said.

  “That’s my cue to part company,” Jason said.

  “You’re welcome to bunk over if you want,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No, since I’m not needed to referee the fight, or for sage advice, I’ll go home, too. Besides, I couldn’t stand listening to the three of you get all hot and heavy and not be invited to play.” He laughed and added, “Don’t get mad, but having once been included, it’s harder to be excluded.”

  I fought the blush that burned up my face, which always seemed to make the blush darker and harder.

  Jason and I had had sex once. Before I realized it was possible to love someone to death with the ardeur, Nathaniel had collapsed at work and been off the feeding schedule for a few days. Micah hadn’t been in the house, and the ardeur had risen early. Hours early. It had been interference from Belle Morte, the originator of Jean-Claude’s bloodline, and the first, to my knowledge, possessor of the ardeur. It only ran through her line of vamps, nowhere else. The fact that I carried it had raised very interesting metaphysical questions. Belle had wanted to understand what I was, and she had also thought it would raise some hell.
Belle was a good business-y vampire, but when she could take care of business and make trouble, all the better. So it hadn’t been my fault, but my choices had been limited to taking Nathaniel and possibly killing him, or letting Jason take one for the team. He’d been happy to do it. Very happy. And strangely our friendship had survived it, but every once in a while I couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened, and that made me uncomfortable.

  “I love the fact that I can make you blush now,” he said.

  “I don’t.”

  He laughed, but there was something in his eyes that was more serious than laughter. “I need to tell you something, in private, before you go running off, though.”

  I didn’t like how suddenly serious he was. I’d learned in the last few months that Jason used his teasing and laughter as a shield to hide a rather insightful intelligence that was sometimes so preceptive it was painful. I didn’t like his request for privacy either. What couldn’t he say in front of Micah and Nathaniel? And why?

  Out loud I said, “Okay.” I started off to the far side of the parking lot away from the Jeep.

  When the shade of the trees that edged the church parking lot lay cool above us, I stopped and turned to Jason. “What’s up?”

  “The thing on the dance floor was sort of my fault.”

  “In what way, your fault?”

  He actually looked embarrassed, which you didn’t see much from Jason. “He wanted to know how I got to have sex with you, real sex, the very first time I helped feed the ardeur.”

  “Technically, it was the second,” I said.

  He frowned at me. “Yeah, but that was when the ardeur was brand new and we didn’t have intercourse, and there were three other men in the bed.”

  I turned away so the dark would help hide the blush, though truthfully he could probably smell it hot on my skin. “Sorry I brought it up. You were saying?”

  “He’s been in your bed for what, five months?”

  “Something like that,” I said.