I rose up just enough, like a version of an ab crunch, so I could watch him slide in and out of me, but as his rhythm sped I had to spill back along the desk and just let my body ride the sensations of him inside me. I looked up into that face, and he stared down at me so that we were drowning in each other's eyes as he fucked me on the desk, my body moving with the push and pull of him, his hands tight on my hips to keep me on the edge of the desk. That deeper pleasure began to build like a weight of anticipation in a part of my body that he couldn't actually touch, but it felt as if every deep thrust, every pull-out over that one spot just inside, touched things that no light would ever see, no hand could ever touch, but he could; Jean-Claude could find all the dark happy places inside me.
His eyes bled to vampire glow, as if a night sky could blaze with its own light and let you know that even in the darkest hour the sky is still blue. The press of pleasure built and built as he conjured it closer and closer to the surface, and then from one moment to the next, one stroke of his body to the next, he brought me screaming, my hands scrambling across the smooth empty surface of the desk.
He held on to his rhythm until he'd brought me multiple times and I was almost boneless on the desk, my body half-conscious from the pleasure of it all. Only then did he let himself speed his thrusts for himself without aiming at the sweet spots inside me, and finally let go of all that control. I watched his face through half-closed eyes as his head came forward, all that hair spilling around him, hiding his face, and then his spine bowed backward, taking his head with it so that he was curved above me, face slack with his own pleasure.
His breathing was ragged, and I could see his pulse against the side of his neck. The sex brought him to "life" more than almost anything else. I loved watching his body react like any man's with a light dew of sweat on that pale, muscled chest. There was a faint pink shine to the dew of sweat on his chest from the blood he'd drunk from me. He might not be able to wear a white shirt to work tonight. I was okay with that, and I was pretty sure so was he.
8
JEAN-CLAUDE AND I cleaned up in the half bath that was in the back of the office. Ever the gentleman, he let me clean up first, but also because he'd take longer in the bathroom than I would, and he knew patience wasn't my greatest virtue. The compromise was that I came out of the bathroom in my bra and undies and would dress out in the office, so he could fuss in the bathroom longer. I checked my phone before I put on anything else, but there was no message from Manny, no missed call. Screw it. I called Manny again. My first phone message had been simply, "Call me." This one needed more details.
It went straight to voice mail, so he was on the phone. Damn it. "Manny, this is Anita again. I really need to talk to you about a case. I need your input." I stopped short of mentioning Dominga Salvador for two reasons. One, I tried not to share any information about ongoing federal investigations that I didn't have to, and two, his wife, Rosita, checked his phone regularly. She knew he and Dominga had been lovers once. She'd never forgiven him for sleeping with any women besides herself, even those who were years before she and Manny met. I didn't really understand jealousy to that degree, but I didn't want to make his life hard if I could avoid it. But if he didn't call me back soon, I was going to have to mention the name, because I knew that would make him call. She was dead, but it was like talking too much about the devil; you always wondered if they heard you. In Dominga's case, hearing us from hell seemed totally reasonable. Yes, she had been that kind of evil scary.
I sat there staring at the phone and thought about texting him, but Manny was like a lot of people over fifty. He had a smart phone, but he treated it like it was still just a portable phone. He never returned texts. I wasn't even sure he read them.
My phone rang, but I knew it wasn't Manny, because it was Micah Callahan's ring tone: "Lovefool" by the Cardigans. "Hey, short, dark, and handsome," I said, and was smiling as I said it.
"Hey, beautiful." And I could hear the smile in his voice, too. "I heard that the jewelry appointment was cut short."
"Wow, that's fast gossip."
"I told Lisandro I needed to talk to Jean-Claude and you if there was a free moment, so he told me."
"Okay, but I will have to leave in about forty-five minutes. I can't leave clients waiting for long."
He laughed. "They get nervous if you leave them alone in graveyards, I know."
"Cemeteries are actually damned peaceful. They just spook themselves," I said.
"I know that, too."
"Do you want us to come to you?"
"I just came up all those damned stairs, so no. I'll come to you. I love you, Anita."
"I love you more."
"I love you most."
"I love you mostest."
We hung up and I turned to find Jean-Claude out of the bathroom shirtless, but with his leather pants fastened. He was as dressed as he could get until he was sure it was safe to put the white shirt back on or he got a second, darker shirt.
"I really do like you in the blue; thank you for not getting dressed yet. Which of our cats was on the phone, for that is your endearment only to the two of them," he said.
I ignored the compliment, because saying that it had been accidental rather than undressing for him on purpose seemed the wrong thing to say, so I said, "Glad you like it, and it was Micah; apparently he told Lisandro to alert him if we had any free time to talk."
"Talk?" Jean-Claude said. "About what?"
"He didn't say, but he's already up the like bajillion steps from the underground apartments, so he'll be here in minutes and you can ask him."
"The steps were designed to discourage intruders, ma petite."
I laughed. "Seriously, how many steps are there, has anyone ever counted?"
I would say he sat down on the couch, but that doesn't really cover it. He draped himself artfully on the couch, long pale arms stretched along the back of it, so that the leather of the couch acted like a frame for his body. He rested one booted ankle on his opposite knee so that he managed to look both like a tough from some Old West movie and suggestive.
"Do you do that on purpose or are you just naturally that decorative?" I asked, leaning my butt against the desk.
"I did have a natural flair for being, as you say, decorative, but centuries of practice do, indeed, make perfect." He smiled, obviously pleased with himself, and it made me smile, because once he'd hidden from me just how much he liked himself. I didn't blame him, because I had so many issues with my own physicality that I'd been uncomfortable with how very comfortable he was in his own skin and with his own beauty.
He held one hand out toward me, and I went to him, because when someone you love holds out their hand to you, that's what you're supposed to do. I curled up beside him in my new blue undies and he drew me in against his body, holding me close with one arm.
"You may distract our leopard king dressed like this."
"I don't have time to talk and distract him," I said, laughing, and started to get up, but he pulled me back down, and then there was a knock on the door.
"Just a minute," I called out.
Lisandro said through the door, "It's Micah."
"I'm not exactly dressed," I said, "so him, but not you."
Lisandro laughed. "I'm going home to my wife at the end of shift, I won't peek." The door opened with a glimpse of Lisandro's dark figure turned away so he couldn't see into the room and Micah could walk past him.
Micah came through the door like he came through every door, as if the room were his room, or at the very least he was thinking of purchasing it. It was a surety and security in himself that he'd had since I'd met him. He was wearing blue jeans and a deep green T-shirt fitted to his lean runner's body, because he was exactly my height, and when a man is that short he needs fitted clothes, or he always looks like he's borrowing someone else's. His dark brown hair was back in a braid, or something so tight that you could barely tell that it curled. Loose, it fell past his shoulders. He almost al
ways kept it back, and if I hadn't threatened to cut my hair short if he cut his, he'd have cut it boy-short, but I loved his hair, and he loved me.
He smiled when he saw us, his delicate triangular face alight with some inner joy; the sunglasses that hid his eyes stopped us from seeing that happy thought fill his eyes, but as if he heard my thought he took them off and let us see his chartreuse eyes. They were more green than gold because of the shirt he was wearing, but you could still see the yellow in them like sunlight shining through some jungle canopy. They were leopard eyes trapped in his human face; he'd had brown eyes in human form once, but that was before I met him. To me, Micah's eyes were always this amazing color, in whatever form he took, human or leopard.
"Well, don't you look pretty as a picture," he said, his voice full of that happiness that showed in his face.
"Join us and it will be prettier," I said.
He shook his head but kept walking toward us. "A man's got to know his limitations, and since I'm third prettiest in the room, I won't add to the beauty factor."
I frowned. "You are beautiful," I said.
"You are beautiful in your own right, mon ami."
He grinned, standing just at the edge of the couch looking down at us. "I know I'm attractive, I'll give you pretty, though when I was younger I hated being told I was pretty."
"Not manly enough," I said, and held my hand out to him.
He took my hand but didn't sit down. "No, maybe if I'd been taller it wouldn't have bothered me as much. It certainly doesn't bother Jean-Claude."
"Oh, mon chat, when I was your age men wore elaborate wigs and clothes more elaborate than women's fashion today. A pretty man was prized, and if he could ride, hunt, and use a sword, then he was the height of everything that was best in a man."
"I can't imagine a world where I didn't get grief for looking the way I do as a man."
"It was a man who taught me how to wear high heels, because that's what noblemen wore."
"Nice."
I pulled on Micah's hand. "Cuddle with us."
He grinned and shook his head. "If I cuddle with you wearing that I'll get distracted, and we need to talk."
My smile faded around the edges. "That sounds ominous."
Jean-Claude held me a little tighter. "In all the centuries I have been alive, no conversation that began with the equivalent of 'we need to talk' has ever gone well."
"I don't mean it like that, but I've been trying to talk to just the two of you for a few days now and the scheduling hasn't worked out. I know Anita has to be on the road in a little less than forty-five minutes, and Jean-Claude has at least two hours before he can leave the building safely for Guilty Pleasures."
"You checked our schedules," I said.
"I know your schedules, or at least Jean-Claude's. Yours is too flexible to memorize."
"Okay, sit down and talk instead of cuddle."
He gave me a look that took in every inch of me in the nice bra and panties. "I'll try, but you in more clothes might help me focus on talking."
I blushed and hated it.
He grinned and leaned down to lay a careful kiss on my mouth. "I love that you still blush."
I frowned at him. "Well, I don't."
"It is very endearing," Jean-Claude said.
"Don't you start."
"What is it you need to speak about?" he said, looking up at Micah.
Micah sat down on the couch, holding my hand, but perching on the edge of the couch as if touching me at all would make him forget what he wanted to say. "You know that I don't have a problem with Jean-Claude and you getting married. You can only legally wed one person and that's got to be our master, which is him."
"Yeah," I said.
"You have been most gracious," Jean-Claude said.
"You know that Nathaniel and I have been talking about having a handfasting ceremony with Anita for the three of us."
Jean-Claude nodded.
"We've been talking about getting rings to go on the right-hand ring finger for our threesome."
"I wish you better luck getting her to approve designs than I am having."
"You want such elaborate rings, Jean-Claude. Either they won't fly at my work, or they're just so expensive the thought of wearing them every day makes me nervous. It's like wearing Fort Knox on my hand."
"We do have different tastes in this area."
"We're going for something simpler," Micah said.
Jean-Claude looked at me. "Are you saying your taste matches theirs more than mine?"
"You know it does," I said.
He sighed and settled back on the couch a little more, which seemed a little less cuddling to me.
"Are you upset?" I asked.
Some thought passed over his face too fast or too faint for me to decipher. "No, but in a way I suppose I am. You and I have been debating for weeks on designs for our rings. I think the only reason we were moving ahead with the more elaborate set to be used in the ceremony and state events afterward is that you gave up and let me have my way."
I shrugged. "It's important to you, and I don't have to wear them every day."
"But we are no closer to a design for the set we will wear every day," he said.
"True."
"But with Micah and Nathaniel you almost have an everyday design, do you not?"
I glanced at Micah. He was studying the other man's face.
Micah said, "Not quite, but we're close."
"It seems childish, but I believe it will bother me if you have your rings designed before ours."
"I'm sorry, Jean-Claude, I had no idea," Micah said.
"Nor did I; it is strange what will and will not bother you in this complicated domestic arrangement of ours."
"Remember how upset the rest of our domestic arrangement was when they thought the four of us were planning a commitment ceremony?"
"Yes, but once they realized the wedding is just ma petite and myself, they quieted."
"Until they found out that the three of us were still looking at having a commitment ceremony."
"I take it they found out about the rings," I said.
He nodded.
I just hid my face against Jean-Claude's chest. I did not want to deal with the fights and recriminations from some of the other lovers in our lives about this again.
"They want to be included, or rather not feel excluded," Micah said.
"We cannot marry everyone we are sleeping with," Jean-Claude said.
"No, and I think all of us would be willing to include one other person; unfortunately it wouldn't be the same person."
"You put it well, mon ami."
"Jean-Claude has been in love with Asher for centuries, but none of the rest of us is willing to tie ourselves to his moods."
"I love Asher," I said. "I might even be a little in love with him, but no, I won't tie myself to him."
"Anita and Nathaniel would marry Nicky, but I won't," Micah said.
"Nor will I," Jean-Claude said.
"Nathaniel would include more people than any of us, but it doesn't include the ones the rest of us would include."
"So what, either we include everybody, or we can't have a commitment ceremony?" I asked.
"How big a fight do you want on your hands?" Micah asked.
"I will not be forced to marry someone I don't love, even if it isn't legally binding," I said.
"If we don't have our ceremony, then the problem goes away," Micah said.
"Are you willing to just give up on that?" I asked.
"Are you?" he asked.
"No; if I could figure out a way to marry all three of you for legal real, I would."
"I got the clan tigers to agree that if we included one of them in our commitment ceremony, the others would back off," Micah said.
It was our turn to look at him.
"You did what?" I asked.
"And did you have a weretiger in mind?" Jean-Claude asked.
"My first choice is Cynric."
"No," I said, and it was very final.
"He lives with us, Anita. He helps Nathaniel with the domestic stuff. When I'm out of town on business he sleeps in the bed with you and Nathaniel at the house in Jefferson County."
"Nicky sleeps with us, too," I said, and it sounded churlish even to me.
"And sometimes all four of you bunk together when I'm not there, but when I am there Cynric is the only one I'm willing to wake up and see on the other side of you, or Nathaniel. Besides, Nicky is a werelion, and that won't help us get the tigers off our back about this."
"Cynric is nineteen years old; he should be out playing the field, not settling for just hanging on to the fringes of my love life."
"How is he on the fringe? We wake up most mornings with him helping Nathaniel and Nicky cook breakfast. We go to bed at least half the time with him in the bed with us, no matter who else is included. We can all talk for hours."
"When he's done doing his homework," I said.
"He's graduating soon and already lined up for college, Anita."
"I just have problems saying I'm dating a high school student."
"He's a senior."
"A high school senior," I said.
"What difference does it make if he's in high school or college? That doesn't change what he means to all of us."
"What difference does it make? What difference does it make?" I stood up and knew I was yelling and didn't care. "He was only sixteen when the Mother of All Darkness mind-fucked us and he and I had sex. I don't even remember it, but he does. For me it was like some date-rape drug, so I know I did it, but I didn't choose to do it, and I resent like hell that it happened like that."
"It wasn't just you and Cynric that night, Anita. The Mother of All Darkness rolled about a half dozen of you."
"But only Cynric followed me home and stayed!"
"Crispin and Domino were there that night, and they live here now," Micah said.
He was right, and I knew it, but somehow it felt wrong. "It's not the same. Crispin and Domino are grown men. They came to stay in St. Louis, but when I didn't have time for them in my life they found lives of their own. They have jobs and Crispin dates other people, and Domino is beginning to, but Cynric is always there. I thought he'd go away next year to college and stay in the dorms, but now he's planning to commute."