Page 19 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“I did not mean intercourse,” he said, laughing, “and it’s your date night with Jean-Claude. I was thinking a kiss.”

“A kiss I can do.”

He leaned down and I went up on tiptoe to meet him, sliding my body up the length of his as I did it, which would have been a lot more exciting if he’d taken blood tonight. Until he did that his body couldn’t react to anything.

We kissed with his body quiet against mine, at least below the waist. Above the waist his hands slid over my body, and he moved me back just enough so he could touch my breasts. It made me wish I’d worn a lower-necked T-shirt, or an untucked one. My hands roamed the silk of his shirt and searched for an opening.

He kissed his way down my throat until his lips rested just over the big pulse in my neck. He hesitated and I felt his need roll through me like it was my own. He was my vampire servant as I was Jean-Claude’s human servant, but I didn’t have hundreds of years of experience controlling the metaphysics. So sometimes who was in control of whom got a little fuzzy.

I spoke low and carefully, afraid if I lost control of my voice we’d lose control of more. “Why haven’t you fed?”

“I’d planned to feed at the club tonight.” And just the feel of his words against my throat sped my pulse.

“Like usual,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said, and then licked across my pulse, just a flick of his tongue, but it drew a small involuntary sound from me.

“The police are waiting for me.” I said it out loud like a competent adult who had a badge that saidU.S. Marshalon it, but I stayed pressed to his body.

Damian drew back from my neck enough to speak without his lips brushing against my skin. “I’m supposed to be inside trying on wedding clothes,” he said. His eyes were solid green; his power had spread and swallowed his pupils so his eyes glowed. If I hadn’t been his master he could have bespelled me with those eyes. I could havedropped my control and let him roll me, let him take blood, let us have sex, let us... I pushed away from him, so I was standing rather than clinging to him.

“You need to try on clothes and get to work at Danse Macabre,” I said, but I dropped my gaze so I wasn’t staring into those eyes. It wasn’t his magic but mine that made us want each other.

“And you need to go do police things,” he said.

“We need to be grown-ups,” I said.

“Yes, we do, but I love that you want me as much as I want you.”

That made me look up; his eyes had faded back to as ordinary as they got, which wasn’t very ordinary. He still had the greenest eyes of any person I’d ever met. True green like a cat’s eyes can be, not the gray-green, or blue-green, or the hazel that most people call green. It wasn’t vampire powers that made his eyes beautiful; they’d always been this color even before he died.

“We’ve got our date night scheduled,” I said, smiling.

He smiled wide enough to flash a gleam of fang even in the dim light of the alley. “You, Nathaniel, and me.”

I grinned back. “Yep, though Angel keeps asking about a foursome.”

“I didn’t say no, just not this date night.”

“You’re going to make Angel feel insecure if you keep putting it off,” I said.

He laughed. “Nothing makes Angel insecure, she’s beautiful and she knows it.”

“You’re right, but like all really secure women she won’t keep sex on the table forever if you keep saying no.”

“I didn’t say no. I said I wanted it to be a foursome with you and Nathaniel, which means we’re working around all our schedules.”

“The cry of real polyamory is ‘Let me check my calendar,’ ” I said.

We both laughed. Then we were left looking at each other.

“I would like to kiss you good-bye,” he said.

“I want to kiss you good-bye, too, but I think we both need to get to work.”

“No, you need to get ready for your date night with Jean-Claude.”

“You’re right, so I’m going now to do what I need to do, and you’re going to do what you need to do,” I said.

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