Page 57 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

He slid his finger inside the thong, so that my eyes fluttered closed for a second, and then he slid more of his hand underneath the cloth and ripped the thong partially off me. One of my pleasure triggers was having lingerie ripped off me. It helped clear my head of doubts and put me back into the head space we needed. Graham hesitated, staring down at us, at me. Jean-Claude pulled the thong free and made sure the crowd saw him toss it to the stage.

Graham made a sound that was half pain and half growl; I liked both. He went up on his knees, which spilled my legs open so he could see that I shaved, but his body still hid me from anyone’s gaze but Jean-Claude’s. Graham stared down at me, and I didn’t blame him for looking where he was looking. This wasn’t a moment for eye contact. The look on his face was tormented, like he was in real pain. Maybe something inside his jeans had twisted on him. Jean-Claude took Graham’s hand in his so he could keep contact with our wolf while he leaned down next to my face. It was the crowd’s eager screams that made me realize he was flashing a very nice view to the audience behind him. He was still wearing only the blue thong and boots. He was making every move onstage as much a part of the show as he could. I knew that the more reality he could give the audience on which to hang the false memories that he needed to plant in their minds, the better. Lying in someone’s mind was just like lying in real life; the best lies are the closest to the truth.

He kissed the side of my face so he could whisper, “I would notshare you with another man, but his eagerness at being denied for so long is even greater than anticipated.”

I nuzzled against his face and whispered back, “Enough energy to free the audience?”

“And enough to allow me to trace the taint in the audience to its source.”

I hid my expression in his long hair because I knew I couldn’t control my face to match the sexy tableau we were creating. I’d thought without Richard we wouldn’t have enough energy to save us all once we needed wolf. I had thought our absent third was going to sink us again, and now we were saved. I was so relieved that I said a quick prayer of gratitude, and then I asked Jean-Claude, “How do we sell it to the crowd, so that they don’t remember something we don’t want them to remember?”

“Concentrate on the man in front of us, while I work on creating the physical illusion.” I turned my face away from the blindfold of Jean-Claude’s hair to the man who was waiting for us. Graham knelt above us, and I knew what the pain in his face was now: desire. He was as close as he’d ever gotten to me, but he stayed where he was, waiting for us to tell him what to do next, and maybe not trusting himself to move until he had permission. He met my gaze and the look in his eyes was frantic with need. He closed them as if afraid what I saw in his eyes would piss me off like it had in the past. If he’d been his usual lecherous self earlier tonight, then it might have, but he’d done his best to be a gentleman in circumstances that most men wouldn’t have been able to manage.

I reached my free hand out for him. He glanced at Jean-Claude, who said, “Do not look to me, look to her.” Graham looked at me then, his face a mix of desire and confusion; he wanted to touch me but hesitated trying to find words to ask. I helped him. “Feel how wet you’ve made me.”

He used two fingers to stroke over my most intimate parts. He began to stroke and explore, and my breathing quickened. I wantedhim to explore me, to bring me, but not onstage, and in that moment where things make sense that later might not I asked for what I wanted him to do. “Put them inside me.”

He did what I asked, sliding two fingers inside me so that I writhed for him, eyes closing, because it was almost too much. He crooked his fingers inside me and found that spot that is harder to find than the one most men search for; it made me open my eyes and look up at him to find Jean-Claude’s face next to his so they were both staring down at me, and I knew who was giving Graham tips and hints for how my body worked. Jean-Claude smiled down at me, and I smiled back.

“That’s cheating,” I said, but my voice was breathy, and my eyes were having trouble focusing.

“Non, ma petite, this is cheating.” And he started playing over that sweet spot that was outside my body while Graham continued to flick his fingers over the deeper one. It wasn’t just that their fingers seemed to know exactly what to do but them looking down at me together, the delighted heat in Jean-Claude’s face and the amazement in Graham’s that he was getting to touch me. We all have our kinks and one of mine was two men at once. Jean-Claude’s fingers knew exactly how to touch me, and through him Graham knew exactly what to do, too. I kept thinking I’d protest but then the sensations distracted me and they brought me together, one larger orgasm chasing the deeper one so that I screamed my pleasure for them, my upper body coming up off the ground like I was reaching for something to hold on to in the air above the stage. When I lay quiet and twitching on the stage Jean-Claude’s voice filled the world. “Two men giving you pleasure but taking none of their own, because this night is all for you.”

Graham stayed kneeling between my legs, but Jean-Claude stood to talk to the audience, to send them home with lust and happiness and then the power, our power, contracted like it had been slapped away from them, out of them. He dropped to his knees to grab myhand and touch Graham’s arm; the moment he touched us both his power, our power, flowed out and filled the audience again.

The other vampire had laid a compulsion inside the audience; that meant that if we didn’t free them of it come tomorrow night the vampire would be able to call them out of their houses, out of their lives, and take them one by one.

I stared up at Jean-Claude and thought,How do we free them?

“You have pushed propriety as far as you are comfortable onstage, I would not ask more but I must have at least wolf to touch, but I need enough energy of theardeurto chase out the evil that has been laid inside them.”

A voice came out of the darkness offstage: “You have more wolves to touch.” Jake was still in his workout clothes. He was ex-Harlequin and looked like James Bond should have looked: medium skin tone, brown hair, brown eyes, medium height. He was so medium that you would never pick him out of a crowd in most of the world, he would just blend. Other figures moved in the dark, it was every wolf we had on security. Not the regular pack like Graham, but the ones who had been SEALs and had fought to the last man against a group of shapeshifters and lived to tell the tale; they’d also failed their blood tests for lycanthropy, so now they worked for us. Jean-Claude had promised not to call the werewolves without talking to Richard first, but any wolves who worked for us, that was different.

“I did not call you, so how did you know of my need?” Jean-Claude asked.

“Nathaniel called us,” Jake said.

Nathaniel moved up beside the stage where I could see him. I was suddenly embarrassed and a little chilly with my dress around my waist. He opened the link between us to let me know how much he’d enjoyed the show. He was a serious voyeur and his eagerness traveled through me so that I wasn’t embarrassed or cold. Graham did help me to scoot down my dress and sit up, but holding on to Jean-Claudeand Graham with Nathaniel in my head was like new foreplay. It chased away any discomfort.

“Take my hand and see if it is enough,” Jean-Claude said. Jake got up onstage and touched the vampire’s bare shoulder, and Jean-Claude’s power flexed. “Try more wolves,” I said. They came to him onstage, most of them in exercise gear because they’d been helping to test Edward and Peter. I had a moment of panic that they might have come to try and help. Bad enough Edward, but I did not want Peter in the audience tonight.

Nathaniel reassured me that he’d made it clear it was anardeuremergency and anyone not cleared for it needed to stay away, except for the wolves. We needed the few we had on staff too badly. As each wolf gathered around Jean-Claude, his energy grew stronger and filled the room and the alien energy inside the audience began to push back, as if it finally recognized a threat.

“I would that I could come with you, but I must stay here and control the crowd. Go, feed, and grant me all the energy you can, so we may cleanse them of the other’s taint.” He let me go and I was less sure, until Nathaniel took my hand and suddenly I felt solid again. Graham started to hang back, but Jean-Claude said, “One wolf must go with you,ma petite.”

I looked out at the smiling crowd who were sitting so quietly in their seats. He had calmed their minds, would mess with some of their memories, but if he couldn’t find enough power to save them from what the other vampire had done to them, they were all dead, they just didn’t know it yet. He, or she, or whatever, would call to them in the middle of the night, and they would go like sleepwalkers unknowing and unresisting to be food. If they were lucky they’d survive the three times it took for the last draining bite to turn them into vampires. Unwilling vampires, which was still classed as murder, or at least manslaughter. If they were unlucky the vampire would just slaughter them, or turn them into a Renfield, a person with oneor two bites that the vampire controls utterly, some with the promise of immortality eventually, and some just too weak-willed to fight the mind control. A Renfield had put the cross-shaped burn scar on my arm with a brand, so I’d look like a vampire who’d survived an attack, and because it was torture while we waited for his master to wake for the night. These people had come to Guilty Pleasures for some safe flirting, a chance to cut loose and be a little wild, not be enslaved to the newest master vampire in town, because that’s what it was, a new master. One powerful enough to roll Jean-Claude and me with us surrounded by other supernatural bodyguards, and none of us had sensed what was happening until it was too late. Once we saved these people who had trusted us with their safety, then we had to find the new master in town and kill his, her, their, or its ass.

Graham was trying to control his expression and not seem eager, but the tension of it rode down his arm and into our clasped hands. Nathaniel took my other hand, and he didn’t try to hide his eagerness. Voyeurism was one of his major kinks, and apparently we’d put on a really great show, because he was almost bubbling with excitement. I frowned at him, and he leaned in for a kiss, smiling. I smiled and kissed him back. “Why aren’t I angry with you?”

“Because you knew I was kinky as fuck before you fell in love with me.”

It made me laugh, because he was right, and because he could make me laugh in the middle of something potentially dark and horrible. Nathaniel had dragged, pushed, and just loved me into owning parts of myself that I still wasn’t entirely comfortable with. He was supposed to be the most submissive of my men, but he’d been the one who pushed when the others backed off, even Jean-Claude. If Nathaniel hadn’t forced me to confront certain things about myself, tonight would have sent me running for the hills and away from Jean-Claude. I was polyamorous for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones was that without all my people in my life, I might not be with any of them.

Graham was very still as he held my hand like a rabbit freezes when the fox is near. No, he’d frozen like the fox hiding just outside the henhouse waiting for his chance to go inside and eat his fill. He was sorry for the emergency, but he wanted to go with us and help feed theardeur. He’d wanted it for years. It was part of what would make him a high-energy feed for me. I squeezed Graham’s hand a little tighter and let Nathaniel lead us toward the staff-only door. Looked like Graham was finally going to get his wish; he was going to be food.

22

BY THE TIMEwe got to the office I wasn’t exactly getting cold feet, but I was unsure how to transition from not having sex toHey, baby. I was good on beginnings, and great once the clothes came off and things were happening, but I had a lot of trouble with the transition between the two. No amount of experience seemed to make me better at it. If it had been one of the loves of my life, or even a regular friend with benefits, I would have just said something awkward and it would have been over and things would have progressed, but Graham wasn’t either of those things.

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