Page 65 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“What?” I asked, but Jean-Claude seemed to understand just fine because he said, “Legs up,ma petite, put the heels I have been dreaming of seeing you in all day on my shoulders.” There was a heat, almost a hunger in his eyes that let me know he meant it about the shoes, and for that look in this moment I could wear more ridiculous shoes.

I had to move my legs wide as I lifted them up so as not to spear anyone with the stilettos. Jean-Claude held my weight in his hands, so it was easier than it would have been. I finally carefully had them on Jean-Claude’s bare shoulders, framing his face. All the beading and extras on the shoes that I had hated looked like a jewel in some treasure box with his black curls touching them, his dark, deep blue eyes bluer than I’d ever seen them, and I realized the blue in the shoes brought out his eyes as if he’d planned it that way, and being Jean-Claude he probably had.

Then Richard peered around his shoulder and those feral wolf eyes didn’t match the shoes at all, but their faces next to each other above me was perfect, as if I’d been waiting forever to see them like this. Jean-Claude lowered his body over mine, but with my legs over his shoulders it was the least missionary position I could imagine. I was still staring at his chest, but my own legs kept him up and off me enough that I could get glimpses of his face as he began to move inside me. Then the weight changed, and I felt Richard pressing usboth to the floor. I was completely trapped under their combined weights, and I loved it.

Jean-Claude and Richard found their rhythm. In this position with Richard on top of him Jean-Claude couldn’t do his usual gliding in and out of me so that I could see every inch of him going deep into me, but the angle meant he didn’t need to do much to start my body building toward orgasm. I couldn’t see Richard at all, but I could feel the weight of him over us, the push and pull of his body in the gentlest of movements. He normally made love like he was trying to pound his way through to the other side, but not tonight. He was as gentle and careful as I’d ever felt him. I normally liked rougher, more vigorous sex myself, but tonight gentle was enough. That warm weight began to build deep in my body as Jean-Claude pushed and pulled himself over and over inside me.

“I’m close,” Richard said, and there was no growl to his voice now, just the strain of keeping his careful rhythm without pushing himself over the edge before we came.

“Yes,” Jean-Claude said, and his voice held the strain of concentration as he fought to bring me before he gave himself over to pleasure.

The weight was building, but I wasn’t there yet. I opened my mouth to sayNot that closeand then from one stroke to the next the orgasm rolled over me, out of me, brought me screaming underneath them.

I heard Richard say “Thank God,” and then felt him thrust his weight, pinning us both. Jean-Claude shuddered above me, inside me, and that brought me again, screaming and struggling underneath them, my fingernails tearing at the carpet trying to find something to hold on to, to keep me from falling into the pleasure of it and never coming out again.

My eyes had fluttered back into my head so that I was blind and only the lighter weight above me let me know that Richard had moved. Jean-Claude rose up on his arms. I tried to look at him, buteverything was white-edged and light flashes. It’s a lie that you’ll go blind with too much sex, but it was moments like this that I understood where the idea came from. He pulled himself out of me and that made me writhe and scream again.

I lay on my back waiting to be able to move anything. Jean-Claude collapsed beside me on his stomach, his arm flung across my waist. I turned my head and all I could see was his black curls. Richard’s arm came into sight resting on Jean-Claude’s shoulder, down his back so that his hand rested against the other man’s body. Richard’s breathing was still labored, more than I’d heard him after a lot more vigorous workout. He gave a breathless laugh.

Jean-Claude raised his head, and I still couldn’t see anything but his hair. “We have won this battle, but we must make plans to win the next.”

I patted his arm where it lay across me and said, “If you can move, then start that Machiavellian planning, I can’t feel my legs yet.”

He laughed and shook his head, long hair still hiding his face. I found that I could move my arm enough to part his curls so I could look at him. His eyes were the lightest blue I’d ever seen them, not midnight blue, but autumn skies just as the sun begins to sink. I felt what I felt most times when I looked at him: that he was too beautiful to be mine. He smiled at me, not the smile he used onstage or when he was on camera with the media, but a smile less practiced and more real and all the more precious for it.

“Can’t we just lie here and enjoy the moment before we gear up for the next battle?” Richard asked, and his voice was almost sad.

Jean-Claude turned his head to look at him and I found that I could rise up on my elbows enough to see Richard’s body on the other side of him, but I could not see his face. “You are right,mon lupe, this is a moment to be savored. Forgive me.”

“Since we can’t get up yet, we could cuddle,” I said, because if this moment never happened again, I wanted us to hold each other.

I half expected Richard to climb back into his issues and insist onme being in the middle, but he didn’t. He just turned on his side and was the big spoon for Jean-Claude, who was the big spoon for me, and I was the littlest spoon. Love it or hate it, it was the truth. Jean-Claude held me close, and then Richard’s arm slipped over both of us, so that he held us. Eight, almost nine years and this was the first time we’d ever cuddled together like this, held each other like this, or if we’d ever done it before it had been so long ago I didn’t remember it.

I stroked my fingers down his arm. I’d forgotten how dark his skin was, or how pale mine was against it. I liked the contrast of his warm tan to our paleness. I’d never been able to tan, I just burned. I wondered if Jean-Claude’s skin had tanned when he was alive, or if all this white skin had burned like mine?

There was a knock on the office door, and we all tensed. Ethan said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, really sorry, but the audience is still waiting for you. Nathaniel is onstage trying to keep them occupied so they don’t start to leave, but we need you.”

I lay there in our cuddly nest of spoons and said, “AmIthe only one that completely forgot about the audience, or should I feel stupid all on my own?”

Jean-Claude nuzzled my hair and held me tighter, pressing his nakedness against mine. It wasn’t so much sexual now as comforting. “It is not stupid to fully enjoy the pleasures that you love,ma petite.”

“Maybe not stupid, but you didn’t forget them.”

Richard’s arm tightened around us both like he was hugging us. “I came in the back through the alley, so I didn’t even see the audience. I just felt Jean-Claude call to the wolves for help, and I was close enough to answer the call.”

“It is lucky indeed that you were close at hand,mon lupe. I do not think any other wolf could have substituted for you this night.”

“Wait, did you say you were on a date and that’s why you were so close?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Is she here? Please tell me your date wasn’t standing outside the door while we had sex.” I started to try to sit up enough to look at him, but both men held me in place.

“She isn’t here. I called her an Uber and sent her home.”

I tried not to struggle with their combined strength keeping me pressed in place, but suddenly being the little spoon wasn’t as cozy. Richard had dumped his date to come have sex with us; it just seemed rude.

“I hope she forgives you,” I said.

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