30
Nathaniel called my name, but I couldn't answer. I was afraid to answer. Afraid if I took even a moment to think that that other colder mind would take over again. Nathaniel dropped to his knees with his arms still around my waist. The sudden movement startled me, stopped the screams like a switch had been thrown. That other mind spilled into the silence. But it wasn't cold anymore, it was frightened. Leopards are solitary. There are only three reasons to meet another leopard in the wild. Fighting, fucking, or eating. He was either something that would hurt us, something that would fuck us, or something that would eat us. There were no other choices in the fear that roared through my brain. I thought I'd understood what the fight or flight response was, but I'd been wrong. This made anything I'd ever felt as a human being pale by comparison. The need to strike out, or run away, thrilled all the way down to the tips of my fingers and toes. It was a rush of adrenaline like I'd never known. My entire body was thick with it, stronger, faster, because I was about to fight to the death.
I fought that panic, fought not to struggle, not to fight Nathaniel. I could get away. I knew it, and that other mind knew it. We could get away. We could be safe. But that small part that was still human knew that Nathaniel wouldn't hurt us. We had to let him pin us, had to, because I knew I could escape. What I didn't know was what would happen if I got away. What would happen if Nathaniel couldn't pin me and hold me down until I could think like a person again? I didn't want to find out, because it would be something bad, something I wouldn't want to live with afterward.
I struggled to be still. To let Nathaniel take me down, to be limp in his arms as he pressed me to the floor. That other mind shrieked through me as my body touched the carpet. It shrieked that we would die, and it believed that. It had no friends here. I'd always thought that at least part of my beast was Richard's wolf, but in that moment, I knew it wasn't so. What fought me wasn't anything that recognized the larger social order of the pack. There was only prey, rivals, mates, and young. No part of me saw Nathaniel as a child.
I let him pin me facedown on the carpet. My skirt was too short for being flat on the ground, and it began to ride up. His body molded to my back, his hands on my wrists. I fought that screaming voice in my head, to lay still, to let Nathaniel get as good a hold on me as he could. He had no training in how to pin someone. He did it the only way he knew how, by forcing my legs apart with his hips, so I couldn't just go to my knees and lift him off. The skirt rode up my hips until it was bunched so high that there was nothing between him and me but the silk of my panties and his pants. It was a horribly vulnerable position. Even the part of me that was still me, didn't like it. Because once you're pinned under someone like that, your options vanish. I like options. Options keep you safe.
Nathaniel won't hurt me. Nathaniel won't hurt me. I kept repeating that over and over and over, as he settled his body tighter against mine. The part that was beast knew he could break our spines from this position. The part that was me felt like it was a prelim to rape. I knew that Nathaniel wouldn't do that, and I also knew that truthfully if you're intent on rape you want some clothes off before you get here. Because once you've pinned someone like this, your hands are busy, and men's pants don't unzip themselves. Logically, I was safe, but logic isn't always what wins when you're scared. The beast was scared because it couldn't trust another leopard. I was scared of what would happen if the least dominant person in my life couldn't dominate me enough to keep me from tearing out his throat, or breaking through that thin office door and slaughtering everyone outside. I trusted Nathaniel not to hurt me. I did not trust him to control me and keep everybody else safe. I especially didn't trust him to keep himself safe. Hadn't he begged me just this morning to set my teeth in his throat and draw blood? I didn't trust him to be... enough. Enough leopard, enough man, enough person, just enough. And that doubt fed my fear, fed all the fears, and I lost. Lost myself. Lost control. Lost.
The last clear thought I had before panic set in was, I have to get up off the floor. I had to get up. I forgot everything I'd ever known about how to use my body, how to fight. Panic was all I felt, and panic does not plan. It reacts.
I went from that limp stillness that I had fought for, to bucking, writhing, throwing my body from side to side. I struggled with my whole body, with every muscle. I literally threw everything I had into simply trying to get up.
Nathaniel's body rocked with me. He fought to keep my wrists pinned to the carpet, my hips pressed down, my legs apart so I couldn't just get to my knees and throw him off. I felt him struggling above me, but he wasn't used to being the one on top.
I threw my body to the left and lifted us both half off the ground. He shoved us back down, and I had a moment to feel the potential strength. So terribly strong as he forced us back to the floor. If he'd been willing to let go of one wrist, and used his other arm for something else, but he kept my wrists, and maybe I couldn't get up, but he couldn't control me either, not enough.
He was saying something, I don't know how long he'd been repeating it, before I understood it. "Don't make me hurt you, Anita, please, please, please!" He almost screamed the last word.
The panic in his voice told the leopard that we were winning. Make him afraid of us, and he'll let us go. It spurred the cat, and we threw ourselves to the left again. If his back hadn't hit the desk we'd have rolled him. I screamed, but it wasn't fear this time, it was triumph.
We ended sitting with his back propped against the desk. His legs encircled my waist. I scratched at them, and part of me didn't understand why the cloth did not part in bloody strips. One arm went across my chest, and only later would I realize that he'd covered my gun butt with his hand. His other hand balled into my hair, jerking hard enough that it tore a scream from my throat. I had a moment to feel his breath like heat on the back of my neck. The leopard screamed that he would snap our neck, the other part of me was just confused. Nathaniel bit me.
He sank his teeth into my skin, into my flesh. I felt his teeth slide inside me, and I stopped fighting. It was as if he'd hit a switch I didn't know I had. At first I simply stopped fighting. My hands fell limp to my sides. My body relaxed, and what should have been pain, felt warm and comforting.
Nathaniel growled with his mouth still locked against my body, and it drew a moan from my throat. The growl turned to a purr, a deep vibrating sound, and because his mouth was locked over the top of my spine, that deep, pulsing rhythm played down my spine, as if my body were a tuning fork for his voice.
I cried out, but it wasn't fear or triumph now.
He loosened his legs around my waist. I stayed limp and easy against his body. He uncurled his legs, slowly, body tense, as he waited for me to react, but I was past reacting. I was waiting, waiting for him to master me, it was the only word I had for it. It was the most wonderful feeling, so peaceful, so safe.
He kept his teeth around my neck, his hand in my hair, but the other hand, he took slowly away. I sank into him. My body sliding along the front of his, held in place only by teeth and hair. My skirt had bunched like a belt at my waist and rode higher behind from my body sliding against his. Nathaniel slid his arm around my waist, pulling the bunched skirt even higher, I think by accident. He drew us both to our knees with his arm around my waist. He moved his arm away from my waist, slowly. I stayed on my knees, swaying a little, because every muscle was loose and calm. I actually had to concentrate to stay kneeling and not simply fall to the ground, but his hand in my hair, and his mouth at my neck kept me upright, made me want to stay on my knees. But that little bit of effort on my part started to help me climb back into my own head, a little, not a lot, but a little more of me was here. Enough to both worry and enjoy his bite on my neck. Worry, because what would happen when he let go, would I revert back to that cold mind? Enjoy, because part of me that wasn't just cat liked that firm grip, that pull of teeth in flesh.
I knew I was feeling better, because faintly, I could hear what Nathaniel was feeling. Not a sound, but I had no word for sensing another person's feelings. He was scared, excited, frustrated, confused, unsure, scared, unhappy, worried. I felt each emotion like a cobweb blown across my body in the dark. Nothing to see, and when you brush at it, it breaks apart and blows away, as if it wasn't there at all. Animals didn't have this many emotions all at once. Confused and scared, yes, but not the rest. The rest was still too much for my beast.
Nathaniel's free hand fumbled at the waistband of my panties. My skirt was already pushed up around my waist on its own without any help from him. He pulled my panties down to my knees, but since he was working one-handed, they came down in fits and starts, and it was anything but smooth. He growled his frustration against my skin, and it caught my breath in my throat, made me go weak at the knees. He used my hair like a handle, making it clear that if I went down on the floor it would hurt. It helped me stay on my knees. Helped me concentrate, and that helped me slide a little more inside my own skull.
I wanted to say his name. It seemed like that would help. But I couldn't think of his name. Couldn't say it out loud. It was as if name were an alien concept. Smell, his smell, that I knew. I tried to say it, and it took me three tries before I whispered, "vanilla."
He'd wrestled my panties down almost to my knees. But at that one word, he stopped. He kept his hand on my hair, but he lifted his mouth from my neck, just enough so that his breath caressed like heat on the wound he'd made. "Anita, can you hear me? Are you in there?"
Was I in there? It seemed like too hard a question for me. Was I in there? I think I took too long to answer, because the next thing I felt was his belt smacking against my bare butt. His pants fluttered against me.
The beast ground my hips against him, but not to slow him down. The thoughts weren't this clear, but it amounted to: He'd bested us in a fight, he'd earned the right to mate. I knew now why the big cats fought before they mated. You had to prove you were strong enough. That old biology imperative to only breed with the best, with the male that can give your offspring the genes they need to survive.
The leopard didn't mind. She was ready. I, on the other hand, had a problem. Of course, I couldn't remember what it was. Couldn't think. Because the human part of me agreed that Nathaniel had earned his right to be here. He'd saved us. Saved all the nice people outside the office door. Office, that was it. I didn't want to fuck at work. That was it. I moved away from Nathaniel's body. I pulled away from him, and his fear skyrocketed. He had no way of knowing that it was the human me that was wanting to pull away. The beast smelled that rush of fear, and let out a sound in my throat that I'd never heard come out of me. It wasn't a human sound.
He pulled on my hair so hard that it brought a gasp from my throat, but strangely, made me relax. It hurt, but it felt good, too, and gave an echo of that wonderful peacefulness that had happened when he bit the back of my neck.
He brushed the head of himself against my body, and the beast writhed for him. He whispered, "The angle's wrong." Then he used my hair like a handle and his other hand to put me on all fours on the floor.
The leopard crouched down in front of him, giving him my ass like we were in heat. He pulled my panties the rest of the way down my legs, got them tangled on the boots' heels, then they were gone. Maybe the beast was in heat, but I wasn't. Maybe it was losing my underwear, but the ass-in-air position was a little too undignified for me. I raised back up enough to be on all fours, so I didn't look like I was offering myself to him. I opened my mouth to say something, and he pushed himself inside me, and I forgot that I could talk.
The beast had been willing, but there had been almost no foreplay, and I was tight. So terribly tight. Nathaniel had to work himself inside me. He used his hand and my hair to spill me back to the carpet so that I was back where I started. It was just as undignified, but I didn't seem to care. For the first time the beast and I were in agreement.
I'd slept with Nathaniel, but I'd put very firm rules in place. I'd never touched him between the legs, not on purpose. To go from having deprived myself of even a caress to the sensation of him pushing his way inside my body was overwhelming. It wasn't just that it felt good, though it did, it was that it was Nathaniel. Part of me, though I might never say out loud, had been wanting to cross this barrier, to shove it aside, to bend it, break it, ignore it.
He worked until he was sheathed inside me as far as he could go, then he hesitated, stopped moving, frozen against me. "Anita, can you hear me?"
Hear him? Hear him? The cat screamed through my head, and that scream spilled out my mouth. I lost some of the ground I'd gained, because the beast wasn't conflicted, not in the least. It, she, began to work our hips, so that Nathaniel stayed still, but we drew him out of our body, out and out, and then when the tip of him seemed about to spill out, we drove ourselves upon him.
His voice came, "Oh, God."
We moved over him, against him. Shoving as hard and fast and deep as we could. It was as if nothing would be enough. I wasn't open enough to be this rough. I felt him almost catching on the sides, because I hadn't given myself time to grow wider. But I felt frantic. There was no thought about waiting, just the need. I wanted him to fuck me. Sex was too mild a word for it. I couldn't make him do what I wanted. I wanted deeper, I wanted more, and I needed him to help for that.
He let go of my hair, and his hands touched my hips, and he began to ride our rhythm, the cat's and mine. We pushed and he shoved, and just like on the dance floor where I'd followed his body, now he followed mine.
It was a dance of flesh, his into mine, until I was wet and warm, and he moved easily inside me, out and in, out and in. When he could glide inside of me, he shoved himself deeper, harder, as if he understood what my body was asking without words. He used his hands to move me just a little, until he found the spot he wanted, and then he plunged inside me, as if he meant to come out the other side, and I screamed for him.
I looked back over my shoulder, and his eyes weren't lavender, they were blue with hints of gray, and they weren't human anymore. His shirt was open, so I could see his stomach and chest. He did a movement with his stomach like a belly dancer, and his rhythm changed, grew more urgent and somehow smoother, or cyclical, as if he were doing a circle inside me, and out of me. A circle that went lower going in and higher coming out, so that he touched all of me, but not all at the same time.
He'd worked me larger by being rough, making me take all of him and more, and now that he had a hair's breadth of room, he used it. He used it in that circular rhythm, to caress along the walls of me. It was one of the most delicate things I'd ever felt when a man was inside me. So careful, and yet the push of his hips was so strong. The control took more strength than just shoving himself inside me. Strength of so many different kinds.
It was the upper stroke as he was pulling out that found that spot. I'd had the spot manipulated by hand and had it included in intercourse, but never quite like this.
Every time he slid over that one spot, my breathing changed, and he heard it, because he changed his rhythm again. Sliding himself over and over that small spot. Not just the tip of him, but the head, and as much of the shaft as he could manage. He used himself to stroke me in a way that I'd only had done with fingers and hands before. As always when that place inside was touched just right, the sensation of pressure was just this side of unpleasant. My body felt as if when he brought me, all the fluids in my body would fly, and not just the ones we wanted. It was always like that, that pressure, more pressure than any other kind of orgasm, as if you would lose control of your body completely. Jean-Claude had had to ease me through it the first few times. Reassure me that whatever happened it would be fine. It would be wonderful.
The pressure built and built, dancing along that line of too much. A pleasure so large it was almost pain. A pleasure that grew and grew inside me like some warm expanding thing, as if the orgasm were something separate from me, something that grew inside me and would burst out of my body.
I managed to whisper--almost hiss--his name, "Nathaniel."
He hesitated a fraction. "Anita, are you..."
"Don't stop, please, don't stop."
He didn't ask again. He shifted his position a fraction, then closed his eyes and gave himself to the rhythm of his body. I tried to move my hips, but his hands clamped tight on my hips, keeping me still. Holding me in place.
The pressure built, built, until my body was thick with it, full of it, and then it spilled out. Out in a burst of liquid between my legs, out in shrieks, out in my hands clawing the carpet. I had to claw at something, had to do something with the pleasure. It was as if it were too much pleasure for my skin to hold. If I'd had a beast inside me, it would have spilled out along with that thick liquid between my thighs.
He eased himself out of me, and I lay on the carpet, unable to move. Hell, I was having trouble focusing my eyes, let alone moving anything else.
He crawled to my head, stroking my hair back from my face. "Are you alright?"
I started to laugh, then blinked and tried to see better. He was still spilling out of his pants, and he was still hard and firm, and though there was liquid on him, it wasn't white enough or heavy enough to be his.
I swallowed the laugh and said in a voice that was still breathy, "You didn't go."
"You weren't in a head space where you could give me permission."
I closed my eyes and willed myself to sober up. When I opened them, I could see again, no bleary edges. Good. "What do you mean, give you permission?" I asked.
"I don't get to have orgasm unless you tell me I can."
The look on my face must have been eloquent, because he said, with a smile, "I knew that would weird you out, but look at the benefits, Anita. I can go for a very long time, because that's the way I was trained."
"Trained," I said.
He nodded.
I closed my eyes again. "You've been begging for orgasm, for intercourse. You had the perfect excuse, and you don't take it." I opened my eyes and stared at him. "Why didn't you take it?"
"I want you to want me, Anita. Not just use me for a metaphysical emergency."
I sat up and was reminded that I had no underwear on. I glanced at the carpet and for the first time was glad it was a dark woodsy brown. The wet spot didn't show as badly. "Where are my underwear?" I asked.
He started looking around as if he weren't sure either. Great. He was also still perfectly erect, and it was distracting.
"If you're not going to..." I started to make a gesture, but stopped, "then can you put... that away."
He turned with a smile that was perilously close to a grin. "Why, does it bother you?"
"Yes," I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, pulling my skirt down over my hips.
He held my underwear out toward me. He was fighting a smile, but it filled his lavender eyes with suppressed laughter.
I snatched them from his hand, but couldn't think of a slick way of getting them on. Truthfully, I was wet enough that I needed towels before I got back into my panties.
I walked, a little wobbly, around my desk. I had baby wipes in the desk drawer. They helped with cleanup when I came into work with a spot of blood I'd missed. I was debating whether I could sacrifice my extra T-shirt that I kept in a drawer for blood emergencies, too, when Nathaniel started talking again. And not about anything I was comfortable hearing.
"You know it's rare for a woman to be able to do that."
I had the drawer open and the moist towelettes in hand. "What's rare?"
"You're a rainmaker." He was kneeling on the other side of the desk, with his arms on the desktop and his chin resting on them. It was a strangely childlike gesture, and it did nothing to make me feel better.
"The only definition I know for that term is a lawyer who brings in big bucks for their law firm. I'm assuming that rainmaker has a meaning that I don't know." I made sure my unhappiness about the whole topic showed in my voice. I was uncomfortable enough just cleaning myself up. I was wet down to my knees and beyond. Jesus, what a mess.
"It's a term for a woman who can ejaculate."
I took in a lot of air and let it out slowly. "Can we not talk about this?"
"Why are you mad?"
That was a fair question. Why was I mad? I had to think about it to be honest even with myself. I got the spare T-shirt from the bottom drawer and dried off with it. So much for extra clothes. I slipped my underwear back on, and felt better. I always felt better dressed. Why was I mad?
I sat down in my chair, getting out the spare hose that I also kept in a drawer. I went through a lot of hose in my line of work. They just weren't meant to be worn to animal sacrifices, bad guy chases, or vampire slayings. Nope, nylons were just not made for my lifestyle. I started unzipping my boots so I could take off the hose we'd shredded struggling on the carpet.
"Why am I mad?" I said, almost to myself. My fingertips hurt, a sharp immediate pain as the last of the endorphins left. I'd torn off half my nails down to bloody quick. Once I saw the blood it hurt worse. Why did it always hurt worse when you saw the blood?
He stood up and zipped himself back into the dress slacks. There were stains on the legs of the trousers that weren't going to be fixed by baby wipes and a T-shirt. I didn't have extra clothes for Nathaniel. "Yes," he said, when he got himself safely inside, still hard, still thick, still ready. "Why are you mad?"
"You didn't go," I said, and started peeling off the hose. It gave me something useful to do instead of meet his eyes.
"You're mad because I didn't go?"
"I'm mad because if you'd gone we'd have that barrier crossed, and now we don't."
"And?" he said.
I sighed. "And, if we'd crossed it, it would be easier to cross it again. But doing it this way, makes it more..."
"Important," he said.
I nodded. "Yes."
He came around the desk and went to his knees at my feet. "I want it to be important to you, Anita. I don't just want to be someone you take because you have to take someone, anyone. I want you to want me."
"You said that before."
He touched my hands where they held the new hose, and he moved them gently out of my hands and laid them on the desk. He took both my hands in his, and there was such a serious look in his eyes that I was afraid. Afraid of what he'd say. "You loved me before today. You loved me without sex. No one's ever loved me, or even wanted me, without fucking me first. No one since my mother died and... Nicholas..." He bowed his head for a second, and I squeezed his hands. I'd seen that memory, and I didn't want him thinking about it. So horrible, and he'd been so little. I wanted to protect him from things like that. I wanted to keep him safe.
He smiled up at me. "Gabriel and Raina taught me that I could be worth something, but that worth was all about my body, the way I looked, and how good I could fuck." He squeezed my hands tighter. "You taught me that I was worth more than just fucking. You taught me that I was worth more than just being used."
I started to say something, but he put his fingertips against my lips. "I know what you're going to say. You think you use me with the ardeur, because I'm your pomme de sang. You don't know what using somebody is, Anita. You just don't know."
There was that look in his eyes that he got sometimes that made his eyes look so much older than he was. A look of murdered hopes and more pain than anyone his age should have had to experience.
I kissed his fingers, then rested my face against his hand. "Someday I want you to stop getting that look in your eyes. I want there to be enough good in your life to balance that out."
He smiled, and there was a tenderness in his eyes that made me have to look away. "See, Anita, you think you're hard, and that you use people, but you aren't, and you don't."
I pulled away a little. "I can be hard when I need to be."
"But not to me, and not to Micah. Not to anyone that will let you be nice to them. If they're shitty, you're shitty back, but you give them the chance first."
I shook my head. "I'm not that good a person, Nathaniel."
He smiled and touched my face where Barbara Brown had scratched me. I winced.
"Yes, you are, you just don't like admitting it."
"We better get dressed and out there before someone calls the cops."
"Bert won't call the police, he's too afraid of bad publicity."
I laughed. "You haven't met Bert often enough to know him that well."
"I've known a lot of people like Bert. He's not as bad as they were, but it's the same... kind of thinking. He wants his moneymaker to keep on making money more than he wants anyone to be safe or happy."
I looked into that terribly young face, and there was no one young looking back at me. As much as I'd seen of life, Nathaniel had seen things that would have broken me. Or at least bent me all to hell. I cupped his face in my hands, and said, "What am I going to do with you?"
"I want you to make love to me," his voice was soft, but oh, so serious.
I tried to make a joke of it. "Not right now, I hope."
He gave me his gentle smile, the one that said he wasn't going to let me get away with it. "No, not right now, but soon."
I drew back from him, and I was almost afraid of him, afraid in a way that guns can't help with. "Why are you making this so hard?"
"Love should be hard, Anita, or what is it worth? You taught me that all these months in your bed, with your body against mine and no release. You taught me how hard love can be."
"I'm sorry," I said, "I didn't understand until yesterday."
He leaned up on his knees and got close enough to kiss my mouth. "Don't be sorry, make love to me."
My voice was shaky as I said, "Not right now."
"No," and he breathed against my lips, "but soon." He kissed me, one chaste touch of lips, then he stood and moved away to give me some room.
I watched him move across the room toward the door. "I'll tell them we're alright."
I nodded, because I didn't trust my voice. He'd given me room, physically, but emotionally, emotionally, he was giving me no room at all. I waited for the panic to set in, but it didn't. What came was the memory of him inside my body and the thought of what it might be like to have him spill himself inside me.