Petite Morte | By : kkcme Category: Anita Blake > Het Views: 3843 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own the Anita Blake series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Disclaimer: all trademark and licensing rights of the Anita Blake novels belong to Laurell K. Hamilton and Jove Books published by Penguin Putnam Inc.
Setting: After NIC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edward leaned against the counter in my kitchen, sipping a mug of coffee. He had walked in and made himself at home, as usual. I couldn’t complain too much since he had made me a cup as well. He had even remembered to put cream and sugar in mine. You have to appreciate a man who pays attention to details.
I sat at the table and just looked at him, waiting for him to say something. Some perverse quirk of my mood today kept me from asking why he was here. He hadn’t offered an explanation, and I was fine with that for now. I felt like I had all the patience in the world, and we could stare at each other over the rims of our mugs until the sun expanded and consumed the earth.
Edward was dressed in standard assassin chic, crisp black jeans and a short-sleeved black button-up with a matching undershirt. His pale blonde hair was a little longer than normal and seemed wind-blown, so that a fringe of bangs lay over his forehead, touching his eyebrows. The cowboy hat he wore the last time I saw him in New Mexico was missing, but the cold, predatory look in his baby blues wasn’t.
He set the coffee mug on the counter beside him and crossed his arms over his chest. A slight upward tilt graced his lips. “You haven’t asked me why I’m here, Anita.”
I smiled. Was it silly to feel proud about making him speak first? Yeah, but I’d take it. It was a rare thing to outlast the man they called Death, even in something so small. “I figured you would tell me when you’re ready, Edward.”
That got me a full, but all too brief, smile. The lines of his face settled back to a neutral expression. My earlier patience started wearing thin. Worry niggled at the corners of my mind. Why was he here? Nothing to do but ask. Oh well, so much for getting one up on Death.
“Alright, I’ll bite. So, why are you here? Is it business, or, gasp, social?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away, and I watched his expression, looking for a clue. I should have known better. Edward wouldn’t betray himself if his life depended on it. Worry gained ground in my mind and was tinged with a little fear now. Was it Olaf? Was Olaf in town, hunting me? No, that couldn’t be it. If Olaf were near, Edward would have walked in with a bag of lethal goodies and a plan. He wouldn’t be relaxing in my kitchen, waiting for me to play guessing games.
“Who was the shifter I saw leaving here earlier, Anita?” He asked.
I looked at him with my eyebrows knitted. “Shifter?”
“Yeah. Long, curly brown hair and petite. Who was he? I haven’t seen him before.” Edward’s eyes seemed to grow colder.
My heart leaped and a thrill of fear shot through my body. Outwardly, my face and eyes remained calm. Who said there weren’t benefits to becoming a sociopath? Of course, I knew who he was asking about. Micah. Just how the hell was I going to explain this to Edward? He didn’t approve of how close I’d become with the monsters, and now I had added another one to the list. Maybe if I explained that I wasn’t seeing Richard anymore, it wouldn’t seem so bad. Yeah, right.
I decided to keep it simple. Less is more, you know. “His name is Micah. He moved his pard here and combined it with mine. He’s helping me take care of our leopards.”
Edward’s only visual response was a minute lift to his eyebrows. “Interesting. I had heard that it was a little more than that. I also heard that you aren’t seeing the wolf-man anymore.”
Now, I was starting to get pissed. If he knew, why did he ask? Besides, I was sick of justifying myself to others. And I wasn’t going to bother asking how he found out. He wouldn’t tell me. In my book, the only defense is a good offense. “How’s Donna and the kids, Ted? Have you gotten married yet?”
A quick flicker of pain moved through Edward’s eyes a second before he lowered his head. If I hadn’t been looking at his face, I would have missed it. I sat for a moment, surprised. Then panic began to set in. Were Donna and the kids okay?
I stood up and walked over to him. I gripped his forearm. “Edward, look at me. Is something wrong with Donna and the kids?”
He didn’t answer or look at me. A sense of doom weighed my shoulders down. “Edward, answer me!”
My heart raced with fear. Fear for Donna, but mostly for the kids. Frightening scenarios raced through my head. Scenarios where one of the kids were dead, or both, or all three of them. My grip tightened on Edward’s arm as I struggled to calm myself.
Edward slid his other hand over mine and looked at me. The pain in his eyes was deep and piercing. “She took the kids and left me.”
My galloping heart stuttered to a halt, then resumed a normal pace. Relief flowed through me like a fresh spring breeze. The kids were okay. I could handle whatever was going on as long as they were all right. Looking into Edward’s troubled eyes, I knew he was here continue the Dear Abby session we started in New Mexico those many months ago. I wasn’t comfortable with that. I wasn’t comfortable with seeing Death show emotions either. But, hey, he was here for backup. It was just my problem that he wanted the kind of backup that I sucked at. So, what else was new?
# # #
I had left Edward asleep on the couch two hours ago, and I was still seething. I couldn’t believe what he had told me. Of all the idiotic, irrationally male things to do! His first mistake was giving Peter weapons training. His second mistake was taking Peter on a hunt for a rogue shifter. When Donna found out about the hunt, she went ape-shit. Peter defended his ability to be included in the hunt by telling her about the weapons training. That was the last nail in the proverbial coffin as far as Donna was concerned.
A headache pounded behind my eyes. My shoulders were tight and my jaws ached from gritting my teeth. If I didn’t relax soon, my skull was going to split open. I ran a bath and lowered myself in the steaming water with a sigh. I was angry with Edward, but the more I thought about it, I realized it was probably for the wrong reason. Peter had been through his trial by fire twice. First, when his dad died. Second, when he and Becca were kidnapped. Those experiences had permanently altered his life. He was more like Edward and me than I would like to admit. Who’s to say that Edward taking Peter under his wing was totally the wrong decision? Being a girl, I certainly wasn’t qualified to guide a fourteen-year-old boy through his emotional problems.
If I was going to be mad about anything, it should be that Edward didn’t take more precautions to ensure Donna didn’t find out. Now, Peter had to deal with his problems by himself, because Edward fucked up. Groaning, I picked up the soap to finish my bath. I had no idea how I was going to help Edward through this. If he were upset about losing Donna, maybe I could help. My relationship with Richard had given me plenty of experience in that department. But Edward really didn’t give a shit about Donna. He cared about Peter and Becca. Not as much as I would like for him to care, but as much as he could.
I finished my bath and brushed my teeth. A yawn nearly cracked my jaw as I shuffled into my bedroom and slipped under the covers. The bed felt cold and empty without Micah and Nathaniel. Micah went out of town to interview some alphas for our pard, but Nathaniel was staying with Gregory at my request. I had known Edward wouldn’t tell me what was going on with him around. Nathaniel would be back in the morning to help me feed the ardeur, but the sixty-four thousand dollar question was…how were we going to manage it without Edward finding out? Just because an orgasm was called a petite morte didn’t mean I wanted Death himself attending the event.
# # #
I was naked and laying in a cloud of red silk. Every time I moved, the silk sent a sensual tingle along my skin. Jean-Claude stood at my feet. His eyes glowed a rich midnight blue, and he also wore nothing except a wicked smile. My body tightened with the thoughts of what that smile promised. His black hair fell in soft curls to just below the tops of his shoulders. I had the urge to rise up and run my hands through those curls.
As I sat up, I noticed that there was nothing around me but a gray mist. Jean-Claude was invading my dreams again. “Jean-Claude, you know I love being with you, but I need my space.”
Crawling onto the bed, Jean-Claude stretched out beside me. “I missed you, Ma Petite. What is the harm in visiting you here? It is just a little dream.”
I couldn’t help letting my eyes glide down the lean muscular length of his body. I knew if I reached out to touch him that his skin would be as soft as the silk on the bed. My stomach gripped tight and heat flooded me. I took a deep breath past my body’s reaction to him. “Nothing is little with you, Jean-Claude.”
He raised his hand, as if to stroke my face. As soon as he touched me, the ardeur flared hot and intense between us. I gasped a moment before a soft moan escaped my throat. Before I could blink, Jean-Claude had me sprawled beneath him. His hard arousal pressed against my thigh, causing a wave of moisture to spread through my core. I couldn’t think past the need raging through my body and realized that I didn’t want to. I writhed under him, seeking to push his erection inside me.
“Please,” I whimpered.
“Soon, Ma Petite.” He replied, his voice a strained whisper.
He pinned my arms to either side of me and lowered his mouth to my breasts. A litany of moans left me as he nipped and licked my nipples. My head lashed from side to side. I felt like I couldn’t take another second without him buried deep inside me.
My eyes jerked open to the darkened interior of my bedroom. Fear pounded my heart in a frenzied rhythm and pushed the ardeur away. Something had woken me from my dream with Jean-Claude. I lay frozen for a moment. All my senses had heightened after I married the marks with Richard and Jean-Claude. I tried to pull on the part of me that was linked to Richard’s wolf to scent the room.
A second after I realized I wasn’t alone, my Browning was in my hand and pointed out into the darkness. “Who’s there?”
The hall light switched on. A yellow square of light poured through my door and dimly illuminated my bedroom. A figure stood there, backlighted. My breath eased out when I recognized who it was.
It was Edward. He stood there in nothing but his boxers with his gun pointed in my direction. “Edward, what are you doing in here?” I asked and lowered my gun.
He lowered his at the same time and walked over to my bed. “I heard noises in here and came to check on you.”
I looked at the clock on my nightstand. It was three a.m. Why is it I never get an uninterrupted night’s sleep? My brain finally registered that I was in no danger. With that thought, the ardeur rose back to the surface. I clenched my teeth and returned the Browning to its special holster on my headboard.
I pulled air in through my nose and puffed it out through my mouth. “I was just dreaming, Edward. Thanks for checking on me, but I’m fine.”
Pulling my knees up, I wrapped my arms around them. The ardeur rode just beneath the surface, and my control was a hard thing. It would be another four or five hours before Nathaniel came home to help me feed it. I couldn’t imagine how Edward would react if he knew about it, let alone how he would react if I didn’t control it around him. Damn Jean-Claude for calling it up in our dream!
I rested my chin on my knees and concentrated on regulating my heart rate and breathing. A sense of calm slowly grew around me. The ardeur was still there, but in the background. The sound of a throat being cleared jerked my head around. I had been so focused on my control that I had forgotten about Edward. Well, shit.
Edward’s lips were lifted in a lopsided grin. “Are you sure you’re okay, Anita?”
I looked at him, confused. “Yeah. Why?”
The grin slid off his face. It had never reached his eyes, anyway. There was an intensity to his stare, though, that was unusual. If it were anyone else, I would say the look was lust. On the heels of that thought, the ardeur burst to the surface. All my careful attempts at control burned away in an instant.
Edward laid his gun on my nightstand. He crawled on the bed and knelt beside me, inches from my face. “You’ve been sitting here in front of me naked, Anita. Why do you think I asked if you were okay?”
I stared up his smooth chest and wanted to trace the ridges of muscle with my tongue. Need roared through my body and jerked a gasp from my throat. When I looked at his face, I noticed my hands reaching up to do what I had wanted to with my tongue. I tried to regain control of my traitorous body, but as I started to draw away, he grabbed my wrists. A moment later, I found myself sprawled beneath him, his hard length pressing against me. It was so much like my dream with Jean-Claude. The shock allowed me to form a coherent thought, and I opened my mouth to protest.
Edward’s lips covered mine a second before I told him to stop. The kiss was urgent and devouring. I might have been able to pull away, but the moment I felt his hand kneading my breast, it was too late. I returned his kiss with lips and tongue, arching into the pleasure his hand was giving me.
He broke away and looked down at me. His chest rose and fell like he’d been running a race. A small part of my mind sat in its shocked little corner, wondering what the hell I was doing with Edward, of all people. But another part of me, the part that worked from the static white space I entered when I killed, felt like it was finally home. I saw a similar emotion reflected in Edward’s eyes, and, God help me, I loved him just a little for it.
I pushed and rolled him under me. My mouth traveled over his neck, around the firm expanse of his chest, and down the defined plane of his stomach. His choked moans brought a smile to my face, as I pulled his boxers off. My eyes widened in surprise. He was hard and, oh, so large.
My body tightened and a new wave of moisture rolled through my sex in anticipation of having him inside me. I couldn’t resist prolonging the moment, though, and took him into my mouth, humming my enjoyment of his rigid length. My tongue swirled and stroked as I took him deep into my throat.
His body tensed under my wandering hands, and I rolled my eyes up to his face. Edward stared down at me, at himself disappearing into my mouth. His eyes radiated a passionate heat. The kind of heat that only a man can convey. The kind of heat that causes a woman to catch her breath, and her body to respond in a warm, wet invitation. It was the most emotion I’d ever seen him display, and I couldn’t help feeling a small bit of pride at the accomplishment.
With a guttural moan, Edward lifted me off him, pulling me up to his side. He cupped my face with his hand and looked at me for a moment. “Anita.”
The heat I had seen in his eyes was tempered with something else. Something more profound. I traced his jaw with my fingertip. “Edward.”
I don’t know what he was thinking. A second later, his lips descended to mine, and I didn’t care. My fingers clutched in his hair while his mouth consumed mine. His hands roamed my body, pinching, stroking, and making me writhe beneath him. My gasp broke our kiss when his fingers found my sex. Alternately stroking my clit and plunging into my core, he quickly brought me.
My eyes had closed at the moment of my climax. When I opened them, he was above me. He pinned my wrists above my head and rammed himself to the hilt inside me. The exquisite pleasure of him so hot and hard, filling me, vibrated through my body.
Edward established a rhythm of long, deep strokes and short, thrusting jabs. My hips arched to meet his without conscious thought. The sound of pounding flesh, punctuated by moaning whimpers, filled my bedroom. I vaguely realized that I was the one whimpering, but all I could concentrate on behind tightly squeezed eyes was my second orgasm quickly building to its peak.
“Anita. Anita, look at me.”
Edward’s voice broke through the sensual fog clouding my brain.
“I want to see your eyes as you come, Anita.”
My eyes opened. I took in the masculine shape of Edward’s body above mine, the straining muscles of his chest and arms, and the bulging tendon of his clenched jaw before I met his gaze. The intensity I saw there struck me to the core, and I came, screaming his name and descending into darkness.
# # #
Sunlight, streaming through my windows, woke me up. I opened my eyes and grunted, jerking the covers over my head. The sudden movement set off a protest from my muscles. Why was I sore? Was I getting sick? I lay there and took stock of my body. No, I wasn’t getting sick. Other than the soreness and a strange sense of satisfaction, I felt fine.
Something niggled at the back of my brain. Memories of last night returned and dashed against my brain like a bucket of cold water.
Edward!
I yanked the covers off my head and sat up, looking around the room. He was nowhere in sight.
Oh, my God! How am I going to face him?
Jumping out of bed, I grabbed some clean clothes and headed for the shower. There was no way I was going to face him naked and smelling of sex. I didn’t know how I was going to deal with what happened last night, but I was going to be clean when I did it.
Should I act like nothing happened? Or, should I ask him to sit down and discuss it? Shit. I was not a ‘morning after’ kind of gal. Maybe I could just walk into the living room and shoot him. Yeah. That was more my speed.
I sighed and stepped into the shower, grabbing the soap. A nervous swarm of butterflies flitted around in my stomach as I lathered up. My body was tense and stiff, a screaming reminder of what happened last night. I concentrated on massaging the tight muscles with my soapy hands and cleared my thoughts.
There was no need to let myself get overly jumpy until I saw how Edward was going to act. A large part of me hoped he would pretend it didn’t happen. And if anyone could pull it off, he could. Edward was the consummate actor. Logic told me that how he reacted didn’t matter, though. Things were forever changed between us now. Changed, because I wouldn’t be able to pretend we didn’t have sex. I had learned to lie to others, but not to myself.
The memory of Edward, naked, virile, and thrusting into me, was burned onto my mind’s eye. A tingling sensation ran through my body. I realized that my hands were slowly caressing the lather over my breasts and a goofy grin was on my face. Disgusted with myself, I threw the soap down and finished my shower in record time.
I walked out of my bedroom fifteen minutes later dressed and armed to the teeth. The weight of my Browning resting in the shoulder holster was a comforting presence as I walked towards the living room. I hesitated in the hallway before entering and took a deep breath. Putting an expressionless mask onto my face, I stepped into the room.
No Edward.
Taking a firmer grip on my hard won calm, I walked into the kitchen. It was empty, too. The smell of fresh coffee hit me with a sigh of relief. I could handle almost anything with a good cup of coffee. I walked over to pour a cup before going upstairs to see if he was using the other bathroom.
A note lay in front of the coffee pot. It was on a plain piece of white paper and unsigned, but I recognized Edward’s handwriting. I read it, and then, read it again. A shiver went through me, and I didn’t know if it was from fear or anticipation.
~*I’m not done with you, yet.*~
I slumped down on a kitchen chair, holding the note and staring out the sliding glass door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Extended version of this story can be found at pommedesang dot com under user name: kendra
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