Skin Trade

I said the only thing I could think to say. “I don’t need to feed yet.” My voice sounded small and uncertain. I cleared my throat sharply, tried again. “Nothing personal, but I’m…”

“Tired,” Crispin said, “we know. We can feel it.”

I looked past him to Domino. I could feel his uncertainty, and how much he wanted this to be all right. I didn’t have anything left to fight with; it felt fine, good, strangely okay. For once in my life, I didn’t question it. I didn’t ask, Can you both behave yourself if we’re all naked? because they were wereanimals, and naked doesn’t mean sex to them. It just means you aren’t wearing any clothes. It was my human mind that made it dirty.

I undid the robe’s sash and walked toward the bed. Crispin smiled, but Domino watched that thin line of my body that he could glimpse as I moved. Maybe being naked wasn’t just not having clothes for him in that moment?

He spoke, and his voice was rough, so that he had to clear his throat before he finished. “Sex would be wonderful, but I feel your tiredness like some great weight pulling you down, and pulling at us. Let us hold you, Anita, just hold you.”

I studied his face for a breath or two. He lifted his hand from the pillows and held it out to me. I let the robe fall to the floor and crawled onto the bed between them. Crispin helped me slide under the covers, then slid his body along my side, so that I could feel that it wasn’t just Domino who was going to have trouble sleeping.

I stared up at Crispin, where he lay propped up on one elbow, gri

That made me smile. Then the bed moved, and it made me turn to see Domino moving toward us. His face was uncertain, as if he wasn’t sure he’d be as welcome. Neither was I.

He had more bulk to his upper body than Crispin, and with them both propped up on elbows, I realized that the few inches of extra height Crispin had were all in the waist. Domino was keeping a few inches of distance between us rather than rubbing his body against me like Crispin. I appreciated the restraint.

I reached up to touch his hair. The curls were soft, but not as soft as Crispin’s white. “Wasn’t your hair more evenly white and black before?”

He smiled. “I’ve shifted to black tiger between then and now; when I come back to human form, my hair reflects the fur color of my last shape.”

I stared up at him. “You can shift to white tiger and black?”

He nodded, rubbing his head against my hand, so that I stroked his curls more, the way you’d pet a cat that rubbed against your hand. It moved my hand from his hair to the side of his face, and he laid his cheek against my hand, pressing, so that I held his face. His eyes closed, and his face went almost slack, as if some weight had suddenly gone from him.

I rose up to kiss him, but it closed that small distance between us, and I could suddenly feel that he was not only happy to be in the bed, but so hard and eager that it made my breath catch in my throat and a small sound of surprise escape me.

He drew away from me. “I’m sorry, Anita, I can’t help the reaction.”

I shook my head. “It’s not… Oh, hell, don’t apologize for being male, Domino. I like it.”

He smiled, almost embarrassed.

I found my hand sliding down the front of his body. His eyes closed again, and his head went back, as if it had been a long time for him.

Crispin seemed to read my mind. “The White Tiger Clan prides itself on being pure blooded. Our queen is happy to find black tiger blood, but most of the females of our clan won’t risk bringing a nonpure offspring into the world.”

I stared up at the man who was still looming a little over me. My hand had frozen at his upper stomach. He still had his eyes closed, but he started to turn away, started to roll over.

I stopped the movement with my hand on his shoulder and chest. “There is nothing wrong with you, Domino. You’re beautiful.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Handsome, then,” I said.

He gave me an almost shy look. “I can’t believe that.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one who’s ever mattered has treated me like it’s true.”

In that moment I knew, tired or not, I couldn’t be that tired. “I’m going to say something I will probably never say again.”

He looked at me, all cautious again.

“We only have time for a quickie.”

He gri

I smiled back. “I really do need to sleep before the police call me and we have to hunt the bad guys again, but I want you to know that it’s no reflection on you. You are handsome, and if what I just felt against my hip is any indication, all the body is pretty damn good.”

He actually looked embarrassed, dunking his head. I’d have estimated him at about thirty, but he was acting younger. Maybe in this one area he was, through sheer lack of experience.

I touched his face, turned him to look at me. “Make love to me.”

“Making love takes time to do it right,” he said.

I gri

He looked startled.

Crispin said, “Her pillow talk is usually straight to the point.”

I turned my head so I could frown at him.

He shrugged the one shoulder in the air. “Well, it’s true.”

I frowned harder, then turned back to Domino. “Whatever word you want to use.”

“Just like that?” he asked.

I nodded. “Just like that.”

“Why?”

“Because I want that lost look out of your eyes.”

“Why do you care what look I have in my eyes?”

“Because the wound cuts both ways.”

“What does that mean?”

“Shut up,” Crispin said, “and take the offer, so we can all sleep.”

Domino flashed him a less than friendly look, then looked back down at me. “I’ve spent my life not being able to trust the women around me. Only the survivors would touch me, never my own clan.”

“I’m a survivor,” I said.

He shook his head. “No,” and he leaned down over my hair and took a long, deep breath. “No, you smell like me: dark and light, all at the same time.”

I slid my hand farther down his body and found that he wasn’t trembling as hard as he had been; all the talking had softened things. I wrapped my hand around him and squeezed gently. It fluttered his eyes shut and sent his breath out in a sigh.

“Enough talk,” I said.

He had to swallow before he could whisper, “Okay.”

I continued to work him with my hand as he came down for a kiss, and suddenly he was kissing me. He kissed me as if my lips were food and he were starving. My hands were on his back; my legs slid down his thighs to wrap around his lower legs. He laid his full weight on top of me while we kissed, fiercely, completely. His body was back to that trembling hardness. Just the feel of him on the outside of my body, pressed between us, made me cry out.

Crispin was standing beside the bed with a condom in his hand. “Anita made me promise, after the first time we were together.”

Domino and I came out of the kiss, gasping. I stared up at Crispin as if I didn’t know who he was or what he was saying.

Domino went up on his knees, and I could suddenly see what I’d been touching. It brought an, “Oh, my God” from me.

Domino took the condom and slid it over himself. He went to all fours over me. He glanced at himself, then at my face. “We haven’t done any prep work on you, and I’m…”

I finished for him, “Not small.”

He shook his head.

Crispin said, “She’s tight, but she’ll be wet.”

I frowned at him.

“Do you need foreplay for this?” he asked, hands on hips, as if chastising me.

I thought about it. “Foreplay is lovely, but”-I looked down Domino’s body, and all I could think of was-“no, I want that inside me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, not our first time.”

“I’ll tell you if it hurts, but,” and I stopped, because no man wants to hear that you have other lovers more well endowed than he is, especially not at this moment, “Please, Domino, just fuck me. Now.”