The long fall of his bangs began to swing forward at the downstroke so that I could see the smooth, creased scar tissue where his other eye would have been. It was only when he was on top, and only at certain angles that I got to see his whole face above me. I'd come to value those glimpses of all of him. I watched the concentration on his face, that distant inward looking, which was his version of trying to last, trying to prolong the amazing things his body was doing inside mine.
He glanced down at me, truly seeing me. He gave a fierce smile and said, in a voice breathy with strain, "You are way too in control. I'm not doing my job."
I don't know what I would have said, because he sped up what he was doing, driving himself faster, harder, but the bench was too narrow, too hard, too something for pounding. He changed to a rolling, stroking rhythm of his hips, proving that he could dance, even with me on my back. It was a softer orgasm than it would have been if he'd just pounded me thoroughly. It built more like a clitoral orgasm, so that I could feel it getting closer.
My voice showed the strain of holding my position on the bench, keeping my arms tensed and holding, while he danced in and out of me, but I managed to say, "Getting close."
"Good," he said, but his eye was closed, he wasn't watching me anymore. His face had that deep, internal look again, but closing his eye meant he was fighting his body, fighting to keep the wonderful rolling, dancing rhythm, to hold us on the bench, to hold on until I came underneath him, fighting to keep everything moving, and not to lose his concentration now, not now, when he'd done so much work to get us to this moment.
Then from one stroke to another, the orgasm caught me, flung me screaming, writhing underneath him. My hands on the bench jerked and fought with the rest of my body, because my hands wanted to rise up and mark his body with my pleasure.
His voice growled over me, "God, God!" He shoved his body one more time so hard and solid that it made me cry out again, and I couldn't decide if it was a new orgasm, or if it was just an extra ending for the first one.
He growled at me, his face wild with it, and his eye lion-orange, his humanity slipping away as he shuddered and growled above me. One last shudder ran through his body from shoulders to hips, making me cry out again, because he was still shoved deep inside me as he shivered.
He half-collapsed over me, head dipping down so that his bangs brushed my face. I could feel the frantic pulse of his body in the side of his neck, the pounding of his heart just above me. He whisper-growled, "You didn't feed."
He was right, I hadn't fed the ardeur. I'd forgotten that was why we were making love. With his body still inside mine, a light sheen of sweat on his chest and stomach, my arms letting me know that I'd held this position and us in place a long time, the afterglow of all that good sex still flowing through my body, and all I could say was, "Well, shit."
He laughed then, and he was still too hard inside me, so that it started me writhing and making small noises again, as I laughed with him. We laughed and twitched, and tried to stay on that damn bench, and I still had to feed.
He finally lifted me up into his arms, so that he held me against the front of him, and I wrapped my rubbery legs around his waist. He was still inside me, but growing softer, so that as he picked me up he slipped out, and we were just holding each other, faces inches apart. There was a light dew of sweat on his forehead, too.
His voice was still breathy, his eye still lion-orange. "I love that you enjoyed it so much you forgot the ardeur."
I smiled at him, arms around his shoulders, hands clasped at the back of his neck. "You were amazing."
He grinned, a quick baring of teeth, more a cat's snarl than a smile. "I've never had to be this good with anyone else."
"Because you feel you're competing against the other men?" I asked.
"That and I've never been with anyone who likes sex the way you do. I have to keep up with you."
I hugged him with my arms, and my legs that were still around his waist. His hands were supporting my legs and ass, but he held me easily; even with the sweat drying on his body, his breathing still not back to normal, he wasn't straining to hold me. He was strong enough to bench-press small cars, but still I was impressed.
"Right back at you," I said.
He grinned again. "You still need to feed."
"God said he'd send Ethan, or Domino; you want to send them in?"
He shook his head. "No."
I widened eyes at him. "You up to it again?"
"I'm a lion, Anita. Give me a minute, and yeah."
I gave a little frown. "Isn't this fast recovery for you?"
"There's usually a line," he said, "so I step out of the way, usually for Nathaniel."
I smiled. "He does share well."
"He likes to watch," Nicky said. He stood up with me still wrapped around him.
I gave him wide eyes, and tightened my arms and legs around him. "Now I am impressed. I'm not sure I could stand yet."
"In your bed, I'm not the biggest, I'm not the most flexible, I'm not multi-orgasmic, I don't have centuries of practice, I'm not even sure that I have the most stamina. Nathaniel and Jean-Claude are scary impressive there." He stood on one leg as he moved us off the bench completely and started walking toward the showers. "But I'm strong, and I can fight, and my physical recovery time from almost anything is really good. Give me a few more minutes and I'll prove it."
He carried me easily, smoothly, as if I weighed nothing. I was strong for my size, I was damn good, but I'd never be able to return the favor. I would never be a really big, physical man, but in that moment I allowed myself to enjoy that I had one to carry me into the showers, instead of being upset that I could never have carried him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
WE CLEANED UP in the shower, and when we'd rinsed the soap and conditioner out, Nicky proved to me that he had more game.
I ended up on the smooth, wet tiles on my knees, the hot water pounding down on us. He shielded me from most of the spray, only rivulets of it tracing down his body so that the water was more decoration to all that smooth skin. I licked the water off the edge of his groin, sipped it off the loose skin that dangled so delicately below. He didn't shave completely like most of the men in my life, so I licked the loose skin, feeling the smoother hardness underneath. We'd already found that my mouth had healed a lot; I wasn't sure it was up to full oral, but I was willing to try, and I'd never met a man who would argue about the offer. If Nicky had been shaved all the way I would have sucked and rolled those delicate balls into my mouth, but hair between the teeth - not my favorite. But either he shaved, or didn't need to, above, and that I took into my mouth completely. He was still small, loose from the heat of the water, so I could take all of him easily, rolling, sucking, licking, enjoying the sensation of him in my mouth when he was still soft enough that I didn't have to fight to breathe, or fight my gag reflex. I could just enjoy myself and I did. He didn't stay small long.
I was even more healed than I had thought. I hadn't remembered concentrating on using Nicky's energy to heal myself, but apparently it had.
I hesitated as he grew bigger, because if I put him in the sides of my mouth he slid over the few wounds that weren't completely healed. I stopped, and thought about the problem, on my knees, staring at Nicky, so hard and perfect.
"If it hurts too much, we can do something else," he said.
I nodded, but decided I'd try avoiding the sides of my mouth. If you can't go around a problem, go straight at it, go straight down it. If I took him straight down, over my teeth, across my tongue, and to the back of my throat, driving him in and out of my mouth so that we were mimicking what he'd done earlier between my legs, it didn't hurt much. It hurt a little, but the worst was to the sides of my mouth, which meant that I'd struggled more in Asher's kiss than I'd thought. I pushed the thought away, and let myself enjoy the man in front of me.
"God," Nicky said.
I rolled my eyes upward to see him staring down at me, face growing frantic. He'd let the water slick his hair completely back from his face. I think it was the first time I'd really seen his face so clean and bare. He was handsome, he really was. I liked the lines of his face without that fall of hair to cover the missing eye. He wasn't less beautiful because he wasn't "perfect"; it was Nicky, it was the way he looked, it was him, and I liked it, loved it. I couldn't smile with my mouth full, but I could put the smile into my eyes. He'd grown long and hard and smooth in my mouth. I loved sliding my mouth down the long shaft of him, until there was that moment when he touched the back of my throat and I could choose whether to go back up or push him down the curve of my throat. He was just long enough that it was an effort to swallow him down. There were some times that bigger was not better.