Cravings Read Online Free PDF Page B

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on the dance floor, and the ardeur rose early."
    "I felt it," Micah said.
    "Me, too," Jason said.
    "But you don't feel it now, do you?" Nathaniel said. His eyes were almost
accusing and his voice held its own thin edge of anger. I wasn't sure if I'd
ever heard him that close to being angry.
    "Anita is getting better control over the ardeur," Micah said.
    Nathaniel shook his head, hugging himself tight. "If it had been you, she
would have just come out into the parking lot and fed."
    "Not willingly," I said.
    "Yes, you would," he said, and his eyes held the anger his voice had held.
I'd never seen those lavender eyes angry before. Not like this. It was strangely
unnerving.
    "I would not have sex in the parking lot of Larry and Tammy's wedding
reception, if I had a choice."
    That angry gaze searched my face as if trying to find something. "Why not
feed here?"
    "Because it's tacky."
    Jason patted his arm. "See, it isn't you she turned down, it's that she
doesn't want to fool around at Larry's wedding. Just not her style."
    Nathaniel glanced at Jason, then back at me. Some strange tension that I
didn't quite understand seemed to flow away from him. The anger began to fade
from his eyes. "I guess you're right."
    "Well, if we don't want to be fooling around in the parking lot, then we need
to get going," Micah said. "The ardeur doesn't like being denied. When it does
come back tonight, it won't be gentle."
    I sighed. He was right. That bit of metaphysical bravado on the dance floor
would have all sorts of consequences later tonight. When the ardeur rose again,
I would be forced to feed. There would be no stuffing it back into its box. It
was almost as if, being able to stop the ardeur in its tracks, to completely
turn it off once it had filled me, pissed the ardeur off. I knew it was a
psychic gift, and that psychic gifts don't have feelings and don't cany grudges,
but sometimes, it felt like this one did.
    "I'm sorry, Anita, I wasn't thinking." Nathaniel looked so discouraged that I
had to hug him, a quick hug, more sisterly than anything else, and he responded
to my body language and didn't try and hold me close. He let me hug him, and
step away. Nathaniel was usually almost painfully attuned to my body language.
It was one of the things that had allowed him to share my bed for months without
violating those last few taboos.
    "Let's go home," I said.
    "That's my cue to part company," Jason said.
    "You're welcome to bunk over if you want," I said.
    He shook his head. "No, since I'm not needed to referee the fight, or for
sage advice, I'll go home, too. Besides, I couldn't stand listening to the three
of you get all hot and heavy and not be invited to play." He laughed and added,
"Don't get mad, but having once been included, it's harder to be excluded."
    I fought the blush that burned up my face, which always seemed to make the
blush darker and harder.
    Jason and I had had sex once. Before I realized it was possible to love
someone to death with the ardeur, Nathaniel had collapsed at work and been off
the feeding schedule for a few days. Micah hadn't been in the house, and the
ardeur had risen early. Hours early. It had been interference from Belle Morte,
the originator of Jean-Claude's bloodline, and the first, to my knowledge,
possessor of the ardeur. It only ran through her line of vamps, nowhere else.
The fact that I carried it had raised very interesting metaphysical questions.
Belle had wanted to understand what I was, and she had also thought it would
raise some hell. Belle was a good business-y vampire, but when she could take
care of business
and
make trouble, all the better. So it hadn't been my
fault, but my choices had been limited to taking Nathaniel and possibly killing
him, or letting Jason take one for the team. He'd been happy to do it. Very
happy. And strangely our friendship had survived it, but every once in a while I
couldn't pretend it hadn't happened, and that made