His voice came thin with strain, growling, with effort. “Feed when I go, Anita. I won’t have another time in me.”
That he admitted it said just how much effort even Nicky was having to expend to do wall sex this forcefully.
“Yes,” I said, and my voice sounded breathier than his did.
“Is that yes, yes, great sex, or you heard me?” he asked, in that deep, exercise-rich voice.
“Yes, I heard you,” I gasped.
His hips hesitated for a second, and then he went back to that fast, pounding rhythm. I fought between the amazing sensations of him fucking me, and holding on to him, helping him fuck me against the slick cool/warmth of the tiles.
His body shuddered, hesitated, and he gasped, “Soon, real soon.”
“Heard you,” I whispered, or maybe I shouted above the pounding water, the heat of it, and the cool brush of the tiles as my back rocked up and down on them. I couldn’t tell anymore, it was all I could do to keep my grip at his shoulders and waist.
I realized that I’d put the ardeur away again, that it had just been me and Nicky against the wall. I had to raise the ardeur again, had to call it, and suddenly I was all heat and need, and Nicky cried out, “Oh, God, that feels…” Whatever he was about to say was lost between one thrust and the next, but he went in one long, solid thrust between my legs. His body shuddered against me, inside me, as he pinned me to the wall, and I fed.
I fed on the feel of him inside me, the spill of him inside me. I fed on the strength of his hands on my thigh and hip. I fed on the feel of him in my arms, the feel of my legs around his waist. I fed on his eyes closed, head slightly back, and being able to see his face bare and lost to the moment of release. I fed on all of him, and the power rush poured over my skin in a wave of heat like nothing I’d ever felt before.
He put one hand on the wall, and then we were sliding down to his knees. I thought it was just the exhaustion of amazing sex, and then his head bowed, and he began to slump to the side, and I knew something was wrong.
I was able to uncurl myself from him, but he fell completely limp to the floor. I touched his shoulder, and his skin was cool to the touch. I searched for the big pulse in his neck, and couldn’t find it. I screamed for help, because I had no idea what was wrong with him.
36
CLAUDIA CAME FROM one entrance and Domino came from the other. He ran a hand through his short black-and-white curls and asked, “What happened?”
I was straddling Nicky’s body, pumping on his chest, trying to get his heart to beat. I said, “I don’t know.”
Claudia used her cell phone to call for the doctor on call. She turned off the water as Domino checked Nicky’s neck for a pulse. “Shit,” he said.
“I know,” I said, and I was on the verge of tears. I screamed his name, and rose up above his body, hands wrapped together to make one bigger fist, and pounded down on that big barrel of a chest. “Breathe, damn you, breathe!”
If it had been any of the other people that I was metaphysically connected to, I could have shared energy with him, but he was my Bride, which meant the energy only went one way. I could draw off him, but I couldn’t give him energy automatically. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
I opened my link with Jean-Claude. I got a confused glimpse of him and Asher on the bed. He was stroking Asher’s hair, cuddling after the sex. I opened myself wide, and I asked wordlessly, letting him feel what was happening, so there wasn’t any need to use words. I asked for help, I asked for ideas, I screamed in my mind, “Nicky!”
Jean-Claude rose up in my mind, leaving the bed and Asher lying on his stomach behind him, to sit up, and look at me. “Ma petite…”
“Help him!”
Claudia said, “We’re trying.”
I didn’t waste time telling her that I wasn’t talking to her. Domino was one of my tigers to call; he knew what I was doing, because he could feel it. He knelt by Nicky’s head and put his hands on the other man’s shoulders.
Jean-Claude gave me memories of Belle Morte straddling a man’s body. She damn near glowed with energy, her skin not vampire pale, but almost human-flushed. The vampire under her was paler than death. I knew that Jean-Claude and Asher were seeing her kill one of her Brides.
I knew that they were coming this way, but it didn’t matter. Jean-Claude didn’t have any idea how to help Nicky.
The medics were here. Domino helped lift me off Nicky, and then helped them move him out of the showers and into the locker room. I followed them, but had to stay in the doorway to the showers, because there wasn’t room for more people in the locker room. They laid him on a pad by the bench where we’d made love. The second doctor had the paddles of the defibrillator ready and charged. One of our nurses, who had patched me up before for minor stuff, started putting pads and leads on his chest.
The doc with the paddles called, “Ready!”
Everyone called, “Clear!”
Nicky’s body twitched with the charge. The nurse checked for his pulse. The doctor was already charging the paddles again. The male doctor said, “Again.”
She hit him again with a stronger jolt. I could smell a little whiff of burning flesh.
“Again!”
I huddled in the doorway and prayed, “Please, God, please save him. Don’t let him die, please! Please!”
Nicky gave a huge, gasping breath. His eye opened wide, face frightened, like he’d woken from a nightmare to find it was real. He flailed out at the doctors, knocking one into the wall, but it was as if he had no strength to fight.
I pushed through to him. “Nicky, Nicky, it’s me.”
He saw me, and I watched the comprehension fill his face. His expression got less frantic, and he tried to reach for my hand, but I had to finish the gesture and take his in mine. He couldn’t even wrap his fingers completely around my smaller hand, as if even that were too much. I cradled his big hand in both of mine, and held it against my chest, over my bare breasts.
The doctor was kneeling on the other side of him, listening to his heart with a stethoscope. He seemed to like what he was hearing. “It’s slow, but steady; what happened to him?”
I shook my head, and realized tears were sliding down my cheeks. It was more like I was leaking than crying, as if it would happen totally without me. “I don’t know. We were having sex, and then he just collapsed. His heart stopped and I couldn’t get it started again.”
“How do you feel?” the doctor was asking Nicky, but if he heard the doctor it didn’t show. Nicky just kept looking at me as if I were the only real thing in the room.
“Nicky,” I said, “can you hear me?”
He swallowed as if something hurt, and whispered, “Yes.”
“The doctor asked, how do you feel?”
He frowned and looked around as if just now seeing the other people; again, as if I were the only solid thing in the room to him. He wasn’t well yet; whatever had happened hadn’t been instantly fixed.
“Ask him how he feels,” the doctor said.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
He frowned harder. “Bad, weak.”
I leaned over and kissed his fingers where they were still too limp in my hand. He gave me a small smile.
“What’s the last he remembers?” the doctor asked.
I repeated the question.
“Sex, amazing sex,” and this time his smile was wider and happier, but he still looked confused, as if something hurt, or was still not right.