could feel every pulse, every drop to the tingling tips of my fingers and toes. I had never been so aware of how very much blood was coursing through my veins as in that one heart-stopping moment.
I put my hand over Nathaniel's where it still gripped my shoulder. His skin was so warm, almost hot. I turned towards him. I looked into those lavender eyes, and just the intensity of my gaze, drew him closer, close enough to rest his cheek against my seat. I had enough left of me inside my head to think, dimly, he must have undone his seat belt, but there wasn't enough left of me to care for his safety. All I could think was that it brought him closer to me, and I wanted him closer.
"Anita," Jason's voice, "Anita, what the hell is happening? My skin is crawling with whatever it is, it feels like the ardeur.But it's not."
I never took my gaze from Nathaniel's face. Jason's voice was like a buzzing insect, noise, something I heard, but didn't really listen to.
I lifted Nathaniel's hand from my shoulder and pulled it gently against my lips. His hand cupped the lower part of my face, my breath was warm against him, and the heat of it brought the scent of him to me. His hands smelled not only of warmth, and blood, but of everything he'd touched that day. Faint traces that soap could not erase completely. His hands smelled of life, and I wanted it.
"Anita, talk to me," Jason said.
"What's happening?" Caleb asked, "why is it hard to breathe in the car?"
"Power," Jason said, "I don't know what kind yet."
I pulled Nathaniel's hand past my face, until my lips glided over his wrist, and there, there, just under the skin was a new warmth.
I flicked my tongue across the skin of his wrist, and he shuddered.
"Anita!" Jason said.
I could hear him, but it was utterly unimportant. The only thing that was important was the warmth of skin, and that faint pulse just below. I opened my mouth wide, lips pulled back to taste that pulse.
The Jeep swerved violently, throwing Nathaniel backwards and to one side, tearing his hand from me. He landed in Caleb's lap.
I looked at Jason then, really looked at him. In the back of my mind I knew it was Jason, but in the front of my mind, all I could really see was the pulse in the side of his neck. It beat against his skin like a trapped thing. I knew I could free it, make it rush red and hot into my mouth.
I unbuckled my seat belt. That froze me for a second, because I was fanatic about seat belt safety. My mother would be alive today if she'd used hers. I never rode in a moving car without one. Never. So deep rooted was that fear, it pushed Belle back, pushed back the blood lust she'd raised in me.
I found my voice, hoarse and strange, but mine, "I thought it was the ardeurshe raised, but it's not."
"Blood lust," Jason said.
I nodded, my hands still frozen on the unbuckled seat belt.
"Blood lust feels like the ardeur,but not. Sometimes you don't know which lust it is until you find out if he's going for your neck, or your groin."
I blinked at Jason. "What did you just say?" I never heard the answer, if there was one, Belle roared back through me, and I was suddenly more concerned with the beating of his pulse in his neck, than the fact that his mouth was moving. I heard no sound except that overwhelming thunder of my own blood, my own heart, my own throbbing, pulsing body.
I was sliding over the front seat towards him, and hadn't remembered moving, or wanting to. He hit the wheel again, sending me back across the car against the far door. The moment my back hit the door I could hear the angry honking of horns, as the Jeep slid through traffic, sideways. Then it evened out, going straight again. Jason was giving me wide eyes.
"I can't drive with you feeding on me."
My voice was thick, "I don't think I care." I sat up, my hands on the seat to keep him from throwing me against the door again.
"Nathaniel, Caleb, keep her away from me until I can find a safe place to pull over."
I was awkwardly straddling the gearshift when Nathaniel put his arm in front of my face. He didn't try and touch me,