Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,126

I could feel him pressed between us, his body growing eager with the kiss. It was wonderful and romantic until I needed to breathe and my vampire lover didn’t; then it was like drowning as I tried to hold my breath and kiss him past the point where my body wanted air. I finally had to turn my head to the side and take a breath with the water streaming all around us. My body wanted a gasping, big breath, but I knew it had to be a shallow, careful breath, or I’d swallow water, and there was nothing romantic about choking in the shower, even naked.

Jean-Claude stood there with his face shrouded by the silvering fall of water, like a shining, moving veil. He knew to lower his head enough so the water didn’t actually run into his eyes, so he could keep them open and let me see his blue, blue eyes framed by the wet black lace of his eyelashes, and the silvered water, so that it was like looking at dark blue pools through silver mist, while being held by the strength of his body. It was a one-two punch of romance and sex.

He lowered his face, and I raised mine so we could kiss again under the pounding, hot water. When I had to turn away to breathe a second time, he moved us out from under the water to the corner near the faucet, so that only the back of his body was still in the water. He set me on my feet in the corner, my back against the strangely cool tiles, and then he knelt in front of me.

The water had soaked into his hair so that the curl was gone, and all that long, black hair spilled more than halfway down his back, perilously close to his waist. My hair had grown heavy and straight with the water just like his so that it fell to my waist, instead of curling to midback. His hair clung in dark strands to his face; it made his eyes look even bluer than normal, like the sky at sunset when the blue gives one last flash of blue, before the sky drowns in orange and red, and darkness falls. Water beaded on his face, clung to the kissable curves of his mouth, as he leaned in toward my body.

I put a hand on his face and stopped him. My voice was shaky as I half-laughed and said, ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we don’t have time for that much foreplay. I’ve got to question some vampire suspects before dawn.’

‘You will not be able to question them tonight,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘Fredrico, their Master of the City, contacted me. He regrets, but when he learned that they had been bespelled, he interceded on their behalf and they have, what is the term, lawyered up. If their testimony is valuable it could save them.’

‘Every hour that we waste gives the vampire that’s doing this a chance to escape, and spread this sickness to more people.’

He put his hands on either side of my hips. ‘That is true, ma petite, but dawn will come and trap him as it traps us all. No vampire will be harming anyone once the sun rises.’

‘Damn it,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘You helped make the law that gives the vampires rights to lawyers.’

I gave a small smile. ‘I guess I didn’t think it would be used against me.’

‘We often do not foresee the outcome of our actions, ma petite. We strive to do good things, but often there is a bit of bad in with it all.’

I could only nod.

‘But there is good with the news; it means we have time for me to lick the water off your body, until we can drown the sorrow from your eyes.’

‘There’s no sorrow in my eyes. I need to get to work.’

He looked at me, just looked at me. It wasn’t vampire powers or his beauty that made me look away. It was the knowledge in his eyes. He knew me too well for me to lie to him, and if I couldn’t lie to him, I couldn’t lie to myself. Damn it, that’s what happens when you let people get too close. You can’t hide anymore, not even from yourself.

‘I’m trying to concentrate on work,’ and even to me it sounded lame and like wishful thinking.

‘Work can be a balm for such things,’ he said, softly.

I made myself look at him, as