Cravings by Laurell K. Hamilton, Eileen Wilks, REBECCA YORK, MaryJanice Davidson Read Free Book Online

"Please, Anita, go home, and don't freak. Just go home, and be happy. Be
happy, and let everyone around you be happy. Is that so hard?"
    When Jason said it like that, it didn't seem hard. In fact, it seemed to make
a lot of sense, but inside, it felt hard. Inside it felt like the hardest thing
in the world. To just let go, and not pick everything to death. To just let go
and enjoy what you had. To just let go and not make everybody around you
miserable with your own internal dialogue. To just let go and be happy. So
simple. So difficult. So terrifying. I turned away from him then, and walked
back to the car.
    Â 
    NATHANIEL was leaning against the side of the Jeep watching us walk towards
him. He was leaning with his hands behind him so that his weight trapped his
hands behind him, pinned between his hips and the Jeep. It wasn't just
intercourse that Nathaniel hadn't been getting with me. Nathaniel had other
"needs" that I was, if possible, even less comfortable with. It made him feel
peaceful to be tied up. Peaceful to be abused. Peaceful. I'd asked him why he
enjoyed it once, and he'd told me that it made him feel peaceful. It made him
feel safe.
    How could being tied up make you feel safe? How could letting someone hurt
you, even a little, make you feel good? I didn't get it. I just didn't get it.
Maybe if I'd understood it better, I'd have been less afraid to go that last
mile with him. What if we had intercourse and it wasn't enough? What if he just
kept pushing, pushing me to do things that I found… frightening? He was supposed
to be the submissive, and I was his dominant. Didn't that mean that I was in
charge? Didn't that mean he did what I said? No. I'd had to learn enough to
understand Nathaniel and some of the other wereleopards, because he wasn't the
only one with interesting hobbies. The submissive had a safe word, and once they
said that word, all the play stopped. So in the end, the dominant had an
illusion of power, but really the submissive got to say how far things went, and
when they stopped. I'd thought I could control Nathaniel because he was so
submissive, but it was tonight that I realized the truth. I wasn't in control
anymore. I didn't know what was going to happen with Nathaniel, or me, or Micah.
The thought terrified me, so I thought about it, really thought about it. What
if I found Nathaniel a new place to live? What if I found him a new place to be?
A new life?
    I rolled it over in my mind as we walked across the pavement. I thought about
sending him home with someone else, letting him weep on someone else's shoulder.
But more than that, I thought about getting under the covers with only Micah on
one side, and no one on the other side. Nathaniel had his side of the bed now. I
hadn't realized it until that second, hadn't let myself realize it. The three of
us enjoyed reading to each other. For Micah and me it was a revisiting of
childhood favorites, for the most part, but for Nathaniel most of the books were
new to him. He'd never had anyone read to him before bedtime. Never had anyone
share their books with him. What kind of childhood is it without books, stories
to share? I knew that he'd had an older brother, who died, and a father who
died, and a mother who died. That they'd died, I knew, but not how, or when,
except that he'd been young when it happened. He didn't like talking about it,
and I didn't like seeing the look in his eyes when he did, so I didn't push. I
didn't have a right to push if I wasn't his girlfriend. I didn't have a right to
push if I wasn't his lover. As his Nimir-Ra, he didn't owe me his life story.
    I thought about not having Nathaniel in the bed, not for feeding, but not
having him there to hear the rest of the book we were reading. The thought of
him not being there was painful, a wrenching kind of pain, as if my stomach and
my heart both hurt at the same time.
    He opened the door and held it for me, because this