I used his body as my pillow, and just as my mouth fit to those kissable dimples, so my head fit neatly in the curve of his body, as if I were meant to rest there. Nathaniel's breath went out in a long sigh, and his body seemed to settle into the bed, as if some tension that I hadn't even seen had run out of him and left him able to rest.

I trailed my hand across the curve of his ass, and he made a small sound for me. I trailed my fingers lower, tracing the line of his thigh. It wasn't that his legs were off-limits in the way that other areas had been, but I realized that I'd divided his body along a line at his waist, like some boundary in a war. Above the line was us, below the line was forbidden. His thigh was lush and smooth-skinned, and firm with muscle.

I brought my hand back up his leg and allowed my fingers to trace circles on his derriere. Those small movements drew small, quick, sounds from him, almost sounds of protest.

I asked, and my voice was as lazy and soft as my touch, "You're almost making pain noises, does it hurt?"

"No," he said, and his voice showed a strain that his body didn't even hint at. "It's just that I've wanted you to touch me for so long. It feels... amazing to have your head resting on me, your hands on me. God, it feels so good."

I let my hand trace, very delicately, along the crack of his ass, so that if there had been any little hairs I could have played with them, but he was smooth, utterly smooth. It made me wonder if other things were as smooth.

I brushed my fingers down the line of his ass again, tracing the separation between the cheeks, until I found that first line of warm flesh that was neither ass nor more, but a line of soft, silken skin.

I put a finger on either side of that skin, the softest of pinches, and slid my fingers up and down. Nathaniel writhed under the touch. His hands struggling against the sheets as if he wasn't sure what to do with them.

I raised my head from his back and kissed my way up his cheeks until I could lay my head one side of him, like a pillow. I caressed my hand down his thigh again, and this time I made circles behind his knees, and kept going, until my fingertips could play with his ankles.

He laughed and struggled against the bed again, like he had when I touched much more traditionally intimate places. There are so many more erotic areas on the body than the small list that most people make. I raised up from the pillow of his body, so that I could pay more attention to his ankles, drawing my nails lightly across that apparently sensitive skin. He writhed for me, his upper body coming off the bed, and his breath shaking out in something between a sigh and a laugh. I sat up so I could run my fingers across the bottoms of his feet, and he sighed, "Oh, God." I touched the front of his feet, very lightly, and he kicked his feet, as if it were almost too much. Not everyone's feet are that sensitive for foreplay, but when someone's feet are, they really are.

I gazed up the line of his body, while he lay gasping against the sheets. I'd barely started. So many choices, I bent over his ankles and licked along the round bone, tracing the skin with my tongue, in thick, wet, circles.

He made protesting noises and started to kick his feet, but I grabbed his foot with both my hands and held him against my mouth. He made a sound that was almost a scream and gazed down at me, along the length of his body. There was something in his eyes that was wild, and tender, and amazed.

I bit down on that shallow flesh, not hard, just a graze of teeth, but it rolled his eyes into his head and folded his shoulders onto the bed, as if he'd swooned.

I moved back up the bed, so that I could lay my head, not on one cheek, but across that part of his body, so that it was indeed my pillow. The feel of his cheeks spreading under the side of my face made me close my eyes, and have to relearn how to breathe for a moment. I spilled my hand down the line of his body, until I found that silken skin again. But this time I used it like a line to trace to something else. I found what I wanted, and the skin was so soft, softer than anything else I'd touched on his body. His testicles were trapped underneath his body, thick, and round, and delicate. Only part of them were trapped where I could touch them, and the combination of his body weight and the excitement had made them swell, so that the skin wasn't as loose as it would have been otherwise. I'd wanted to play with all that fragile loose skin, but it was already pressed tight around him. To pull on it now might be more pain than pleasure. No matter what Nathaniel liked in that area, I wasn't ready for it.

I slipped my body over his legs and pushed them farther apart, so that I lay between them. I laid my mouth against the inside of his thigh, but stopped before I could decide whether I was going to kiss him, lick him, or bite him. I stopped because I could see Jason over the slope of Nathaniel's thigh.

Truth was, I'd forgotten he was there. Was that a bad thing to say, or a good thing? Did it mean I was getting more comfortable with myself, or that I was falling into the pit of whoredom? Whatever, but I was suddenly frozen, gazing over Nathaniel's body into those pale, blue eyes. It was what I saw in them, that made me freeze. Lust would have been embarrassing, but logical. But that wasn't what I saw. Jason watched us with something in his face that was close to sorrow, and his eyes held a longing, a sense of loss. I didn't know what to do with that look, so I stopped, and raised my face up from Nathaniel's body.

Jason realized I saw him, and he ducked his head. When he looked back, he had his face under control. He almost pulled the joke off, when he said, "Don't stop on my account. I'm enjoying the show." His voice was fine, but his eyes, the lightness never quite reached his eyes.

"Liar," I said.

He gave me an unhappy smile. "I thought you were too busy to notice me. I should know that without the ardeur you pay better attention."

"What's wrong?" Nathaniel asked.

"I'm not sure," I said.

"Don't worry," Jason said, "I'm not pining for you, Anita, or Nathaniel for that matter. But I am pining for someone to take that much time and attention with me."

I frowned at him.

"You can have sex, and it can be good, but I'd give almost anything to have someone touch me the way you touch Nathaniel. We'll probably have sex later, and it will be great, but you won't look at me like that."

I sighed. "I think I remember us having this conversation before. You want to be consumed by love, and my goal in life is never to be consumed at all."

"Ironic, isn't it," he said, "I want just once for someone to look at me the way you look at Nathaniel, and you've been scared to death of it. You keep saying that the ardeur is a curse, but if the ardeur had never come along, you wouldn't have Nathaniel, or Micah. I'm not even a hundred percent sure you'd be double dating with Asher and Jean-Claude."

I laid my arms across Nathaniel's cheeks and rested my face on my arms and looked at Jason. I looked at him and tried to hear what he was saying. "Maybe, about Asher, I mean. Once you've crossed enough lines, one more doesn't seem that big a deal."

"Exactly," Jason said.

"So the ardeur is what, a blessing?"

"Look at what you're propped up on, and tell me it isn't? I heard you earlier, Anita. If the ardeur hadn't come to you, you'd still be stuck where you had been. You'd still be fighting what you want, and what you think you're supposed to want."