licking-biting-licking

We have a new kitty and he (Azrael) and our resident cat Diablo seem to be getting on okay. They take naps together sometimes and play together and Diablo lets Azrael chew on his tail most of the time... however, I'm concerned about a behavior I'm seeing when Diablo starts to lick the kitten. He'll really get into it, too, which Azrael seems to love, but I've noticed he'll stop licking and take a bite (which I don't believe is hard at all) then he'll continue licking. At the end, Azrael looks drugged out, and I've checked him over and have never found any puncture wounds... and up until today he seemed to tolerate it. An hour ago I was watching the whole process again except it seemed more intense. Diablo had him pinned and was washing up Diablos rear end at one point, and then Diablo's ears were back as were the kittens and they seemed like they were wrestling pretty good with the biting thing. I heard a noise out of Azrael, so I tapped Diablo on the head and he let him go immediately. This behavior really confounds me because other than this licking/biting thing they seem to get on very well together... and Azrael keeps going back for more! I'm going to try to attach a couple of pictures that I took this afternoon... they might be too big... I'll try to resize and attach. Thanks for your comments.

Instead of tapping him on the head (a really bad thing because your tap may be more severe than even you realize) Blow in the face of Diablo one puff, that will startle him out of the behavior, then take him and lay him gently belly up on the ground while you kneel there, scruff him and hold him 3 seconds only tell him NO once firmly and release. A couple of times of this action and he will not be so aggressive in his grooming pattern.

My cats lick and bite too (not hard). I believe its part of their play session

I've observed the same type of behavior. Just make sure your new kitty gets neutered when he's old enough. Better to avoid the type of aggression that can hit with hormones.

Mine do that all the time (with 6 kittens in the house right now it happens quite often). I think part of it is testing their dominance with each other. If a bigger one gets to rough with a younger one (to the point of an uncomfortable meowl), the bigger one gets pulled off and given a time out (as Hissy explained earlier). Little Oscar is the only one that cannot really handle the bigger cats right now.

LOL, my two does this as well, however it's the opposite. The kitty, lulu, will groom the older cat beany, and all of a sudden go for the juggular. When i observe them, I tend to worry that they're being too rough, so i make a loud noise and they run opposite ways. 1 minute later they're back at it. I'm assumming this is how they play. Beany already got his cornea scratched once so i'm a little bit hesitant to let them go at it. So far so good, but they have their times whne they simply rip the house apart attempting to chase eachother!

Olive your cats sound just like mine