57
When I stepped out of the shower, my black robe was hanging on the back of the door. How had I not seen that, or heard it? If Jean-Claude could do that while I was in the shower, and me have no hint, then I was shielding too tight. In shielding this hard, I was losing some of my awareness of my surroundings. Not good.
I dried off, wrapped a towel around my hair, and put the robe on. I'd have given a great deal for clean underwear, but hell, if I tied the sash tight and the little string tighter, the robe didn't gap. I checked that nothing showed in the mirror but a little upper chest, very proper. I'd washed away all the makeup. I looked pale and clean, and, with my hair up in a pale blue towel, I looked sort of too pale, almost sickly. I started to take the towel down, because I knew I looked good in the robe with my hair down, wet, or not. But I resisted the urge. First, my hair was too wet, and silk doesn't like being wet. Second, I had only one boyfriend in the other room, not two. I wasn't trying to look my best, just help Richard not have a fit about letting Jean-Claude touch him.
I looked at my face, my eyes so dark, and wondered if I could admit, even to myself, that I still cared that Richard thought I was attractive. Yeah, to myself, I could say it, but I left the towel on.
They were arguing about candles when I came out. Jean-Claude had had some brought in for the bedside tables, and Richard was saying, "We don't need candles, Jean-Claude. You're just feeding. That's it."
"I vote with Richard. We don't need candles."
"The two of you are not romantics."
"This isn't about romance, it's about food," I said.
Richard motioned to me. "See, Anita agrees with me."
"Of course, she does, mon ami." Jean-Claude didn't sound too put out, he still had that cat-who-ate-the-cream sound to his voice.
The mattress and box springs sat on the floor, covered in new, bloodred sheets. Even the pillowcases had been changed, so that the bed shimmered scarlet in the subdued light. The bed frame being gone probably explained why Richard had removed his jean jacket and was just in an olive green T-shirt.
"I had not realized how dark Jason's room is," Jean-Claude was saying. "I have no extra places to put lamps, but we could have more light with candles. I would prefer a romantic reason, but in truth, it is simple practicality. I would like more light."
"You're a vampire," Richard said, "you see in the dark better than I do."
"True, but if you were allowed to touch someone who rarely allows you to touch them in any intimate fashion, would you not wish light to see what you are doing?" He gave Richard a look, then his eyes slid past him to me. It was a quick look, but Richard followed it, and suddenly he didn't seem to know what to do with his face, so he turned it back toward the other man.
"Have I missed something here?" I asked, "or am I about to miss something?"
"You miss very little, ma petite."
"Candles are fine," Richard said, still not looking at me.
I was shaking my head, but I felt a small touch against my skin. I knew that touch. I dropped the tiniest edge of my shields. Jean-Claude's voice blew through me like a caressing wind. "Does it mean nothing to you, ma petite, that the mere sight of you in your robe has changed Richard's mind?"
I shook my head and tried to answer back as silently as he did. I still wasn't great at it. What I tried to think back was, "Me in this robe with this towel, is not worth him changing his mind."
"You still do not value yourself, as we value you, ma petite."
There was that "we" again. I started to open my mouth, to add something out loud, when a warm rush of energy danced through my body. It stopped me in midstep. "Talking in someone's head, when the other person isn't allowed into the conversation is rude," Richard said. "It's like whispering and pointing."
I couldn't argue it, but wanted to. "Trust me, Richard, it's not worth repeating."
"I'd like a chance to be the judge of that," he said.
I sighed, for what felt like the thousandth time today. What had I been thinking? I should have told Jean-Claude that we didn't need the bed, that Richard could kneel down and he could just feed. Voil¨¤, and we'd be done with it.
Richard took off his T-shirt. "It's too pale, if you get blood on it, it looks like blood." He explained it out loud, and it made sense, but I was glad he wasn't looking at me when he pulled the shirt off, because seeing him shirtless had its usual effect. I'd said before that the day I could walk into a room and not have my body react to Richard, I knew it was over between us. But hormones are traitorous little bastards. They don't care how broken your heart is, only that there's an attractive man in the room. Shit.
Jean-Claude was moving from candle to candle with one of those long battery-operated lighters. I could never get them to light. He moved effortlessly, from candle to candle, the other hand holding the draping sleeve of his robe back out of reach of the flame.
Richard sat down on the corner of the bed. His blue jeans and the solid line of his black belt looked fine against the red sheets. His tanned upper body looked better, and as if he'd heard me think it, he lay back against the sheets, not flat, but propped on his elbows, so that the shimmering scarlet framed his muscular upper body. There were tiny folds in his stomach, like there are on real people, unless they have washboard abs, and Richard had better things to do with his time than do that many sit-ups. His stomach was flat and perfect, but perfect doesn't mean perfectly flat. Lines are flat, people had curves and bumps and places to explore.
Richard turned his head and looked at me. His face wasn't neutral anymore. His dark eyes held heat, and it wasn't his beast, or at least not just that. It was a look I'd seen before, a look that said he knew exactly the effect he had on me, and enjoyed it. Of late, that look had been to tell me, I know you think I'm gorgeous, and you don't get to touch this anymore. Now, I wasn't sure what the look meant, but I didn't like it.
Jean-Claude moved to the other side of the bed, his tall, black-robed figure breaking Richard's and my stare. When Jean-Claude cleared the way, though, Richard had pulled himself farther onto the bed, so that his legs were no longer touching the floor. So that all six feet one of him was on the bed, framed by sheets the color of fresh blood, and the flickering light of candles.
My mouth was dry. Not good. "I've changed my mind," I said. "You guys don't need me, not really." My voice sounded breathy.
Jean-Claude turned from lighting the last candle. He smoothed the sleeves of his robe down around his long-fingered hands, and stood looking at me. His eyes glittered like dark sapphires, catching the flickering light in a way that human eyes just didn't. "Ah, but we do, ma petite. We most certainly do. You are the bridge between us. You are the third of our power. Does that sound like someone we do not really need?"
"I don't mean like forever, just not now, not here. I mean, you can feed without me here. You can..." I was having trouble concentrating.
Richard rolled over onto his stomach, and he did a little head movement that showed me that his hair had grown out just enough to fall a little forward around his face. Not long, but thicker than I'd thought. The candlelight didn't dance on his jeans, but Richard's body in tight jeans didn't need anything else, it was sort of self-explanatory.
"I'm going now. I'm leaving now. Yep, that's what I'm doing." I was babbling, and I couldn't stop it. But I did start for the door, so many points for me that I can't count that high.
Jean-Claude called, "Ma petite, do not go, please."
I turned back, and I don't know what I would have said, because he'd sat down on the bed, but he'd done something to the top of his robe, so that it gapped, and I could see almost his entire chest framed by the black fur of the lapels. The burn scar looked very black against the white of his skin and the shimmering black of the fur. His nipples were palest pink, and from that alone, I'd have known he hadn't fed. His hand touched his chest, as if he knew where I was looking. The hand moved down, and so did my gaze, so that I looked at the flat line of his stomach, the line of dark hair that started just below his navel, and swept down to vanish into the shadow of the robe. I had an almost irresistible urge to go over there and rip open the sash and see his body pale and perfect against the dark of the robe and the crimson sheets. I knew just how he'd look against it all, because I'd seen it before. That thought moved my gaze to Richard, because I'd never seen him against red silk. I'd never seen him by candlelight.
He rolled onto his side as I watched, propped up on one elbow, one arm slung low across his hips, as if to bring my attention to his jeans and what I knew was in them. But no, Richard wasn't that aware of his body, at least not for seduction. It was something Jean-Claude would have done, not Richard. Then I had one of those horrible thoughts. What if one of the things that Richard had gained with the tighter binding of the marks was some of Jean-Claude's skill at seduction. Oh, that just wouldn't be fair.
I closed my eyes and started for the door again. It was better if I couldn't see either of them. Jean-Claude called, "Ma petite, you are going to hit the wall."
I stopped abruptly and opened my eyes, and was inches away from the wall. The door was about two feet to my left. Great, just great.
"Ma petite, do not leave us." His voice crawled through the tiny hole I'd made in my shields for him. It crawled inside and played along my skin, made me shiver, and God help me, I turned back and looked. Stupid me.
Jean-Claude had crawled up on the bed, near the pillows. He was lying full length across the red silk, with the robe gaping open, barely covering anything. His white, white shoulder was framed at the top with scarlet silk. His long legs spilled half in the black robe and half on the scarlet of the sheets. Only the barest fringe of fur covered his hips.
Richard was still on his side. They were lying in almost identical positions, except that Richard's head was pointing away from the door, and Jean-Claude was angled toward it.
"This isn't fair," I said. "Not both of you, not at the same time."
"Whatever do you mean, ma petite?" But he looked entirely too pleased with himself to really need to ask.
"You bastard, you knew."
"I knew nothing, but one lives in hope."
I was having trouble breathing, or rather breathing nice even breaths. I was shaking my head, and the towel started coming unwound. I caught it, and stood there with it in my hands. The cloth was wet and cold. I was shivering, but it was only partly from the wet hair sliding down my neck.
"Richard, you are getting your shoes on the silk sheets. Has no one taught you that you do not wear hiking boots on silk?" He didn't even try to make it sound real, it was teasing, but it wasn't Richard he was teasing.
Richard just sat up, bunching his stomach muscles nicely, and put one foot on his jeans and began to unlace the short boots. He didn't look at me while he did it, but he knew I was watching.
I needed to leave now. I really did. I knew that, but somehow I was still standing there when Richard threw his first boot onto the floor. The sound made me jump.
He watched me while he took off the other boot, or watched me, watch him. I felt like one of those little birds that they say are fascinated with the snake's movements. So pretty, so sinuous, so dangerous. He was just taking off his shoes, damn it. It shouldn't have meant this much to me, hell, to anyone.
When both boots had been thrown to the floor, he took off his thick socks without any prompting from anyone. He lay back on the bed on his stomach with his feet naked against the sheets. He watched me over his shoulder with that wave of hair barely curling around his eye. The look managed to be both coy and knowledgeable. Like a fallen angel, innocence and the promise of sin, all in one look. It was a very good look.
It was not a look I'd ever thought to see on Richard's face. It didn't seem very much like him. "How much of this is you, Richard, and how much of it is him?"
He lay flat on the silk and rolled over onto his back in a movement that was doglike and catlike at the same time. Or maybe I'm just prejudiced that dogs don't move with that same liquid grace when they writhe on their backs. He stretched his arms over his head, stretched his whole, long body out from toes to fingertips, stretched until his body shook with the effort, then he relaxed against the bed. He laid his hands across his stomach and smiled at me with that same mix of innocent sin.
"I'm not sure," he said in a voice that was thicker than it should have been this early in.
"Doesn't that scare you?" I asked, and my voice was breathy for a different reason now.
Richard frowned, just a little between those dark, dark brown eyes. Then he shook his head. "I'm not scared, in fact I feel calmer than I've felt in days."
I looked past him to Jean-Claude, who had laid back against the mound of pillows so that the crimson of the sheets framed his black curls perfectly.
"Oh, stop being so damned picturesque. You're messing with his mind."
"Not really."
"What does 'not really' mean?"
"I mean that I did not mean to do it. I am still adapting to this new power level, too, ma petite. I was worried for you earlier today. I was afraid what would happen with Nathaniel and Damian. I thought, I wish she was not so afraid of Nathaniel and what he wants from her. I swear to you that is all I thought, nothing more, but today I find that you have crossed several lines with him that you swore never to cross."
"Are you saying you made me do it?"
"Non, ma petite. I am saying I wished you to be less afraid of what you wanted, and you were. I did not realize that it could possibly have had an effect upon you, until just moments ago, when I simply thought, I wish Richard was not so afraid of what he wants, and now he is not."
"Did you hear all that, Richard? He's using vamp powers on you."
Richard gave me a lazy smile. "I feel calmer, less afraid, less conflicted. I hadn't realized how bad I was still feeling until now."
"Fine, I'm afraid enough for both of us, if you really did mess with me earlier today, then why am I about to walk out of this room?"
"I thought merely that I wished you would be less afraid of what you wanted from Nathaniel, and what Nathaniel wanted from you. I was not so specific with our Richard."
"You wondered if it worked the first time, so you tried it again, and voil¨¤, you have your empirical evidence, because it worked twice."
"Perhaps, or perhaps it is merely coincidence. It will take us weeks, or months, to decipher what is true power and what is simply all of us coming to terms with ourselves."
I didn't like the sound of that, at all. "I can't do this."
"Why ever not?" Jean-Claude asked.
"Because, once I would have given nearly anything to have you both like this. I need to know what this means."