now, just comfortable.
"I've had sex with Jean-Claude, but never allowed him to take blood with it."
"Never?" he said.
"Never."
He shook his head. "You are the strongest willed person I've ever met. No one else would have refused the double pleasure, not this long."
"You haven't done both with him," I said.
He grinned. "It's considered bad form to fuck your pomme de sang,unless they initiate it. If they initiate it, then it's an extra treat, and only if they've been good."
"You sound like you asked him about this."
"I did."
I raised eyebrows at that.
"Oh, come on, Anita, I've slept with him longer than you have. You'd have to be more of a flaming heterosexual than I am to not wonder."
"He turned you down?"
"Very politely, but yeah."
I was frowning. "Did he say why?"
Jason nodded. "You."
I couldn't frown any harder, so I tried to stop, but I was puzzled. "Why me? You've been his pommelonger than I've been his girlfriend, and a hell of a lot longer than I've been his lover."
"By the time I asked, you were dating. He seemed to think that you would dump his ass if you found out he was doing another man."
"You're making my head hurt," I said.
"Sorry, but if you don't want the truth, don't ask." He settled the pillows more comfortably at his back. "But you've managed to avoid answering my original question."
"What was it?" I asked.
He looked at me. "Don't try to be coy, Anita, you're so bad at it."
"Fine, Asher, what to do about Asher. I made sort of promises to them both that we'd find a way to be a menage a trois, or would that be a menage a quatre."
"Who's your fourth?"
"Micah," I said.
"Darn," he said.
I frowned at him.
"Couldn't help myself, sorry."
"If I go back on that promise we'll lose Asher."
"What do you mean, lose?"
I explained about Asher's plans to leave.
"So if you don't come across, he's gone."
"Yeah."
He frowned, laughed, then shook his head. "Let me think this through. His bite is overwhelmingly orgasmic, mind-blowing pleasure. You think that if you fuck him while he takes blood that it will be even more amazing."
"Yes," I said.
"Why is this a problem?" Jason asked.
I hugged myself. "I'm afraid, Jason."
He sat up beside me. "Afraid of what?"
"Afraid of being . . ." I hesitated, tried to find a the words, and finally, "I'm afraid of being consumed."
He frowned. "Consumed, I know what the word means, but I don't understand what you mean by it."
"Aren't you afraid of wanting one of them so badly that you'd do anything to have him with you?"
"Do you just mean vampires, or people in general?"
I rested my chin on my knees. "Vampires, of course."
"No, you don't mean just vampires, you're afraid of wanting anybodycompletely, aren't you?"
I wouldn't look at him. "I don't know what you mean."
He pushed my hair back behind my ear, but it was too thick to stay. "Don't lie to Uncle Jason, you didn't mean just vampires."
I looked at him, hugging my legs to me. "Maybe not, but the point is the same. I don't want to want anyone so much that if they aren't with me, I die."
A look passed through his eyes that I couldn't read. "You mean you're afraid of loving anyone more than life itself?"
"Yes."
He smiled, and it was gentle, and a little sad. "I would give one of my less favorite body parts for a woman to care for me as deeply as you do for Nathaniel."
I started to protest that I didn't love Nathaniel.
Jason touched a finger to my lips. "Stop. I know you haven't given yourself over heart and soul to Nathaniel, but then you haven't given yourself over heart and soul to anybody, have you?"
I looked away, because watching that patient, grown-up look in his eyes was uncomfortable to say the least. "One of my goals in life is, just once to have a woman look at me the way you watch Jean-Claude. The way you and Jean-Claude watch Asher. The way you watch Nathaniel. The way Nathaniel looks at you."
"You left Micah off the list."
"You and he have this comfort level that you don't have with any of the others, but it's almost as if the comfort comes at the expense of something else."
"What?" I asked.
"I don't know, I've never been in love, how should I know."
"So, what, I'm not in love with Micah?"
"That is not my question to answer."
"I cannot be in love with four men at once."
"Why not?"
I looked at him.
"It's not a rule," he said.
"It would be