man, grabbing wrist to wrist. To me he said, “What made you react like that?” But he glanced behind as he asked it, and he turned back to me with an “Oh.”
I glanced back too and found Richard kissing his way up her thighs while Jean-Claude peeled the party dress over her head to show that there was no bra to match the thong. She was just suddenly naked except for the silver spike heels. Jean-Claude grabbed a handful of her curls and laid his lips against the side of her neck. He’d wait for Richard to bring her, and then at that critical moment he’d bite her and because she wasn’t tied to him as I was, it would be like a double orgasm. The only vampire in St. Louis who could roll me like that was Asher.
The thought made me search the room for him. He had moved back to the far corner, as far away from us as he could get and not step off the carpet. His hair spilled around his face, leaving it half in shadow, the other half in stark light, so that his beauty was the beauty in the painting above the fireplace. The illusion that all the sadness to come hadn’t happened. He leaned against the wall, his hands behind him as if he didn’t trust what he might do with them. Nathaniel liked to watch, but Asher only enjoyed it if he knew he could play later.
Micah saw where I was looking. “He looks lost again,” he said.
Mephistopheles’ hand convulsed on my belt so hard it almost pulled me over on him. Our faces were close and it just seemed natural to bend over and kiss. His lips were soft and warm, and he tasted of honey. Had that changed? He hadn’t tasted this good a few minutes ago, had he?
He let go of Micah’s arm and his hands went to my belt buckle. He started sliding the leather through the metal, his face uncertain, his eyes looking up at me, waiting for me to say no.
There were sounds from behind us that let me know without looking that Richard was making progress with Envy. I wanted to be doing something of our own before he hit that golden moment. He was new, and I wasn’t good with new unless I raised the ardeur, but I was good with familiar.
I leaned over Mephistopheles and whispered against his lips, “I promise you sex. I promise you intercourse, but I don’t know your body yet. I want to do what they’re doing for foreplay.”
His eyes flicked behind me and he frowned. “We’re short a vampire,” he said.
“Not for long,” I said, and I called to Asher. There were more ways to gain power and solidarity than metaphysics and magic. Love mattered, in the end. A house without love would always fall, maybe not today or tomorrow, but in the end without love nothing could endure.
Asher pushed away from the wall with a smile on his face that lit my heart and made me smile back. Jean-Claude breathed through my mind, “Thank you, ma petite.” I had a moment of feeling his hands on the other woman. Her body began to buck in small precursors to the orgasm from Richard’s mouth between her legs. Was I jealous? Maybe a little, but I watched Asher walk toward us and the new tiger didn’t protest it; I pushed the jealousy away. It wasn’t who we were. There was enough love, enough sex, enough for everyone. When there’s enough, you don’t have to be jealous of anyone.
41
I REALIZED THAT without the ardeur I didn’t want to have sex in the bare living room with the only main door from the upper areas forcing people to walk right by us. I’d gotten better at being nude in front of people, but it didn’t do anything for me. I was just never going to be the exhibitionist that some of my boyfriends were, but since Micah wasn’t an exhibitionist, and Asher had issues because of his scars, going to the bedroom worked for all of us. Mephistopheles was fine once I took him by the hand and made it clear we weren’t stopping, just finding privacy.
It was too late for Jean-Claude and Richard even if they’d wanted privacy. Envy’s face and body language as they held her between them said she was too far gone to stop. If I’d been the woman in the middle and they’d tried to