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that and not live up to the promise of it.
He stayed on all fours, pushing his face against my stomach and then sniffing and rubbing just his lips ever so lightly against my skin. He kissed my breasts as he moved up my body, but it was a light kiss, until he was kneeling in front of me. Then he looked down at me and there was that heat that all men seem to have in their eyes somewhere. He leaned down and I raised my face to him. He kissed me and this time it wasn’t gentle. He kissed like Micah had kissed me, all lips and tongue and teeth. His big hands went behind my back not to hug, but to knead against my skin like a cat would. He broke from the kiss with a gasp as if he hadn’t gotten enough air. I was a little breathless myself.
“You’ve got a scar on your back. Can I see it?”
I just turned so he could. “What caused that?” he asked, and his fingertips were already touching it, tracing it delicately.
“A broken wooden stake,” I said.
“You fell on it?”
“No, a human under a vampire’s control tried to stake me.”
“I’ve got one, too, and mine’s bigger.”
“What?” I asked.
He turned around so I could see his back, and he did have a scar and it was longer, though mine was wider. Men, they’re always more impressed with length than width. Because he seemed to expect it, I traced it with my fingertips. It was a thin curve of white scar tissue from the right side to the spine.
“How’d you get cut?” I asked.
He turned around. “My cousin Thorn did it in a practice match.”
“You use real silver blades for practice matches?” I asked.
“If you don’t use silver, then you don’t know how you react to being hurt. Pain is all theory until you get hurt. You have to know how you’ll react.”
I studied his expression trying to read something behind that handsome, eager face.
Micah said, “Thorn is one of the weretigers we didn’t bring down for you to meet.”
I looked at him. “What was wrong with cousin Thorn?”
“He has a temper, and he tried treating me like I was small.”
“Oh, so not winning points with me.”
“I told Jake that Thorn could only stay if he didn’t cause problems. If he caused trouble then he’s not our problem, and he has to go,” Micah said.
Mephistopheles touched the mound of scar tissue on my left arm. “Did a wereanimal do this?”
“Vampire, same as the collarbone scar.”
He traced it with his fingertips. He touched my shoulder and the shiny flat scar there. “Gunshot,” I said.
“Silver?”
“It was before I was Jean-Claude’s human servant, so no.”
He traced the cross-shaped burn scar with the claw marks that made it slightly off-center now. “And this?”
“A vampire’s Renfield thought it would be funny to brand me.”
He traced the claw marks with his fingertips. “That’s a shapeshifter.”
“Shapeshifted witch, not a lycanthrope.”
“You mean like a magic belt made out of one of our skins?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What happened to the witch?”
“Dead,” I said.
“Are they all dead, everyone that hurt you?”
“Yes,” I said.
He looked at Asher. “Jake told us what the Church did to you. Can I see?”
Asher went very still, that still that they can do after a few hundred years, but he moved his hair to one side, showing the scars on his face to the light.
Mephistopheles knee-walked to him and, without asking, touched Asher’s face, traced the scars with his fingertips as he had mine. I knew how delicate the touch was, butterfly light. Asher showed nothing while the other man traced the scars.
“My cousin Martino is going to be so jealous.”
Asher looked at me. I said, “Jealous about what?”
“Martino thinks he’s the most beautiful man ever, but he isn’t even close to Asher. Or to Jean-Claude, for that matter, but you are the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”
Asher pulled away from him, letting his hair fall back beside his face. “You’ve just finished touching the scars; you know that’s not true.”
“The scars barely cover any of your face, just this little part.” He reached out to touch the scars again. Asher turned his head so Mephistopheles couldn’t touch them. But he was a persistent boy, and his thumb slid across Asher’s lower lip.
Asher jerked back. “Why did you do that?”
“Because I wanted to,” he said, as if that made perfect sense, and I guess it did.
“I am not beautiful,” Asher said, and he started unbuttoning his shirt. He