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offering to try. You are powerful enough to have your own territory now with Narcissus; by staying here you make Jean-Claude stronger, which makes us all safer.”

“And what are you willing to do to make me stay, Richard?” There was derision in his voice again.

Richard pulled him backward with that one hand on his arm. Asher let himself be pulled. Richard settled back against the pillows and drew the other man’s back in against his chest. He had his legs to one side so Asher was against only his chest, but it was more touch than I’d ever seen him do with any other man but Jean-Claude. Richard wrapped those strong arms around the vampire and held him. “I’m a shapeshifter; we like to sleep in big puppy piles.”

Asher stroked his fingers down Richard’s bare arms. Richard settled back deeper against the pillows, cuddling the other man closer to him. Asher bent his head and laid a kiss against that tanned, muscular arm.

“No biting, not yet, remember,” Richard said, but he raised the arm that Asher wasn’t kissing and stroked his hand through the other man’s hair.

I looked at Jean-Claude and he looked at me. I held my arm out toward him. “Pinch me, because this has to be a dream.”

Jean-Claude nodded. “You have read my mind, ma petite.”

Asher rubbed his cheek against Richard’s arm like a cat scent-marking. “Come into the pool, Jean-Claude, it is warm and smells so good.”

“Don’t just look at us—come cuddle,” Richard said.

“Sorry, Richard, I just don’t quite trust the change,” I said.

“You mean you don’t trust me,” he said.

Asher was petting his arm with his hands and small kisses. “Don’t the Americans have a saying, ‘Do not look a gift horse in the mouth’?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Then what are you waiting for, Anita, unless you do not want either of us?” He looked at me over Richard’s arm, giving me the weight of those beautiful eyes. Did I want both of them? Yes, yes I did.

I looked back at Jean-Claude, who was still standing beside the bed watching them. I held a hand out to Jean-Claude. “If you trust it, so will I.”

“Trust,” Jean-Claude whispered.

“When I realized how stupid I’d been toward both of you I thought about sending flowers, but didn’t think there were enough roses in the world to make up for what I’d almost done to all of us.” He rose up, and Asher made a small protesting noise as he took his arm back. Richard took hold of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head in one smooth movement. “I thought you’d like this better than flowers.”

Asher hesitated, looking back at him. Richard drew him in against his chest, as he had before. Asher turned and laid a tentative hand on his bare side. Richard held his hands out, one to me and one toward Jean-Claude.

“I can always call a florist if you’d prefer that.” His words were joking, but his face was so serious. “But I was hoping that this would say, I screwed up and I’m sorry better than anything else.”

Jean-Claude said, “If you mean this, then it will.”

“If you don’t mean it,” I said, “and you bail again on us, then that’s it, Richard. I can’t let you keep cutting us up like this.”

Asher laid his head on the other man’s bare stomach, his arm hugging all that bare flesh. “Oh, for the love of God, stop talking and join us. He won’t get out of his pants for just me.”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. Richard didn’t laugh. He ran his hand through the other man’s hair and grabbed a handful of it, jerking his head back. I had a moment to see Asher’s face. I knew that look, the wide, almost unfocused eyes, the slightly parted lips. I’d seen it on Nathaniel’s face often enough, and caught it on mine in the mirror a time or two. That look said that Asher had gone from dominant to submissive, switched over by the pain, the suddenness, and the strength in Richard’s hand.

Richard used Asher’s hair as a handle to move the other man so they looked at each other. I saw the muscles in his forearm tighten. Asher made a small sound, and though pain caused it, it wasn’t a pain sound. It was a good sound. One I’d heard Jean-Claude drive from Asher more than once, one that Nathaniel and I had gotten from him when we worked as a unit.

“I’m a dominant; I don’t