"She is safe from his advances." He seemed to think about that for a second or two. "But what of Angelito?"
"Isn't he a couple with Musette? Aren't they doing each other?"
"When they wish to, yes."
I frowned at him. "Not a hot pair?"
"Musette's true love is not sex, which is why she and Valentina have been so close for so long."
"Not our problem. If everyone has access to someone they can f**k, or we have no suitable partners for them outside of rape, then everyone's covered. Or have I missed something?"
He thought about it quietly for a few minutes. "Non, ma petite.Your machinations are worthy of Belle herself, if her intention were to keep her people safe." Then he looked at me. "Except for one problem. Musette has had sex with Asher in the past, so you cannot make a charge of rape."
"Having sex in the past doesn't mean it can't be rape in the present," I said.
He waved that away with his hand. "I know that you believe that, ma petite,I will not even disagree, but Musette will not be dissuaded by the argument. Asher likes both men and women, he has had sex with her and enjoyed it in the past. You have made sure she cannot physically harm him, so it would be merely sex, merely f**king. He would not be harmed by that."
I raised eyebrows at him. "You believe that, that there'd be no harm to it?"
"Non, nor does Musette in truth. Musette knows, Belle knows, that to have sex with Musette again after all these years will be painful for Asher. It will harm him, but not in a way that Belle will let us negotiate around. To Belle Morte, if a man has an orgasm, then he must have enjoyed himself. It is her reasoning."
"She really doesn't understand that there's a difference between lust and love, does she?"
"Non, ma petite, tres non."
"Why is it always Asher that we can't protect? Asher that we can't save?"
He shook his head. "I have asked that for a very, very long time, ma petite.I have yet to find an answer."
I laid my cheek against his knee. "This is the longest I've ever been able to go between feedings." I glanced a my watch. "It's almost two."
"Dawn will come in three, almost four hours. I must rescind the control I have lent you for the ardeurbefore then. You must feed it."
"It's not only your control is it?"
"No, it is fear and exhaustion, and thinking too hard, and your own growing abilities. In a few more months you will be down to one feeding a day, or a night. You will be able to store up the feedings and go longer."
"My head is practically in your lap, and I don't feel the least stirrings."
He stroked my hair, and it was a comforting touch. I wanted to be held more than I wanted sex. I wanted him to hold me while I drifted off to sleep. That sounded better than anything else I could think of right now.
"Once dawn comes my tie with you will weaken, and you will not be able to keep the ardeurat bay. I am sorry, ma petite,but we must feed it."
"You're as tired as I am," I said.
"I want nothing more than to climb between the silk sheets and wrap our nude bodies around one another. I want to hold and be held. Sex is a wondrous thing, but tonight I wish to be comforted more than pleasured. I feel like a child in the dark who knows the monsters are under the bed. I want to be told it will be alright, but I am far too old to believe such comforting lies."
Maybe it was because I was tired. Maybe it was because Jean-Claude had just said out loud almost exactly how I felt. I remembered other nights when we'd all been this tired, this frightened, this unsure of what the next nightfall would bring. I remembered Asher and Julianna, and I, we, Jean-Claude holding each other. Simply holding each other, the feel of bare skin and warmth, like a grown-up version of a teddy bear. Hold me tonight,Julianna used to say, and unspoken between the two men had been how often her fears allowed them to be as close and frightened as they truly were.
Julianna had been the bridge between the two men. They would never have been able to be so close for so long without her. I had the memories, I knew how many times her needs had brought them together, her love for each of them had bound them close. Jean-Claude had been the brains, Asher the charm, though both were charming and both intelligent, but Julianna had been their heart. One living, beating heart for all three of them.
I could never be Julianna. I didn't have her kindness, her gentleness, her patience. We were so unalike, but here I was centuries later with the same two men. I let out a long breath, took in another, let it out, listened to it shake.
"Is something wrong, ma petite,I mean more wrong than I know?"
I raised my face from his knee. "If Asher was truly a menage a trois with us, then Musette would have to leave him alone, wouldn't she?"
Some expression passed over his face, quickly swallowed away, hidden behind that beautiful, polite mask he wore when he was not sure what expression would help, and what would hurt. "If we had been able to answer truthfully tonight that Asher was in our bed, then Musette could not have asked for him. This is true."