"Could you do it? Could you just kill him?"
I thought about that for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, I could."
"And that wouldn't bother you?" he asked.
I stared straight at him, looked him right in his pain-filled eyes, and said, "No."
"If you really mean that, it makes you a bigger monster than I am."
"Yeah, I guess it does."
He shook his head. "It doesn't bother you, does it, knowing that you could take a human life?" He laughed, and it was bitter. "Or don't you consider Marcus human?"
"The man I killed last night was human," I said.
Richard stared at me, fresh horror growing in his eyes. "And you slept just fine didn't you?"
I nodded. "Pretty good, considering you sent Stephen to my bed."
A strange look passed through his eyes, and for a split second, I saw him wonder.
"Sweet Jesus, you know me better than that."
He looked down. "I know. It's just that I want you so badly, and you keep saying, no. It makes me doubt everything."
"Shit. I am not going to stroke your ego in the middle of a fight. You sent Stephen to me because you were mad. Said I could protect him. Had it occurred to you that I'd never slept--just slept--in the same bed with a man before?"
"What about your fiance in college?"
"I had sex with him, but I didn't sleep over," I said. "The first time I woke up in the morning with a man curled around me, I wanted it to be you."
"I'm sorry, Anita. I didn't know. I..."
"You didn't think. Great. Now, what's with the no clothes? What's going on, Richard?"
"You saw the fight last night. You saw what I did, what I can do."
"Some of it, yeah."
He shook his head. "You want to know why I don't kill? Why I always stop just short of it?" The look in his eyes was almost desperate, wild.
"Tell me," I said, softly.
"I enjoy it, Anita. I love the feel of my hands, my claws ripping into flesh." He hugged himself. "The taste of fresh, warm blood in my mouth is exciting." He shook his head harder, as if he could erase the sensation. "I wanted to rip Sebastian apart last night. I could feel it, like an ache in my shoulders, in my arms. My body wanted to kill him, the way I want you." He stared at me, still hugging himself, but his body was speaking for him. The thought of killing Sebastian did excite him, really excite him.
I swallowed hard. "You're afraid that if you let go and killed, that you'd like that, too?"
He stared at me, and that was the horror in his eyes: the fear that he was a monster, the fear that I was right not to touch him, not to let him touch me. You don't f**k the monsters, you just kill them.
"Do you enjoy killing?" he asked.
I had to think about that for a second or two. Finally, I shook my head. "No, I don't enjoy it."
"What does it feel like?" he asked.
"Like nothing. I don't feel anything."
"You have to feel something."