I realized in that moment that if I chickened out, that would be the end of it. There would be no pressure from either of them. But Asher would be gone, not tonight, but soon. I didn't want him to be gone.
I took Jean-Claude's hand, and he pulled me gently onto the silk bedspread. Silk is slippery when you're wearing hose. Their hands on mine kept me from slipping off the edge of the bed. They half pulled me onto the bed.
"Why is it," I said, "that you never slide off the bed when you're wearing silk?"
"Centuries of practice," Jean-Claude said.
"I recall when you weren't so practiced. Remember the Duchess Vicante?" said Asher.
Jean-Claude blushed, a faint hint of pink. I hadn't even known he could blush. "What happened?" I asked.
"I fell," he said, trying for dignity and failing, because he smiled.
"What he will not say is that he cut his chin on a silver mirror that he broke when he fell off the Duchess and her silk sheets. Blood everywhere, and the cuckold husband on the stairs."
I looked at Jean-Claude. He nodded, shrugged.
"What happened?" I asked.
"The duchess cut herself on one of the shards of glass and told her husband it was her own blood. She was a very enterprising woman, was the Duchess Vicante."
"So you both knew each other when you weren't perfectly suave."
Jean-Claude said, "No, Asher watched me learn my lessons, but he had five years with Belle before I came to court. If he had rough edges they were worn away by the time I arrived."
"I had them, mon ami," Asher said, and he smiled. I was overwhelmed with a flood of images of that smile. That smile when his hair was in long locks and the hat on his head graceful with feathers, that smile by candlelight, that smile while we played chess and Julianna sewed by the fire, that smile in a spill of clean sheets and Julianna's laughter.
It had been a long time since we'd seen that smile. We drew him to the bed, and the smile vanished. Jean-Claude swept the bedspread aside to reveal sheets a little bluer than Asher's eyes, blue as the daytime sky, cerulean blue. But Asher stayed on his knees, as if afraid to lay upon the bed. I could see his pulse thudding in his throat, and it had nothing to do with vampire or shape-shifter powers, only fear, I think.
Asher was afraid. I could taste his fear on the back of my tongue. I could swallow it, enjoy the bouquet of it, like a fine wine to whet the appetite.
The fear called to that piece of me that was Richard's beast. It roiled inside me like a cat stretching, exploring the space it was trapped in. A thin growl trickled from my lips.
"Control, ma petite, do not lose it so soon."
It was hard to think, let alone talk. I came to my knees and raised Asher's shirt, my fingers playing along his skin. I wanted to rip his shirt off and put my mouth to that tender skin. But it wasn't sex I was thinking of. Vampires may not feed off each other, but a werewolf will eat a vampire.
I closed my eyes, forced my hands away from his body. "I'm trying, but you know what happens if I push the ardeur off too long."
"The other hungers rise, oui, ma petite. I have not forgotten."
"You can't help control Richard's beast." My voice sounded hoarse.
"Non."
I looked into Asher's wide blue eyes, so afraid, so very afraid, and not of my beast. It helped steady me, but I knew it wouldn't last long, whatever we were going to do had to be done quickly.
"I want to see you nude for the first time without the ardeur riding me, Asher. But there isn't much time." I tried to draw him down onto the bed, but he wouldn't come.
Jean-Claude propped himself up on the pillows and held out his arms, almost the way you'd reach for a baby. He spoke softly in French, but I couldn't catch it all, most of it was a plea to hurry.
Asher crawled onto the bed completely, though every movement was slow, reluctant. He let himself be settled down against Jean-Claude's body, but they were both fully clothed, and the way they were sitting, they could have been in any club. It wasn't so much sexual as comforting.
I looked at the two of them and knew someone was going to have to take off some clothes. Fine. I stripped off my jacket and tossed it to the floor.
Jean-Claude raised eyebrows.
"If we keep going this carefully it'll be dawn and nothing will have changed." I had to slide off the bed to get the skirt off, and left it in a pile with my blouse. The panties and bra were a matched pair, a shiny navy satin. When I'd found them, they had reminded me of the color of Jean-Claude's eyes.
I expected to feel embarrassed standing there in my underwear, but I didn't. Maybe I'd spent too much time around the shape-shifters and their casual nudist policy. Or perhaps, it just didn't seem wrong to be undressed in front of Asher. I don't know, but I didn't question it. I climbed carefully back onto the cerulean silk, so that I didn't slide off again.
"You have truly decided to do this," Asher said, in a voice that was soft, uncertain.
I nodded, as I crawled in my thigh-high hose and high heels across the bed to them. I kept the heels because I knew Jean-Claude liked it, and he'd worn enough boots to bed for me. Turn about can be fair play.
I tapped Asher's ankles, and he opened his legs a little. I crawled between his legs, having to force my body up between his calves, his knees. Jean-Claude's legs on either side of his seemed to hold him tight against me. I was left to worm my way between his thighs, using my hips, my legs, and finally impatient, my hands, to spread him wide before me. It left me, finally, kneeling between his legs, my knees pressed up against him, which was actually a lot less erotic than it sounds, because he was still wearing his pants, and the angle was odd.
I reached for the buttons on his shirt. Asher grabbed my hands. "Slowly, ma cherie."
I raised eyebrows at him. "We don't have time for slow."
He rolled his head back so he could see Jean-Claude. "Is she always this impatient?"
"She begins like an American man, but she does foreplay like she's French."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"Let us help you undress, mon ami, and you will not need to ask questions, for you will know."
Asher's hands dropped away from mine, and I unbuttoned his shirt. I did do it quickly, because time was not on our side. I did not want to be in the bed with them when they died at dawn. I was still unnerved when Jean-Claude did it with me, I did not want to see it done in stereo.
Jean-Claude raised Asher up, and between the two of us we peeled the long-sleeved shirt off of his upper body. "I would love to linger on every piece of your body, Asher, but I want to see you nude before dawn. Next time, if we start earlier, we can take our time."
He smiled. "Next time, you have not seen all there is to see, do not promise until you have seen, as they say, the whole show."
I leaned into him, our faces only inches apart. "I don't believe there is anything you could show me that would make me not want you."
"I almost believe that, ma cherie, almost."
I leaned back enough on my knees to cradle his face between my hands. The difference in texture wasn't jarring, it was just part of touching Asher. I kissed him, long, slow, exploring him, softly with my lips. I drew back enough to see his face.
"Believe it." I drew my fingers down the edge of his jaw on either side, tickling nails across the smooth line of his neck, one hand mirroring the other, until I came to his chest. It wasn't hands I wanted to use there.
I kissed along the scarred edge of his collarbone, but the scars made the skin too thick, I had to move to the other side to nibble along his collarbone, to give him that safe edge of teeth.
He shuddered for me.