Jean-Claude’s voice blew through me like a caressing wind. “Does it mean nothing to you, ma petite, that the mere sight of you in your robe has changed Richard’s mind?”
I shook my head and tried to answer back as silently as he did. I still wasn’t great at it. What I tried to think back was, “Me in this robe with this towel, is not worth him changing his mind.”
“You still do not value yourself, as we value you, ma petite. ”
There was that “we” again. I started to open my mouth, to add something out loud, when a warm rush of energy danced through my body.
It stopped me in midstep. “Talking in someone’s head, when the other person isn’t allowed into the conversation is rude,” Richard said.
“It’s like whispering and pointing.”
I couldn’t argue it, but wanted to. “Trust me, Richard, it’s not worth repeating.”
“I’d like a chance to be the judge of that,” he said.
I sighed, for what felt like the thousandth time today. What had I been thinking? I should have told Jean-Claude that we didn’t need the bed, that Richard could kneel down and he could just feed. Voilа, and we’d be done with it.
Richard took off his T-shirt. “It’s too pale, if you get blood on it, it looks like blood.” He explained it out loud, and it made sense, but I was glad he wasn’t looking at me when he pulled the shirt off, because seeing him shirtless had its usual effect. I’d said before that the day I could walk into a room and not have my body react to Richard, I knew it was over between us. But hormones are traitorous little bastards. They don’t care how broken your heart is, only that there’s an attractive man in the room. Shit.
Jean-Claude was moving from candle to candle with one of those long battery-operated lighters. I could never get them to light. He moved effortlessly, from candle to candle, the other hand holding the draping sleeve of his robe back out of reach of the flame.
Richard sat down on the corner of the bed. His blue jeans and the solid line of his black belt looked fine against the red sheets. His tanned upper body looked better, and as if he’d heard me think it, he lay back against the sheets, not flat, but propped on his elbows, so that the shimmering scarlet framed his muscular upper body. There were tiny folds in his stomach, like there are on real people, unless they have washboard abs, and Richard had better things to do with his time than do that many sit-ups. His stomach was flat and perfect, but perfect doesn’t mean perfectly flat. Lines are flat, people had curves and bumps and places to explore.
Richard turned his head and looked at me. His face wasn’t neutral anymore. His dark eyes held heat, and it wasn’t his beast, or at least not just that. It was a look I’d seen before, a look that said he knew exactly the effect he had on me, and enjoyed it. Of late, that look had been to tell me, I know you think I’m gorgeous, and you don’t get to touch this anymore. Now, I wasn’t sure what the look meant, but I didn’t like it.
Jean-Claude moved to the other side of the bed, his tall, black-robed figure breaking Richard’s and my stare. When Jean-Claude cleared the way, though, Richard had pulled himself farther onto the bed, so that his legs were no longer touching the floor. So that all six feet one of him was on the bed, framed by sheets the color of fresh blood, and the flickering light of candles.
My mouth was dry. Not good. “I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “You guys don’t need me, not really.” My voice sounded breathy.
Jean-Claude turned from lighting the last candle. He smoothed the sleeves of his robe down around his long-fingered hands, and stood looking at me. His eyes glittered like dark sapphires, catching the flickering light in a way that human eyes just didn’t. “Ah, but we do, ma petite. We most certainly do. You are the bridge between us. You are the third of our power. Does that sound like someone we do not really need?”
“I don’t mean like forever, just not now, not here. I mean, you can feed without me here. You can…” I was having trouble concentrating.
Richard rolled over onto his stomach, and he did a little head movement that showed me that his hair had grown out just enough to fall a little forward around his face. Not long, but thicker than I’d thought. The candlelight didn’t dance on his jeans, but Richard’s body in tight jeans didn’t need anything else, it was sort of self-explanatory.
“I’m going now. I’m leaving now. Yep, that’s what I’m doing.” I was babbling, and I couldn’t stop it. But I did start for the door, so many points for me that I can’t count that high.
Jean-Claude called, “Ma petite, do not go, please.”
I turned back, and I don’t know what I would have said, because he’d sat down on the bed, but he’d done something to the top of his robe, so that it gapped, and I could see almost his entire chest framed by the black fur of the lapels. The burn scar looked very black against the white of his skin and the shimmering black of the fur. His nipples were palest pink, and from that alone, I’d have known he hadn’t fed. His hand touched his chest, as if he knew where I was looking. The hand moved down, and so did my gaze, so that I looked at the flat line of his stomach, the line of dark hair that started just below his navel, and swept down to vanish into the shadow of the robe.
I had an almost irresistible urge to go over there and rip open the sash and see his body pale and perfect against the dark of the robe and the crimson sheets. I knew just how he’d look against it all, because I’d seen it before. That thought moved my gaze to Richard, because I’d never seen him against red silk. I’d never seen him by candlelight.
He rolled onto his side as I watched, propped up on one elbow, one arm slung low across his hips, as if to bring my attention to his jeans and what I knew was in them. But no, Richard wasn’t that aware of his body, at least not for seduction. It was something Jean-Claude would have done, not Richard. Then I had one of those horrible thoughts. What if one of the things that Richard had gained with the tighter binding of the marks was some of Jean-Claude’s skill at seduction. Oh, that just wouldn’t be fair.
I closed my eyes and started for the door again. It was better if I couldn’t see either of them. Jean-Claude called, “Ma petite, you are going to hit the wall.”
I stopped abruptly and opened my eyes, and was inches away from the wall. The door was about two feet to my left. Great, just great.
“Ma petite, do not leave us.” His voice crawled through the tiny hole I’d made in my shields for him. It crawled inside and played along my skin, made me shiver, and God help me, I turned back and looked. Stupid me.
Jean-Claude had crawled up on the bed, near the pillows. He was lying full length across the red silk, with the robe gaping open, barely covering anything. His white, white shoulder was framed at the top with scarlet silk. His long legs spilled half in the black robe and half on the scarlet of the sheets. Only the barest fringe of fur covered his hips.
Richard was still on his side. They were lying in almost identical positions, except that Richard’s head was pointing away from the door, and Jean-Claude was angled toward it.
“This isn’t fair,” I said. “Not both of you, not at the same time.”
“Whatever do you mean, ma petite? ” But he looked entirely too pleased with himself to really need to ask.
“You bastard, you knew.”
“I knew nothing, but one lives in hope.”
I was having trouble breathing, or rather breathing nice even breaths. I was shaking my head, and the towel started coming unwound.
I caught it, and stood there with it in my hands. The cloth was wet and cold. I was shivering, but it was only partly from the wet hair sliding down my neck.
“Richard, you are getting your shoes on the silk sheets. Has no one taught you that you do not wear hiking boots on silk?” He didn’t even try to make it sound real, it was teasing, but it wasn’t Richard he was teasing.
Richard just sat up, bunching his stomach muscles nicely, and put one foot on his jeans and began to unlace the short boots. He didn’t look at me while he did it, but he knew I was watching.
I needed to leave now. I really did. I knew that, but somehow I was still standing there when Richard threw his first boot onto the floor. The sound made me jump.