He glided away to sink into the empty chair near the desk. He made sure the cloak covered him completely, only the tips of his black boots peeking out. «Why the frown, my evening star? I did exactly what you wished me to do, didn't I?»
I fought not to frown harder, and probably failed. «You bother me, Requiem.»
«Why?» he asked, simply.
«Why, just why, no poetry?» I asked.
Nathaniel patted my shoulder, either reminding me he was there or trying to stop me from picking a fight. Either way, it worked, because I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I wasn't sure why Requiem got on my nerves lately, but he did. He was one of my lovers. He was food. But I didn't like it, any of it. He was wonderful in bed, but… there was always that feeling from him that no matter what I did it was never enough. Never what he wanted me to do. There was a constant, unspoken pressure from him. I knew the feeling, but unless you were going to have a «relationship» with a man, it was a pressure you didn't deserve, or wouldn't respond to. He was food, and we were lovers; he was Jean-Claude's third-in-command. I'd tried to be his friend, but somehow the sex had ruined that. I think without the sex we could have been friends, but with it… with it we were neither friends, nor boyfriend or girlfriend. We were lovers, but… I had no words for what was wrong between us, but I could feel it, like an old ache in a wound you thought had healed.
«You told me you were tired of my 'constantly quoting poetry' to you. I'm practicing speaking simply.»
I nodded. «I remember, but… I feel like you're unhappy with me, and I don't know why.»
«You have allowed me into your bed. I share the ardeur once more. What could any man desire above that?»
«Love,» Nathaniel said.
Requiem looked past me to the other man. There was a flash of blue fire in the vampire's eyes: anger, power. Requiem hid it, but I'd seen it. We'd all seen it.
« 'Where both deliberate, the love is slight: Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?»
«I don't know who you're quoting,» Nathaniel said, «but Anita doesn't love at first sight, or at least she didn't me.»
«He's quoting from Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe,» Byron said. The other vampire was counting the money he'd rained down on the couch. He had his back to the other vampire. «And what's bothering him is that he thinks he's wonderful, and he can't understand why you don't love him.»
«Do not tempt me, Byron. My anger seeks only a target,» Requiem said.
Byron turned with his stacked and counted money in his hand. «I can resist anything but temptation,» he said. He glanced at me. «He hates it when you quote back at him.»
«Your tongue doth overstep your purpose, Byron,» Requiem said, his voice purring low with warning.
«My purpose,» Byron said, his gray eyes flashing with a moment of shining power like quiet lightning. He laid his money on the lacquered coffee table and turned to face the other vampire. «I want that glib and oily art, To speak and purpose not.» He sat in Nathaniel's lap, putting his legs across my lap.
Nathaniel put an arm around him, almost automatically, and gave me a look. The look said, What's going on? but since I didn't know, I had no answers. It was like we'd stepped into a fight I hadn't known was happening. I had my hands in the air, above Byron's bare legs. I could ignore the nudity most of the time now, but not when that nudity was sitting in my boyfriend's lap and had flung itself across my legs. My ability to ignore just wasn't that good.
«What's going on?» I asked, my hands finally coming to light on Byron's bare legs, because I felt stupid keeping my hands in the air. If he'd been more on my lap than Nathaniel's I might have just dumped him on the floor, but whatever was happening he'd involved Nathaniel, too, and that meant I couldn't simply act. I had to think, too. Simply reacting was so much easier, not always in the long run, but in the short run, it felt so much better.
«Ask Byron,» Requiem said. «I have no idea why he's acting like this.»
I patted Byron's calf and said, «Why are you sitting in our laps?»
Byron wrapped his arms around Nathaniel's shoulders, cuddling his face next to his. He stared at me, giving me a look out of those gray eyes that made me fight off a shiver. Not a shiver of fear, but one that was all about sex. Nathaniel looked faintly puzzled as their faces pressed next to each other. It was the blatant sex look that made me slide out from under his legs and stand up. «I don't know what game this is, Byron, but Nathaniel and I don't want to play.»
Byron slid off Nathaniel's lap and knelt on the far side of him, so that I could still see the two of them clearly. It was like he was doing serious flirting. Byron flirted, but not seriously, more like it was a casual hobby. There was nothing casual about the look on his face.
He slid his hand along Nathaniel's neck, then grabbed his braid. Grabbed it, and yanked Nathaniel's neck backward at a painful angle. Nathaniel's breath came in fast pants, his pulse visible like a trapped thing in his throat.
My gun was just in my hand. I didn't remember drawing it. I didn't remember aiming it. My own pulse was hammering in my throat. Years of practice had a gun pointed at Byron's face. He was staring at me, his gray eyes straight on, face still serious, but not threatening. I didn't know what was going on, but whatever it was, someone was going to get hurt if it didn't stop.
«Let him go,» I said, and my voice was as steady as the gun pointed at his forehead. I had a sense of Lisandro moving away from the door, coming toward us. I wasn't sure if I wanted the interference, or even if I needed it.
«He doesn't want me to let him go, do you, Nathaniel?» Byron's voice was very careful, even, as if he finally realized that his game could turn deadly.
Nathaniel's voice came strangled with the angle of his neck, and the force of the vampire's hand on his hair, but what he said was, «No, no, don't stop.»
I finally let myself glance at Nathaniel. I didn't normally look away from someone I was pointing a gun at, but there was no sense of menace to Byron. Whatever we were doing, I wasn't sure it was about violence. Nathaniel's hands were gripping Byron's arm, but not like he was trying to stop the vampire from hurting him, more like he was just holding on. But it was the look on Nathaniel's face that made me lower the gun to point at the floor.
Nathaniel's lips were half parted, his eyes fluttering closed, his face slack with pleasure. His body was tense with anticipation. He was enjoying the pain, enjoying being manhandled. Shit.
Byron let go of Nathaniel abruptly, almost with a throwaway gesture. Nathaniel fell back onto the couch, gasping for breath, his eyes rolled back into his head behind fluttering eyelids. His spine bowed, throwing his head back, making him writhe against the back of the couch.
Byron stood there and watched him. «Duckie, this much reaction, you have been neglecting your boy.»
He was right. I'd have liked to argue it, but he was right. The proof of neglect was writhing on the couch in some sort of ecstasy that I couldn't even begin to understand. I liked a little force now and then, but it didn't do this for me. Nathaniel began to grow quiet, eyes still closed, and a smile on his face. I understood for the first time that the violence could be sex for him, really, truly could.
I looked at Byron. «And your point?» I was pretty sure I knew what the point was, but I'd be damned if I'd help him make it.
«I heard rumors that you weren't doing dominance and submission with the boy, but I didn't believe it. I mean, how can you be with Nathaniel and not do BDSM? Bondage and submission is the boy's bread and butter.»
I nodded, and put my gun up. «Do you know how close you came to getting yourself shot?»
«I did once I saw your gun pointed at my face.» The joking was gone again, so serious, and then he smiled. «So exciting.»
«Are you saying you got off on the fact that I damn near shot you?» I laughed a little at the end, but it was a nervous laugh.