"A broken wooden stake," I said.

"You fell on it?"

"No, a human under a vampire's control tried to stake me."

"I've got one, too, and mine's bigger."

"What?" I asked.

He turned around so I could see his back, and he did have a scar and it was longer, though mine was wider. Men, they're always more impressed with length than width. Because he seemed to expect it, I traced it with my fingertips. It was a thin curve of white scar tissue from the right side to the spine.

"How'd you get cut?" I asked.

He turned around. "My cousin Thorn did it in a practice match."

"You use real silver blades for practice matches?" I asked.

"If you don't use silver, then you don't know how you react to being hurt. Pain is all theory until you get hurt. You have to know how you'll react."

I studied his expression trying to read something behind that handsome, eager face.

Micah said, "Thorn is one of the weretigers we didn't bring down for you to meet."

I looked at him. "What was wrong with cousin Thorn?"

"He has a temper, and he tried treating me like I was small."

"Oh, so not winning points with me."

"I told Jake that Thorn could only stay if he didn't cause problems. If he caused trouble then he's not our problem, and he has to go," Micah said.

Mephistopheles touched the mound of scar tissue on my left arm. "Did a wereanimal do this?"

"Vampire, same as the collarbone scar."

He traced it with his fingertips. He touched my shoulder and the shiny flat scar there. "Gunshot," I said.

"Silver?"

"It was before I was Jean-Claude's human servant, so no."

He traced the cross-shaped burn scar with the claw marks that made it slightly off-center now. "And this?"

"A vampire's Renfield thought it would be funny to brand me."

He traced the claw marks with his fingertips. "That's a shapeshifter."

"Shapeshifted witch, not a lycanthrope."

"You mean like a magic belt made out of one of our skins?"

"Yes," I said.

"What happened to the witch?"

"Dead," I said.

"Are they all dead, everyone that hurt you?"

"Yes," I said.

He looked at Asher. "Jake told us what the Church did to you. Can I see?"

Asher went very still, that still that they can do after a few hundred years, but he moved his hair to one side, showing the scars on his face to the light.

Mephistopheles knee-walked to him and, without asking, touched Asher's face, traced the scars with his fingertips as he had mine. I knew how delicate the touch was, b.u.t.terfly light. Asher showed nothing while the other man traced the scars.

"My cousin Martino is going to be so jealous."

Asher looked at me. I said, "Jealous about what?"

"Martino thinks he's the most beautiful man ever, but he isn't even close to Asher. Or to Jean-Claude, for that matter, but you are the most beautiful man I've ever seen."

Asher pulled away from him, letting his hair fall back beside his face. "You've just finished touching the scars; you know that's not true."

"The scars barely cover any of your face, just this little part." He reached out to touch the scars again. Asher turned his head so Mephistopheles couldn't touch them. But he was a persistent boy, and his thumb slid across Asher's lower lip.

Asher jerked back. "Why did you do that?"

"Because I wanted to," he said, as if that made perfect sense, and I guess it did.

"I am not beautiful," Asher said, and he started unb.u.t.toning his shirt. He unb.u.t.toned the tight white fabric and pulled it wide to expose both the smooth muscles and the deep runnels of scars, like a before-and-after shot.

Mephistopheles said, "Wow, that must have hurt."

"You have no idea," he said.

He reached out to touch it. Asher started to move back and it was Nathaniel who said, "You want him to touch you, don't you?"

Asher shot him a not entirely friendly look, but he let the weretiger run his delicate fingers over the scars and then move his hands to the untouched side. He ran a hand up and down both sides, exploring the difference in texture. "How far down do the scars go?"

"Are you trying to get me out of my clothes?" Asher asked.

Mephistopheles looked surprised and said, "Isn't that the idea? Aren't we all getting out of our clothes?"

"Yes," Nathaniel said, and he was looking at Asher. The look said clearly, Don't blow this for yourself because you are a pain in the a.s.s Don't blow this for yourself because you are a pain in the a.s.s.

"Then can I see?" he asked.

Asher looked at me. I don't know why, because I was totally out of my depth. It was Micah who said, "Don't you want to?"

Asher looked back at me and I understood the pleading now. I crawled to him, so that I was on one side and Mephistopheles on the other. "Want some help?" I asked.

Asher nodded. I realized that he was nervous. A man he was attracted to was trying to get him out of his clothes and had called him the most beautiful man he'd ever seen; I think Asher thought it was too good to be true, and it scared him. I couldn't blame him. I'd spent a few years watching him chase after men who didn't like men as much as he did, and the men who liked him best he was almost disdainful of. It had been a recipe for unhappiness.

"Lie back," I said.

Asher hesitated, and then he did what I asked, lying back against the pillows. His hair spilled out around his face and he didn't try to hide his face. He just lay back, and I agreed with Mephistopheles. He was one of the most beautiful men I'd ever seen.

Micah moved beside Asher's long, slender legs. "Boots first," he said.

Nathaniel climbed up on the bed so he was on my side but lower down so he mirrored Micah. "I thought you were going to watch," I said.

"I changed my mind, unless you don't want five of us?"

I smiled at him. "I'm fine with it if Mephistopheles is okay with it."

He was already stroking his fingers over the very edge of Asher's leather pants. He was feeling the texture of the leather, and very carefully not going lower on the other man, or maybe he was just feeling the more intricate texture of the leather at what would have been the belt area, where instead of a belt the pants had their own interwoven lacings.

Asher was watching him stroke the leather. The look of naked longing that he'd had earlier in this very room with Jean-Claude and Richard was missing. His face was very careful, but his eyes followed the other man's movements.

"I think he's okay with it," Nathaniel said.

The three of us exchanged a look and then I nodded. "Boots first," I said.

They each started to work one of the soft leather boots down his legs. I went to the top of his pants and undid the front lacings. Mephistopheles helped me ease the leather apart. "I like the pants."

"You'll be seeing a lot of leather here," I said. We had Asher's pants open enough that Mephistopheles could trace the scars where they went below the pants line. His touch was still delicate as his fingers slid down inside Asher's pants, tracing the trickling line of scars as if he weren't bothered at all that he was putting his hands down another man's pants.

Asher's eyes closed and I caught a look on his face. If Mephistopheles had groped him for real he'd have been a very happy vampire, but the other man said, "The scars stop." If he found it t.i.tillating, it didn't show in his voice or his reaction as his hand came back to light.

"Not exactly," I said, "but we'll have to get him out of the pants to show you what I mean."

Micah and Nathaniel got Asher's boots off and Nathaniel put them over the side of the bed. Mephistopheles cheerfully helped me peel the leather pants down Asher's body. He didn't react when he saw him nude. But when he saw that the scars continued on the side of Asher's thigh he started tracing the thin line of scars. Micah and Nathaniel took over pulling the leather down the rest of all those long legs, until the only thing Asher was wearing was the open shirt.

Mephistopheles went back to the scars on his chest and stomach. "These are a lot deeper." His fingers traced down the thigh and the thin line that crawled across the thigh toward the groin. "But this is light." He looked at Asher's face. "It's like they couldn't bear to ruin your face or your junk."

"They didn't do to my face what they did to my chest," he said, "but they didn't spare me elsewhere. I wasn't circ.u.mcised. The foreskin was horribly scarred. I was . . . ruined for more than a century."

"But the scars were all in the foreskin?" Mephistopheles asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Why would they do that?" he asked.

"They wanted to burn the devil out of me."

"There's a little more scarring," I said, and moved Asher's thigh so the thin scar on the inner thigh was visible.

Mephistopheles traced his fingertips over Asher's inner thigh just like he had everything else. He was all about the texture and didn't seem to differentiate between what he was touching, focused only on how it felt.

I glanced at Asher's face while he did it. He and I locked eyes for a moment. He gave me no clue, no encouragement, but he didn't discourage what I was thinking, either, and he had to know I was thinking it.

"There's one more scar," I said. I ran my hand over Asher's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, and he reacted to that with a small wriggle against the bed. Mephistopheles didn't react to it in any way that I could see. I moved my hand enough to show the thin white line that traced the loose skin.

His fingers traced along that scar as they had every other one. There was no moment of h.o.m.ophobic hesitation. I couldn't tell if he was moved by Asher's nudity or not. His reactions were odd, and that made it hard to judge, but he wasn't bothered by it, either. I knew from experience that the scar on Asher's b.a.l.l.s was harder to touch, because the skin moved. To really feel it, you had to do more than just run your fingertips over it.

Mephistopheles figured that out, and took the skin gently between his fingers so he could trace the scar back and forth. Asher's body was starting to react to being touched. I ran my hand up the shaft of him and began to stroke over and around him while Mephistopheles played with his b.a.l.l.s. He wasn't playing with them the way Asher liked, he was mostly playing with just that line of scar, but he didn't stop exploring when I started doing Asher by hand, either. But for the life of me I still couldn't tell if Mephistopheles was okay with touching another man, or if he was just after the texture in an almost nons.e.xual way.

Asher grew long and hard in my hand. Mephistopheles kept exploring lower. He wasn't just tracing the texture of the scar now, but the texture of the skin and the delicate bits inside. He'd actually closed his eyes so he could concentrate on just the touch.

I wasn't sure how to move us past this, or if I should. Asher was getting more touch from the new guy than he'd gotten from anyone else until just yesterday. I didn't want to spoil it for him, but . . . I looked at Micah for a clue, or an a.s.sist.

It was Nathaniel who said, "There are enough of us to do oral on two of us at the same time."

It made Mephistopheles open his eyes and his hand go still around Asher's body. "Who does who?" he asked.

"Do you want to go down on someone, or have someone go down on you?" Nathaniel asked. I realized that of the three of us he was the least fazed.

Mephistopheles grinned. His hand stopped playing with Asher and rested on his hip in a gesture that was very comfortable. "It's oral s.e.x. I'd like someone to do me."

"If you go orally then you don't get to f.u.c.k anyone," Nathaniel said.

He frowned. "Hard choice."

"Are you good at giving oral?" Nathaniel asked.

He smiled and the look was enough. "No complaints."

"Any compliments?" I asked.

That seemed to puzzle him for a moment and then he said, "Some, yeah, but I mostly go on the whole screaming and eyes rolling back into their head as the compliment." He was back to being pleased with himself.

"Screaming, so girl," I said.

"Mostly," he said, "but oral s.e.x is like kissing; close your eyes and you can't tell who's kissing you, only that it feels good." He made an unhappy face. "Except for facial hair, and I can't get past that."

"No one in the bed has facial hair," I said.

He smiled. "So it works out."

What I wanted to ask was, did he honestly not have a preference between guy or girl, but I was afraid if I asked the question that he'd suddenly decide he did; I figured if we just kept acting like it was no big deal, he would just go along with it. I'd never been with anyone like this, where there wasn't some strong preference one way or the other. It was a little unnerving.

Asher said, "Have you ever had a vampire go down on you?"

"No," he said.

"Do you like pain?"