With his hand to steady me I felt pretty secure in them. The floggers and some whips were laid out by the bed in neat rows. I caught a glimpse of Richard at the end of the bed, hidden by the belted bed curtains.

"They aren't going to fit," Richard said.

Jean-Claude had fetched a pair of leather pants that had fit Richard. I realized that they must have been the same ones I'd seen him wear more than once. But that had been over a year ago, and apparently it wasn't just his arms that had gotten bigger from the weight lifting.

Jean-Claude led me around the foot of the bed. Richard was leaning against it, his body bent almost double as he pulled the last of the leather over his ankle and foot. He'd tied his hair back in a ponytail so he was one long curve of smooth, summer-tanned skin from his neck to midthigh.

He shook his head and said, "There's no way. I've put on too much muscle." Then he looked up and saw me in the dress, and if Jean-Claude's face had been everything I wanted to see, Richard's was both better and worse. He slid off the bed to land heavily on the floor. He sat there with the leather pants in his lap and stared at me as if I'd hit him between the eyes with a hammer. Gob-smacked Gob-smacked, Byron, one of our newer British vamps, would have called it. If I'd had any doubts about the outfit, Richard took care of them.

Then Richard rallied and grabbed on to the bed to stand. He was still holding the pants in one hand in front of his body, but he stood every inch of that six foot one inch, shoulders back, face set in that arrogant model look. Most of the time I wasn't sure he knew just how handsome he was, but then he'd get that look on his face, and I knew he understood exactly how amazing he looked. With most of his legs showing I could see the extra muscle that had kept him out of the pants. Then he dropped the pants and let me see all of him. He let me see that it wasn't just his face that had reacted to the sight of me in the dress.

My hand tightened on Jean-Claude's, because I was suddenly not steady enough in the stiletto heels. I couldn't see my face, but I suspected that it was my turn to look like the handsome hammer had got me between the eyes, my turn to be gob-smacked. He'd had that effect on me almost from the first moment I saw him, which had been nude in a bed, come to think of it. I had never asked what he had been doing in that bed with a female shapeshifter. I'd always a.s.sumed they'd just pa.s.sed out changing from animal to human form-most shifters were nearly comatose for hours after shifting back-and someone had put them between the sheets to sleep it off. Staring at him standing there, I realized that a.s.sumption had probably been nave.

"Your face," Richard said, "for a moment it was exactly what I wanted to see, and then you started thinking about something else. You didn't see me anymore. What . . . who were you thinking about while you looked at me?" His face was still almost impossibly handsome; without the hair, the cheekbones that had helped give him the darker skin tone sculpted his face to painful perfection, but the anger was there too now, and that wasn't attractive. Of all the men in my life, only he'd ever used his rage against me.

"Ma pet.i.te," Jean-Claude said, and his nickname for me was enough. He meant for me to try to fix this. I understood. This was the closest we'd ever gotten with our Richard to something workable. The moment I thought Jean-Claude said, and his nickname for me was enough. He meant for me to try to fix this. I understood. This was the closest we'd ever gotten with our Richard to something workable. The moment I thought our Richard our Richard, I knew it wasn't my thought. I'd ceased to think of him as mine, but that was okay; we needed this to work the way kids need their fighting parents to make up before the divorce splits the family and the possessions. The problem with the three of us was that the "possessions" included people. More than any child, the vampires and werewolves and other shapeshifters in this city were possessions. We needed to grow up and fix this.

"You, Richard. I was thinking about the first time I saw you. You were in Jean-Claude's bed in the offices at the Circus of the d.a.m.ned with the woman shapeshifter beside the bed. You were both nude, and I never asked what you were doing in the bed with a naked woman in the room. I never asked how you ended up there like that."

The anger began to seep away, leaving his face confused, more real somehow. "What do you want me to say about it?"

"I don't know. I was just thinking that I never questioned it. I never asked if you and Rashada were lovers. You asked me out the same night, so I a.s.sumed you weren't dating anyone else. Was I nave, Richard? Was I just that nave then?"

His face softened, and he smiled. He came to us then, not angry, or arrogant, but gently. I was able to watch his face as he moved instead of staring lower. Point for me, but honestly the look on his face in that moment meant more to me than seeing him nude.

He touched my face, and his skin was warmer than it should have been. A warmth to cuddle against on a cold night, and I moved my face against that touch, and he turned his hand so that I could lay the side of my face in the warm cup of it.

"We both were," he said softly, and I realized his other hand had reached past me. I turned my head, and his hand was big enough that my face still rested against it when I could see that he was touching Jean-Claude's hair.

Richard drew us in toward him until our faces were close together. They had to bend down to touch their faces to mine. Jean-Claude's and my hair mingled, all black curls, so that it was hard to tell whose hair was whose. Richard's hands were on the back of our heads, fingers worked through the curls so I could feel them on the back of my skull. His fingers moved against my skin as if he were ma.s.saging. I knew he was doing the same to Jean-Claude. I could have had the tactile memory to go with it, truly felt what Jean-Claude was feeling, but he knew that freaked me out, so we'd been working on me simply knowing without the whole show. I just knew what Richard was doing.

He pressed our faces together and whispered, "If we'd known what would happen, would we have run from each other?"

I didn't know what to say to that, but Jean-Claude did. "Ask, rather, mon ami mon ami, if we would all be alive now, if we had not had each other to turn to in times of trouble? Ask how many of our vampires and wolves would be dead, or trapped by s.a.d.i.s.tic masters?"

"Not just my wolves," Richard said. "Anita and Micah have helped a lot of the shapeshifters in town." I heard his breath go out in a long sigh. He moved his head enough to lay his lips on my forehead. It was almost too soft to be called a kiss. "If you want to keep Asher as your second, your temoin temoin, and keep the werehyenas in town, we have to tame him."

"Oui," Jean-Claude said. Jean-Claude said.

"Define tame tame," I said.

Richard laughed, pulling back enough to look at both of us, but longer at me. "That suspicious tone in your voice, it's so you, Anita, so very you."

I frowned at him, one hand on my hip, the other still on Jean-Claude's hand. "I'm still me, Richard. How else would I sound?"

"How can I love you and still want to do such terrible things to you and with you? How can it be okay with you that I like what I like?"

Jean-Claude went very still beside me. "I don't want to have this talk again, Richard," I said.

"Me, either," he said. He looked at Jean-Claude. "I want to have s.e.x with Anita. I'm willing to touch you and be touched. I want to torment Asher with the fact that he can't have me." A look went through those chocolate-brown eyes and they suddenly looked darker. "I want to watch his face while Anita goes down on me, and I go down on Anita. I want him to watch you f.u.c.k Anita, and think he's not getting you. I want to cause him pain while you do it, and know that he'll enjoy the pain, too." That dark look in his eyes became fierce, not anger, but fierceness. "The thought excites me."

His words made me glance down, and his body was responding to the thought. I flicked my eyes back up to his face and found him looking at me. He'd noticed what I'd done, or maybe he'd sensed it the way I'd sensed when he'd petted Jean-Claude's hair.

"Do you want me?"

"What?" I asked.

"Do you want me, Anita?"

I didn't know what to say to that, either. I opened my mouth, closed it. Jean-Claude said, "Truth, ma pet.i.te ma pet.i.te, the truth."

I said the only truth I'd had since almost the first time I saw Richard. "Yes."

He smiled, but it held that fierceness that I wasn't sure I understood. "Good," he said, "because I've missed you." He moved so fast, I made that girl-scream squeal. He was just suddenly holding me around the waist. My pulse was in my throat, thudding against my skin. My feet were dangling above the ground and I was looking into his eyes from inches away. My hands were on his arms, but not in a useful way.

"That scared you." He leaned his face in against mine, not quite touching, and sniffed the air above my skin. The gesture made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "Your skin smells so good because you're afraid of me, Anita. I like it, do you understand that?"

I had to swallow to whisper, "Yes."

"I want you afraid; do you understand that?"

"It's that chase-the-prey thing, I get it," and again my voice was a whisper.

A low growl trickled out from between those soft, human lips. My pulse sped up again, as if I'd choke on it. "Do you trust me?" he whispered, but his voice held that same edge of growl, as if his voice were deepening.

I swallowed twice. I didn't trust my voice, and knew that the real answer was maybe, but Jean-Claude was there and I trusted him to see that things didn't get out of control. So I nodded yes.

"Good," he said again. I felt his muscles tense, and then I was airborne and falling toward the bed.

CHAPTER 9

I HIT THE bed, hands slapping against it to take the impact, but the bed was soft enough that it wasn't an impact; it was just startling as h.e.l.l. If it had been a real emergency I'd have had time to sit up, to scramble for something, but it wasn't that kind of emergency, so I lay there on the bed trying to breathe past the nearly painful beat of my pulse in my throat. I was staring up at Asher's body. There wasn't time to admire the view as he looked down at me, because the bed moved and I started to sit up, and Richard was there.

He dropped the full weight of his body on me and kissed me at the same time. I was suddenly trapped underneath him, and almost choking on his kiss. It was too fierce, too much, and I wasn't there yet. I pushed at him, fought against the kiss, finally grabbed his ponytail and was able to use it to lever him away from my mouth. My teeth were gritted as I said, "You haven't done enough for me yet, Richard."

He stared down at me, and I saw the thought go through his eyes that he was probably big enough to force me. He was bigger than I was, and I was unarmed; only trust had let him get to this point with me. Trust in him and trust in Jean-Claude. The fact that I felt that thought cross all the way through him gave me a glimpse into some of the demons he'd been fighting. It wasn't just being a werewolf, or being Jean-Claude's wolf to call, that haunted Richard. There were parts of him that would have been there even if he'd been as human as he wanted to be. I watched that part slide through his true-brown eyes and felt that shiver of fear trail over my skin again.

He moved down and though the hold on his ponytail had kept him from my face, it didn't stop him from sliding down. When he had enough slack he kissed my upper chest, gently, very gently. He kissed his way down the exposed line of my b.r.e.a.s.t.s with the zipper and the leather framing them, but each kiss was ever so gentle. I let his hair slip through my fingers as he kissed his way down my body through the leather. He laid his head on my lap through the soft leather of the dress, and just the weight of him there made me close my eyes and shudder. When I opened them my head must have gone back because I was staring up the line of Asher's body. He met my gaze, and there was in his eyes something so not submissive, or even bottom. The look he gave was most definitely dominant. Asher was a bottom and he was a better submissive than I would ever be, because he was the one who explained to me that I was never a submissive. I was a dominant who sometimes bottomed, but it's not the same thing as a true switch to submissive. Asher could be submissive and things that just p.i.s.sed me off excited him, but it was a thin line for him. He could switch in the middle of a scene faster than anyone else I'd ever seen. One minute the lamb and the next the lion. I was looking at the lion now. His gaze went down the line of my body to Richard, and I was almost certain that it wasn't me that had switched him to predator. It was the sight of Richard's nude body lying there so close, but still so far away.

I felt Richard raise his head. The movement made me turn to him. He was on his elbows with the hem of the dress in his hands. He was smiling at me, but it was the kind of smile that a man gives you when he is certain of you, certain that there will be only yes, and not no. It had been months since I'd seen him, and that part of me that was always poking at things, demanding, complaining, thought, He hasn't earned that look He hasn't earned that look.

Jean-Claude was suddenly there, leaning around Asher's legs, touching my hair, my face, so that I looked up at him. I gazed up into those midnight-blue eyes so dark that a few shades darker and the blue would have been lost to a black, but they were forever the blue of the sky just as the light begins to leave, but darkness is still a few breaths away. I stared up into those eyes and felt him whisper through my mind, as his hands cradled my face. "You can be right, or you can be happy. Look into my face and tell me you do not want him and I will stop this. We will find some other way to seal our triumvirate. But say you do not want him and it ends."

He slid onto the bed, and my head was propped on the leather of his thigh as his other hand moved down my bare arm. He turned me so I could gaze down my body at Richard. He was still propped on his arms, the hem of my dress in his hands. He was watching me, and though his face was still eager, there was wariness around those true-brown eyes. We had taught each other caution of each other.

Richard began, very slowly, to unzip the double zipper at the bottom of the dress. He watched my face as he did it, as if waiting for me to protest. I thought about it, I really did. I wasn't sure I wanted to rake this mess up again. My life worked without him in it.

Jean-Claude breathed through me again. "Do you want him to stop?"

The answer was yes, and no, and that had been Richard and me from the beginning almost. Yes, and no; no and yes, until we both almost went mad with it. Yes and no.

Richard spread the unzipped dress open and lowered his face toward me, his eyes still on my face, still waiting for me to say something. Jean-Claude's hands continued to soothe down my bare arms. I realized they were both treating me as the one most likely to blow this. It was almost as if they'd discussed it, but Jean-Claude had been surprised tonight, too, hadn't he? The moment I thought that, I tensed.

Richard kissed the edge of my thigh, still watching my face. Jean-Claude leaned over me and whispered, "I swear to you that I did not know he would come tonight, but I do want this, ma pet.i.te ma pet.i.te, I do want this more cooperative Richard. It is s.e.x tonight, not a change in our living arrangements. It is s.e.x and magic, nothing more."

There was a time when that would have p.i.s.sed me off, but that was before Micah and Nathaniel. Before we'd made some peace with Jean-Claude, before so much, and now his words made me relax a little.

Richard kissed up the inside of my thigh, still gazing at my face, still being cautious. I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding, some tension went away, and when I relaxed so did he. He smiled at me, his hands sliding along my legs, so he could put his hands on the outside of them, his arms underneath my legs. He lowered his eyes as he kissed my thigh. He startled, his fingers digging in just a little, but not like he did it on purpose.

He looked up the line of my body at me. "You're not wearing anything under the dress," he said, voice a little strained.

The look on his face made me smile. I couldn't help it. He looked so startled. I said, "No, I'm not."

He finally smiled back at me and lowered his face, and he wasn't trying to look at my eyes anymore. Jean-Claude relaxed against me, as if even he had been holding the breath that he didn't always need to take.

"Were you really afraid I'd f.u.c.k this up?" I asked, sliding my head against his thigh so I could see his face. His face was unreadable and pleasant, but he said, "Yes."

Richard licked the hollow of my thigh and didn't stop until he licked between my legs. The sensation of it closed my eyes, caught my breath in my throat. He licked in long, slow strokes around the edges of me, coming over that one small spot at the end of every stroke. He made his strokes smaller, more circular, and my breathing changed, speeding up with my heartbeat.

Jean-Claude moved underneath my head. It made me open my eyes and look at him. He was smiling at me as he slid pillows underneath my head. "I cannot leave our Asher neglected." He bent and kissed me as he slid off the bed. The movement pulled my gaze to the man bound to the side of the bed so close to us, but almost forgotten. I caught Asher's look, and it was still that predatory look, but with more anger to it. I had forgotten him, and that was probably truer than was pretty to think of between us all.

Richard put his mouth around me and began to suck, and suddenly all my attention was staring down my body at the man between my legs. His brown eyes were turned up so that he was staring at my face as he sucked me. There was a darkness, a fierceness, a possessiveness in that look. It wasn't possession of me by Richard, it was a man's pleasure in I'm making her do that. I'm bringing her pleasure. She's making those sounds because of me I'm making her do that. I'm bringing her pleasure. She's making those sounds because of me. It was all there in his eyes, as he licked and sucked me over that edge of pleasure that bowed my spine, threw my head backward into the pillows, my hands scrambling for something to hold on to, as the feel of his mouth brought me in wordless, ragged screams.

He sucked me until I lay limp against the bed, boneless with the pleasure of it. He licked one more time, and it made me cry out.

"I love that," he said, voice deeper.

I forced myself to focus on his face, but the world was soft and edged with afterglow. I heard the soft slap of a flogger and knew that it had to be Jean-Claude working with Asher, but it was beyond me to turn my head enough to see. All my scrambling in the pillows during the o.r.g.a.s.m had spilled me to one side of the mounded pillows so that they hid the other two men. I managed to say, "What?" My voice sounded thick.

"You just enjoy s.e.x so much once you let yourself go. I love watching you." His face glistened in the lights. His finger pressed into my thighs, and it was too much so soon; it threw me back against the pillows in a small aftershock. He laughed that dark, deep-edged laugh that men only have in those moments. It's a good sound.

He dug his fingers in harder, spreading my legs a little wider. It made me cry out, and he gave that dark chuckle again. The sound of the flogger was harder, meatier, and there were small protesting sounds, and it wasn't me.

Richard let go of my legs, his arms sliding out from under me. I felt the bed move and waited for him to move closer to me, but heard him say, "Jean-Claude, trade me."

That made me open my eyes and look at him. He was kneeling between my legs, and the front of his body was long, thick, and more than ready. I reached a hand out, rising up off the bed, but he moved back out of reach, laughing. "You do that and I won't do anything but you."

"Do me," I said voice languorous with afterglow.

He shook his head.

"Trade me in what manner, Richard?" Jean-Claude asked.

"I know how to use a flogger."

"I have him in the heads.p.a.ce we need, mon ami mon ami. I would not lose ground, not even for so sweet an offer."

That made me crawl out from between the pillows so I could see what was going on. Asher was still tied up, but his face was slack, lips half-parted, eyes unfocused. It was close to the look I was fighting off my own face. But his wasn't o.r.g.a.s.m because he was smooth, and erect, and as perfect as the rest of him. He would have argued that because one line of scar traced the edge of his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, but it was just something extra to run my tongue over, an added texture, not a blemish.

Jean-Claude wrapped his arm around him from the back. He was still in the leather pants, but just being held close to him made Asher's eyes roll back into his head. He had waited a long time for Jean-Claude to touch him. It was ironic that Asher's power made those nearest and dearest to him afraid to be alone with him physically, but he'd almost killed me, and he'd nearly possessed Jean-Claude in that demonic way. We had a right to be cautious of him, but seeing him there with such reaction to such an innocent touch from Jean-Claude made me realize just how much he needed and wasn't getting.

"It's not just about the pain, Richard," Jean-Claude said.

"I know that," Richard said, and he moved across the bed on his knees, still perfectly nude, though his body was less erect, but even less erect he was still very male as he moved toward the other men. He got close enough to grab Asher's chin, making him look into his eyes. "You enjoyed watching me go down on her, didn't you?"

Asher spoke just above a whisper, "Yes."

"I have some of Jean-Claude's memories. I know that you enjoyed watching other men have s.e.x with your women." Then, still holding Asher's chin in his hand, he leaned in and kissed him. It was a soft kiss, almost innocent, and he kept a lot of distance between their bodies, but the look on Asher's face when Richard drew back from it wasn't innocent. It was expectant, surprised, happy, and then wary.

"Can you taste her on my mouth?" Richard asked.

"Yes," Asher said, and his voice was that same breathy whisper.

Richard slid off the bed, and Jean-Claude moved back for him to move behind Asher. I lay on the bed watching the show, because that's what it was. Richard did understand BDSM; at its best it's a performance, showmanship counts. Richard moved in behind Asher. He ran his hands down the man's back. "Nice pattern."

"Thank you," Jean-Claude said. He moved in closer to the two men, and I got to see the three of them standing there, two of them nude, Jean-Claude just in the leather pants and boots, and for a minute I didn't care about love, or how much my life worked or didn't; all I could think of was that they were all so beautiful.

Richard ran his hands over the marks on Asher's back again, and it was probably just as well that Richard couldn't see the look on Asher's face, because just that small touch made him close his eyes and fight not to overreact to the touch, but I knew when someone was trying to be still under someone's touch.

Apparently I wasn't the only one, because Richard leaned his face next to Asher's and said, "You liked me touching you, didn't you?"

Asher didn't answer. I think he was afraid of what the other man would hear in his voice. He was having enough trouble controlling his face and body. Vampires over two hundred can control everything. The fact that Asher was fighting so hard to stay in some control said just how much the attention from Jean-Claude and now Richard meant to him.

Richard's arm slid around Asher's waist, as he slid his other arm around his shoulder. I sat up, because if Richard was as close to Asher as I thought, I wanted to see it. I wanted to see the lines of their bodies pressed against each other. I crawled over the bed, and didn't care if it was ungraceful.

I half-stepped and half-fell off the bed, and Richard's tanned, muscled body was pressed against the back of Asher's pale one so that there was nothing but the line of their bodies like two perfect pieces of some light and dark puzzle.

Jean-Claude was watching them, too, and his face was stricken, that was the only word for it. It was a look made up of want, and surprise, and the same thing I'd felt just a moment before, that they were simply beautiful.

Richard's voice fell into that moment. "Tell me you like me pressed up against you, Asher?"

Asher's breath came out in a shaking sound, not word, or breath, or scream, but it seemed to hold all the longing you would ever want to hear in a lover's voice.

"Good," Richard said, and he stepped back from the other man. "Now I'm going to beat you while Jean-Claude f.u.c.ks Anita and you get to watch, and then I'm going to f.u.c.k her while Jean-Claude f.u.c.ks you."

I would have protested, or complained, but honestly, it worked for me.