"Would it help for me to say that part of me wishes you'd drop the towel?"

"You want to see me naked?" he said, smiling and trying to make a joke of it.

"Yes," I said.

"Yes," Nathaniel echoed.

Damian looked from one to the other of us.

"You really do need to start being more specific about which of us you're talking to," I said.

Damian laughed. "I guess I do. I'm not sure how I feel about all this, but with everything I've just remembered, what the hell?" He let the towel fall to the floor and stood there pale and perfect with the only splashes of color against the pure white of his skin being the searing crimson of his hair and the grass green of his eyes. He lowered his gaze as if he couldn't look at us while he stood there nude.

"God, you're beautiful," I said.

He looked up then and smiled. "You've never told me that before."

"If I haven't, then I'm a fool."

Damian looked at the other man in the room and said, "What do you have to say for yourself, Nathaniel?"

He gave a nervous laugh and said, "I think what I want to say wouldn't make you happy with me, and this is going way better than I thought it would, so let me admire the view and not say much."

"Say what you're thinking."

Nathaniel shook his head. "No."

"Please."

He sighed and glanced at me. "Is this a trap, like a girl trap, but a guy version?"

"I don't know."

He looked back at Damian. "Okay, but if this gets me in trouble I won't be this honest again."

"I understand," Damian said.

Nathaniel sighed, and said, "I want to offer you the other side of my neck so we can go down on you again until you tell us to stop, or you come, and you don't want to go that way. You want to fuck us."

"I did say that, didn't I?"

Nathaniel nodded.

"You'd just finished licking my dick, both of you. One of you on either side like it was a Popsicle you were sharing." His eyes fluttered shut and he shivered hard enough for certain parts of his anatomy to shake and distract the hell out of both of us.

"Wow," I said, "I don't know what's changed, but da-amn."

"What she said," Nathaniel said.

Damian smiled. "I don't know what's changed either, but I like that you're looking at me like I'm one of the best things you've ever seen. I've seen you look at each other and Micah that way, but never me." He started walking toward us all nude and tempting.

"I hate to ruin the mood-God knows I do-but I have to get ready for a plane ride to Ireland. Edward needs my help."

The happiness was suddenly gone from Damian's face. He was as unreadable and distant as if he'd been turned into a marble statue, white and perfect, but not very alive. "What's happened now?"

Nathaniel sighed. "I know you have to tell him, but I'm allowed to be disappointed."

"Hell, I'm disappointed, but I need to get over there ASAP."

"Tell me," Damian said.

"Put your towel back on and I'll be able to concentrate enough to tell you," I said.

That made him smile again. "I like that I can distract you."

"Towel back on so we can talk about vampires in Dublin."

He went back for his towel and bent down to pick it up. Nathaniel and I both turned our heads as he moved so our view was as good as possible. When we caught each other doing it, we giggled like we were thirteen and had been caught looking at nude photos online.

"What's so funny?" Damian asked.

"Just admiring the view," I said.

"What she said," Nathaniel said again.

Damian smiled. "I love that you both want me, and I think that means that whatever Nathaniel did to us all is still working. Even the thought that my old mistress is doing awful things back in Ireland doesn't change that I'm happy you both want me." He frowned.

"If you're happy, you're supposed to smile," I said.

"Does it make any sense to say that I'm not sure I'm supposed to be happy about this?"

"Oh yeah, I totally get that," I said.

"Then can you explain it to me?"

I laughed. "Sorry, Damian, but it doesn't make sense to me when I do it either. If something makes you happy you should just enjoy it and embrace it, but I've got a whole list of things that make me happy and I fought like hell not to enjoy them, not to want them, not to do them, because they didn't match who I thought I was, or who I thought I should be."

"Are you saying, I think I shouldn't enjoy the two of you looking at me like that, but I do, so I'm trying to make myself miserable about it, even though it actually makes me happy?"

"That is exactly what I'm saying."

"Fuck that. Just tell me what she's done, Anita. That should be awful enough to help us appreciate whatever happiness we can find."

I couldn't argue with him. I didn't even want to. We sat down on the edge of the bed, because there weren't enough chairs, and I told him what was happening in Dublin. He was right. It was awful, but it didn't make us want to stop enjoying the happiness we'd just found together. It just made us sad, and then I asked him to come to Ireland with us, and that made him scared. Nathaniel didn't want him to go either. I suggested that Pierette and Pierrot could act as our guides to the local vampires, and Damian liked that even less. He hated them both for having watched him and other vampires being tortured over the centuries but never lifting a hand to help any of them. He hated them enough to be willing to go back to Ireland and help me solve the mystery. They say love is a powerful motivator, and it is, but sometimes hatred gets the job done, too. Love or hate, I'd take the help.

22.

DAMIAN PUT HIS towel back on so Nathaniel and I could focus. I called Jean-Claude to ask if I could use his private jet to fly to Ireland or if we'd have to find a commercial flight. Micah and Rafael were going to be at least a few more days on the West Coast, so, yes, the jet was free to take us to Ireland. I did a group text to Bobby Lee, Claudia, and Fredo about a need for guards who could work with the police in Ireland. Which was a polite way of saying, Avoid anyone with a criminal background. We had a few who had started life as muscle for gangsters or had juvenile records with gangs. I didn't want that to make things in Ireland more complicated. We needed simpler, not harder. What I didn't realize was that harder was still in the bedroom with me, and I didn't mean that in any fun, literal way.

"I should go with you," Nathaniel said.

Damian smiled. "I'd like that."

I looked from one to the other of them as they sat beside me on the bed and said, "No."

They both looked at me and said in unison, "Why not?" Since I was sitting in the middle it was like stereo.

"There's no reason for Nathaniel to go with us," I said.

"I'm part of your triumvirate," he said.

"Which doesn't work well enough to gain us anything on this trip," I said.

"Nathaniel made it work yesterday," Damian said.

"And you're okay with the way he made it work?" I asked.

"Anita, are you trying to make Damian upset with me?"

I looked at Nathaniel and wanted to say no, but I tried for honest instead. "Not in the front of my head."

Nathaniel gave me the look the comment deserved.

"I'm sorry, but I really don't want you to come to Ireland with us."

"Why not?"

"It's a murder investigation for one thing, and that's not the part of my life that you help with."

"I helped in Colorado," he said.

"You did, but the initial trip was to see Micah's family. It didn't turn into a police case until after we got there."

"Funny how many of your out-of-town trips turn into cases," Damian said.

It made me look at him. "What do I say, that it's not my fault?"

"Just an observation," he said, putting his hands out in a show of innocence.

"I helped you find some of the people that the vampires kidnapped," Nathaniel said.

"You changed into your leopard form and tracked them for me, and it was helpful, but Micah's family was well-known in the area. I'm not sure we'll have that kind of connection in Ireland, so you shapeshifting will probably not be a great idea there."

"You're concentrating on the details and ignoring the fact that I have helped, which is more than Damian has done."

"You've had more opportunities because you live and travel with her," Damian said, smoothing back a strand of still-wet hair.

"That's true," Nathaniel said.

"I keep waiting for you to argue, but you don't if it's true."

"Why should I argue if it's true?"

"Cardinale argued about everything, almost."

"We're not her," Nathaniel said.

I didn't like the way he said it, as if we were taking the place in Damian's life that Cardinale had. I didn't have room in my life for another romantic triangle. Wisely, I kept my mouth shut. He'd just broken up with Cardinale yesterday and had his first sex with both of us since we formed our triad by accident years ago. I'd had enough therapy to know not to push, especially since I wanted him to travel with me to the place he probably feared most on the planet. Then I thought about being trapped in Ireland with Damian freshly broken up from Cardinale without Nathaniel to help me balance things. Crap.

"You know how people in romances say, but no one is me, or no one is you?" Damian asked.

"Yeah," Nathaniel said.

"That can be a positive and a negative. No one will ever be the good things that Cardinale was to me, but the bad things were pretty bad and I never want those again."

"I hear that," I said.

"Me, too," Nathaniel said.

I patted Damian on the back and Nathaniel reached around me and patted his leg. We all had our bad relationships.

Nathaniel sat back on his side of the bed and said, "You're going in as a consultant, not a Marshal, and they want Damian to come and help them. Just tell them he wouldn't come without me."

"And how do I do that without explaining that I'm a sort of living vampire and he's my vampire servant and you're my animal to call?"

"The police in Ireland have less experience with vampires than the ones here," Damian said. "It won't occur to them to ask those kinds of questions, Anita."

Nathaniel said, "If they ask, just tell them that I'm Damian's animal to call."

"Damian's not a master vampire."

"The police won't know that."

"I can't do my job if I'm worried about your safety."

"But it's okay to endanger me?" Damian asked.

"I didn't mean it like that."

"I know you're not in love with me, Anita, but seriously, if it's too dangerous for Nathaniel to go, then why isn't it too dangerous for me to go?"