Laurell Hamilton - Bullet

“I know that, Asher, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t here to help,” Richard said.

Asher started to push himself out from between us and move for the side of the bed. Richard grabbed his arm. “Let go of me, wolf,” Asher hissed.

“I thought you wanted me to touch you.”

That stopped the vampire and made him turn to look at the other man. He made sure his hair hid the one side of his face as they looked at each other. “I do.”

“Then where are you going?”

Asher looked at Richard’s hand where it still held his arm. He relaxed slightly, but said, “Did your therapist put you on drugs? Is that why this new calm?”

Richard smiled. “No, nothing much works for werewolves. Our body processes them too fast.”

“Then you cannot mean this, and if you run away from Anita, who you love, and Jean-Claude, who you feel truly drawn to, you will not be able to tolerate my touch.”

“There are limits to what you can do to me, and with me, that’s true, but I share some of Jean-Claude’s emotions and memories. I remember loving you, Asher, and I still have a body that could do it.”

I stared at Richard, and then at the look on Asher’s face. I’d never seen the vampire so surprised. He laughed, a wild, abrupt sound. “Are you offering what Jean-Claude has denied me?”

Richard smiled. “I think that would be pushing my newfound resolutions, but I am offering to try. You are powerful enough to have your own territory now with Narcissus; by staying here you make Jean-Claude stronger, which makes us all safer.”

“And what are you willing to do to make me stay, Richard?” There was derision in his voice again.

Richard pulled him backward with that one hand on his arm. Asher let himself be pulled. Richard settled back against the pillows and drew the other man’s back in against his chest. He had his legs to one side so Asher was against only his chest, but it was more touch than I’d ever seen him do with any other man but Jean-Claude. Richard wrapped those strong arms around the vampire and held him. “I’m a shapeshifter; we like to sleep in big puppy piles.”

Asher stroked his fingers down Richard’s bare arms. Richard settled back deeper against the pillows, cuddling the other man closer to him. Asher bent his head and laid a kiss against that tanned, muscular arm.

“No biting, not yet, remember,” Richard said, but he raised the arm that Asher wasn’t kissing and stroked his hand through the other man’s hair.

I looked at Jean-Claude and he looked at me. I held my arm out toward him. “Pinch me, because this has to be a dream.”

Jean-Claude nodded. “You have read my mind, ma petite .”

Asher rubbed his cheek against Richard’s arm like a cat scent-marking. “Come into the pool, Jean-Claude, it is warm and smells so good.”

“Don’t just look at us—come cuddle,” Richard said.

“Sorry, Richard, I just don’t quite trust the change,” I said.

“You mean you don’t trust me,” he said.

Asher was petting his arm with his hands and small kisses. “Don’t the Americans have a saying, ‘Do not look a gift horse in the mouth’?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Then what are you waiting for, Anita, unless you do not want either of us?” He looked at me over Richard’s arm, giving me the weight of those beautiful eyes. Did I want both of them? Yes, yes I did.

I looked back at Jean-Claude, who was still standing beside the bed watching them. I held a hand out to Jean-Claude. “If you trust it, so will I.”

“Trust,” Jean-Claude whispered.

“When I realized how stupid I’d been toward both of you I thought about sending flowers, but didn’t think there were enough roses in the world to make up for what I’d almost done to all of us.” He rose up, and Asher made a small protesting noise as he took his arm back. Richard took hold of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head in one smooth movement. “I thought you’d like this better than flowers.”

Asher hesitated, looking back at him. Richard drew him in against his chest, as he had before. Asher turned and laid a tentative hand on his bare side. Richard held his hands out, one to me and one toward Jean-Claude.

“I can always call a florist if you’d prefer that.” His words were joking, but his face was so serious. “But I was hoping that this would say, I screwed up and I’m sorry better than anything else.”

Jean-Claude said, “If you mean this, then it will.”

“If you don’t mean it,” I said, “and you bail again on us, then that’s it, Richard. I can’t let you keep cutting us up like this.”

Asher laid his head on the other man’s bare stomach, his arm hugging all that bare flesh. “Oh, for the love of God, stop talking and join us. He won’t get out of his pants for just me.”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. Richard didn’t laugh. He ran his hand through the other man’s hair and grabbed a handful of it, jerking his head back. I had a moment to see Asher’s face. I knew that look, the wide, almost unfocused eyes, the slightly parted lips. I’d seen it on Nathaniel’s face often enough, and caught it on mine in the mirror a time or two. That look said that Asher had gone from dominant to submissive, switched over by the pain, the suddenness, and the strength in Richard’s hand.

Richard used Asher’s hair as a handle to move the other man so they looked at each other. I saw the muscles in his forearm tighten. Asher made a small sound, and though pain caused it, it wasn’t a pain sound. It was a good sound. One I’d heard Jean-Claude drive from Asher more than once, one that Nathaniel and I had gotten from him when we worked as a unit.

“I’m a dominant; I don’t bottom to anyone, so if anyone is losing their pants it’s not me.” Richard dragged the man a little upward using that painful, pleasurable grip on his hair. Richard lowered his own face a little toward the vampire and said, “I am not food. I am not prey. I am the Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, and the next time you forget that, I will hurt you.” He whispered the last almost into the other man’s lips, close enough to kiss. I watched him use all that beauty on Asher as he had, in different ways, with me over the years. Beauty can be a weapon as devastating as any gun.

Richard sat back up and let go of Asher so abruptly he fell into the other man’s lap. Asher lay there passive, his face to one side lost in the tangle of his own golden hair. Richard looked at Jean-Claude and me. “I haven’t just been running from being a werewolf or Jean-Claude’s animal to call. If pain and pleasure didn’t move me, Raina could never have seduced me. I blamed her for me being a pervert, but she didn’t invent this part of me, she just unleashed it.” He laid his big hand on Asher’s head and stroked his hair. The other man shivered under that small touch. “I don’t want to have sex with Asher, but causing him pain appeals to me. Making him want me, and denying him what he wants, that appeals to me, too.” He laid his head back against the back of the bed and closed his eyes; when he opened them they had gone to a dark amber. “It appeals to me a lot.”

Just the look in his eyes made me shiver. Jean-Claude touched my arm and I jumped. “ Ma petite , shall we join them?”

I just nodded, because saying Wow out loud just didn’t sound cool enough for what was lying in the bed looking at us with wolf amber eyes.

AS HER LOST HIS pants and everything else, though there was a moment when he hesitated on his shirt, because the most severe scars were on his chest and stomach on the one side, and his hair wasn’t long enough to be used as a shield as he did for his face. Jean-Claude and I had done our reassuring months ago. It was Richard with his perfect upper body that made Asher embarrassed, shy, some word that I never thought to use for him in any circumstance.