Jean-Claude answered with his head still poised on his arm. «If I feed your ego now, then I may lose the advantage I have gained.»
Auggie nodded. «I understand that.» He looked at me. «But her, I don't get her. I know I'm good with women. Hell, I'm an amazing lover.»
I laughed, I couldn't help it.
He gave me a dirty look. «Do you disagree?»
I shook my head. «No, you're great.» I didn't sound like I meant it, but I did. «Maybe I just like my men a little more modest, that's all.»
He stabbed a thumb at Jean-Claude. «If he's ever been modest about his prowess in bed, it was false modesty.»
«Why, thank you,» Jean-Claude said.
Auggie shook his head. «That's not what I meant.»
«What did you mean?» I asked.
«That he doesn't have a modest bone in his body.»
I actually didn't agree with that, but Auggie didn't deserve the explanation that went with it, so I let it lie. «You're entitled to your opinion.»
«Which means you don't agree with me,» Auggie said.
«It means what I said.»
Auggie shifted his gaze to Micah. He looked at him, looked at him the way that men usually reserve for women. Like he was wondering what Micah would look like without his clothes.
«Here I stand all naked, and you're not even looking at me,» Nathaniel said. «Should I be insulted?» He moved a few steps ahead of Micah, tossing all that heavy auburn hair over his shoulders, so his body was framed by it. He stood there and gazed at the vampire. He gazed at him from those lavender eyes, with that beautiful body.
«Maybe I like a little modesty, too,» Auggie said.
Nathaniel moved his muscular arms to cover himself, let the hair spill over one shoulder, so that more of him was hidden. He peeked coyly around his own body and hair, gave innocent eyes, let his face be as young as it was in years. I was never sure how he did it, but he could play the innocent down to his toes. He could hide those jaded eyes, and play the ingénue.
Auggie laughed, that bright, happy laugh. «He's good.» He turned to Jean-Claude. «Where did you find so many beautiful men?»
«I didn't,» he said.
He looked past Nathaniel to me. «Anita, you have a true eye for talent.»
«They aren't talent to me. They're people I care about, and I don't like games.»
He motioned to Nathaniel. «This one plays games, and very well, I think.»
I nodded. «Nathaniel likes games better than I do, better than Micah does, but he doesn't play them with us.»
Auggie gave me a look that seemed to imply I was being naive. «Once a hustler, always a hustler, Anita.»
«Was that meant to be mean?» I asked.
«I thought you liked honesty,» he said.
«It was meant to be mean,» Micah said.
«I know whore when I see it, because I was one. So was Jean-Claude, and Asher, and Requiem, and London. Mustn't leave out the ladies: Elinore, Cardinal, anyone who was ever Belle's line was a whore. We're created to be whores.»
«Nathaniel is not a whore,» I said, and reached for him. He pulled away from the touch, and gave me eyes full of loss. «I was.»
«You researched us, before you came here,» Micah said.
«You bet,» Auggie said.
I touched Nathaniel's face, and tried to put into my eyes how much he meant to me. Whatever he saw in my face made him smile, a little. He pressed his hand over mine, pressing my hand against the curve of his jaw.
Micah stepped in front of us both. «You knew looking at me like that would be an insult. Nathaniel stepped up, took the attention, because it wouldn't bother him. Something about him protecting me bothered you. Why?»
Jean-Claude raised his head, curled his legs over each other in a way that let you know just how flexible he was, but still managed to be «ladylike,» for lack of a better word. «I know why.»
I put one arm across Nathaniel's back, and asked, «Why?»
Jean-Claude and Auggie exchanged a look. «If you think you can read me that well, go ahead,» Auggie said.
Jean-Claude gave a small nod, then looked at us. «Augustine prefers women to men, but one would have to be very, very heterosexual indeed to ignore the beauty of both of you. In his defense, you did fall into his lap. He behaved himself admirably. There are vampires among our own kiss who would not have shown his restraint. He offered such a small insult, and you took it as a large one. Anita and I are not falling over each other to profess our love for him, and that irks him. It puzzles him. Then you, who are animal, thus lesser in the eyes of most vampires, insult him, too. But I think it is more than that.» He looked at Auggie. «I think he watched Nathaniel use the only gift he had to protect Micah. Did it bring back old memories, Augustine? Bad memories?» He leaned in toward the other man.