He smiled.
«I can't feed on you again this soon, Nathaniel, it's too dangerous. I don't know what the mother did to me, exactly, but I feel shaky. I don't know if I can guarantee that the ardeur won't spread through the room. Outside the door you'll be safe; inside, I don't know." I looked at Damian, who was clinging to Nathaniel's shoulders as if he'd fall down without the support. «If I fed on Damian right now, I think that would be bad.»
«Who will you feed from then?» Asher asked from where he stood near the wall.
«If it's okay with you, you.»
«A man likes to be asked.»
I squeezed the others' hands, and said, «Nathaniel, Damian, go, please, and stay where someone can keep an eye on you, okay?»
«I promise,» Nathaniel said, and they started for the door.
I turned to Asher. «Are you mad at me?»
«No one likes to be taken for granted, Anita.»
«I don't take you for granted.»
«You do, and so does Jean-Claude.»
I didn't know what to say to that so I said that part out loud. «I don't know what to say to that.»
He shook his head. «We do not have time to tend my emotional wounds. Forgive me.»
The door closed behind us, Nathaniel and Damian were outside trying to find a place to wait while I fed enough to keep us all alive.
I reached for Asher's hand. He took it, but he wouldn't look at me. What little of his face he gave was that perfect profile, with the scars hidden behind the glory of his hair. I'd asked for sex and he was hiding from me. Not good.
«What is wrong?» I asked.
«Do you realize that this will be the first time we have ever had sex alone together?»
I started to argue with him but stopped myself. I could remember his body so intimately. So many nights and afternoons of his body against mine. Had there always been someone else with us? Had we never had a moment that was just us, just ours?
I touched his face, tried to get him to look at me, but he wouldn't do it. «It's not just Jean-Claude that you haven't gotten enough personal attention from, is it?»
He smiled then, but not like he was happy. «I spent centuries being desired by all that I touched, or wanted. Then I spent centuries being despised, ridiculed. Sex was a mercy or done as a torment to the ones Belle wished to punish.»
I tried to hug him, and he kept me away, just holding my hand while he talked. I said the only thing I could think to say. «I'm sorry.»
He finally looked at me with the perfect side of his face. He let me see the drowning beauty that had made people give up their fortunes, their honor, their virtue, for but one more night staring into this face. «You have healed some of my hurts. Being with you and Jean-Claude. I thought it would be enough.»
I slid my hand underneath his hair, so I could touch the scarred side of his face. I cupped that which he hid, while I stared up into the face he let me see. «But you don't get enough attention from either of us.»
«It sounds childish when you say it out loud, but it does not feel childish inside here.» He touched his chest. «It feels like I am starving to death in the midst of a feast. But it is a feast that I share with too many. Neither of you watches only me. There is always someone else more beautiful, more desirable.»
«There is no one more beautiful than you, Asher.»
He jerked back, and exposed the scars on his face. «How can you say that to me?»
«What do you want me to say?»
«I want to be the center of someone's life again, Anita. Jean-Claude's center is you. Yours is beginning to be Nathaniel and Micah.» He grabbed my arms and closed his eyes tight. «I am no one's darling, and I cannot bear it.» He laughed, but when he opened his eyes there was a shine of unshed tears. «How stupid and childish. How selfish.»
«It's not about being with men, or women, is it?» I said, «It's because none of the men I'm picking will ever put you at the center of their world.»
«I want to be loved, Anita, as I once was.»
«Julianna,» I said, softly.
He nodded. «Once it was Jean-Claude, but he could never truly love another man the way he loves a woman. Belle's tastes and demands sent many of us to the arms of other men, but Jean-Claude could never be content with just men in his bed. He is a lover of women above all else.»
«And you?» I asked, because he seemed to want me to ask.
«I think if it were the right man, I could be in love, and content, but I think the same of a woman. It is love I seek, Anita, not the package around it. I have always been needier of attention than Jean-Claude. I sought a woman for my human servant when I realized that Jean-Claude would never be content with just men, with just me.»