He looked down at me, using all that gold hair to cover die scarred side of his face. He didn't usually hide from me anymore. "What do you think that Jean-Claude and I do in my bed when you are asleep in this one?"
I frowned, then couldn't quite meet his entirely too-frank gaze. Vampire powers didn't make me look away, embarrassment did. "You're right, I don't want honesty, I just think I do."
"You are blushing," Asher said, and he gave a delighted laugh. "You think we are lovers, don't you?"
I was blushing so hard I was dizzy, and I felt like he was making fun of me. So I got angry. I crossed my arms over my stomach, and said, "Yeah."
Asher looked at Jean-Claude. "She believes what most believe of us."
I finally looked at Jean-Claude. His face was very empty. I had to lick my suddenly dry lips to say, "Are you saying that you're not doing it, when I'm not around?"
"All trie touch I am allowed is when you are with us," Asher said, and it was his turn to sound angry. But his anger had warmth to it, to fill his voice.
I kept staring at Jean-Claude.
"You do not believe us?" Jean-Claude asked.
"It's not that, it's . . ."I tried to put it into words. Finally, I said, "How could you be so close to him and keep turning him down?"
"Thank you for that," Asher said.
"And what would you have done, ma petite, if you had found us in an embrace?"
"I... I don't know. I guess it depends on what you mean by embrace."
"Sex, ma petite, sex."
I opened my mouth, closed it, and didn't know what to say. "I don't know."
"I do. You would have stormed away. You would have abandoned my bed, damaged our power base, the triumvirate. You might have run to our so-conservative Richard, or left us both again. So shocked you would have been, so unready to conceive of such things."
"Maybe, but I didn't freak about you and Augustine."
"You were involved. We shared him. If you had come upon the two of us alone, you would have taken it differendy."
"Well, yeah, he's a stranger for one thing."
"Wait," Asher said, "are you saying that you would share Jean-Claude with me?"
"We share each other now."
He shook his head. "We share you, Anita, we barely touch each other."