Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [123]
“Wait a minute, you’re not just going to walk out,” I said.
He stopped walking, but didn’t turn around as he answered, giving a clear view of the perfection of the back of his body. “I cannot leave until Musette is gone. I will give her no excuse to take me back to the courts with her. If I belong to no one, she will do it, and I will have no grounds to refuse.” He rubbed his hands over his arms as if he were cold. “When Musette is gone, I will petition for another Master of the City. There are those who would take me in.”
I walked towards him. “No, no, you have to give me some time to think about what you did. It’s not fair to walk off like this.” I was almost to him when he whirled around, and the rage on his face stopped me like I’d hit a wall.
“Fair! What is fair in being offered everything you ever wanted and thought never to have again, only to have it torn from your grasp? Torn from your grasp because you did exactly what you were told you could do, what was asked of you.” He didn’t yell, but his anger filled his voice, so every word was like a red-hot poker flung at my face.
I didn’t know what to say in the face of that anger.
“I will not, cannot, stay and watch you and Jean-Claude. I would rather be without the sight of either of you then so very close, but cast from your bed, your arms, your affections.” He covered his face with his hands and gave a low scream. “To be with us as our lover is to be seduced by our powers.” He tore his hands away from his face and let me see his eyes drowning blue, his anger making up for the lack of blood. “I had never dreamed that Jean-Claude had not done so.” He looked at the other man, still sitting on the edge of the bed. “How could you be with her for so long and resist the temptation?”
“She is most adamantly against such things,” Jean-Claude said. “At least you have had her willing blood, I have never been so blessed.”
Asher frowned, and it sat badly on that lovely face, like an angel frowning. “That astounds me still, though I knew that. But she has bestowed her charms upon you, and now I will never know them.”
This was all happening way too fast for me. “Jean-Claude understands the rules, and we both live by them.” Of course, I’d been just about ready to change the rules, but I didn’t think Asher needed to know right now.
Asher shook his head, sending that foam of gold hair gliding over his shoulders. “Even if I understood the rules, Anita, I could not abide by them.”
That made me frown. “What do you mean?”
“Anita, we aren’t human, no matter how much some of us pretend. But not all of what we are is bad. You have entered our world, but you deny yourself the best of us, while only seeing the worst. But most horrible of all, you deny Jean-Claude the best of his own world.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He is celibate save for you, but he does not pleasure himself fully with you, or anyone else.” He made a gesture that I didn’t understand. “I see that look upon your face, Anita, that American look. Sex is not just intercourse, or even just orgasm, and that is especially true for us.”
“Why, because you’re French?”
He gave me such a serious look that my attempt at humor died in my chest like a cold weight. “We are vampires, Anita. More than that, we are Master Vampires of Belle Morte’s line. We can give you pleasure that no other can give, and we can take pleasure as no other can experience it. By agreeing to limit himself, Jean-Claude has denied himself a great deal of what makes this existence bearable, even enjoyable.”
I looked at Jean-Claude. “How much have you been holding back?”
He wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“How much, Jean-Claude?”
“I cannot make my bite true pleasure as Asher can. I cannot roll your mind completely as he can.” He still wouldn’t look at me.
“That’s not what I asked.”
He sighed. “There are things that I can do that you have not seen. I have tried to abide by your wishes in all things.”