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Jean-Claude stayed sitting at the foot of the bed. He made no move to join us. I looked at him, that careful face. He’d made his position clear. He didn’t just want to watch. I’d never tried to entertain three of the men at once. Cuddling, blood sharing, but not for sex.

I went to him where he sat so still, his back touching the foot of the bed. He’d gone as far away as he could without leaving the bed. Had he thought I would make him watch and not touch him? The very blankness of his face said yes, he had. I had a memory, not a vision, just a memory. It just didn’t happen to be my memory, not originally. I saw Belle in her big bed, so similar to this one. She had two other vampires with her. I was watching her from the foot of the bed where she had tied me to the posts. I could feel the pull in my shoulders where the ropes were a little too high for comfort. But she didn’t want me comfortable. She wanted me punished. Tied to her bed where she had taught me, us, what true desire could be. Bound, helpless, knowing that I could not touch her, and that no one would touch me. When we’d been far away from her, we could resist wanting her, but standing there, smelling her skin and sweat, we couldn’t help but want her. She was an addiction, and the only way to save yourself was to never take another drink, another hit, another taste of her. I fought free of the memory enough to think, Jean-Claude had been tied to that bed, not me. Too tall to be my body. Too male. Not me, but the memory still burned, still had the power to make his face close down to that carefulness.

I touched his face, and I let my face show how sorry I was that all those awful things had happened to him. So sorry that I hadn’t been there to save him. We were shut down too tight behind our shields for him to read my mind, probably just as well, but he saw what I meant him to see. He came to me with a sigh that was almost a sob. He kissed me as if he would breathe me in through his lips, and I kissed him as if he were the last drop of water in the world and I were dying of thirst.

I tasted the sweet metal of blood in my mouth. It made him draw back from the kiss. “I am sorry, ma petite…”

I stopped his apology with a kiss, feeding at his mouth, and he fell into that kiss with his hands on my body, his nakedness pressed as tight to mine as it could be. The only reason his body did not respond was that it couldn’t until he fed.

I drew back from the kiss, my breathing ragged, the taste of my own blood in my mouth. A drop of blood grew and trembled on my lower lip.

He kissed that drop away, and stared down at me, as he knelt in front of me. His face was fierce and full of some wonder, as if I’d done something amazing. I hadn’t. I’d just finally decided to get out of my own way; out of everyone’s way.

I moved back along the bed, with his hand in mine. I pulled him along with me, on our knees, until we reached Micah and Nathaniel’s feet. One of the things I’d noticed in dealing with more than one man in bed at a time was there were only two ways to go about it. Choice one: the men took turns, completely separate lovemaking, except that they both got to watch each other have sex with me. Choice two: they both touched me at the same time, and they did foreplay, or more, with me at the same time. Choice two was harder to choreograph. Harder on the egos involved. It took more concentration on my part. It was just a higher level of skills needed all around, and a larger dose of secure masculinity, too. I realized now, after Auggie, that there was a choice three, but I didn’t think any of us was up to it tonight. I knew I wasn’t. I had no idea how to even raise the question to Micah and Nathaniel: would they kiss another man? I mean, when did this sound like a good conversation to have? Never, I think.

I let go of Jean-Claude’s hand, leaving him kneeling, while I lay down between the other two men. I traced a hand down their bodies until I touched the smooth heads, the skin