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“I don’t…” The first hint of unhappiness came over him. He finally saw where we were going.

“You are off my detail. Put my clothes in the bathroom on the edge of the sink and go find Remus or Claudia. Tell them that you need to be replaced. I’m sure that there are places you can guard that will be far enough away from me.”

“Anita, I didn’t mean it the way…”

“The way it sounded,” I finished for him. “Yeah, you did.”

“Please, Anita, please, I…”

“Put the clothes in the bathroom and go tell someone that you need to be replaced. Do it now.”

He looked behind him at Clay. Clay put his hands up in a push-away gesture, as if to say, Don’t look at me.

“This isn’t fair,” Graham said.

“What are you, five? Fair, fuck fair. You just said out loud that watching me fuck other men makes you want to fuck me. I can fix that. You don’t have to watch anymore.”

“Do you really think any man who’s watched you fuck someone didn’t want to be that man? All of us think the same thing. I’m just honest about it.”

I looked across the room at Clay. “That true, Clay?”

“Oh, please, do not drag me into this.”

I gave him a hard look.

He sighed. “No, actually, that’s not how all of us feel. For myself, I’m scared shitless of your idea of sex. The ardeur scares me.”

“How can you say that?” Graham asked. He turned toward the other man with my clothes still clutched in his big arms.

“Because it’s the truth, Graham, and if you would think with something higher than your belt buckle you’d be scared, too.”

“Scared of what?” Graham said. “It’s the most mind-blowing sex that any vampire line can give a mortal. I’ve had more of a taste of it than you have. Trust me, Clay, if she’d ever fed off you, even a little, you’d want more.”

“That’s exactly what scares me,” Clay said.

I had a thought, a bad one. I had fed on Graham in small ways when the ardeur was new. I’d given him the smallest taste of it that I could. We had never been naked together. We had never touched each other in any area that was considered sexual. But just because I thought it hadn’t been enough contact to addict him to the ardeur didn’t mean I was right. The ardeur could act like a drug, and I’d learned through some of the vampires that how easily addicted to it you were varied from person to person. Had I addicted Graham to the ardeur without meaning to? Was his reaction to me my fault? Shit.

Graham turned back to me with my clothes crushed against his chest. He looked panic stricken. “Please, Anita, please, don’t do this. I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry.” His eyes glittered through the fringe of his hair. I think he was on the verge of tears. I was reminded that he was under twenty-five by a few years. He was so physically big that sometimes you forgot how young he was. We were only about four or five years apart, but his eyes showed that he was younger than I had been at the same age. I wanted to touch his arm, comfort him, apologize to him. Tell him I hadn’t meant this to happen. But I was afraid to touch him. I was afraid I’d make things worse somehow.

“Graham,” and my voice sounded gentle, a voice for soothing frightened children and ledge jumpers, “I need you to find Remus or Claudia and bring them to me, okay? I need to talk to them about some of the things that happened last night. Can you do that for me? Can you find one of them and bring them to me?”

He swallowed hard enough that it sounded painful. “You won’t kick me off your detail?”

“No,” I said.

He nodded too fast, too often, over and over. He actually started for the door with my clothes still in his hands. It was Clay who took the clothes from him. When the door closed behind him, Clay turned to me. We stared at each other.

“He’s addicted, isn’t he?” Clay asked.

I nodded. “I think so.”

“You didn’t know either?”

I shook my head.

“You look pale,” he said.

“You, too,” I said.

“You haven’t fed that much from him, right? I mean, you didn’t even get naked together, right?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“I thought it took more than that to addict someone