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Asher’s face was bland, as if he didn’t notice, but I knew he did.

Jason didn’t look away. He’d pulled on a pair of leather pants but waited on the shirt and boots because he still had to help Damian flake the gunk off his skin. He sat on one of the coffins, swinging his bare feet, looking at me. His eyes flicked to the vampire, then back to me.

Oh, hell. Who died and made me den mother? You’d think hanging around with this many preternatural studly guys would mean there was a lot of sex, and sexual tension was in the air a lot, but more than sex, was pain. I don’t know if it was because I was a girl, or what, but I ended up doing a hell of a lot more hand-holding than any of the guys. Maybe it was a girl thing. I certainly didn’t think of myself as particularly compassionate. So why was it me walking across the floor to the vampire?

Asher was kneeling in front of the trunk. His back was smooth and almost perfect, only a few trailing scars where the holy water had dripped down his side. His golden hair hung thick and wet, water trailing in silver lines down his back. There weren’t enough towels, so the guys were forgoing a second towel for the hair.

I took the towel I’d used for my hair from the back of the desk chair. I’d put it there so it could dry. I went to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, lowering his head, trying to get the wet hair to cover his scarred face. The gesture was automatic, no thinking required, and it hurt my heart to see him do it.

If we’d been lovers, I’d have licked the water off his chest, caressing my tongue down the deep scars, maybe even slid a hand under the towel. But we weren’t lovers, and I’d never seen him nude. I didn’t know what was under the towel. He’d told me once that he was still fully functional, but that didn’t really tell me what he looked like under the towel. And as comfortable as I was with him, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. If it was as bad as his chest, I was almost sure I didn’t want to see. Yes, I admit there was a small part of me that did want to know for sheer curiosity’s sake.

I did the best I could. I laid my face against the roughness of his right cheek. “What are you going to wear?”

He sighed and leaned his face into me. One hand touched my hand, sliding my arm across his damp chest. “I think we shall need to shock them. I shall wear very little.”

I moved back enough to see his face. He kept my hand pressed to his chest, resting on the smooth perfection of his left side. “You sure about that?”

He smiled but blinked at the same time so I couldn’t read his eyes. He patted my hand and let me go. “I am accustomed to the effect I have on people, ma cherie. I have had centuries to use it to my advantage.”

I stood and draped the towel over his shoulders. “You’ll need this for your hair.”

He grabbed the ends of the towel like a shawl, pressing the cloth to his nose and mouth. “It smells of the sweet scent of your skin.”

I touched a strand of that heavy, gold hair. “You say the nicest things.” I stared down into that face, into the frosted blue of his eyes, and felt something low in my body tighten. A sudden flexing of lust that made me catch my breath. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it’s just a gesture, a turn of the head, and you catch your breath, your body reacts on a level that you can’t control. When it happens, you pretend it didn’t, you hide it. Heaven forbid that the object of such instant desire should know what you’re thinking. But tonight, I let it show in my eyes. I let him see how he moved me.

He took my hand and laid a gentle kiss against my skin. “Ma cherie.”

Jason came to stand near us, leaning against the nearest coffin as he’d leaned against the desk. “Damn,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“You’ve seen me naked, or almost. We’ve been up close and very personal.” He sighed. “And you didn’t look at me like that.”

“Jealous?” I asked.

He seemed to think about that for a second, then nodded. “Yeah, I think I am.”

Asher laughed and it was touchable, caressable, like a feather trailing down your skin held by a knowledgeable