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“Don’t drink me with your eyes, damn it, drink me with your mouth.” I tore the bandages away from my right wrist with my teeth and put my bare, warm flesh against his cold lips.

He whispered, “Je t’adore.” Fangs sank into my wrist. It was sharp and deep. His mouth locked against my skin. His throat convulsed, swallowing. I stared into his pale eyes and felt something in my head part like a curtain, some shield shattered. One moment it was one continuous ache almost nauseating, then there was nothing but the spreading warmth. I didn’t even have time to panic. Asher rolled over my mind like a warm lip of ocean, pleasurable, caressing. It burst over me in a skin-tingling, breath-stealing rush that left me gasping and wet. Then Asher was kneeling above me, laying me gently on the ground.

I lay, staring at nothing, riding the sensations up and down my body. I’d never let any vampire do me like this, never let them steal my mind while they stole my blood. I hadn’t even known he could do it. Not to me.

He kissed me on the forehead. “Forgive me, Anita. I did not know that I could embrace your mind. I did not know that any vampire could.” He stared down at my face, searching for some reaction. I couldn’t give him one yet. He drew back enough to see my face clearly. “I feared you would possess me as you possess Damian if I fed from your blood without using any of my powers. I did try to scale your shield, break your barriers, but I did it to protect myself from your power. I did not dream that I could breach such impenetrable walls.” He started to touch my face, then stopped, his hand falling to his lap. “The marks that bind you to Jean-Claude protect you from him embracing your mind. But he was never as good at this as I was. I should have thought of that before.”

I just lay there, half-floating. Nothing was real yet. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak.

He raised my hand and pressed it against his scarred cheek. “I drew back as soon as I realized what I had done. It was just, how do you say, a quickie. It was only a small taste of what it could have been, Anita. Please, believe me.” He stood, and I couldn’t follow the movement. I lay on the ground and tried to think.

Jason knelt beside me. I was aware enough to wonder where the hell he’d come from. He wasn’t staying at Marianne’s. Or was he? “It’s your first time?” he asked.

I tried to nod but couldn’t.

“Now you know why I stay with them,” he said.

“No,” I said, but my voice was distant as if it wasn’t my voice at all. “No, I don’t.”

“You felt it. You rode him. How can you not love it?”

I couldn’t explain it. It had felt wondrous, but as the glow began to fade, the fear welled up big and black enough to swallow the world. It felt amazing, and that had been a “quickie,” as he put it. I never wanted anything more from Asher. Because if it was much better than this, I might chase the rest of my days for another taste. And Jean-Claude could not give it to me. The marks prevented him from rolling my mind. It was one of the things that made the difference between servant and slave. I would never get this with Jean-Claude, never. And I wanted it. I hadn’t wanted Asher to die. Now I wasn’t so sure.

Asher came back to stand over me. We stared at each other. There were people in the dark now. Someone had a flashlight. They flared it over me. I was left staring in the brightness, nearly blind. The light stood harsh on Asher’s face, highlighting the reddish tracks of tears. “Don’t hate me, Anita. I could not bear it if you hated me.”

“I don’t hate you, Asher.” My voice still sounded thick and heavy with that golden edge of pleasure. “I fear you.”

He just stood there, tears sliding down his face. The tears slid in reddish lines down the smooth skin of his left side. The tears got lost in the scars on the other side, and were beginning to collect in a reddish stain on the stiff skin. “Worse,” he whispered, “worse, I think.”

42

I KICKED EVERYONE out except Jason. He got to stay because they started arguing that I couldn’t be left completely alone.