Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [935]
“To know another’s heart, you must first know your own, ma petite.” His voice was soft, no reproach.
I turned back to Asher, and there was something in his eyes—half wonderment, half pain—as if he expected me to hurt him in some way. He was probably right. But if so, I wouldn’t mean to do it. Sometimes the greatest wounds are the ones we try the hardest not to inflict.
I let what I was feeling fill my eyes, my face. It was the only gift I had to give him. His expression softened, and what I saw in those lovely eyes was at the same time wonderful and painful. He dropped to his knees, one tear trailing down his smooth cheek. The look on his face was full of so many things. “The look in your eyes heals a part of my heart, ma cherie, and wounds another.”
“Love is such a bitch,” I said.
He laughed and hugged me around the waist, the roughness of his right cheek pressed into my belly, and I valued that more than anything else he could have done. I stroked his hair and held him against me. I looked across the room to Jean-Claude, and the look on his face was drowning deep, a longing so immense that there were no words to hold it. He wanted Asher and me. He wanted what he had had so many centuries ago. He’d once told Asher that he’d once almost been happy, and that had been when he was in Asher’s and Julianna’s arms. Before she died and Asher was saved but no longer Belle Morte’s perfect golden boy. Jean-Claude had been forced to take Asher back to the vampire Council to have him healed. Jean-Claude had traded a hundred years of his own freedom to the Council for the favor of them saving Asher’s life. Then Jean-Claude had fled, and Asher had stayed behind, blaming Jean-Claude for Julianna’s death and for his ruin. Jean-Claude had gone from being in love, and being loved by two people, to losing one lover and having the other one hate him.
We gazed at each other. The look in Jean-Claude’s eyes was so raw, like a fresh wound that still bled. He wanted to secure his power base with the triumvirate. He did want that—needed it—but there were other things that he wanted, almost needed. And one of those was hugging my waist, pressing his face to my stomach.
Jean-Claude lowered his eyes as if he couldn’t control what was in them. He was the master of blank, careful expression. The fact that what he felt was too strong to hide said more than anything else. He couldn’t shield his emotions right now. They were too strong; they shattered all his careful control, and a part of me was glad.
In that moment I wanted to give him what he most desired. I wanted to do it because I loved him, but it was more than that. I suddenly realized that with Richard gone from our bed, other things were suddenly possible. I turned back to Asher, gazing down on the top of his head, and knew that to be held in the circle of both our arms would heal something inside him that might never heal any other way.
The ardeur flared through me, hot, so hot, as if my skin must feel feverish. Asher drew back from me, letting his arms drop slowly to his sides. He gazed up at me, and the look in his eyes was enough. I knew he felt the hunger, too.
“It feels hot,” I said. “Always before your power has felt cool, or cold even. It’s Richard’s beast that holds the heat.”
“Lust is warm, ma petite, even among the cold-blooded.”
I turned towards the bed and was suddenly very aware that I was nude. I was really going to have to get a robe. It wasn’t Jean-Claude’s gaze that made me look away, it was Nathaniel and Jason. Everyone in this room responded to me, in different ways, for very different reasons. But it was all fodder for this . . . need inside me.
Asher made some small movement that drew my attention back to him. I started to reach for him, to push his robe from his shoulders, to watch it fall to the floor. I hugged my arms to me, as if I was cold, but I wasn’t cold. It was my turn not to trust