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“Then how did you see them nude?” His voice still held that warm edge, and I couldn’t really blame him.

“Bernardo, Edward’s backup, and I got questioned by a local biker gang, uh club. They didn’t believe he was my boyfriend. They asked if he was circumcised, and I said yes. I figured I had a better than fifty-fifty chance in America. They made him drop his pants to prove it.”

“Under some threat, I assume.” He was looking more amused than angry now.

“Yeah.”

“And the other one?”

“He tried to rape me.”

Jean-Claude’s eyes went wide. “What became of him?”

“I killed him.”

He touched my face, gently. “I have only recently understood why I was so very attracted to you from almost the first time I heard you interact with the police.”

“Not love at first sight,” I said, “but love at first hearing. I don’t have that good a voice.”

“Do not underestimate the dulcet sounds of your voice, ma petite, but it was not the sound of your voice that fascinated me. It was your words. I knew from the moment I heard you, the moment I saw the gun and realized that this lovely, petite woman was the executioner, that you would never die waiting for me to save you—that you would save yourself.”

I cupped his hand against my cheek, looked into his eyes and saw again that sorrow for failing to save Julianna that never quite left him. “So you wanted me because I was such a tough broad?”

He let me make the joke. He even smiled, but it never reached his eyes. “Oui, ma petite.”

My voice was soft when I said, “So Arturo wanted Julianna.”

He took his hand back, slowly. “And she feared him, and we feared for her. This is two hundred years ago, a little more now. Asher was not as powerful as he is now, and we feared that his human servant would not survive Arturo’s attentions.”

“I’ve got to ask, how big was he?”

Jean-Claude spaced his hands apart like you’d measure a fish. “Like this big.” It looked to be about six inches.

“That’s not so big.”

“That is how wide he was,” Jean-Claude said.

I just gaped at him. “You’re exaggerating.”

“No, ma petite, believe me, I remember.”

“Then how long was he?”

He made another measuring movement. I laughed because I didn’t believe him. “Oh, please. You’re saying he was what, about six inches wide and over a foot long? No way.”

“Yes, way, ma petite.”

“You said Arturo was one of Belle’s favorites. Does that mean she . . .”

“Had sex with him, oui.”

I frowned, couldn’t think of a slick way to say it, so just blurted out, “Didn’t that hurt her?”

“She was a woman with a large capacity for men in every way.”

Gee, that was polite. “Most women wouldn’t be able to . . . accommodate that,” I said.

“No,” he agreed.

“Did she want to kill Julianna?”

“No, she believed Arturo would not harm her.”

“Why?”

He licked his lips, which he rarely did, and looked uncomfortable, which he did even less often. “Let us say that something that Belle Morte taught Asher and me to take pleasure in, we also did with Julianna.”

I frowned at him, because I so did not have a clue. “If you’re hinting, I’m not getting it.”

“I would rather not discuss it, now. Perhaps at a later time.”

I frowned harder. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He shook his head. “I think, ma petite, that you would rather not know.”

I looked at him. “You know, Jean-Claude, there was a time—not that long ago—that I’d have thrown a fit and made you tell me everything. But now if you tell me I don’t want to know, then I’ll just believe you. I really am not up to hearing intimate and shocking details about your vampire sex life. I’ve had enough shocks in that area for one day.”

“Ma petite, I think you are growing up at last.”

“Don’t push it. And I’m not growing up, I’m just getting tired.”

“As are we all, ma petite, as are we all.”

I let the royal blue satin robe fall from my hands. It had wide lace sleeves and more lace at what passed for the lapels, to curve in flowers down the sides. It was beautiful and fit me perfectly. Most robes are too long for me. He’d probably bought it with me in mind. I belted it in place and didn