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If it had been Richard stretched out on the bed in the next room, I would have jumped him tonight. But it wasn’t Richard, and once Richard got here, we’d be sleeping in Jean-Claude’s bed. Seemed pretty tacky to have sex for the first time in your other boyfriend’s bed. But it wasn’t just the boys suffering from sexual tension, I was drowning, too.

Was Richard right? Was the fact that Jean-Claude wasn’t human the only thing keeping me out of his bed? No. Or at least I didn’t think so. Out of Richard’s bed? The answer, sadly, was yes, maybe.

I freshened up and couldn’t help checking myself in the mirror. The makeup had faded a little, but the liner still made my large, dark eyes stand out in dramatic contrast. The blush was almost gone, and the lipstick had long ago vanished. I had lipstick in my purse. I could freshen that at least. But freshening my lipstick was like admitting I cared what Jean-Claude thought of me. I did care. That was the truly scary part. I did not put on more lipstick. I walked back into the bedroom as is, let him make of it what he would.

He was leaning on one elbow, watching me as I came through the door. “Ma petite, you are beautiful.”

I shook my head. “Pretty, I’ll give you, but not beautiful.”

He cocked his head to one side, sending a wave of hair over one shoulder. “Who told you you were not beautiful?”

I leaned against the door. “When I was a little girl, my father would come up behind my mother. He would wrap his arms around her waist, bury his face in her hair, and say, ‘How is the most beautiful woman in the world today?’ He said it at least once a day. She would laugh and tell him not to be silly, but I agreed with him. To me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“She was your mother. All little girls think that of their mother.”

“Maybe, but two years after she died, Dad remarried. He married Judith, who was tall and blond and blue-eyed, and nothing like my mother. If he had really believed my mother was the most beautiful woman in the world, why did he marry some Nordic ice princess? Why didn’t he marry someone small and dark like my mother?”

“I don’t know, ma petite,” he said quietly.

“Judith had a daughter only a couple of years younger than me. Then they had Josh together and he was as blond and blue-eyed as the rest of them. I looked like a small dark mistake in the family photos.”

“Your skin is almost as pale as mine, ma petite.”

“But I have my mother’s eyes and hair. My hair isn’t brunette, it’s black. A woman asked Judith once in front of me if I was adopted. Judith said, no, I was from her husband’s first marriage.”

Jean-Claude slid off the bed. He moved towards me, and I had to look at the floor. I wanted badly to be held, to be comforted. If it had been Richard, I’d have gone to him. But it wasn’t Richard.

Jean-Claude touched my cheek and raised my face until I had to look at him. “I have lived for over three hundred years. In that time, the ideal of beauty has changed many times. Large breasts, small, thin, curved, tall, short, they have all been the height of beauty at one time or another. But in all that time, ma petite, I have never desired anyone the way I desire you.” He leaned towards me, and I didn’t move away. His lips brushed mine in a gentle kiss.

He took that one last step to press our bodies together, and I stopped him, one hand on his chest, but all I met was bare skin. The slickness of his cross-shaped burn scar met my fingertips. I moved my hand and found his heart beating against my palm. Not an improvement.

He drew back, a breath, and whispered into my mouth, “Tell me no, ma petite, and I will stop.”

I had to swallow twice before I could speak. “No.”

Jean-Claude stepped away from me. He lay back on the bed as he had earlier, propped on his elbows, his legs from the knees hung off the bed. He stared at me, daring me to come join him, I think.

I wasn’t that stupid. There was some dark part of me that was tempted. Lust has less logic than love, sometimes, but