Skin Trade

I heard the robe on the carpet; silk has such a distinctive sound. I felt him just behind me, felt him reach for me. “Don’t.”

I felt him go very still behind me. “I know you do not love me, my evening star.”

“I have too many men in my life that I love, Requiem; why can’t we just be lovers? Why do you have to remind me constantly that you love me, and I don’t love you? Your disappointment is like a constant pressure, and it’s not my doing. I never offered love, never promised it.”

“I will serve my lady in any way she will have me, for I have no pride left where she is concerned.”

“I don’t even want to know what you’re quoting; just go.”

“Look at me and tell me to go, and I will go.”

I shook my head stubbornly. “No, because if I see you, I won’t. You’re beautiful. You’re wonderful in bed. But you’re also a pain in the ass, and I’m tired, Requiem. I am so tired.”

“I didn’t even ask you how your night had gone. I thought only of my own feelings, my own needs. I am no true lover, to have thought of only myself.”

“I was told you were here to feed the ardeur.”

“We both know that’s a lie,” he said, voice soft and close. “I’m here because it broke my heart to know that you slept with the Wicked Truth.”

I started to say something angry. He said, “Hush, I can’t help feeling the way I feel, my evening star. I have asked Jean-Claude to find me a new city, one where I can be someone’s second-in-command rather than a distant third.”

I turned around then and searched his face. “You’re telling the truth.”

He gave that slight smile. “I am.”

I hugged him then, molding our bodies together the way you do with someone when you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve been together. You know each other’s bodies. You know the music of their breathing when sex perfumes the air. I hugged him to me and realized that I would miss him. But I also knew he was right.

He stroked my hair. “It helps to know that you will miss me.”

I raised my face to look into those blue eyes with their flash of green around the pupils. “You know I find you beautiful and amazing in bed.”

He nodded and gave that sad smile again. “But all your men are beautiful, and all of them are good in bed. I want to go somewhere that I have a chance to shine. A chance to have a woman love me, Anita, just me. You will never love just me.”

“I’m not sure I will ever love just anyone,” I said.

He smiled a little wider. “That is something, to know that you frustrate Jean-Claude, too. I never thought to see anyone who could resist him.”

I frowned up at him. “I haven’t exactly resisted.”

“You are his lover, his human servant, but you are not his.”

I started to step back, and he hugged me closer. “He said almost the same thing on the phone. Do I have you to thank for that little talk?”

“I told him why I needed to leave, and he agreed. That is why I am here in Las Vegas, to see if I would like to visit.”

“I don’t think it’s your kind of town.”

“Nor I, but it is a start. I will see their show, and I will dance, and women will think me beautiful, and they will want me, and eventually I will want them.”

“There isn’t enough of me, Requiem, not to date all of you. I can have sex with this many men, but I can’t be everyone’s lady love; no single woman could.”

He nodded. “I know. Now, kiss me, kiss me like you mean it. Kiss me like you’ll miss me. Kiss me, quick before dawn, because when you finish hunting your killer, I won’t be going back with you. If I don’t like Vegas, then the Master of Philadelphia is looking for a second, and she’s requested a man of Belle’s line if she can get it.”

I looked up into his face and realized this really was it. He meant it. I went up on tiptoe, and he lowered his face to mine. I kissed those lips, gently at first, like you’d touch a work of art, afraid to scratch it, and then I let my hands and mouth kiss him the way he was meant to be kissed. Kiss him the way you kissed someone when the touch of their mouth, the weight of their hands, the rise of their body was like food and drink to you. I couldn’t give him my heart, but I gave him what I could, and it wasn’t a lie. I loved his body, and the press of his sad poetry; I just didn’t love him. God knows I’d tried to love them all, but my heart just didn’t seem to stretch that big.

He drew away first, laughing, eyes bright with the attention. “It is too close to dawn for me to do justice to such a kiss. I know you do not let even our master sleep in your bed once he dies for the day, so I will go to my box. I will send warmer bed partners to you, so that you will not be alone, and you can feed when you wake.”

“Requiem,” I started, but he touched fingertips to my lips.

“She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

I wasn’t sure why, but I felt the first hard, hot tear trail down my face. He moved his fingers from my lips to catch my tears. He kissed them from his skin, then kissed them from my face. “That you would cry for my parting means much.” Then he left, closing the door gently behind him.

I went to the bathroom and started getting ready for bed. I’d wash the tears away. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying. I was just tired. I heard noises and turned off the water, to have Crispin call out. “It’s us, Anita.”

I had a moment to wonder who “us” was, because Crispin didn’t know any of the other wereanimals who had come from St. Louis, or not well enough to bring them to bed with him. I’d found that heterosexual men are very picky about who they bring to bed, boywise. It’s more about friendship than sex. More about trust, than lust. I thought about peeking out and seeing, but it seemed like too much trouble. So tired. Crispin and whoever would still be there when I was done. I came out of the bathroom wearing the robe off the door, which covered me from shoulder to my toes. The two men in my bed were wearing nothing but the bedsheet at their waist. Two naked men in my bed, both cute enough. Problem was, one of them I’d never seen nude.

66

CRISPIN WAS AS lean and muscled as I remembered him. He sat up with a smile, the sheet pooling into his lap, so that I could see the side of his hip, and knew for certain there was nothing between him and my sheets. His short, curly white hair was backlit by the lamp, so that the light played in the curls, forming a shining halo of white. He gave me that crooked smile that dimpled just one side of his mouth. He might look like an angel in my bed with his halo, but if it was an angel, it was fallen.

Domino lay on his back on the other side of the bed, one arm stretched over the pillows, touching where I would have to lie. His black and white curls were framed against the white of the pillow. I realized that his hair was mostly black. Hadn’t it been closer to an even mix before? His eyes were brilliant orange, the color that fire can have, but fire doesn’t have veins of gold ru

I waited to be mad, but I wasn’t. Suddenly, of all the people in Vegas, I couldn’t think of any two other men that I’d rather have curled up between. I’d told Truth that Belle Morte’s line can only be as powerful as the vampire doing it is willing to be cut, but it was more than that. I could only go as deep into someone’s heart as I was willing to let them dive into mine. I had all this power, and no idea how to protect myself from having that two-edged blade cut me to the bone.

All I could think when I saw them was home. A deep feeling of contentment, that Crispin hadn’t earned yet, and Domino was a stranger to me. But sometimes you meet a stranger, and from the moment you see him there is a co