"I didn't expect you to blush."
I kept glaring at him while the blush faded. I tried to fold my arms across my chest but with bare br**sts my cup size, it just didn't work.
He lay down beside me, propped on his side, and watched my face. "I expected a lot of things from you, Anita, but not this."
"What? That I'd blush?"
"That, and you're so . . ." He touched my hair where it lay on the bed, gently, as if he weren't sure I'd let him do it. When I didn't protest he touched my cheek. "Sweet," he said.
"I am not sweet," I said.
He smiled. "Endearing?"
I frowned at him.
He laughed.
"You haven't known me long enough to be that amused." But I was smiling slightly as I said it.
"You're just not what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"Someone harder, harsher." He looked down my body. "You are beautiful."
I shrugged.
"You are," he said.
"Thanks, you're not so bad yourself."
He grinned. "You are not your reputation."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that rumors say you're this great seductress. That you eat little weretigers for breakfast and possess their bodies first and then their hearts."
"I told you that feeding the ardeur could make me own you lock, stock, and heart."
"You did."
"I wasn't lying, Ethan," I said, and I searched his face, tried to see if he really understood what could happen to him. He was so lonely. He so wanted to be wanted and to belong to someone. The ardeur would give him what he wanted, but the price of belonging to someone was that you belonged to them.
"I have almost a dozen lovers at home, Ethan. If the ardeur binds you to me then you get in line, and Jean-Claude, Nathaniel, Micah, some of the others are always at the head of the line."
"How often do you make love to the men who aren't at the top of the list?"
I touched his chest, running my hand over the muscled swell of his pectoral. He was so lean that all the muscles showed. He was almost too lean, but not quite; it just looked like his body type.
He pressed his hand over mine, holding it still against his chest. "How often?"
"I don't keep count."
"Average?"
"Three days a week, I guess."
He laughed a surprised sound. It made me look at his face. "That's a lot better than I'm getting now."
"That's if you're okay with being in the bed with other men and me. Since there's so many we do a lot of group scenes. It helps everyone get more turns."
"And you're the only girl for all of them?"
I thought about that. "No, a couple of them have other lovers."
"And you're all right with that?"
It was my turn to look surprised at him. "Are you kidding? There's only so much time in the day, so a helping hand is great, especially for the men that I'm not in love with."
He nodded. "So, I could have a girlfriend if I found someone who would have me?"
"I'd encourage it."
"Because you wouldn't be in love with me."
"But you might be in love with me, do you understand that?"
His face was solemn again. "I do."
"And you still want to feed me?"
He raised my hand up and laid a gentle kiss on my palm. "You've already given me more physical contact than I've had from a woman in two years."
I couldn't keep the surprise and the near horror off my face. "Dear God, Ethan, not even sleeping in big na**d kitty piles?"
"I am an outcast, Anita, barely tolerated. I will be their muscle until the day something faster and stronger than I am kills me. It is my only use to the red clan. You don't cuddle at night with someone you're sure is basically a meat shield."
"That's harsh," I said.
"It's my life."
In my head I thought, It's not much of a life. "If you come to St. Louis there will be plenty of people to cuddle with, as long as you don't insist on it all being weretigers."
He entwined his fingers with mine. "You have such small hands."
"They match the rest of me," I said.
He smiled. "Not all of you is small. Your br**sts are amazing."
"Yeah, yeah, my chest is all br**sts."
"No, br**sts, and muscle. You're in amazing shape. You hit the gym like a guard."
"I work out with our guards as often as I can."
He gave me wide eyes. "I've never heard of a royal that works out with the guards."
"I'm not big on the whole royalty thing," I said.
"Our queen thinks you show a lack of respect."
"She's right," I said.
"It's been wonderful sleeping next to a woman again. I hadn't realized how much I missed just holding someone in my arms."
I realized that Ethan wasn't dominant enough to push the sex forward. I was going to have to be bolder, or we'd be talking for another hour. Talking was good, I liked that I could talk to him, but I needed to feed the ardeur and find Edward. He needed me at his back.
"Kiss me," I said.
"What?" he asked.
"Kiss me."
He looked uncertain then, nervous.
"Has it been two years since you kissed a girl?"
He nodded, and he wouldn't meet my eyes.
I reached up with the hand he wasn't holding and touched his face, made him look at me. "Has it been two years since you've done anything with a girl?"
"Yes." He whispered it.
I smiled at him, trying to make it gentle. "You're going to be good at it."