Page 67 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“And I have a robe,” Jean-Claude said.

“Someone hand me my dress, so I don’t have to bend down forit.” Jean-Claude bent in the boots, and I admit to admiring the view while he did it, so that I was grinning happily when he handed me my dress. He smiled back as if he knew exactly what I’d been admiring. I wrapped my arms around him with the dress in one hand so that we could kiss. We drew back at the same time to smile into each other’s eyes. I suddenly felt better like everything would be all right; no matter what anyone else did, we would be good.

Richard stopped with his clothes in his hands. “If we’re going to clean up, I’d rather do that before I get dressed.”

“If we tend to the audience before we shower, then I might have something for you to wear onstage,” Jean-Claude said.

I watched Richard hesitate. “I teach at a college, which is more forgiving than when I taught junior high, but I don’t have tenure yet and stripping might make sure I never get it.”

“If we hide your face and get you out of your conservative clothes I doubt any of your fellow faculty will dare admit they recognize you except in their fantasies,” Jean-Claude said.

“What will you be wearing?” I asked.

“I have a robe that matches the boots.”

I grinned and shook my head. “Of course you do.”

“If you have clothes that will fit me and that someone is willing for me to borrow, I’m game,” Richard said.

“We will find something,” Jean-Claude said with a smile, and we did.

27

JEAN-CLAUDE HAD THEaudience sitting in their chairs perfectly still again, eyes wide and staring at nothing, I couldn’t even see them blink. I wondered how long you could keep eyes open before they began to dry out. Of course, they hadn’t been sitting here like this the whole time. Nathaniel had brought Graham onstage and had an impromptu dance lesson, which the audience had loved, and then after Ethan had knocked on our door the audience had gone still like they were now. Jean-Claude had been able to concentrate on them again. Our lovemaking and theardeurhad given Jean-Claude back his control and power, but his attention had returned only after the door knock. Now Richard and I stood onstage holding his hands and waiting for him to wake the audience. He’d warned us not to voice our doubts or that we found the frozen, unblinking audience creepy, because like patients coming out of anesthesia they could remember what was said over them. We didn’t want to go to this much trouble and then have them remember us saying things that didn’t match the new memories Jean-Claude had created.

Though admittedly my greatest danger was tripping in the five-and-a-half-inch heels because I was gawking at Richard in his borrowed clothes. I wasn’t sure what it was about the outfit that distracted me so; maybe it was the shiny pleather boy shorts thathugged the back of him on purpose and were having some difficulty holding all of the front of him. There were even matching shiny combat boots, but they didn’t distract me like the shorts. I’d just seen him nude and had sex with him only minutes ago, so why was I having such trouble not staring at the front of the shorts? Because I hadn’t gotten to go down on him or have him inside me in any way. I loved and was still totally shocked that he’d managed to cross the great divide with Jean-Claude, but it had still been a long time since I’d been with Richard. Sex had been the only area where he and I had always been good together.

He looked at me across the stage. The mask he was wearing wasn’t shiny, but real black leather. It was all one piece, handmade, and the most expensive part of the outfit. It had delicate points up above his hair that could be horns, but there were two equally delicate points on the bottom of the mask, so they framed his lips and even drew attention to the dimple. Nathaniel had helped him with his hair backstage so that it was a mass of foamy waves completely hiding the string that held the mask in place. The stage lights caught hints of copper and gold in the brown of his hair, like strong sunlight could do. I stared into his brown eyes surrounded by the leather and finally realized that I liked the mask, or him in the mask. It hid the high cheekbones and all the parts of his bone structure that made him so utterly masculine and left bare the full kissable lips and the softer triangle of his lower jaw and chin with that dimple that had always been like one little extra “yes he is really that pretty” so that the thought of watching him above me in the mask just totally did it for me. Funny how you don’t know something is a kink until it is.

Jean-Claude tapped our hands with his thumb to count down three, two, one, and the audience blinked to life while he led us forward, smiling in his full-length blue robe that matched the hint of boots perfectly. “Nikki and Jet are here to help me wish you a very good night!” The audience applauded and yelled our names, or just wordlessly yelled. Jean-Claude had created them seeing Jet,Richard’s stage name for tonight, dancing. Apparently they were good visuals because his name got called a lot for a first-timer onstage at Guilty Pleasures.

Then Jean-Claude called power and not in the quiet way he normally did, so that most of the time I didn’t notice. He was so good at subtle because he’d hidden how powerful he truly was for centuries from other vampires. He’d hidden in plain sight playing the seducer, the fob, the eye candy, so the stronger vampires would see only the lovely outside without guessing that inside he was so much more. What had started as necessity had become habit until sometimes I think even he forgot how much more he could be. If you play the dumb blond long enough you can get lost in the role, but Jean-Claude wasn’t lost now; with our hands to anchor him he was found at last.

His power rose inside him and pulled mine and Richard’s with it as if we were holding so much more than just hands. It was almost more intimate than sex because we were sharing our magic, which was a piece of our souls. It poured over the three of us in a skin-tingling, breath-stealing heat with that edge of cold eternity that helped Jean-Claude control us both. I couldn’t remember the last time Richard had stood with us and given his power freely, but the Jean-Claude of then hadn’t known what to do with all of it; he had learned and grown, and now he knew exactly what to do. He spilled it over the audience and not only had their skin running in goose bumps, their breath catching in their throats, their hands clutching eager at their chairs, their drinks, their own hands, but was inside them deep and deeper searching for a shadow that the other vampire had placed inside them. There were images, visuals of memories, hopes, dreams, fears, yes that was it, Deimos hadn’t attached to their reality, he’d attached to their fears. He was dread of the future to come and everyone has something they are afraid of facing, and through that universal human dread he’d planted his shadow. He would whisper to them,Come to me and the great, bad thing will neverhappen. Come to me and I will save you from it. Come to me and I will take you somewhere that death cannot find you ever again. Come with me and I will keep you safe.Lying bastard.

Jean-Claude aimed our heat at the lie, like the sun rising to chase back the night and its terrors. He found their dread of what could happen and replaced it with joy, confidence, and memories of the evening here at Guilty Pleasures. He filled them with all the dancers they’d seen tonight, Jean-Claude flying over the crowd, Graham and the other guards having their amateur night, then Graham’s win and he and I onstage with Jean-Claude, then Nathaniel as Brandon giving Graham dancing lessons onstage, then Richard/Jet dancing onstage, and then Jean-Claude stepped onstage at the end of Richard’s act with me on his arm, and we were back to the present with us standing onstage.

“We have loved having you tonight at Guilty Pleasures and look forward to having you again. We love for our guests to come again, and again, until they are utterly satisfied.” His voice made the words even more than they were. He saidlovedand you felt truly loved; sayingguilty pleasuresmade the audience giggle and squirm; hishaving youwas sexual,againwas an echo of it,lovewas being so wanted, andcome again and againwas almost orgasmic. When he saidutterly satisfied, he had them screaming and calling his name. His voice had always been one of his best vampiric powers, but it had never been this good, had it?

Jean-Claude pulled our hands downward, so we followed his lead and bowed for the audience. They shouted our names, they clapped, they yelled, and then he led us back behind the curtain. The door to backstage opened and we walked through it still holding hands: Richard, then Jean-Claude, then me. It was only when Ethan closed the door behind us and we let go of the tension that Jean-Claude had been holding that we both heard the thoughts of how unsure he had been that he could cleanse the audience completely of Deimos’s magic.

I looked at him and realized that he thought he had enough powerto never have to fight this hard against another vampire again. He had the power of the entire country of vampires most directly blood-oathed to him. There was a despair in him that I’d never heard this loud in my head, that no matter how powerful he became he would never be powerful enough literally, never be powerful enough to protect his power base.

I said, “Jean-Claude...” but he drew me into a hug and Richard wrapped himself around us, and then Nathaniel came and added his arms to the hug. We held the vampire king and all of us could feel that he was trying very hard not to lose his shit completely. If the larger vampire community found out that any single vampire had been able to almost take him, us, then it would be a free-for-all. St. Louis would turn into the wild, wild West with new master vampires coming to town to try their luck, because for the first time in America there was one master vampire that counted. If you took out Jean-Claude, the country was yours with one duel.

He whispered, “What have I done?” We held him closer, and tried to think happy thoughts, because he could read our minds and we were all scared.

28

I LAID A KISSon Jean-Claude’s bare chest where the robe had gaped, which was enough to have him look down at me through all our interlaced arms. I stared into the dark blue of his eyes and even hearing his doubts in my head I still loved him and believed in him. I really did. He smiled and some tension went out of his face and his mind.

“If you have faith in me,ma petite, then that is enough.”

We all drew back from the hug, and I turned to put my head against Nathaniel’s, so that our faces were next to each other. “Nathaniel taught me that when you truly love someone you believe in them even when things aren’t perfect.”

“I have faith in you both,” Nathaniel said.

Richard said, “I haven’t earned anyone’s faith in me yet, at least not any of you or your poly group, but I promise I will try to earn it from this point on.”

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