"You sound surprised," I said.

"Because Raina was our lupa for so long a lot of the werewolves are into BDSM, too, but I learned everything I ever wanted to know about it from Raina and Gabriel, and their accomplices."

I almost didn't say it, but he said he'd come to me for the truth. I'd see if he really wanted truth, or just some of it. "Richard, you say you like fear with your sex. You like the game of fear, and you like your sex rough."

He was looking at me, the look was a warning. Those dark brown eyes were willing me not to finish, but if I didn't tell him, who would?

"You enjoy the scene, too, Richard."

"I don't—"

I held up a hand. "You don't do what Raina and Gabriel and some others did, but you can be a little in without being a sexual sadist. Some people think just enjoying teeth and nails during sex is sadistic."

He was shaking his head over and over. If it hurt the scratches on his face, he didn't show it this time. "Just because I like teeth and nails doesn't mean I'm like that. I'm not like them."

"If you mean Raina and Gabriel, no, you're not. But you didn't run from me just because you thought I was bloodthirsty. You ran because with me you couldn't keep pretending."

"Pretending what? I'm not pretending anything."

"It's not just you that's been pretending, Richard."

"Pretending what?" His anger started to fill the room, hot and close, like a storm that hadn't broken yet.

"I like teeth and nails during sex. Hell, I like biting alone without much sex. I like the feel of flesh between my teeth."

He looked away. "That's my fault, and Jean-Claude's. It's our hungers in you."

"Maybe, but they're still in me, and it's still something I enjoy. I may never be as comfortable around the scene as Nathaniel is, and that worries me, because if he's mine, then I want him to be happy. But I've had to stop pretending that I don't like rough sex. Jason said that I like dominant men, because they sort of take charge, and I don't have a choice. The reason I was able to avoid Nathaniel for so long was he tried to get me to do all the moves. I need a little dominance play, or I don't play. I thought he was crazy, but it's been a busy twenty-four hours, and I'm tired of running."

He looked back at me. "Running, running from what?"

"Same thing you are, myself."

"You're not—"

I stopped him with a hand again. "Yeah, I was. Maybe I still am. There are parts of my life that I don't want to look at. Someone told me that it's okay that I like two men in bed with me. I argued with them, Richard. I argued that, no I didn't." I took two steps closer to him. "But arguing is pretty silly, don't you think?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"I'm dating Jean-Claude and Asher. I was dating you and Jean-Claude."

"Not at the same time in the same date," he said.

I waved it away. "Fine, I'll leave you out of it. But I'm still dating Jean-Claude and Asher. I'm living and sharing a bed with Micah and Nathaniel. Yes, it was sort of accidental. I didn't try to get into either situation on purpose, but I'm there. And now with Damian and Nathaniel, I've got another threesome where I'm the only girl. Not on purpose, but after awhile, Richard, arguing that I don't enjoy two men together with me just sounds silly."

"Do you?" he asked.

I didn't owe him the answer, but maybe I owed myself one. I'd only admitted it to myself seconds ago. "Yes, being in the middle of two men just flat does it for me. Just the feel of them on either side just flat does it for me." I waited for the blush to start, or at least the embarrassment, but it didn't. It was true, and it was okay. I was okay. I had men in my life that thought it was okay.

Richard looked at the floor, as if whatever he saw in my face he didn't want to see. Or maybe there was something in his face he didn't want me to see. "I could never do that."

"No one's asked you to."

He looked up then, and his anger lashed out, almost like he'd laid a hot whip across my skin. I jumped from the feel of it. "Ow," I said.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, but the hell you say, no one's asked me."

"Alright, to my knowledge no one's asked you."

"Everyone, everyone in the preternatural community, whatever animal, or thing they are, thinks that I was doing Jean-Claude and you. That we were some happy little ménage à trois."

"I've run into that rumor," I said. "You know what you were doing, and who, so what does it matter?"

He let out a shadow of that inarticulate scream he'd done before. "Anita, how do you think I feel when almost every leader in this town that I have to do business with thinks I'm shagging the Master of the City?"

"Are you saying that people thinking you're bisexual hurts your standing as a leader?"

"Yes."

"It doesn't seem to hurt Jean-Claude's," I said.

"That's different."

"I don't think so."

He made fists, and that hurt, and he made that sound again. "You don't understand, Anita. You're a girl, and you don't understand."

"I'm a girl, and I don't understand. What does that mean?"

"It means it's still more socially acceptable for a girl to be bisexual than it is for a man."

"Who says?" I asked.

"Everyone!" His anger flared outward like hot water, and it was about waist high, and rising.

"You're homophobic," I said.

"I am not."

"Yeah, you are. If it didn't bother you so much that people thought you were bisexual, then you wouldn't care what they said. You'd know the truth, and it would be enough." I moved closer to him, pushing through the heat of his power, his anger, his frustration. "Besides, what's wrong with being bisexual, or homosexual, or whatever? What does it matter, Richard, as long as you're happy and no one is getting hurt?"

"You don't understand," he said.

I was standing close enough to touch. Standing so close that his power bit and sizzled almost against my skin, as if the robe wasn't there. God, he was so powerful, more than the last time I'd touched his power. He'd gained from Jean-Claude and me, just like Jean-Claude had, like I had. If we could get our triumvirate to truly work the way it was meant to, no one would touch us, no one would dare.

That one thought wasn't my thought, not exactly. Jean-Claude wasn't awake yet, I'd have felt it, but the thought was more his than mine. I remembered last night at the club, and how we'd been joined tighter, closer, than ever before. I'd done things last night that hadn't been possible before. I'd reached new levels of power both with Jean-Claude and with my own abilities. I'd also had sex with a vampire I'd known less than two weeks, and only Requiem's gentlemanly ways had kept it to one. That wasn't like me, and standing this close to Richard's pain, I was thinking about the power and not the cost to him. That wasn't like me either. But they were both very like Jean-Claude.

"What's wrong?" Richard asked. "You've thought of something."

"Just wondering what other parts of Jean-Claude I'm carrying around inside myself."

"You told me, the ardeur , the blood lust."

I shook my head. "I've never been very practical with relationships, or sex, and lately, like the last twenty-four hours, or so, I have been. At least a lot more practical than I've ever been before."

"Is it true that you had sex with two of the new British vampires at Guilty Pleasures last night?"

"My, my, the rumor mill does grind fast."

He relaxed, some tension going out of him. "Then it was just a rumor."

I sighed, and was getting tired of doing that, but it seemed like Richard just brought it out in me. "Half true."

"Which half?" he asked.

I didn't like the look on his face. It wasn't angry exactly, which should have been an improvement, but it wasn't neutral either. "One vampire, not two." I shook my head. "But you know what? I don't think I owe you an explanation, Richard. I don't keep track of the swath you're cutting through your own pack, and Verne's pack when you're in Tennessee."