I looked up into his face. He was handsome. There was nothing wrong with him, exactly, but I still remembered how happy I was that he wasn't on the list of men who might have made me pregnant. If you get knocked up, it should be by someone who's at least a good friend, and Graham wasn't even that. He was my bodyguard, and he'd been emergency food, but he wasn't my friend. He wanted to fuck me too badly to be my friend. Any man who would rather have sex with you than anything else is never going to be your friend. Friends want what's best for you more than they want sex. Graham's priorities were there on his face, in his eyes, in the tension of his body as he held my clothes.

"You're blushing," he said, and his voice sounded hoarse.

I nodded and looked down, away from that look. Maybe the blushing would stop if I wasn't meeting his eyes.

He touched my face, the barest tips of his fingers on my chin. "After everything I've seen you do with all the other men, you're blushing because I'm looking too hard at you." His voice was softer now.

"You think I can't be embarrassed, because I'm a whore."

"Not true." He tried to turn my face up to his. I stepped back from him so he couldn't touch my face.

"Isn't it?" I asked, and this time the face I gave him held the beginnings of anger.

"I see you with the other men and I want you—why is that wrong? I've watched you have sex with multiple men while I'm in the room. What am I supposed to think?"

"Oh, Graham." This from Clay. He'd stayed on the far side of the room, out of it, but those two words let me know that Clay got it. Clay understood the mistake that Graham had just made.

"I can fix that, Graham."

"Fix what?"

"Fix it so you're not conflicted anymore about me."

"What are you talking about?" The fact that he hadn't realized where I was going was also a point against him. He wasn't a quick thinker.

"You're off my detail."

He clutched the clothes to his oh-so-broad chest. "What do you mean?"

"I can't guarantee that the ardeur won't get out of hand and I'll lose control enough to fuck in front of my guards again. Since it bothers you so much, Graham, I can fix it so you never have to watch again."

"I don't…" The first hint of unhappiness came over him. He finally saw where we were going.

"You are off my detail. Put my clothes in the bathroom on the edge of the sink and go find Remus or Claudia. Tell them that you need to be replaced. I'm sure that there are places you can guard that will be far enough away from me."

"Anita, I didn't mean it the way…"

"The way it sounded," I finished for him. "Yeah, you did."

"Please, Anita, please, I…"

"Put the clothes in the bathroom and go tell someone that you need to be replaced. Do it now."

He looked behind him at Clay. Clay put his hands up in a push-away gesture, as if to say, Don't look at me.

"This isn't fair," Graham said.

"What are you, five? Fair, fuck fair. You just said out loud that watching me fuck other men makes you want to fuck me. I can fix that. You don't have to watch anymore."

"Do you really think any man who's watched you fuck someone didn't want to be that man? All of us think the same thing. I'm just honest about it."

I looked across the room at Clay. "That true, Clay?"

"Oh, please, do not drag me into this."

I gave him a hard look.

He sighed. "No, actually, that's not how all of us feel. For myself, I'm scared shitless of your idea of sex. The ardeur scares me."

"How can you say that?" Graham asked. He turned toward the other man with my clothes still clutched in his big arms.

"Because it's the truth, Graham, and if you would think with something higher than your belt buckle you'd be scared, too."

"Scared of what?" Graham said. "It's the most mind-blowing sex that any vampire line can give a mortal. I've had more of a taste of it than you have. Trust me, Clay, if she'd ever fed off you, even a little, you'd want more."

"That's exactly what scares me," Clay said.

I had a thought, a bad one. I had fed on Graham in small ways when the ardeur was new. I'd given him the smallest taste of it that I could. We had never been naked together. We had never touched each other in any area that was considered sexual. But just because I thought it hadn't been enough contact to addict him to the ardeur didn't mean I was right. The ardeur could act like a drug, and I'd learned through some of the vampires that how easily addicted to it you were varied from person to person. Had I addicted Graham to the ardeur without meaning to? Was his reaction to me my fault? Shit.

Graham turned back to me with my clothes crushed against his chest. He looked panic stricken. "Please, Anita, please, don't do this. I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry." His eyes glittered through the fringe of his hair. I think he was on the verge of tears. I was reminded that he was under twenty-five by a few years. He was so physically big that sometimes you forgot how young he was. We were only about four or five years apart, but his eyes showed that he was younger than I had been at the same age. I wanted to touch his arm, comfort him, apologize to him. Tell him I hadn't meant this to happen. But I was afraid to touch him. I was afraid I'd make things worse somehow.

"Graham," and my voice sounded gentle, a voice for soothing frightened children and ledge jumpers, "I need you to find Remus or Claudia and bring them to me, okay? I need to talk to them about some of the things that happened last night. Can you do that for me? Can you find one of them and bring them to me?"

He swallowed hard enough that it sounded painful. "You won't kick me off your detail?"

"No," I said.

He nodded too fast, too often, over and over. He actually started for the door with my clothes still in his hands. It was Clay who took the clothes from him. When the door closed behind him, Clay turned to me. We stared at each other.

"He's addicted, isn't he?" Clay asked.

I nodded. "I think so."

"You didn't know either?"

I shook my head.

"You look pale," he said.

"You, too," I said.

"You haven't fed that much from him, right? I mean, you didn't even get naked together, right?"

"No, we didn't."

"I thought it took more than that to addict someone to it."

"So did I," I said.

Clay seemed to shake himself, like a dog coming out of water. "I'll put your clothes in the bathroom for you. I'll call Claudia and tell her we need a new red shirt."

"I think once she sees Graham she'll figure it out."

"He hid it pretty well, Anita. I think by the time he finds them, he'll have his shit together. It may not show."

I nodded. "You're right."

"I mean, he has a radio on him, too. He didn't think to use it."

"The radios are new," I said.

"The wererats have been handing the radio setups to some of the guards. When they found all the high-tech listening devices, I think they decided that we needed to go higher-tech ourselves."

"Sounds reasonable," I said. I felt Jean-Claude wake. Felt it like a hand caressing my body. It caught my breath in my throat.

"What's wrong?" Clay asked.

"Jean-Claude's awake."

"Good."

I nodded. Good was right. I let Jean-Claude feel how much I wanted him to be with me. I wanted him to hold me and tell me it was all going to be all right. In that moment, I wanted him to comfort me, even if it was all lies. Graham's face had been all the truth I wanted for a little while.