I gave him a look, and he passed my hand over to Jean-Claude. He was wearing a white shirt that was almost identical to the blue one that Asher wore, but he’d put a short black velvet jacket over his, and the stickpin through his cravat was an antique cameo. It had been one of the first Christmas presents I’d ever gotten for him. It was nice, but not even close to the same kind of nice as Asher’s diamond. It made me think I needed to go shopping.

Jean-Claude’s black leather pants looked poured on, and his boots rose up over his thighs like a second skin. I didn’t have to see the back of the boots to know they laced all the way up his leg. I liked these boots and had seen them with and without pants. I stumbled as he drew me closer, thinking too hard about the boots and nothing else on him, and then there was the moment when I had to look up, had to see that face. He and I had been a couple on and off for five years, almost six now, and I kept waiting for a moment when I could see him and not feel like there had to be some mistake. Someone this beautiful couldn’t possibly be in love with me when he had an entire planet of people to choose from. I cleaned up well, but Jean-Claude made me feel like I’d sneaked into the Louvre and stolen a masterpiece off the wall so I could roll around on it naked.

His eyes were a midnight blue so dark that a shade more would have made them look black, but they never did. His eyes were the darkest true blue I’d ever seen, as Asher’s were the palest. The head of their bloodline, their sourdre de sang, literally “fountain of blood,” had a thing for blue eyes and had collected different colors of blue-eyed and beautiful men. She’d had centuries to find them, and I had two of her most amazing right here. She’d thrown Asher away when he was scarred, and Jean-Claude had fled from her. Now he was his own sourdre de sang, the first new master of his own bloodline to appear in a thousand years.