Asherness

by Sophira

Anita was pressed against Jean-Claude's side, staring around the bedroom. He'd redecorated again. The room was done in two recognizable shades of blue with gold and black accents. The cerulean silk sheets were pushed down to Jean-Claude's waist, exposing his pale bare chest and the dark, midnight blue sheets beneath them both.

"Silk sheets are very hard to keep track of," Anita said.

"What do you mean, ma petite?" Jean-Claude replied, his voice drowsy, though Anita doubted that vampires could become drowsy.

"When I'm trying to sleep, actually sleep," Jean-Claude smiled at that, "it's not very restful to work so hard to keep track of silk sheets. They're nice for extracurricular activities with you and Asher, but they aren't very practical."

"Yes, ma petite." Anita didn't know what to say next so she changed the subject.

"Not that I don't mind finally having some peaceful alone time with you, but where is Asher?" she asked him.

Jean-Claude sighed and slid his arm out from under her so he could turn to look at her. Anita stared into those magnificent blue eyes.

"I was hoping that you would not ask, ma petite. Asher has gone from St. Louis," Jean-Claude told her.

"What?"

He spoke more quickly, "It is only for a few days, ma petite, he is out of town ... on business."

"Business?" she asked, skeptically.

Jean-Claude glanced down, "Politics."

"Vampire politics, great," Anita said, clearly irritated, "So, why didn't you tell me?"

"I had hoped you would not ask, and you had requested alone time, with just me," he told her.

"Yes, but what about Asher. He's safe, right?"

"As safe as he could possibly be in another's territory," Jean-Claude supplied.

"That is not comforting."

He sighed again, "Will you just trust me that Asher is in no danger, ma petite? I would rather not explain what he is doing exactly."

"Why not?"

"Simply put, it is for Asher to tell you, not me."

"Great."

"I miss you. We miss you. Come home already," Anita spoke into the phone.

"Ah, ma cherie, I wish that I could. I will come home to you soon. Both of you," Asher said, his voice rubbing like velvet down her skin even from miles away. She could almost hear him smile.

Anita held the phone while Jean-Claude, his body wrapped around her and his head resting on the pillow of her breasts, listened in on the conversation. He could hear every word they both spoke, just as Asher could hear Jean-Claude's heartbeat and Anita's breathing.

"When?" she demanded.

"Soon. A few more days, ma cherie."

"A few more days, he says," Anita repeated to Jean-Claude incredulously, "Can you believe this?

"You've been gone nearly a week, Asher. That's not fair. I want you home by midnight, two days from now."

"I cannot," Asher said, his voice sighing over the line like a dance of fur.

"We miss you, Asher. Don't you want to come home?" Anita asked him.

"Of course, I do. Don't be ridiculous."

"I don't believe you miss us nearly enough. I for one can't believe I've managed to go for this long without the touch of your skin. I miss the smell of you, the taste of your skin under my mouth."

Asher sighed, and it seemed to shake, "I miss you as well."

"Both of us?" Jean-Claude said, mouth moving in closer to the phone.

"Both of you," and Asher was undone.

"Then come home so I can taste you, and through me so will Jean-Claude," Anita said.

"Soon," Asher swore.

"Sooner," Anita told him.

"Sooner," he promised.

On the next night, Anita lay in Jean-Claude's arms, content to let her hand trail down his abdomen while her eyes remained shut. Jean-Claude's eyes were closed as well but all of his attention was focused on the feel of her fingertips on his skin. His breath quickened, little by little, and his exhaled slowly when she raked nails down his stomach and slipped her hand beneath the sheets and over the heaviest part of him.

A knock on the door interrupted them. Anita opened her eyes with a growl in her voice, "Who -"

Jean-Calude answered before she could finish the question.

"It is Asher."

Anita sat up, throwing the sheets off and stalking towards the door in nothing, knowing Asher had seen her naked anyway. She threw the door open and dragged Asher in, kissing him soundly. Asher pulled back from the embrace and looked down Anita's body.

"Well."

"Come to bed, Asher. I want to wrap my mouth around you so we can taste you."

"It should be a crime to hide these body beneath clothes, and hair, and offensive ornaments. Nothing made by man could ever do your bodies justice."

Anita crawled up Asher's body until she was looking into eyes the color of a burning winter sky. Jean-Claude, lying beside them, leaned in to kiss her. He moaned, tasting Asher on her lips and in her mouth. She broke away from the exquisuite taste of Jean-Claude to lay a gentle kiss on Asher's mouth while she watched his eyes bleed back to their normal, extraordinary frosty color. His eyes had been blue and rolled back in his head when she'd taken him earlier, and when Jean-Claude had licked a line up his back, along his spine, until he could bury his face in all of that golden hair.

"Where were you, Asher? What could possibly be more important than us, than this?"

Asher laughed, and the sound was still shaky, "Ma cherie, there is nothing I value more than the two of you. Which is why you could not find me. I did not even leave St. Louis, though I convinced Jean-Claude I had with my shielding and my deceptive half-truths."

"But why the elaborate subterfuge, mon chardonneret?" Jean-Claude asked. His lack of concern over his second-in-command lying to him was an indication of how he'd missed his goldfinch, how happy he was to have Asher back, to have him gloriously naked in their bed, to have participated in Anita's seduction of Asher, and to have been there watching while his chardonneret clawed at the bedsheets beneath them and cried out their names. Jean-Claude shivered. During the minutes, hours, and sometimes even days like these he did not regret his arduer so much. To feed from these two like this was almost a blessing.

"I wished to know if I would be missed. I would have stayed longer away but I could not resist calling, and your temptation! Ma cherie, you are quite the seductress when you want to be, and I could not help but to succumb to both of you. But I shall have to leave quite frequently if this is how I am to be greeted upon arrival back home," Asher said, with his eyes intense and hot.

"Asher you are a fool, of course we missed you. But you are wrong about one thing, you will never be leaving us again. You shall be punished severely if you even dare to attempt another stunt like this," Anita promised him, but the burn in her eyes belied the harshness of her tone.

She could still taste him in her mouth and she wanted to take him again. She wanted to watch Jean-Claude touch him, wanted to watch the way blue-black eyes burned while she pleasured Asher, while pale elegant hands touched and caressed them both. She laid a kiss on his full lips, drowning as she always did in the prescense of such beauty, and was pulled down into his mouth.

"And what shall his punishment be for such a thing, ma petite?" Jean-Claude asked softly, whispering so close to her ear that she felt his warm breath enough to shudder. He was unaware of what she was thinking, but remembering very well what it had felt like when she'd done to him what she'd just been doing to Asher, and that was enough.

"I will seduce him again, and you will take all of his clothes and hide them. Asher will be locked in this room, completely naked, to be taken by the both of us for the next forty-eight hours. During these two nights he shall be thoroughly made love to in every spot in this room and the bath until his legs will not hold him. When he cannot stand on his own I will take him to bed to taste him, drink from him, until his voice grows hoarse from crying out for mercy."

"Oh," Jean-Claude said, looking hot and bothered and very shocked.

Asher swallowed, hard. "My."

Anita pulled up the folded comforter from the end of the bed, soft and luxurious like a cloud and not at all made of silk, and proceeded to show them that somethings would not be saved for punishment alone.

The next night, Asher leaned over to whisper to Jean-Claude. Across the room, Jean-Claude's laughter captured Anita's attention, though she hadn't heard what either of them had said. She smiled at them both. They looked more beautiful together while they leaned close and whispered to each other, than they ever had apart. And amen to that.

"Shall we do this again in a month?"

"Oh, yes, by all means."