Nathaniel and I exchanged glances. He said, “I’m not sure.”
I looked down at Asher. Those eyes, those lips, that face, that hair, the hands reaching out to me that knew so many secrets about what I enjoyed. “I don’t know, Asher. Every time I think we’ve found a way for all of us to be together, you manage to find a new way to screw things up.”
“I know it is me. My need to have Jean-Claude put me above all others continues to destroy my own happiness. I also know that is never going to happen, not only because he needs a woman in his life, but because neither of us is content with only each other. I am no more happy being with only one person than Jean-Claude is. I thought that if I could have one person put me above all others, then this continuous need inside me would be filled and I would be happy, content at last, but I have had that for months and I am miserable.”
“Maybe that’s who you’re with,” I said.
“I thought that at first, but I understand now that no one person meets all the needs and demands I put upon them. I am too much for one person to bear, like a weight that needs more hands to carry.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, because it sounded damned accurate.
“You really are working your therapy,” Nathaniel said, and his face showed how surprised he was; me, too.
“I resented you forcing me to go away at first, but as I became less happy with Kane I finally realized that I was with a man who was as needy and jealous as I was; it was a taste of my own medicine, as they say. It was a very bitter pill. Kane was as obsessed with me as I had thought I wanted first Belle Morte, and then Jean-Claude, and finally Julianna to be with me, but obsession is not love. It is insecurity, possession, and it leads to misery.”
It was the dream apology that you always sort of want, but you never get. It was like a Hallmark moment, or maybe a Dr. Phil moment. The kind that never really happens, but here he was, our problem child, offering up everything we could have wanted in an apology. It was great and unsettling as hell, like there should be cameras rolling and someone to jump out and say Just kidding.
“I love you, Anita Blake. I love you, Nathaniel Graison. I miss making love to you both. I miss fucking you. I miss chaining you up and doing nefarious things to you until you beg me to stop, or until I make the decision that all dominants must make with such charming pain sluts, though Anita will safeword when needed, but you, my . . . Nathaniel, you do not know when to say when, and I love that about you.”
Nathaniel held out his hand, and after a moment so did I. We let him wrap his hands around us and pulled him to his feet. I don’t know what I would have said, but it was Nathaniel who spoke first. “Are you going to apologize to Dev, too?”
“God, yes. I have treated him the worst of the three of you, I think. Jean-Claude, having put up with me for centuries, is ahead in needing me to apologize for so many things, but I owe Mephistopheles something truly . . . I do not know how to apologize to him. I was so cruel, and I let Kane be cruel to him as well.”
“Are you just apologizing to him, or are you wanting him back in your life, too?” I asked.
“I did not appreciate how easy Mephistopheles made the relationship. I thought love had to come with fights and drama, so what I had with him couldn’t be love.”
“And now?” Nathaniel asked it ahead of me.
“Now I see him in Jean-Claude’s bed, all smiles and a very content cat, and it hurts me.”
“Does it hurt you to see Jean-Claude with another man, or to see Dev happy with someone else?” Nathaniel asked.
Asher sighed, and it was for effect, but he was always going to be a bit of a drama queen. It was just part of who he was as a person. You can modify yourself and learn to do better, but your basic personality remains.
“I am not sorry to see Mephistopheles happy with someone else. He deserves that. I have seen him walking hand in hand with you as well, Nathaniel. I was jealous that all of you had picked up that which I threw away and found it gold where I had seen only dross, but that was at first. I began to see more and more how much Kane had poisoned me against our handsome devil, but it was I who had listened to the poison and let it take root.”
“You’re taking responsibility for everything. What the hell? Did they put you on antidepressants?” I asked.
“Antianxiety medication, yes.”
All three of us stared at him. “Mon ami,” Jean-Claude said, and the surprise showed in his voice.
Asher started to look embarrassed, but I squeezed his hand and said, “I’m proud of you.”
It was Asher’s turn to look surprised.
“Very proud of you,” Nathaniel said.
“I honestly didn’t expect you to get that much use out of the therapist we made you go see,” I said.
“I, too, thought you were going because we said you must,” Jean-Claude said, moving up beside us.
“I admit that at first it was just as you feared, but I was so unhappy without all of you. So many needs, not just wants, but needs that you had all filled for me and now I had nothing. Even Narcissus, in the dungeon and the bedroom he likes a level of humiliation that none of you would tolerate, let alone desire.”
“If you’re going to apologize to Narcissus, you might want to do it in a neutral setting with bodyguards to protect you,” I said.
“Surely not bodyguards.”
“Asher,” Nathaniel said, “we’ve all been going to therapy, too; Narcissus hasn’t.”