“You deserve someone who will honor you first and last. And if you choose a man who dishonors you, then you are not the woman I believe you to be.”
I smiled at that, because that was how I felt, but hadn’t had the words to frame the thought. “Touché. And if Leo objects?”
“I was quite careful of the legality of my wording this morning,” he said. “Leo may not like that I court you, but he will have no choice.”
Court? I pulled my hand from his, unsettled. “I don’t know how to talk about relationship stuff. You need to know that. I have no idea.”
“I, however, have decades of practice,” he said, with an amused, almost lofty tone. “Later, when you’ve had time to think, we’ll talk. Now we need to eat,” he said. “And drink this lovely tea. It’s a special, finest, tippy, golden, flowery orange pekoe from Ceylon, a first flush tea that I brought with me from the council house.”
“You stole Something Far Too Good for Ordinary People?” I asked.
Bruiser grinned at the old tea lover’s joke and indicated that I should taste the tea. I did. And it was indeed SFTGFOP, and by far the best tea I had ever tasted. I sighed and closed my eyes as the flavors moved along my throat. When I opened my eyes, Bruiser had placed a beignet on a plate and put it by my tea saucer. He could have used the silver tongs I hadn’t noticed until now, but he didn’t. He set the beignet on the china plate with his bare fingers, white powdered sugar on them. He lifted his hand . . . and licked his fingers.
He licked his fingers . . . The sight went through me like the antique weapon might through silk gauze. This man, this Onorio . . . He was way more than silver and fancy manners. He was Bruiser. I smiled and picked up the pastry. Bit into the cooling beignet. I set the beignet on the plate and sipped the tea. In silence, we ate the picnic breakfast, me coming to understand that Bruiser wanted me. Me. When he could have any sexy blood-servant or vamp he wanted. And . . .
I wanted him too. I always had.
But there were so many things that lay between us: I’d taken a mate recently and it hadn’t worked out so well. Bruiser had helped to hold me down so that Leo could force a feeding and attempt to bind me. That he’d had no control over his own body at the time didn’t help a lot, not on an emotional level. Also, Bruiser didn’t know about Beast. I wasn’t sure I was ready to take a man to my bed without telling him about Beast. Without telling him everything about me. And then there was Bruiser’s Onorio status and what that might mean about him and his life and his future. More secrets. There were chasms of the unknown between us right now. Deep and dark chasms, full of shadows and wraiths and the gloom of darkness.
? ? ?
After the meal, Bruiser washed the dishes and poured us both something more familiar—me a big mug of my own tea, with Cool Whip and sugar, just the way I liked it, and himself a mug of coffee, from the espresso machine in the butler’s pantry. Holding the mugs, he gestured to the living room. “Shall we talk?”
I wasn’t sure I could, exactly, or not right now. But I also couldn’t find a good reason to refuse, so I led the way and sat on the sofa, curling my legs under me, and accepted the mug, sipping, waiting.
“Leo received a new communiqué from the Mithrans in Paris,” Bruiser said, his voice easing into a more businesslike tone. “Because of the contents of the letter, he intends to train his people in European Mithran tactics and fighting methods, lessons to begin at nine thirty tonight. Eli and you and I are to attend. A meeting and discussion about the European Mithrans will follow.”
“I thought he threw you out today.”
“He did.” Bruiser’s gaze met mine above the rim of his cup, his eyes filled with amusement. “Unlike Grégoire, who chose to keep his Onorios with him, and they chose to stay, I am no longer part of Leo’s personal servants. He will not have a live-in whom he cannot bind.”
“Leo has trust issues?”
“He’s stayed alive for five hundred years because of those trust issues. So, yes. However, I know more about the ins and outs of Leo’s personal household and the council’s day-to-day activities than anyone alive. For that knowledge, I am still a valuable employee to the New Orleans council and to Clan Pellissier, and I was sworn to that service from an early age.” He sipped, thinking, and shrugged. “As Onorio, I have other, less specific uses and great value. So, after you left, Leo and I struck a bargain, one I found exceedingly beneficial financially. I will continue to be employed by the clan, under one-year contracts, for a period of three years, at which time we may renegotiate the terms of my employment or I may choose to leave the clan entirely.”
“Fancy words for he offered you a lot of money and you took it.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“Sooo, you go to work there every day but you sleep somewhere else?”
“I have a small apartment on St. Philip Street, just around the corner.”