Sebastien said with a grin when he saw Raymond and Jean the next evening. “I so rarely see even one bite mark on your neck.” Raymond flushed and lifted his hands to his neck, hiding the plethora of marks. “It was a rather enjoyable evening,” he admitted, “but I probably ought to get these taken care of before the press conference tonight. It‟s one thing to appear with a single mark—I‟ve been doing that since the alliance began—but nobody seeing me would have any doubt Jean was far more than my partner.” Sebastien shook his head. “It‟s not about being more than your partner. It‟s that they don‟t understand what it means to be partners the way we use the word. It‟s a deceptively simple word for so complex a relationship.” “It is,” Jean agreed, voice tight. He could not decide which upset him more: the reminder of how completely he had lost control last night or the fact that Raymond felt the need to hide it. “And it‟s going to get more and more difficult to cover up that fact as l‟Institut makes the partnerships more prevalent.”
