Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [315]
He started toward the darkened living room. “I’ll tell everybody that breakfast is ready.” He stopped at the door and turned back, with a grin on his face that I’d never seen before. One accidental confession, and he was suddenly cocky. “But I still want intercourse.” He vanished around the doorframe, trailing a sound of masculine laughter.
Micah came to stand beside me. “Anita, are you alright?” When I didn’t answer, he gripped my upper arms, and said, “Look at me.”
I blinked too fast and too often, but I looked at him. Things were moving too fast for me. I grabbed his arms and said the first thing that occurred to me. “If I faint, Richard will think I did it because of him.”
“You’re not going to faint. You never faint.” He started easing me into a chair as he finished saying it. I let him, because I was feeling fuzzy around the edges. I didn’t want to sit here and have breakfast with these people. I needed some time to think, and the only way to get it was to hide in my bedroom. I couldn’t bear to hide. Damn it, for the first time in my life I wished I was a little less stubborn, a little less brave.
My head was between my knees when everyone trooped back in. I didn’t faint, but I don’t know how, because sitting across from Richard and watching Clair butter his biscuits made me wish I had.
Nathaniel laid out silverware, fetched more coffee, made sure we had at least six kinds of jam, jelly, and preserves. When had there ever been red currant jelly in my refrigerator? I looked at this man bustling about my kitchen, and knew the answer, since Nathaniel had been doing the grocery shopping.
Part of me wanted to run away, but the other small part of me that usually saves me from being a total pain in the ass was wondering if they made those white frilly aprons wide enough to fit over Nathaniel’s shoulders. I mean if he was going to play Suzy Homemaker, didn’t he need an apron, and maybe a string of pearls? The thought made me giggle, and I couldn’t stop it, and I couldn’t share it. I ended up having to excuse myself from the table to let the laughter have its way with me. By the time Micah found me, the laughter had given way to tears again. Nathaniel didn’t come looking for us. I was glad, except for a small part of me that kept expecting him to come through the door. I was ready to be angry if he came, and disappointed if he didn’t. Some days I don’t make sense, not even to me.
25
MICAH TRIED TO lure me out of the bedroom with the promise of breakfast and claiming that I couldn’t hide in there all day. I think it was the hiding comment that got me. I accused him of saying it deliberately, and he said, “Of course, I did. Nathaniel isn’t expecting you to fall on your knees and propose. He’s happy the way things are.”
“No he’s not. He wants sex.”
Micah offered me his hand and looked way too serious. “I don’t understand why you hold that last part back from him.”
I didn’t take his hand. In fact I crossed my arms over my stomach and frowned at him. “ ‘That last part,’ you make it sound like it’s nothing.”
He knelt in front of me. “Anita, I love you, you know that.”
Actually, I didn’t know that. People act like they love you, but how do you ever know it’s real. I didn’t say it out loud, but something about the look I gave him, or my body language must have said it for me, because he moved in close. Close and closer, until he was sitting in my lap with his legs wrapped around my waist. It made me laugh, which was probably why he’d done it.
We ended up with my arms around his waist, and he put his hands on my shoulders. His legs locked behind my back, pressing him up against me, about as close as he could get. “You do realize that from this position, sex won’t work, unless we trade equipment.”
“It’s not always about sex, Anita, sometimes it’s just about