Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [928]
“You look like you’re thinking too hard, lover.”
“I’m thinking about your little show; isn’t that what you wanted?” I asked.
“I wanted it to excite you, but that’s not excitement in your eyes.” It was his turn to frown.
“She is not easily captured,” Requiem said.
“She likes two men at once.”
“Not just any two men,” Requiem said, “just as she does not prefer just any single man.”
“You’re talking about me like I’m not here; I really hate that,” I said.
“Sorry, duckie, but I was hoping that the sight of Nathaniel and me together would do something for you.”
“It puzzled me.”
Byron laughed, and it made his face look younger, gave you a glimpse of what he might have been at a human fifteen when a vampire found him and made sure he’d never see sixteen. “Puzzlement wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
I shrugged. “Sorry.”
He shook his head. “Not your fault, dearie. I don’t do it for you.”
“I don’t do it for you either,” I said.
He laughed again. “The sex was lovely.”
“But you’d have liked it better if it had been Jean-Claude.”
A look slid through his eyes. He actually looked down, lowering his eyes in a show of coyness to hide the look. When he raised his gaze to me again, it was that smiling blankness that he hid behind. “Jean-Claude loves you, duckie; he’s made that abundantly clear.”
I might have asked what he meant by that, but the door opened and the vampire in question glided through. His clothes had just looked dark in the club; his usual black. The clothes were black, but they weren’t usual.
He was wearing a tuxedo complete with tails—though once you made it out of leather, was it still a tuxedo? Braces like silk suspenders slid over the bare flesh of his chest. I stared at that bare skin the way some men stare at a woman’s breasts. It wasn’t like me. I mean, it was a nice chest, but to stop there and not look at his face was just wrong. Because as nice as the chest was, the face was better. I raised my gaze to that face. The hair fell past his shoulders in black curls. The line of his neck was encircled with a black velvet ribbon and a cameo I’d bought for him. Up to the kissable curve of his mouth, the curve of his cheek like a swallow’s wing, all grace and…Swallow’s wing? What the hell did that mean? I would never have described anyone’s jawline like that.
“Ma petite, are you well?”
“No,” I said, softly, “I don’t think I am.”
He moved closer and I had to move my eyes upward, had to meet that midnight blue gaze. It was like back at the movies when I’d first seen Nathaniel. I was too fascinated, too taken with him. I actually had to close my eyes so the vision of him didn’t distract before I could say, “I think someone’s messing with me.”
“What do you mean, ma petite?”
“You mean like at the movie theatre,” Nathaniel said. His voice was closer than the couch. He must have moved toward us.
I nodded, eyes still closed.
Jean-Claude’s voice came from right in front of me. “What happened at the theatre?”
Nathaniel explained. “She had to get her cross out before it got better.”
“But I’m wearing my cross now,” I said.
“It’s inside your shirt now. It was in plain sight before,” Nathaniel said.
“That shouldn’t matter unless the vampire is in the room with me.”
“Try bringing it into the light,” Jean-Claude said.
I opened my eyes a crack, glancing at him. He was still heartrendingly beautiful, but I could think again. “That shouldn’t matter for this.” I stared up into his face, straight into those wondrous eyes. They were just eyes, beautiful, captivating, but not literally. “It’s gone again.”
“What’s going on, duckies?” Byron asked. He walked up to us, looking from one to the other.
“Lisandro, leave us,” Jean-Claude said.
Lisandro seemed to think about protesting, but he didn’t. He just asked, “Do you want me to stay on the door, or go back to the club?”
“The door, I think,” Jean-Claude said.
“Don’t our guards need a heads-up?” I asked.
“This