Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [1045]
There was a crowd in the kitchen. The order for everyone to wear clothes had been taken to heart. Cherry had on cutoff jean shorts and a white men’s shirt with the sleeves torn off, so that little bits of thread decorated the arm holes. She’d tied the ends of the shirt so her stomach showed as she moved around the kitchen. Zane’s gaze followed her wherever she moved. I wasn’t sure how Cherry felt about him, but Zane was beginning to act like a man in love, or at least very serious lust. He sat at the table wearing the leather pants he’d taken off last night, ignoring his coffee and watching Cherry.
Caleb leaned against the counter in his jeans, with the top button unbuttoned so that his belly-button ring showed. He sipped coffee and watched Zane watch Cherry with an odd look on his face. I couldn’t decipher it, but I didn’t like it, as if he were trying to think how to cause trouble between them. Caleb struck me as one of those who liked to cause trouble.
Nathaniel was sitting at the table, his long hair in a braid down his back, chest bare, but I knew without checking that he’d have something on. He knew me well enough to know I liked my houseguests clothed.
Igor and Claudia stood when I came into the room. His tattoos were even more striking in the full light of day. They graced his arms, what I could see of his chest through the white tank top, and the sides of his neck, like liquid jewels, brilliant, eye-catching. Even from a distance they were beautiful against his pale skin. I wasn’t much into tattoos but I couldn’t picture Igor without them—the look just worked for him. He’d put on the shoulder rig, and it still looked like it should chaff with the tank top, but, hey, it wasn’t my skin. The Glock sat under his arm, a black spot on all that pretty color, like an imperfection on a Picasso.
Claudia looked positively ordinary beside him—if a woman that was so damn close to seven feet and muscled better than most men could look ordinary. The gun at the small of her back wasn’t nearly as noticeable as Igor’s. Her black hair was still pulled back in a tight ponytail, leaving her face clean and empty, and that included her eyes. Claudia had cop eyes, or bad-guy eyes, the eyes of someone who doesn’t let you see what’s inside. I didn’t meet many women with eyes like that, outside of the police. If her face had been a little softer, she’d have been beautiful. But there was something in the set of her jaw, the way she held that full mouth that said, back off, no touching. It robbed her of something that would have changed everything about her.
The two of them came to take up posts to either side and a little behind me. I would have protested, but I’d discovered last night that it didn’t do much good. They took orders from Rafael, not me. He’d said, “Keep her safe,” and that was what they were going to do. I was too . . . whatever the hell I was to waste energy on telling them to back off. They could follow me around if it made them feel better. This afternoon I just didn’t care.
Merle was standing in the corner of the cabinets, near enough to the coffeemaker that Igor crowded him while I poured my coffee. I didn’t know who had made a fresh pot, and I didn’t care; just the sight and smell of it made me feel better.
Merle was wearing the cowboy boots, jeans, and jean jacket over bare chest that he’d had on last night. He was sipping coffee out of one of the few plain mugs I owned. The scar on his chest was very white, ragged, pitted in one spot as if that had been the deepest part of the wound. It did look like lightning carved into his chest