Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [634]
22
I WAS COOLING my heels in the living room when Bernardo and Olaf came out of the far rooms. They had both changed clothes.
Bernardo was in white dress slacks with a sharp crease and a roll of cuff. A white vest showed off his darkly muscled arms. He’d added heavy silver arm bracelets at mid-bicep, and matching ones at each wrist. A silver saint’s medallion glittered against the smooth darkness of his chest. Most of his hair fell like a black dream around all that white, except for a braid on one side. It was a thick braid because he just had that much hair, and he’d woven silver chains with tiny bells here and there in his hair, so he stalked into the room to the sound of gentle chimes. He looked at me through a curtain of blackness caressing one side of his face, the other graced by the silver on black glint of the braid. It was, to say the least, eye-catching.
It was a little bit of a struggle to tear my gaze from Bernardo and look at Olaf. He had gone for a black shirt that seemed utterly sheer. To hide his shoulder holster, he’d put on a leather jacket. It was way too hot for leather. Though admittedly, with his totally shaved head, black jeans, and black boots with silver toes and heels, the leather jacket looked about the right speed.
“You guys look spiffy. What’s the occasion?”
“We’re going to a club,” Bernardo said, as if that explained it.
“I know that,” I said.
He was frowning now. “You should change.”
I pushed to my feet from the couch. “Why?”
He walked toward me. I caught glimpses of dark flesh above his white leather loafers and the hem of his pants, no socks. He stopped at the edge of the couch, as if I’d pulled back, or made some other sign that I wasn’t happy. “I know you can look as good as we do.” He gave a little self-deprecating smile. “Or as good as Olaf here. Maybe not as good as me.” He smiled, and it was a good smile, meant to melt something a little lower than my heart. But I’d been working on my reaction to him. I was not a slave to my libido. Richard and Jean-Claude could attest to that.
I looked at him in all his light and dark glory. “If I can’t look as good as you, why try at all?”
The smile widened to a grin that made his face look somehow more real and less handsome. Less handsome, less practiced, but I liked it more. He took a step closer, and that teasing, practiced look was back. This was a man who knew how to flirt. But if anything will turn me off, it’s a very practiced approach, as if the man has done it a thousand times before, to a lot of different women. Which always seems to imply that I am no different from all the rest. Not flattering.
“I think you might, might, be able to approach my glory, if you tried.”
Even knowing it was an act, I had to smile. “I just don’t want to work that hard, Bernardo.”
“If I am forced to change, then everyone changes,” Olaf said.
I looked at him. Was he handsome? Not really, but he was striking. If he could tone down the bad boy routine, he could probably pick up plenty of girls at the club, or maybe even if he didn’t tone it down. It always amazes me how many women like dangerous men. Men who almost from the moment you meet them, you know are bad news. Me, I prefer my men kinder, gentler, nice. Niceness is highly underrated by most people.
“I don’t remember anyone putting you in charge, Olaf. When Edward asks me to change clothes, I’ll change.”
He took a step towards me, but whatever he was going to say or do, stopped when Edward came into the room. He was wearing a red tank top with a short-sleeved silk shirt that matched the tank. The shirt would hide his shoulder holster if he were careful. His