Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [51]
Jason nodded. “I know you almost outed Irving as a werewolf by accident.”
“Yeah, the idea is that I wouldn’t be sharing secrets with a human being.” Did that last sound bitter?
Jason reached across the table and patted my hand. Apparently, it had sounded bitter. “It’s hard to be painted as a monster when you’re still human.”
I shook my head, and moved my hand away from his. “I haven’t been straight human since I was a child, Jason. Remember, I saw my first ghost in elementary school, and called my first zombie by accident in junior high. That isn’t human by most people’s standards.”
“People can be pretty cruel,” he said. His face had gone all serious. Somehow I didn’t think he was thinking about my childhood. Shit.
I stood up and came around the table to him. He gazed up at me. I kissed him on the forehead.
“What was that for?” he asked, but he smiled when he did it.
I smiled back. “So you’d smile.”
He pulled me into his lap, and our arms were just suddenly around each other. “I can think of other things that would make me do more than smile.”
“I give you a sisterly kiss on the forehead and all you can think about is sex.”
He gave me that smile, the real version of the smile that helped separate customers from their money at the club. He could look like everyone’s favorite brother, or the best friend you had in college or high school; he was everyone’s buddy, until he got that look. The look that stripped him of the pretense of innocence. The look that let you know behind the boy-next-door charm was someone wicked who would help you be wicked, too.
The look brought my breath out in a sigh and made me lean in, not quite close enough for a kiss. “Is there a reason you left food uneaten on your plate?”
The lascivious look faltered. “You never do or say exactly what I expect you to.”
“You aren’t the first man who’s noticed that,” I said, still not quite close enough to kiss.
He acknowledged that with a small nod. “A too-full stomach impedes good sex.”
“Only if you plan to be vigorous,” I said, leaning in just a little closer, so that I was staring into those blue eyes so close, so very close.
He grinned, and then that look filled his face. “Oh, I plan to be vigorous, eventually.”
“Eventually,” I said, and closed those last inches, so that his lips touched mine as he said, “Oh, yes.”
22
JASON MIGHT HAVE planned on being vigorous, but he started out slow. When I got carried away and wanted to move things along, he finally turned me on my stomach and made me touch the headboard.
“Slow, Anita, we have all night. I’ve never had all night with you, and I want to enjoy it.” He said that with his nude body kneeling beside me.
“Why is it that all of you remind me that you never get me to yourself?”
“Because it’s true.”
I went up on my elbows and gazed down my body to find him at my feet with his body stretched out so that his feet were closer to me than anything else. “Are all of you tired of sharing me?”
“Not tired, but every man likes to think a woman likes him just for himself, not because he’s an extra pair of hands, an extra mouth, a spare dick.”
I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because he crawled back up the bed and hugged me. “I’m sorry, Anita, I shouldn’t have said that, I really shouldn’t have.”
“Is that how you all feel?”
He shook his head. “No, I swear to you, no. Nathaniel enjoys sharing. Jean-Claude loves that you let him share you with other men, especially Asher. I don’t know about Micah, he doesn’t talk to me like that. Richard, well, our Ulfric doesn’t like sharing anything lately.”
“But it’s how you feel, isn’t it?”
“Truthfully, me and most of the men who only get a little of your attention. Come on, be honest, we are just extra men in the bed.”
“That’s not true.”
“If it’s not true for me, then why don’t you ever approach me when the ardeur isn’t in emergency mode?”
“I’m with you now.”
“Yeah, but it’s a different kind of emergency. I know this is sort of mercy sex.”
“I don’t do mercy sex.” I sat up.
“Oh, God, I am not in the right mindset