Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [81]
“You haven’t perfected the technique, Anita. Not of feeding from a distance, or control.”
“It’s time we did. Maybe it will all work out for the best. If I could feed the ardeur through Jean-Claude, then I could take more out-of-town jobs without having to bring along lunch.”
He grinned at me. “Lunch, huh?”
I nodded, and smiled at him in spite of myself. I was never sure why he could make me smile when I wanted to strangle him, but he could. It was one of the reasons we were still friends.
“What am I going to do with you?” I asked.
He spilled himself back against the bed, giving me that lecherous grin. “I can think of something.”
I stared down at him framed against the bedspread. I knew that I could have touched him and done nearly anything I wanted. He’d let me. The knowledge made things low in my body react, but…I was beginning to realize that maybe that was true of most of the women in this room tonight. Somehow that took some of the shine off it for me. “I bet you can, but if it’s one of the blondes you’re wanting tonight, you need to ’fess up to them.”
“The last time I had sex with any of them was high school, Anita. It was fun, and a few times were very fun, but I have no idea how good they are at anything. The only person who’d do nonstandard for sure would be J. J., and that would be complicated. I mean, recapturing the glory days usually goes badly.”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“But you’d let me go out there and confess and flirt with intent.”
I smiled. “Flirt with intent, I was thinking exactly that earlier, but yeah, tell them the truth and you can have all the intent you want.”
“But if I don’t tell them, then I have to behave myself better?”
I nodded. “I’m afraid so. I feel sort of guilty asking that of you, but I can’t bear it. I can’t let them think that any man I might marry would be allowed to diss me this badly.” I added, “It sets a bad example to the other women, Jason. I mean, if even one woman seems to put up with shit like this, then it makes the other women more likely to put up with it for real. I just can’t endorse it.”
He clasped his hands across his stomach, looking serious. Only Jason could manage to look this serious and winsome on a bed at the same time. It was a gift.
“I guess I understand that.”
“They think I’m like almost your fiancée and they are all over you like white on rice, right in front of me. Jason, that is lack of respect, from you and them.”
He sighed, very heavy. “You’re right, you’re right.”
“Tell them the truth, and you can go back to what you were doing with them.”
He sat up slowly like it was some sort of stomach exercise, making the T-shirt demonstrate just how tight it was. “I love that,” he said.
I blinked and looked from his stomach to his face. “What?” I asked.
“That you watch me like that, that you notice me. I don’t want to go back to being invisible to you, Anita.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think you’ll ever be invisible to me, Jason.”
“But if I hurt your feelings this badly, reject you, then you’ll make sure you never act on it again.”
“You can’t reject me if we’re just fuck buddies.”
“That’s what I thought, but I realize that we’re more than fuck buddies. A fuck buddy does not call in to work at a moment’s notice and say I’ve got to fly out of town with a friend. A fuck buddy doesn’t drop everything to come play some stupid charade. Someone who is just a fuck buddy doesn’t come hold your hand when you see your father in the hospital and smell death on him. Fuck buddies are just about sex, Anita. I’m the closest thing you’ll probably ever have to one, but the idea of a fuck buddy is that they are casual. Once I asked you to fly out here with me, that wasn’t a casual request. I could only have asked that of someone who was my very close friend.” He leaned in toward me, as if for a kiss.
I drew back a little. “Kissing won’t answer my question, Jason. Do we walk out of here as a couple, or just friends? I need to know