Burnt Offerings - Laurell K. Hamilton [104]
“Fine.” I turned around, penguin and card in one arm, and opened the dresser drawer. I grabbed what was on top, not really paying attention. I just wanted out of the suddenly silent room, away from the weight of Richard’s eyes.
“I heard someone come in with you,” he said, voice quiet. “Who was it?”
I turned, penguin and clothes clutched in a mass. “Louie and Ronnie.”
Richard frowned. “Did Rafael send Louie?”
I shook my head. “They were off in a love nest together. Louie doesn’t know what’s been happening. He seems really pissed at Gregory. Is it personal, or what he did to Stephen?”
“Stephen,” Richard said. “Louie is very loyal to his friends.” There was something in the way he said that last that seemed to imply that maybe not everyone in the house was as loyal. Or maybe I was just reading things into an otherwise innocent statement. Maybe. Guilt is a many-splendored thing. But meeting Richard’s true-brown eyes, I didn’t think I was hearing anything he didn’t mean for me to hear.
If I’d known what to say to him, I’d have sent the wereleopards out of the room so we could talk. But God help me if I knew what to say. Until I had time to think about things, the talk could wait. In fact, it had better wait. I hadn’t expected to still be able to feel something for Richard, or him for me. I was sleeping with another man, in love with another man. It complicated things. Just thinking that made me smile and shake my head.
“What’s so funny?” he asked. His eyes were so hurt, so confused.
“Funny?” I said. “Nothing, Richard, absolutely nothing.” I fled to the downstairs bathroom to change. This was the biggest bathroom in the house, the one that had a sunken marble tub. It wasn’t as big as the one Jean-Claude had at the Circus, but it was close. White candles encircled the head and foot of the tub. Untouched, fresh, new, waiting for nightfall. He’d chosen peppermint candles. He loved scented candles that smelled edible. His food fetish was showing.
There was a second card taped to the stem of a silver candlestick. There was nothing on the outside of the envelope, but call it a hunch. I opened it.
The note said, “If we were alone, ma petite, I would have you light them at dusk. And I would join you. Je rêve de toi.” The last was French for “I dream of you.” This one wasn’t even signed. He was such a confident little thing. According to him, I was the only woman in nearly four hundred years to ever turn him down. And even I had finally lost the battle. Hard not to be confident with a track record like that. Truthfully, I’d have loved to fill the tub, light the candles, and been waiting naked and wet for him to rise for the night. It sounded like a very, very good time. But we had a house full of guests, and if Richard was staying the night, we were going to behave ourselves. If Richard had dumped me for another woman, I wouldn’t have taken it quite as badly as he was taking it, but I couldn’t have stayed in a house and listened to him have sex with the other woman. Even my nerve wasn’t that strong. I certainly wasn’t going to put Richard into that position. Not on purpose.
I had to make two trips back and forth into the bedroom from the bathroom. First, I forgot a normal bra. A strapless bra was just not meant to be worn this long. Second, I traded the shorts I’d grabbed first for jeans.
I was very aware of Richard watching me as I came and went. Zane and Cherry watched both of us like nervous dogs that expect to be kicked. The tension was thick enough to walk on and the leopards could feel it. The tension was more than physical awareness. It was like he was thinking very hard, and I could feel it, a building pressure that had a lecture at the end of it, or a fight.
I ended up dressed in a pair of new jeans in that wonderful dark blue color that never lasts, a royal blue tank top, white jogging socks, and white Nikes with a black swoosh. I shoved most of the old clothes into the dirty clothes hamper and