Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [114]
I frowned at her. “Jason told me that it’s because Nathaniel won’t be aggressive enough. That if a man’s just a little commanding, I feel like the choice isn’t all mine, and the guilt isn’t all mine either. Nathaniel’s sort of forcing me to make the move, to be in charge, to be . . .”
“The one to blame,” she offered.
“Maybe.”
“Anita, I am terrified of spending the rest of my life with one man. I mean, what if a body like Nathaniel’s comes walking up to me the day after I say yes to Louie? I’m going to turn it down?”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s what being in love means, doesn’t it?”
“Spoken by the girl who’s sleeping with more men than I’ve dated in the last three years.”
“I was raised that marriage would make everything that was dirty okay. Suddenly, all those feelings were legal, holy. Part of me has trouble letting that go.”
“Letting what go?” she asked.
“That I’m never going to get married. That I’m never going to do anything to make how I feel about Jean-Claude, or Micah, or Nathaniel, or Asher, or, hell, Damian, okay. That no matter what happens, I am going to be living in sin.”
“You mean that you’d like to be in love with just one man and do the marriage thing?”
“I used to think so. Now . . .” I sat down at the table. “Oh, Ronnie, I don’t know. I can’t see being with just one person anymore. My life wouldn’t work with just one of them in it.”
“And that bothers you,” she said.
“Yes, it does.”
“Why?”
“Because this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.”
“Anita, ‘supposed to be’ is for children. Grown-ups know that it’s what you make of it.”
“My life is working, Ronnie. Nathaniel is like my wife, and Micah is the other husband. He works for the coalition and helps me take care of the leopards and all the other shapeshifters. It’s partnership the way I always thought marriage could be, but never seems to be.”
“And where does Jean-Claude fit into this little domestic scene?”
“Wherever he wants, I guess. He runs his business and polices his territory, and we date.”
“You, him, and Asher date?”
“Sometimes.”
She shook her head. “And Damian?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She looked down at her hands on the tabletop. “I guess we’ve both been having some interesting personal choices to make.” She looked at me and frowned—a little frown. “Why is it that your choices seem so much more fun than mine?”
I smiled. “You have issues with commitment, marriage, and being tied to just one man. I have issues that anything short of that monogamous setup means your a slut. We’re both being set up to deal with our issues.”
“You do sound like you’ve been to therapy.”
“Glad to hear it shows,” I said.
“So you’re saying that we’ve fallen into the love lives we have so that we can face our demons and slay them?”
“Or realize that what we thought were monsters aren’t that much different from us.”
“You really did think that vampires were walking corpses once, didn’t you?”
“Down to my toes.”
“That must make it really hard to be in love with one of them.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
She took my hands in hers. “I’m sorry I’ve been pissy about Jean-Claude. I’ll try to do better.”
I smiled and squeezed her hands. “Apology accepted.”
“I’m thirty, and I’ve never been this happy with anyone. I’ll talk to Louie about giving me a little space and maybe finding a premarriage counselor.”
“Can I say I’m happy to hear that, without you accusing me of wanting you to marry him?”
She smiled and had the grace to look embarrassed. “Yeah, and sorry about that, too.”
“It’s alright, Ronnie, we all have our hangups.”
“Trust you to find a witch for a counselor, but if you can do therapy, I guess it’s not too late for the rest of us.”
“I was talking to Marianne for months before I realized what it was.”
“You’re saying that you went to therapy by accident.”
I shrugged, squeezed her hands, and got up. Please, God, let some of the coffee still be warm.
“So you went to therapy by accident. You became the lover of the Master of the City, kicking and screaming that you wouldn’t do it. Now you’ve fallen into one, or is it two ménage à trois, when your goal in life