Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [133]
“We better get dressed and out there before someone calls the cops.”
“Bert won’t call the police, he’s too afraid of bad publicity.”
I laughed. “You haven’t met Bert often enough to know him that well.”
“I’ve known a lot of people like Bert. He’s not as bad as they were, but it’s the same . . . kind of thinking. He wants his moneymaker to keep on making money more than he wants anyone to be safe or happy.”
I looked into that terribly young face, and there was no one young looking back at me. As much as I’d seen of life, Nathaniel had seen things that would have broken me. Or at least bent me all to hell. I cupped his face in my hands, and said, “What am I going to do with you?”
“I want you to make love to me,” his voice was soft, but oh, so serious.
I tried to make a joke of it. “Not right now, I hope.”
He gave me his gentle smile, the one that said he wasn’t going to let me get away with it. “No, not right now, but soon.”
I drew back from him, and I was almost afraid of him, afraid in a way that guns can’t help with. “Why are you making this so hard?”
“Love should be hard, Anita, or what is it worth? You taught me that all these months in your bed, with your body against mine and no release. You taught me how hard love can be.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t understand until yesterday.”
He leaned up on his knees and got close enough to kiss my mouth. “Don’t be sorry, make love to me.”
My voice was shaky as I said, “Not right now.”
“No,” and he breathed against my lips, “but soon.” He kissed me, one chaste touch of lips, then he stood and moved away to give me some room.
I watched him move across the room toward the door. “I’ll tell them we’re alright.”
I nodded, because I didn’t trust my voice. He’d given me room, physically, but emotionally, emotionally, he was giving me no room at all. I waited for the panic to set in, but it didn’t. What came was the memory of him inside my body and the thought of what it might be like to have him spill himself inside me.
31
I’D BEEN LOUD enough, and it had taken long enough, that part of me wished there was a back door to my office. But there wasn’t, so I couldn’t slink off even if I’d been willing to do it. Besides, if Bert ever suspected that I was that bothered by it, he’d use it against me. Try for some kind of leverage in the ongoing game of one-upmanship that Bert and I had played for years. The only cure for it was a bold face. Sigh.
I ran my fingers through my hair, which is all you’re supposed to do when your hair is as curly as mine. Brushing just makes it frizz. I checked my makeup in the little mirror that I’d started having to keep in the desk. The problem with dressing more like a girl was that it forced you to have to care. Once you put on the lipstick, you had to look at it periodically to make sure it hadn’t smeared like clown makeup. I liked the way lipstick looked on me, but I hated having to think about it.
The eye shadow had surived pretty well, but the lipstick was pretty much smeared all over my mouth. Again, I was grateful that the carpet was dark. Red lipstick on a pale carpet would have looked awkward. On the deep brown, you couldn’t see it.
I used some makeup remover that was supposed to be used to take off eye makeup, but I’d found it worked dandy on lipstick. I used a moist wipe to get everything off and then had to reapply the lipstick. See, so much trouble. I was just happy that I almost never wore base makeup. That would have been a bitch to get off the carpet.
When my mouth was as red as when I started, I put everything back into the desk drawer, got up, straightened my skirt, took a deep breath, and went for the door. With everything that had happened to me in the last twenty-four hours, having to face Bert down still took more courage than was pretty. You do not fuck at work. You just don’t. It’s déclassé to say the least. Shit.
When I stepped out into the reception area, I got a surprise. No one assumed we’d been having