Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [67]
“I’ll call for a doctor,” Micah said.
I nodded. “Good, good.” I suddenly had to not be there, naked, smelling of fresh sex, with Richard and Micah in the same room. Having Damian and Nathaniel naked didn’t help my comfort level. I was fairly comfortable around nudity in general now, but specific nudity, that was still a problem. For more reasons than I was comfortable with, I needed to leave the room.
“By the way, there’s a woman crying in your car in the driveway,” Micah said.
“My car?” I asked.
“No, Richard’s, or at least I assume it’s Richard’s. I know Gregory’s car, and that’s not the one she’s in.”
Richard cursed under his breath, something he rarely did. “Clair, I forgot about Clair.”
“Who’s Clair?” I asked.
He hesitated, then said, “My girlfriend,” then he was walking to the door holding his arm like it hurt to walk that fast.
His girlfriend, and I’m buck naked the first time she sees me. Great. Well, at least she hadn’t seen me fuck Damian. That helped. Sure, great. Just great. I was shaking my head as I went toward the bathroom.
It was Gregory, in his growling voice, who said, “I guess it’s none of my business, but should Richard really be in front of the house where cars could see him? He is covered in blood.”
I turned and looked at the leopardman and said, “Shit, no.” I started for the door, and Micah stopped me. “I’ll go. I’m the only one that they wouldn’t call the cops on right now.” He squeezed my shoulder and smiled at me.
I realized that I hadn’t kissed him hello, I always kissed him hello. Of course, I was still covered in blood and other bodily fluids, and none of them were his, but he might not understand that that was why I hadn’t wanted to get too close. Some of my confusion must have shown on my face, because his smile widened. He turned me around by the shoulders, gave me a little push toward the bathroom, and slapped me on the ass. “Get cleaned up, I’ll take care of things here.”
“I can’t believe you just did that,” I said.
“Did what?” he said, and he was grinning at me.
I could probably count on one hand the number of times Micah had grinned at me. His eyes were sparkling with laughter as if it were all he could do not to let it out. I was happy to see him having this good a time, really I was. But I wasn’t sure what was funny, and I didn’t have the courage to ask. It was probably something that would be at my expense, or something I’d just done that he found cute. I was not cute. Confused, fucked-up, bruised, but not cute. Nathaniel and Damian knew better, but as I passed Gregory, I had to say, “If you touch my ass, I will rip you a new one.” I said it as I moved past him, not even pausing.
“You’re no fun,” he growled.
I looked back just before I turned out of sight of him. “Oh, I’m a lot of fun, just not for you.”
He snarled at me. “Bitch.”
“Woof, woof,” I said, and finally made it into the bathroom.
19
I TRIED NOT to think in the shower. Thinking bad; hot water good. I turned the shower head to as hard as the water would go and the let the water beat against my body, finding bruises I didn’t know I had. Once I would have been hurt, really hurt, by the beating that Damian had given me. Thanks to Jean-Claude’s vampire marks I was just a little stiff. The bite would take the longest to heal, and even that would be gone in few days, a week at the outside. The healing was great, the rest of it . . . well, let’s just say the jury was still out.
I heard a noise over the pounding water. It took me a minute to realize that someone was knocking at the door. I tried to ignore it. The knocking stopped for a second, and I thought, oh, good, but it started again, louder, as if whoever was knocking thought I hadn’t heard the first time.
I sighed, turned off the water, and called, “What?”
“Damian isn’t doing well,” Nathaniel said through the closed door.
I stood there a second water dripping into my eyes, and said, “What do you mean, Damian’s not doing well?”
“Can’t you feel