Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [96]
“I’m sorry, I had no right to say that, especially not in front of her.”
“I started it,” he said, “but the answer is simple. I don’t feel for her what you feel for him.”
I shook my head. “Why is everyone so determined that we’re a couple?”
He smiled, and it was sort of sad, wistful, and bitter all at once. It reminded me of Micah’s smile when he’d first come to me. “Because you’re more of a couple right now without the sex than I have been with anyone that I’ve been sleeping with.”
I didn’t say, including Clair, because it was none of my business, and it would have been mean. I didn’t want to be mean.
“Sex doesn’t make you a couple, Richard, love makes you a couple.” The moment it left my mouth, I would have taken it back. I was just sort of frozen there, afraid to look anywhere but at Richard’s face, because I didn’t know what my own face looked like, I didn’t want to show shock to Nathaniel, but I didn’t know what else to show. I hadn’t meant to say it.
“You always do that,” Richard said.
“What?” I asked in a small voice, that didn’t sound like me at all.
“Fight, rail against it.”
“Against what?”
“Love, Anita, you don’t like being in love. I don’t know why, but you don’t.”
I had no idea what to say to that.
“I’m going to check on Gregory. Either Damian’s asleep, or he ate him.” His words tried to make light of it, but his face and eyes couldn’t pull it off. But he turned and left, vanishing into the dimness of the living room beyond.
The kitchen was suddenly very, very quiet. If Micah was still standing behind me, no noise betrayed it. I knew he was still there, but he must have been holding his breath, waiting for me to say something, do something. The trouble was I didn’t know what to do.
Nathaniel walked past me without a word. He had an armful of plates, green glass, blue glass. He started laying them out on the table in front of the chairs. First a green, then a blue. He went around the table away from me, then laid the last one back at the head of the table within touching distance of me. I’d stayed like some kind of idiot, rooted to the spot, not sure what to say. I couldn’t declare undying love, because it’s not what I felt. It wasn’t.
He moved that small step from the table, and he was suddenly standing right in front of me, close enough that I got a faint whiff of vanilla, and it wasn’t the baking. His face was serious, but his eyes held a hint of a smile. He leaned in and laid a kiss on my cheek, while I stood there like an idiot. I was afraid. Afraid that he’d demand that I tell him I loved him, or something equally ridiculous, or equally impossible. But he didn’t. He just kissed me, then leaned back with a smile. “I’ve had hundreds of people tell me they love me, but they didn’t mean it. They just wanted to use me. You may never say the words out loud, but you mean them.”
The timer buzzed on the oven, and he turned with a smile. “Biscuits are ready.” He used a dish towel for a pot holder and took the biscuits out. They were golden brown, and the smell of them filled the kitchen. He took out the second pan, closed the oven, turned it off, and looked at me. “I know how you feel about me now, because you’d have died before saying it in front of Richard, unless it was true. If you never say it again, I’ll always value that I heard it once.”
He started toward the darkened living room. “I’ll tell everybody that breakfast is ready.” He stopped at the door and turned back, with a grin on his face that I’d never seen before. One accidental confession, and he was suddenly cocky. “But I still want intercourse.” He vanished around the doorframe, trailing a sound of masculine laughter.
Micah came to stand beside me. “Anita, are you alright?” When I didn’t answer, he gripped my upper arms, and said, “Look at me.”
I blinked too fast and too often, but I looked at him. Things were moving too fast for me. I grabbed his arms and said the first thing that occurred to me. “If I faint, Richard will think I did it because of him.”
“You’re not going to faint. You never faint.