Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

I looked across the table at Edward. He didn't bother to look up from the papers in his hands. I smiled. "No, I was more thinking I'd get my own."

Bernardo turned and leaned his butt against the table, arms crossed over his, chest. Muscles played in his arms as if he were flexing just a bit for my benefit. I didn't think he was even aware he was doing it, as if it were habit. "Truthfully?" he asked.

I looked up at him and sipped the coffee he'd brought me. "That would be nice."

"I've read the reports more than once. I don't want to read them again. I'm tired of playing detectives and wish we could just go kill something, or at least fight something."

"Me, too," Edward said. He was watching us now with cool blue eyes. "But we have to know what we're fighting, and the answer to that is in here somewhere." He motioned at the mounds of papers.

Bernardo shook his head. "Then why haven't we, or the police found the answer in all this paper?" He ran his finger down the nearest stack. "I don't think paperwork is going to catch this bastard."

I smiled up at him. "You're just bored."

He looked down at me, a little startled expression on his face, then he laughed, head back, mouth wide as if he were howling at the moon. "You haven't known me long enough to know me that well." Laughter was still sparkling in his brown eyes, and I wished it were a different pair of brown eyes. My chest was suddenly tight with missing Richard. I looked down at the papers in my lap, not sure if it would show in my eyes. If my eyes showed sorrow, I didn't want Bernardo to see it. If my eyes showed longing, I didn't want him to misinterpret it.

"Are you bored, Bernardo?" Edward asked.

Bernardo turned at the waist so he could see Edward with a minimum of movement. It put his bare chest facing me. "No women, no television, nothing to kill, bored, bored, bored."

I found myself staring at his chest. I had an urge to rise up out of my chair spill the papers to the floor and run my tongue over his chest. The image was so strong, I had to close my eyes. I had feelings like this around Richard and Jean-Claude, but not around strangers. Why was Bernardo affecting me like this?

"Are you all right?" He was bending over me, face so close that his face filled my entire vision.

I jerked back, pushing the chair and rising to my feet. The chair crashed to the floor, papers spilled everywhere. "Shit," I said with feeling. I picked up the chair.

He bent down to help pick up the papers. His bare back made a firm curved line as he started shoveling the papers back into a pile. I watched the way the small muscles in his lower back worked, fascinated by it.

I stepped away from him. Edward was watching me from across the table. His gaze was heavy, as if he knew what I was thinking, feeling. I knew it wasn't true, but he knew me better than most. I didn't want anyone to know that seemed to be unwarrantedly attracted to Bernardo. It was too embarrassing.

Edward said, "Leave us alone for a while, Bernardo."

Bernardo stood with a bundle of papers, looking from one to the other of us. "Did I just miss something?"

"Yes," Edward said, "Now get out."

Bernardo looked at me. He looked a question at me, but I gave nothing back. I could feel my face unreadable and empty. Bernardo sighed and handed me the papers. "How long?"

"I'll let you know," Edward said.

"Wonderful, I'll be in my room when Daddy decides to let me come out." He stalked through the nearest door where Olaf had vanished through.

"No one likes being treated like a child," I said.

"It's the only way to deal with Bernardo," Edward said. His gaze was very steady on my face, and he looked way too serious for comfort.

I started sorting the papers in my hands. I used the cleared space on the table that I'd made hours ago when I was still leaning over the table instead of slumping in the chair to read. I concentrated on sorting and didn't look up until I felt him beside me.

I looked then and found his eyes weren't blank. They were intense, but I still couldn't read them. "You said you hadn't been dating either of them for six months."

I nodded.

"Have you been dating anyone else?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"No sex, then," he said.

I shook my head again. My heart was beating faster. I so did not want him to figure this out.

"Why not?" he asked.

I looked away then, unable to meet his eyes. "I don't have any moral high ground to preach from anymore, Edward, but I don't do casual sex, you know that."

"You're jumping out of your skin every time Bernardo comes near you."

Heat climbed up my face. "Is it that noticeable?"

"Only to me," he said.

I was grateful for that. I spoke without looking at him. "I don't understand it. He's a bastard. Even my hormones usually have better taste than that." Edward was leaning against the table, arms crossed over his white shirt. It was exactly how Bernardo had been sitting, but it didn't move me, and I didn't think it was just the shirt. Edward just did not affect me in that way and never would.

"He's handsome, and you're horny."

The heat that had been fading, flared until it felt like my skin would burn.

"Don't say it that way."

"It's the truth."

I looked at him then, and let the anger show in my eyes. "Damn you."

"Maybe your body knows what you need."

I widened eyes at him. "Meaning what?"

"A good uncomplicated fuck. That's what I mean." He still looked calm, unmoved as if he'd said something entirely different.

"What are you saying?"

"Fuck Bernardo. Give your body what it needs. You don't have to go back to the monsters to get laid."

"I cannot believe you said that to me."

"Why not? If you were having sex with someone else, wouldn't it be easier to forget Richard and Jean-Claude? Isn't that part of their hold on you, especially the vampire. Admit it, Anita. If you weren't celibate, you wouldn't be missing them as much."

I opened my mouth to protest, closed it, and thought about what he'd said. Was he right? Was part of the reason I was still mooning over them the lack of sex? Yeah, I guess it was, but it wasn't just that. "I miss the sex, yeah, but I miss the intimacy, Edward. I miss looking at them both and knowing they're mine. Knowing I can have every inch of them. I miss Sunday after church and having Richard stay over to watch old movies. I miss watching Jean-Claude watch me eat a meal." I shook my head. "I miss them, Edward."

"Your problem, Anita, is that you wouldn't know an uncomplicated fuck if it bit you on the ass."

I wasn't sure whether to smile or be mad, so my voice was a little amused and a little angry. "And your relationship with Donna is so uncomplicated?"

"It was at the beginning," he said. "Can you say that about either of yours?"

I shook my head. "I'm not a casual person, Edward, not in anything."

He sighed. "I know that. When you give your friendship, it's for life. When you hate someone, it's forever. When you say you're going to kill someone, you do it. One of the things making you squirm about your boys is the fact that for you, love should be forever."

"And what's wrong with that?"

He shook his head. "Sometimes I forget how young you are."

"And what does that mean?"

"It means you complicate your life, Anita." He raised a hand before I could say it, and said it for me. "I know I've screwed up with Donna, but I went into it meaning to be casual, meaning it to just be part of the act. You always go into everything like it's life or death. Only life and death are life and death."

"And you think that sleeping with Bernardo would fix all that."

"It'd be a start," he said.

I shook my head. "No."

"Your final word?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Fine, I won't bring it up again."