Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

I sighed and looked at them. Finally I said, ‘I’m sorry.’

They looked at each other, then back to me. Nicky said, ‘For what?’

‘For being pissy and taking my bad mood out on both of you.’

‘It’s okay; I’m your Bride, you can treat me the way you want.’

‘Do you know how much I hate that you mean that?’

‘Yeah, but it’s still true, and, Anita, if you hadn’t made me into your Bride I would have killed you and helped my pride kill Jason, Micah, and Nathaniel. I was, and am, a very bad person. I am a bad guy, or would be if your sense of moral outrage didn’t control me.’

‘I know, I know, I’m your Jiminy Cricket.’

‘No, you’re more than that,’ he said, and took a step closer to me. ‘You said you loved me tonight. I felt that you meant it.’

‘I did mean it,’ I said.

He held out his hand, and I took his hand in mine.

‘That’s okay,’ Dev said. ‘You guys have fun. I’ll find another room.’

Nicky and I looked at each other. I raised my eyebrows at him.

‘He doesn’t have to go on my account,’ Nicky said.

‘Stay,’ I said.

Dev looked at us both. ‘You just said you loved each other for the first time. You should have a night to yourselves.’

‘Why?’ Nicky asked.

‘Because you love each other,’ Dev said, as if that made perfect sense.

‘Anita saying she loves me doesn’t change everything,’ Nicky said.

‘But shouldn’t it?’ Dev asked.

‘Why should it?’

Dev looked to me then. ‘You explain it to him.’

‘Explain what? I agree with Nicky.’

‘Shouldn’t you want a night alone to sort of celebrate the love thing?’

I squeezed Nicky’s hand and smiled at him. ‘One of the reasons I love Nicky is that he’s okay with sharing me with Nathaniel and Micah, and Cynric, and Jean-Claude, and Asher, and’ – I shrugged – ‘all the people in my life.’

‘It doesn’t bother you to share her?’ Dev asked, and I knew he was asking Nicky.

‘Nathaniel says you share better than I do, so why are we having this discussion again?’

Dev smiled, shook his head, and said, ‘Because I keep getting hung up on the clan tiger idea that eventually you fall in love and become monogamous, and when Asher comes back I’m going to try to be monogamous, so … I guess it’s how I’m thinking. Honestly, I don’t know, but somehow love should change everything, shouldn’t it?’

‘If you’re doing it right, love makes you more of who you are, not less,’ I said.

‘What does that mean?’ Dev asked.

‘It means if we were a happy little polyamorous group before I said I loved Nicky, why should saying it and meaning it change that?’

Dev seemed to think about it, nodded, rolled his lower lip under, and then nodded again. ‘Okay, your logic beats out my sentimental whatever. Now what?’

‘Shower isn’t going to be big enough for all three of us,’ Nicky said.

‘Regular hotel shower would fit me, Nathaniel, and Micah, but not the two of you. Your shoulders alone won’t fit.’

Dev grinned suddenly, the serious mood gone so that his blue tiger eyes sparkled with it. ‘The shower is one of the biggest I’ve ever seen in a hotel, almost as big as the one that Jean-Claude had put in at the Circus.’

‘Cool,’ I said.

‘So we clean up and then we see about shower sex for all of us,’ Nicky said.

‘Sounds good,’ I said.

Dev laughed. ‘Sounds better than good, sounds amazing. I never thought I’d get you out of your clothes.’

‘I don’t think he’s referring to me,’ I said.

Nicky sort of hung his head and sighed, and then he laughed. ‘If you hadn’t said anything, you could have groped me and said you misunderstood.’

‘I’ve seen you hit a heavy bag; I don’t want any misunderstandings between us,’ Dev said, smiling.

Nicky laughed again. ‘Fair enough; we’re sharing Anita, not each other.’

‘You okay with accidental touching?’

‘Sure,’ Nicky said.

Dev’s smile blossomed back into that grin of his, the one that was part mischief, part sex, and all charm. ‘Cool.’

And it was.

There are moments when undressing isn’t sexy; being covered in dried blood, guts, and brains is one of those moments. Weapons first and there were a few bits of dried zombie on them, too. We’d clean them later. Our body armor had left a clean spot on our shirts underneath. The vests were all going to need cleaning, and since mine was a custom-fit job I didn’t have a backup vest. Men’s vests didn’t fit right on women, though I could borrow a man’s vest and because it was really too big for me it didn’t crush my breasts the way it did on women who were bigger through the shoulders and rib cage. But holding up the vest and looking at some of the stains on it, I thought a second vest might not be a bad idea.

The three of us paid attention to our weapons and body armor, and it was sexless. Shirts first, and Nicky looked at my bra, all right, he looked at my breasts, they just happened to be in a black satin bra.

‘I like that about you,’ Nicky said.

‘What, my breasts?’

He grinned. ‘Those, too, but you don’t bitch if I stare at your breasts.’

‘I’m wearing a push-up bra; if I didn’t want people to look at my breasts I should probably wear something else.’

‘Yeah, but I know that Nathaniel packed for you, which means it’s all going to be push-up, satin, or lace.’

I smiled and shook my head. ‘I’m not sure I own anything else.’

‘I like that about you, too,’ he said. He took off his shirt in one movement. I heard the cloth stick on one shoulder as it came off, but at least the vest meant the whole shirt hadn’t been covered in gunk; bad for the vests, but good for our peace of mind and a lower ick factor. I concentrated on the muscled expanse of his chest and shoulders; they almost distracted me from the flat plains of his stomach.

‘Hmm … an eight-pack.’

He grinned. ‘Some of the other guards are pissed, because they can only do a six-pack, if they work their asses off.’

‘Eight is genetic; not everyone can do more than a six-pack no matter how hard they work out,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ he said, and he looked pleased with himself.

There was a small sound in the room, the kind that makes you look up and try to locate the source, and depending on who was making the sound, you’d either pretend you hadn’t heard or comfort the person making the noise. Dev had his belt unbuckled, but his shirt was only partially untucked. He held his hands sort of awkwardly away from his body, as if he didn’t want to touch something or already had touched something and didn’t want to transfer it from his hands to his clothes.

Nicky and I looked at each other and, without a word, went to Dev. ‘Let me help you out of those clothes,’ I said, trying to put teasing and sexiness in the words.

Dev looked at me, eyes too big, face sort of slack with the edge of panic he was fighting. He held his hands out to me like he was five and had hurt himself. There was no mark on his hands; they looked clean to me, but sometimes you have a sort of Lady Macbeth moment, and even after washing away the blood, it’s like you can still see it, feel it, ingrained on your skin.

I reached out to touch his hands, but he jerked back. ‘I’ve got … stuff on me.’

‘Me, too,’ I said, my voice soft.

His eyes fluttered and flashed white like a horse about to bolt.

‘It’s okay, Dev, it’s okay.’

He shook his head.

‘You said you thought you’d never get me out of my clothes, and you haven’t even said how cute I look,’ Nicky said.