Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

That got a smile from Dev; it was weak, and a little uncertain, but it was better than I’d gotten out of him. He looked at Nicky then, really looked at the other man. He looked at his bare, muscled chest, the way Nicky had looked at my breasts. There were some men in my life who, even as comfortable as they were sharing a bed with me and other men all at the same time, they wouldn’t have taken that look from Dev without it being a fight, or at least severely uncomfortable, but Nicky took it in stride.

‘That’s better,’ Nicky said.

Dev put his head to one side and said, ‘You don’t like men, so why do you care if I admire the view?’

Nicky shrugged as much as his shoulder muscles would let him. ‘I like knowing that you’re not just kidding about it.’

‘You like knowing that I’d do you if you’d let me, and you’re still going to get in the shower with me. Most straight men would be totally creeped by it.’

‘I’m secure in my masculinity.’

‘Well, that’s the truth,’ I said.

Nicky smiled at me, and I smiled back.

‘But you wouldn’t be doing me; I don’t bottom to anyone,’ Nicky said.

‘That works for me,’ Dev said.

I was no longer certain we were joking.

Nicky grinned. ‘If I come across for you then I’ll have to fight off Jean-Claude and Asher. I think I’ll stay on this side of the heteroflexible divide; it’ll make things less complicated.’

Dev pouted at him, and if you’ve never seen a handsome, athletic, six-foot-three man pout and be able to make it totally work for him, then I’m sorry, because it was way fun to watch.

Nicky laughed. ‘Let’s get naked and wet.’

The look on Dev’s face at such a bold comment from the other man ruined the pout and stripped his face to something uncertain and hopeful. I hadn’t known that Dev thought Nicky was cute, but Nicky’s maneuvering of the other man let me know that my werelion had known. Was I that blind, or was Nicky just that observant?

Dev stripped off his shirt in one fast motion and threw it on the floor as if he didn’t want to touch it any longer than he had to, but he unzipped his pants and stripped them off to join his socks and boots, which were already on the floor beside him. He was suddenly totally nude and beautiful, but he wasn’t looking defiantly at me, he was looking at the other man. It was almost as if he thought Nicky would chicken out and have a moment of heterosexual panic, but I knew better. If it was a test of nerves, my money was on Nicky.

He didn’t disappoint me. He just unfastened his pants and stripped them off – okay, he had to peel them off due to some fluid that had dried on one leg, but he got them off and let them fall on top of his own boots and socks. He stood there naked and yummy and stared at Dev like he was daring him to say something.

Dev opened his mouth, closed it, and then laughed, head back, eyes closed, totally delighted. Nicky looked at me and smiled. I decided then and there that I would never try to bluff Nicky, because he was out of my league. I could lie, but I couldn’t manipulate like that, not even for a good cause.

Nicky held his hand out to me, and I went to him. ‘You have too many clothes on,’ he said.

‘We can fix that,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ Dev said, his voice still holding an edge of laughter, ‘we can.’

We did.

We helped one another get clean. It took three times through the shampoo for Dev’s hair to get clean. He’d gotten hit the worst from something, or maybe it was the baby-fine texture of his hair; whatever. Nicky helped me pick bits out of the back of Dev’s hair. He started shivering even though the water was steaming hot, but there is cold that no amount of hot water will warm. I think we could have turned his skin pink with heat and he would still have shivered.

He put his hands on the tile of the wall and leaned, as if he were trying to take strength from the wall to keep standing. Nicky and I exchanged a look; he motioned with his head for me to get closer to Dev while he kept picking bits of zombie out of the other man’s hair. I touched his arm, and he jumped.

‘It’s me, Dev, it’s just me,’ I said.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

I let that go; we both knew what was wrong, but knowing doesn’t always fix it. I touched his arm again, and this time he stood still for it. I slid in under his arm, and even with him leaning against the wall he was tall enough for me to look up at him and not have to bend over at all. He was a foot taller than I was, and standing there with his arms on either side and above my shoulders, his face above mine, I was suddenly aware that he was really big, not just tall, but wide through the shoulders, broad through the chest. If he had spent half the time that Nicky did in the weight room, Dev would have been massive. I wasn’t sad that he didn’t; I might have felt physically overwhelmed, but then again, maybe I wouldn’t. I could see Nicky’s shoulder on one side of Dev’s, and I didn’t have a problem with Nicky. I didn’t think a few inches of extra height would have tipped the difference for me.

Wet, Dev’s hair fell a little below his shoulders, framing that square and very masculine jaw. His blue-on-blue eyes blinked a little too quickly as he stared down at me. I slid my hands over the slick wetness of his chest as Nicky kept working on his hair.

‘I don’t think I’m in the mood, Anita. I never thought I’d say that, but I can’t stop thinking about what Nicky is cleaning out of my hair. Now I know why you insist on a shower before you greet everybody some nights.’

I touched his face, made sure I had serious eye contact. ‘The thing in the basement tonight was bad, Dev; even by my standards it was a slaughter. I don’t do that every night. Hell, I don’t do it most of the time.’

‘You mean I’m not being a serious pussy?’

I smiled at him. ‘Well, you are a pussycat, but no, it was bad, worse than normal even by my standards for mess and brutal fighting. Flesh-eating zombies just don’t stop coming. I’ve never, ever seen that many of them.’

‘Really?’ he asked, and his voice was fragile, like the look in his eyes.

‘Really,’ I said, my hand on the side of his face.

His head pulled back as if Nicky were moving his hair too much. Then I saw Nicky’s hands come up and he ran his fingers through Dev’s hair. ‘There, all clean.’

Dev let out a shaking breath, but he straightened, pushed away from the wall, and ran his own hands through his hair. He did it a second time, a look of relief on his face as he smoothed his hair back from his face.

‘Thanks, Nicky,’ he said.

‘You can return the favor sometime,’ Nicky said.

Dev looked over his shoulder at the other man. ‘Are you inviting me to shower with you again?’

Nicky smiled. ‘So far you’ve been a perfect gentleman; I think my virtue is safe.’

‘You have virtue to keep safe?’ I asked, peering around Dev’s body.

Nicky raised an eyebrow at me. I realized he’d swept his wet hair back from his face, completely exposing the scars that covered the socket of his right eye. He usually hid the scars with that triangle of bangs, so I valued when he didn’t. It meant he was comfortable. I liked that.

‘No, no, I don’t,’ he said, and there was something about the way he said it, more sad than teasing back, that made me remember that he’d been abused as a child both sexually and physically by his mother. She’d been the one who took his eye. I suddenly felt stupid and slow and …

I went to Nicky, stroking my hands down his bare, wet arms. ‘I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ he said.