Laurell Hamilton - Hit List

“He says he’s willing to date you,” Edward said.

“I know he wants to hurt me, Edward.”

“I don’t mean date you like that.”

“You mean a date-date like dinner and a movie?” I asked.

“I don’t know about dinner and a movie, but he would try something more normal than his usual.”

“He said that to you?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see you and Olaf sitting around and talking about girls.”

“I made sure he and I were clear on what he meant by dating you before I’d let him come as backup for me, Anita.”

“So what did he tell you?”

“He’d be willing to have vanilla sex with you.”

I tried to stand away from Nicky, but he curved his taller body over me, so I could stand more upright but he could still wrap himself around me. It felt warm and safe to have his arms around me, so good to have my body against the front of his, held so close. Close enough that I could feel the front of his body begin to swell. Sex had been part of the “magic” that I’d used to bind Nicky to me, to steal his free will. He and his lion pride of mercenaries had kidnapped me and had been threatening to kill three of the men I loved. They’d almost killed me, and in the end they’d stripped me of every power I had except for one. I’d used that one power to make Nicky betray everyone and everything, so he’d help me save myself and the men I loved. Until Nicky I hadn’t understood what I was doing, or what it would mean to the person I was doing it to, but with Nicky I hadn’t been innocent. I let him hold me, not just because it felt good for him to do it, but because I did feel bad about what I’d done to him. Yes, he’d been a very bad man, but no one deserved to be mind-fucked until there was nothing left, not even a sociopath.

“Anita,” Edward said.

“Are you seriously saying you want me to have sex with Olaf? You can’t be serious.”

Nicky tightened his arms around me, laying a kiss on the top of my head. I began to smooth my hand back and forth on his arm, outlining the muscles under the leather of his jacket.

“Do I want you to have sex with him? No.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, what does that mean? You always know what you mean.”

Nicky kissed my hair again. He tucked his body in tighter against mine, and just the feel of his body so hard, so thick against my ass, caught my breath in my throat, made me shiver against him, which made him wrap himself tighter around me, which made all the sensations more intense, which . . . “Edward, sorry, just give me a minute.” I put the phone against my stomach and asked, “Nicky, room, I need a little room. It’s too distracting.”

“What’s too distracting?” He whispered it against my hair and pressed himself a little tighter against the back of my body, giving a slight flex of his hips that made me have to try to step away from his body. He tried to hold on to me, tried to keep himself pressed against me, but I said, “Let me go, Nicky.” And just like that he had to let me go, because I’d told him to do it.

I grabbed his hand in mine, and that small gesture earned me a smile that filled his face with such joy. It was so wrong that he reacted like that to me; you should only act like that around people you love. Nicky didn’t love me, not in a way that should have brightened his face like that from a simple hand holding.

I put the phone back to my ear and tried to ignore Nicky and his too-happy face. “I’m back, Edward.”

“You seem distracted, Anita. We have the . . . people that are killing the weretigers, and Olaf. You cannot be distracted and deal with either of them.”

“I’m on top of it, Edward.”

“Are you?”

Nicky pulled on my hand, drawing me a little closer. I moved my body to one side so that he couldn’t draw us completely together. I couldn’t afford to be distracted again so soon.

“Look, we’re on our way to get fresh clothes for Karlton. Once she’s suited up we’ll join you in the field.”

“No, there’s nothing out here. Your wererat trailed them to the edge of the woods and then nothing. We think they either flew or had a car waiting.”

“So the brilliant idea to use wereanimals to track the killers isn’t so brilliant.”

Nicky moved closer to me. I kept the side of my body to the front of his. He leaned over and laid his face against the top of my head, resting against my hair as if it were a pillow.

“It was a good idea, Anita, and when we get a fresher crime scene we’ll try again.”

“You’re right, they’ll kill again.”

“They will,” he agreed.

“I hate the idea of having to wait for another crime scene before we catch a break. It’s like we want someone else to be killed.”

Nicky moved his head to lay a kiss against my hair.

“We’ll meet you back at the motel while you’re getting Karlton’s clothes. You need to get rooms for the rest of your deputies.”

I leaned my forehead against Nicky’s chest. “How’s Bobby Lee doing?” I asked, because I knew he was the one who’d shapeshifted to try to scent out the bad guys.

“He’s passed out in the back of the car.”

“So he’s already shape shifted back to human form,” I said. Nicky put his arm across my back, trying to draw me in against his body again.

“Yes.”

I was out of hands to keep our bodies apart, so I turned my shoulder into his chest. His arm tried to turn me so that the fronts of our bodies would touch. I turned my body more firmly sideways to him. “He’ll be unconscious for at least four hours,” I said.

“Six to eight hours,” Edward said.

“Nope, Bobby Lee is a more powerful shapeshifter than that. He’ll be four hours or less and then he’ll wake.”

“Good to know.”

“Some of the other people with us don’t have to pass out at all when they change form.” I was cuddling with one of them right that minute.

“That makes them very strong shapeshifters.”

“Yep,” I said. I let myself put my arm around Nicky’s waist, and he tried to draw us into a complete hug, but I kept my body sideways, so that though we were hugging and the strong warmth of him wrapped around me, it wasn’t as distracting as it could have been.

“You travel with some very big dogs, Anita.”

“I’m a big-dog sort of person,” I said. I looked up into Nicky’s face. He kissed me on the forehead, lips so gentle.

“What are you doing, Anita?”

“Talking to you.”

“Your voice keeps changing, going soft.”

Nicky kissed my eyebrow, ever so gently. “I’m not whispering, Edward.”

“I didn’t say you were whispering. I said your voice keeps going soft, gentle. I didn’t think Lisandro or Nicky had that effect on you.”

“Lisandro doesn’t,” I said. Nicky kissed my eyelid, brushed his lips back and forth over my eyelashes. I raised my face up to him. He kissed my cheek, his breath hot against my skin.

“If Nicky distracts you this much, then you need to be careful, Anita.”

“I’ll be careful,” I said, and it was almost a whisper, because Nicky’s lips were just above mine.

“We’ll see you at the motel, Anita,” Edward said.

“See you,” I whispered and hit the button so that when Nicky’s lips touched mine I wasn’t on the phone anymore. He kissed me. He kissed me gently at first, and then his arm tightened around me and I turned in his arms, against his body. We stopped holding hands and I finally let myself melt into his arms, his body, and his kiss. He kissed me hard and thoroughly, with lips, tongue, and finally teeth. He bit my lower lip, lightly. It drew a small sound from me, so that he bit a little harder, drawing my lip out and away.