Лорел Гамильтон - Rafael

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be, I’ve learned my lesson. I simply don’t date unless someone else chooses the woman for me.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Very serious.”

“Your taste in women is that bad?”

He nodded.

“That is a terrible burden,” Pierette said.

He looked at her. “Thank you for understanding that it is exactly that.”

“So, with me you get sex, but don’t have to worry about the relationship part.”

“You do sex like you’re the crazy girlfriend, but you do relationships as logically and as pragmatically as any woman I’ve ever met.”

“Thank you, I think, but I’m not sure about the last part. I don’t feel very logically when I’m in love.”

“No one does,” Pierette said.

He turned to her with a smile. “Thank you so much for being willing to try this with us, Pierette. It is a lovely offer and you are a lovely woman, but for tonight Anita and I need to talk about what it might mean for our arrangement, and she has to convince me that it won’t blow up in my face.” He took her hand in his and laid his lips across her knuckles as it was meant to be, not an actual kiss. Jean-Claude had taught me the difference, just as he’d taught me to let him raise my hand to his lips and not to try to raise my hand to him and smack him in the mouth.

Pierette got her clothes and her weapons out of the little locker, and then she left the way some of the other guards had, with her belongings in her arms, as if we wouldn’t have waited for her to dress. It was awkward, but not as awkward as the conversation had been.

When we were alone, I said, “Sorry that she sprang that on you.”

“It was a lovely thought, Anita, but thank you for understanding that I am gun-shy about it.”

“It’s not just the one who stabbed you that offered a threesome, is it?”

He smiled, shrugged, and finally said, “I am attracted to women who are willing to try anything once, or who are already doing nonstandard sex, but also I am king of the rodere. Our women used to fight over who would be in my bed.”

“Do you mean really fight for the privilege?” I asked.

He smiled, looked embarrassed, and then nodded. “If the king has a clear choice, then there is no need, but once I stopped trying to date seriously within the rodere, the fights began. It is part of our culture that a great many things are settled with fights. Except for the battle for king, it does not have to be to the death, it can be to just first blood, but it is a way our people settle many things.”

“I’ve never heard of any of the women in your clan fighting over you,” I said.

“It was hurting us as a clan, so I ruled that if they fought for me, neither would win a place in my bed. I finally had to simply not date anyone within our clan, and then as I became king of more rat clans, I just ran out of dating possibilities. The power and stability were more important to me, and as I ruled over more people and land, I found that I didn’t have time to pursue a relationship, and here we are.”

“Wow, now I’m sort of embarrassed that I brought the topic up with our poly group, because it’s going to hit all sorts of issue buttons for you.”

“Who else besides Pierette agreed to it?” he asked, and the fact that he asked it at all meant that he was still intrigued by the idea.

“Angel’s arm went up so fast I thought she’d pop a ligament.”

He laughed.

“Fortune was interested, but I think Echo is feeling that they’re spreading themselves too thin now.”

“They have been a couple for hundreds of years, that must take precedence,” he said.

I nodded. “Yeah, till death do you part can last a hell of a long time when one of you is a vampire.”

“Only if the vampire makes you their human servant, or their animal to call, so you share their ageless immortality,” he said.

“If I make you my rat to call, I can’t promise I have any ageless immortality to share. I’m not a real vampire, I just share some of the powers of one.”

“I know, it is not for that reason I wish you to mark me.”

“You want the power,” I said.

He nodded. “I do.”

“It’s not that simple, Rafael.”

“Some of the people in your life are afraid that tying yourself to me will take time and attention from them,” he said.

I must have looked surprised, because he added, “I have spoken with Micah at length. He told me that some of your secondaries already feel they do not get enough of you.”

“I guess that’s another reason I thought about you sleeping with some of the other women. I thought that might take the pressure off the just-you-and-me dynamics and calm all the insecure people down,” I said.

“It is a good idea, Anita, but one thing I’ve learned dating crazy, passionate women is that logic and good ideas cannot reassure an insecure person. No matter what you do, it is never enough, because the insecurity is inside them and only they can fix it.”

“Wise words,” I said.

“I try, but I would like to leave wisdom behind now.”

“What did you have in mind?” I asked, smiling.

“Fuck me like you’re one of my crazy exes.”

I laughed.

“Then feed on me, feed on all the rats, take as much energy as you can.”

“You don’t want me to take that much,” I said.

“No, but take what you can, just in case.”

“I’ll have to alert everyone that I’m taking that big a feeding, so no one is driving a car or something where they need to concentrate,” I said.

“Benito has already sent out the text chain to let my people know.”

I could have argued that he should have asked me before the text went out, but I didn’t. He’d been proactive, I sort of liked that. Competency and confidence were sexy, and Rafael had both of those in spades.

5

WE GOT OUR clothes off in a rush of hands and eager kisses, but once we got into the shower, it slowed down to hands gliding over and exploring smooth, wet skin.

Rafael drew back to gaze down at me, water running from his hair, down his face. I had to move back enough that I was in the void his body made in the pattern of the water drops so that the only water hitting me was a few stray drops as it poured over him.

“I want time with you, Anita. I’m not in the mood for a quickie,” he said, raising his voice a little over the sound of the water.

“Okay,” I said, “probably better not to hog the showers from everybody anyway.” I tried to make it a joke, but his face stayed solemn and the weight of emotions in his eyes was almost too heavy to lift.

“Unless you need to go to one of your other lovers?” He smiled at the end, but the only thing that lifted was the edges of his lips; his eyes and expression stayed heavy and closed down. Not in a hiding-his-thoughts-from-me way, but as if his thoughts were too dark to hide from me.

“I already answered this question, Rafael. No, no one else is expecting me. We’re all supposed to be working out or have plans with other people.”

“If you need to exercise more . . .”

I touched his lips with my fingers. He looked at me with eyes that looked like wounds, so full of defeat. What the hell was going on? Why was this fight different from all the others?

“I’m here for you, Rafael.”

He wrapped his arms around me, holding me so that our nude bodies were as close as they could be without having sex, but it wasn’t erotic. His body was still against mine. The earlier heat was just gone as if the shower had washed it away along with the sweat of the workout. I put the side of my face against his chest, using his body and my own head to direct the water away from my face so I could breathe if I was careful. If you took in a big gasping breath with water on either side of your face in a shower, you could inhale water, but I knew better.