Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

“You’re fast, really fast,” she said, and her voice was still uncertain, almost afraid.

“And I’m trained, really trained,” I said.

She nodded. “And you’ll teach me?”

“If you start trying to be part of the team and not just a piece of ass with a gun, sure.”

“I’m not a piece of ass,” she said with a flare of her old sullenness.

I fought not to smile. “No, you’re not, but you gotta stop flirting with all your male partners when you’re on guard duty. It’s a job and if you can’t treat it that way, then we don’t want you here.”

“I’ll try not to flirt, but it’s . . . it’s sort of what I do.”

“Work on doing something else,” I said.

“I’ll try, I mean that, but I can’t guarantee I won’t forget sometimes. I’m not making an excuse, I’m just saying tell me to stop fucking around and I’ll listen from now on, don’t just kill me.”

I looked into her face and saw the first real sincerity I’d seen in her. “Okay, but make sure that me just saying something is enough; don’t ever make me have to put a gun to your head again, Lita.”

“I won’t, Anita, I swear.”

“Good.” I wanted to turn and see Jean-Claude, not just feel the presence of him, but there was something on the face of the younger woman that made me keep looking at her.

“The wererats call you Gatito Negro. I thought they were making fun of you, like you were a kitten they had to take care of, but that’s not what it means at all, is it?”

“No,” I said, “it isn’t.”

Dino said, “She’s small, but she eats rats, our Gatito Negro.”

Lita nodded. “Yeah, and I don’t want to be eaten.”

“Do your job, stop trying to fuck everyone, hit the gym harder, and I’ll see you in practice.”

“ Gracias , Anita.”

“ De nada ,” I said.

“ Ma petite , you are having an interesting night.”

“You have no idea,” I said, and turned around to find that he’d changed clothes for the banquet already, and I was going to have to work hard if I was going to hold my own on his arm tonight.

HE WAS STANDING next to Nicky and I was almost startled to realize that Jean-Claude was inches taller. I knew that Nicky wasn’t six feet tall, so Jean-Claude’s six feet, one inch had to be taller, but Nicky was just so much bulkier that he seemed bigger when I stood next to him. Jean-Claude never made me feel small when I was near him; he was just tall. Seeing them side by side, I realized some of why Jean-Claude was well built; he even lifted enough weights to give definition to his muscles, but he lifted to be beautiful onstage, not to bulk, so that he looked almost willowy next to the other man.

He’d replaced the white shirt we’d stained earlier with one so red it was scarlet. It looked fabulous with the short black velvet jacket, leather pants, and boots. I loved him in red, maybe because he wore it so seldom. It made his skin seem translucently pale, like alabaster if it could blush with life, and his black curls gleam, and it strangely brought out the blue in his eyes so they were less midnight sky and more cobalt.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and found that the red shirt was silk, cool and caressing against my hands. The cloth was mounded as if it were one of his more typical white shirts with the mounded lace and collar, but silk was softer than any lace. I pressed my chin into it and found that he was wearing a platinum stickpin through the cloth to hold it in place. A diamond almost as big as the engagement ring he’d given me on the video rode in the tip of it with a circle of rubies as red as the silk, which meant they were probably antique. Pigeon-blood red was the old name for rubies that color and they were damned rare now, or they stayed in countries that weren’t exporting to America. He hadn’t put that on to get onstage at Guilty Pleasures. Apparently the meet and greet with the weretigers was going to be more formal than I’d thought. I’d have been less worried about what I’d have to wear if he hadn’t looked so spiffy in his clothes.

I went up on tiptoes to meet his kiss. It was soft, but thorough; he knew how to kiss without smearing my lipstick over both of us, and I knew how to kiss a vampire without cutting my mouth. French kissing was harder, but we could manage that, too.

“Shit,” Lita said.

It made me turn and look at her, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t a friendly look.

“I didn’t mean to get that look from you again, Anita, it’s just”—she motioned at us—“you guys are like some romance movie. It’s just not real, it can’t be real.”

“Oh, it’s real, all right,” Kelly said. “Now let’s call for our replacements, before you say something else stupid.”

“I’m not stupid.” She snapped it, and the words seemed to hold a lifetime of maybe being told exactly that. Lita wasn’t stupid; emotionally she seemed stunted, but I thought that was environmental and she was capable of more.

Jean-Claude looked at her, and I had a moment to see a considering expression before his face was its more typical smiling, pleasant, unreadable beauty. He glided over to Kelly and Lita. They both lowered their eyes so they wouldn’t accidentally make eye contact with him. It had been so long since I couldn’t meet a vampire’s gaze safely that it almost startled me when others did it, especially when they did it around Jean-Claude.

Kelly moved back from Lita when she realized that was who he was standing in front of, as if the werelion were abandoning the wererat to her fate. Kelly looked . . . scared. It made me wonder if I’d missed something else besides Magda being a shit. I’d ask Kelly later, or maybe I’d figure it out just watching Jean-Claude with the other women.

“I assure you, ma souris , that I am very real.”

Lita stared at the floor. “I know you’re real.” She tried to sound tough, but it’s hard when you’re staring at someone’s feet.

“But you just said we are not.” His French accent was a little thicker, which usually meant he was fighting some emotion, though sometimes onstage he did it on purpose. American women really dug the accent.

She shook her head hard enough that her hair fanned around her face, but with the headband her hair couldn’t spill forward enough to hide her face completely.

He touched his fingertips to her chin and raised her face upward. She had her eyes closed as he raised her face, and she looked scared.

“Please,” she whispered, but I was close enough to hear it.

“Please, what?” he asked in that accented, teasing voice. Once he’d aimed that voice at me. I had a moment to wonder if Jean-Claude just liked women with long, curly, dark hair. I had a moment of jealousy, which I hadn’t felt in a long time. I looked at the feeling and tried to figure out where it was coming from. I’d watched him have sex with other people and not been jealous, so why did this hit that button?

“Please,” she repeated. He was still only touching the edge of her chin with the barest tips of his fingers, but she began to open her eyes as if she couldn’t help herself. I remembered when I’d wanted to see what face went with that voice but been too afraid to look.

I realized that was it; it was the first time I’d seen him interact with another woman where it reminded me so strongly of what he’d done with me years ago. I’d seen him with other sexual partners, but he treated them all differently, unique to them, and nothing like he treated me. I was special to him, as he was to me, but as Lita opened her eyes like a bird staring at a snake, I wondered if I’d ever looked at him in just that way when I was still fighting to stay free of him.