Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #22)

51

It was an hour past dawn; all the vampires were tucked in their coffins. Lisandro and Emmanuel took Goran with them; I wasn't sure if he was going to be in the duty rotation, or if Claudia was going to give him the third degree, because I'd taken Lisandro to the side and told him about Mischa hitting Goran and about Nilda's anger and panic at the plane in St Louis that had gotten her kicked off the detail. I wanted to know if others of the Harlequin vampires were abusing their animals to call, and how bad the abuse was, because it wasn't okay in my book.

Nicky and Dev were with me, and the three of us were still covered in drying bits of zombie. I'd learned years ago that no matter how tired you are you never go to sleep without showering first, so ... 'We've all got to shower,' I said.

Dev grinned at me. 'You said you'd help me clean up.'

'I didn't agree to giving up shower sex,' Nicky said.

Dev looked at him. 'Hey, I've been traumatized.'

'Just because you got your combat cherry popped doesn't mean you get to have shower sex with Anita and I don't.'

'You keep this up and I'm showering alone,' I said.

They both looked at me as if I'd spoken in tongues.

'You love shower sex,' Dev said.

'You love sex,' Nicky said.

'I'm tired, I'm cranky, and you're arguing over who gets to have sex with me in the shower without asking me if I have a preference. I'm standing right here, guys.'

They looked at each other, and then Dev looked embarrassed, and Nicky gave me a very direct look, as if he were trying to read more than just my expression. He probably was. 'Who do you want to shower with?' he asked.

'Right now, neither of you,' I said, and it sounded cranky even to me. I wasn't even sure why I was saying it. They were both wonderful lovers. It was easier to get the dried crud off with someone to spot and help.

'So, what, Nicky helps me get the stuff out of my hair?' Dev asked, and the look on his face was almost funny.

'Not my job to be your shower boy,' Nicky said, but he was looking at me.

My phone rang; I would have ignored it, but it was Edward's ring tone. I hit the button and said, 'Yeah, Ed ... Ted, what's up?'

'Don't fuck this up,' he said.

'What? Fuck what up?'

'Dev and Nicky, to start with,' he said.

'You warned me in the elevator, I remember.'

'You remember, but you still sound pissed. I know that tone. It means you're being hostile and bitchy and are going to say, or do, something that you'll regret.'

'Did you even take time to shower before you called to give me advice on my personal life?' I asked, and I sounded angry. I was angry, but I was also confused. 'Since when did you start giving me advice about men?'

'I just got out of the shower, but I figured if I waited to dress you'd have started a fight with one or both of them. And we've been criticizing or giving each other advice on our personal lives almost from the moment we met, which was sort of weird if you think about it,' he said.

That stopped me, because he was right. 'Your advice used to be that I complicated my life and I should just find someone to fuck.'

'I didn't understand you, or me, back then; now I'm telling you to not take your mood out on Nicky and Dev. Nicky's a good guy, and Dev stayed in the fight and cleanup afterward until it was pretty much over, when he was probably scared shitless and overwhelmed. Don't sell either of them short and don't aim your bad mood at them.'

'Well, aren't you just a wellspring of dating advice?'

'If you think it's bad advice, then don't take it,' he said.

'I didn't say it was bad.'

'Then don't pick a fight with them. Remember, you love one of them and like the other one a hell of a lot.'

'Yes, sir,' I said, but it sounded petulant, even pouty.

'You can do what you want to do, Anita, but in the mood you're in, sleeping alone may not be the best idea.'

'I used to sleep alone all the time.'

'Yeah, and you were miserable. I may not understand how your life works with everyone in it, but this is the happiest I've ever seen you. I'm not sure how much of that happiness is due to Nicky, or Dev, but some of it is, so keep that in mind in the next few minutes. I'm getting sleep before someone with a badge calls with another emergency.' He hung up.

I was left standing there with the silent phone and the two men. Dev was looking a question at me. Nicky was trying to be all neutral, and he was, except the very emptiness of his face and body screamed just how not neutral he was feeling.

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.

52

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.

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.