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Jason grinned up at Richard as he walked out the door. Richard closed the door, leaning against it. I was effectively trapped and he was angry enough that the room filled with prickling energy.
"What was all that about?" he asked.
"It's none of your business anymore, is it?" I asked.
"Earlier today I thought you turned me down because you were being loyal to Jean-Claude."
"I turned you down because it was the right thing to do." I went to the sink and started trying to clean the bits of black crud out from under my fingernails.
"If Jean-Claude finds out you're doing Jason, he'd hurt him, maybe kill him."
"Are you going to tell on us? Run home tattling to our master?" I looked at him in the mirror when I said it. My reward was that he flinched. A little too close to home, that comment.
"Why Jason?" he asked.
"Do you really believe that I'm ha**ng s*x with Jason?" I turned and used the slightly damp towel to dry my hands.
Richard just looked at me.
"Jesus, Richard, just because you're jumping everything in sight doesn't mean I am." I sat down on the closed stool and tried to blot my jeans dry with the towel.
"So you're not sleeping with him?"
The towel was not helping the jeans. "No, I'm not." I threw the towel in the corner. "I can't believe you'd even ask."
"If you'd found me on the floor with a na**d woman on top of me, you'd have thought the same thing," he said.
Hmm, he had me there. "All the women I'd find you with would be strangers who are either dating you, f**king you, or both. What you saw on the floor was Jason being Jason. You know how he is."
"You used to threaten to shoot him if he touched you."
I stood. "Do you really want me to shoot him because he made a pass? I thought one of our main problems was that you thought I shot first and asked questions later. I think you called me bloodthirsty." I pushed past him and where our skin touched power flared like an invisible flame.
He moved back clutching his arm like it had hurt. But I knew it hadn't hurt. It had felt wonderful, a rush of power to make your hair stand on end. It was little touches like that that let us both know what it could be between us.
I walked out. So there was power between us, so there was heat, so what? It didn't change the fact that I was sleeping with Jean-Claude. It didn't change the fact that Richard was sleeping around. The fact that I was jealous of his girlfriends and he was jealous of any man he thought I might be ha**ng s*x with was just a nasty cosmic joke. We'd get over it.
23
There were three people in my bed; none of them were me. Cherry and Zane had curled up around Nathaniel like fleshy security blankets. I'd been informed that the physical closeness of your group, whatever the animal flavor, was healing both emotionally and physically. Richard had backed up this bit of werelore, so the wereleopards got the bed, because Nathaniel had hysterics at the thought of being without me.
So the wereleopards got the bed, and I got the floor. I managed to get a blanket and a pillow to go with my bit of carpet. We were in a new cabin. Verne was going to try to clean the old cabin, but the bed and carpet were probably a lost cause.
I apologized for that, but Verne seemed to think I could do no wrong. He was tickled pink, purple, and blue that I'd fried Colin's vamps. I was not so happy. Revenge can be a very scary thing. If someone had done to Jean-Claude's vamps what I did to Colin's vamps, I'd ... we'd have killed them.
The bathroom door opened and closed quietly.
I sat up, hugging the blanket around me. Jason threaded his way between the two coffins. He was wearing a pair of silk boxers. He'd put them on last night in the bathroom and come out without a word. I'd still been trying to convince the wereleopards that they couldn't all sleep naked.
Jason had wanted to sleep with them, adding his otherworldly energy to theirs, but they refused him. Not because he was wolf instead of leopard, but because Cherry didn't trust him to keep his hands to himself.
Jason paused in front of the bed, staring down at the pile of sleeping wereleopards. He ran his hands through his sleep-tousled hair. His hair was straight enough and baby fine enough that his hands could smooth the hair into place. He stayed near the foot of the bed, staring down.
I finally stood, wrapping the blanket around me. I was wearing an oversized sleeping shirt that hit me at midcalf. One size does not fit all, but it was still nightclothes, and I wanted something between me and anyone else. At heart, I am a prude. I went to stand next to Jason, covered shoulder to foot in the blanket. It wasn't Jason I didn't trust. It was everyone else who made me uncomfortable.
Cherry lay on her back, sheets tangled around her knees. She was wearing a pair of red bikini underwear stretched tight across narrow hips. Her waist was very long so that she got height from there as well as those long legs. Her br**sts were small and firm. She sighed and rolled one shoulder, making the flesh of one breast move, settling closer to the bed. The nipple tightened as if something in the movement or the dream was exciting. Or maybe she was just cold.
I glanced at Jason. He was gazing at her like he was memorizing every curve, the way her breast spilled to the side. His eyes were almost soft as he looked at her. More than lust, maybe? Or the way you look at a really fine work of art, admiring it because you're not allowed to touch.
Neither of the others were giving nearly as good a show. Nathaniel was wrapped in a ball, head pressed to Cherry's waist. He was so bound in covers that all you could see was the top of his head. He whimpered in his sleep, and Cherry's hand touched the top of his head, her other arm flinging out into space, eyes still closed, still asleep. But even in her sleep, she reached for him, comforted him.
Zane lay on the other side of Nathaniel, spooning his body against the smaller man's. But the covers had been dragged off him, showing the blue bikinis he was wearing. The underwear looked suspiciously like Cherry's, as if she'd had to give him something to wear to bed.
Jason had eyes only for Cherry's slender form. I was surprised that she couldn't feel the weight of his gaze, even in her sleep.
I held the quilt in place with one hand and touched his wrist with the other. I crooked my finger at him and led the way to the far corner of the room, as far away from the bed as we could get.
I leaned against the wall to the side of the window. Jason leaned against the wall close enough that his shoulder brushed the edge of the quilt. I didn't protest because we were whispering. Besides, after awhile, complaining about everything that Jason did just got tiresome. It wasn't really personal. He pushed his luck with everyone.
"Did you sense anyone the last watch?"
He shook his head, leaning so close that I could feel his breath against my cheek. "They're afraid of you after last night."
I turned to look at him and had to move my head back a little to be able to focus on his eyes. "Afraid of me?"
His face was very serious. "Don't be coy, Anita. What you did last night was impressive, and you know it."
I hugged the blanket around my shoulders and looked at the ground. After the rush of power had faded last night, I'd been cold. I'd been cold all night. It was nearly ninety degrees outside. The air conditioner was whirring, and I was cold. Unfortunately, it wasn't the kind of cold that blankets or heat or even another warm body could chase away. I'd scared myself last night. Lately, that took a lot.
I'd seen the burning vampires in my dreams. They'd chased me with flame-covered arms. Their mouths opened in screams, fangs leaking fire like dragon's breath. The burning vamps had offered me Mira's head. The head had talked in its basket, asking, "Why?" Because I was careless didn't seem like a good enough answer. I ran from the dying vampires all night long, one dream after another, or maybe it was just one long, broken dream. Who knows? Either way, it hadn't been restful.
Richard had turned to me last night with the vampire bodies still glowing like banked fires. He'd looked at me, and I'd felt his revulsion, his horror at what I'd done, like a knife through my heart. If things had been reversed and I'd been the werewolf and he'd been the human, he'd have been just as sickened after the show with Marcus as I had been. No, more so. The only reason Richard hung around with monsters was the fact that he was one.
Richard had gone off to his cabin with Jamil and Shang-Da. Shang-Da and Jamil hadn't been horrified; they'd been impressed. Though Shang-Da had said, "They'll kill us all for this."
