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"I've got to go take my bath, guys."
"We could help," Zane said. He licked my arm, grimaced. "I like the taste of sweat, but the gravel dust ... "
Nathaniel raised his face enough to lick my other arm. His tongue ran down my arm in a long slow glide. "I don't mind the dust," he said, voice low and soft.
I slid off the bed, calmly, slowly. I did not go yuck, or scream. I was very calm and very relieved to be standing on the floor. The bed had suddenly become crowded. "Thanks, but the bath will be fine. Don't answer any phone but the one by the bed, and don't open the door to anyone but Dr. Patrick."
"Aye, aye, Captain," Zane said.
I slid the Firestar down the front of my jeans and picked up my suitcase from against the wall. I glanced back at the three of them from the doorway. Zane had lain down on the other side of Nathaniel, only propped on his elbow, one hand touching Nathaniel's back. Cherry had curled at the foot of the bed. She was running her hand up and down his thigh. Either the sheet had slid off or she'd moved it so she could touch him. There was nothing sexual on their faces, nothing overt.
They looked like the opening scene for a p**n o movie to me, but I was sure that when I left the room, nothing would happen. There was no anticipation between them, no eagerness to have me gone so they could be alone. Their eyes still followed me. They touched each other for comfort, not for sex. The discomfort was mine, not theirs.
"I'm sorry I went with Mira," Nathaniel said suddenly.
That stopped me in the doorway. "You're a big boy, Nathaniel. You had every right to find someone. It was just your choice of partners that was bad."
Zane began to rub his hand up and down Nathaniel's back, like you'd pet a dog. Nathaniel lowered his head so his hair slid around him like a veil, hiding his face. "I thought you were going to be my mistress, my top. I thought for a long time that you understood the game. That you were telling me not to have sex with anyone. I was so good. I didn't even touch myself."
I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it, and didn't have a damn thing to say.
"When you finally gave me permission to have sex with you, it could have been straight vanilla. It was the waiting, the build-up, the teasing that would have made it enough."
I found my voice. "I don't know what vanilla means, Nathaniel."
"Straight sex," Zane said, "normal stuff."
I shook my head. "Whatever, I am not playing with you, Nathaniel. I would never do that."
He looked at me sort of sideways as if afraid to look me full in the face. "I know that now. It was this trip that I realized you didn't even know we were playing a game. You aren't teasing me. You don't think about me at all."
That last sounded sort of pitiful, but I couldn't help that. "I keep having to apologize to you, Nathaniel. Half the time I don't even know what I'm apologizing for."
"I don't understand how you can be my Nimir-ra and not be my top, but I know now that you see it as two separate things. Gabriel didn't."
"What is a top?" I asked.
Zane answered for him again. "A dominant to Nathaniel's submissive. A submissive is called a bottom."
Ah. "I am not Gabriel," I said.
Nathaniel laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "Would you get mad if I said sometimes I wish you were?"
I just blinked at him. "I'm not mad, Nathaniel, you just puzzle the hell out of me. I know I'm supposed to be taking care of you, but I don't know how to do it." He was like some exotic pet that I'd been given as a gift, but the instructions didn't come in the box.
He lay back down on the pillow, head turned so he could see me. "I went with Mira when I realized you weren't there for me."
"I am there for you, Nathaniel, but not in that way."
"Is this where you tell me we can still be friends?" He laughed, and it was harsh.
"You don't need a friend, Nathaniel, you need a keeper."
"I thought you were going to be my keeper."
I looked at Cherry and Zane. "How about you guys?"
"Nathaniel is the most ... " Cherry hesitated, "the most broken of us. Gabriel and Raina made sure we were all bottoms; it was all we were trained for. They were the tops, always, but ... but Nathaniel ... " She finally shrugged.
I knew what she meant. Nathaniel was the weakest of them. The one who needed the most care.
I set the suitcase down and went to kneel by the bed. I brushed his hair from his face so I could see his eyes. "We'll all be there for you, Nathaniel. We are your pard. Your people. We'll take care of you. I'll take care of you."
Tears filled his eyes. "But you won't f**k me."
I took a deep breath and stood. "No, Nathaniel, I won't f**k you." I shook my head and picked up my suitcase. I'd had all I could take for one afternoon. If Marianne wasn't happy with this little lesson, then screw her. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be sexual, but thanks to the way Gabriel and Raina had treated the wereleopards, sex did keep coming up. I was almost afraid to hear what Marianne's solution to that one would be.
39
I ran out of hot water before I filled the tub, and I didn't care. The small white-tiled room was hot enough that a truly hot bath seemed a bad idea. The single window was set high in the wall, so if I was careful, I wouldn't flash. So I kept the window open, even the drapes, hoping for a stray breeze. I sank down into the lukewarm water without a bubble in sight. There was nothing but Ivory soap and a partially burned white candle on the corner near the faucet. I put the Firestar on the small corner beside my head. I'd tried the Browning there, but it was too big and kept trying to slide into the water.
I was completely underwater, rinsing off my hair, when I heard the door crash open. I surfaced, sputtering, groping for the Firestar. I had the gun pointed before I even saw what was coming through the door. Even when I could see, it didn't make any sense.
There was a woman in the doorway. Physically, she was small, about my size, but she seemed to fill the room as if she took up more space than the eye could see. Her hair was long and brown. The bangs had been allowed to grow and were thinned until the hair covered her face past her nose like a veil. The hair was tinted ever so slightly blue. She wore a jean jacket with no sleeves. One bare, muscular, tatooed arm was holding the door so that the force of its being kicked in didn't send it flying back in her face. Under other circumstances, I'd have been sort of disdainful, except for the roil of power pouring from her. She looked like she'd gotten lost on her way to a punk biker bar. Psychically, she felt like a wind from the mouth of hell, hot and unfriendly.
There was so much power in the tiny room, I felt like the bathwater should start to boil. I kept the gun very steadily pointed at her chest. I think it was the only thing that kept her just inside the door. The look on her face was pure rage.
Water dripped down my face from my hair, tangling in my eyelashes. I blinked, resisting the urge to wipe the water away with my hands. "One step, just one, and I will pull this trigger," I said.
Roland appeared behind her in the doorway. This just got better and better. He was still tall, tanned, with his short, curly hair. His brown eyes swept the room and stayed on me, crouching na**d in the tub. I kept the gun on the woman, but it was tempting.
He touched the woman's shoulders. He spoke in that low, rolling voice of his. "Roxanne, trust me, she will kill you."
It made me not want to shoot him after all.
A second man peeked into the room. He was taller than Roland, which made him over six feet. I had enough of a glimpse to know he was Native American and had long, black hair. Then he ducked back, eyes averted, a gentleman. He said, "Roxanne, this is not appropriate."
Roxanne shook off Roland's hands and started to walk farther into the room.
I fired the gun inches from her head. The sound was thunderous. The bullet took a bite out of the door and buried into the wall behind. It was a Glazer Safety Round, so the wall stopped it. I wasn't afraid of it going through the wall.
My ears rang with the shot in this tiny, tiled room. For a second, if someone spoke, I couldn't hear it. I kept my eyes on Roxanne. She had stopped moving. I had the barrel of the gun sighted in the middle of that pretty face. It took a second or two of staring to realize that under all the tattoos, the funky hair, and the power, she was pretty. It was a traditional, girl-next-door pretty. Maybe it was the reasons for the tattoo and the hair. When nature makes you look wholesome, there are ways to cheat.
