It made him do that cat grin, drawing back to flash teeth that could have torn me to bits. He drew me into his arms, his fur the driest thing in the bed. I'd never understood why the liquid from the shapeshift gets everything else wet and leaves the fur dry. "I'll get you all messy," I said.
"It's my mess," he whispered, and he drew me into the warm, dry, circle of his body, while I was still covered in the thick, cooling liquid. He hugged me to him, and I had to snuggle down to find that point where I could rest under his arm, against his chest, against his stomach, and vaguely against the rest of him, but it wasn't about sex now, it was about comfort. He held me to him, held me close, and began to shake. It took me a moment to realize Ethan was crying.
I petted the fur and muscle of him, so tall now, so strong, able to tear me limb from limb without a thought, but all that big body clung to me. He clung to me and cried and I held him, my hands petting him, soothing him. I didn't ask why he was crying; it didn't matter what sorrow he was weeping out against my body, against the damp sheets, it only mattered that I held him and told him that it would be all right.
Chapter Twenty-Five
BEFORE I COULD go off crime solving I had to shower. I was covered nearly head to foot in thick, clear goop. I'd learned from past experience that it dried fast and became very tacky, very quickly. I didn't even want to put clean clothes over the mess of it, let alone explain to the other cops what it was, and why I was covered in it, which was why I was in the shower when Ethan knocked on the door of the bathroom.
"Anita," he called; his deeper voice must have been lost in the rush of water the first time, because he said my name again, and knocked louder. "Anita!"
I turned off the water, grabbed a towel to wipe my face, and got my Smith & Wesson from the little shelf in the back of the shower. That shelf's supposed to keep soap from getting wet while you shower, but my soap could take its chances; some of the smaller handguns actually fit just fine there.
"What's wrong?" I asked, towel in one hand, gun in the other. Depending on his answer I'd know if I had time to wrap my hair up.
"There's a marshal at the door. I can't answer the door like this."
He was still in half-man form, and he was absolutely right. Wereanimals were legal citizens with a health issue, but to police they were a walking, talking public safety hazard. Some cops would shoot first and let God and the paperwork sort it all out later.
I called, "I'm coming." I put the gun back on the shelf so I could wrap my hair up in the towel. Then I got the second towel and wrapped it around my body. I didn't take time to dry much either. I did not want some overzealous fellow marshal to get a glimpse of a weretiger through a drape edge and think he had to save me. Having someone shoot Ethan, or my having to shoot another cop to save him, would have all kinds of suck on it.
With the towel secured, and my left hand on top of it just in case, I was as decent as I was going to get without taking time to throw on clothes. My modesty wasn't worth Ethan getting shot.
I was toweled and gunned as I came out of the bathroom. "Get in the bathroom," I said.
He blinked those blue and gold eyes at me. "Am I hiding?"
"No, just out of sight until I explain that you're a good guy to the other marshal."
Ethan did that cat smile again, a drawing back from the teeth. "Am I a good guy?"
I took the time to smile at him, as someone knocked very solidly on the door. "Of course you are." I used the gun to motion him toward the bathroom. He did what I wanted, bending down to get under the doorway. As the door closed behind him, I went to the door. I called out, "Who is it?"
"Anita, it's Bernardo Spotted-Horse."
That stopped me for a second. The last time I'd seen Bernardo had been in Las Vegas when he, Edward, and another marshal were after a preternatural serial killer. He was using his real and only name as a marshal, but before he got a badge he'd worked with Edward as a mercenary, bounty hunter, and assassin.
I unlocked the door, gun at my side, and opened the door. The towel chose that moment to begin to slip off me, so I was grabbing for it as the door swung inward.
"Now this is the way for a woman to open the door," Bernardo said.
I glared up at him. I had the towel hugged to my br**sts, and no nipple was showing, but way more flesh than I'd planned was on display.
He grinned down at me. With the wraparound sunglasses still on he looked model perfect, if you were into tall, dark, and handsome. I'd once thought he was American Indian GQ gorgeous, but the attitude was way more Playgirl. His nearly waist-length hair spilled around his shoulders, a black so dark that it had blue highlights in the sunshine that slanted across the cement upper story. His wide-shouldered upper body was encased in a black leather jacket that fit like a second skin and emphasized the black jeans that damn near outlined his lower body and ended in midcalf boots.
"I was in the shower," I said.
"I can see that." The grin was not his usual come-hither smile, it was just pure delight.
"Oh, stop it," I said, "and give me a second to refasten the towel."
"Tease," he said.
I frowned at him and ducked behind the partially open door to secure the towel again. When it was as secure as I could make it, I opened the door and ushered him inside. "You were wearing nothing but a sheet the first time I saw you," I said.
He entered the room close to the wall, eyes searching the room as he took his sunglasses off. His eyes were as pure a brown as my own. He nodded. "I'd have come across the moment I met you, so it wasn't false advertising on my part. But unless you've changed a great deal you aren't going to offer me that much hospitality." His eyes were searching the room, taking in the details. Ethan had stripped the far bed down to its mattress. He must have done it while I was in the bathroom, but he'd been right to do it, unless we wanted to owe the motel a new mattress.