I was breathing a little hard myself. My voice was shaky when I said, "That wasn't metaphysical shit. That was just me, just you."
His eyes closed, and a shudder ran through him from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. He swayed, and if I hadn't caught him around the waist, I think he'd have fallen. His arms slid around me, and he laid his head on my shoulder. He hadn't exactly fainted, but he was limp in my arms. I realized, he was totally passive. I knew in that moment I could do anything I wanted to him. The thought didn't excite me, it scared me. I had enough trouble running my own life, I didn't want someone else's. But I kept my doubts to myself. He had enough of his own without me sharing.
"You promise," he whispered, "promise you'll mark me tonight."
He'd said the P word. Shit. "I promise," I whispered it into the vanilla warmth of his hair.
He drew a deep breath that moved his bare chest up and down along my clothed one. My body reacted to it, whether I wanted it to or not. Nipples hardening from the brush of him.
He drew back enough to see my face, and the look in his eyes was all male, and brought heat in a rush up my face. It sped my pulse in my throat. He was submissive, but underneath all that was something that could have been very dangerous, and it was there in his eyes now, that promise of disaster.
"Come to the club tonight, see my act, please."
I shook my head. "I work tonight."
"Please." The please was more than just a word, it filled his eyes. He wanted me to see him on stage, surrounded by screaming fans. Maybe he wanted to impress on me that even if I didn't want him, others did. I guess I'd earned having my face rubbed in it.
"What time do you go on?"
He told me.
"I can catch some of it, but probably not all of it."
He kissed me, hard and strangely chaste, and bounced toward the door. "I'll need to see if my costume is ready for tonight." He turned at the door with that eager look still on his face. "What if I turn furry, will you still mark me?"
"I don't do furry," I said.
He poked his lip out at me, like a spoiled child.
"You are so damn pushy, you do know that, right?"
He smiled.
"I don't do furry."
"But if I'm not furry, you'll do it?" Something about the way he asked it made me suspicious, but I nodded.
"Yes."
He vanished into the dimness of the living room. "I'll see you tonight at the club."
I yelled after him. "If there's another murder, all bets are off. Murder takes precedence over watching my boyfriend strip." There was that word again, boyfriend.
I heard Nathaniel's laugh trail down the stairs. It reminded me of another man in my life, who'd left me with a laugh this morning. I was just amusing the hell out of everybody today.
27
Micah's kiss was still warm on my lips when Ronnie rang the doorbell. Having had no sleep last night was finally catching up with Micah, so he'd gone to bed. Besides, Ronnie wouldn't want an audience.
She was eyeing the door as I dragged it open. "What happened here?"
I tried to think of a short version, couldn't come up with one, and said, "Let's get coffee first."
Her eyebrows went up, but it was all I could see of her eyes behind the dark sunglasses. She shrugged. She was wearing the brown leather jacket that had become her latest favorite coat. She had it zipped up more than halfway and a cable-knit sweater peeked out from under it.
I hid my frown. It had to be seventy outside. I eased the door back into its frame. "Is it cold outside, or am I missing something?"
Her shoulders hunched. "I've been cold since I left the wedding last night. I just can't seem to get warm."
I did not remark that most shapeshifters have a slightly higher body temperature than we mere humans, and that maybe the warmth she was missing went by the name of Louie. I didn't say it, because it would have been too obvious, and too cruel.
She walked through the darkened living room, to the opened curtains of the kitchen beyond. When I'd been sure that Damian was down for the day, I'd opened the drapes. She hesitated just inside the kitchen. "Where is everybody?"
"Micah had to get some sleep. Gregory and Nathaniel are upstairs working on an outfit for work. Something about some straps breaking."
She sat in the chair that Richard had been in, so she could keep an eye on most of the doors, and still look outside at the view. Or maybe it had been an accident, and I was projecting why. I doubted Richard had thought about safety considerations when he chose the seat. But again, maybe I wasn't being fair. Oh, well.
She kept the dark glasses on, though it wasn't that bright anymore. Her blond hair was straight, but thick, and looked like she'd combed it, but nothing else, so the ends didn't do the curl up that she liked. She almost never went out without more done to it than this. In fact, she sat hunched at the table, over the coffee mug, like a hangover victim.
"You ready for biscuits?" I asked.
"Does he actually cook?"
I almost said, If you were around more, you'd know, but I was good. "Yeah, he cooks. He does the grocery shopping, most of the menu planning, and most of the housework."
"My, isn't he a regular domestic goddess." Her voice was ugly when she said it.
I'd be nice because she was hurting, but that would only cover so much, then she'd piss me off, and I really didn't want to fight with Ronnie this morning. "I needed a wife," I said, and managed to keep my voice neutral.
"Don't we all," she said, and there was no malice now. She took the tiniest sip of coffee. "I don't think I could eat right now."
I took a much bigger sip of coffee, and said, "Okay, do you have a plan for how this talk will go?"
She looked up at me, still wearing the glasses so I couldn't see her eyes. "What do you mean?"
"You wanted to talk, I assume about Louie and what happened last night, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then talk," I said.
"It's not that simple," she said.
"Okay, then can I ask a question?"
"Depends on the question," she said.
I took a big breath and plunged into the deep end. "Why did you say no to Louie's proposal?"
"Oh, not you, too."
"What?" I asked.
"Don't tell me you expected me to just say yes?"
I wanted her to take off the glasses so I could see her eyes, see what she was thinking. "Actually, yeah."
"Why, for God's sake?"
"Because I've never seen you happier for longer with anyone," I said.
She pushed her coffee away, as if she was angry at it, too. "Happy the way things are, Anita. Why does he have to go and change everything?"
"You spend more nights at each other's places together than alone, right?"
She just nodded.
"He said he offered to move in together first, why not try it?"
"Because I want my stuff. I love Louie, but I hate how he's taken over my closet, my medicine cabinet. He's taken two of the dresser drawers over for his clothes."
"The bastard," I said.
"It's not funny," she said.
"No, I know. Did you tell him you didn't like him moving his stuff in?"
"I tried."
"Do you want him gone, poof, out of your life?"
She shook her head. "No, but I want my apartment back, the way it was. I don't like coming home and finding that he's rearranged everything in my cabinets so it's easier to find. If I want to dig through every cabinet to find tomato paste, then it was my choice. He didn't even ask, I just came home one night, and he'd organized everything in the kitchen. I couldn't find anything." She must have sounded pouty even to herself, because she jerked off the glasses and gave the full force of those pain-filled gray eyes. "You think I'm being silly, don't you?"
"No, he should have probably asked you before rearranging everything." The fact that Nathaniel had not only rearranged everything in my kitchen, but also thrown out the non-matching stuff was probably best kept to myself.
"I love dating Louie, but I don't want to marry anybody."
"Okay."
"Just okay, you're not going to try talking me into it?"
"Hey, I'm not headed for wedded bliss either, who am I to force you into it?"
She looked at me, as if searching my face for a lie. She was pale and hollow-eyed, as if she hadn't gotten much more sleep than Micah. "But you've let Micah move in with you."