“That’s where I’ll send the backup then,” he said. He looked at Jean-Claude. “Are you ready, sir?”
“Yes,” Jean-Claude said, and he gave me a quick kiss, and followed God’s longer stride down the hallway. He never looked back, as he went to give Asher his good-bye. I watched him walk away in all that black leather, his long curls almost lost against it.
Nicky moved up beside me, his hand finding mine. We stood there holding hands and he asked, “Am I joining you in the shower, or you want me to wait outside and we find a bed?”
“Jean-Claude won’t be using his bed tonight,” I said.
“That’s true, and he’s okay with Micah, Nathaniel, Asher, even Sin, using the bed with you, without him, but I’m not on his favorites list.”
I looked at him. “You don’t feed him, the others do.”
He gave that half-shrug around all the muscle. “And Jean-Claude doesn’t like any of the men who won’t at least donate blood to him sharing his bed with you when he’s not there.”
I honestly hadn’t noticed, but now that Nicky said it, I realized he was absolutely right. “Then I guess you join me in the showers; that way we don’t have to worry about messing up anyone’s sheets.”
Nicky grinned. “Shower works for me.”
I grinned back. “Me, too.”
32
CLAUDIA WAITED OUTSIDE against the hallway wall, keeping an eye on both the entrance and exit. The original design for the group showers had been to have only one way in and out, but I’d vetoed that. Yes, it was two entrances that had to be watched, but one way in and out meant trapped. Jean-Claude had pointed out that if anyone got far enough past our defenses to attack the showers, then a second way out of them probably wouldn’t help. He had a point, but so did I, and the bodyguards voted with me. Paranoia was our friend.
There was a locker area complete with restrooms for both the men and the women. We actually had enough women living down here that it wasn’t as silly as when we’d first had it put in. It was nice not to be the only girl. When we were in the locker area Nicky reminded me of another reason it was nice to be a girl. He took me in his arms, and kissed me.
The kiss was soft, and then he pulled back, and looked at my face with that one blue eye and the fall of his hair over the other side of his face. “Did that hurt?”
“No,” I said.
He grinned, a fierce baring of teeth, and kissed me again. This time it wasn’t soft. He pushed his mouth hard against mine, and it did hurt.
I drew back. “That hurt.”
“I want to taste the blood in your mouth, before the sex helps heal you.”
“You aren’t a sadist. You don’t enjoy causing pain.”
“No, but I’m a lycanthrope. I enjoy the taste of blood and meat, and right now your mouth will taste like both.”
“Some shapeshifters would lose control doing something like that.” I studied his face, searching for a clue as to what it meant to him. Was this a bit of kink that he’d always enjoyed, but it had just never come up before, or was it a test of how much I trusted him?
He was my Bride, so he could feel what I was feeling, but Brides were different from any other metaphysical tie that I had. I couldn’t feel his emotions; it was all about his feeling mine, and catering to me. It meant he was, in some ways, a mystery to me.
I realized I was a little spoiled that I could just peek, or share emotions with almost everyone else. I used to hate the intrusive psychic connection; now I counted on it.
“Don’t you trust me?” he asked.
Ah, the trust tests. “You’re my Bride; I thought you couldn’t cause me pain, that it bothered you to do that.”
“You like a little pain mixed with your sex. I think it’ll translate to pleasure for you, and I know I’ll enjoy the blood, meat, and sex.”
I nodded. “Yeah, the whole prey-predator-chase thing gets confused with sex for most shapeshifters.”
Nicky grinned. “If we weren’t kinky before the change, we are after.”
I smiled. “Can’t argue that.”
“Can I kiss you the way I want?”
“Let’s take the weapons off first,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because once you get the taste of blood and meat, and if the pain flips my switch, we may forget the weapons and I don’t want you tearing the custom-made holsters off me just so you can get my clothes off.”
His grin got even wider, filling that blue eye with a shining joy. “Okay.” He let go of me and stepped back, hands going to his own holsters and guns. I started with the wrist sheaths and the two silver-edged blades. It would take me longer to strip weapons because I carried blades and guns. Nicky did guns, and kept one folding blade for utility purposes. He didn’t actually see the knife as a weapon, though I knew he could fight with a blade if he had to, but it wasn’t his forte. He preferred guns or hand-to-hand. He’d proven just how good he was without weapons in the fight with Ares.
“You’re all serious,” he said, “and not thinking about sex. You’re almost sad, what’s wrong?”
“You’re that finely attuned to my mood, wow.”
“You know I live to make you happy.”
“I’m sorry that you actually mean that and it’s not romantic rhetoric.” I paused in taking off the waist holster and the Browning BDM. I’d already put the knives in one of the little open lockers that came with its own key and lock.
“I know you’re sorry that you took most of my free will. I appreciate that it bothers you, but I would have killed you, and Micah, Nathaniel, Jason, all of you, if my old Rex had given the order. I’d have done it without blinking.”
I was left looking into his face again, trying to figure him out. It was like looking at a wall: smooth, untouched, blank. He was handsome, but his face gave nothing away, and I didn’t think it was the blankness Jean-Claude had fought to master, or my cop face. It was more than that, or less. Sociopaths don’t have to show emotion; they do it most of the time because they’ve learned to ape what “normal” people show them, but they never really understand the emotions they act like they have; they are the ultimate actors. It’s how they blend in, and most of them assume that the rest of us are pretending just like they are; many never realize that the rest of the human race is feeling emotions that either they never had, or were abused out of them. Nicky was an abuse survivor-that was how he’d lost his eye-so he’d had emotions once; maybe he understood them better because of that, or maybe not?
“That’s one of the reasons I rolled you so completely, Nicky. Sociopaths don’t help anybody but themselves.”
“You’re as ruthless as I was, Anita, but it costs you. It makes you feel bad, makes you doubt yourself. I didn’t have that problem.”
“Because you were a sociopath,” I said.
“You say that like it’s changed, Anita; it hasn’t. I’m still a sociopath, I just can’t act on it most of the time because you don’t want me to, because it would make you feel bad if I did the things I think about sometimes, and I can’t bear the thought of you feeling bad.”
“So, what, I’m like your version of Jiminy Cricket?”
“Nathaniel showed me that movie so I’d understand what the hell you meant by that, so yeah, you’re my Jiminy Cricket. You tell me when I’m being bad. You make me be good.”
“But you still don’t have any desire to be good?” I said.
He shrugged, put the last of his weapons in his locker, and closed the small metal door. He didn’t lock it; he didn’t bother. No one who was allowed in the underground of the Circus would have dared touch anyone else’s weapons. People died over misunderstandings like that.
