“You don’t look completely happy,” he said.
“Okay, how long ago was this party?”
“A year ago, maybe a little longer.” His face was very careful as he said it, watching my face for anger. He watched sometimes like that, waiting for me or Micah to get mad at him. He’d been physically abused as a child, and by age seven he’d had to run away after witnessing his older brother’s murder. He’d asked me once if there was a time limit on how long someone could be convicted for murder. I’d told him, no, a person could always been charged for murder, unlike rape, or child abuse, which does have to be reported as a crime within a set number of years. Nathaniel had nodded, and filed the thought away. I didn’t push. His therapist said that Nathaniel had blocked out most of his early childhood in order to survive. What he did remember was so terrible it worried me; I mean, how bad could the rest be? Fresh on the streets at age seven, Nathaniel had been found by a man who liked little boys; he’d fed him, clothed him, taken care of him, and before the age of ten he had pimped him out. Saying Nathaniel had a hard childhood was like saying World War II was a small border dispute. Becoming a headliner at Guilty Pleasures had been such a climb up the social ladder that it seemed wrong to bitch about a little nudity. If things had gone differently and he’d never been found by the local wereleopards, Nathaniel would probably have died of a drug overdose before he ever reached seventeen. The wereleopards had insisted he be drug-free before they made him one of them. I was very glad that he’d lived for us to meet, and that he was in my life.
“So the bachelorette party was after we were living together?”
“Yes,” he said, face, voice, body language very careful.
I nodded. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s weird that the bride and her friends are here, but it’s okay. It’s your job. You’ve been a good sport about me being shot, stabbed, and nearly dying at my job, so I need to man-up and be a good sport about your stuff.”
“You’re really not mad about it?”
I licked my lips, and tried to think how to word it. “I’m not mad. It’s just weird and I’m not sure how to act around the women.”
“It is weird, and me either,” he said.
I smiled at him. “Okay then, we’ll figure it out together, but we should tell Micah when we get outside.”
Nathaniel agreed, and hugged me, smiling. “Then help me set the food on the table. I’ll check on the ziti in the oven.”
“Baked ziti, why is it that no party in St. Louis can skip the baked ziti, or baked mostaccioli?” I asked.
He grinned at me. “I don’t know, but I’m not going to let it burn.” He was already turning to the stove. I started to grab one of the dishes off the kitchen island, but felt the heat in time. I grabbed two potholders lying on the island and carried the dish of baked beans into the other room. I was going to have to remember that a lot of things were too hot to touch without cover. How did I feel about the fact that there were other women here who had seen my love naked? That wasn’t the right question. Nathaniel was like most wereanimals; he didn’t see anything wrong with nudity, so a lot of people had seen him nude. How did I feel knowing there was at least one woman here who’d had a naked lap dance from my sweetie? Nope, still not the right question. I knew that Nathaniel had been far from virgin when we first met. Hell, the first time we met he’d still been working as a high-class call boy, though it beat being a street prostitute, which was where he’d started before someone saw his potential and moved him up. There’d been more than one reason that it had taken a few years for Nathaniel to convince me to date him.
No, what bothered me was that people had told intimate details about my lover while he was nude and being all sexy. That bothered me, and I knew it was stupid, because lots of his customers talked about him. Hell, there was a blog that encouraged women to wax eloquent about him as his stage name, Brandon, and about other dancers at Guilty Pleasures, to help drum up business. “See what a good time we had with Brandon at Guilty Pleasures”—but that had been distant. I didn’t read the comments, because he was my boyfriend. I’d learned not to take the customers at the club too seriously if I visited on nights that he was working. I’d even been out on a date with him in the past when he’d been recognized by customers, so why did this bother me?
I didn’t have a good answer, so I acknowledged that it did bother me and put it away. I’d think about it until we had some privacy to talk about it. I think my request was no more cops’ wives. Was that a reasonable request? I didn’t know, so I kept my mouth shut and helped put food out on the table while Nathaniel moved easily and happily around Katie’s kitchen.
We finally got outside on the deck and were standing hand in hand when we spotted Micah moving his way through the crowd. We waved and he smiled when he saw us, but suddenly our view was blocked by a large man. He was six feet, broad shouldered, and just a big guy. Large hands were already clenching into fists over and over, almost the way that Nathaniel had been kneading my back, and in a way the hand thing was a way of showing nerves, a fight for control, just like the kneading had been. But this guy wasn’t a wereleopard, he was just that angry.
I heard a woman’s voice behind him. “Clint, don’t, please don’t.”
The man was so broad that I couldn’t see around him to the woman, he just blocked out everything standing too close. I moved Nathaniel slightly behind me and he let me do it. I appreciated the men in my life who weren’t fighters, and who would let me step up for them.
“Jefferson, right?” I said.
“Get out of the way, Blake, I got no beef with you.”
“If you’re threatening my boyfriend, then we got beef.”
Zerbrowski was beside us. “My house, my rules, Clint, no fighting.” His voice was light, almost cheerful, a tone to calm things down.
Clint’s voice growled out from between his teeth, his rage was nearly touchable. “He fucked my wife; I’m going to fuck him up.”
“I didn’t,” Nathaniel said.
I kept my eyes front on Clint’s very big center of body. Before an arm, a hand, a leg, anything could move, his center had to move, so that’s what I watched. I was already in a subtle fighting stance, which meant I was set to go, but trying not to look like I was ready.
“You calling my wife a liar?”
“She may have been too drunk to remember everything, but I swear that we didn’t have sex.”
Zerbrowski stepped in, not exactly between us, but close, and spoke low. “Clint, I was at your bachelor party, I know what you did with your stripper.”
Clint frowned and looked at Zerbrowski. It was like watching a small mountain turn. Zerbrowski was five foot seven, but he looked frail standing next to Clint. I must have looked minuscule.
“I don’t know what you mean, Zerbrowski.”
“Yeah, you do, or were you so drunk that you don’t remember what happened that night?” His voice wasn’t cheerful anymore, but low and serious. His face matched his voice, and you could suddenly see the cop who had spent over a decade backing down bad guys.
“I remember,” Clint said, sullenly. His body was relaxing, the rage fading.
Zerbrowski was almost whispering now, I doubt that anyone but the four of us could hear. “Did you tell your wife what you did?”
Clint took a step back, his hands relaxed a little. “You threatening to tell her?”
“No, and you’re not going to start a fight at my house either, are you?”
He shook his head. “No, not here.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, and was debating if I had a threat that might keep him from getting in Nathaniel’s face at the club, but Nathaniel had something better—the truth.
“Your wife got a lap dance, she didn’t try for more, but she had a friend that did. The other woman got pissed that I wouldn’t sleep with her, not even for the money she was offering. Just by the way she acted in the kitchen I’m betting that she started the rumor, and must have terrified your wife into thinking she’d cheated. I swear to you that all I did was my job, and that doesn’t include actual sex with anyone.”
Clint was studying Nathaniel as if he’d not really looked at him before except as a handsome man who had crossed the line with his wife. Now, he saw him as something more, though he wasn’t sure exactly what. They were such different kinds of men.
A thin, petite blonde woman crept up beside Clint. Her makeup was smeared with tears, and her gray eyes
