“Are you saying that he’s as big in human form as I am in this form?” Ethan asked. Most men wouldn’t have asked that blandly.
I glanced back at Bernardo. “From what I remember, yeah.”
Bernardo gave me a mild version of his sexy smile, but it never reached his eyes. They were all wary, and worried about the most dangerous thing in the room. He’d flirt, but not until he was sure of the weretiger. The way he was acting, I wasn’t certain there was a way for him to be comfortable around the weretiger in half-man form.
“Is he an old lover of yours?” Ethan asked.
“No,” I said, and my face was still soft with the fading laugh.
“Then how do you know how well endowed he is?” Ethan asked.
I looked at him. “Are you jealous?”
The cat face frowned, but there was a very human intelligence through those eyes. “I think so, and I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t work for you, and it doesn’t work in the red clan. The women totally get to pick the men, so I can’t even say it’s my culture.” He spread those big hands that I knew with a flick of his muscles could reveal claws big enough to slice me open. “It’s just that it’s been a long time, and the thought of sharing this soon hurts a little.”
I went to him, and was out of hands. I put the gun on the edge of the bare mattress and turned back to the towering, furred figure. I’d learned a long time ago that being physically intimidating didn’t keep you from getting your feelings hurt. Everyone’s heart is the same size.
I hugged him one-armed, until his arms wrapped around me, holding me close enough that the press of our bodies would hold the towel in place. I hugged him with both arms then, letting my hands play in the soft, thick fur of his back. He leaned down over me, bending more and more of that tall upper body over me until he could press his face against the top of my head. He huffed against my hair; it was something a lot of cats did, sort of halfway between a breath going out and in, and a soft sound that was used for talking to kittens or favorite people. It was a good, caring sound. I hugged him tighter, rubbing my cheek against the warmth of him. The fur was thinner on the front of him so that I could touch his skin through the silky fur. He was so warm.
“Thank you,” he said, as he stood up straighter. Something about the hugging and moving made the towel begin to slide down, but all Bernardo was seeing was my bare back. He could see that. I kept hugging the big weretiger, and looked up until I could meet those blue and gold eyes. “You’re welcome, and thank you for stripping the bed.”
“We’d have ruined the mattress otherwise.”
“I know, but thanks for thinking of it anyway. I like men who are domestically inclined.” I grinned at him, but he was still too serious. I tried again. “I do want you, and I’m inviting you now to come to St. Louis when this case is over.”
He smiled that flash of frightening teeth, but I’d been around enough beast forms to see the delight in his face, and the happiness in his eyes was unmistakable. He picked me up, sudden, unexpected, and effortless. He lifted me so he could look into my face. There are no lips to kiss in beast form, but I’d been dating lycanthropes for a while, and I knew to put my face against his and let him rub his furred cheeks on one side of my face and then the other. I returned the gesture, and put my arms around his shoulders. I realized the towel was no longer covering me. I had a choice of ruining the moment for modesty’s sake, or not worrying about the fact that Bernardo was seeing my bare ass. I decided not to worry, and let the joy in Ethan’s face be all the covering I needed. In the end, if you can make somebody that happy, what’s a little flashing between friends?
26
WE WRAPPED ETHAN’S new golden self in the last of the bedspreads, and had him fold all that size into the backseat of Bernardo’s rental car. While still in the room, Ethan had said, “I could be waiting for you when you get back.”
“I’ll be gone for hours, maybe until morning,” I said.
“I’d wait.”
I smiled at him. “If the bad guys weren’t killing weretigers, then I’d say yes, but I don’t want you here by yourself.”
“You don’t think I can take care of myself?”
Watching for male ego, I’d said, “You need to eat now that you’ve changed forms. Though I don’t like anyone else knowing you have a gold form, the only safe-ish place I can think to take you is back to the red clan.”
“But not forever,” he said, and even through the gold and the pointy fangs meant for meat-rending, he was unsure, almost afraid.
“I promise, Ethan, it’s not forever, but I gotta go catch bad guys now.”
So he’d hidden in the backseat, and I’d called Alex so someone would be there at the entrance to meet him. Alex was actually about to go into a press conference for his day job as a reporter, but he promised that two guards would be there, and they’d take care of Ethan for me. “I’m the prince of the clan, Anita; they’ll do what I say.”
“Unless your mother the queen disagrees,” I said.
He’d laughed. “Well, there is that.”
But there were two guards waiting to take Ethan into the underground and help hold all the weapons that didn’t fit on his taller man form. They raised eyebrows at glimpses of his fur through the bedspread.
I told them, “No one else knows, and I want to keep it that way.”
“We have to tell our queen,” one of the guards said.
“And if I tell you not to, what then?”
They looked at each other. “You are a little queen, but you won’t kill us for keeping secrets from you; she might.”
“If Ethan gets hurt because you let others know he has a third color form, and I think it’s your fault, do you really think I won’t kill you?”
“So, his safety is our safety?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I can take care of myself, Anita, you know that,” Ethan said.
“Against anyone but the bad guys we’re chasing, I’d agree, but you saw him tear up a dozen of you guys in seconds. I want you safe.”
He’d wrapped me in the bedspread and the warm muscle and fur of his body. “I’ve never had a woman care about me like that.”
I didn’t say that I was more worried about losing one of the few goldens we had who wasn’t part of the bloodline the good Harlequin had hidden away, genetic diversity and all that, and that I didn’t love him yet. I let him believe what he needed to believe so I could go back Edward up with the other cops. I didn’t have time to discuss love and lust and the difference with Ethan. Those conversations were always long ones.
Bernardo drove me through a fast-food drive-up. Not the healthiest, but I needed meat; burgers would do. It would help delay the next need to feed, and I wanted to delay that and still keep my healing ability. I had a faint scar on my right arm, and it was my own damn fault for not taking care of my metaphysical business. It was while we were in line waiting to pick up the order that Bernardo said, “Before we meet up with Edward, I have to tell you something. He made me promise.”
“That’s ominous,” I said, looking at him.
He smoothed his big, dark hands around the wheel, and that one gesture looked like a nervous gesture. Not good.
“What the hell is it?” I asked.
He took off his sunglasses, and took a deep breath. “I’m not the only one Edward called in to help watch his back while you were hurt.”
I had a moment of not understanding, and then I got it. “Jesus, not Olaf.”
Bernardo looked at me with eyes as dark a brown as my own. “Yeah, he called in the big guy.”
I sat back in the seat and would have folded my arms over my chest, but there were too many weapons and
