“We’ll meet you back at the motel while you’re getting Karlton’s clothes. You need to get rooms for the rest of your deputies.”
I leaned my forehead against Nicky’s chest. “How’s Bobby Lee doing?” I asked, because I knew he was the one who’d shapeshifted to try to scent out the bad guys.
“He’s passed out in the back of the car.”
“So he’s already shape shifted back to human form,” I said. Nicky put his arm across my back, trying to draw me in against his body again.
“Yes.”
I was out of hands to keep our bodies apart, so I turned my shoulder into his chest. His arm tried to turn me so that the fronts of our bodies would touch. I turned my body more firmly sideways to him. “He’ll be unconscious for at least four hours,” I said.
“Six to eight hours,” Edward said.
“Nope, Bobby Lee is a more powerful shapeshifter than that. He’ll be four hours or less and then he’ll wake.”
“Good to know.”
“Some of the other people with us don’t have to pass out at all when they change form.” I was cuddling with one of them right that minute.
“That makes them very strong shapeshifters.”
“Yep,” I said. I let myself put my arm around Nicky’s waist, and he tried to draw us into a complete hug, but I kept my body sideways, so that though we were hugging and the strong warmth of him wrapped around me, it wasn’t as distracting as it could have been.
“You travel with some very big dogs, Anita.”
“I’m a big-dog sort of person,” I said. I looked up into Nicky’s face. He kissed me on the forehead, lips so gentle.
“What are you doing, Anita?”
“Talking to you.”
“Your voice keeps changing, going soft.”
Nicky kissed my eyebrow, ever so gently. “I’m not whispering, Edward.”
“I didn’t say you were whispering. I said your voice keeps going soft, gentle. I didn’t think Lisandro or Nicky had that effect on you.”
“Lisandro doesn’t,” I said. Nicky kissed my eyelid, brushed his lips back and forth over my eyelashes. I raised my face up to him. He kissed my cheek, his breath hot against my skin.
“If Nicky distracts you this much, then you need to be careful, Anita.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said, and it was almost a whisper, because Nicky’s lips were just above mine.
“We’ll see you at the motel, Anita,” Edward said.
“See you,” I whispered and hit the button so that when Nicky’s lips touched mine I wasn’t on the phone anymore. He kissed me. He kissed me gently at first, and then his arm tightened around me and I turned in his arms, against his body. We stopped holding hands and I finally let myself melt into his arms, his body, and his kiss. He kissed me hard and thoroughly, with lips, tongue, and finally teeth. He bit my lower lip, lightly. It drew a small sound from me, so that he bit a little harder, drawing my lip out and away.
I had to say, “Enough.”
He let go of my lip, drawing back so he could see my face. He laughed when he looked down at me. “We forgot your lipstick.”
I blinked at him, and realized he had red lipstick across his lips, and his smile showed lipstick on his teeth. I shook my head smiling, and reached up to touch his lips, trying to rub the scarlet off his mouth.
He laughed a low chuckle. “Yours is worse.” He put his thumb under my lower lip and rubbed at the lipstick I couldn’t see.
“I don’t usually forget the lipstick,” I said, but I was laughing.
“You did miss me,” he said, and he looked entirely too pleased. Lisandro called out, “We can’t keep him back forever.”
Nicky and I looked back at the other men. Lisandro and Bernardo were both in front of Olaf. Bernardo had his hands on Olaf’s upper body, literally holding him back. Olaf wasn’t trying to get past him very hard, but Bernardo’s hands were definitely reminding Olaf to stay where he was, and Lisandro stood there like a sort of secondary defense in case Olaf really did try to get past Bernardo.
But it was the look on Olaf’s face that was frightening. Rage was plain on his face, so much rage. “He’s jealous,” Nicky said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“He’s more jealous of me.” I moved away from him, wondering if that would soften some of the emotion on Olaf’s face. Nicky reached out, took my hand. “Don’t let him bully you, Anita. He’ll take as much control of your life as you let him.”
I let Nicky keep my hand in his now, because he was right. I couldn’t let Olaf’s weird jealousy control me. What I didn’t understand was why he was reacting so badly to Nicky, or had Olaf just reached another level of obsession with me, so that any interaction I had with other men was going to drive him nuts? That would be bad, but if it was just Nicky, then that was a different kind of bad.
I had no idea how to talk Olaf down from what I saw as an insane and undeserved jealousy. He wasn’t my lover, wasn’t a boyfriend, wasn’t even my friend. He had no right to the anger on his face, no right to feel possessive of me, but how do you convince a seven-foot-tall psychopath serial killer that you’re not his love bunny without him trying to kill you, or you having to kill him? I had no idea.
33
BERNARDO SPLIT US up; he took Olaf, leaving Lisandro to drive Nicky and me. We managed to get into the cars and head to the motel without Olaf losing what was left of his control. In fact, he just suddenly went icily and completely calm. The total change in affect was more chilling than anything else he could have done, because the change of heart couldn’t be real. It was like he’d taken all that rage and just locked it away, but I knew it was still in there. It was still in there and it would find a way out, and that way would be frightening.
Lisandro drove. I started to get in back with Nicky, but Lisandro said, “Anita, sit up front with me.”
“Why?” I asked.
“You and Nicky got pretty distracted back there. It’s part of what got the big guy so upset. He wanted to break you guys up.”
“Stop us from kissing, or hurt us?” I asked.
“I don’t think Bernardo was sure which he meant to do; that’s why he stopped him.”
“I appreciate you and Bernardo interceding for us,” I said.
“It was my job, and Bernardo is more afraid of Edward than he is of Olaf.”
“Thanks all the same,” I said.
“Just ride up front, that’s thanks enough,” he said.
“Anita can sit in back with me,” Nicky said.
“I’m not driving around while the two of you make out,” he said.
“We’re not getting in the back to make out, Lisandro.”
He just looked at me. “So why does it matter if you ride up front?”
I opened my mouth, and then closed it. Why did it matter? Nicky brushed his fingers against mine, and it just seemed natural to fold my hand around his. I felt better, steadier. Ah, that was why it mattered. Could I promise that we wouldn’t make out in the back seat? I thought I could. Could I promise we wouldn’t touch each other? No, and why would it matter? What was so wrong with us touching each other? I shook my head. “I’ll sit up front.”
Nicky squeezed my hand. “You’re the boss, not him.”
“Yeah, but I can’t promise him we won’t let the touching get out of hand, Nicky. He’s right about that.” I searched his face, and the only thing I saw there was need, almost hunger. This was the longest I’d ever been
