Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

“You can’t strip forever,” I said.

  “And most marriages don’t last forever either.”

  My eyes must have gotten too wide, because he hurried with his next words, “What I mean is that you treat everything like it’s a forever question. Like you can’t change your mind later. I don’t mean to imply that Nathaniel wants you to make an honest man of him. That never came up, honest.”

  “Well, that’s a relief, at least.”

  “You’ll need a pomme de sang for years, Anita. Years.”

  “Jean-Claude said maybe in a few months I’d be able to feed from a distance, and not need the up close and personal stuff.”

  “You’ve made progress on going longer between feedings, Anita. But you haven’t made much progress on truly controlling the ardeur.”

  “I controlled it on the dance floor,” I said.

  He sighed. “You shut it down on the dance floor. That’s not control, not really. It’s like you have a gun, and you can lock it in the gun safe, but that doesn’t teach you how to shoot it.”

  “A gun analogy? You’ve been thinking on this for awhile, haven’t you?”

  “Ever since Nathaniel told me that you hadn’t been allowing him release during the feedings.”

  “Allow? He didn’t ask, and how was I supposed to know he wasn’t even doing himself in private? I mean, I didn’t tell him not to.”

  “You can play with yourself, and it feels good, but it doesn’t meet the real need.”

  I pushed my back tight into the tree, as if the solid wood could catch me, because I felt like I was falling. Falling into a chasm so deep that I’d never get out. “I don’t know if I can do Nathaniel and still look at myself in the mirror in the morning.”

  “Why does doing Nathaniel bother you that much?”

  “Because he confuses my radar. I have friends, I have boyfriends, I have people who are dependent on me, people I take care of. I do not fuck the people I take care of. It would be like taking advantage of your position.”

  “And Nathaniel falls into the taking care of category?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You think by having sex that you’re taking advantage?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not how Nathaniel sees it.”

  “I know that, Jason, now.” I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the roughness of the bark. “Damn it, I want the ardeur under control so I don’t have to keep making these kinds of decisions.”

  “And if I could wave a magic wand over you and you instantly could control the ardeur, what then? What would you do with Nathaniel?”

  “I’d help him find a place of his own.”

  “He does most of the housework around your place. He buys your groceries. He and Micah do most of the cooking. Nathaniel taking care of the domestic stuff is what allows Micah and you both to work all those hours. Without Nathaniel, how would you organize it?”

  “I don’t want to keep Nathaniel just to make my life easier. That’s like evil.”

  Jason let out a big sigh. “Are you really this slow, or just driving me crazy on purpose?”

  “What?” I said.

  He shook his head. “Anita, what I’m trying to say is that Nathaniel doesn’t feel used. He feels useful. He doesn’t need a girlfriend, because he thinks he already has one. He doesn’t want to date, because he’s already living with someone. He doesn’t need to look for a place of his own, because he already has one. Micah knows that, Nathaniel knows that, the only person who doesn’t know that seems to be you.”

  “Jason . . .”

  He stopped me with a raised hand. “Anita, you have two men who live with you. They both love you. They both want you. They both support your career. Between the two of them, they’re like your wife. There are people in this world who would kill to have what you have. And you’d just throw it away.”

  I just looked at him, because I didn’t know what to say.

  “The only thing that keeps this little domestic arrangement from being perfect for all concerned is that Nathaniel is not getting his needs met.” He stepped in close to me, but the look on his face was so serious that it never occurred to me that kissing was coming, because it wasn’t. “You’ve set up the dynamics so that you wear the pants in this trio, and that’s fine, it works for Micah and Nathaniel. But here’s the hard part about wearing the pants, Anita, it means you get to make the tough decisions. Your life is working better than it’s worked since I met you. You’ve been happier, longer, than I’ve ever seen you. Micah, I don’t know that well, but Nathaniel has never been this happy in all the years I’ve known him. Everything is working, Anita. Everybody is making it work. Everybody but . . .”

  “Me,” I said.

  “You,” he said.

  “You know, Jason, I can’t say you’re wrong about any of it, but I hate you right this second.”

  “Hate me, if you want to, but I’m tired of watching people have everything their heart desires and throw it away.”

  “This isn’t what my heart desired,” I said.

  “Maybe not, but it’s what you needed. You needed a wife in that old 1950s sort of way.”

  “Doesn’t everybody,” I said.

  He grinned at me. “No, some people would like to be the wife, but I just can’t find a woman who’s man enough to keep me in the style to which I have not yet become accustomed.”

  It made me smile. Damn it. “You are the only one who can say shit like this to me, and not have me pissed at them for days, or longer. How do you get away with it?”

  He planted a quick kiss on my my lips, more brotherly than anything. “I don’t know how I get away with it, but if I could bottle it, Jean-Claude would pay a fortune for it.”

  “Maybe not just Jean-Claude.”

  “Maybe not.” He stepped back smiling, but his eyes had that serious look again. “Please, Anita, go home, and don’t freak. Just go home, and be happy. Be happy, and let everyone around you be happy. Is that so hard?”

  When Jason said it like that, it didn’t seem hard. In fact, it seemed to make a lot of sense, but inside, it felt hard. Inside it felt like the hardest thing in the world. To just let go, and not pick everything to death. To just let go and enjoy what you had. To just let go and not make everybody around you miserable with your own internal dialogue. To just let go and be happy. So simple. So difficult. So terrifying.

  10

  A CAR SQUEALED out of the parking lot, as Jason walked me back to the Jeep. I only had a moment to see it, before it blasted out into the street, but I recognized the car. Apparently Ronnie was driving them home, but the fight wasn’t over. Not my problem. God knew I had enough relationship problems without sticking my nose into someone else’s. Of course, sometimes no matter how hard you try to stay out of something, you can’t.

  “Can I grab a ride home?” It was Louie Fane, Dr. Louis Fane, though his doctorate wasn’t in the biology of humans, but in the biology of bats. His doctoral thesis had been on the adaption of the Little Brown Bat to human habitation. Actually his work with bats, a different species, had put him in a cave with a wererat that attacked him. It’s how he got to be furry once a month.

  “Sure,” Jason and I said in unison.

  Louie smiled. “I just need one ride, but thanks.” His eyes, which were truly black, not just darkest brown like mine, didn’t match the smile. The eyes were still angry.

  “His place is on the way to the Circus,” Jason said.

  I nodded. “Okay.” I looked at Louie and wanted to ask what the fight had been about, and didn’t want to ask what the fight had been about. I settled for, “Are you okay?”

  He shook his head. “Ronnie will probably call you tomorrow and tell you anyway. I guess you might as well know, or maybe you can talk some sense into her.”

  I gave a half-shrug. “I don’t know. Ronnie can be pretty stubborn.”

  Jason laughed. “You calling someone else stubborn, that’s rich.”

  I frowned at hi
m. “You sure you don’t want to ride home with us, instead of Mr. Comedy here?”

  He shook his head. “I’m on Jason’s way home.” He still hadn’t told us what the fight was about. Was I supposed to remind him, or let it go?

  “Do you want some privacy here?” Jason asked.

  Louie sighed. “Yes, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll say good night to Micah and Nathaniel, and I’ll be waiting by my car.” He waved at me and walked away.

  For the second, no, the third time that night I was standing out in the cool shadows of the trees getting a heart-to-heart talk with another man. This one wasn’t even my boyfriend or occasional food.

  “What’s wrong, Louie?”

  “I asked Ronnie to marry me tonight.”

  I’d been prepared for a lot of things, but that hadn’t even ocurred to me. Marriage? I just gaped at him. When I could close my mouth and pretend to be intelligent, I said, “And why the fight, then?”

  “She said, no.” He didn’t look at me as he said it. He stared off into the dark, his hands plunged into the pockets of his dress slacks, ruining the line of his jacket, but giving him something to do with his hands.

  “She said, no,” I repeated it, as if I hadn’t heard it right.

  He glanced at me then. “You sound surprised.”

  “Well, last I knew you guys were getting along really well.” Actually, the last time Ronnie had confided in me it had been a conversation that had set us both giggling, because it had been mostly about sex. We’d both overshared, which women do more than men, and the sex had been as good between her and Louie as it had been between me and Micah. Which was pretty damned good. Ronnie had had this mistaken idea that dating Micah meant I’d dumped Jean-Claude. When she found out it didn’t mean that, she’d not taken it well. She just couldn’t seem to cope with me dating the undead. Picky, picky. I could joke, but her last stand on Jean-Claude had been adamant enough that we hadn’t talked much since.

  “It’s all wonderful, Anita. That’s what is so . . .” he seemed to search for a word, and settled for, “frustrating!”

  “So, you guys are getting along great?” I made it a question.

  “I thought so, maybe I was wrong?” He paced two steps away from me, then back. “No, damn it, I wasn’t wrong. It’s been the best two years of my life. Nothing starts my day off better than waking up beside her. I want to start every day like that. Is that so wrong?”

  “No, Louie, that’s not wrong.”

  “Then why did we just have the biggest fight we’ve ever had?” His dark face was demanding, as if I had the answer and just wouldn’t give it to him.

  “I’ll call Ronnie tomorrow, if she doesn’t call me first. I’ll talk to her.”

  “She says she doesn’t want to marry anyone. She says, if she married anyone, it would be me, but she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to.” The pain in his voice was so raw, it hurt to hear it.

  “I am so sorry.” I started to touch his arm, thought better of it, and said, “Maybe you could just live together?”

  “I offered that. I offered to just live together until she was ready for more.” He was staring off into the darkness, again, as if he didn’t want me to see what was in his eyes.

  “She said no to that, too?” I asked.

  “She doesn’t want to give up her independence. Her independence is one of the things I love most about her.”

  “I know that,” I said, and my voice was soft, because it was all I had to offer.

  He looked at me. “You know that, then can you tell her?”

  “I’ll do everything I can to reassure her that you’re not trying to clip her wings.”

  “Is that it? Is she just afraid I’ll take away her freedom?”

  “I don’t know, Louie. Truthfully, if you’d asked me beforehand, I’d have said, she’d say, yes.”

  “Really,” he said, and he was studying my face now. Studying it as if the secrets to the universe were somehow hidden in my eyes. I preferred him staring out into the dark for his answers instead of in my face. I wasn’t sure what the darkness had to offer him, but I knew I didn’t have any answers.

  “Yeah, Louie, really. Last I knew she was the happiest I’ve ever seen her.”

  “So I wasn’t just fooling myself?” he asked, and he was still giving me those raw, demanding eyes.

  “No, Louie, you weren’t fooling yourself.”

  “Then why?” he asked. “Why?”

  I shrugged, and had to say something, because he was still staring at me. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.” It sounded so inadequate, sorry. But it was all I had to offer tonight.

  He nodded, a little too rapidly, as he turned away, and stared out into the dark again. I knew he wasn’t really seeing the yard that bordered the church. I knew he was just staring to be staring, and not to have to meet anyone’s eyes for a while, but it was sort of unnerving. Unnerving to think that whatever he was feeling was so strong that he had to hide his eyes, so I wouldn’t see. It reminded me of the way Dolph had turned away at the murder scene. And, in a way, they were both hiding the same thing—pain.

  He turned away from the dark and gave me his eyes again. They were raw, and I had to fight to not turn away myself. My rule was always if someone could feel the emotion, the least I could do was not turn away.

  “It looks like your sweetheart is coming this way.”

  I glanced back to find Micah walking slowly toward us. Normally, he wouldn’t have interrupted, but we were on a deadline tonight. Time and the ardeur wait for no man. I would have explained that Micah wasn’t being rude, that we had to go, but I wasn’t sure Louie knew about the ardeur, and I hated to explain it to people who didn’t know. It always sounded so . . . odd.

  “How long have you and Micah been living together?” he asked.

  “About four months.”

  “Ronnie and you haven’t been hanging out much since he moved in with you, have you?”

  I thought about it, then said, “I guess not. She didn’t like that I’m still dating Jean-Claude.”

  Louie watched Micah walking toward us. His face looked thoughtful. “Maybe that wasn’t it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe it was having someone live with you. Maybe that’s what she couldn’t handle.”

  “She said it was me dating a vamp.”

  “Ronnie said a lot of things,” he said, voice softer, less angry, more puzzled. He shook himself like a dog coming out of water, and managed to give me a smile. It left his eyes sad, but it was a start. “Maybe she just couldn’t stand to see you committing yourself to somebody, not that much.”

  I shrugged, because I didn’t think that was it, but I couldn’t blame him for thinking it. “I don’t know.”

  He gave me that smile again, his eyes like dark hopeless pools. “You go home, Anita, and enjoy it.” I caught a glitter of tears before he turned away and looked out into the dark again.

  I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to hug him? If it had been a girlfriend, I probably would have. But it wasn’t, he wasn’t, and I didn’t need any more complications tonight. I did the guy thing, and patted him awkwardly on the back. Whether I would have worked up to a full-blown hug, I don’t know, because Micah was beside us.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but it’s been nearly an hour since we hit the parking lot.” It was his subtle way of reminding me that sometimes an hour was all we got from the time I squashed the ardeur down to the time it resurfaced.

  I took the hint. With Micah beside me, I felt more secure. If the ardeur had risen, he’d have been there to see that nothing disastrous happened. I slid my arm through Louie’s arm and bumped my head against his shoulder. “Come on, Louie, we’ll walk you to Jason’s car.”

  He nodded, as if he didn’t trust his voice, and was careful not to look at either of us as we walked him toward the lights of the parking lot. Micah pretended that nothing was wrong. I pretended that there were no tears to see. I kep
t my hold on his arm all the way to where Jason waited standing beside his car.

  Jason opened the passenger side door for Louie, giving me a questioning look over Louie’s shoulder.

  I started to shake my head, but Louie hugged me. Hugged me suddenly, and fiercely, so tight it took my breath away. I thought he’d say something, but he didn’t. He just held on, and I wrapped my arms around his back, held him, because I couldn’t not hold him. About the time I thought I was going to have to think of something to say, he stepped back. He’d been crying while he held me, but I hadn’t felt a single sob, nothing, but the fierceness in his arms, his hands, and silent tears.

  He blinked and gave Micah an odd smile, that was almost a sob. “How did you talk her into moving in with you?”

  “I moved in with her,” he said, voice very quiet, very even, a careful voice, reserved for frightened children, and overly emotional adults. I’d heard that voice often enough aimed at me. “And she asked me.”

  “Lucky,” Louie said, and that one word sounded like it meant anything but, lucky.

  “I know,” Micah said, and he put an arm around my shoulders and moved me just a little back from Louie, so there was room for him to get through the open car door.

  Louie nodded again, too rapidly, and too many times. “Lucky.” He slid into the car, and Jason shut the door behind him.

  Jason leaned into me. “What just happened?”

  It wasn’t my secret to tell, but it felt like dirty pool sending Jason to drive Louie home without warning him. “It’s his secret to tell, not mine. I’m sorry. But let’s just say he’s had a rough night.”

  Louie knocked on the window. The sound made both Jason and me jump. Micah had either seen it coming, or had better nerves than we did. Jason moved back enough so the door could open. “Don’t bother to whisper this close to the car. I can hear you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be, it’s not like he didn’t see the fight. Tell him, so I don’t have to.” And Louie closed the door again. He leaned his head back against the seat, and more of those completely silent tears began to escape him.

  We all looked away, as if it were somehow shameful to watch. I think we’d have been less embarrassed if he’d been undressed. “What is up?” Jason said.