“So you’ve never tried to make a Bride when you weren’t in dire straits?” she asked.
“No.”
“So Anita could feed the ardeur on me and not turn me into her Bride?” Olaf asked.
“I believe so,” Pierette said.
“Only if I felt safe, and like I said, I can’t imagine a set of circumstances where I would feel safe with you like that.”
Olaf looked at Nicky. “If she had not unleashed the ardeur on you, would you have hurt her that first time you fucked her?”
“No, I can enjoy sex without pain.”
“So can I, but that is not my question.”
“Was it gentler lovemaking than I would have done on my own without her magic?” Nicky asked.
“That is what I am asking,” Olaf said.
“It was gentler.”
“But still satisfying?”
“The ardeur is a rush. It makes every touch more intense.”
Everyone in the room nodded except Edward and the two SEALs. Edward caught it in time to say, “I don’t let her feed on me.”
“Why not?” Olaf asked.
“I am not food, not even for her.”
Olaf nodded as if that made sense to him.
I was never, ever going to have sex with Olaf, but I didn’t say so out loud, because we were still trying not to pull the pin on the grenade. But it was like a game of chicken between a car and a train. If you didn’t get off the tracks, eventually you were going to lose.
“How can gentle be satisfying to you, Nicky?” Olaf asked.
“The first time was gentle, and sometimes it still is, but the bondage we do together is RACK.”
“I do not know the term,” Olaf said.
“Risk-aware consensual kink, RACK,” Nicky said.
“I prefer the term edge play,” I said, “but RACK is more descriptive, I guess.”
I fought not to squirm, because it had taken me a long time to be comfortable with just how much I enjoyed rough sex and bondage. I still wasn’t entirely happy that was part of my sexual orientation, but I was working in therapy at accepting all of myself, and that was part of me. You didn’t get to pick and choose your sexual orientation. You could choose not to act on it, but it was still what flipped your switch. It didn’t go away because you stopped doing it or tried not to start doing it.
“Does Anita do this with anyone else?” Olaf asked.
Angel raised her hand, smiling.
“I’ve co-topped Angel and Anita with Nathaniel,” Nicky said.
“I’m really not wanting to do details in front of everyone in this room,” I said. I was fighting not to blush, but since it’s an involuntary thing, I was losing.
Nicky smiled at me. “You are so uncomfortable with the things you enjoy in the dungeon.”
I nodded. “Yep. Yep, I am.”
“I thought Nathaniel was an extreme submissive,” Olaf said, “even a pain slut.”
“He can be,” Nicky and I said together. We shared a smile over it.
“Are you telling me that you have sex with Nathaniel?” Olaf asked.
“I think that’s for you, Nicky,” I said. “He knows I’m with Nathaniel.”
“It could be aimed at me,” Angel said.
“I assumed you were having sex with the men in St. Louis,” Olaf said.
She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “I’m not doing all of them. Even I have my limits.”
“Hell, so do I,” I said.
Angel grinned at me, all pleased mischief. “We can’t sleep with everyone.”
I shook my head. “I know I can’t.”
“Are you having sex with Nathaniel, Nicky?” Olaf asked.
“I don’t fuck him. He helps me top and fuck Anita and sometimes Angel with her.”
“It’s a recent addition,” I said, and realized I was still embarrassed about it. I sighed. Would I ever really be comfortable with what I enjoyed in the bedroom or the dungeon?
“I did not think Anita would submit to or bottom for anyone,” Olaf said.
“Neither did I, honestly,” I said, and I was doing my best not to make eye contact with anyone.
“Is it only with Nicky?”
I glanced up at Olaf and then back down at some vague point in the middle of the room. “No, it’s not just with him.”
“Who else?”
“How is this conversation helping us figure things out with Olaf?” I asked.
“You know I wouldn’t ask this if I didn’t think it was helpful,” Edward said.
I gave him eye contact. “You’re the only one in this room that I would keep answering these questions for.”
“I know, and thank you,” he said.
“For Edward, but not for Nicky,” Olaf said.
I glanced at Nicky, and he said, “I top her in the dungeon, but she takes Edward’s orders outside of the bedroom better than mine.”
I didn’t like the wording, but I couldn’t exactly argue with it, so I let it go. “What was the question again?” I asked.
“Who else dominates you or tops you?”
“Besides Nicky, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Does it really matter who?”
“Perhaps not, but how many besides Nicky?”
“Edward,” I said, looking at him.
“Please answer him, Anita,” Edward said.
“Fine.” I counted mentally. “Two.”
“I count more than that,” Nicky said.
I frowned at him. “Asher and Richard, that’s it.”
“Jean-Claude joins you and Richard sometimes, or you and Asher, so he counts.”
“Okay, three.”
Nicky looked at me as if I was missing something.
“What?” I asked.
Angel said, “I’ve been with you when you had sex with a lot of the others, and you really don’t ever do just straight vanilla sex.”
“I do, too,” I said, and meant it.
“Not often,” she said.
I shrugged. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“I’m probably the closest to straight vanilla that Anita has,” Edward said.
Again, Olaf didn’t know he’d just lied his ass off. But just his saying it made me want to squirm with embarrassment, which was probably what kept me from smelling like lies. I was so embarrassed, I was masking Olaf’s werelion senses.
“Anita likes rough enough to keep me happy,” Nicky said.
“So when I said I would be willing to do straight vanilla sex for Anita, that is not what interests her either?” Olaf asked.
“Not usually,” Nicky said.
“I don’t want to have edge-play rough sex every night,” I said.
“No, you don’t,” Nicky said. “That’s why I’m not your only lover. You have other people in your life to meet the needs I don’t.”
“It’s one of the best things about polyamory,” I said.
“Totally agree,” Angel said. “I mean, I like rough from time to time, but I don’t like it as much as Anita does.”
“Edward, I need you to help us make some kind of point here, because I’m getting tired of talking about this in depth in front of everyone.”
“Don’t mind us,” Custer said. “I’m finding it educational.”
I glared at him. He laughed.
“Leave it alone, Pud,” Milligan said.
Custer raised his hands up as if to say he was sorry.
Edward said, “The point is that I’ve seen what Olaf does to women when there’s no one to stop him. I wanted to know if there was anything short of that that would satisfy him with you.”
“I would need to know what Anita does in her RACK play before I could answer that question,” Olaf said.
“I can
answer some of it, but for other stuff, you’d need to talk to Nathaniel or even Asher,” Nicky said.
“No,” I said.
“Anita, if there’s a way to do this without either of you dying, isn’t it worth the embarrassing conversation?” Edward said.
Put that way, it seemed yes, but . . . “Damn it, Edward.”
“Am I wrong?” he asked.
I sighed and just let myself lean against the wall. Okay, maybe I sagged more than leaned. I was so tired of all of this. Surely I didn’t play over the edge enough to satisfy a sexually sadistic serial killer. I mean, I played rough, but not that rough.
“Fine. I can’t argue with the logic of gathering as much information as possible on this.”
“So, can I answer Olaf’s questions or not?” Nicky asked.
“You can, but not with all of us here. Milligan and Custer don’t need to know that much detail about my sex life.”
“Aww,” Custer said, trying to pretend to pout, but the smile ruined it.
“Leave it alone, Pud,” Milligan said again.
Custer stopped talking, but the smile stayed. I could ignore him as long as he didn’t talk.
“Ethan doesn’t like this kind of stuff, and neither does Pierette,” I said. “I think they’d rather not be here for details.”
“I’m your bodyguard. I’ll do my job,” Ethan said.
“As will I,” Pierette said.
“Fine, but I’m not sure I can be in the room with this many people and have this discussion,” I said.
Nicky said, “How about if I give a list, and I stop when you tell me to?”
“I’d rather not have anyone here I’m not sleeping with.”
“I’ve given my word of honor that I will not harm anyone unless you harm me first,” Olaf said.
“That’s his way of saying that Milligan and Custer can wait outside the door or in the other room,” Edward said.
“I know what he means,” I said, and my words sounded cranky even to me.
“She likes breath play,” Nicky said.
“That does not interest me,” Olaf said.
“And we have to clear the room before we do any more on the list,” I said.
I don’t know what we would have done next, because my phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize, but I was hoping it was someone who would get me out of this conversation.
“Blake, this is Livingston.”
“Hi. What’s up?” I asked.
“I need you to meet me at Sugar Creek ASAP.”
“Why is it an emergency to meet you at the restaurant?”
“Hazel just came from the hospital.”
“Newman told us that Carmichael didn’t make it. I’m sorry his girlfriend is having to deal with it.”
“Yes, she came back here to talk to Pamela. I think you need to hear what she has to say.”
“Did she talk to Newman at the hospital?”
“Hazel doesn’t trust anyone local.”
“You’re local.”
“She trusts me because of Pamela. You need to hear what she has to say, Blake.”
“Care to give me a preview?” I asked.
“Just get over here, and don’t mention this call to the sheriff or any of his people. And don’t bring any of your deputies. It’s a regular murder case now, and I’m not sure what involving deputized Therianthropes will do to any evidence we find.”
“I’ve used them before on other cases.”
“Those were supernatural cases through and through. This one isn’t. Regular Marshals Service doesn’t have the ability to deputize anyone, so let’s not give a lawyer the chance to use preternatural deputies against us later.”
“I’ve never had a case go from preternatural to ordinary murder, so I can’t tell you that it won’t negatively impact the case later.”
“Then you agree to leave them out of the rest of the investigation?” he asked.
“I guess so.”
“Then you, Forrester, and Jeffries are the only people I want to see from your branch of service.”
“All right.”
“Good. Now get down here ASAP.” He hung up.
Olaf stood up. “I heard. We need to meet him at the restaurant.”
I filled Edward in since he didn’t have super hearing.
“I can’t tell Livingston he’s wrong about the extra manpower being a problem later in court,” he said.
“Neither can I.”
“We’re your bodyguards,” Nicky said. “We’re not much use if we aren’t with you.”
“I gave my word,” Olaf said.
“His word really is good,” I said.
“It really is,” Edward said.
Nicky and the others didn’t like it much, but in the end, they agreed, so the three of us left them at the motel. They couldn’t even finish the discussion about edge play, because we took Olaf with us, and without him there was no reason to have the talk. Edward and I rode together so I didn’t even have to finish the talk with Olaf. Yay! I did have to ask Edward one question on the quick drive to the restaurant though.
“You know I’m never going to have sex for real with Olaf, right?”
“That was the original plan.”
“I do not like the way you just said that.”
“I’ve never seen him try this hard with anyone. I honestly thought he’d bail on the whole bondage conversation.”
“So did I.”
He glanced at me. “Olaf is being so damn reasonable that we may run out of reasons to say no.”
“It’s not we that he wants to fuck. It’s me.”
“True.”
“True? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“What do you want me to say, Anita?”
“One minute you tell me to kill Olaf or you will, and the next, you make it sound like you’d sign off on me having sex with him. What the hell, Edward?”
“I’m sorry, Anita, but the big guy just keeps surprising me. I thought I knew who Olaf was, what he was, and that there wasn’t enough human being left inside the monster to have a relationship with anyone, let alone my best friend.”
“You’ll miss him when we have to kill him,” I said, and it sounded like an accusation.
“Won’t you?”
I shook my head, and then I thought about it. “I’ll miss him in a fight, but I won’t miss the constant state of threat I feel because he’s out there. If there was a way to have the useful parts without the scary-as-fuck parts, it would be different, but it doesn’t work that way.”
“Maybe it’s the scary parts that make him useful,” Edward said quietly.
“I know it is, and that’s what makes it all so fucking awful. He’s helped us on multiple serial killer cases, but you and I both know where his expertise comes from. It’s like using the medical notes from the Nazi concentration camps to save lives today. Is the help worth what it cost? Can you take help from the devil without losing your soul in the process?”
“I’m an atheist. You know that.”
“Don’t even get me started on the fact that you don’t have enough faith to make a holy object glow in the face of a vampire. The fact that you’ve survived this long without it just proves that God loves you, no matter how you feel about Him.”
He pulled into the packed parking lot of the Sugar Creek Restaurant and Bakery.
“Is this place always packed?” I said.
He started searching for a parking place without answering me. I guess I didn’t really need an answer.
“I thought I could come up with enough rules or things Olaf would hate that he would just drop the idea of sex with you,” Edward said, “but he keeps surprising me.”
“Yeah, I thought you’d come up with a great idea to make him back off, bu
t then he hung in there through all the bondage-negotiation talk.”
A dark blue truck started to pull out ahead of us. Edward put on his turn signal and vultured while cars started getting trapped behind him. The person driving the truck didn’t seem to know how to back up without hitting the cars behind them. Big trucks were tricky. It was one of the reasons I didn’t own one; that and I was too short to get into them without climbing. I didn’t need to drive a daily reminder that I was shorter-than-average height for a woman.
“What if Olaf agrees to something that you’d do if it wasn’t him?” Edward asked.
I stared at the side of his face, because it was all I could see. He tried to just look at the truck in front of us, but it was taking so long, he finally had to look at me. His face was empty and unreadable behind the sunglasses.
“You cannot be serious,” I said.
“Petra, or Pierette, is right about one thing, Anita: Your beast doesn’t react to someone unless you’re attracted to them.”
“And?” I said. The one word was as cold and empty as his expression.
“Your beast likes Olaf a lot.”
“The last person my lioness liked this much ended up trying to kill Nathaniel. If Noel hadn’t pushed him out of the way and taken the bullet, I’d have lost Nathaniel.”
“I’m sorry you had to kill Haven to protect everyone, Anita. I know it cost you.”
“Then how can you ask me to even consider another werelion that’s even more dangerous? I will not risk the people I love or the people that I’ve given my protection to because we’re too gutless to tell Olaf the truth.”
The truck finally managed to exit without crashing into the cars in back of it. It took the truck even more time to finally get turned so it could start forward enough that Edward could begin to slide into the parking spot. The truck backed up again. Edward had to slam on his brakes and prove the seat belts worked, or the truck would have hit us. The truck began to try to go forward. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to drive big trucks.
“And what is the truth, Anita?”
“I can’t be his serial killer girlfriend.”
“He doesn’t want a girlfriend. He wants to try sex without killing the woman.”
“Say we manage it. Say we find a set of bondage rules that keeps me safe enough to fuck him. Then what? If it satisfies him, then I’m stuck as his lover forever? If it doesn’t satisfy him, then he still wants to fuck me, but now he wants to do it his way, which means he’ll torture and kill me during the process? There is no win here, Edward.”
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