Anita Blake 20 - Hit List (32 page)

“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.

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 away from Nicky since he came to St. Louis. I thought about it; was this the longest I’d ever been away from home since Jean-Claude and I had been dating? I stood there holding Nicky’s hand and feeling it like an anchor in all this mess. If it had been Jean-Claude, or Micah, holding my hand, how much worse would the draw have been? Was I more than homesick? Was it more than just not feeding theardeur that had caused the tree limb to hurt me so badly, and caused me to need sex to heal? Was it literally not being home with Jean-Claude and the other men that was affecting how well I healed?

I stood there holding Nicky’s hand and feeling better than I’d felt in days, or was that just my imagination? I wasn’t sure, and the fact that I couldn’t tell said something, too. Shit.

“I’ll sit in front because I want to touch you. It’s like I’m more than just hungry for theardeur , it’s like the metaphysical tie is making you more touchable than normal.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but just let me sit up front and get to the hotel. We’ll go from there.”

“I don’t understand, Anita.”

“Neither do I,” I said, and we left it at that. But I sat up front with Lisandro, though when Nicky touched my shoulder, I put my hand up to his and we held hands all the way there.

LISANDRO DROVE INTO the parking lot. I said, “Park in front of the office. I’ve got to see if they have enough rooms for everyone.”

He didn’t argue, just turned in the opposite direction from the rooms. Nicky leaned against the back of my seat, his hand still in mine, but now he could lean his face around the headrest and nuzzle the side of my face. I leaned in against that touch, as if I couldn’t help myself, but I said,

“Car’s still moving. You need your seatbelt on.”

He spoke low, mouth buried in my hair. “We’re going ten miles an hour, Anita. I’ll be fine.”

I fought the urge to tell him to put it on anyway, because I was sort of fanatical about seatbelts staying on until a car came to a complete stop, but Nicky was right. Hell, as a shapeshifter he could go through the windshield full speed and survive. I had a moment to think, if my mother had been a shapeshifter she wouldn’t have died when I was eight. I had one of those moments of clarity, and wondered if I dated only preternatural men because they would survive.

Lisandro found a parking space in front of the banked windows of the office area. I had to pull away from Nicky to get out of the car, but the moment we were both free of the car, he took my hand in his. It was my right hand and my main gun hand, but since he was right-handed, too, one of us was going to have to compromise their gun hand. I had to force myself to do what I normally did automatically, which was to pull my hand out of his, and play a few minutes of who was going to complicate their ability to draw their weapon. I just knew it wasn’t going to be me.

It was one of the reasons that Nicky and I didn’t hold hands much in public, because he was my bodyguard, among other things. The fact that we were both willing to have his right hand occupied, when we were out hunting dangerous things, was another clue that something was wrong with my need to touch and be near my metaphysical men. I promised myself to call Jean-Claude after he woke for the day and see if he had a clue.

But good idea or bad idea, Nicky and I followed Lisandro through the door to the office hand in hand. The moment we stepped inside, the rich, dark scent of coffee was everywhere. I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had coffee. How had I let that happen? It had been a busy day, but still . . . The desk clerk who had worried about losing his job at the crime scene turned from the full coffee carafe, smiling. His short, dark brown hair was neatly combed this time, and almost didn’t match the oversized superhero T-shirt, jeans, and well-loved jogging shoes, as if his mother did his hair, but he dressed himself.

“Fresh coffee, if you want it?” he said, and pushed his silver-framed glasses up his nose in one of those automatic gestures people with glasses make.

“It smells like real coffee,” I said, pulling Nicky with me toward the tempting scent. Yes, we had bad guys to catch, but even crime fighters need coffee.

He grinned at me. “Boss says I have to keep coffee in the pot all day. He doesn’t say it has to be bad coffee.”

“I like the way you think,” I said.

He set out three cups and started pouring very dark, very rich coffee into them.

“You like coffee,” Lisandro said, from just behind us.

“None for me, thanks,” Nicky said.

The clerk, whose name completely escaped me, stopped in midpour, spilling a tiny bit down the side of the cup. “Sorry.” He put the pot back on the coffeemaker and reached for napkins and wiped off the side of the second cup. “I’m just glad some of you are drinking it. I hate wasting good coffee.”

Lisandro and I both took the cups. Nicky went back to being alert, as if someone might jump out of the walls and attack. He was right, though; he and I had to get a handle on whatever was making us be so touchy-feely, or I’d have to send him home. The real test would be if I was as bad around Domino, because he was the only other man from home who had a metaphysical tie to me. If it was both of them, then, well, that would mean something was wrong with the metaphysics, and that would be bad.

I breathed in the scent of the coffee, letting myself close my eyes for a moment and just enjoy it.

I could tell by the smell alone that it wouldn’t need sugar or cream, it was good just the way it was.

“How can I help you, Marshal?” the clerk said.

I opened my eyes and smiled. “Sorry, got distracted by the coffee.”

He smiled back and shrugged thin shoulders. “Glad I could make your day a little better. I’m so sorry about the other marshal getting hurt.”

“Thank you,” I said. “We’re actually here to get clothes from her room to take back to the hospital.”

“So she’s okay?”

I shrugged and smiled noncommittally. I doubted the marshal service wanted the media to learn about Karlton being a werewolf, and I knew Karlton didn’t.

Lisandro said, “We also need rooms.”

I nodded, and he was right to get me back on track. What the hell was wrong with me? I was losing focus in the middle of a case, that wasn’t like me. Not to this degree anyway.

The clerk went behind the desk and said, “How many people, and are they comfortable with sharing rooms?”

I started to answer, but Bernardo and Olaf came into the office. Olaf was almost too tall for the drop ceiling. I had a moment to wonder how it would feel to be so tall that ceilings were too short. It was so not the problem I had.

“Fresh coffee,” the clerk called out cheerfully as he typed on his keyboard. “How many rooms do you need?”

I counted in my head while I sipped the coffee. It was as good as it smelled; yum. “Three, with two beds apiece.”

“Thanks, Ron,” Bernardo called out and went toward the coffee. It made me think better of Bernardo that he knew the clerk’s name. If the clerk had been female I’d have expected it, but that he remembered the man’s name to be friendly made me wonder if some of the flirting from Bernardo was just a level of social enjoyment that I didn’t have with strangers.

“So, room for six,” Ron said, typing on the keyboard.

“Yeah.”

Olaf came to stand near the desk.

Ron gave him a nervous flick of eyes that seemed to take in the top of his bald head that was ever so close to the ceiling tiles. “Coffee machine is over there.”