Blue Moon (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 8)

22

"Would you believe I slipped?" Jason asked.

"No," Richard said. That one word was very cold.

"Get off of me, Jason."

He rolled to one side but made no move to grab for a towel. Richard threw the towel at him. Jason caught it, and his eyes sparkled with the effort not to smile. Jason had a streak in him that made him enjoy yanking someone's chain. He liked to stir the pot and see what happened. Someday he was going to do it with the wrong person, and he was going to get hurt. But not tonight.

"Get out, Jason. I need to talk to Anita."

Jason stood and wrapped the towel around his waist. I'd sat up but hadn't stood up. Jason offered me his hand. I almost never let a man help me stand, sit, or do much of anything. I took Jason's hand, and he gave it that little extra pull that made me bump into him when I got to my feet.

"You want me to go?" he asked.

I moved a step back but let him keep my hand. "I'll be all right," I said.

Jason grinned up at Richard as he walked out the door. Richard closed the door, leaning against it. I was effectively trapped and he was angry enough that the room filled with prickling energy.

"What was all that about?" he asked.

"It's none of your business anymore, is it?" I asked.

"Earlier today I thought you turned me down because you were being loyal to Jean-Claude."

"I turned you down because it was the right thing to do." I went to the sink and started trying to clean the bits of black crud out from under my fingernails.

"If Jean-Claude finds out you're doing Jason, he'd hurt him, maybe kill him."

"Are you going to tell on us? Run home tattling to our master?" I looked at him in the mirror when I said it. My reward was that he flinched. A little too close to home, that comment.

"Why Jason?" he asked.

"Do you really believe that I'm having sex with Jason?" I turned and used the slightly damp towel to dry my hands.

Richard just looked at me.

"Jesus, Richard, just because you're jumping everything in sight doesn't mean I am." I sat down on the closed stool and tried to blot my jeans dry with the towel.

"So you're not sleeping with him?"

The towel was not helping the jeans. "No, I'm not." I threw the towel in the corner. "I can't believe you'd even ask."

"If you'd found me on the floor with a naked woman on top of me, you'd have thought the same thing," he said.

Hmm, he had me there. "All the women I'd find you with would be strangers who are either dating you, fucking you, or both. What you saw on the floor was Jason being Jason. You know how he is."

"You used to threaten to shoot him if he touched you."

I stood. "Do you really want me to shoot him because he made a pass? I thought one of our main problems was that you thought I shot first and asked questions later. I think you called me bloodthirsty." I pushed past him and where our skin touched power flared like an invisible flame.

He moved back clutching his arm like it had hurt. But I knew it hadn't hurt. It had felt wonderful, a rush of power to make your hair stand on end. It was little touches like that that let us both know what it could be between us.

I walked out. So there was power between us, so there was heat, so what? It didn't change the fact that I was sleeping with Jean-Claude. It didn't change the fact that Richard was sleeping around. The fact that I was jealous of his girlfriends and he was jealous of any man he thought I might be having sex with was just a nasty cosmic joke. We'd get over it.