Crimson Death
Page 172
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“They worry about us,” I said.
He gave a small laugh. “Yeah, they do.”
“Why is that funny?”
“You and me with domestic lives.”
I laughed and sipped my coffee. “Yeah, we were both such loners when we met. Now look at us.”
“I’m about to be married with children, and you have more domestic partners and fiancés than most old-school Mormons.”
“I’m not a polygamist, Edward.”
“Oh, really?”
“I’m into polyandry, not polygamy.”
“Polyandry means multiple men, I know, but I’ve met the three women you’re traveling with, and I think they put plenty of ‘ygamy’ into your ‘andry.’”
I laughed, and some tightness in my heart eased. “Thanks for that. I’ll see you soon.”
Nathaniel said, “You also promised Jean-Claude that you’d feed the ardeur before you went out today.”
“Let’s eat and get dressed and see how long that takes,” I said. I looked at Damian. “We have to dress him, too, before he goes in the duffel bag to carry for the day.”
“Dressing a dead body is a lot harder than it sounds,” Domino said.
“It’s not that hard,” Nicky said.
I looked from one to the other of them. Nathaniel said, “You aren’t talking about dressing vampires, are you?”
They looked at each other, then back at us, and said in unison, “No.”
“Then the two of you get to dress Damian, while Nathaniel and I dress ourselves.”
“I’ll let the others know that we’ll be moving out sooner than we’d planned,” Ethan said.
“Tell them that Roarke escaped and how,” I said.
Ethan nodded. “Of course.” He went out and left us to dress and get ready for a day of crime fighting. I was really glad that Nicky and Domino were going to be dressing the vampire. I didn’t want to touch him right now; the thought of it made my skin creep. Some big, tough vampire slayer I turned out to be.
“You really should feed the ardeur before we leave the room,” Nicky said. Domino and he were laying Damian out on his back on the bed. It was the way you laid a corpse before you bagged it.
I shook my head. “I promise to feed later, but right now let’s see if we can catch some bad guys.” They stopped trying to argue with me. One of the good things about them all being able to feel varying degrees of what I was truly feeling and thinking was that they knew when I was done. As I watched them start to dress the corpse in my bed, I was done. Fortune would be packing Echo into the big duffel bag, too. It was like body disposal, except we kept the bodies.
61
SOMEONE WHO KNEW more about jet lag than I did put us in a room with a window. Apparently, as much sunlight as possible even the second day you land in a different time zone helped you not get so much lag in your jet-set lifestyle. Natural sunlight on your skin outside was better, but we’d take what we could get while we looked at the crime scene photos. Nathaniel, Dev, Fortune, Pride, Donnie, and Griffin all went out to sightsee in the sunshine. Nathaniel kissed me good-bye, and I wrapped the feel of him around me like you’d wrap your favorite robe, a comfort object that just happened to be the man I loved. As we drew apart, Dev stepped up and said, “Me next.” I frowned at him, because it was sort of presumptuous and we were in the hallway with police persons watching. I tried not to be too kissy-face at work, because it played hell with your reputation. It wasn’t the brilliant smile that made me not be cranky; it was the uncertainty in his eyes that let me know he wasn’t sure of his welcome. The handsome, confident Mephistopheles wouldn’t have gotten cuddles from me in front of the other officers, but the less confident Dev got more play with me. He wrapped one arm around me and the other around Nathaniel. I had a moment of hugging them both, and it was good, but I suddenly missed Micah. It was like a wave of homesickness for the feel of him in our arms. I tried wrapping my arms around both of the men with me, but when I tried to cuddle between them, my spot on Nathaniel’s chest didn’t have the curve of Micah’s neck on the other side of me. Dev was so tall that my face was pressed even lower on his chest than on Nathaniel’s so that I could hear the thick beat of his heart against my ear. Sometimes when Jean-Claude was in high enough boots, I could rest my head over his heart, but the vampire’s heart didn’t always beat, so I wasn’t used to this thick, constant beat against my ear. It was both reassuring and unnerving, because I wasn’t accustomed to it. Nathaniel stepped back so that Dev could wrap his arms around just me. It left me cuddled against his chest with the sound of his heartbeat thick and sure against my ear. He touched my hair with his fingers, which made me raise my head so I could look up all that tall, broad upper body to meet his eyes. He was watching me watching him, and I realized that I’d taken too long. I should have offered a kiss and let him go off with Nathaniel for their sightseeing. Now it had gone on too long and the sounds around us were growing quiet as the police and other personnel were slowly stopping what they were doing to watch. I didn’t look around to see if I was right, or if I was just being self-conscious, because I’d learned that if people were watching you didn’t want to make eye contact, and if they weren’t watching you felt silly for looking.
“What are you thinking?” he asked softly.
“That I can never decide what color your eyes are.”
He smiled, and said, “My driver’s license says blue.”
“So does Nathaniel’s, but his really aren’t blue,” I said, smiling back.
“I like that you think about my eyes that much.”
I didn’t tell him that it was partly because the rest of him puzzled me almost as much as his eyes. I hugged him more tightly around the waist, pressing our bodies even closer together. Close enough that I could feel that he was beginning to be happy to be there, which meant I needed to kiss him and send him on his way before he got to the point where walking was uncomfortable without adjusting things.
I moved minutely so we had a little more room so that I could go up on tiptoe and he could bend down. He brought his hand up to cradle one side of my face, while his other arm stayed behind me to steady me as I rose to meet his lips. The kiss was soft, but with more lips moving than that sounds like, a tender kiss, with just an edge of tongue like a promise for later. Things low in my body responded to him so that I was breathless when he broke the kiss and pulled back to look into my eyes. If I’d been a man, Devereux wouldn’t have been the only one who needed to adjust things before we walked away.
“Wow,” I said softly.
He gave a small laugh. “Yeah, they do.”
“Why is that funny?”
“You and me with domestic lives.”
I laughed and sipped my coffee. “Yeah, we were both such loners when we met. Now look at us.”
“I’m about to be married with children, and you have more domestic partners and fiancés than most old-school Mormons.”
“I’m not a polygamist, Edward.”
“Oh, really?”
“I’m into polyandry, not polygamy.”
“Polyandry means multiple men, I know, but I’ve met the three women you’re traveling with, and I think they put plenty of ‘ygamy’ into your ‘andry.’”
I laughed, and some tightness in my heart eased. “Thanks for that. I’ll see you soon.”
Nathaniel said, “You also promised Jean-Claude that you’d feed the ardeur before you went out today.”
“Let’s eat and get dressed and see how long that takes,” I said. I looked at Damian. “We have to dress him, too, before he goes in the duffel bag to carry for the day.”
“Dressing a dead body is a lot harder than it sounds,” Domino said.
“It’s not that hard,” Nicky said.
I looked from one to the other of them. Nathaniel said, “You aren’t talking about dressing vampires, are you?”
They looked at each other, then back at us, and said in unison, “No.”
“Then the two of you get to dress Damian, while Nathaniel and I dress ourselves.”
“I’ll let the others know that we’ll be moving out sooner than we’d planned,” Ethan said.
“Tell them that Roarke escaped and how,” I said.
Ethan nodded. “Of course.” He went out and left us to dress and get ready for a day of crime fighting. I was really glad that Nicky and Domino were going to be dressing the vampire. I didn’t want to touch him right now; the thought of it made my skin creep. Some big, tough vampire slayer I turned out to be.
“You really should feed the ardeur before we leave the room,” Nicky said. Domino and he were laying Damian out on his back on the bed. It was the way you laid a corpse before you bagged it.
I shook my head. “I promise to feed later, but right now let’s see if we can catch some bad guys.” They stopped trying to argue with me. One of the good things about them all being able to feel varying degrees of what I was truly feeling and thinking was that they knew when I was done. As I watched them start to dress the corpse in my bed, I was done. Fortune would be packing Echo into the big duffel bag, too. It was like body disposal, except we kept the bodies.
61
SOMEONE WHO KNEW more about jet lag than I did put us in a room with a window. Apparently, as much sunlight as possible even the second day you land in a different time zone helped you not get so much lag in your jet-set lifestyle. Natural sunlight on your skin outside was better, but we’d take what we could get while we looked at the crime scene photos. Nathaniel, Dev, Fortune, Pride, Donnie, and Griffin all went out to sightsee in the sunshine. Nathaniel kissed me good-bye, and I wrapped the feel of him around me like you’d wrap your favorite robe, a comfort object that just happened to be the man I loved. As we drew apart, Dev stepped up and said, “Me next.” I frowned at him, because it was sort of presumptuous and we were in the hallway with police persons watching. I tried not to be too kissy-face at work, because it played hell with your reputation. It wasn’t the brilliant smile that made me not be cranky; it was the uncertainty in his eyes that let me know he wasn’t sure of his welcome. The handsome, confident Mephistopheles wouldn’t have gotten cuddles from me in front of the other officers, but the less confident Dev got more play with me. He wrapped one arm around me and the other around Nathaniel. I had a moment of hugging them both, and it was good, but I suddenly missed Micah. It was like a wave of homesickness for the feel of him in our arms. I tried wrapping my arms around both of the men with me, but when I tried to cuddle between them, my spot on Nathaniel’s chest didn’t have the curve of Micah’s neck on the other side of me. Dev was so tall that my face was pressed even lower on his chest than on Nathaniel’s so that I could hear the thick beat of his heart against my ear. Sometimes when Jean-Claude was in high enough boots, I could rest my head over his heart, but the vampire’s heart didn’t always beat, so I wasn’t used to this thick, constant beat against my ear. It was both reassuring and unnerving, because I wasn’t accustomed to it. Nathaniel stepped back so that Dev could wrap his arms around just me. It left me cuddled against his chest with the sound of his heartbeat thick and sure against my ear. He touched my hair with his fingers, which made me raise my head so I could look up all that tall, broad upper body to meet his eyes. He was watching me watching him, and I realized that I’d taken too long. I should have offered a kiss and let him go off with Nathaniel for their sightseeing. Now it had gone on too long and the sounds around us were growing quiet as the police and other personnel were slowly stopping what they were doing to watch. I didn’t look around to see if I was right, or if I was just being self-conscious, because I’d learned that if people were watching you didn’t want to make eye contact, and if they weren’t watching you felt silly for looking.
“What are you thinking?” he asked softly.
“That I can never decide what color your eyes are.”
He smiled, and said, “My driver’s license says blue.”
“So does Nathaniel’s, but his really aren’t blue,” I said, smiling back.
“I like that you think about my eyes that much.”
I didn’t tell him that it was partly because the rest of him puzzled me almost as much as his eyes. I hugged him more tightly around the waist, pressing our bodies even closer together. Close enough that I could feel that he was beginning to be happy to be there, which meant I needed to kiss him and send him on his way before he got to the point where walking was uncomfortable without adjusting things.
I moved minutely so we had a little more room so that I could go up on tiptoe and he could bend down. He brought his hand up to cradle one side of my face, while his other arm stayed behind me to steady me as I rose to meet his lips. The kiss was soft, but with more lips moving than that sounds like, a tender kiss, with just an edge of tongue like a promise for later. Things low in my body responded to him so that I was breathless when he broke the kiss and pulled back to look into my eyes. If I’d been a man, Devereux wouldn’t have been the only one who needed to adjust things before we walked away.
“Wow,” I said softly.
