I was leaning very close to him, my arm down the length of his back. I'd finally gotten over the embarrassment with the sheer concentration of prying the dried bits from his body. It was like dissecting that frog in high school. It was gross until the teacher told me to cut out the brain. Then I got so interested in scraping the skull away, ever so carefully, so as not to damage the brain, that I forgot the smell, the poor pitiful frog, and just concentrated on getting the brain out in one piece. My lab partner and I were the only pair to get the brain out whole.
Jason turned his head towards me, brushing my hair with his face. "You smell like Cherry's base makeup."
I spoke without looking up. "I don't own any base so she put some of hers on me earlier. She wears base that is way too pale for her, so it works for me. I thought I got all of it off."
"Hmm," he said. His mouth was very close to my ear.
I froze in mid-movement. My body pressed against his back, my hand touching the smooth skin just above his buttocks. There was a tension now that hadn't been there. My pulse sped up with the awareness of his body, because I suddenly knew he was aware of me. I got the last piece of dried goop off his skin and took a deep breath. I started to lean back and knew that he was going to try something. Part of me was nervous about it and part of me was relieved. It was Jason after all, and he was naked, and I was close, and it was Jason. If he'd let the opportunity pass, I'd have known he was hurt beyond anything I could fix.
His arm slid around my waist, and he used that incredible speed that they were capable of. I felt him lift me and we were just suddenly on the floor with him on top. It was his legs on my legs that pinned me. He used his arms to keep his body raised enough that his groin didn't press into me, which of course meant my view of his body was unobstructed. A mixed blessing. He began to lean his face down for a kiss.
I put a hand on his chest and stopped the movement. "Stop it, Jason."
"The last time I did this you shoved a gun in my ribs and said you'd shoot me if I stole a kiss."
"I meant it," I said.
"You're armed," he said, "I'm not holding your hands down."
I sighed. "You know my rule. I don't point a gun at anyone unless I plan to shoot them. You're my friend now, Jason. I'm not going to shoot you for stealing a kiss. You know it, I know it."
He smiled and leaned in closer. My hand was on his chest but my hand just kept getting closer to my own chest. "But I also don't want you to kiss me. If you're really my friend, you won't do it. You'll just let me up."
His face was just above mine so close it was hard to focus on his eyes. "What if I tried for more than a kiss?" He moved his face so his mouth was hovering over my chest. I could feel his breath just above the soft line where my breasts began.
"Don't push it, Jason. If I shoot you in the right spot, it won't kill you, you'll be hurt, but you'll heal."
He raised his face back up to me. He grinned, and started to roll off of me. The door opened and Richard was just suddenly standing there staring down at us. Perfect, just perfect.
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.
23
There were three people in my bed; none of them were me. Cherry and Zane had curled up around Nathaniel like fleshy security blankets. I'd been informed that the physical closeness of your group, whatever the animal flavor, was healing both emotionally and physically. Richard had backed up this bit of werelore, so the wereleopards got the bed, because Nathaniel had hysterics at the thought of being without me.
So the wereleopards got the bed, and I got the floor. I managed to get a blanket and a pillow to go with my bit of carpet. We were in a new cabin. Verne was going to try to clean the old cabin, but the bed and carpet were probably a lost cause.
I apologized for that, but Verne seemed to think I could do no wrong. He was tickled pink, purple, and blue that I'd fried Colin's vamps. I was not so happy. Revenge can be a very scary thing. If someone had done to Jean-Claude's vamps what I did to Colin's vamps, I'd ... we'd have killed them.