I clicked the safety back on but didn't put up the gun. He was mad. I could feel it. I'd seen him toss a solid oak four poster king-size bed around like it was nothing when he was angry. I'd keep the gun, just in case. I didn't like keeping it, but the moral dilemma didn't bother me enough to put it away. I hit the lights. I sat blinking in the sudden brightness, a hard knot forming in my stomach. I did not want to see him. I hadn't known what to say to him since the night I'd first slept with Jean-Claude. The night I'd run from Richard, run from what he was on the night of the full moon. Run from the sight of his beast.
I padded barefoot to the chair and gathered my clothes up. I was struggling into the strapless bra, gun beside me on the bed, when I smelled his after-shave. I felt the air move under the door and knew it was his body disrupting the currents of air. His aftershave wasn't that strong. I shouldn't have smelled it. I knew suddenly as if it had been whispered in my ear that Richard could smell me through the door, that he knew I'd worn Oscar de la Renta parfume for Jean-Claude.
I felt his fingertips press to either side of the door in a small push up motion, felt him draw a breath and scent my body deep into him.
What the hell was going on? We'd been bound for two months, and I'd never felt anything like this, not with Richard, and not with Jean-Claude.
Richard's voice, achingly familiar: "Anita, I need to talk to you." The anger was in his voice; in his body, rage. He was like thunder pressed against the door.
"I'm getting dressed," I said.
I heard him pace in front of the door. "I know. I can feel you in there. What's happening to us?"
That was a loaded question if ever I'd heard one. I was wondering if he could feel my hands as I'd felt his a moment ago. "We haven't been this close at dawn since we were bound. Jean-Claude isn't here to act as a buffer." I hoped that was it. The only alternative I could think of was that the council had done something to our marks. I didn't think that was it, though. But we wouldn't know for sure until we could ask Jean-Claude. Damn.
Richard tried the door handle. "What's taking so long?"
"I'm almost done," I said. I slipped the dress on. It was actually the easiest piece of clothing to get into. The shoes were not comfortable without hose, but I would have felt even less prepared barefoot. Can't explain it, but shoes make me feel better. I moved the chair and unlocked the door. I stepped back, a little too quick, until I was on the far side of the room. I put my hands behind me, still holding the gun. I didn't think he'd hurt me, but I'd never felt him like this. His anger was like a burning knot in my gut.
He opened the door carefully, as if he was having to think before each movement. His control was a trembling line between his rage and me.
He was six foot one, broad-shouldered, with high-sculpted cheekbones, and a wide soft mouth. There was a dimple in his chin, and he was altogether too handsome. His eyes were still perfect chocolate brown; only the pain in them was new. His hair fell in thick waves around his shoulders, a brown so full of gold and copper highlights that there should have been a different word for it. Brown is a dull word, and his hair was not dull. I'd loved running my hands through his hair, grabbing fistfuls of it when we kissed.
He was wearing a blood-red tank top that left his muscular shoulders and arms bare. I knew that every inch of him you could see, and what you could not, was tanned a nice soft brown. But it wasn't really tanned, just his natural skin color.
My heart was beating in my throat, but it wasn't fear. He stared at me in the black dress. Face scrubbed clean of makeup, my hair uncombed, and I felt his body react to the sight of me. I felt it like a twist in my own body. I had to close my eyes to keep from looking at his jeans to see if what I was feeling was visible.
When I opened my eyes, he hadn't moved. He just stood there in the middle of the room, hands balled into fists, breathing a little too hard. His eyes were wild, showing too much white like a horse about to bolt.
I found my voice first. "You said you wanted to talk, so talk." I sounded breathless. It was like I could feel Richard's heart, his chest rising and falling, like it was my own. I'd had moments of this with Jean-Claude, but never with Richard. If we'd still been seeing each other, it would have been intriguing. Now, it was just confusing.
He relaxed his hands, flexing them, fighting not to make fists. "Jean-Claude said he was protecting us from each other. Keeping us from getting too close until we were ready. I didn't believe him, until now."
I nodded. "It's awkward."
He smiled, and shook his head, but the smile never took the anger out of his eyes. "Awkward? Is that all it is to you, Anita? Just awkward?"
"You can feel what I'm feeling, right now, Richard. Answer your own damn question."
He closed his eyes and pressed his hands together in front of his chest. He pressed his palms together until his arms trembled with the effort and the muscles corded, straining against his skin all the way up to his shoulders.
I felt him withdraw from me. Though that doesn't cover how it felt. It was like he built a wall between us. He was raising mental shields between us. Someone had to. I hadn't thought to try. The sight and feel of him in my mind had turned me into a pulsing hormone. It was too embarrassing for words.
I watched his body relax, a muscle at a time, until he opened his eyes, slowly, almost sleepily, his body quiet, at peace. I'd never been that good at meditation.
He lowered his arms and looked at me. "Better?"
I nodded. "Yes, thank you."
He shook his head. "Don't thank me. It was either control it or run screaming."
We stood there, staring at each other. The silence was uncomfortably thick. "What do you want, Richard?"
He gave a choking laugh that brought heat in a rush up my face. "You know what I meant," I said.
"Yes," he said, "I know what you meant. You invoked your status as lupa while I was out of town."
"You mean protecting Stephen?"
He nodded. "You had no right to go against Sylvie's express orders. She was the one I left in charge, not you."
"She'd removed pack protection from him. Do you know what that means?"
"Better than you do," he said. "Without protection of a dominant you're anybody's meat that wants you, like the wereleopards after you killed Gabriel."
I pushed away from the wall. "If you had told me what was happening to them, Richard, I'd have helped them."
"Would you?" he asked. He motioned to the gun in my hand. "Or would you just have killed them?"
"No, that's what Sylvie wanted to do, not me." But I stood there with the gun in my hand and didn't know a graceful way to put it down.
"I know how much you hate shapeshifters, Anita. I didn't think you'd give a damn, and no one else did either or they'd have told you. They all thought you wouldn't care. I mean if you could reject someone you supposedly loved because they turned into a monster once a month, what chance did strangers have?"
He was being deliberately cruel. I'd never seen him do anything just to hurt, just to try and dig the knife in a little deeper. It was petty, and that was one thing Richard was not.
"You know me better than that," I said.
"Do I?" he said. He sat down on the bed, grabbing two handfuls of sheet. He raised the cloth to his face and took a long deep breath. He watched me with angry eyes while he did it. "The smell of you still moves me like some kind of drug, and I hate you for it."
"I just spent a few minutes inside your head, remember. You don't hate me, Richard. It'd be less painful if you did."
He crumpled the sheet in his lap, hands balling the cloth into tight fists. "Love doesn't conquer all, does it?" he asked.
I shook my head. "No, it doesn't."