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Chapter Seventeen

I DID A quick cleanup, and then realized I had no clothes in the bathroo in a heap beside the bed Great I wrapped the towel er towels aroundshort was that the towel coveredwas that almost no matter as in the other room, they&039;d probably seen otten nored everybody But I couldn&039;t do it I just couldn&039;t do it I wasn&039;t that comfortable around my own nudity There were days when I was pretty sure I&039;d never be that coun was outside in the bedroom My clothes I could live without, but that I&039;d left un in the other rooet myself, even the parts of me that almost no one else could drive froo out there unarmed, I don&039;t knohy I just couldn&039;t do it I was still aching all the way up to al hadstupid and vulnerable I wanted a gun It would make me feel better There, that was the truth I&039;d started hiding guns in the places where I spent a lot of tiency, but hell with it, it was un If I felt the need, screw it

I knelt down by the sink and opened the cabinet doors I had to reach back and up into the plu the pipes There&039;d been a couple of tiuns and needed a gun So I&039;d given into my paranoia and hidden a few around The Firestar wasn&039;t un anyht the gun out into the light and laughed There riting on the tape It read, "Anita&039;s gun," in Nathaniel&039;s handwriting He&039;d been with me the day I did it Apparently he&039;d added his own little touch when I wasn&039;t looking He&039;d handed me the pieces of tape Had he written on it then, and I just hadn&039;t noticed, or had he come back later? I&039;d ask hi un I&039;d have put it in ainst the white towel I tried the grip in htness in the center of un makes you feel this un was still loaded, because any tiht, you daun is either loaded or unloaded; check it yourself Gun safety 101

Towel tucked tight under ht for a moment the bedroom was empty, but then Clay and Graha in the room&039;s only chairs

"Clay, shouldn&039;t you be in bed soot off work at Guilty Pleasures" I looked at the bed and found it stripped down to the slightly singed un had been there somewhere

As if he read un is in the bedside table"

I didn&039;t check tothe truth One, I trusted Clay; two, I had a gun in one hand and the other hand helped hold the towel in place I was armed and out of hands "Thanks, but why aren&039;t you in bed?"

"After they found the bugs in all the businesses, Jean-Claude asked us to do double shifts" He ran his hand through his short blond curls Early twenties looked better on no sleep, but he still looked tired

"Don&039;t I even get a hello?" Grahaht a frown He was about the same size as Clay: six feet tall, but his shoulders were much broader Graha would give you His black hair was so long on top that his dark eyes peered out from the hair The bottom of his hair was freshly shaved, very short, so that it looked like two different haircuts put together He wasn&039;t wearing the black T-shirt that was standard bodyguard wear He earing red The red shirt was a new addition to the bodyguard uniform Most of them were still in black, some with the appropriate club name and "Security" written on theuard was okay with being eency food for the ardeur It had been Reinally He&039;d come up with it after I&039;d nearly killed Dah I thought the red shirt idea was a joke until the first guard showed up wearing one

Strangely, since the red shirt policy went into effect, I&039;d gained a much better control over the ardeur Let&039;s hear it for fear, e to get intosurprise that he volunteered What creeped uards who&039;d done it Men I hadn&039;t known thought ofto suspect a man lusts after you, but absolute confirmation, well, that made me uncomfortable

"Hey, Graham, nice shirt," I said, and I was happy that it sounded hostile

"Why are you mad at me? It&039;s not my rule Be mad at Remus, or Claudia, or Jean-Claude It&039;s their rule that you are not to be alone in a roo to feed the ardeur"

"Since when?" I asked

"Since thisdetails, but apparently the people who give us orders are worried that the bad guys will use o out of control So you have to have food at all ti pissy was finally rubbing off on Graham Good

"We&039;re short of red shirts today, Anita," Clay said

"Why?"

"Because the guard is doubled around all of Jean-Claude&039;s businesses He&039;s having to renegotiate with Rafael and Narcissus for et ed a look "Maybe," Clay said

I was getting cold standing there in nothing but a towel, so I went to the ar for except money?" I said I stared at the double door of the arun in the other hand I&039;d never been good at getting a towel to stay fastened It wasn&039;t like both of the men hadn&039;t seen me naked But damn it

"Power," Clay said "Everyone wants a closer tie to Jean-Claude now that he&039;s his own vampire bloodline And Narcissus is seriously freaked that Asher&039;s new animal to call is hyena"

"Freaked how?" I asked I tucked the ared on the door of the armoire It stuck

"We&039;re wolves, not hyenas, so this is all secondhand," Clay said "Narcissus wants guarantees that Asher won&039;t try to run his clan"

I finally got the door opened; yea for h to do that"

"Maybe," Clay said, "but Narcissus is worried about it He wants to negotiate now before it&039;s an issue"

I had black jeans in hand, but I really needed the second hand to get the other clothes

"Oh, for God&039;s sake," Grahaot closer I got little bits of it, like ee of the jeans in lared at each other "I&039;ll just hold the clothes for you, Anita That&039;s it, okay?"

It was a reasonable idea It was helpful So why didn&039;t I want to do it? Because Grahaed me His persistent pursuit of sex with me, with no pretense of e Of course, if he&039;d lied aboutthe love of his life, that would have pissed o of the jeans I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, "Thank you"

Graham blinked down at me as if I&039;d never said thank you to him before Maybe I hadn&039;t Shame on me then He put his life on the line to keep me safe So he was a lech; at least he was an honest lech

I looked up at hiht uptilt of his brown eyes His ot him the hair and eyes The rest of him looked like his blond and blue-eyed father had cloned hiht hadn&039;t made me like him better In fact it had ood people Would they be asha their only child was? It seemed likely

I shook my head and turned back to the ar dressed That would help me feel better I always felt better with clothes on Grandht nakedlow on shirts here My choices were black or red Black uards, and red, well, red looked like all the red shirts were my people, like a special Anita Blake uniform I picked up one of the black shirts, put it back, picked up a red shirt, put it back

"Anita, just pick a shirt," Graham said

"I hadn&039;t realized until this moment that my noruys"

"Why is that a problem?" he asked

"I don&039;t know," I said, and that was the truth

"Then pick red I promise that just because we&039;re dressed like we ry

I sighed "I&039;s me that the red shirtsme It really does"

"The color ofabout how I interact with you," Graha about what I&039;d like to do"

I nodded "You know, Graha that You&039;ve been honest I say I like honest, but I guess I don&039;t like honest past a certain point" I grabbed the red shirt I needed to grow up about this issue and buy so socks and black jogging shoes to the pile in Graham&039;s arms I did the mental list and finally realized I didn&039;t have any underwear in the pile I opened the bottoerie Jean-Claude had gotten me to the point where I didn&039;t own any si on it I had learned to buy two to three pairs of the panties to one er than underwear

I finally stood up with bra and panties in hand I started to put theht Grahao under the red shirt It was one of the thinner red baby-doll tees, so I&039;d picked soh The bra and panties were both red satin The bra was a push-up bra because it got my breasts up and out of the way of un Aabout it I&039;d picked orked under the shirt Noas suddenly very aware that the underas nice underwear

I met Graham&039;s eyes, and there was such heat in them It ritten all over his face that he wanted to see me in the bra and panties Bare on his face, in his eyes, that he&039;d give a great deal to seeabout it

Heat washed up ly easily sometimes This was one of those times If he&039;d been one of my boyfriends, I&039;d have reacted to that look, that deone into the bathroom and let that heat wash over both of us,to fuck h reason for nancy scare last month, the fact that I hadn&039;t had sex with Graham, that he wasn&039;t on the maybe-daddy list, had filledto be one of s in perspective I was now back to looking ata disaster would it be? Maybe a few months from noouldn&039;t be so freaked, and that wouldn&039;t be a question that I thought of so strongly Then again, nancy test It had scared the hell out of me

I looked up into his face He was handso with him, exactly, but I still remembered how happy I was that he wasn&039;t on the list of et knocked up, it should be by soood friend, and Grahauard, and he&039;d been eency food, but he wasn&039;t my friend He wanted to fuck me too badly to be my friend Anyelse is never going to be your friend Friends hat&039;s best for you more than they want sex Graham&039;s priorities were there on his face, in his eyes, in the tension of his body as he held ," he said, and his voice sounded hoarse

I nodded and looked doay fro would stop if I wasn&039;this eyes

He touched ers onI&039;ve seen you do with all the othertoo hard at you" His voice was softer now

"You think I can&039;t be embarrassed, because I&039;m a whore"

"Not true" He tried to turn my face up to his I stepped back from him so he couldn&039;t touch my face

"Isn&039;t it?" I asked, and this tier

"I see you with the other ? I&039;ve watched you have sex with multiple men while I&039;m in the room What am I supposed to think?"

"Oh, Graham" This from Clay He&039;d stayed on the far side of the rooot it Clay understood the mistake that Graham had just made

"I can fix that, Graham"

"Fix what?"

"Fix it so you&039;re not conflicted any about?" The fact that he hadn&039;t realized where I was going was also a point against him He wasn&039;t a quick thinker

"You&039;re off my detail"

He clutched the clothes to his oh-so-broad chest "What do you uarantee that the ardeur won&039;t get out of hand and I&039;ll lose control enough to fuck in front of ain Since it bothers you so ain"

"I don&039;t" The first hint of unhappiness ca

"You are off e of the sink and go find Remus or Claudia Tell them that you need to be replaced I&039;uard that will be far enough away from me"

"Anita, I didn&039;t mean it the way"

"The way it sounded," I finished for him "Yeah, you did"

"Please, Anita, please, I"

"Put the clothes in the bathrooo tell someone that you need to be replaced Do it now"

He looked behind hiesture, as if to say, Don&039;t look at me

"This isn&039;t fair," Graham said

"What are you, five? Fair, fuck fair You just said out loud that watching me fuck other men makes you want to fuck me I can fix that You don&039;t have to watch anymore"

"Do you really think any man who&039;s watched you fuck someone didn&039;t want to be thatI&039;m just honest about it"

I looked across the room at Clay "That true, Clay?"

"Oh, please, do not drag ave hihed "No, actually, that&039;s not how all of us feel For myself, I&039;m scared shitless of your idea of sex The ardeur scares me"

"How can you say that?" Graham asked He turned toward the otherarms

"Because it&039;s the truth, Grahaher than your belt buckle you&039;d be scared, too"

"Scared of what?" Graha sex that any vaive a mortal I&039;ve had more of a taste of it than you have Trust me, Clay, if she&039;d ever fed off you, even a little, you&039;d want more"

"That&039;s exactly what scares ht, a bad one I had fed on Grahaiven him the sether We had never touched each other in any area that was considered sexual But just because I thought it hadn&039;t been enough contact to addict hiht The ardeur could act like a drug, and I&039;d learned through some of the vampires that how easily addicted to it you were varied from person to person Had I addicted Graha to? Was his reaction to me my fault? Shit

Grahaainst his chest He looked panic stricken "Please, Anita, please, don&039;t do this I&039;h the fringe of his hair I think he was on the verge of tears I was reminded that he was under twenty-five by a few years He was so physically big that so he was We were only about four or five years apart, but his eyes showed that he was younger than I had been at the saize to him Tell him I hadn&039;t meant this to happen But I was afraid to touch his worse soentle, a voice for soothing frightened children and ledge ju thes that happened last night Can you do that fortheh that it sounded painful "You won&039;t kick me off your detail?"

"No," I said