Page 60 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“You have to wear a condom,” Nathaniel said.

Richard started undoing his tie. “Then I need to be out of my clothes and wearing one before we release theardeur.”

I didn’t argue with him, but I wanted to.

24

THE CLOTHES CAMEoff without any preliminaries, and I got to see that Richard hadn’t been hitting the weight room as much as the last time I’d seen him nude. It made his body smoother, closer to the way he’d looked when I first started dating him. When he’d left us, he’d also had to leave our gym that was set up for supernatural strength and abilities. There were other gyms in the area that had facilities for supernaturals, but they were all public gyms and Richard was still in the closet. To most of the world he was a mild-mannered college biology professor, and Clark Kent couldn’t go to Superman’s gym.

Graham kept touching my hand, or arm, or back while Nathaniel helped me undress, because every time I lost touch with the werewolf that other power tried to do bad things tonight. I was down to just the high heels when Jean-Claude’s power pushed at us. “I need you now,ma petite, leave the shoes and grant me more power. Something is very wrong out here.”

Nathaniel stood and offered me his arm, while Graham kept my hand. The two of them walked me toward Richard, and it reminded me of the discussion we were having about who was going to walk me down the aisle if my father bailed on me. Nathaniel and Micah were one of the ideas for escorting me. Yes, we were nude, and it wasvery not a wedding, and it was Richard and not Jean-Claude, but once the man in front of me had proposed and I’d said yes. We’d spent years trying to force each other to meet in the middle. Him wanting white-picket-fence monogamy, me wanting black-barbed-wire polyamory. Now here we were.

“You’re beautiful,” Richard said.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” I said; then Nathaniel squeezed my arm, and I tried again. “You’re gorgeous.”

Richard gave a small frown. “What just happened?”

“I’m working on being less sarcastic and more openly complimentary in the bedroom,” I said.

He smiled. “Thank you, both of you,” he said, nodding at Nathaniel.

“It either works with everyone, or it doesn’t work with anyone,” Nathaniel said, and he couldn’t hide the fact that he wasn’t happy to be handing me over to Richard. The Ulfric had treated Nathaniel as less than for years. The last few minutes had probably been the best interaction they’d had in a long time.

Graham held my hand out to Richard. “Since I’m not part of your poly group, I don’t think it needs to work with me.”

Richard took my hand, and suddenly it was... better. Jean-Claude’s power level rose just from us holding hands. “And that’s my cue to leave, because it feels like you have all the wolf energy you need,” Graham said. I clung to Nathaniel’s hand and stared up at Richard. I hadn’t felt anything this powerful from him in years. I didn’t know that Graham had left the room until I heard the door close behind him. He didn’t matter anymore; I had our wolf. That last part wasn’t my thought alone.

I’d had moments of hating the high heels tonight, but now I was suddenly five-eight to Richard’s six-one. I might never wear them outside the bedroom again, but I’d never been able to look Richard in the eye like I could in this moment. Jean-Claude had a moment of looking through my eyes, and he loved that Richard was gazinginto our eyes with unabashed desire. There was regret in Jean-Claude that Richard had never looked at him that way. The moment of sharing was cut off abruptly as Jean-Claude got back in control of his thoughts and emotions. Richard’s face never changed, and I was pretty sure that if he’d just heard in his head what I had, he wouldn’t still be smiling down at me with uncomplicated lust in his eyes. He was entirely too conflicted about Jean-Claude, or any man when it came to sex. For the first time I realized that it wasn’t me that still wanted Richard, it was Jean-Claude. Damn.

Nathaniel leaned in and laid a kiss on my cheek. It made me turn and look at him. I had been as tall as him all night in the shoes but suddenly I was noticing how tall I was all over again. I wasn’t hung up on height. I was still getting an echo from Jean-Claude. He liked tall men.

Nathaniel studied my face. He could see that I wasn’t alone behind my eyes. Jean-Claude was having trouble not oversharing things he’d never shared with me or Richard before. Nathaniel leaned into me, searching my face, and I realized that he was looking for Jean-Claude in my eyes. Nathaniel had been in Jean-Claude’s bed with me for a year, but Jean-Claude didn’t look at him like that. I hadn’t realized that it bothered him until now. What was it about this other vampire power that was screwing with us and revealing so much emotion?

Nathaniel kissed me, soft and thoroughly. It made me close my eyes and start to lean into him, but Richard’s hand kept me from leaning too far, like a reminder that my attention was supposed to be elsewhere. It made me open my eyes to find Nathaniel looking back at me, our faces so close together that his lavender eyes filled my vision. We moved farther back so that I could see his smile.

“I love you,” he said, and pressed a string of condoms into my hand.

“I love you more,” I said, smiling at him.

“I love you most,” he said, then moved to lean against the edge of the desk. He made a little motion with his hands, likeGo ahead. It made me turn back to the man whose hand I was still holding. Istared up into the face that had once launched my heart like a thousand ships, and then we’d sunk the ships in a battle that had destroyed us both. The man that had helped put me back together more than once was sitting on the desk watching us. But the power of Richard’s hand in mine was like the sun had risen to warm the earth; it would be enough to help Jean-Claude chase the other vampire out of the crowd and out of us all. As if he’d read my hesitation, he breathed through my mind, “Ma petite, I need you to drown your doubts in desire and feed me the energy I need to defeat this vampire. If you like, I can raise theardeurfor you?”

“No, don’t do that.” I said it out loud.

“What does Jean-Claude need?” Richard asked.

“He’s offering to raise theardeurfor me, because I’m taking too long.”

Nathaniel said, “All you need is the condom and then you can let theardeurhave its way with both of you.”

We both glanced at him. I realized that given a choice I would have dropped Richard’s hand and walked away, as inI’m done and dusted, but I could feel his heartbeat in the palm of his hand like it was an echo to my own. I knew that was Jean-Claude’s vampire marks on both of us, but that didn’t make the draw of it any less.

I held up the wrapped condoms. “We’ve got that covered.”

“I don’t think that’s how condoms work,” Nathaniel said. He widened his eyes with a smile.

I frowned at him because I was missing something.

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