28

Warm. He was so warm. He? My eyes were wide open, and sleep fell away like a crash of glass. I was left lying in bed with my heart pounding and a tanned arm flung across my stomach. I stared up that arm and found Richard on his stomach, hair flung over his face like a curtain. I was lying on my back, sheets down past my waist, trapped under Richard's arm.

I raised my head back and found Van Gogh's Sunflowersabove the bed. Richard's cabin. We'd done too much damage to mine.

I had a very strong urge to pull the sheets up and cover my breasts. Okay, okay, Richard had seen the whole show last night, but this morning, I wanted to cover up. I was embarrassed. Not big, awful embarrassed, but little, confused embarrassed.

I realized I was lying there with my arms tucked across my chest, as if I was hiding. Richard's arm looked very dark against the pale white skin of my stomach. Jean-Claude had remarked that my skin was almost as pale as his. I'd had enough moral problems with premarital sex with the undead. My one comfort had been that I was monogamous. Now I didn't even have that. Whoredom had finally arrived just as my Grandmother Blake had always warned. In a way, she was right. Once you have sex with anyone, sex becomes more of a possibility with others.

The drapes in the cabin hadn't been pulled completely. Morning sunlight fell through the white sheers and spilled over the bed. I'd never seen a man's body by morning light. I'd never slept with a man and awakened beside him. Oh, once with Stephen, but fully clothed with guns and bad guys about to come through the door isn't quite the same thing.

I reached out towards Richard's arm, tentative. You'd think after what we did last night, I'd be braver, but I was almost afraid to touch him. I'd had sexual fantasies about Richard, but this -¨C this was the big one. To wake up beside him, warm and alive. God forgive me, but I valued that.

I touched his arm lightly so that all I really touched were the small golden hairs, no skin. I brushed upward just above the skin until there was nothing but the bare skin of his upper arm and shoulder. I drew my fingertips over the warmth of his skin. He was incredibly warm. Warmer than skin temperature, almost fevered.

I felt him wake, a tension in his shoulder and back that hadn't been there before. I turned my head, and his brown eyes were staring at me through the thick curtain of his hair.

He rose up on one elbow and smoothed his hair back from his face. He smiled, and it was the same smile that had melted me into my socks a hundred times. "Good morning," he said.

"Good morning," I said. I had pulled the sheets up over my breasts without thinking about it.

He wiggled closer, which made the sheets at his waist slide down to reveal the smooth expanse of his buttocks. He kissed me, soft, tender, then rubbed his face along my cheek until his breath was warm against my ear, then farther back into my hair. He was giving me a wolf greeting. He kissed lightly down my neck and stopped at my shoulder, which was about all that was uncovered.

"You seem tense," he said.

"You don't," I said.

He laughed, and the sound made me shiver and smile at the same time. It was a laugh I'd never heard from Richard. It was very masculine, very ... something: possessive, satisfied maybe.

I felt heat creep up my face. Being that embarrassed made me feel silly for being embarrassed. "Oh, hell."

"What?" he asked. He stroked the side of my face.

"Cuddle with me, Richard. Sex is great, but when I thought of this moment, I thought of you holding me, spooning me."

His smile was gentle, pleased. He turned on his side and even spilled the sheets back over his waist. He raised his upper arm.

I rolled onto my side so my back faced him and snuggled against his warm body. He was a little tall for spooning, but we wiggled around with much giggling and stupid comments until we found a position that felt right. I wrapped his arm around me, sinking into the warm curve of his chest and all the rest, and let out a sigh. The feel of his naked groin pressed against me wasn't so much exciting as it just felt right. I felt possessive of his body, of him. I wanted to hold him like this forever.

His skin was almost hot. "You feel like you've got a fever," I said.

"It's the full moon," he said. "By tomorrow night when the moon is completely full, my base temperature will be over a hundred and one."

He pushed my hair aside until he could nuzzle the back of my neck. It made me break out in gooseflesh. I squirmed. "That tickles."

"Yes," he said, "it does." I could feel him growing larger against my body.

I laughed and rolled over on my back. "Why, Mr. Zeeman, you seem happy to see me."

He leaned in for a kiss. "Always."

The kiss grew, becoming more. I moved my body against his and had one leg wrapped around his buttocks when he scooted back, going onto his knees.

"What's wrong?" I asked. We'd already established last night, after it would have been too late, that I was on the pill. He'd been nicely horrified when he thought of it. Since werewolves can't get or carry disease, once the pregnancy issue was addressed, you were safe. Which also explained why I wasn't worried about licking blood off of the lycanthropes last night. Gross, but not dangerous.

"I can't," Richard said.

I looked down the length of his body. "Oh, I'd say you're ready."

He blushed for me. "You saw me last night, Anita. One day closer to the full moon, my control will be worse, not better."

I lay back on the bed. "Oh." I was disappointed. Minutes before, I'd been worried that we'd given in to our lust, and now I was sad that we couldn't do it again. Trust me to be logical about my men.

"I'm glad you're disappointed, too," he said. "For a minute there, I thought you were going to get up out of bed, say it had all been a terrible mistake, and go back to Jean-Claude."

I covered my eyes with my hands, then made myself look at Richard while I said it. He sat there looking too scrumptious for words, but I couldn't let it slide. If he was thinking this meant I'd dump Jean-Claude, I couldn't let it slide. But I wanted to. "What do you think last night meant, Richard?"

The smile faded around the edges but didn't disappear completely. "It meant something to me, Anita. I thought it meant something to you."

"It did. It does. But ... "

"But what about Jean-Claude." Richard said it softly, but it had to be said by someone.

I nodded, hugging the sheet to my chest. "Yeah."

"Can you go back to just dating him after last night?"

I sat up and reached for his hand. He gave it to me. "I've missed you so much, Richard. The sex is nice, but ... "

He raised eyebrows. "Nice, just nice?"

I smiled. "It was wonderful and you know it. And you know that's not what I meant."

He nodded, hair swinging into his eyes. He brushed it back. "I know. I've missed you, too. I'm lost on weekends without you."

I pressed his hand to my cheek. "Me, too."

He sighed. "So you're going to be with us both?"

I let his hand fall to my lap, still holding it. "You'd go along with that?"

"Maybe." He leaned in and kissed my forehead, ever so gently. "Notice I didn't ask you to give him up and just date me."

I touched his face. "I know, and I'm both relieved and surprised. Thank you for not asking."

He pulled back enough to see my face clearly. He looked very serious. "You don't like ultimatums, Anita. If I push you, I'll lose."

"Why do you want to win, Richard? Why don't you just dump me?"

He smiled. "Now she gives me the choice."

"I've given you the choice before," I said. "I mean, I know why Jean-Claude puts up with me. I help his power base. You'd be better off if you picked out a nice, safe werewolf for your lupa. I hurt your power base."

"I'm in love with you," he said simply.

"Why do I feel like apologizing for that?" I asked.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking about why I couldn't hate you. Why I couldn't let you go."

"And?" I had pulled the sheets around me like a nest so I wouldn't be naked. If somewhere in this conversation he did dump me, I didn't want to be naked. Silly but true.

Naked didn't seem to bother Richard. Frankly, it was distracting to me. "I need a human girlfriend. I need someone who isn't a monster."

"A lot of humans would be happy to be your snuggle bunny, Richard."

"I found that out," he said, "but I didn't have sex with any of them."

"Why not?"

"Farther away from the full moon I have better control. The eyes don't go, let alone the hands. I can pass for human, but I'm not human. You know what I am, and even you almost couldn't accept it."

There was nothing I could say to that, so I didn't try.

He looked down at the bed, fingers playing along the edge of the sheet. His voice grew very soft. "My first year in the pack, one of the other new wolves had a human girlfriend. He crushed her pelvis while they were making love."

My eyes widened. "A little too rough," I said.

Richard shook his head. He let his hair fall this time, hiding most of his face. "You don't understand, Anita. Strength is strength. We can pick up small cars and throw them. If you don't realize your own strength, you can't control it." He looked at me suddenly, staring out at me through his hair. It was a gesture that Gabriel had been fond of, as if the hair were comforting or reminded them of fur. "You're the first nonlycanthrope I've ever had sex with since I became one."

"I'm flattered, I guess."

"I was still scared I'd hurt you like my friend had hurt his girlfriend or in a thousand other ways. During sex you lose control. That's part of the fun. I can never lose control, not completely, unless I'm with another lycanthrope."

I looked at him. "What are you trying to say, Richard?"

"I'm saying you date both of us. Have sex with both of us. I will hate it, but ... "

I stared at him. I didn't like that he didn't want to finish the sentence. Made me nervous. "What, Richard?"

He brushed his hair back with both hands until his face was clean and tight. "You date both of us, and I'll keep dating other lycanthropes."

I just kept staring at him.

"Say something," he said.

I opened my mouth, closed it, tried again. "You mean you'll keep having sex with Lucy."

"Not Lucy, she's ... You've met her. She could never be lupa of our pack."

"So you're going to keep auditioning lupas?"

"I don't know if I am or not, but I know if you sleep with Jean-Claude, I have the right to sleep with other people."

I couldn't exactly argue with him, but I wanted to. "You're still trying to get me to give up Jean-Claude."

"No," he said. "I'm just saying that if you're not monogamous to me, then why should I be monogamous to you?"

"No reason, I guess. Except ... I thought we loved each other."

"We do. I do." He stood and picked up his jeans from the floor. "But you don't love me enough to give up Jean-Claude. Why should I love you enough to give up everyone else?"

I stared at him and felt tears begin to fill my eyes. "You bastard."

He nodded. He slipped into his pants without underwear, zipping carefully. "The real bitch is that I do love you enough to give up everyone else. I just don't know if I can share you with Jean-Claude. I just don't know if I can stand the thought of you in his bed. The thought of him being with you like that drives me ... " He shook his head. "I'm going to take a shower. I've still got trolls to study."

I couldn't even begin to think about what he'd just said. It was too much all at once. When confused, concentrate on business.

"I need to come with you and talk to the biologists. We need to find out if Franklin Niley is the buyer for the land. The guy who lost his arm last night was afraid of him. It takes someone pretty scary to make a man hesitate when he's surrounded by werewolves. Your normal real estate types don't have that kind of juice."

Richard strode back to the bed. He picked me up around the waist and kissed me. He crushed me against him, like he'd crawl in through my mouth and pull me around him. I was breathless when he sat me back down on the bed.

"I want to touch you, Anita. I want to hold your hand and do silly, goofy grins. I want us to act like people who are in love."

"We are in love," I said.

"Then for today, let's throw all the doubts out. Just be with me the way I've always wanted you to be. If I want to touch you today, I don't want to be afraid not to. I want what happened last night to change things."

I nodded. "All right."

"You don't look sure," he said.

"I'd love to go around holding your hand, Richard. I'm just realizing that ... Oh, hell, Richard, what am I going to tell Jean-Claude?"

"I asked Jean-Claude how much difference the marks made to you, how much harder you were to hurt physically. He figured out why I was asking. I ended up telling him the whole sad story about my friend and his dead girlfriend."

I looked at him. "What did he say?"

"He said, 'Trust yourself, mon ami. You are not your friend with his so-sad tale. And Anita is not human. Through us she is more than that. Both of us huddle around her humanity like it is the last candle flame in a world of darkness. But by our very love, we make her less human, and more.' "

My eyebrows went up. "You remembered all that?"

Richard looked at me, and it was a long, considering look. He nodded. "I remembered because he's right. He's right. We both love you in our ways for similar reasons. It isn't just power that draws him to you. You saw him as a monster. The fact that you don't anymore makes him feel less like one."

"It sounds like you guys have been having some long conversations."

"Yeah, it's been a real male bonding experience." He sounded bitter, tired.

"It also sounds like you discussed whether you were going to make love to me with Jean-Claude before you discussed it with me."

"Never directly," he said. "Never word for word."

"It still sounds an awful lot like asking permission," I said.

Richard was back in the bathroom doorway. "What would you have done if we'd made love and Jean-Claude had tried to kill me afterwards? Would you have killed him protecting me?"

I just looked at him. "I don't know. I ... I wouldn't have let him kill you."

Richard nodded. "Exactly. Whether Jean-Claude killed me or I killed him or whether you killed one of us, even if we survived the death with the marks dragging us down to the grave, even if you and I survived, you'd never forgive yourself for killing him. You'd never recover from it. We'd never have a life together. Even dead and gone, Jean-Claude would haunt us."

"So you tested the waters," I said.

Richard nodded. "I tested the waters."

"You asked his permission," I said.

He nodded, again. "I asked his permission."

"And he gave it," I said.

"I think that Jean-Claude knows if he kills me, you would kill him. That you'd sacrifice all of us for one of us."

It was true. It sounded sort of stupid put that way, but it was still true. "I guess I would."

"So if I can stand it, and you want to do it, you date both of us. You share both of our beds." His hands balled into fists at his sides. "But if I can't have monogamy from you, you can't have it from me. Fair?"

I looked at him and gave the barest of nods. "It's fair, but I hate it. I hate it a lot."

Richard looked at me. "Good," he said and closed the door. A moment later, I heard water running. And I was left naked in his bed with everything I'd ever wanted offered to me on a silver platter. So why was I sitting there, hugging my knees to my chest and fighting not to cry?