Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(44)

There was a knock on the door and Ethan said, “Nathaniel is here to be the sacrificial lamb.”

“What did you call him?” I asked.

“I volunteered,” Nathaniel said through the door.

“What if it gets out of hand?” I asked.

“Then we’ll have sex like we’ve had hundreds of times. I don’t have to be onstage tonight.”

“You may miss seeing Jean-Claude do your choreography onstage.”

“I’ll see him do it later.”

“Jean-Claude wanted me to see him onstage tonight and have a date night, and now it may not be happening.”

“You can have your date night another time, Anita.”

I stared at myself in the mirror—the careful makeup, the curled hair, the dress, the stupid heels—

and now because I couldn’t control my own powers it was all for nothing, damn it.

“Anita, nothing is wasted, or ruined. Unless we rip the dress up you can wear it again for Jean-Claude.”

I watched myself smile in the mirror. “I think we can keep the dress intact,” I said, smiling wider.

“Aww,” Nathaniel said through the door, but I knew from the tone he was smiling.

I laughed and told him to come in, and the door opened and there he was, one of the loves of my life. He’d put his hair up underneath a cap that looked like a fedora, but the brim was too small, and whatever the type of hat was called, it was giving the illusion that his hair was short. He’d meant to sit out in the audience to watch the show, so hiding his hair was a necessity. He closed the door

behind him and leaned against it with his hands behind his back and looked at me from the hair and makeup all the way down to the heels.

“Wow, you look amazing.”

“Thank you, I think, it doesn’t feel very much like me.”

He gave me that warm smile as he pushed himself away from the door and crossed the room to me. “You’re always beautiful, but you’re right, this is like nothing I’ve ever seen you wear. It’s like lingerie or a costume for you, or should I say, for Jean-Claude?”

“Are you saying you didn’t help pick out any of this?”

He grinned. “I saw it, and maybe the color, but except for the shoes it’s not any of my kinks.” He stood there and we were eye to eye with me in the heels. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and it was just natural that my arms went around his waist. It was weird to be face to face instead of me leaning on his shoulder and looking up. His eyes were lavender, not blue like he had to put down on any government ID. Asher had nicknamed him our flower-eyed boy. For the first time I didn’t have to go up on tiptoes or have him lean down so we could kiss. Everything was exactly where it needed to be. His lips were full and pouting, made for kissing. If he’d been female he’d have been an old-fashioned centerfold, but he lifted too many weights and ran too many miles to have the curves that promised.

He drew back first from the kiss to smile at me. “Now I know you made out with Rodina, because I can taste her scent on your mouth. That is so hot.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Really, you have some interest in Rodina that I’m not aware of?”

“You know I don’t, but you also know I’m a serious voyeur. Watching you with anyone is hot but watching you with someone new is hotter.”

Once I might have been mad at the remark, but now I just laughed, because truth was truth.

“There’s something seriously wrong with you, you know that.”

“But you love me anyway,” he said.

“I love you because of it, because your wrong matches my wrong.”

“Are you saying two wrongs make a right?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” I said, smiling.

He met my smile with his own, and our smiles joined together into another kiss. It grew into eager lips, tongue, teeth as he bit my lower lip just enough to make me weak in the knees, and for a second I forgot the unsteady heels. I grabbed him around the shoulders, and he grabbed me around the waist at the same time. “Wow,” I said. He looked very pleased with himself.

“If I weren’t wearing these shoes I’d bite you back, but I can’t catch us both dressed like this,” I said.

“Decorate with bite marks later in the bed, and you can keep the heels on. They’re the pointiest stilettos I’ve ever seen you wear.”

“Ah, that’s why you like the shoes so much, you want to feel them pressed against your ass while you fuck me.”

He shivered in my arms, his arms tightening almost convulsively around my waist. “God, yes.”

Then his eyes flicked behind me at the mirror. He was suddenly steadier in our embrace and the look

on his face wasn’t submissive anymore but sliding further to the top side of things. He’d come into my life so submissive he had been a danger to himself in the wrong hands, but together we’d learned we were switches. I watched his bottom mindset slide away and the very tippy-top slide through his eyes.

“I like the thong,” he said.

I glanced back at the mirror and realized that I was tall enough that only my legs were below the mirror. I’d never been tall enough to flash my ass in the mirror before. “I’m so tall.”

“Nicky would have to help me get you in the right head space for it, but I’d love to spank your ass while you wear the thong and shoes.”