Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(46)

He was one of our newer vampires. Not new to being a vampire, but new to the stage. Jean-Claude breathed through my mind, “His name is Hart, let him finish your makeup so I may finally see you in person tonight.”

Hart shivered and drew back with the lipstick in his hand. “Our master’s power is all over you.”

“He’s telling me to let you finish my makeup, so our date can happen.”

“You are a lucky girl,” he said as he leaned back in.

“I am,” I said, before I had to hold still and let him finish drawing my lower lip just a bit wider than normal and color it in scarlet. The lipstick was the only thing I was wearing that was my normal shade. Again, I had that feeling of not being myself tonight. I felt Jean-Claude’s eagerness down the link between us. He was excited to see me in the clothes he’d so carefully chosen, and for me to see him. I almost thought too hard at him then, which would have meant I might have gotten a peek, but he blocked me so that emotion was all I could get.

“Honey, if you keep having that much power running through you I’m going to mess up this lipstick and have to start over with the base,” Hart said.

I apologized and Jean-Claude drifted farther away so that he wouldn’t make the other vampire shiver again.





19

JEAN-CLAUDE HADN’T WANTED me to see him before the performance, as if he were suddenly the bride before the wedding. In our case he’d helped design the wedding dress so there wouldn’t be any surprise for him on that, but for whatever reason tonight he wanted to surprise me, so who was I to argue? This was our date night, just him and me, so whatever he wanted within reason. Though the backup security person that they’d given Ethan made me want to argue with somebody. Graham was six feet and in obviously good shape in that I-lift-weights-in-the-gym kind of way. His short black hair was cut similar to Ethan’s but his was baby fine and utterly straight so the haircuts looked completely different on them, which was probably not my thought, but I was metaphysically connected to several people who would notice things like that. Physically he was built like his tall, Nordic, former military dad, but the hair and the dark brown eyes with their slight uptilt at the edges was his Japanese mother.

How did I know all that? His parents were still the only ones who had ever come to Guilty Pleasures to see where their son worked.

None of the above was why I was frowning at him sitting on the other side of me from Ethan. He leaned over with a smile that was too close to his usual smirk. I tensed, waiting for his usual lascivious and creepy remarks. “Thank you for trusting me with your safety tonight, Anita.”

I blinked at him, and finally said, “You’re welcome.”

His smirk widened, and I expected one of his usual remarks and got surprised again. “Jake told me that if I would stop being such a pain in the ass he’d like to train me up as part of the new werewolf bodyguard unit.” Jake was one of the Harlequin and one of the first who came over to our side; he was also one of our main instructors for combative arts, especially empty hand. He must have seen something in Graham that I never had.

“You going to start coming to Jake’s classes?” Ethan asked him, putting his arm on the back of my chair so he could lean across to say it without shouting.

Graham nodded, obviously pleased that Jake had invited him personally. I just fought to keep my expression from showing how shocked I was; I seriously didn’t think Graham was up to that level of training, but Jake was centuries old, so I’d bow to his opinion. He was one of the few Harlequins who had retained his superpowers, and when it came to speed, stealth, and killing it was super as in supernaturally good even compared to regular shapeshifters and vampires.

“Jean-Claude wants us to have a lot more wolves at the advanced classes,” Ethan said.

“We still have the fewest former military of all the animal groups; it puts us behind on the new security training,” Graham said.

“We don’t have many active militaries in parts of the world where actual lycanthropy is prevalent,” I said.

“Also, a lot of Muslims see wolves as a type of dog, and dogs are considered unclean, so they’re less likely to accept werewolves into their military groups,” Ethan said.

“Which means that fewer of our military get attacked by werewolves, so they don’t get medically discharged to work in the private sector,” I added.

“I’m just glad that Jean-Claude decided to let Jake look for more wolves in the local pack before they started looking out of state. If they had enough wolves with military or police backgrounds I wouldn’t have had a chance.”

“Why do you want to train up?” I asked.

“I don’t want to still be working the door here at Guilty Pleasures when I’m fifty like Buzz, or if I am I want to know I tried for something more.”

I nodded and tried not to show how surprised I was that he said something deep. I wanted to ask Graham if he’d been taking classes or reading self-help books because this was far more insightful than normal for him. I tried to remember how many years it had been since I’d really been around him and couldn’t. It had been a while; I guess I was going to have to give Graham the room to have grown and changed just like I had, like the people I was in love with had. I’d just pegged Graham as one of those men who thought trying to get into women’s pants was his main purpose in life and hit the gym just enough to make that more likely. He’d age badly into one of those dirty old men who forget they’re not twenty-five anymore. It almost hurt to be this wrong about him.