Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,177

put his hands on the tile of the wall and leaned, as if he were trying to take strength from the wall to keep standing. Nicky and I exchanged a look; he motioned with his head for me to get closer to Dev while he kept picking bits of zombie out of the other man’s hair. I touched his arm, and he jumped.

‘It’s me, Dev, it’s just me,’ I said.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

I let that go; we both knew what was wrong, but knowing doesn’t always fix it. I touched his arm again, and this time he stood still for it. I slid in under his arm, and even with him leaning against the wall he was tall enough for me to look up at him and not have to bend over at all. He was a foot taller than I was, and standing there with his arms on either side and above my shoulders, his face above mine, I was suddenly aware that he was really big, not just tall, but wide through the shoulders, broad through the chest. If he had spent half the time that Nicky did in the weight room, Dev would have been massive. I wasn’t sad that he didn’t; I might have felt physically overwhelmed, but then again, maybe I wouldn’t. I could see Nicky’s shoulder on one side of Dev’s, and I didn’t have a problem with Nicky. I didn’t think a few inches of extra height would have tipped the difference for me.

Wet, Dev’s hair fell a little below his shoulders, framing that square and very masculine jaw. His blue-on-blue eyes blinked a little too quickly as he stared down at me. I slid my hands over the slick wetness of his chest as Nicky kept working on his hair.

‘I don’t think I’m in the mood, Anita. I never thought I’d say that, but I can’t stop thinking about what Nicky is cleaning out of my hair. Now I know why you insist on a shower before you greet everybody some nights.’

I touched his face, made sure I had serious eye contact. ‘The thing in the basement tonight was bad, Dev; even by my standards it was a slaughter. I don’t do that every night. Hell, I don’t do it most of the time.’

‘You mean I’m not being a serious pussy?’

I smiled at him. ‘Well, you are a pussycat, but no, it was bad, worse than normal even by my standards for mess and brutal fighting. Flesh-eating zombies just don’t stop coming. I’ve never, ever seen that many of them.’

‘Really?’ he asked, and his voice was fragile, like the look in his eyes.

‘Really,’ I said, my hand on the side of his face.

His head pulled back as if Nicky were moving his hair too much. Then I saw Nicky’s hands come up and he ran his fingers through Dev’s hair. ‘There, all clean.’

Dev let out a shaking breath, but he straightened, pushed away from the wall, and ran his own hands through his hair. He did it a second time, a look of relief on his face as he smoothed his hair back from his face.

‘Thanks, Nicky,’ he said.

‘You can return the favor sometime,’ Nicky said.

Dev looked over his shoulder at the other man. ‘Are you inviting me to shower with you again?’

Nicky smiled. ‘So far you’ve been a perfect gentleman; I think my virtue is safe.’

‘You have virtue to keep safe?’ I asked, peering around Dev’s body.

Nicky raised an eyebrow at me. I realized he’d swept his wet hair back from his face, completely exposing the scars that covered the socket of his right eye. He usually hid the scars with that triangle of bangs, so I valued when he didn’t. It meant he was comfortable. I liked that.

‘No, no, I don’t,’ he said, and there was something about the way he said it, more sad than teasing back, that made me remember that he’d been abused as a child both sexually and physically by his mother. She’d been the one who took his eye. I suddenly felt stupid and slow and …

I went to Nicky, stroking my hands down his bare, wet arms. ‘I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ he said.

I wrapped myself around him, nakedness to nakedness, and it wasn’t erotic, because he didn’t hold me back, he stayed upright and didn’t meld into the hug.

‘I missed something,’ Dev said behind us.

Nicky said, ‘Yeah, you did.’

I looked up at the man in