the body armor vests and bag the clothes and talk to the hotel about laundry. They wouldn’t be happy with us if we let them put the clothes in with any other guest laundry. It was definitely a separate load for all five of our clothes. Of course, Seamus had bled all over his, so they might be a loss anyway.
Nicky and I made two separate piles of our weapons, then stripped. Much like last time, there was no teasing or foreplay, it was just strip as quickly as possible. He got the water as hot as we could stand it and then we did a quick cleanup with the heavy-duty orange-smelling stuff top to bottom. It was hell on my hair, but it was about the only thing that worked for certain occasions. When we both smelled like overdone orange something, I got the conditioners for my hair, because otherwise it would do its best imitation of a white-girl Afro, which was so not a good look for me. Nicky got his own shampoo and conditioner. His straight hair would be more forgiving except for the extreme triangle-cut one-sided bangs; it meant that he had to baby his hair more than he would have otherwise. If he didn’t, the bangs didn’t lie right over his eye.
We stood in the shower waiting for the conditioner to sit for a minute or two, and Nicky grinned at me.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Do we have to go back and play detective after we get cleaned up?’
‘Yeah, I need to make sure they don’t vacate my warrant because they think the big bad vampire got burned up.’
‘The body he was using probably did get fried,’ Nicky said.
‘Maybe, but we couldn’t see the back door from the basement until after the house blew up. He was in a zombie body; he could move in daylight without frying in the light.’
‘Shouldn’t he have not been able to do that, take over a zombie body, I mean?’
‘No, he shouldn’t have,’ I said.
He touched my face, turned me to look up at him. ‘I didn’t mean to make you look all serious.’
‘It’s a first for me, Nicky. This vampire is breaking all the rules.’
‘When you and Edward don’t know what’s going on, it’s bad, isn’t it?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s bad.’
‘So no time for more sex,’ he said.
I smiled, then laughed. ‘You aren’t tired yet?’
‘I’m a werelion, Anita. Natural lions can fuck every fifteen to thirty minutes for days.’
‘Yeah, for about ten seconds at a shot. Your stamina is much greater, and the lions do nothing but sleep and fuck for days. We’ve been busier than that.’
He laughed. ‘I love that you research the animal side of us.’
‘Hey, biology degree; once I thought I’d be a field biologist specializing in preternatural creatures. Some of the stuff I knew going in, but yeah, I research my guys, um, people.’
‘It still weirds you out that Jade is a girl.’
I shrugged. ‘Yeah, but when I’m around her I like her; I just never saw myself with a girlfriend.’
‘The ardeur overwhelms you as much as your people sometimes,’ he said.
‘Yeah, let’s get the conditioner out and get changed.’
He suddenly wrapped me in his arms. ‘I’m sorry I keep bringing up things that take your smile away.’
I hugged him back, and even naked in the shower it was more comfort than anything else. It felt incredibly good to simply hold him and be held as close in return. He laid his cheek on top of my head, and I snuggled in against him. That was enough to make his body begin to respond.
I laughed. ‘We need to get the conditioner out, remember.’
‘Anything you say,’ and he backed us into the water still holding each other. It made me laugh, and that may have been his main goal all along. We finished our hair and then used Febreze on all the clothes, even the ones that were going to be laundered. It helped. Febreze was actually invented for stuff like body armor that got really smelly but couldn’t be traditionally cleaned.
The big hotel towel was so long it covered me from armpits to mid-calves. Nicky just dried off and didn’t bother with wrapping himself in the towel. Micah was the most body-modest wereanimal I’d ever met, and he wasn’t that modest. Nicky was like most of them, totally comfortable nude. I was more comfortable than I’d ever been, but I still covered up more than I didn’t.
I looked down at the weapons. Without the MOLLE straps