Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,209

all of us to eat at once.’

‘How did you have time to see the conference room?’ I asked.

‘I knew you hadn’t eaten, so I asked where we could have food set out.’

‘Why didn’t Micah come back with you?’ I asked.

‘He won’t leave the hospital.’

I held Nathaniel’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry I had to leave you and Micah to deal with it all.’

‘You saved Henry; that’s what Micah wanted you to do.’

I nodded.

Nicky pulled on jeans. ‘What do you want for food?’

‘Get protein,’ Nathaniel said.

‘I always get protein,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘That’s true. I’m the salad eater.’

‘You take your clothes off for a living, you have to watch your girlish figure,’ I said, and kissed him again.

‘Food order,’ Nicky said.

I ordered a burger, fries, and a Coke. Nathaniel surprised the hell out of me by ordering the same thing, except for the Coke. ‘I don’t have to watch my figure for a day or two, and I need the protein,’ he said.

‘I drain that much energy from you?’ I asked, and now I was worried. He almost never ate a burger; lean steaks, but not hamburger.

‘Not yet, but you should feed the ardeur before you go back to work.’

‘If I’m already draining energy from you, I think feeding the ardeur would be bad.’

‘Feed on Nicky, have sex with both of us.’

‘I like the way he thinks,’ Nicky said from the door.

‘I thought you would,’ Nathaniel said with a grin.

‘It’s a fancy hotel and we have the whole floor; they’ll be fast on the food service. Thirty minutes tops,’ Nicky said.

‘Then you should write down what we all want for food, hand it to someone, and get into bed,’ Nathaniel said.

Nicky grinned at him, then got the bedside pad of paper and wrote down our orders and his. Then he strode to the door with the AR still on his shoulder. He left the door slightly ajar. I heard him knock on Edward’s door. There was a murmur of voices, and then Nicky was back in our room, closing the door firmly behind him.

‘Who’s ordering the food?’ I asked.

‘Edward is,’ he said, and walked around to the far side of the bed, the one closest to the window. He laid the AR on the floor.

‘That was really quick. What did you tell him?’ I asked.

‘That we were going to have sex and to text you when the food arrives.’ He unfastened his jeans and started peeling them down his hips, a little more carefully around the front, because his body was already partially erect, anticipating the sex.

I wanted to say, You did not just tell Edward that, but I knew Nicky had. It was Nicky; he didn’t see anything wrong with being honest. Nothing much embarrassed him so he didn’t always understand it might embarrass someone else, or maybe he didn’t care.

Nathaniel put my hand with the gun still in it on the bedside table. ‘We’re not that dangerous. I don’t think you need to be armed.’

I laid the gun on the table.

‘I am that dangerous, just not to you,’ Nicky said, as he pulled the covers out from the tangle Nathaniel had made of them.

Nathaniel raised up the covers, like an invitation. ‘You don’t need the towel either.’

I dropped the towel to the floor and crawled into the warm nest of the covers and Nathaniel’s body. ‘You sure you don’t need to sleep more than you need sex?’

‘Sex energizes me; you should know that by now.’

Nicky loomed over both of us, propped up on one shoulder. ‘I vote you as an honorary lion.’

‘High praise,’ Nathaniel said.

Nicky nodded hard enough that his bangs swung back and forth with the movement. ‘It is high praise; now let’s fuck.’

Nathaniel and I both laughed, high and delighted. ‘You sweet-talking bastard, you,’ Nathaniel said.

‘Thirty minutes, or less, tick-tock,’ Nicky said.

‘Don’t get spoiled by quickies,’ I said.

‘Never,’ Nathaniel said, and rolled me over his body so I was in the middle. I liked being in the middle.

64

Nathaniel kissed me loving and long under the warm nest of the covers, and then he moved gently back from me and Nicky kissed me. He kissed me like he had in the shower, a slow caress of lips, and his hand playing on the front of my throat like he was petting me with a hand that was almost big enough to encircle my entire throat. Nathaniel laid a gentle kiss on my upper chest, as Nicky continued to kiss me. Nathaniel kissed me again, a little lower, so that