Everyone laughed, even Nathaniel. I realized with a shock that it was the first time I'd ever heard him laugh. The laughter was young, high-schoolish. Lying na**d in my lap with claw marks on his butt, and he was laughing, a full-throated, happy sound.
I was happy to hear it, and nervous. They were trying to make me their home. Because that was what an Ulfric was supposed to be, and a Nimir-ra, or Nimir-raj, for a guy, was the equivalent. Strangely, there didn't seem to be a werewolf equivalent of a queen wolf. Sexism? Or some arcane shit I didn't understand yet? I'd ask Richard later.
"I've got to go take my bath, guys."
"We could help," Zane said. He licked my arm, grimaced. "I like the taste of sweat, but the gravel dust ... "
Nathaniel raised his face enough to lick my other arm. His tongue ran down my arm in a long slow glide. "I don't mind the dust," he said, voice low and soft.
I slid off the bed, calmly, slowly. I did not go yuck, or scream. I was very calm and very relieved to be standing on the floor. The bed had suddenly become crowded. "Thanks, but the bath will be fine. Don't answer any phone but the one by the bed, and don't open the door to anyone but Dr. Patrick."
"Aye, aye, Captain," Zane said.
I slid the Firestar down the front of my jeans and picked up my suitcase from against the wall. I glanced back at the three of them from the doorway. Zane had lain down on the other side of Nathaniel, only propped on his elbow, one hand touching Nathaniel's back. Cherry had curled at the foot of the bed. She was running her hand up and down his thigh. Either the sheet had slid off or she'd moved it so she could touch him. There was nothing sexual on their faces, nothing overt.
They looked like the opening scene for a p**n o movie to me, but I was sure that when I left the room, nothing would happen. There was no anticipation between them, no eagerness to have me gone so they could be alone. Their eyes still followed me. They touched each other for comfort, not for sex. The discomfort was mine, not theirs.
"I'm sorry I went with Mira," Nathaniel said suddenly.
That stopped me in the doorway. "You're a big boy, Nathaniel. You had every right to find someone. It was just your choice of partners that was bad."
Zane began to rub his hand up and down Nathaniel's back, like you'd pet a dog. Nathaniel lowered his head so his hair slid around him like a veil, hiding his face. "I thought you were going to be my mistress, my top. I thought for a long time that you understood the game. That you were telling me not to have sex with anyone. I was so good. I didn't even touch myself."
I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it, and didn't have a damn thing to say.
"When you finally gave me permission to have sex with you, it could have been straight vanilla. It was the waiting, the build-up, the teasing that would have made it enough."
I found my voice. "I don't know what vanilla means, Nathaniel."
"Straight sex," Zane said, "normal stuff."
I shook my head. "Whatever, I am not playing with you, Nathaniel. I would never do that."
He looked at me sort of sideways as if afraid to look me full in the face. "I know that now. It was this trip that I realized you didn't even know we were playing a game. You aren't teasing me. You don't think about me at all."
That last sounded sort of pitiful, but I couldn't help that. "I keep having to apologize to you, Nathaniel. Half the time I don't even know what I'm apologizing for."
"I don't understand how you can be my Nimir-ra and not be my top, but I know now that you see it as two separate things. Gabriel didn't."
"What is a top?" I asked.
Zane answered for him again. "A dominant to Nathaniel's submissive. A submissive is called a bottom."
Ah. "I am not Gabriel," I said.
Nathaniel laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "Would you get mad if I said sometimes I wish you were?"
I just blinked at him. "I'm not mad, Nathaniel, you just puzzle the hell out of me. I know I'm supposed to be taking care of you, but I don't know how to do it." He was like some exotic pet that I'd been given as a gift, but the instructions didn't come in the box.
He lay back down on the pillow, head turned so he could see me. "I went with Mira when I realized you weren't there for me."
"I am there for you, Nathaniel, but not in that way."
"Is this where you tell me we can still be friends?" He laughed, and it was harsh.
"You don't need a friend, Nathaniel, you need a keeper."
"I thought you were going to be my keeper."