Jacob turned those lion eyes toward me, his human face holding them like they belonged, or maybe I’d just spent too much time looking at Micah’s leopard eyes to think it was weird. "You’re in heat."
I shook my head. "I don’t know what you mean by that."
"Yeah, you do," he said, voice getting quieter, more controlled. He bent to pick up the guns and said, "Take off the arm sheaths so we can put the blades in them. If you do what the client wants, you get it all back at the end of the night."
I honestly didn’t know what it meant for a werelion to be in heat, but I didn’t debate with him, just started unbuckling the wrist sheaths. "Call your sniper off. It’s not my fault that we’ve been delayed."
He nodded, shoving one of the guns into his waistband and handing the other to Nicky, who took it and tucked it out of sight under the baggy tank top. Jacob got his cell phone out and called. "Stand down for now. She’s cooperating." Silence. "Yes, keep on him, but just observe." He looked at me; his eyes had gone back to human gray. "I know you don’t have complete control when you’re in heat, but if you do that again in an enclosed space like a car, we won’t make our deadlines. That means that the next call that I need to make to the snipers on your men might not get made in time. Do you understand that?"
"You’re saying that you both might forget your job and we’d just fuck our way through the deadlines while my boyfriends died."
"That’s exactly what I’m saying, so it’s in everyone’s best interest if you keep a lid on it."
"I will do my best," I said, and meant it. I handed him one of the knife sheaths. We were both careful not to touch bare skin to bare skin as he took it from me.
"Look at me," Nicky said.
"Don’t push at this," Jacob said.
"Lions are weird about weaknesses; I just want her to see. Maybe if her beast knows, she won’t want me anymore and the power won’t turn into a fight between us."
Jacob nodded. "Good idea."
"What’s a good idea?" I asked.
Nicky lifted that long fall of blond bangs away from the right side of his face. His right eye was missing. Burn scars traced over the empty socket, caressed the edge of his cheek, and covered where his right eyebrow should have been. I looked because he seemed to want me to. I didn’t look away because I was sharing my bed with a vampire that made Nicky’s scar look like child’s play, though the whole eye destroyed was worse. Asher had all the parts he was supposed to have; just some of them were nestled in burn scars.
Nicky blinked the one big blue eye at me, then let the hair fall back into place, and just like that it was hidden. "Most women, especially women, look disgusted or scared. You don’t look either."