Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,207

my people were happy. Nicky took my hand in his and was smiling at me and at Ethan. “It makes you so happy that Ethan is doing the whole happily ever after with Nilda.”

“Of course it does,” I said, smiling at him.

Ethan laughed and threw an arm around both Nicky and me and hugged us. “I love both you guys so much.”

“Anita loves you, too, so I have to,” Nicky said, and hugged the other man back.

I was caught up in the group hug, and it was like all the shared happiness washed away the anxiety and the sexual overtones of my skin hunger of just moments ago.

“You guys are so cute,” Newman said, smiling at us.

We all turned in the hug to smile at him, willing to share the happiness of the moment. We were like a happily married couple who just liked seeing everyone else as happy as we were, except that instead of us wanting everyone to be a happy couple like us, there were more options.

“Thanks. Now I’ll take my snacks, and we’ll go look for more clues.”

“Let’s sign the warrant over before we go clue hunting,” Newman said.

I looked at him, the happy glow beginning to fade for me. I was glad he was signing the warrant over to me. It had been what I wanted, right? So why did it feel like I’d lost instead of won? But I let Newman take out the warrant and spread it across Nicky’s back. Newman and I signed it, and Ethan signed off as the witness. I folded it back up and tucked it into one of the pockets on my tactical pants. It was mine now, which meant I was in charge, for better or worse.

“Anita says you’re going to follow us?” Newman asked.

Nicky nodded. Ethan said, “Yes.”

“If Duke spots you, he will lose his shit,” Newman said.

“He won’t spot us,” Nicky said.

“How can you be sure?”

Nicky just looked at Newman with his sunglasses making him look tough and cool. Ethan smiled, ruining the tough part, despite his multicolored hair combined with his sunglasses and a body so fiercely in shape that body armor couldn’t hide it. Just because I was happy for him to be in love with Nilda didn’t mean I couldn’t admire the view.

“They are as good as they look,” I said.

Newman smiled and shook his head at us or maybe just at me. “You’re not catching Duke at his best. He’s better than he looks.”

“Maybe he is,” I said, “but I’d rather risk them being spotted than not have them nearby.”

“I feel like I’m missing something here, Blake.”

If only you knew half of what you’re missing, I thought, but out loud I said, “You know that energy I feed off of?”

“Yeah, you were going to explain what kind of energy it was when they drove up.”

“You know how you didn’t want me cuddling with Giselle?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me cuddling with you?”

Newman gave me a very long look. “What are you hinting at?”

“I’m saying that I’d rather feed on people I’m already intimate with instead of embarrassing any of us by accident.”

He frowned and looked at me and then at the other two men. “I thought Ethan here was monogamous with his girlfriend back home.”

“Mostly,” Ethan said.

“What does mostly mean?” Newman asked.

I really didn’t want to explain that Ethan was emergency food, and I really didn’t want to say that Ethan had been my lover first and then moved out of my bed not because of Nilda, but because I had too many people in my life I was already in love with. Ethan was a great guy, but . . . he wasn’t my great guy. Luckily for all of us, now he was Nilda’s perfect guy. But he was still on the list of people I could feed the ardeur on without blowing up either of our lives. Nilda understood the metaphysics and treated it like Ethan was a blood donor for one of the real master vampires back in St. Louis.

“It means rather than let Anita accidentally feed on a stranger in a strip club, she can feed on me without my girlfriend getting upset,” Ethan said.

“If what I saw inside the club is the kind of energy Blake needs,” Newman said, “then my fiancée would most definitely be upset.”

“Which is why we’re here,” Nicky said.

“It’s some kind of sexual energy. That’s why there are all the rumors about you having affairs while you’re working,” Newman said.

I fought to keep