Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,228

he was crazy. The moment I had that thought, I saw my lioness step out of the shadows. She stared at me with dark amber eyes.

“I’m not lying. I don’t want to date Bobby.”

“Why must you always make it about dating? I said you are attracted to him, not that you wanted a relationship with him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My lioness took the first step forward, sniffing the air. So much power, such strength, he could protect us from the other lions. If we could only get him to hunt with our other lion, and I knew she meant Nicky.

“She doesn’t want to fuck Bobby,” Nicky said.

Olaf whirled toward him, all that power blazing bright and feeding on his anger. He suddenly smelled like food again. “I saw her with him! I saw her beast react every time they touched!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Your leopard did react to him, my . . . Anita,” Pierette said.

“Well, yeah,” I said.

“You admit it,” Olaf said.

“That my inner beast reacted to his, yes, but that’s not the same thing as being attracted to him.”

Angel made a sound that might have been a laugh. I turned and glared at her. “Why is that funny?”

“Your beast doesn’t react like that to just everyone,” she said with a smile.

“Stop grinning at me, and just tell me what that means,” I said.

“It means that you have more control over your beasts now, and they flare only if you are sort of attracted to someone.”

“Or if she hasn’t fed the ardeur in more than four hours,” Pierette said.

Edward said, “Do you really want to have this talk in front of the sheriff’s office?”

“Until he can control his energy, we can’t get into a car with him,” Custer said, nodding at Olaf.

“His energy is calming down,” Angel said.

Olaf had been calming down, but now the energy flared again, and the anger flared with it. Damn it, why did his anger smell so good to me?

“If you can tone it down, we can go somewhere and talk in private,” I said.

I fought not to rub my arms or move closer to Olaf. It was like I either needed to wash his power off my skin or touch it. It wasn’t his lion I wanted; it was his rage. Yummy, yummy rage. My thinking of him as food confused my lioness, so she faded into the darkness with only a gleam of golden eyes to remind me she wasn’t gone, just hiding in the dark like a good ambush predator.

“Privacy means no witnesses,” Olaf said.

It took me a second to realize what he was saying and why. I nodded, trying to clear my head of hungers that had nothing to do with solid food. What was wrong with me today? “I’m not wanting privacy so there won’t be witnesses to a crime. I want it because I won’t talk about this shit in public.”

“What shit is that?” he asked.

“Private shit.”

Olaf actually smiled as if I’d meant to be funny.

“Anita doesn’t like talking about intimate stuff in public,” Angel said with a come-hither smile.

“I want to talk of such things with Anita, but I will not let my desire make me foolish,” Olaf said.

Angel cocked a hip to one side so that the swell of her hips was even more promising inside the pencil skirt. She even put a hand on one hip as if to emphasize the swell of them. “It’s not just Anita you get to be alone with.” She literally stroked a hand down one hip. I knew she’d overplayed it before Olaf said anything.

“Two women at once is not one of my fantasies,” he said.

“Then what is?” She made her come-hither go up a notch so that it was a little bit evil or promised to do evil things with you.

“Does this pretense work on other men?”

“I’m not pretending anything,” she said.

“I let you see on my face what my fantasies are when we first met. You showed fear then, which was wise, and then you went back to flirting with me.”

“I flirt with everyone,” Angel said, but she’d moved her hands away from her hips.

“I have noticed. What I cannot decide is if you would carry through with all of it. Would you fuck them?”

She took a breath to answer, but I cut her off. “Angel likes to flirt, but no, she doesn’t sleep with as many people as she teases.”

What I’d said was true, but the last thing I