Skin Trade(75)

“Do I apologize for that, too?” I asked, and my voice was less than friendly.

“If you didn’t want the truth, you shouldn’t have asked,” and now he didn’t sound happy. When we first met, I’d thought Crispin was uncomplicated, and just about sex and food. I’d learned different. It was like I couldn’t be attracted to a man who wasn’t difficult in some way.

“You’re right; if I didn’t want the truth, I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.”

He was quiet for a few breaths, then said, “Apology accepted.”

“Get off the phone, Anita. We need to talk before we get there,” Edward said. He’d turned the engine off, and we sat in silence as the air-conditioning died away.

“Crispin, I’ve got to go,” I said into the phone.

“I’ll see you downstairs in the casino.”

“Will this get you in trouble with your clan?” I asked.

“I don’t care,” he said, and he hung up. He was twenty-one, barely, and most of the time he seemed younger. This was one of those times. I knew how harsh some of the wereanimal groups could be if you didn’t follow orders. Crispin might not care now, but the weretigers could make him care. They could make him care a lot.

“Crispin will meet us in the casino downstairs. He says Chang-Bibi may try to fix me up with some new tigers before she’ll talk about the murders.”

“Fix you up, you mean have sex with them?” Bernardo asked from the backseat.

“Feed the ardeur on them,” I said.

“You mean have sex with them,” Olaf said, as if to drive the point home.

“I can feed without intercourse,” I said, in a very grumpy voice.

“Good to know,” Edward said, and his voice didn’t sound much happier than mine.

“You told us that the weretigers might want you to feed on them, but not that you’d have to do it before they’d talk to us,” Bernardo said.

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“Do you mean that we might have to watch you have sex with some of the weretigers?” Olaf asked.

I fought not to squirm in my seat. “Not if I can help it. The tigers are very big on fidelity, marriage, all that. I’m hoping if one of you plays my lover that Bibiana will see it as cheating for me to do one of her tigers. Also, it’s a way to get all three of you inside with me. Two as security, and one as food.”

I heard a noise and Olaf was suddenly looming over the back of my seat. Height didn’t usually intimidate me, but as his arms slid around the sides of the seat, as if to pin me… “Back in your own seat, Olaf. No touching.”

“If I am to play lover, then I must touch.”

“And that is exactly why you aren’t doing it,” I said.

“I don’t understand.”

“I believe that, and that’s another reason that you are going to be security and not food.”

“I’ve frightened you again, haven’t I?” he asked.

“Nervous, you’ve made me nervous again.”

“What do you like to do on a date?”

I turned in my seat so I could see his face. “What?”

“What do you like to do on a date?” He repeated it, looking right at me, his face very neutral. At least he was controlling his face now, though the weirdness factor wasn’t lessening for me. No, weird was definitely on the rise.

“Just answer the question, Anita,” Edward said in a quiet voice.

“I don’t know. See movies, eat dinner, talk.”

“What do you do with… Edward?”

“We hunt bad guys and kill things.”

“Is that all?”

“We go out shooting, and he shows me bigger and scarier weapons.”

“And?” he asked.

I frowned. “I don’t know what you want me to say,… Otto.”

“What do you do on a date with Ted?”

“I don’t date Ted.” In my head I thought, It would be like dating my brother, but part of what we hoped would make Olaf leave me alone was the idea that Ted felt less brotherly toward me. So, what to say? “He’s with Donna, and they’ve got kids, and I don’t date people who are taken. It’s against the rules.”

“Honorable for a woman,” he said.

“What the hell does that mean?” I said. “I know plenty of men who don’t obey that rule, either. Bastards come in both sexes.”

He looked at me for a long time, then finally blinked and looked away. He nodded. “Bernardo has no such rules.”

“I guessed that,” I said.

“I am sitting right here,” Bernardo said.

Olaf said, “It bothers him that you don’t like him better.”