Anita Blake 19 - Bullet by Laurell K. Hamilton Read Free Book Online

downsides to sleeping with this many men was the emotional upkeep.
    J.J., Micah, Vivian, and I waited for the men to change. Stephen could have gone home in his outfit, but Nathaniel and Jason weren’t really street safe. We’d gotten away with a guy-on-guy kiss and not gotten any negative reactions, but I think we all felt that wearing nothing but tights home would be pushing it in the buckle of the Bible Belt.
    All three of them went to find the showers, and the rest of us wandered into the lobby to wait for them. We found the only bench and there was only room for three of us, and none of us were large people. Small bench. Micah insisted on standing, and I let him since I was still in three-inch heels from work. When he wore heels I’d let him sit.
    J.J. and Vivian looked even more delicate and lovely in their gauzy dresses. J.J.’s looked almost like she could have worn it onstage in some of the numbers we’d seen tonight. Vivian’s was a little heavier with the shiny beading on it, but they both looked like the fair maidens ready to greet their knights who had fought the good fight. I looked like what I was, someone who had hurried out of work to make the event.
    Micah leaned against the wall beside me. I took his hand in mine, and just that made me feel better. He was in his work clothes, too, after all, and I thought he looked great.
    J.J. didn’t sit long before she had to get up and begin to pace. It wasn’t really pacing, it was more like she was humming in her head, but her idea of humming needed physical movement. She almost danced as she moved, tracing some shape with her flat slippers and her pink dress. She wasn’t that much taller than me, but she seemed much taller, longer, leaner, all graceful lines, like someone should have been painting her.
    Vivian moved a little closer to me on the bench. She was a wereanimal, and our leopard, and when wereanimals feel low they like touch. It’s comforting. I took the hint and held my other hand out to her. She accepted my hand with a little smile and took it as an invitation to sidle close enough for our hips to touch. There was a time when that would have weirded me out, but I knew Vivian didn’t mean to encroach on my personal space. She just needed touch.
    I raised my arm and let her cuddle under it so that my arm was across her slender shoulders. Sitting down I was taller through the torso than she was, so I could actually keep my arm around her and have her tucked underneath. I felt very guy all of a sudden, but the fact that she cuddled in against me in public meant that for Vivian, something was wrong.
    Micah’s hand squeezed mine and I looked up to meet his gaze. I knew that look. I sighed and hugged Vivian, putting my cheek against her hair. “What’s wrong, Vivian?”
    She straightened up and started to pull away. I tightened my arm around her and made it another hug. “Its okay, Vivian, just talk to us.”
    Micah said, “We are your Nimir-Raj and your Nimir-Ra, and your friends. Tell us.”
    She took a breath that made her shoulders shake. She huddled around herself, and I just drew her in against me. Her arms slid around my waist, hesitating at the feeling of the gun holster, but she finished the gesture and laid her head in the hollow of my shoulder. Whatever it was had to be bad for this level of public display, because Vivian was a very private person.
    “The weretigers got Gina through three full moons without her shifting. She’s still pregnant.”
    I frowned and looked up at Micah. He raised eyebrows as if to say he didn’t understand, either.
    “Yes, Crispin and Domino are helping Gina control her beast so she doesn’t shapeshift and lose the baby,” I said.
    Vivian clung tighter to me. Her body started to tremble, just a fine shaking. I let go of Micah’s hand and put both arms around her. Her voice was small and squeezed tight as she said, “Shapeshifters can get pregnant, but we can’t keep a baby to term. The shift is too