Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Read Free Page A

anyone.”
    I studied his face. He was one of those men who was beautiful rather than handsome, but the face was masculine; you wouldn’t mistake him for female, even with the long hair. In fact, there was something terribly masculine about Jean-Claude, no matter how much lace he wore.
    He could be mine: lock, stock, and fangs. I just wasn’t sure I wanted him. “I’ve got to go,” I said.
    He pushed away from my desk. He was suddenly standing close enough to touch. “Then go, ma petite .”
    I could feel his body inches from mine like a shimmering energy. I had to swallow before I could speak. “It’s my office. You have to leave.”
    He touched my arms lightly, a brush of fingertips. “Enjoy your evening, ma petite .” His fingers wrapped around my arms, just below the shoulders. He didn’t lean over me or draw me that last inch closer. He simply held my arms, and stared down at me.
    I met his dark, dark blue eyes. There had been a time not so long ago that I couldn’t have met his gaze without falling into it and being lost. Now I could meet his eyes, but in some ways, I was just as lost. I raised up on tiptoe, putting my face close to his.
    “I should have killed you a long time ago.”
    “You have had your chances, ma petite . You keep saving me.”
    “My mistake,” I said.
    He laughed, and the sound slid down my body like fur against naked skin. I shuddered in his arms.
    “Stop that,” I said.
    He kissed me lightly, a brush of lips, so I couldn’t feel the fangs. “You would miss me if I were gone, ma petite . Admit it.”
    I drew away from him. His hands slid down my arms, over my hands, until I drew my fingertips across his hands. “I’ve got to go.”
    “So you said.”
    “Just get out, Jean-Claude, no more games.”
    His face sobered instantly as if a hand had wiped it clean. “No more games, ma petite . Go to your other lover.” It was his turn to raise a hand and say, “I know you are not truly lovers. I know you are resisting both of us. Brave, ma petite .” A flash of something, maybe anger, crossed his face and was gone like a ripple lost in dark water.
    “Tomorrow night you will be with me and it will be Richard’s turn to sit at home and wonder.” He shook his head. “Even for you I would not have done what Sabin has done. Even for your love, there are things I would not do.” He stared at me suddenly fierce, anger flaring through his eyes, his face. “But what I do is enough.”
    “Don’t go all self-righteous on me,” I said. “If you hadn’t interfered, Richard and I would be engaged, maybe more, by now.”
    “And what? You would be living behind a white picketfence with two point whatever children. I think you lie to yourself more than to me, Anita.”
    It was always a bad sign when he used my real name. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means, ma petite , that you are as likely to thrive in domestic bliss as I am.” With that, he glided to the door and left. He closed the door quietly but firmly behind him.
    Domestic bliss? Who me? My life was a cross between a preternatural soap opera and an action adventure movie. Sort of As the Casket Turns meets Rambo . White picket fences didn’t fit. Jean-Claude was right about that.
    I had the entire weekend off. It was the first time in months. I’d been looking forward to this evening all week. But truthfully, it wasn’t Jean-Claude’s nearly perfect face that was haunting me. I kept flashing on Sabin’s face. Eternal life, eternal pain, eternal ugliness. Nice afterlife.

2
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    T HERE were three kinds of people at Catherine’s dinner party: the living, the dead, and the occasionally furry. Out of the eight of us, six were human, and I wasn’t sure about two of those, myself included.
    I wore black pants, a black velvet jacket with white satin lapels, and an oversized white vest that doubled for a shirt. The Browning 9mm actually matched the outfit, but I kept it hidden. This was the first party