It was a reasonable idea. It was helpful. So why didn't I want to do it? Because Graham seriously bugged me. His persistent pursuit of sex with me, with no pretense of emotion, let alone love, really hit my buttons wrong. Of course, if he'd lied about me being the love of his life, that would have pissed me off more. God. I let go of the jeans. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, «Thank you.»
Graham blinked down at me as if I'd never said thank you to him before. Maybe I hadn't. Shame on me then. He put his life on the line to keep me safe. So he was a lech; at least he was an honest lech.
I looked up at him. This close I could see the slight uptilt of his brown eyes. His mother was Japanese, which got him the hair and eyes. The rest of him looked like his blond and blue-eyed father had cloned himself. Meeting his parents by accident one night hadn't made me like him better. In fact it had made it worse. His parents seemed like good people. Would they be ashamed to know how much of a horndog their only child was? It seemed likely.
I shook my head and turned back to the armoire. I'd concentrate on getting dressed. That would help me feel better. I always felt better with clothes on. Grandma Blake's influence. There was a woman who thought naked meant bad.
I was getting low on shirts here. My choices were black or red. Black made me look like one of the bodyguards, and red, well, red looked like all the red shirts were my people, like a special Anita Blake uniform. I picked up one of the black shirts, put it back, picked up a red shirt, put it back.
«Anita, just pick a shirt,» Graham said.
«I hadn't realized until this moment that my normal off-duty clothes are the same as the uniform for you guys.»
«Why is that a problem?» he asked.
«I don't know,» I said, and that was the truth.
«Then pick red. I promise that just because we're dressed like we match, it's not a date, okay?» He finally sounded angry.
I sighed. «I'm sorry that it bugs me that the red shirts mean that people want to fuck me. It does bug me. It really does.»
«The color of my shirt didn't change anything about how I interact with you,» Graham said. «I've been honest from the beginning about what I'd like to do.»
I nodded. «You know, Graham, I was just thinking that. You've been honest. I say I like honest, but I guess I don't like honest past a certain point.» I grabbed the red shirt. I needed to grow up about this issue and buy some different-colored clothes. I added jogging socks and black jogging shoes to the pile in Graham's arms. I did the mental list and finally realized I didn't have any underwear in the pile. I opened the bottom drawer in the armoire. Strangely, there was plenty of lingerie. Jean-Claude had gotten me to the point where I didn't own any simple underwear. Everything had lace, or fishnet, or something on it. I had learned to buy two to three pairs of the panties to one matching bra. You could wear bras longer than underwear.
I finally stood up with bra and panties in hand. I started to put them on the pile, but caught Graham's look. I'd picked a red bra to go under the red shirt. It was one of the thinner red baby-doll tees, so I'd picked something that wouldn't show through. The bra and panties were both red satin. The bra was a push-up bra because it got my breasts up and out of the way of my shoulder holster, or rather out of the way of drawing the gun. A moment ago I hadn't thought a thing about it. I'd picked what worked under the shirt. Now, I was suddenly very aware that the underwear was nice underwear.
I met Graham's eyes, and there was such heat in them. It was written all over his face that he wanted to see me in the bra and panties. Bare on his face, in his eyes, that he'd give a great deal to see me in the lingerie, and do something about it.
Heat washed up my face. I blushed embarrassingly easily sometimes. This was one of those times. If he'd been one of my boyfriends, I'd have reacted to that look, that demand. We could have gone into the bathroom and let that heat wash over both of us, maybe. But he wasn't my boyfriend, and his wanting to fuck me wasn't enough reason for me to fuck him. When I'd had the pregnancy scare last month, the fact that I hadn't had sex with Graham, that he wasn't on the maybe-daddy list, had filled me with such relief that I knew he wasn't going to be one of my sweeties. The pregnancy scare had put a lot of things in perspective. I was now back to looking at men thinking, if I got pregnant by accident, how big a disaster would it be? Maybe a few months from now I wouldn't be so freaked, and that wouldn't be a question that I thought of so strongly. Then again, maybe it still would be. I had had a false positive on a pregnancy test. It had scared the hell out of me.
I looked up into his face. He was handsome. There was nothing wrong with him, exactly, but I still remembered how happy I was that he wasn't on the list of men who might have made me pregnant. If you get knocked up, it should be by someone who's at least a good friend, and Graham wasn't even that. He was my bodyguard, and he'd been emergency food, but he wasn't my friend. He wanted to fuck me too badly to be my friend. Any man who would rather have sex with you than anything else is never going to be your friend. Friends want what's best for you more than they want sex. Graham's priorities were there on his face, in his eyes, in the tension of his body as he held my clothes.
«You're blushing,» he said, and his voice sounded hoarse.
I nodded and looked down, away from that look. Maybe the blushing would stop if I wasn't meeting his eyes.
He touched my face, the barest tips of his fingers on my chin. «After everything I've seen you do with all the other men, you're blushing because I'm looking too hard at you.» His voice was softer now.
«You think I can't be embarrassed, because I'm a whore.»
«Not true.» He tried to turn my face up to his. I stepped back from him so he couldn't touch my face.
«Isn't it?» I asked, and this time the face I gave him held the beginnings of anger.
«I see you with the other men and I want you—why is that wrong? I've watched you have sex with multiple men while I'm in the room. What am I supposed to think?»
«Oh, Graham.» This from Clay. He'd stayed on the far side of the room, out of it, but those two words let me know that Clay got it. Clay understood the mistake that Graham had just made.
«I can fix that, Graham.»
«Fix what?»
«Fix it so you're not conflicted anymore about me.»
«What are you talking about?» The fact that he hadn't realized where I was going was also a point against him. He wasn't a quick thinker.
«You're off my detail.»
He clutched the clothes to his oh-so-broad chest. «What do you mean?»
«I can't guarantee that the ardeur won't get out of hand and I'll lose control enough to fuck in front of my guards again. Since it bothers you so much, Graham, I can fix it so you never have to watch again.»
«I don't…«The first hint of unhappiness came over him. He finally saw where we were going.
«You are off my detail. Put my clothes in the bathroom on the edge of the sink and go find Remus or Claudia. Tell them that you need to be replaced. I'm sure that there are places you can guard that will be far enough away from me.»
«Anita, I didn't mean it the way…»
«The way it sounded,» I finished for him. «Yeah, you did.»
«Please, Anita, please, I…»
«Put the clothes in the bathroom and go tell someone that you need to be replaced. Do it now.»
He looked behind him at Clay. Clay put his hands up in a push-away gesture, as if to say, Don't look at me.
«This isn't fair,» Graham said.
«What are you, five? Fair, fuck fair. You just said out loud that watching me fuck other men makes you want to fuck me. I can fix that. You don't have to watch anymore.»
«Do you really think any man who's watched you fuck someone didn't want to be that man? All of us think the same thing. I'm just honest about it.»
I looked across the room at Clay. «That true, Clay?»
«Oh, please, do not drag me into this.»
I gave him a hard look.
He sighed. «No, actually, that's not how all of us feel. For myself, I'm scared shitless of your idea of sex. The ardeur scares me.»