"Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake 12 - Incubus Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

perfume was sweet and a little too much.
She whispered, “Does Nathaniel really live with you?”
I’d been afraid the question would be hard. This one was easy. “Yes,” I said.
 “I asked if he was your boyfriend, and he said that he slept in your bed. I thought
that was an odd way to answer.” She turned her head so I was suddenly way too
close to her face, those wide-searching hazel eyes. I was struck again by how lovely
she was, and felt stupid for not noticing sooner. But I didn’t notice girls, I noticed
boys. So sue me, I was heterosexual. It wasn’t her beauty that struck me, but the
demand, the intelligence, in her eyes. She searched my face, and I realized that no
matter how pretty she was, she was still a cop, and she was trying to smell the lie
here. Because she had smelled one.
She hadn’t asked me a question, so I didn’t answer. I rarely got in trouble by
keeping my mouth shut.
She gave a small frown. “Is he your boyfriend? If he is, then I’ll leave it alone. But
you could have told me sooner, so I wouldn’t have made a fool of myself.”
I wanted to say, You didn’t make a fool of yourself, but I didn’t. I was too busy
trying to think of an answer that would be honest and not get Nathaniel and me in
more trouble. I settled for the evasion he’d used. “Yes, he sleeps in my bed.”
She gave a small shake to her head, a stubborn look coming over her face. “That
isn’t what I asked, Anita. You’re lying. You’re both lying. I can smell it.” She
frowned. “Just tell me the truth. If you have a prior claim, say so, now.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I have a prior claim, apparently.”
The frown deepened, putting lines between the pretty eyes. “Apparently? What
does that mean? Either he’s your boyfriend, or he’s not.”
“Maybe boyfriend isn’t the right word,” I said, and tried to think of an
explanation that didn’t include the words pomme de sang. The police didn’t really
know how deeply involved with the monsters I was. They suspected, but they didn’t
know. Knowing is different from suspicion. Knowing will hold up in court; suspicion
won’t even get you a search warrant.
“Then what is the right word?” she whispered, but it held an edge of hiss, as if
she were fighting not to yell. “Are you lovers?”
What was I supposed to say? If I said, yes, Nathaniel would be free of Jessica’s
unwanted attentions, but it would also mean that everyone on the St. Louis police
force would know that Nathaniel was my lover. It wasn’t my reputation I was
worried about, that was pretty much trashed. A girl can’t be coffin-bait for the
Master of the City and be a good girl. Most people feel that if a woman will do a
vampire, she’ll do anything. Not true, but there you go. No, not my reputation at
stake, but Nathaniel’s. If it got out that he was my lover, then no other woman would
make a play for him. If he didn’t want to date Jessica, fine, but he needed to date
someone. Someone besides me. If I wasn’t going to keep Nathaniel forever, like
almost death-do-you-part ever, then he needed a bigger social circle. He needed a
real girlfriend.
So I hesitated, weighing a dozen words, and not finding a single one that would
help the situation. My cell phone went off, as I fumbled for it, to stop the soft,
incessant ringing, I was too relieved to be irritated. It could have been a wrong
number at that moment, and I still would have felt I owed them flowers.
It wasn’t a wrong number. It was Lieutenant Rudolph Storr, head of the Regional
Preternatural Investigation Team. He had opted to be on duty during the wedding so
that other people could attend. He’d asked Tammy if she was inviting any
nonhumans, and when she’d said she didn’t like that term, but if he meant