Read Anita Blake 22.5 - Dancing for Free Online

mad. It’s just weird and I’m not sure how to act around the women.”
    “It is weird, and me either,” he said.
    I smiled at him. “Okay then, we’ll figure it out together, but we should tell Micah when we get outside.”
    Nathaniel agreed, and hugged me, smiling. “Then help me set the food on the table. I’ll check on the ziti in the oven.”
    “Baked ziti, why is it that no party in St. Louis can skip the baked ziti, or baked mostaccioli?” I asked.
    He grinned at me. “I don’t know, but I’m not going to let it burn.” He was already turning to the stove. I started to grab one of the dishes off the kitchen island, but felt the heat in time. I grabbed two potholders lying on the island and carried the dish of baked beans into the other room. I was going to have to remember that a lot of things were too hot to touch without cover. How did I feel about the fact that there were other women here who had seen my love naked? That wasn’t the right question. Nathaniel was like most wereanimals; he didn’t see anything wrong with nudity, so a lot of people had seen him nude. How did I feel knowing there was at least one woman here who’d had a naked lap dance from my sweetie? Nope, still not the right question. I knew that Nathaniel had been far from virgin when we first met. Hell, the first time we met he’d still been working as a high-class call boy, though it beat being a street prostitute, which was where he’d started before someone saw his potential and moved him up. There’d been more than one reason that it had taken a few years for Nathaniel to convince me to date him.
    No, what bothered me was that people had told intimate details about my lover while he was nude and being all sexy. That bothered me, and I knew it was stupid, because lots of his customers talked about him. Hell, there was a blog that encouraged women to wax eloquent about him as his stage name, Brandon, and about other dancers at Guilty Pleasures, to help drum up business. “See what a good time we had with Brandon at Guilty Pleasures”—but that had been distant. I didn’t read the comments, because he was my boyfriend. I’d learned not to take the customers at the club too seriously if I visited on nights that he was working. I’d even been out on a date with him in the past when he’d been recognized by customers, so why did this bother me?
    I didn’t have a good answer, so I acknowledged that it did bother me and put it away. I’d think about it until we had some privacy to talk about it. I think my request was no more cops’ wives. Was that a reasonable request? I didn’t know, so I kept my mouth shut and helped put food out on the table while Nathaniel moved easily and happily around Katie’s kitchen.
    We finally got outside on the deck and were standing hand in hand when we spotted Micah moving his way through the crowd. We waved and he smiled when he saw us, but suddenly our view was blocked by a large man. He was six feet, broad shouldered, and just a big guy. Large hands were already clenching into fists over and over, almost the way that Nathaniel had been kneading my back, and in a way the hand thing was a way of showing nerves, a fight for control, just like the kneading had been. But this guy wasn’t a wereleopard, he was just that angry.
    I heard a woman’s voice behind him. “Clint, don’t, please don’t.”
    The man was so broad that I couldn’t see around him to the woman, he just blocked out everything standing too close. I moved Nathaniel slightly behind me and he let me do it. I appreciated the men in my life who weren’t fighters, and who would let me step up for them.
    “Jefferson, right?” I said.
    “Get out of the way, Blake, I got no beef with you.”
    “If you’re threatening my boyfriend, then we got beef.”
    Zerbrowski was beside us. “My house, my rules, Clint, no fighting.” His voice was light, almost cheerful, a tone to calm things down.
    Clint’s voice growled out from