Annette glared up at me with pain in her expression. That silver hurt, I knew from experience. “You don’t deserve him.”

I almost laughed. “You’re right. That’s his issue, though, not yours. Here’s your issue-are you going to accept things the way they are, or are you exiting his life? See, I’m not plugging your ticker now because Bones really does care for you. Poor bastard doesn’t have any sense when it comes to women, does he? If you can handle being around him in a platonic way, I’ll deal with not slicing up your heart even though I really, really want to. What do you say? Do we have a deal?”

Suddenly her eyes widened in alarm. “Do get off, he’s almost here! Faith, he’ll be so cross with me!”

In wonder I blinked down at her. Here I sat with a knife in her chest, and she was more worried about a berating from Bones? Her priorities were way out of whack.

“Deal?” I persisted.

She shot me an annoyed glance. “Heavens yes, now let me up! I have to put the house to right. Blast it, he just sped up!”

I rolled my eyes and carefully took the knife from her chest. She sprang up at once, but not in hostility. On the contrary, she became a blur of cleaning motion, like Martha Stewart on crack cocaine.

The car door slammed a moment later, and then the front door flung open. Bones glared at Annette with an expression so infuriated, I actually pitied her.

“And that, Annette, is called Pilates,” I said, giving an exaggerated stretch.

“Very entertaining,” she hastened to agree, turning blameless eyes to him. “Why, Crispin, you’re back early-”

“Save it,” he cut her off. With a raised brow, he went to me, reached inside the back of my pants, and withdrew the bloody knife I’d hastily shoved there. He then prowled over to Annette and dangled it in front of her stricken face.

“Unless Pilates has become downright lethal, I’d say the two of you were fighting. Fighting so loudly, in fact, that I could hear you miles away.”

There was simmering menace in his tone. The tension thickened. Behind him, a face peeked in the doorway.

“Rodney!”

I threw my arms around the surprised ghoul, who looked like he hadn’t expected such a warm welcome. Tate, Juan, and Cooper hung back by the car, but I waved them in. Anything to defuse the ticking bomb of a scene I didn’t want to get into. At the same time, another vehicle pulled up in the driveway with an Italian logo on its door.

“Look.” Broad, false smile. “The food’s here! Who’s hungry?”

THIRTY-ONE

ANNETTE POLITELY EXCUSED HERSELF TO change clothes, and I did the same. Rodney picked up the broken fixtures without comment while Bones followed me into the bedroom.

“Not now,” I began before he opened his mouth. “We settled it. The guys are here and so is dinner. Let’s sit down on whatever furniture is left and eat. The rest can wait.”

His lips thinned. “All right. But this isn’t settled. You’re still seething mad, I can smell it, and we’re dealing with this after supper.”

Bones threw his coat on the bed and then gave one last parting comment over his shoulder as he left.

“Best put on something with sleeves; your arms are covered in scratches.”

Dinner was an exercise in endurance. Annette was effortlessly charming with my three men. No awkward chagrin for her. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but then again, she was room temperature. Juan flirted with her outrageously, and she even got a few smiles out of Tate. Bones, meanwhile, sat and brooded with a quietness that bordered on rudeness.

I engaged Rodney in conversation and tried to ignore those brown eyes burning into my side. Was Bones angry that I’d stabbed Annette? God, she was still talking and taking up space! Furthermore, in spite of my denials, what she’d said was festering. Multiple women at once. Warm living flesh. Tens of thousands.

Was it true? Sure, I knew Bones hadn’t been a monk before me-duh, former gigolo, so I’d expected some promiscuity-but that kind of history staggered me. Yes, I’d known there would be exes. Probably a lot of exes, but I hadn’t expected that the notches on Bones’s belt would have a similar number to the miles on my car’s odometer! Just thinking about it made me want to kill him and crawl into an insecure ball at the same time. When the plates were finally cleared away, I was a mass of conflicted emotions.

“Cards, gentlemen?” Annette asked. She pulled out a deck from one of her many bags and shuffled them with practiced hands. Tate and Juan’s eyes gleamed. There were few things they loved more than a good game of poker.

Bones stood at once. “Not for the two of us. Enjoy your game, Annette, by all means. Then you can take her friends back. Rodney will accompany you and show you the way. After that, your luck will have run out.”

The four men weren’t fools. Everyone knew there had been a brawl, and it was an easy guess as to what it was about. Hell, Rodney had probably heard it also. He gave a sympathetic glance at Annette.

“That was hardly polite,” I hissed as we went upstairs, Bones shutting the bedroom door behind us. “You may as well leave it open; they can still hear us.”

“Anyone ill-mannered enough to eavesdrop when they can choose to ignore us listens at their own peril,” Bones replied in clear warning to those below. He leaned back against the door. “Dinner was a waste of time; you barely ate. Now, tell me what happened.”

Frankly I was trying to forget, because maggots of doubt were worming inside me. No wonder I’d had no appetite.

“A catfight, no pun intended. Annette said some nasty things and so did I, and then I stabbed her to make a point. Now that was a pun.”

Bones wasn’t amused. “So that’s it, then? All’s well and no hard feelings?”

I nodded without conviction.

He moved suddenly, just inches away in a blink. When he lowered his head to kiss me, I flinched.

He straightened. “Right. There are two ways I’m going to hear every blasted word Annette said to you. One is from you by request. The other is after I beat it out of her. Now, the selfish part of me hopes you’ll stay silent, but then that would defeat the greater good. You can tell me anything, Kitten, as I’ve often said. Anything at all. The question is, will you?”

There was a quarter of a bottle of gin on the nightstand. I sat on the bed and drained it before replying.

“Fine. Here goes. Annette said you were basically a raging pervert who liked your women in minimums of twos, humans especially because of their warm bodies, you’ve fucked more women than the population of this state, I’d never hold your interest…” I paused to take another breath. “You sounded bored in bed with me earlier, I’d never be able to handle what you really liked to do, you tell half the women you fuck that you’re in love with them, you’d have tossed me out years ago if I hadn’t left you first…oh, and that she was the one you munched on a couple months ago.”

“I am going to flog Annette fleshless for this.” Bones’s voice was low and furious. “If I were you, I’d have killed her. Bloody hell.”

He snatched open the door. “Rodney, take them back and leave Annette here!”

He didn’t bother waiting for a response before slamming it closed again. I heard Rodney’s mumbled acceptance and then the sounds of them leaving.

“Is it true?” I asked. “You’re pissed at her, but is that because she lied to me? Or because she told me the truth?”

His eyes closed for a second. “I’m sorry to be having this conversation under these circumstances, Kitten, but I had no intention of concealing my past from you. The short answer to what Annette told you is yes, I have been with many women. Many. Human and otherwise.”

Many. Again, that wasn’t unexpected considering his age, former profession, and drop-dead gorgeous-literally!-looks. But I needed a little more clarification than the word many.