Micah

I wasn't sure that being able to number your lovers at over a hundred was a good thing, but it was something that Ro

"And now I'm giving it all up, all of it, for just one man." She leaned her hands against the cabinet as if she needed the support.

"You said sex with Louie was great. I think you've used words like fantastic, and mind-blowing."

She nodded, her hair spilling around her face so that I couldn't see her eyes for a moment. "It is, he is, but he's only one man. What if I get bored, or he gets bored with me? How can just one be enough? The last time we were both cheating a month after the wedding." She looked up at that last remark, her gray eyes wide and frightened.

I made a small helpless gesture and said, "You're asking the wrong person, Ro

"That's exactly what I mean." She wiped at the tears on her face in harsh, angry motions, as if the touch of them made her even more upset. "How is it that you, my girlfriend who had only three men in her entire life, ends up dating and fucking five men?"

I didn't know what to say to that, so I tried to concentrate on the hard facts. "Six men," I said.

She frowned at me, her eyes taking on that look that meant she was counting in her head. "I only count five."

"You're leaving someone out, Ro

"No"—she started counting on her fingers—"Jean-Claude, Asher, Damian, Nathaniel, and Micah. That's it."

I shook my head again. "I had unprotected sex with one more man last month." I could have said it differently, but maybe if we got back to my personal disaster, we could stop talking about Ro

She frowned harder, and then she got it. "Oh, no, no," she said.

I nodded. Happy to see from her expression that she got the full awfulness of it.

"You had sex with him just once, right?"

I shook my head no, over and over again. "Not just once."

She was looking at me so hard that I couldn't hold her gaze. Even with the tear tracks drying on her face, she was suddenly Ro

I started to blush and couldn't stop it. Dammit.

"You're blushing—that's not a good sign," she said.

I stared down at the countertop, using my long hair to hide my face.

Her voice was gentler when she said, "How many times, Anita? How many times in the month you've been back together?"

"Seven," I said, still not looking up. I hated admitting it, because the number alone said louder than any words exactly how much I enjoyed being in Richard's bed.

"Seven times in a month," she said. "Wow, that's…"

I looked up, and the look was enough.

"Sorry, sorry, just…" She looked as if she wasn't sure whether she was going to laugh or be sad about it. She controlled herself and finally sounded sad when she said, "Oh, my God, Richard."

I nodded again.

"Richard." She whispered his name and looked suitably horrified. It was worth a little horror.

Richard Zeeman and I had been off again, on again for years. Mostly off. We'd been engaged briefly until I saw him eat someone. Richard was the leader—Ulfric—of the local werewolf pack. He was also a junior high science teacher and an all-around Boy Scout. If Boy Scouts were six-foot-one, muscled, amazingly handsome, with an equally amazing ability to be self-destructive. He hated being a monster, and he hated me for being more comfortable with the monsters than he was. He hated a lot of things, but we'd made up just enough to have fallen into bed in the last few weeks. But as my Grandma Blake told me, once was enough.

Of all the men in my life, the worst possible choice to be the father would be Richard, because he of all of them would try for the white picket fence and a normal life. Normal wasn't possible for me, or him, but I knew that, and he didn't, not really, not yet. Even if I was pregnant, even if I kept being pregnant, I wasn't going to marry anyone. I wasn't going to change my living arrangements. My life worked the way it was, and Richard's idea of domestic bliss was not mine.

Ro

I kept giving her the look that makes bad guys run for cover, but Ro

Ro

"Sometimes twice a day," I said.

She smiled. "Well, my, my…" Then she waved her hand as if to keep from distracting herself. "But the odds are that it's Nathaniel's, right?"

I smiled at her. "You sound happy about that now."

She shrugged. "Well, a choice of evils, ya know."

"Thanks a lot, Ro

"You know what I meant," she said.

"No, I don't think I do." I think I was ready to be angry about her thinking the men in my life were a choice of evils, but I didn't get a chance to be angry because two of the men in my life were coming through the front door.

I heard them unlocking the door before it opened, and their voices came raised and a little breathless from the run. They'd been able to run faster and farther without me along. I was, after all, still human, and they were not.

Standing between the island and the cabinets, we couldn't see the front door, only hear them laughing as they came toward the doorway to the kitchen.

"How can you do that?" Ro

"What?" I asked, frowning.

"You were smiling."

I looked at her.

"You smiled just at the sound of their voices, even with everything…"

I stopped her with a hand on her arm. One way I knew I didn't want them to find out about the maybe-baby was by overhearing a conversation. Their hearing was a little too keen to risk it. And here they came, my two live-in sweeties.

Micah was in front, looking back over his shoulder, still laughing, talking. He was my height, short, slender, and muscular in that swimmer sort of way. He had to have his suits tailored because he needed an extra small athletic cut. You didn't get that off the rack. He'd come to me ta

We kissed and our arms just seemed to automatically glide around each other, to press our bodies as close together as we could with clothes on. He'd affected me this way almost from the moment we had seen each other. Lust at first sight. They say it doesn't last, but we were six months and counting.

I melted against his body and kissed him fiercely, deeply. Partly it was what I always wanted to do when I saw him. Partly I was scared, and touching and being touched made me feel better. Not long ago I'd have been more discreet in front of company, but my nerves weren't good enough to pretend today.