Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #16 - Blood Noir by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009
    BloodNoir
    Page 45 of 287
    8
    JASON HAD SAID he lived in a small city. I hadn’t understood what that might mean for the flight. What it meant was that we would have been on a freaking prop plane. The only thing that will get me on shit like that is life or death, as in a police investigation, where if I don’t go more people will die.
    Maybe the panic showed on my face, because Jason made a second call to Jean-Claude. I keep forgetting that he owns a private jet. I don’t know why I keep forgetting, but I do. I think I’m just a little uncomfortable that I’m dating someone who owns one. It just seems a little too idle rich for me. Of course, Jean-Claude is about as idle as I am, which means he’s always working. He manages his little growing empire of preternatural businesses, and is good at it. I raise the dead and slay bad vampires. Busy, busy, busy.
    But it meant that I didn’t have to brave a puddle jumper to do the favor for Jason. If I’d had to get on a tiny prop plane, well, I couldn’t think of a sexual act deviant enough to make up for the phobia abuse. Luckily for both of us, the private jet, though small by commercial standards, wasn’t horrible. If I hadn’t been both claustrophobic and afraid to fly, it might even have been comfortable. The last time we’d been on the plane Jason had been jumping all over the place, teasing me about my phobia. This time he stayed in the swivel seat beside me, staring out the window. Of course, last time he’d been wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Now he was wearing one of the Italian-cut designer suits that Jean-Claude had had made for him. The suit showed the broadness of his shoulders, the narrowness of waist, the sheer athleticism of him.
    He was wearing the navy blue pinstripe. Other than the cut it was a conservative suit. A blue shirt made his eyes even bluer than they actually were, with a darker blue tie, complete with gold tie bar. I knew the tie was silk. I knew that the shoes that gleamed on his feet cost a hell of a lot more than my high heels. I refused to pay hundreds of dollars for yet another pair of uncomfortable high heels. They were good shoes, but not as good as what Jason was wearing. He’d dressed carefully. He might hate coming home, but he wanted to impress them. He and Nathaniel had chosen my clothes, too. I didn’t care. If it was in my closet I was usually okay with it, or it wouldn’t be there. There was a section of stuff that Jean-Claude had bought me that was more club or fetish wear, but other than that my closet was fine.
    I was wearing a royal blue skirt suit, with a silk shell that actually matched. The only thing I’d added to the skirt to sort of ruin the feminine look was a wide black belt. It matched my shoes. The belt also held a Browning BDM at the small of my back at an angle, not up and down. I didn’t often carry guns at the small of my back. I usually favored a shoulder holster, but I didn’t go anywhere unarmed, and I’d worn the gun this way before when my boss thought being armed was a little too scary for clients. If they had a metal detector at the hospital I’d flash my federal marshal badge. file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009
    BloodNoir
    Page 46 of 287
    I had more guns and holsters in the luggage, but I figured for the hospital visit I’d try to be lowkey about my job and the whole violence thing. Frankly, I never thought about going home to meet anyone’s folks, let alone Jason’s. But I’d play by the rules. Rule one had to be not to scare the prospective in-laws. Yeah, Jason and I both knew that we had no plans for marriage, but I was the first girl he’d brought home, to my knowledge. People would assume a lot, and I wasn’t sure how much Jason wanted them to assume. My only goal was not to lie outright to anyone; beyond that it was all game. Jason let me keep a death