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

grip on his hand, and complained only once that he was losing feeling in his fingers. He was too worried to tease, which made me worry about him. Jason teased the way he breathed. Solemn wasn’t his thing.
    I tried to comfort him. He finally turned to me with a smile so sad it made my throat tight. “It’s okay, Anita. I appreciate the effort, but I can’t think of anything you can say that will make me feel better.”
    He raised my tense hand to his face and rubbed his cheek against my knuckles. The horrible tightness inside me eased just a touch.
    He smiled, and it was almost his old smile. His eyes sparkled with it. I knew that look. He was about to say something I wouldn’t like.
    “A little more touch made you feel better, too.”
    I nodded.
    The smile was pure Jason when he said, “We could do the whole mile-high club; that might make me feel better.”
    “Mile-high club?” I made it a question.
    He kissed my knuckles, soft, a little more open mouth than would be polite in public. “Sex on a plane.”
    I shook my head and laughed. It was almost a normal laugh. Points for me. “Now I’m not so worried,” I said.
    “Worried about what?”
    “You, if you can flirt and tease, you’ll be all right.”
    He pressed my hand to his face, and his eyes went from teasing to too serious. “Who says I’m teasing?”
    I gave him the look the suggestion deserved. “I could not possibly have sex on a plane. I can barely keep myself from running up and down the plane screaming.”
    The lascivious look changed instantly to that sparkling, teasing look. “Might take both our minds off our problems.”
    I tugged at my hand.
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    He smiled, and kissed my hand, the way it was supposed to be done. A bare touch of lips, not open mouth, no tongue, chaste. “I’ll behave if you insist.”
    “I insist.”
    “The extra touching made you feel better, too, Anita. I could sense it in the way your hand felt, the way your body smelled less like prey. Seriously, why not have sex? Why not feel better?”
    I frowned at him, because I realized he really was serious. “One, the pilot might walk in on us. Two, we’re on a plane, Jason, I couldn’t possibly. I’m too freaked.”
    “Can we have sex when we land?”
    I frowned harder. “You mean when we touch down?”
    “No, hotel, I guess.”
    I wasn’t offended anymore, I was too puzzled. He wasn’t teasing. He was dead serious. It wasn’t like him. “Won’t you want to go to the hospital or your old house before we get all messy?”
    He smiled, but it left his eyes worried. “I don’t want to go to the hospital. I don’t want to go to the house. I don’t want to do any of it.”
    I held his hand tight, not because of my fear, but because of the pain in his voice. Strangely, worrying about him helped me be less afraid about where we were. Who knew therapy for someone else was the answer all along to my own fears?
    “I don’t think having sex is going to make this visit easier.”
    He smiled then, and a look ran through his eyes so quick I almost didn’t catch it. But it was similar to a look that Nathaniel had, so I knew it, all too well. It was a look that said I was naïve. Jason was years younger than me, and he hadn’t had all the bad experiences that Nathaniel had had, but he’d had his share.
    “I am not being naïve,” I said.
    “You read me that fast?”
    “Nathaniel has a look pretty close to it,” I said.
    “Of course, it couldn’t just be me you knew that well.” He sounded bitter. I began to worry that I was in a much different problem than I thought with this favor. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
    “I want someone to want me the way you want Nathaniel. I want someone to love me the way you love the men in your life.”
    “Perdy loved you that way,” I said. Was it mean to say that, or just true?
    He gave me