“You just giggled.”

“No!”

“Yes, you did.” As she continued to needle him, she figured it was the conversational equivalent of tickling him in the ribs. “You just giiiiiigggggled—”

“I got to go! Bye!”

“You’re ammmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaazing—”

Click.

This time when she put her cell phone back down, she felt as light and frothy as the bubbles in a champagne flute.

And a little drunk, too.

Chapter Thirty-two

As night fell, Marissa cracked the bedroom door and put her head out into the hall. There were no sounds from the Pit’s front room, so she padded down in her silk nightgown, her bare feet getting cold fast on the hardwood. Rounding the corner to look at the couch, she expected to find her mate asleep with his head at the kitchen end and his feet closer to her. He always slept like that, so he could see the TV better around the Foosball table.

The black leather sofa was vacant. More to the point, the Red Sox throw blanket she’d gotten him for his human Christmas holiday the year before was still folded across the back.

So he hadn’t even tried to sleep at home.

The blanket was the clue. She loved her hellren with all her heart, but the male was constitutionally incapable of pulling that thing over his legs and putting it back when he was done. It was a running joke between them, along the lines of his not returning bottle openers to their proper place in the kitchen and never, ever starting the dishwasher.

Exhaling, she closed her eyes and leaned against the jamb.

“He didn’t come back here last night.”

At the sound of V’s low voice, she glanced over at his bank of computers. The Brother had tilted his head around the various screens, his super-intelligent, diamond eyes staring at her without blinking—or judgment. And there was no reason to hide her heartbreak from the guy. For one, he was Butch’s brother for all intents and purposes; and two, Vishous knew her so well, he’d see through any I’m-fine lie she tried to float.

“We got into a big fight last night.”

V took a drag off his hand-rolled. “About what?”

Padding over to the couch, she sat down and arranged her nightie over her knees, smoothing, smoothing. “A sex club.”

The coughing fit would have been absolutely hysterical to watch if she’d been in a better mood—there was something incredibly satisfying that for once she was able to shock the unshockable Brother. Unfortunately, it was because she was such a lame straight arrow.

“I beg your pardon?” His eyebrows were up so high, they distorted the tattoos at his temple. “Sex club?”

The explanation was quick and to the point, and when she was done, V’s sardonic normal had returned to his expression.

“Yeah. He’d told me he was going. Asked me to come with him.”

She couldn’t hide her wince. She trusted Butch never to cheat on her—for godsakes, as a fully bonded male, he never noticed females on any level; they might as well be toasters on legs for all the sexual response he had to them. But there was something intimidating about getting V involved, maybe because it made her feel … excluded, even though that was crazy.

And then also inadequate because her mate needed Vishous there, but didn’t want her.

Plus it was true, V’s lifestyle had always shocked her a little—not because she thought he was a degenerate, but because it was so sexually extreme … and diverse.

“You know he loves you,” V muttered. “Come on.”

“I know.”

“And I won’t get weird with him or anything.”

“I don’t mean to offend you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.” When the Brother fell silent, she knew she was right. “I just … sometimes I don’t want to be protected, if that makes sense. I mean, this issue with that female, who died in front of me—it’s mine. Does that make sense? It’s my … responsibility. And I’m grateful for his help, I want his help—but getting pushed aside because I’m a ‘good girl’ and I can’t handle certain things makes me feel like he thinks I’m weak or frivolous.”

“Look, I can’t get in the middle of this.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

As she went to stand up, he cut in: “But he cherishes you. You’re like … you’re like that Virgin Mary, that female he prays to. To him, you’re the most perfect female who has ever or will ever walk the earth. Taking you to a place like that would be like him watching porn in church. He thinks of you as pure and virtuous and good, and he wants—brace yourself, I’m about to use the P-word—to protect that in a world that is cruel and filthy and disgusting.”

She shook her head and thought about Butch and the whole blow-job thing. “I just don’t want it to be so black-and-white. I don’t want to be in a box even if he’s put me there because he loves certain parts of me.”

V’s chair let out a creak as he sat back and exhaled a steady stream of smoke. Funny, she had hated the smell of it when she’d first moved in here. Now? It was like incense, and it meant safety and home—and she didn’t even notice it most of the time.

Heck, V’s presence, as chilly and intellectual as he could be sometimes, meant comfort to her now, too.

“I don’t have an easy answer for that one.” His brows tightened. “I mean, ya boy’s kind of a right-and-wrong, black-and-white kind of guy. It’s a hardwiring thing. But there’re good sides of it, too. He’d never disrespect you. Never treat you badly. Never not focus on you.”