“Me, too,” Domino said. “I’m too vanilla to be part of Anita’s harem. I’ll do group sex if there are enough women involved, but other than that I’m not oriented the same way that the rest of Anita’s men are.”
“I thought Nathaniel was the only . . . I don’t want to be insulting,” Pride said.
“I’m the biggest pain slut of anyone in Anita’s life, if that’s what you mean.”
Pride looked relieved. “Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Nathaniel isn’t the only one of us who likes pain; he just goes further than the rest of us,” I said.
“I guess I consider Dev vanilla except for being bisexual,” Pride said.
“I do group sex and you know I’m an exhibitionist,” Dev said.
“I guess I was just counting bondage as not vanilla.”
“Sorry, Pride, but vanilla sex is narrower than just not doing bondage,” I said.
Dev said, “The first time I was with Asher was with Nathaniel, Micah, and Anita. A four-way doesn’t count as vanilla.”
“Okay, I get that I’m wrong on my definition of vanilla, and if you were as into bondage as Anita, or Nathaniel, I could see you missing Asher. Apparently, he’s a talented top in the dungeon, but you and he never did the dominant-submissive thing together.”
“No.” All the smiles were gone from Dev now. He’d sat back in his seat, not trying to touch anyone.
“If you don’t like pain, then a vampire can’t go down on you that well, because of the fangs, so was the sex really that good, or was it just the being-in-love-with-him part?” Pride asked.
“He really is good at sex. Anita can back me up on that,” Dev said.
They looked at me, even Pride.
“Yeah, he’s good in bed, but he’s not better than Jean-Claude, or Nathaniel, and you’re getting to sleep with both of them,” I said.
“You’re getting to fuck women again, and that’s worth getting rid of Asher right there,” Nicky said.
“I love women, but I was willing to give them up for him,” Dev said.
“I don’t see how you agreed to give up women,” Pride said.
“You don’t like men at all, cousin. Of course you wouldn’t understand it. I saw it as the same as being monogamous for marriage.”
“But most monogamous people are just into the sex of the person they married, so they give up everyone else, but if they like men they still have a man to sleep with, and same if they love women. You agreed to give up half the human race that you loved having sex with, and Asher was still getting to sleep with Anita, so only you gave up women. It was totally shitty of him to ask you to do that,” Pride said.
“I didn’t realize you disliked him that much,” Dev said.
“He treated my cousin like shit. He’s hurt my friends. He’s injured people I’m supposed to be protecting as my job. Why wouldn’t I dislike him?”
“Why wouldn’t you hate him?” Nicky asked.
“He’s not worth that much emotion,” Pride said.
“If you liked men, you’d understand.”
“No, Dev, I wouldn’t. I don’t have any crazy exes. I don’t do the bad girl or boy. I like nice, kind, and the sex can be just as hot.”
“How do you know that nice sex is as hot as bad-girl sex if you’ve never had bad-girl sex?” Nicky asked.
Pride opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, looked puzzled, and finally laughed. “Okay, okay, I guess I don’t, but I have great sex and she’s not crazy.”
“Who are you having sex with?” Dev asked.
Pride shook his head. “None of your business.”
“Hey, you brought it up.”
“I did not bring it up. In fact, I’m sorry I said anything.”
“Are you dating someone and I didn’t know about it?” Dev asked.
“We’re not eight anymore, Dev. We all have grown-up secrets.”
“If Pride is dating someone, then no one knows about it,” Nicky said.
I shook my head. “News to me.”
“Who is it?” Nicky asked.
“Why do you care?” he asked.
Nicky grinned. “Because you want to keep it a secret.”
“That’s Dev’s kind of reasoning,” Pride said.
“I’m actually with Nicky on this one, because I’m reviewing every interaction with any woman I’ve seen you with, trying to figure out who it is,” I said.
“And why you’d want to keep it a secret,” Dev said.
“Married?” Nicky asked.
“No, I would never help anyone cheat on their vows.”
“So if she’s not married, then why the deep, dark secret?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, I’m done, because if I keep answering questions you may figure it out and she would be pissed at me. I’m not screwing this up.”
I narrowed my eyes at him as if I were trying to bring him into better focus. It would bug me, but more because most shapeshifters are incredibly open about sex and relationships to other people they consider part of their community. There just wasn’t the taboo among them that some normal humans had.
“Is she human, like mundane human?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, I am done talking about this. She’s too important to me for me to mess up because I’m trapped on a plane and we have nothing better to do than talk.”