“No, he hasn’t hurt her; he’s just really big, really physical, and really good at fighting.”

“Well, crap,” I said.

“I wouldn’t let anyone tie me down and put me at her mercy; just call me cautious, but there’s a look in her eyes sometimes that I do not want aimed at me when I can’t fight back,” Jason said.

“You’re not a fighter,” I said.

“I’m not a bodyguard, but I’m a werewolf, and that means you have to fight to keep your place in the pack. All wereanimals can fight, Anita, but I also know I’m a small guy. That limits me.”

“Micah is smaller than you and he’s an alpha.”

“Yeah, but he’s way more ruthless than I am. He’s more like you. You’ll both just kill people if they threaten you or your people. I won’t go for the kill unless I have to; that makes me not a threat.”

J.J. looked from one to the other of us. “Are you serious about the killing part?”

Jason and I exchanged a look. I don’t know what we would have said, because Nathaniel said, “I think that look in Jade’s eyes is why I liked being tied up with her in the bed.”

That made us all look at him, which was probably what he’d planned. He was distracting J.J. from the fact that she could know most of our sex secrets, but the violence part . . . she was too much a civilian to know that part.

“You know that Jade is dangerous, so it gives you a kick to be tied up and at her mercy?” I asked.

He nodded. “Asher thinks she’s the perfect victim and would love to have her in the dungeon, but I think he’s wrong. I think that under the right circumstances, Jade would be incredibly dangerous.” He gave a little cuddling shiver, and I felt his body begin to react where it had been pressed inert against the back of my body. The thought of how dangerous she might be excited him. I loved Nathaniel more than almost anyone, but there were moments, like this, when I didn’t understand him. I liked the pretend of danger in bondage with people I trusted utterly; yes, I pushed the edge, but not like Nathaniel did. He liked real danger when he could get it, and thanks to being a wereleopard, he healed almost anything, emphasis on the “almost.”

“And you like that?” Jason said.

“You know I do,” Nathaniel said.

Jason shook his head. “Raina cured me of ever letting another wereanimal tie me down and have their way with me.”

I felt stupid and slow; I’d forgotten how Jason became a werewolf. Raina, the now-dead alpha female of the local pack, their lupa, had tied him up, had sex with him, and shifted to wolf-woman form on top of him, and he’d been fine with that, but then she’d used claws and teeth on him. I’d shared that memory thanks to Raina’s ghost, and I knew that she hadn’t cared if Jason lived or died. It had all been about her pleasure in that moment. She’d been a true sexual sadist, and where she had no conscience a pure sociopath, but like most sociopaths I knew, there were places where she cared; she just never seemed to give a damn for her lovers.

“Raina went farther than even I wanted to go,” Nathaniel said, and he held me closer. I remembered him telling me that she’d done what would have amounted to a snuff film if he’d been human. He’d agreed to what she did, but hadn’t understood that some fantasies are never, ever meant to be real—not if you want to live and stay sane.

“I’m sorry, Jason, I forgot how you became a werewolf. Will watching Nathaniel be tied up while Jade plays with him be like a triggering event for the memory?” I asked.

J.J. hugged his arms tighter around her. “I still can’t believe that she did that to you. She was like a serial killer.”

I gave points to both of them that Jason had shared the story with J.J. and that she had been sympathetic and not blamed the victim for the kinky sex.

Jason looked at Nathaniel. “Doesn’t it bother you to be tied up and at the mercy of another female wereanimal, after what I know she did to you, too?”

“I enjoyed most of what she did more than you did. I still miss Gabriel and her sometimes.”

Jason shuddered and held J.J. tighter. “I don’t miss either of them.”

If J.J. hadn’t been in the room I would have said, And I don’t regret killing either of them, but I didn’t want to bring up the killing thing again. The police actually knew that I’d killed them in self-defense after they’d kidnapped me and tried to make me star in one of Raina’s real-life snuff films. They’d also tried to kill Jean-Claude and Richard off camera. No, I had no regrets about their deaths, nope, none. My conscience was so clean on that one that it was shiny.

“I like being tied up for Anita and Jade, and it’s helping her gain more confidence,” Nathaniel said.

“Would you let Jade tie you up, just you and her?” Jason asked.

“She wouldn’t want that, to be alone with just me, but no, I wouldn’t.”

“You think she’d really hurt you if I wasn’t there?” I asked.

“I don’t believe that Jade would ever hurt me, not really, but the men she sees as a threat, if they stepped over the line, she might kill first and ask your forgiveness later.”

“Agreed,” Jason said.

I looked from one to the other of them. “How did I miss this?”

“Jade wanted you to miss it,” Jason said.

“Is she dangerous to me?” J.J. asked.