Page 98 of Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 27)

“I keep forgetting that you and Ted used to be in the same business.” In my head, I thought of them as supersecret assassins.

“We still are.”

“Okay, so then we have to figure out what dating really means for you.”

“How do I do that?”

; “Figure out what you enjoy doing that someone else could do with you.”

“Something that we would both enjoy?” he asked.

“Preferably, yes.”

He nodded again. “I will think on it.”

“Good. Now let’s join the others and get back to work.”

“I enjoy killing people with you. Could that count as a date?”

I shook my head. “No, nothing illegal counts.”

He sighed. “Dating is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Always,” I said.

34

NEWMAN TOLD OLAF that he wanted to ask my advice about his fiancée and combining his career with a serious relationship. He even had a lead-in question ready to go, as if that was the only reason he wanted some private time with me.

“I mean, how do you get your fiancés to be okay with you spending so much time in the gym every week?”

“They work out with me or are doing their own workouts while I do mine.”

“Simple,” he said, “but I’d like to pick your brain about a few other things.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Jeffries, if you wouldn’t mind riding back with Livingston and Kaitlin, I’ll do the couple talk in the car, and that way, when we get back to the sheriff’s station, we’ll be ready to work.”

Olaf was suspicious and not particularly happy about it, but Newman just vibrated with sincerity, so in the end, he rode with the state cops and I got into the car with Newman. He smiled and was perfectly normal until he saw them go out of sight; then he turned to me. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

“What do you really want to talk about?” I asked him.

“I saw Jeffries touch your leg at breakfast.”

“I thought you did.”

“You told him to move it, and he did.”

“Yep.”

“Normally I’d leave it alone. I mean, I know you’re not monogamous, and you handled it at breakfast.”

“I hear a but coming,” I said.

“But you didn’t like him touching you, and there’s some tension between the two of you that seems to get worse every time I see you together.”