Harlequin--chapter two-three

Anita calls Guilty Pleasures, only to find out that Jean Claude is on stage. She decides to listen in...which means we get to watch Jean Claude make out with a random customer. He compliments her on listening in on a feeding without getting Anita's own ardeur up and kicking.

The whole "Jean Claude feeds on his customers without their consent" thing still squicks me out. HE RAPES EVERYBODY WHO GOES INTO HIS CLUBS.

Anyhoo, he tells Anita he needs to feed off a few more, and then they can talk. Anita then thinks VERY HARD about the legal notice that Jean Claude has to put up outside his club, saying that basically if you set foot inside you've given him permission to do whatever to you, which is about as much informed consent as a con artist's pitch is full disclosure. It does not say "I'm going to feed on your sexual energy and leave you panting and craving my presence" and that means it's not saying enough.

• You couldn’t use vamp powers to get sex.

THAT IS WHAT JEAN CLAUDE DOES EVERY NIGHT.

Jean Claude finally calls her and tells her that he's aware Something is going on but he can't talk about it because it's vampire council-y...stuff. Anita realizes that Malcolm is 100 right, somebody IS framing his vamps and trying to get Anita and the other executioners to clean up so they don't have to.  Anita pushes for more info and Jean Claude tells her to butt out, pushing on the issue could get her killed.

Anita continues to push. Jean Claude tells her not to come over for a while, because she could push her way into his dreams and find out what the fuck is going on, and that would be a Very Bad Thing. Anita points out that with the warrents she's getting, she has to follow through otherwise she loses some of her privelges as a marshal. Jean Claude is basically "So what? You can usually manage to save these people" and brings up "our" Avery, which is a dude she saved a couple books ago that she refuses to sleep with because LKH can't think of a better plot than "Dude Courts Anita"

Also: It's Nate that Anita's going out with tonight, and Jean Claude wants it to go well because it's an anniversary celebration and if Anita will celebrate with Nate, that means it's open season and she has to celebrate with everybody.

“Spoken from the man who most often dresses me in fetish wear.”

I love how it's romantic that Jean Claude treats Anita like a fucking doll. End of chapter.

Next chapter: ANITA IS HAVING TROUBLE ADAPTING TO A POLY LIFESTYLE. I SAID THIS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED IT LAST BOOK.

Is there a reason female protagonists can't just be fucking happy in their relationships? You know, let the relationship be a source of fluffies and not conflict?

Nathanial wears a fedora. That's kind of priceless. Also, we get the usual "Ain't he pretty" routine, and apparently Nate can stuff his ankle length hair under his hat.

I have trouble stuffing back length hair under a hat. I call bullshit. And oh thank GOD LKH is listening to somebody about the bullshit character smells:

Sweet, clean, and underneath that the smell of vanilla. I knew now that it was only partially him, that some of that sweet scent was bath products and cologne, but the scent he wore didn’t smell so lusciously of vanilla on anyone else’s skin. One of those tricks of skin chemistry that changes the scent of the really good perfumes.

Nate smelling like vanilla has been the dumbest thing in the book, second only to his fucking hair. Now it's in the open: he's wearing vanilla-scented body spray. It's a small thing, but I'm kind of liking it. That, and the fact that we've made it through three chapters with only one make-out session, which did not involve Anita.

Anita decides her sudden attraction to Nate is somebody messing with her, so she stuffs a cross down her shirt and tells him that Unspecified Bad Guys are in town, and they need to be careful. They head off to the movie. End of chapter.