Lover Mine (44 page)

Back at the Brotherhood compound, Blay got undressed in his bathroom and stepped under the shower. As he took the soap and frothed up some suds, he thought about the kiss in that alley.

About that male.

About . . . that kiss.

Moving his palms over his pecs, he tilted his head back and let the warm water run down his hair and his back to his ass. His body felt like it wanted to arch harder and he let it do its thing, stretching, luxuriating in the warm rush. He took his time shampooing his hair and running that slippery, soapy hand of his around.

While he thought of that kiss some more.

God, it was as if the memory of their lips together was a magnet that dragged him back to home again and again; the pull too strong to fight, the connection too enticing for him to want to avoid it.

Sweeping his palms down his torso, he wondered when he was going to see Saxton again.

When they were going to be alone again.

Moving lower with his hand, he—

“Sire?”

Blay spun around, his heel squeaking on the marble. Covering his hard, heavy cock with both hands, he ducked around the glass door. “Layla?”

The Chosen smiled at him shyly and ran her eyes down his body. “I was called forth? To serve?”

“I didn’t call.” Maybe she was confused? Unless—

“Qhuinn summoned me forth. I assumed it was to this room?”

Blay briefly shut his eyes as his erection faded. And then he gave himself a boot in his Key West and canned the hot water. Reaching around, he snapped a towel free and wrapped it around his hips.

“No, Chosen,” he said quietly. “Not here. His room.”

“Oh! Forgive me, sire.” She began to back out of the room, her cheeks flaming.

“It’s all right—watch out!” Blay lunged forward and caught her just as she bumped into the tub and lost her balance. “You okay?”

“Verily, I should look where I goeth.” She glanced up into his eyes, her hands coming to rest on his bare arms. “Thank you.”

Staring down at her perfectly beautiful face, it was obvious why Qhuinn was interested. She was ethereal for sure, but there was more to it—especially as her lids lowered and her green eyes flashed.

Innocent, but erotic. That was it. She was that captivating combination of purity and raw sex which to normal males was undeniable—and Qhuinn was not even close to normal. He’d bang anything.

Wonder if the Chosen knew that? Or whether it would matter to her if she did?

With a frown, Blay set her back from him. “Layla . . .”

“Yes, sire?”

Well, hell . . . what was he going to say to her? It was damn clear she hadn’t been called back to feed Qhuinn, because they’d just done that the night before—

Christ, maybe that was the point. They’d already had sex once and she was returning for more.

“Sire?”

“Nothing. You’d better go. I’m sure he’s waiting.”

“Indeed.” Layla’s fragrance surged, the cinnamon spice flaring in Blay’s nose. “And for that I am so grateful.”

As she turned and left, Blay watched her hips sway and felt like screaming. He did not want to think of Qhuinn having sex next door—for fuck’s sake, the mansion had been the one place uncontaminated by all the extracurricular grind.

Now, though, all he could see was Layla walking into Qhuinn’s room and letting that white robe fall down from her shoulders, her breasts and her belly and her thighs revealed to his mismatched stare. She’d be in his bed and under his body in the blink of an eye.

And Qhuinn would do her right. That was the thing, at least when it came to sex: He was generous with his time and his talents. He’d be all over her with everything he had, his hands and his mouth—

Right. No need to go there.

Toweling off, it occured to him that maybe Layla was the perfect partner for the guy. With her training, she would not only please him on every level, she would never expect monogamy from him or resent him for his other exploits or push him for emotional connections he didn’t feel. She would probably even join in the fun, because it was obvious by the way she walked that she was comfortable with her body.

She
was
perfect for him. Better than Blay, for sure.

Besides, Qhuinn had made it clear he was going to end up with a female . . . a traditional female with traditional values who was preferably from the aristocracy, assuming he could find one who would take him even with the defect of those mismatched peepers.

Layla totally fit that bill—nothing more old-school or highbred than a Chosen and it was clear she wanted him.

Feeling like he was cursed, Blay went into his closet and changed into nylon shorts and an Under Armour shirt. No way was he going to sit here and cozy up with a good book while whatever was going down next door went down—

Yeah. Didn’t need those pictures either, even in the hypothetical.

Stepping out into the hall of statues, he rushed down past the marble figures, envying them their calm poses and their serene faces. Sure as shit the everything’s-cool routine made being inanimate seem like a good deal. Whereas it meant they felt no joy, they didn’t have to go through this burning pain, either.

When he got down to the foyer, he shot around the banister’s curling end and ducked through the hidden doorway. In the tunnel to the training center, he struck up a jog as a warm-up and as he emerged through the back of the office closet, he didn’t slow down. The weight room was the only place he could stand to be right now. Good hour or so on the StairMaster and he might not feel like peeling his own skin off with a rusty spoon.

Coming out into the corridor, he pulled up short as he saw a lone figure propped against the concrete wall.

“Xhex? What are you doing here?” Well, other than clearly staring a hole in the floor.

The female glanced over and her dark gray eyes seemed like hollow pits. “Hey.”

Blay frowned as he walked up to her. “Where’s John?”

“He’s in there.” She nodded at the door to the weight room.

Which would explain the dull pounding he heard. Somebody was clearly running the shit out of one of the treadmills.

“What happened?” Blay said, putting her expression and what John’s Nikes were doing together—and coming up with a whole lot of oh-shit.

Xhex let her head fall against the wall that was holding her body up. “It was all I could do to get him back here.”

“Why?”>

Her eyes flicked over. “Let’s just say he wants after Lash.”

“Well, that’s understandable.”

“Yeah.”

As the word drifted out of her mouth, he had a sense he didn’t know the half of it, but it was clear that was as far as she was going to go with the commentary.

Abruptly, her storm cloud-colored stare sharpened on his face. “So you’re the reason Qhuinn was in such a bad mood tonight.”

Blay recoiled, and then shook his head. “It’s got nothing to do with me. Qhuinn is usually in a bad mood.”

“People going in the wrong direction will get like that. Round pegs just don’t fit in square holes.”

Blay cleared his throat, thinking
symphaths
, even ones who were arguably not against you, were not the kind of thing you wanted to be around when you were raw and exposed. Like, say, when the male you wanted was doing right by a Chosen who had a face like an angel and a body built for sin.

God only knew what Xhex was picking up on from where his head was at.

“Well . . . I’m going for a workout.” Like his rig wasn’t a dead giveaway.

“Good. Maybe you can talk to him.”

“I will.” Blay hesitated, thinking Xhex looked a little too much like he felt. “Listen, not for nothing, but you’re clearly spent. Maybe you could go up to a guest room and sleep?”

She shook her head. “I’m not leaving him. And I’m out here waiting only because I was making him crazy. The sight of me . . . isn’t good for his mental health at the moment. I’m hoping that’s no longer true after he breaks this second treadmill.”

“Second?”

“I’m pretty damn sure the flapping and the smell of smoke about fifteen minutes ago meant he ran one of them into the ground.”

“Damn.”

“Yup.”

Bracing himself, Blay ducked into the weight room—

“Jesus . . . Christ.
John
.”

His voice didn’t carry at all. Then again, the roar of the treadmill and John’s slamming strides would have drowned out a car backfiring.

The guy’s massive body was in a full-out bolt on the machine, his T-shirt and torso dripping with sweat, droplets flicking off his cranked fists and creating twin tracts of damp on either side on the floor. Both his white socks had red blushes streaking up from his heels as if he’d worn patches of skin off, and the black nylon shorts he had on his hips slapped like a wet towel.

“John?” Blay shouted, as he measured the burned-out machine next to the one the guy was on. “John!”

When yelling didn’t bring that head around, Blay stalked over and waved his hands right in the guy’s visual field. And then wished he hadn’t. The eyes that locked on his were blazing with a hatred so vicious, Blay took a step back.

As John refocused on the air in front of his face, it was pretty damn clear that the fucker was going to keep this up until he was a yard shorter from having run his legs into stubs.

“John, how ’bout you step off!” Blay hollered. “Before you fall off?”

No response. Just the screaming whirl of the treadmill and the carpet-bombing sound of those feet.

“John! Come on, now! You’re killing yourself!”

Fuck this.

Blay walked around behind the piece of equipment and yanked the cord out of the wall. The abrupt slowdown caused John to trip and fall forward, but he caught himself on the console’s arms. Or maybe just collapsed onto them.

His heaving breaths tore in and out of his lax mouth as his head lolled on his arm.

Blay pulled a weight bench over and parked it so he could look into the guy’s face. “John . . . what the hell’s going on?”

John let go of the console and fell back on his ass, his legs giving out from under him. After a series of sawing breaths, he drew his hand through his wet hair.

“Talk to me, John. I’ll keep it just between us. I swear it on the life of my mother.”

It was quite a while before John lifted his head, and when he did, his eyes were shiny. And not from sweat or exertion.

“Talk to me and it goes nowhere,” Blay whispered. “What happened? Tell me.”

When the guy eventually signed, it was messy, but Blay read the words just fine.

“Well, yeah, I know. I heard about the shape she was in when she—”

John squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

In the tense silence that followed, the skin on the back of Blay’s neck tightened. Oh . . .
shit.

There had been more to it. Hadn’t there.

“How bad,” Blay growled.

Bad as it gets
, John mouthed.

“Motherfucker. Bastard ass
motherfucker
. Cocksucking rat-bitch bastard mother
fucker
!”

Blay wasn’t big into the swearing thing, but sometimes that was all you had to offer the ears of others: Xhex wasn’t his female, but you didn’t hurt the fairer sex as far as he was concerned. For any reason . . . and never,
ever
like that.

God, her pained expression hadn’t been just worry for John. It had been about memories. Awful, hideous memories . . .

“John . . . I’m so sorry.”

Fresh drops fell from the guy’s chin onto the treadmill’s black band, and John wiped his eyes a couple of times before he looked over. In his face, anguish warred with the kind of fury that made your balls get tight.

Which made perfect sense. With his history, this was a crusher on so many levels.

I’ve got to kill him
, John signed.
I can’t live with myself if I don’t take him out.

As Blay nodded, the whys of the vengeance were obvious. Bonded male with a bad history?

Lash’s death warrant had just had PAID stamped on it.

Blay curled up a fist and offered his knuckles. “Anything you need, anything you want, I’m with you. And I won’t say a word.”

John waited a moment and then met fist with fist.
I knew I could count on you
, he mouthed.

“Always,” Blay vowed. “Always.”

E
liahu Rathboone’s house went fully silent again about an hour after

Gregg’s aborted trip to the third floor, but he waited long after that butler had gone back downstairs before he gave the ascension another shot.

He and Holly passed the time not by fucking, which was their old MO, but by talking. And the thing was, he realized the more they said, the less he knew about her. He didn’t have a clue that her hobby was something as apple pie-ish as knitting. Or that her larger ambition was to segue into real television news—which wasn’t a shocker on the face of things: Lot of bobble-headed females in the reality world had loftier ambitions than introducing amateur high-steppers or commenting on how cockroaches were eaten. And he even knew that she’d given local news a shot in the Pittsburgh market before getting fired from that entry-level position.

What he hadn’t had a clue about was the real reason why she’d left that first job of hers. The married general manager had expected her to perform for a different, more private kind of camera, and when she’d told him no, he’d pink-slipped her after setting her up to fail on air.

Gregg had seen the tape of the reporting job where she’d butchered her words. After all, he did his homework, and though her audition for him had gone great, he always checked references.

Guess that was what had started him off with his assumptions about her: pretty face, great rack, nothing much else to offer.