by J. R. Ward
BJ, or Before Jane, he’d only ever had sex with his pants on. Not from shame—or at least that was what he’d told himself—but because he simply hadn’t been interested in going there with the anonymous males and females he’d fucked.
AJ? It had been different. Naked was more than cool, likely because Jane had kept a tight head at his revelation. And yet as he thought about it now, he’d always held her at arm’s length, even if she’d been in his arms. If anything, he’d been closer to Butch—but that was male-to-male, which was somehow less threatening than male-to-female.
Shades of Mommy issues, no doubt: After everything his mahmen had pulled, he simply couldn’t trust females like he could his brothers or his best friend.
Except Jane had never betrayed him. In fact, she’d been willing to battle her own conscience just to save him from the unspeakable act his twin had been demanding.
“You are not my mother,” he said into his shellan’s hair.
“Damn right.” Jane pulled back and looked him right in the eye—as was her way. “I never would have abandoned my son. Or treated my daughter that way.”
V took a long inhale, and when he let the oxygen out of his lungs, he felt like he was expelling the myths by which he’d defined himself . . . and Jane . . . and their mating.
He needed to change the paradigm.
For them. For himself. For Butch.
Christ, the expression on the cop’s face when things had been going down here had been beyond tragic.
So, yeah, it was time to stop using outside shit to self-medicate his emotions. The extreme sex and the pain had seemed like excellent solutions for a long time, but in reality, they had been concealer over a pimple: The ugliness had stayed within him.
What he had to do was deal with the inside crap so he didn’t need Butch or anyone else to break him down just so he could let things out. That way, the kink could truly be only for pleasure with Jane.
Check his shit out—looked like he was finally prepared to try a psychiatric version of Proactiv.
Next thing he knew he was going to be on TV, staring into a camera and saying, “All it takes is a little dab of Self-awareness . . . and then I rinse with the patented Defining Yourself Wash, and my mind and emotions are clean and glowing—”
Okay, now he was really losing his damn marbles, true.
Stroking Jane’s soft hair, he murmured, “About . . . the things I have here. If you’re game, I’m still going to want to play . . . if you know what I mean. But from now on, it’s just for fun, and only for you and me.”
Hell, they’d had a shitload of good, leathered-up, freaky sex in this place, and he was always going to want that with her. Hopefully, she’d feel the same—
“I like what we do here.” She smiled. “It turns me on.”
Well . . . didn’t that get his cock pumping. “Me, too.”
As he smiled back at her, he recognized the one spanner in the mix: This turn-a-new-leaf resolution was all well and good—but how did he keep it going? Tomorrow evening he simply couldn’t afford to wake up and be that guy who went off the rails anymore.
Shit, he guessed he was going to find out how. Wasn’t he.
With a gentle hand, he brushed his shellan’s cheek. “I’ve never been in a relationship before you. I should have known that we’d hit a wall at some point.”
“That’s the way it works.”
He thought of his brothers and the number of times there had been fallouts and fights and arguments among that bunch of meatheaded fighters. Somehow, they’d always worked it out—usually by popping each other from time to time. Which was a guy thing.
Clearly, he and Jane were going to be the same. Not with the popping, of course, but with the bumpy roads and the eventual resolutions. After all, this was life . . . not a fairy tale.
“But you know what the best thing is?” his Jane asked, as she put her arms around his neck.
“I don’t feel like I died anymore because you’re not in my life?”
“Well, yeah, that, too.” She craned up and kissed him. “Two words: makeup sex.”
Ohhhhhh, yeaaaaaaaaah. Except—“Wait, is that three words? Or did you hyphenate it?”
“I had a hyphen in my head. But I think it goes both ways?”
“Or is it ‘makeup,’ one word.”
“That’s also a possibility.” Pause. “Have I mentioned you are the hottest geek I’ve ever known?”
“I resemble that remark.” He dipped his head and brushed his mouth against hers. “Just keep it to yourself. I have a reputation as a hard-ass to protect.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
V grew serious. “I’m safe with you.”
Jane touched his face. “I can’t promise you we’re not going to hit rough patches again, and I know we’re not always going to agree. But on this I’m very sure—you will always be safe with me. Always.”
Vishous drew her close and tucked his head into her throat. He’d assumed there were no more levels to go after she’d died and then come back to him in her lovely, ghostly form. But he was wrong. Love, he realized, was like the daggers he made in his forge: When you first got one, it was shiny and new and the blade glinted bright in the light. Holding it against your palm, you were full of optimism for what it would be like in the field, and you couldn’t wait to try it out. Except those first couple of nights out were usually awkward as you got used to it and it got used to you.
Over time, the steel lost its brand-new gleam, and the hilt became stained, and maybe you nicked the shit out of the thing a couple of times. What you got in return, however, saved your life: Once the pair of you were well acquainted, it became such a part of you that it was an extension of your own arm. It protected you and gave you a means to protect your brothers; it provided you with the confidence and the power to face whatever came out of the night; and wherever you went, it stayed with you, right over your heart, always there when you needed it.
You had to keep the blade up, however. And rewrap the hilt from time to time. And double-check the weight.
Funny . . . all of that was well, duh when it came to weapons. Why hadn’t it dawned on him that matings were the same?
Rolling his eyes at himself, he thought, Christ, maybe Hallmark would be open to establishing a line of medieval-inspired Valentine’s Day cards, some kind of a Holly-Goth-Lightly kind of thing. He’d be frickin’ perfect for supplying content.
Closing his eyes, and holding his Jane, he was almost glad he’d lost his shit, just so they could get to this place.
Well, he would have picked an easier route if there had been one. Except he wasn’t sure it worked that way. You had to earn where they were now.
“I have a question to ask you,” he said softly.
“Anything.”
Pulling back a little, he stroked her hair with his gloved hand, and it was a while before he asked what was on the tip of his tongue.
“Will you . . . let me make love to you?”
As Jane stared at Vishous and felt his body against hers, she knew she was never letting him go. Ever. And she also knew that if they could make it through the past week, they had the staying power that good marriages—or matings—required.
“Yes,” she said. “Please . . .”
Her hellren had come to her so many times since they’d been together: in the night and in the day; in the shower and in the bed; clothed, unclothed, half-clothed; fast and hard . . . hard and fast. The edge in him had always been part of the excitement—that and the unpredictability. She never knew what to expect—whether he was going to demand things of her, or take control of her body, or restrain himself so that she could do whatever she wanted to him.
The constant, though, was that he was never one for going slow.
Now, he just stroked her hair, running his fingers through the waves and tucking them behind her ears. And then he kept his eyes locked with hers as he brought their mouths together softly. Stroking and caressing, he lick
ed at her lips—but when she opened, he didn’t dive in as he always did. It was only more with the kissing . . . until she felt drugged by the sucks and drags of flesh on flesh.
Her body usually roared for his. Now, though, a delicious unfurling washed through her, relaxing and easing her, bringing a peaceful arousal that was somehow just as profound and shattering as the desperate passion she typically felt.
As he shifted position, she followed his lead, going fully onto her back as he reared up and covered her upper body with his. The kissing just kept going, and she was so into it that she didn’t notice that he had slipped a hand under the bottom of her shirt. His warm palm lazied upward, honing in on her breasts . . . finding and capturing. No teasing, no pinching, no tweaks. Just a passing of his thumb back and forth across her nipple, until she arched up and moaned into his mouth.
Her hands went to his sides and—oh, God, there was that pattern of marks she’d seen. And they went all the way around his torso—
Vishous took her wrists and moved her arms back down to the bed. “Don’t think about it.”
“What did he do to you—”
“Shh.”
The kissing resumed, and she was tempted to fight it, but the pulling strokes gently submerged her brain in sensation.
It was over and done with, she told herself. And whatever had happened had helped them get here.
That was all she needed to know.
Vishous’s voice drifted into her ear, deep, low. “I want to take your clothes off. May I?”
“Please—yes . . . God, yes.”
Him undressing her was a part of the pleasure, the means as glorious as the end that brought them together skin-to-skin. And somehow, the gradual reveal of what he had seen so many times made it feel like it was new and special.
Her breasts tightened even more as the cooler air hit them, and she watched his face as he looked at her. The need was there, except there was so much more . . . reverence, gratitude . . . a vulnerability that she had sensed but never seen clearly before.
“You are everything I need,” he said as he dipped his head.
His hands were everywhere, on her stomach, her hips, between her thighs.
On her slick sex.
The orgasm he gave her was a warm wave coursing through her body, radiating outward, taking her over in a blissful cloud of pleasure. And in the midst of it, he mounted her and slipped inside. No pounding, just more of the wave, inside her and outside, as his body moved and his erection pulled up and back.
Nothing fast, only more of the slow love.
No urgency, only all the time in the world.
When he finally came, it was on a last curl of his spine and a pulsing in her core, and she went along with him, the two of them wrapped up tight, fusing, body . . . and soul.
With a roll, he brought her on top of him, and she lay draped across his hard, muscled chest, languid as a summer breeze and just about as weighty. She was floating and warm and . . .
“Are you okay,” Vishous said as he looked up at her.
“More than okay.” She searched his face. “I feel like I’ve made love to you for the very first time.”
“Good.” He kissed her. “That was the plan.”
Laying her head down on his beating heart, she looked across at the wall behind his table. She’d never thought she’d be grateful for such a terrifying bunch of “toys,” but she was. Through the storm . . . they’d found the calm.
Once apart . . . now they were one again.
FORTY-ONE
Back at the mansion, Qhuinn was pacing around his bedroom like a rat looking for a way out of its cage. Of all the fucking nights for Wrath to hold them penned in.
Fuckin’ A.
As he made yet another trip past the open door into the bath, he thought the fact that the quarantine made sense somehow pissed him off even more: Only he and John and Xhex were not hurt at this point. Everyone else had been in that melee and gotten sliced, diced, or shaved in some way.
It was Casa del Heal-the-fuck-up around here.
But come on, the three of them could have been out and about doing payback.
Stopping in front of the terrace doors, he looked over the manicured gardens that were on the verge of getting their spring on. With the lights turned off in his room, he could clearly see the swimming pool with its winter cover stretched over its belly—like the biggest set of Spanx the world had ever seen. And the trees that were still mostly bare. And the flower beds that were—
Blay had been injured.
—still nothing but orderly boxes of dark brown earth.
“Shit.”
Rubbing his now-short hair, he tried to negotiate with the pressure at the center of his chest. According to John, Blay had been hit on the head and striped on the stomach. The former was being monitored; the latter had been stitched up by Doc Jane. Neither was life-threatening.
S’all good.
Too bad his sternum wasn’t buying the hunky-dory. Ever since John Matthew had told him the news, this goddamn ache had set up shop, mole-ing into him and going Barcalounger on his bronchial tubes.
He literally couldn’t take a deep breath.
Goddamn it, if he were a mature male—and given the way he handled things sometimes, that was seriously debatable, if not downright wrong—he would go out into the hallway, march over to Blay’s room, and knock on the door. He’d put his head inside, see for himself that the redhead had a heartbeat and was making sense . . . and then he’d go about his night.
Instead, here he was, trying to pretend he was not thinking about the guy while he wore a path into his carpet.
On that note, more with the walking. He would have rather gone to the weight room and had a run, but the fact that Blaylock was up here in this wing was like a tether that kept him stuck in the vicinity. Without a larger purpose to pull him away, like going out to fight or . . . say . . . the house being on fire, he was evidently incapable of breaking free.
And when he found himself in front of the French doors again, he had an inkling why he kept stopping there.
He tried to talk his palm out of hitting the handle.
Didn’t work.
Pop went the latch, and slap went the cool air on his face. Stepping out in his bare feet and his bathrobe, he barely noticed the ice-cube-cold slate or the draft that shot up his legs and nailed him in the balls.
Up ahead, light streamed out from the double doors of Blay’s room. Which was good news—surely they’d close the curtains before they had sex.
So it was probably safe to look in. Right . . . ?
Besides, Blay was just coming off an injury, so they couldn’t be going Tilt-A-Whirl in there.
Resolving himself to the role of Peeping Qhuinn, he stuck to the shadows, and tried not to feel like a stalker as he tiptoed over. When he got next to the door, he braced himself, leaned in and—
Took a deep, relieved breath.
Blay was alone on the bed, lying all propped up against the headboard, his black robe tied at the waist, his ankles crossed, his feet covered in black socks. His eyes were closed and his hand rested just above his belly, as if he were carefully looking after what was probably still bandaged.
Movement across the way brought Blay’s lids up and took his eyes in the opposite direction of the windows. It was Layla emerging from the bathroom, and she was walking slowly. The two exchanged some words—no doubt he was thanking her for the feeding he’d just had and she was telling him that it was her pleasure: not a surprise that she was here. She’d been making the rounds of the house, and Qhuinn had already run into her shortly before First Meal—or what would have been First Meal if anyone had shown.
And as she left Blay’s room, Qhuinn waited for Saxton to come in. Naked. With a red rose between his teeth. And a motherfucking box of chocolates.
And a hard-on that made the Washington Monument look stumpy.
Nothing.
Just Blay letting his head fall back and his lids dri
ft down. He looked utterly exhausted and, for the first time, older. That was no recently out-of-transition boy over there. That was a full-blooded male.
A stunningly beautiful . . . full-blooded . . . male.
In his mind, Qhuinn saw himself opening the door and stepping inside. Blay would look over and try to sit up . . . but Qhuinn would wave him down as he walked over.
He would ask about the injury. And Blay would open the robe to show him.
Qhuinn would reach out and touch the bandage . . . and then he would let his fingers wander off the gauze and the surgical tape onto the warm, smooth skin of Blay’s stomach. Blay would be shocked, but in this fantasy, he wouldn’t push the hand away. . . . He would take it lower, down past the injury, down onto his hips and his—
“Fuck !”
Qhuinn leaped back, but it was too late: Saxton had somehow come into the room, walked over to the windows, and started to pull the drapery shut. And in the process, he’d seen the ass-wipe outside on the terrace who was making like a security camera.
As Qhuinn wheeled around and hotfooted it back for his room, he thought, Don’t open the door . . . don’t open the door—
“Qhuinn?”
Busted.
Freezing like a burglar caught with a plasma-screen under his armpit, he made sure his robe was closed before he turned around. Shit. Saxton was stepping out, and the bastard was also in a robe.
Well, he guessed they were all sporting them. Even Layla had been in one.
As Qhuinn faced off at his cousin, he realized he hadn’t said more than two words to the guy since Saxton had moved in.
“I just wondered how he was.” No reason to use a proper noun—pretty damn obvi who he’d been staring at.
“Blaylock’s asleep at the moment.”
“He feed?” Even though Qhuinn already knew that.
“Yes.” Saxton shut the door behind himself, no doubt to keep the cold out, and Qhuinn tried to ignore the fact that the guy’s feet and ankles were bare. Because it meant that chances were good the rest of him was also.