Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (12 page)

As he went along, still drinking from a half-full glass, his mind was circling itself, wondering

when all this bullcrap between him and Qhuinn was going to end. On his deathbed? God, he didn’t

think he could last that long, assuming he had a normal life span ahead of him.

Maybe he needed to move out of the mansion. Before Wellsie had been killed, she and Tohr had

been able to live in a house of their own. Hell, if he did that, he wouldn’t have to see Qhuinn except during meetings—and with so many people in and around the Brotherhood, it was easy to get out of

eyeshot.

He’d been doing that for a while now, actually.

In fact, under that construct, the pair of them wouldn’t have to cross paths at all—John was

always partnered with the guy because of the whole
ahstrux nohtrum
thing, and between the rotation schedule, and the way territory was divided up, he and Qhuinn never fought together except in an

emergency.

Saxton could go back and forth to work—

Blay stopped dead at the entrance to the weight room. Through the glass window he saw a set of

weights going up and down on the reclining squat machine, and he knew by the Nikes who it was.

Goddamn it, he couldn’t get a break.

Leaning in, he hit his head once. Twice. Three—

“You’re supposed to do reps on the machines—not on the door.”

Manny Manello’s voice was as welcome as a steel-toed kick in the ass.

Blay straightened up, and the world went wheeeeee a little—to the point that he had to

surreptitiously put his free hand on the jamb just so that the balance issue didn’t show. He also tucked his nearly done drink out of sight

The doc probably wouldn’t think working out while under the influence was a good thing.

“How are you?” Blay asked, even though he didn’t really care—and that wasn’t a commentary on

Payne’s
hellren
. He didn’t give a crap about much at the moment.

Manello’s mouth started to move and Blay passed the time watching the man’s lips form and

release syllables. A moment later, a good-bye of some sort was exchanged, and then Blay was alone

with the door again.

It seemed like a planker move to just stand there, and he’d told the good doctor he was going in.

And besides, there were, what, twenty-five machines in the room? Plus barbells and free weights.

Treadmills. StairMasters, ellipticals…plenty to go around.

I’m not in love with Layla.

With a curse, Blay pushed his way in and braced himself for an awkward oh-hey-it’s-you. Except

Qhuinn didn’t even notice the arrival. Instead of going with the overhead music, the guy was wearing headphones that went all around his ears, and he’d moved over to the chin-up bar so he was facing

away, into the concrete wall.

Blay stayed as far back as possible, hopping on a random machine—pecs. Whatever.

After putting down his glass and adjusting the pin on the stack of weights, he settled onto the

padded seat, gripped the double handles, and started pushing out from his chest.

All he had to look at was Qhuinn.

Or maybe that was more because his eyes refused to go anywhere else.

The male was wearing a black wifebeater that put those tremendous shoulders of his on full

display…and the muscles along them flexed up hard as he reached the apex of the pull, the ridges and contours those of a fighter…not a lawyer—

Blay stopped himself right there.

It was unfair to the point of nausea to make any comparison like that, ever. After the past year or so, he knew Saxton’s body nearly as well as his own, and the male was beautifully built, so lean and elegant—

Qhuinn ground out another lift, the weight of his heavy lower body straining the strength in those

arms and that torso. And, thanks to his exertions, sweat had broken out all over his skin, making him glow under the lights.

The tattoo on the back of his neck shifted as he released and descended to hang from his grip, and

then it was up again. And down. And up.

Blay thought about the way the male had looked as they’d turned over the Hummer: powerful,

masculine…erotic.

This was not happening.

He was not, in fact, sitting here, eyeing Qhuinn like this—

Images filtered in from years past, turning his brain into a television screen. He saw Qhuinn

bending over a human woman who had been laid out ass up on the edge of a flat table, his hips

pumping as he fucked her, his hands locked onto her hips to hold her in place. He hadn’t had a shirt on at the time, and his shoulders had been tight, as they were now.

Hard body being used well.

There were so many pictures like that, with Qhuinn in different positions with different people,

male and female. In the beginning, right after their transitions, there had been such a feeling of

excitement as the two of them had gone on the hunt together—or rather, Qhuinn had gone trolling and Blay had taken whatever had been brought back. So much sex with so many people—although at that

point, Blay had stuck only with the females.

Maybe because he’d known they were safe, that they didn’t “count” in so many ways.

So uncomplicated in the beginning. But sometime along the way, things had started to shift—and

he’d begun to realize that as he watched Qhuinn with the randoms, he was picturing himself under that body, receiving what the guy was so good at giving. After a time, it hadn’t been some stranger’s

mouth on Qhuinn’s cock; it was his own. And when those orgasms came, and they always did, he was

the one taking them in. It was his hands on Qhuinn’s body, and his lips locked hard, and his legs that were spread.

And that had fucked everything up.

Shit, he could remember staying awake during the day and staring at his ceiling, telling himself

that when they were yet again at the club, in those bathrooms, or wherever it went down, he wouldn’t do that anymore. But each time they went out, it was like an addict being offered the precise flavor of pill he needed.

Then there had been those two kisses—the first one down the hall from here, in the clinic’s

examination room. And he’d had to beg for it. And then their second up in his bedroom, just before

he’d gone out with Saxton for the first time.

He’d had to beg for that, too.

Abruptly, Blay gave up pretending that he was actually pumping iron and put his hands down on

his thighs.

He told himself to leave. Just get the fuck off the seat and walk out before Qhuinn moved to the

next thing and his cover was blown.

Instead, he found his eyes back on those shoulders and that spine, on the tight waist and tighter

ass, on those muscular legs.

Maybe it was the alcohol. The afterburn of that argument in the flatbed. The whole sex-with-Layla

thing…

But at the moment, he was sexed up. Hard as stone. Ready for it.

Blay looked down his chest to the front of his loose shorts—and felt like shooting himself in the

head.

Oh, Jesus, he needed to get out of here right now.

As Qhuinn continued set after set of pull-ups, his hands were numb, and he felt like his biceps were being peeled from his bones with dull knives—and that was just mindless chatter in comparison to his shoulders. They were the real problem. Someone clearly had come up from behind, put varnish

stripper across them, and then buffed them with an industrial sander.

No idea how many reps he’d done. No clue how many miles he’d run. No count of the sit-ups,

squats, or lunges.

He just knew he was going to keep going.

Goal: total exhaustion. He wanted to pass out the moment he went upstairs and got horizontal on

his bed.

Dropping from the bar, he put his hands on his hips, lowered his head, and breathed heavily. His

right shoulder immediately seized up, but that was his dominant side, so he expected it. To loosen the knot of muscles, he swept his arm around in a big circle as he turned—

Qhuinn froze.

On the other side of the blue mats, Blay was on the machine closest to the door, sitting as still as the weights he was not lifting.

The expression on his face was volcanic. But he wasn’t mad.

No, he wasn’t.

He had a hard-on big enough to see from across the room. Maybe across the state.

Qhuinn opened his mouth. Shut it. Opened it again.

In the end, he decided this was a prime example of how life never failed to surprise. Of all the

situations he thought they would ever be in? This was not it. Not after…well, everything.

He pulled his earphones off and let them hang from his neck, the pounding beat downshifting from

concert-roar to impotent little hiss.

Is that for me? he wanted to ask.

For a split second, he thought it might be, but then how arrogant was that? The guy had just

finished giving a speech about how the two of them were nothing but hourly wagers working side by

side on vats of trans fat. Then Blay shows up with an arousal the size of a crowbar—and the first

thing to come to his mind was it could, possibly, maybe, sort of, kind of…be for him?

What a prick he was.

And PS, what the hell would he do if he suddenly found himself in a parallel universe, with Blay

pulling a hey-how-’bouta in that department?

Of course he wanted the guy.

For fuck’s sake, he’d always wanted him—to the point where he had to wonder how much of that

pushing-away thing that he’d done “for Blay’s benefit” hadn’t really been for his own.

Pondering that one, he noticed the glass down by the guy’s feet. Ah, alcohol was involved—he

sincerely doubted the dark inch in that squat glass was Coca-Cola.

Shit, for all he knew, Saxton had just texted him a crotch shot and a half, and that was the cause of all that erection.

And wasn’t that a deflator.

Your cousin is giving me what I need all day long, every day.

“You got something else to say to me?” Qhuinn asked harshly.

Blay shook his head back and forth once.

Qhuinn frowned. Blay was not a hothead—never had been, and that was part of the reason that,

for the longest time, they’d been so tight. Balance and all that crap. At the moment, however, the guy seemed like he was a thin inch from losing it.

Trouble in paradise between the happy couple?

Nah, they were too good together.

“Okay.” Man, the idea of hanging around here while Blay amped up for another session with

Saxton the Magnificent was untenable. “I’ll see you later.”

As he walked by, he felt Blay’s eyes on him—but they weren’t on the level of his face. At least, it didn’t seem like it.

What the
fuck
was going on here?

Pushing out into the hall, he paused to double-check that the concrete walls weren’t melting and

that he didn’t suddenly have fish for hands or something. Neither were true, but a trippy sense of

unreality dogged him as he went down to the locker room. A shower was mandatory; he was covered

in sweat, and as much as the
doggen
loved a good mess, he wasn’t about to give them more work just because he’d tried to kill himself in the gym—

Hard. Aroused. Ready for sex.

As that image of Blay battered around the inside of his skull, he closed his eyes, and then hit the door into the land of tile and water fixtures. He intended to go over to the showers directly, but ended up stalling out in the front half of the room, where the lockers were stacked in orderly rows and the benches ran down the middle of the aisles.

Parking it, he unlaced his Nikes, kicked them off, and peeled his socks free.

Totally fucking aroused.

Blay had been out of his mind for it.

For some reason, Qhuinn’s last two sexual encounters popped into his head. There had been that

redheaded guy at the Iron Mask—the one he’d seduced and fucked in the bathroom. He’d picked the

random out of the crowd for that one defining physical characteristic, and naturally the sesh had done nothing extraordinary for him. Then again, it had been like wanting Herradura, and putting ginger ale down your throat.

And then there had been the stuff with Layla—which had been nothing but a physically demanding

job, like digging a trench or building a wall….

God, he felt like a louse for thinking like that—and he meant no disrespect to the Chosen. But at

least it was fairly clear she was of a similar mind.

That was it for the last year. Just those two.

Nearly twelve months of nothing, and he hadn’t been jerking off, either. He just wasn’t interested

in anything, like his balls had gone into hibernation.

Funny, right after his transition he’d banged anything with two legs and a beating heart, and as he struggled to remember some of those many faces—God knew he hadn’t bothered to get names a lot of