J.R. Ward - Lover At Last

“You go wait in the truck,” the Brother said grimly.

“Fuck that—”

Tohr jerked the guy forward so they were face-to-face. “Excuse me, son. What did you say? ’Cuz I know you didn’t just f-bomb me, did you.”

Okay. Right. Blay knew firsthand that there were few things in life Qhuinn backed down from; that being said, a Brother the guy respected, who was more than ready to finish the job that a pine tree had started, was definitely one of them.

Qhuinn looked over to his ruined SUV. “Sorry. Bad night. And I just got light-headed for a split second. I’m fine.”

In typical Qhuinn fashion, the bastard broke free and walked off, heading toward the steaming pile of previously drivable metal like he’d thrown off his injuries by force of will.

Leaving everyone else in his dust.

Blay got to his feet and forced himself to focus on John. “What happened?”

Thank God for sign language; it gave him something to look at, and fortunately, John took his time filling in the details. When the narration was over, Blay could only stare at his friend. But come on, it wasn’t as if anybody would make that shit up.

Not about someone they liked, at any rate.

Tohrment started to laugh. “He pulled a hyslop , is what you’re saying.”

“Not sure I know what that is?” Blay cut in.

Tohr shrugged and followed Qhuinn’s trail through the snow, motioning with his arm toward the wreck. “Right here. This is the definition of a hyslop —precipitated by your boy leaving his keys in the ignition.”

He’s not my boy, Blay said to himself. Never has been. Never will be.

And the fact that that hurt worse than any kind of concussion was something, like so much, he kept quiet about.

Off to the side and out of the glow of the headlights, Blay hung back and watched as Qhuinn crouched down by the driver’s door and cursed softly. “Messy. Very messy.”

Tohr did the duty on the passenger seat. “Oh, look, a matched set.”

“I think they’re dead.”

“Really. What gave that away. The fact they aren’t moving or that this guy over here has no facial features left?”

Qhuinn straightened up and looked across the undercarriage. “We need to roll it and tow it.”

“And here I thought we were going to toast marshmallows,” Tohr said. “John? Blay? Get over here.”

The four of them lined up shoulder-to-shoulder between the sets of tires and dug in with their boots, locking their positions in the snow. Four sets of hands palmed the panels; four bodies leaned into the ready; four pairs of shoulders tightened up.

A single voice, Tohr’s, counted it out. “On three. One. Two. Three —”

The Hummer had already had a bad night, and this right-the-wrong thing made it groan so loudly that an owl was flushed across the road and a pair of deer took flight on bounding hooves through the trees.

Then again, the SUV wasn’t the only one cursing. Everybody was going George Carlin under the deadweight as they worked to pry free gravity’s hold on all that steel. The laws of physics were possessive, however, and as Blay’s body strained, all his muscles tightening against his bones, he turned his head and shifted his grip—

He was standing next to Qhuinn. Right beside the guy.

Qhuinn’s eyes were focused straight ahead, his lips peeled back from his fangs, his fierce expression the result of total anatomical effort….

It was close to what he looked like when he came.

Holy inappropriateness, Batman. And too bad that fact did nothing to change his thought pattern.

The trouble was, Blay knew from firsthand experience what an orgasm did to the guy—although not because he was one of the cast of thousands who’d been a recipient. Oh, no. Never that. God for-fucking-bid the guy who’d stick his dick in anything that breathed—and maybe some inanimate objects—would ever do Blay.

Yeah, because that discerning sexual palate, which had led to Qhuinn balling everything in Caldwell between the ages of twenty and twenty-eight, had filtered Blay out of the fuck pool.

“She’s…starting to move…” Tohr gritted. “Get under her!”

Blay and Qhuinn snapped into action, releasing their holds, crouching down, shoving their shoulders under the lip of the roof. Facing each other, their eyes met as breath exploded out of their mouths, their thighs going into action, their bodies pitted in a war against all that cold, hard weight—that happened be slippery thanks to the snow.

Their added power was the turning point—literally. An axis formed on the opposite tires, and the Hummer’s four-ton burden started shifted on them, getting lighter and lighter—

Why the hell was Qhuinn looking at him like that?

Those eyes, that pair of blue and green, were locked on Blay’s—and they were not moving.

Maybe it was just concentration—like, he was actually focused only on the two inches in front of his face and Blay just happened to be on the far side of that.

Had to be…

“Easy, boys!” Tohr called out. “Or we’ll flip the damn thing all the way over again!”

Blay let up on the graft, and there was a moment of suspension, a split second where the impossible happened, where an eight-thousand-pound SUV balanced perfectly on the edge of two tires, where what had been excruciating became…exhilarating.

And still Qhuinn stared at him.

As the Hummer landed with a bounce on all fours, Blay frowned and turned away. When he glanced back…Qhuinn’s eyes were exactly where they had been.

Blay leaned in and hissed, “What?”

Before there was any kind of answer, Tohr went over and opened the SUV’s side door. The smell of fresh blood floated over on the breeze. “Man, even if this isn’t totaled, I’m not sure you’re going to want it back. Cleanup in here is going to be a bitch.”

Qhuinn didn’t respond, seeming to have forgotten all about the Allstate Mayhem commercial his SUV was living out. He just stood there, staring at Blay.

Maybe the SOB had stroked out standing up?

“What’s your problem?” Blay repeated.

“I’ll bring the flatbed over,” Tohr said as he started for the other vehicle. “Let’s leave the bodies right where they are—you can dispose of them on the way home.”

Meanwhile, Blay could feel John pausing and looking across at the pair of them—something Qhuinn didn’t seem to care about, naturally.

With a curse, Blay solved the problem by jogging over to the tow truck and walking alongside as Tohr backed the thing up toward the Hummer’s collapsed hood. Going for the winch, Blay unclipped the claw and started to free the cable.

He had a feeling he knew what was on Qhuinn’s mind, and if he was right, the guy had better stay quiet and stay the fuck back.

He did not want to hear it.

As Qhuinn stood in the stiff wind and watched Blay hook up the Hummer, loose snow blew up over his boots, the quiet, soft weight gradually obscuring the steel-toed tops. Glancing down, he had the vague thought that if he stayed where he was long enough, he would be completely covered by it, from head to toe.

Weird goddamn thing to come into his brain.

The roaring of the flatbed’s engine brought his head back up, his eyes shifting over as the winch began to drag his ruined ride off the snowpack.

Blay was the one working the pull, the male standing to the side, carefully monitoring and controlling the speed of the draw so that no undue stress was put on the various mechanical components of this automotive Good Samaritan production.

So careful. So controlled.

In order to seem casual, Qhuinn went over by Tohr and pretended that he, like the Brother, was just monitoring the progress of the lift. Not. It was all about Blay, of course.