J.R. Ward - Lover Mine

“Nah, I’m going up now.” He tossed his keys and his cell phone on the granite countertop. “Leave the food in the fridge and lock the door behind you.”

“Yessuh.”

“We’re on for tomorrow night. You pick the target up at seven. You know where to take him.”

“Yessuh.”

That two-syllable word was the SOB’s favorite response—which was another reason he remained upright and the second in command.

Lash passed through the butler’s pantry and the dining room and hung a right to the carved staircase. When he’d first seen the place, it had been emptied out, with nothing but the remnants of graceful living left behind: silk wallpaper, damask drapes, and one wing chair. Now, the brownstone was filling up with antiques and statuary and proper rugs. It was going to take longer than he’d thought to get it where it needed to be, but you couldn’t pull a household of shit out of your ass overnight.

Mounting the stairs, his feet were light and his body humming as he unbuttoned his coat and then his jacket.

As he closed in on Xhex, he was well aware that what had started out for him as payback had turned into an addiction: What was waiting for him on the other side of his bedroom door was much more than he’d bargained for.

It had been so simple at first: He’d taken her because she’d taken from him. When she’d been up at the colony in that cave, she’d pointed her gun and pulled the trigger and pumped a shitload of lead into his bitch’s chest. Not acceptable. She’d robbed him of his favorite toy and he was exactly that flavor of dickhead where an eye for an eye was his theme song.

When he’d brought her here and locked her into his room, his goal had been to take pieces out of her, to trim off bits from her mind and her emotions and her body, putting her through shit that was going to bend her until she snapped.

And then, like any broken thing, he was going to throw her away.

At least, that had been the plan. It was becoming amply clear, however, that her edges didn’t dull.

Oh, no. She was titanium, this one. Her reserves of strength were proving inexhaustible and he had the bruises to prove it.

As he came up to the door, he paused to take all his clothing off. Generally speaking, if he liked the threads he had on, they needed to hit the floor before he went inside, because he got trashed pretty quick the moment he got near her.

Unplugging his button-down from his slacks, he released his cuff links, left them on the hall table and took his silk shirt off.

He had marks on him. From her fists. Her nails. Her fangs.

The tip of his cock tingled as he looked at his various wounds and bruises. He healed quickly, thanks to his father’s blood running thick in his veins, but sometimes the damage she did lasted and that thrilled him to the core.

When you were the son of evil, there was little you couldn’t do, own, or kill, and yet her mortal self was an elusive trophy he could touch, but not put on his shelf.

This made her rare. This made her precious.

This made him. . love her.

Fingering a blue-black contusion on the inside of his forearm, he smiled. He had to go to his father’s tonight to confirm the induction, but first he would spend some QT with his female and add to his collection of scrapes. And before he took off, he would leave some food for her.

Like all prized animals, she needed to be provided for.

Reaching out to the doorknob, he frowned as he thought about the larger feeding issue. She was only half symphath and that vampire side of her worried him. Sooner or later, she was going to require something that couldn’t be bought at the local Hannaford. . and wasn’t something he could give her.

Vampires needed to take the vein of the opposite sex. It was immutable. If you had that biology in you, you died unless you put the hardware in your mouth to use and swallowed fresh blood. And she couldn’t have what was in his body—everything in him ran black now. As a result, his men, what few he had left, were searching for a male of good age, but they’d been coming up with nothing. Caldwell was close to empty when it came to civilian vampires.

Although. . he did have that one in deep freeze.

Trouble was, he’d known that motherfucker in his old life, and the idea of her taking the vein of someone he’d been friends with just cranked his shit right out.

Plus the bastard was Qhuinn’s brother—so yeah, not a bloodline he wanted her to have anything to do with.

Whatever. Sooner or later, his men were going to come up with something—they just had to. Because his new favorite toy was the kind of thing he wanted to have around for a very long time.

As he opened the door, he started to smile. “Hi, honey, I’m home.”

Across town, in the tat shop, Blay stayed mostly focused on what was doing on John’s back. There was just something hypnotic about watching that needle trace over the blue transfer lines. Then from time to time, the artist paused to swipe the skin with a white paper towel before resuming his work, the whirring sound of the gun filling the silence once again.

Unfortunately, as captivating as it all was, he still had enough attention span left over to be very aware of when Qhuinn decided to fuck that human woman: After the pair chatted softly and swapped a lot of casual stroking down arms and shoulders, those astounding, mismatched eyes drifted over to the front door.

And a moment later, Qhuinn strolled across and checked to make sure it was locked.

That green-and-blue stare didn’t meet Blay’s as he came back to the tat station.

“You doing good?” he asked John.

When John glanced up and nodded, Qhuinn quickly signed, You mind if I get a little exercise behind that curtain?

Please say yes, you do mind, Blay thought. Please tell him he has to stay here.

Not at all , John signed. You take care of yourself.

I’ll be on it if you need me. Even if I have to come out with my cock out.

Yeah, if we could avoid that, I’d appreciate it.

Qhuinn laughed a little. “Fair enough.” There was a heartbeat of a pause; then he turned away without looking at Blay.

The woman went into the other room first, and given the way she was working her hips, she was as ready for what was going to happen as Qhuinn was. Then Qhuinn’s big shoulders shifted as he ducked out of sight and the veil fell back into place.

The overhead light in the room and the curtain’s anorexic fibers provided plenty of get-a-load-of-this, so Blay got a distilled picture of Qhuinn reaching out and pulling her by the neck against him.

Blay redirected his eyes to John’s tattoo, but the refocusing didn’t last. Two seconds later he was locked on that peep show, not so much watching it happen as absorbing the details. In typical Qhuinn fashion, the woman was now on her knees and the guy had his hands bunched into her hair. He was working her head, his hips flexing and releasing as he drilled her mouth.

The muted sounds were as incredible as the visual and Blay had to shift in his seat, his body hardening. He wanted to be in there, on his knees, led by Qhuinn’s hands. He wanted to be the one whose mouth was full. He wanted to be responsible for making Qhuinn pant and strain.

Not going to be in the cards.

Man, what the hell? The guy had fucked people in clubs and bathrooms and cars and alleys and occasionally in beds. He’d done ten thousand strangers, men and women and males and females alike. . he was Wilt Chamberlain with fangs. To be denied was like getting shut out of a public park.

Blay took another shot at looking away, but the ripple of a deep moan once again brought his eyes to the—

Qhuinn’s head had turned so that he was staring out of the curtain. And as their eyes met, his mismatched stare flashed. . almost like he was turned on more by who was watching him, than who he was hooking up with.