Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(17)

Which, even though he sensed she’d had a hard night, didn’t bother him at all.

But that was a symphath for you, wasn’t it, he thought with derision.

Funny, most of the time he didn’t care that he was what he was. His life as he’d always known it had been a constantly shifting mirage of lies and deceptions and that was that. Around her, though? He wished he were normal.

“Let’s see what your temperature is,” she said, bringing an electronic thermometer over from the desk.

“It’s higher than usual.”

Her amber stare flipped up to his. “Your arm.”

“No, your eyes.”

She blinked, then seemed to shake herself. “I seriously doubt that.”

“Then you underestimate your appeal.”

As she shook her head and clicked one of the plastic covers onto the silver wand, he caught a whiff of her scent.

His fangs elongated.

“Open.” She brought the thermometer up and waited. “Well?”

Rehv stared into those amazing tricolored eyes of hers and dropped his jaw. She leaned in, all business as usual, only to freeze. As she looked at his canines, her scent surged with something dark and erotic.

Triumph singed in his veins as he growled, “Do me.”

There was a long moment, during which the two of them were bound together by invisible strings of heat and longing. Then her mouth flattened out.

“Never, but I will take your temperature, because I have to.”

She jabbed the thermometer in between his lips, and he had to clamp his teeth together to keep the thing from deflating one of his tonsils.

S’all good, though. Even if he couldn’t have her, he turned her on. And that was more than he deserved.

There was a beep, an interval, and another beep.

“One oh nine,” she said as she stepped back and released the plastic cover into the biohazard bin. “Havers will be with you as soon as he’s able.”

The door clapped shut behind her with the hard syllabic smack of the f-word.

Man, she was hot.

Rehv frowned, the whole sexual attraction thing reminding him of something he didn’t like to think about.

Someone, rather.

What erection he had instantly limped out as he realized it was Monday night. Which meant tomorrow was Tuesday. The first Tuesday of the last month of the year.

The symphath in him tingled even as every inch of skin he had tightened like his pockets were full of spiders.

He and his blackmailer had another one of their dates tomorrow night. Christ, how was it possible another month had gone by? It seemed like every time he turned around it was the first Tuesday again and he was making the drive upstate to that godforsaken cabin for another command performance.

The pimp becoming the whore.

Power plays and hard edges and base f*cking were the currency of the meetings with his blackmailer, the basis of his “love” life for the past twenty-five years. It was everything dirty and wrong and evil and degrading, and he did it over and over again to keep his secret safe.

And also because his dark side got off on it. It was Love, Symphath Style, the only time he could be how he was with no holds barred, his one slice of horrible freedom. After all, much as he medicated himself and tried to fit in, he was trapped by his dead father’s legacy, by the evil blood in his veins. You couldn’t negotiate with your DNA, and though he was a half-breed, the sin-eater in him was dominant.

So when it came to a female of worth like Ehlena, he was always going to be on the far side of the glass, nose pressed up hard, palms spread with need, never getting close enough to touch. It was only fair to her. Unlike his blackmailer, she didn’t deserve what he brought to the table.

The morals he’d taught himself told him at least that much was true.

Yay. Rah. Go, him.

Next tat he got was going to be of the frickin’ halo over his head.

As he looked down at the mess running up his left arm, he saw what festered there with total clarity. It wasn’t just a bacterial infection from him deliberately using needles that weren’t sterile on skin that hadn’t been hit with an alcohol rub. It was a slow suicide, and that was why he was damned if he was showing it to the doctor. He knew exactly what would happen if that poison got deep into his bloodstream, and he wished it would get off its ass and take over.

The door swung open and he glanced up, ready to tango with Havers—except it wasn’t the doc. Rehv’s nurse was back, and she didn’t look happy.

Matter of fact, she looked exhausted, like he was one more hassle in her castle and she didn’t have the energy to deal with the shit he pulled when she was around.

“I spoke with the doctor,” she said. “He’s closing in the OR now, so it’s going to be a while. He would like me to draw some blood—”

“I’m sorry,” Rehv blurted.

Ehlena’s hand went up to the collar of her uniform and she pulled the two halves closer together. “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry for playing you. You don’t need that from a patient. Especially on a night like tonight.”

She frowned. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. And no, I’m not reading your mind. You just seem tired.” Abruptly, he knew how she felt. “I’d like to make it up to you.”