Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8)(23)

His shower was quick, and as he worked the soap over his chest and

abs, he thought back to the time when even the brush of warm water over his cock was enough to make him hard. No more. He hadn't had an erection . . .

since the last time he'd been with Xhex.

He just didn't have the interest--even in his dreams, which was a new one. Hell, before his transition, when he wasn't supposed to have any awareness of his sexuality, his subconscious had kicked up all sorts of hot and heavy. And those sex-fests had been so real, so detailed, it was as if they were memory and not REM-induced fabrications.

Now? All that played on his internal screen was Blair Witch Project chase scenes where he was running in a jerky panic but didn't know what was after him . . . or whether he would ever get to safety.

When he came out of the bathroom, he found a tray with a roast beef

sandwich and a big-as-your-head wedge of carrot cake on it. Nothing to drink, but Qhuinn knew that he was taking his liquid refreshment from Mr.

Daniel alone.

John ate standing up in front of the bureau, naked as the day he was

born, and when the food hit his stomach, it sucked the energy from him, draining everything from his head. Wiping his mouth with the linen napkin, he put the tray out in the hall and then headed for the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth only from habit.

Lights off in the bath. Lights off in the room.

Him and the Jack sitting on the bed.

As exhausted as he was, he was not looking forward to lying down.

There was an inverse relationship between his energy level and the distance between his ears and the floor: Even though he was cross-eyed, the second his head hit the pillow, his thoughts were going to start spinning and he was going to end up wide awake and staring at the ceiling, counting hours and aches.

He polished off what was in his glass and propped his elbows on his

knees. Within moments, his head was bobbing, his lids slamming down.

When he started to list to the side, he let himself go even though he was unsure which direction he was going in, toward the pillows or the wadded-up duvet.

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Pillows.

Shifting his feet up on the bed, he dragged the covers over his hips

and had a moment of blissful collapse. Maybe tonight the cycle would break.

Maybe this glorious sinking relief would suck him down into the black hole he was hoping for. Maybe he'd . . .

His eyes popped open and he stared into the thick darkness.

Nope. He was exhausted to the point of being jittery, not just wide

awake . . . but goosed-in-the-ass alert. As he rubbed his face, he figured this contradictory state of things was the cognitive equivalent to bumblebees being able to fly: Physicists maintained it wasn't possible, and yet it happened all the time.

Rolling over onto his back, he crossed his arms over his chest and

yawned so hard his jaw cracked. Tough to know whether to turn on the light.

The darkness amplified the whirling in his skull, but the lamp stung his eyes until he felt like he was crying sand. Usually, he alternated between clicking on the bulb and turning it off.

From out in the hall of statues, he heard Zsadist and Bella and Nalla walk down to their room. As the couple talked about the dinner, Nalla cooed and squeaked in the way babies did when their bellies were full and their parents were right with them.

Blay came down the way next. Aside from V, he was the only other

person who smoked in the house, so that was how John knew it was him.

And Qhuinn was with the guy. Had to be. Otherwise Blay wouldn't have lit up outside of his own room.

It was payback for that receptionist at the tat shop and who could

blame him?

There was a long silence out there. And then a final pair of boots.

Tohr was heading to bed.

It was obvious who it was by the quiet more than the sound--the

footfalls were slow and relatively light for a Brother: Tohr was working on getting his body back into shape, but he hadn't been cleared for fieldwork, which made sense. He needed to put on another fifty pounds of muscle before he had any business going toe-to-toe with the enemy.

There wouldn't be anyone else coming down. Lassiter, a.k.a. Tohr's

golden shadow, didn't sleep, so the angel usually stayed down in the billiard room and watched highbrow television. Like paternity tests on Maury and The People's Court with Judge Milian and Real Housewives marathons.

Silence . . . silence . . . silence . . .

When the sound of his heartbeat started to annoy him, John cursed

and stretched up, turning on the light. As he settled back against the pillows, 69

J. R.Ward

he let his arms flop down. He didn't share Lassiter's fascination with the boob tube, but anything was better than the quiet. Fishing around the empty bottles, he found the remote, and when he hit the on button, there was a pause like the thing had forgotten what it was used for--but then the picture flared.

Linda Hamilton was running down a hallway, her body bouncing with

power. Down at the far end, an elevator was opening . . . revealing a short dark-haired kid and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

John hit the power button and killed the image.

Last time he'd seen that movie had been when he and Tohr had

watched it together . . . back when the Brother had taken him out of his sad pitiful exisitence and shown him who he really was . . . back before all the seams in both their lives had gotten yanked apart.