Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9)(119)

Qhuinn would reach out and touch the bandage . . . and then he would let his fingers wander off the gauze and the surgical tape onto the warm, smooth skin of Blay’s stomach. Blay would be shocked, but in this fantasy, he wouldn’t push the hand away. . . . He would take it lower, down past the injury, down onto his hips and his—

“Fuck !”

Qhuinn leaped back, but it was too late: Saxton had somehow come into the room, walked over to the windows, and started to pull the drapery shut. And in the process, he’d seen the ass-wipe outside on the terrace who was making like a security camera.

As Qhuinn wheeled around and hotfooted it back for his room, he thought, Don’t open the door . . . don’t open the door—

“Qhuinn?”

Busted.

Freezing like a burglar caught with a plasma-screen under his armpit, he made sure his robe was closed before he turned around. Shit. Saxton was stepping out, and the bastard was also in a robe.

Well, he guessed they were all sporting them. Even Layla had been in one.

As Qhuinn faced off at his cousin, he realized he hadn’t said more than two words to the guy since Saxton had moved in.

“I just wondered how he was.” No reason to use a proper noun—pretty damn obvi who he’d been staring at.

“Blaylock’s asleep at the moment.”

“He feed?” Even though Qhuinn already knew that.

“Yes.” Saxton shut the door behind himself, no doubt to keep the cold out, and Qhuinn tried to ignore the fact that the guy’s feet and ankles were bare. Because it meant that chances were good the rest of him was also.

“Ah, sorry to have disturbed you,” Qhuinn muttered. “Have a good n—”

“You could have just knocked. From the hall inside.” The words were spoken with an aristocratic inflection that made Qhuinn’s skin tighten up all over. Not because he hated Saxton. It just reminded him too much of the family he’d lost.

“I didn’t want to bother you. Him. Either one of you.”

As a gust curled up against the house, Saxton’s impossibly thick and wavy blond hair didn’t even ruffle—as if every part of him, down to his follicles, was simply too composed and well-bred to be affected by . . . anything.

“Qhuinn, you wouldn’t be interrupting a thing.”

Liar, Qhuinn thought.

“You were here first, cousin,” Saxton murmured. “If you wished to see him, or be with him, I would leave you two alone.”

Qhuinn blinked. So . . . the pair of them had an open relationship? What the hell?

Or wait . . . maybe he’d just done a masterful job in convincing not only Blay, but Saxton, that he didn’t want his best friend for anything sexual.

“Cousin, may I speak candidly?”

Qhuinn cleared his throat. “Depends on what you have to say.”

“I’m his lover, cousin—”

“Whoa . . .” He put his hand up. “That’s so none of my business—”

“—not the love of his life.”

Qhuinn pulled another double blink. And then for a split second, he got sucked into someplace where his cousin bowed out gracefully and Qhuinn more than filled the SOB’s chic shoes. Except whatever . . . there was a big-ass glitch in that fantasy: Blay was through with him.

He’d engineered that result over too many years.

“Do you understand what I’m saying to you, cousin?” Saxton kept his voice down, even though the wind was rolling and the door was closed. “Do you hear me.”

Okay, this was not a corner Qhuinn had expected to come to tonight . . . or any other evening. Fucking hell, his body was suddenly tingling all over, and he had half a mind to tell his cousin to beat it and go wax his eyebrows or some shit—or better yet move the hell out.

Except then he thought about how old Blay looked. The guy had finally found a stride in his life, and it was criminally unfair for that to be negotiated away out here in the dark.

Qhuinn shook his head. “It’s not right.”

Not for Blay.

“You are a fool.”

“No. I used to be one.”

“I would beg to differ.” Saxton’s elegant hand pulled the lapels of his robe closer together. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d best return to the interior. It’s cold here on the outside.”

Well, wasn’t that an ass-smacker of a metaphor.

“Don’t tell him about this,” Qhuinn said roughly. “Please.”

Saxton’s eyes narrowed. “Your secret is all too well protected. Trust me.”

With that, he turned and went back into Blaylock’s room, the door shutting with a click and then the light getting cut off as those heavy drapes were tugged into place.

Qhuinn rubbed his hair again.

Part of him wanted to bust in and say, I changed my mind, cuz—now get the f*ck out of here so I can . . .

Tell Blay what he’d told Layla.

But Blay might well be in love with Saxton, and God knew Qhuinn had f*cked his best friend too many times.

Or not, as the case was.

When he eventually headed back to his room—only because it was just too damn pathetic to be out here staring at the ass sides of drapery—he realized his life had always been about him. What he wanted. Needed. Had to have.