Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9)(146)

“Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” Hollywood said. And threw more popcorn.

Vishous cleared his throat. “I have an announcement to make.”

Right. Okay, there were a lot of eyes on the pair of them. But he was so going to suck up his inclination to bow out.

Tucking his flustered and blushing Jane into his side, he said loud and clear: “We’re getting mated. Properly. And I expect you all to be there and . . . Yeah, that’s it.”

Dead. Quiet.

Then Wrath released the handle on George’s harness and started to clap. Loud and slow. “About. Fucking. Time.”

His brothers and their shellans and all the guests of the house followed suit, and then the fighters broke out into a chant that raised the roof and then some—their voices vibrating through the air.

As he glanced over at Jane, she was glowing. Utterly glowing.

“Maybe I should have asked first,” he murmured.

“Nope.” She kissed him. “This is perfect.”

Vishous started to laugh. Man, if this was living out loud, he’d ditch the tight-ass routine any night: His brothers were behind him, his shellan was happy, and . . . okay, he could do without the popcorn in his hair, but whatever.

Minutes later, Fritz brought in champagne flutes, and now there was a different kind of popping, corks going flying as people talked even louder than before.

As someone shoved a glass into his mitt, he whispered in Jane’s ear, “Champagne makes me horny.”

“Really . . .”

Slipping his hand down her hip . . . and lower . . . he tugged her in against his sudden arousal. “You ever meet the hall bathroom?”

“I do believe we’ve been formally introd—Vishous!”

He stopped nipping at her neck, but kept up with rolling his hips against hers. Which was a little indecent, but nothing that any of the other couples hadn’t done from time to time.

“Yes?” he drawled. When she seemed speechless, he sucked on her lip and growled, “If you recall, we were discussing the bathroom? I was thinking maybe I could reacquaint the pair of you. Not sure if you’re aware of it, but that sink counter has been crying out for you.”

“And you do some of your best work at sinks.”

V dragged one fang up her throat. “True that.”

As his erection started thumping, he took his female’s hand—

The grandfather clock in the corner started to chime, and then he heard four deep bongs. Which made him pull back a little and check his watch even though he didn’t need to—because that clock had kept time correctly for two hundred years.

Four a.m.? Where the hell was Payne?

As the urge to go to the Commodore and bring his sister home struck hard, he reminded himself that although dawn was coming fast, she still had maybe an hour left. And given what he and Jane were about to do behind a closed door, he couldn’t really blame her for eking out every moment she had with her male—even if he was absolutely, positively not going there.

“Everything okay?” Jane asked.

Getting back with the program, he dropped his head. “It will be as soon as I get you up on that counter.”

He and Jane were in the loo for forty-five minutes.

When they came out, everyone was still in the billiards room. The music had been cranked and Lil Wayne’s “I’m Not a Human Being” was echoing up to the foyer’s ceiling. The doggen were buzzing around with little fancy crap on silver trays, and Rhage had a circle of laughing people around him as he cracked jokes.

For a moment, it felt like the good old days.

But then he didn’t see his sister in the crowd. And no one came over to tell him she’d gone up to the guest room she’d been using.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to Jane. A quick kiss and he ducked out of the party, skated across the foyer, and went into the empty dining room. Rounding the fully set but very empty table, he got his cell from his pocket and dialed the phone he’d given her.

No answer.

He tried again. No answer. Third time? No . . . goddamn answer.

With a curse, he punched in Manello’s number, and shuddered at what he might be interrupting—but they’d probably pulled the drapes and lost track of time. And phones could defo get lost in sheets, he thought with a wince.

Ring . . . ring . . . ring . . .

“Fucking pick up—”

“Hello?”

Manello sounded bad. Gunshot bad. Mortal-injury bad.

“Where is my sister.” Because there was no way the surgeon was like that if she were in his bed.

The pause was not good news, either. “I don’t know. She left here hours ago.”

“Hours?”

“What’s going on?”

“Jesus Christ—” V hung up on the guy, and called her phone again. And again.

Cranking his head around, he looked out to the foyer and the door to the vestibule.

With a subtle whirring sound, the steel shutters that protected the house from the sun started to ease down into place.

Come on, Payne . . . come home. Right now.

Right . . .

Now . . .

Jane’s gentle touch snapped him back to reality. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

His first instinct was to cover it all up with a crack about Rhage’s impression of Steve-O in a projectile Porta-Potty. Instead, he forced himself to be real with his mate.