Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9)(77)

“Anything.”

He smiled. “May I unbraid your hair?”

For certain, her tresses were the last thing on her mind, but his expression was so rapt and intense, she could not deny him the request—or any part of herself. “But of course.”

His fingers trembled ever so slightly as he reached for the end of her braid. “I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I first saw you.”

Gradually, inch by inch, he freed the heavy weight of the black waves she kept long for no other reason than she was too disinterested to tend to them. Given his profound regard for what he revealed, however, she began to wonder if mayhap she’d far underestimated their significance.

When he was finished, he spread the lengths out o’er the bed and just sat back. “You are . . . indescribably beautiful.”

Having never viewed herself as even feminine, much less “beautiful,” it was an astonishment to hear the reverence in not just his words, but his voice.

“Indeed . . . you tie my tongue,” she said once again to him.

“Let me give you something else to do with it.”

As he joined her on the bed and lay beside her, she turned into the cushion of his pectorals and the hard expanse of his stomach. She was big compared to other members of her sex, her body retaining the power that had come from her sire’s side to the point where she often felt ungainly in comparison to other females: No willowy grace as the Chosen Layla had for her—in truth, she was built for fighting, not spiritual or sensual service.

Here with her healer, however, she felt rather perfectly proportioned. He had not the tremendous heft of her twin brother, but he was bigger and thicker than she was, in all the places a male should be: Lying with him in the dim room with their bodies so close together, and the temperature rising everywhere, she was not something that should not be, a malformation of girth and bulk, but an object of desire and passion.

“You’re smiling,” he whispered next to her mouth.

“Am I?”

“Yeah. And I love it.”

Over at her hip, his hands burrowed into her nightgown and she felt it all, from the light drift of his pinkie finger to the smooth skin of his palm to the hot trail his touch left behind as he slowly went upward. Closing her eyes, she arched into him, very aware that she was asking for something, yet unclear as to what exactly she was in search of—but she knew he would give it to her.

Yes, her healer knew exactly what she needed: That hand of his went up her rib cage and paused beneath her heavy, tender breasts.

“Is this okay?” she heard him ask from a great distance.

“Anything,” she gasped. “Anything to feel my legs.”

Except even as the words left her, she sensed that what drove her was less her paralysis and more a greed for him and his sex—

“Healer!”

The sensation of her breast being captured in a gentle caress was a wondrous shock, and she jerked up, her thighs spreading, her heels pressing into the mattress beneath them both. And then his thumb passed up and over her nipple, the stroke shooting a blast of fire to her core.

Her legs sawed on the bed, the tight coil in her sex driving them. “I’m moving,” she said roughly—and almost as an afterthought. What seemed important now was joining with him and having him . . . come . . . inside of her.

“I know, bambina,” he avowed. “And I’m going to make sure you keep it up.”





TWENTY-SEVEN


Downtown, Butch parked the Escalade in the underground parking garage of the Commodore and took the internal elevator all the way up the spine of the building. He had no f*cking clue what he was going to walk into when he got to V’s place, but that was where the GPS signal was coming from, so that was where he was going.

In the pocket of his leather coat, he had all the keys to Vishous’s private space: the plastic swipe card to get into the parking garage; the silver one you used in the elevator to punch the top button; the copper job that got you past the dead bolts on the doors.

His heart beat hard as a little ding sounded and the elevator opened silently. All-access was taking on a whole new meaning tonight, and as he stepped out into the hall, he wanted a drink. Badly.

At the door, he took out the copper key, but used his knuckles first. A couple of times.

It was a good minute later when it dawned on him that there was no answer.

Fuck the knuckles. He pounded with his fist.

“Vishous,” he barked. “Answer the goddamn door or I’m coming in.”

One, Mississippi. Two, Mississippi—

“Fuck this.” He shoved the key into the lock and cranked it before throwing his shoulder into the solid metal door and shoving it wide.

Bursting into the place, he heard the alarm beeping quietly. Which meant V couldn’t be here. “What the hell . . . ?”

He put the code in, shut the thing off, and locked the dead bolt behind himself. No remnants of lit candlewicks . . . no scent of blood . . . nothing but cool, clean air.

He flipped on the light switch and blinked in the glare.

Yeah, wow . . . Lot of memories in here . . . him coming and crashing after the Omega had gotten into him and he’d left quarantine . . . V losing his ever-loving mind and jumping off the damn terrace . . .

He went over to the wall of “equipment.” A f*ckload of other things had happened here, too. Some of which he couldn’t imagine.