The Wolf (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp #2)(47)

What the fuck did he know.

After weeding his way around the stacks and shelves, he pushed open the door into the basement corridor and dragged a tired hand through his hair.

There was a lot he didn’t get about his situation, himself, right now. And part of the conundrum was that he and Apex apparently had something in common.

Both of them were deeply worried about somebody.

And that was bad news in the prison camp.





The Black Dagger Brotherhood mansion was quiet, all the lovebirds snug in their beds, not a creature a-stirrin’—

Except for the one whose skin was crawling. Whose bones were aching. Whose body was demanding a type of sustenance that had nothing to do with air or water or food. Or blood.

In the billiards room, Vishous stood alone at the bar, a rocks glass filled with Grey Goose swirling, swirling . . . swirling . . . in his gloved hand. His mouth was open slightly, and he breathed through his parted lips.

Exhale. Exhale. Exhale.

Sweat had bloomed across his forehead, and he wiped at it in a series of swipes, as if his whole arm had a tic. Underneath his muscle shirt, his pecs were spasming, his abdominals twitching. From time to time, he jerked his head to the left, to the right, the upper vertebrae cracking.

He closed his eyes and listened to the roar inside his skull. Too many thoughts. Too much gasoline from emotions he refused to think about. Talk about. Acknowledge at all. Opening his lids, he checked the time on his phone. Then he stamped a shitkicker—and regretted making the noise. The last thing he needed was interaction with anybody.

He would have waited at the Pit, but he was too itchy.

And he prayed to his mahmen who didn’t exist anymore that Lassiter would not come into the room. Into the foyer. Into the fucking house.

Please, oh Great Virgin Scribe in all your drapey-drapey, if you’ve ever loved me, and I know you didn’t, but still, just don’t let that fallen angel—

Turning his cell phone screen up, he checked the time again. Then he lifted the glass, put it to his lips, opened his throat—and tilted his head back. He took the three inches of vodka on a oner, the burn lighting a fire down his esophagus and into his gut.

It didn’t help with the sweating. He cleared his brow again—

Bing!

V nearly dropped the glass as he jerked the phone up. Opening the single text that had come through, he saw what he hoped to see, what he needed to see.

Just a single period.

.

He took another drink from the glass, catching only the drops that were left. Then he put it aside, wrapped both hands around the granite edge of the bar, and bowed his arms. Bracing his weight, he tightened the muscles of his shoulders, and then went all the way down his spine with the flexing. Heat now, blooming throughout his body.

Behind the fly of his leathers, his sex thickened. Hardened. Pushing off, he wheeled around and stalked through the room. On the way out, his hip banged into one of the pool tables and the pain made his cock pound with its own heartbeat.

In the grand foyer, he crossed over the mosaic depiction of an apple tree in full bloom in total silence, glancing up the red-carpeted stairs to the open doors of Wrath’s study. Off in the distance, he could hear doggen talking in the kitchen and someone was running a DustBuster out there, the high-pitched whine as loud as a concert to him. It was well after Last Meal had been cleaned up, and too early to start prep for First Meal, the downtime typically meant for sleeping for the staff. Nonetheless, Fritz had set up a rotation of skeleton crews so someone was available to the household at all times.

Skirting around the base of the staircase, he went to the hidden door tucked under the great carved-wood and gold-leafed rise. Entering in a code, he was aware that his palm was sweaty as he opened the way under the earth.

He took the steps two at a time, and when he broke out into the underground tunnel to the training center, he nearly ran.

But there were two people coming at him.

Tohr and Xcor were walking side by side, towels looped around the backs of their necks, their huge bodies glistening with sweat. As V approached the half-brothers, he was dimly aware that they were talking to him, telling him Jane was still in the clinic—

Yeah. He knew that.

—asking him how he was, saying they’d had a good workout in the gym.

He put his cell phone in front of his enormous hard-on. “Yeahgoodthanksrightgoodyupokaybye.”

Or something to that effect. He had no clue what was coming out of his mouth and he didn’t care. He just wanted the syllables to make enough sense so that neither of those two fighters delayed him to make sure he wasn’t having a stroke.

When they kept going, and so did he, he took a deep breath.

Maybe his last one of the day.

When he got to the door into the training center, he paused. It was getting harder and harder to keep from orgasming. Every step forward, each shift of his weight, stroked the tight leather over his cock and squeezed his hypersensitive nut sac.

And with the anticipation and the images going through his head, his arousal was on the knife-edge of release.

His hand trembled as he punched in the passcode, and the muffled thunch as the dead bolt retracted made him swallow through a dry mouth.

As he passed through the office’s supply closet, his shoulder caught a box of envelopes and pulled it off the shelf. He left the thing where it fell in a scatter.

On the far side, the little glass-fronted room with its computer and desk was empty and dim, the illumination from the corridor beyond offering a false moonlight.