Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11)(147)
Author: J.R. Ward

"So it’s historic." Blay went to take another cigarette out of his pack, and stopped himself. "A real first."

"Been a lot firsts around here lately," Qhuinn said with an edge.

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. It really isn’t relevant."

Christ, Blay thought, he shouldn’t have done this. "Can you look at me? I mean, would it f**king kill you to look at me?"

Those mismatched eyes shot around. "Oh, I saw you, all right. Guess your man’s home. You gonna tell him you f**ked me while he was gone? Or you gonna keep that a dirty little secret. Yeah, shhhhhhh, don’t tell my cousin."

Blay gritted his teeth. "You sanctimonious son of a bitch."

"Excuse me, I’m not the one with a boyfriend – "

"You are actually going to stand here and pretend you were all out in the open about us? Like when Vishous came out of that room" – he jabbed his forefinger across the hall – "you didn’t jump up like your ass was on fire? You want to pretend that you were all proud that you were f**king a guy?"

Qhuinn seemed momentarily stunned. "You think that was why? And not, oh, lemme think, trying to respect the fact that you were cheating on the love of your life!"

By this point, they were both jacked forward on their hips, their voices careening up and down the corridor.

"Oh, bullshit." Blay slashed his hand through the air. "That is such total bullshit! See, this has always been your problem. You’ve never wanted to come out – "

"Come out? Like I’m g*y?!"

"You f**k men! What the good goddamn do you think it means!"

"That is you – you f**k guys. You don’t like women and females – "

"You have never been able to accept who you are," Blay bellowed, "because you’re afraid of what people think! The great iconoclast, Mr. Pierced, crippled by his f**king family! The truth is, you’re a pu**y and you always have been!"

Qhuinn’s expression was one of absolute fury, to the point that Blay was ready to get hit – and hell, he wanted to have a punch thrown at him just so he could have the pleasure of corking the guy back.

"Let’s get this straight," Qhuinn barked. "You keep your shit on your side of the aisle. And that includes my cousin and the fact that you f**ked around on him."

Blay threw up his hands and had to pace before he jumped out of his own skin. "I just can’t stand this anymore. I can’t take this with you again. I feel like I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with your shit – "

"If I’m g*y, why are you the only male I’ve ever been with!"

Blay stopped dead and just stared over at the guy, images of all those men in bathrooms filtering through his brain. For the love of all that was holy, he remembered each and every one of them, even though Qhuinn no doubt didn’t. Their faces. Their bodies. Their orgasms.

All getting what he’d been desperate for, and denied.

"How dare you," he said. "How f**king dare you. Or do you think I don’t know your sexual history? I had to watch it for far longer than I cared for. Frankly, it wasn’t that interesting – and neither are you."

As Qhuinn blanched, Blay started to shake his head. "I’m so done. I’m so over this – the fact that you can’t accept yourself is going to f**k up what’s left of your life, but that’s your issue, not mine."

Qhuinn cursed long and low. "I never thought I’d say this…but you don’t know me."

"I don’t know you? I think the shoe’s on the other foot, ass**le. You don’t know yourself."

At that, he expected some kind of explosion, some theatrical, over-the-top, light-up-the-world emotion to roll out of the guy.

He didn’t get it.

Qhuinn just set his shoulders, leveled his chin, and spoke with control. "I’ve spent the last year trying to figure out who I am, dropping the act, getting clean – "

"Then I say you’ve wasted three hundred and sixty-five nights. But like everything about this, that’s on you."

With a vicious curse, Blay turned and strode away – and he didn’t look back. No reason to. There wasn’t anyone in the corridor he wanted to see.

Man, if the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then he’d lost his marbles years ago. For his mental health, his emotional well-being, and his very life, he needed to put this all –

Qhuinn hauled him around by the arm, the guy’s furious face shoving into his own. "Don’t you walk away from me like that."

Blay felt a wave of exhaustion tackle him. "Why. Because you have something else to say? Some insight into yourself that’s supposed to put the puzzle pieces together in a way that fits? Some big confession that’s going to right the ship and make everything sunset-on-the-beach perfect? You don’t have that kind of vocabulary, and I’m not that naive anymore."

"I want you to remember something," Qhuinn growled. "I tried to make this work between us. I gave us a shot."

Blay’s mouth dropped open. "You gave us a shot? Are you f**king kidding me? You think having sex with me as a way to get back at your cousin is a relationship? You think a couple of sessions in secret is some kind of love affair?"

"It was all I had to work with." Those mismatched eyes raked around Blay’s face. "I’m not saying it was a grand romance, but I showed up because I wanted to be with you any way I could."

"Well, congratulations. And now that we’ve both sampled the goods, I can solidly say that you and I are not meant to be together." As Qhuinn started cursing up a storm, Blay shoved a hand into his hair and wanted to rip the shit out of his head. "Listen, if it helps you sleep during the day – and I can’t believe this is really going to bother you for longer than a night – tell yourself you did what you could, but it didn’t work out. Myself? I prefer reality. What happened between you and me is exactly what you’ve done with all the other randoms you’ve been with. Sex – just sex. And now we’re done."

Qhuinn’s eyes burned. "You’ve got me wrong on this."

"Then you’re delusional as well as in denial."

"People can change. I’m not like that anymore, and certainly not with you."

God…it was a sad relief to feel nothing as those words were spoken to him. "You know…there was a time when I would have fallen to your feet to hear something like that," he murmured. "But now…all I see is you jumping up from the floor the second someone came out a door and saw us together. You say that reaction is because of Saxton’s and my relationship? Fine. But I’m really sure…no, I’m totally sure…that if you scratch the surface on that, you’re going to discover it had much more to do with you rather than your cousin. You’ve hated yourself for so many years, I don’t think it’s possible for you to really love anybody or have any sense of who you are. I hope you figure it out sometime, but I’m not going to be part of that Lewis and Clark – I promise you."