Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11)(20)
Author: J.R. Ward

"You’re supposed to do reps on the machines – not on the door."

Manny Manello’s voice was as welcome as a steel-toed kick in the ass.

Blay straightened up, and the world went wheeeeee a little – to the point that he had to surreptitiously put his free hand on the jamb just so that the balance issue didn’t show. He also tucked his nearly done drink out of sight

The doc probably wouldn’t think working out while under the influence was a good thing.

"How are you?" Blay asked, even though he didn’t really care – and that wasn’t a commentary on Payne’s hellren. He didn’t give a crap about much at the moment.

Manello’s mouth started to move and Blay passed the time watching the man’s lips form and release syllables. A moment later, a good-bye of some sort was exchanged, and then Blay was alone with the door again.

It seemed like a planker move to just stand there, and he’d told the good doctor he was going in. And besides, there were, what, twenty-five machines in the room? Plus barbells and free weights. Treadmills. StairMasters, ellipticals…plenty to go around.

I’m not in love with Layla.

With a curse, Blay pushed his way in and braced himself for an awkward oh-hey-it’s-you. Except Qhuinn didn’t even notice the arrival. Instead of going with the overhead music, the guy was wearing headphones that went all around his ears, and he’d moved over to the chin-up bar so he was facing away, into the concrete wall.

Blay stayed as far back as possible, hopping on a random machine – pecs. Whatever.

After putting down his glass and adjusting the pin on the stack of weights, he settled onto the padded seat, gripped the double handles, and started pushing out from his chest.

All he had to look at was Qhuinn.

Or maybe that was more because his eyes refused to go anywhere else.

The male was wearing a black wifebeater that put those tremendous shoulders of his on full display…and the muscles along them flexed up hard as he reached the apex of the pull, the ridges and contours those of a fighter…not a lawyer –

Blay stopped himself right there.

It was unfair to the point of nausea to make any comparison like that, ever. After the past year or so, he knew Saxton’s body nearly as well as his own, and the male was beautifully built, so lean and elegant –

Qhuinn ground out another lift, the weight of his heavy lower body straining the strength in those arms and that torso. And, thanks to his exertions, sweat had broken out all over his skin, making him glow under the lights.

The tattoo on the back of his neck shifted as he released and descended to hang from his grip, and then it was up again. And down. And up.

Blay thought about the way the male had looked as they’d turned over the Hummer: powerful, masculine…erotic.

This was not happening.

He was not, in fact, sitting here, eyeing Qhuinn like this –

Images filtered in from years past, turning his brain into a television screen. He saw Qhuinn bending over a human woman who had been laid out ass up on the edge of a flat table, his hips pumping as he f**ked her, his hands locked onto her hips to hold her in place. He hadn’t had a shirt on at the time, and his shoulders had been tight, as they were now.

Hard body being used well.

There were so many pictures like that, with Qhuinn in different positions with different people, male and female. In the beginning, right after their transitions, there had been such a feeling of excitement as the two of them had gone on the hunt together – or rather, Qhuinn had gone trolling and Blay had taken whatever had been brought back. So much sex with so many people – although at that point, Blay had stuck only with the females.

Maybe because he’d known they were safe, that they didn’t "count" in so many ways.

So uncomplicated in the beginning. But sometime along the way, things had started to shift – and he’d begun to realize that as he watched Qhuinn with the randoms, he was picturing himself under that body, receiving what the guy was so good at giving. After a time, it hadn’t been some stranger’s mouth on Qhuinn’s cock; it was his own. And when those orgasms came, and they always did, he was the one taking them in. It was his hands on Qhuinn’s body, and his lips locked hard, and his legs that were spread.

And that had f**ked everything up.

Shit, he could remember staying awake during the day and staring at his ceiling, telling himself that when they were yet again at the club, in those bathrooms, or wherever it went down, he wouldn’t do that anymore. But each time they went out, it was like an addict being offered the precise flavor of pill he needed.

Then there had been those two kisses – the first one down the hall from here, in the clinic’s examination room. And he’d had to beg for it. And then their second up in his bedroom, just before he’d gone out with Saxton for the first time.

He’d had to beg for that, too.

Abruptly, Blay gave up pretending that he was actually pumping iron and put his hands down on his thighs.

He told himself to leave. Just get the f**k off the seat and walk out before Qhuinn moved to the next thing and his cover was blown.

Instead, he found his eyes back on those shoulders and that spine, on the tight waist and tighter ass, on those muscular legs.

Maybe it was the alcohol. The afterburn of that argument in the flatbed. The whole sex-with-Layla thing…

But at the moment, he was sexed up. Hard as stone. Ready for it.

Blay looked down his chest to the front of his loose shorts – and felt like shooting himself in the head.

Oh, Jesus, he needed to get out of here right now.

As Qhuinn continued set after set of pull-ups, his hands were numb, and he felt like his biceps were being peeled from his bones with dull knives – and that was just mindless chatter in comparison to his shoulders. They were the real problem. Someone clearly had come up from behind, put varnish stripper across them, and then buffed them with an industrial sander.

No idea how many reps he’d done. No clue how many miles he’d run. No count of the sit-ups, squats, or lunges.

He just knew he was going to keep going.

Goal: total exhaustion. He wanted to pass out the moment he went upstairs and got horizontal on his bed.

Dropping from the bar, he put his hands on his hips, lowered his head, and breathed heavily. His right shoulder immediately seized up, but that was his dominant side, so he expected it. To loosen the knot of muscles, he swept his arm around in a big circle as he turned –

Qhuinn froze.

On the other side of the blue mats, Blay was on the machine closest to the door, sitting as still as the weights he was not lifting.

The expression on his face was volcanic. But he wasn’t mad.

No, he wasn’t.

He had a hard-on big enough to see from across the room. Maybe across the state.