Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11)(74)
Author: J.R. Ward

You didn’t downshift from being lovers for nearly a year to doing the pally-pally thing in the matter of a day or two.

You could, however, start forging a new path.

And put one foot after the other on it.

Saxton was always going to have a place in his heart. The relationship they’d shared had been the first one he’d had – not just with a male, but with anyone. And there had been a lot of good times, things he would carry with him as memories that were worth the brain space.

"Have you seen the back gardens?" Saxton asked as he offered the bread.

Blay broke off a piece and then passed the butter plate over as Saxton took a section for himself.

"They’re bad, aren’t they."

"Remind me never to attempt to weed with a Cessna."

"You don’t garden."

"Well, if I ever do, then." Saxton poured some wine in his glass. "Vino?"

"Please."

And that was how it went. All the way from the stew through to the peach cobbler that miraculously appeared before them thanks to Fritz’s perfect timing. When the last bite had been taken and the final napkin swipe made, Blay leaned back against the built-in bench’s cushions and took a deep breath.

Which was about so much more than just a filled stomach.

"Well," Saxton said, as he laid down his napkin beside his dessert plate, "I do believe I’m finally going to take that bath I talked about nights ago."

Blay opened his mouth to point out that the salts the male preferred were still in his bathroom. He’d seen them in the cupboard when he’d taken his backup shaving cream out at nightfall.

Except…he wasn’t sure he should mention it. What if Saxton thought he was asking the male to come and bathe in his suite? Was it too much of a reminder of how things had changed – and why? What if –

"I have this new oil treatment I’m dying to try," Saxton said as he slid out his side of the bench. "It finally arrived from overseas in today’s mail. I’ve been waiting for ages."

"Sounds awesome."

"I’m looking forward to it." Saxton resettled his jacket on his shoulders, pulled his cuffs into place, and then lifted his hand in a wave, striding out without any sign of complication or strain on his face.

Which was helpful, actually.

Folding his own napkin up, he placed it beside his plate, and as he scooted free of the table, he stretched his arms over his head and bent backward, his spine cracking in a good way.

The tension in him returned as soon as he stepped into the foyer again.

What the hell was going on with Layla?

Damn it, it wasn’t like he could call Qhuinn. The drama wasn’t his own, or anything he was connected to: When it came to that pregnancy, he was no different from the others in the house who had also seen and heard the show and were no doubt just as worried as he was – but had no right to emergent updates.

Too bad his now-full gut didn’t buy that. The thought of Qhuinn losing the young was enough to make him studiously consider the locations of the bathrooms. Just in case an evac order was issued by the back of his throat.

In the end, he found himself upstairs in the second-floor sitting room pacing around. From that vantage point, it was no problem to hear the vestibule door, and yet it wasn’t like he was waiting out in the open –

The double doors of Wrath’s study were pushed wide, and John Matthew emerged – from the king’s sanctum.

Immediately, Blay strode across the sitting room, ready to see if maybe the guy had heard anything – but he stopped as he got a gander at John’s expression.

Deep in thought. Like he’d received personal news of the disturbing variety.

Blay hung back as his buddy went off in the opposite direction, going down the hall of statues, no doubt to disappear into his room.

Looked like things were afoot in other people’s lives, too.

Great.

With a soft curse, Blay left his friend be and resumed his own useless walking…and waiting.

Far to the south, in the town of West Point, Sola was prepared to enter Ricardo Benloise’s house on the second floor, through the window at the end of the main hallway. It had been months since she had been inside, but she was banking on the fact that the security contact she had carefully manipulated was still her friend.

There were two keys to successfully breaking into any house, building, hotel or facility: planning and speed.

She had both.

Hanging from the wire she’d thrown onto the roof, she reached into the inside pocket of her parka, pulled out a device, and held it to the right corner of the double-hung window. Initiating the signal, she waited, staring at the tiny red light that glowed on the screen facing her. If for some reason it didn’t change, she was going to have to enter through one of the dormers that faced the side yard – which was going to be a pain in the ass –

The light went green without a sound, and she smiled as she got out more tools.

Taking a suction cup, she pushed it into the center of the pane immediately below the latch, and then made a little do-si-do around the thing with her glass cutter. A quick push inward, and the space to fit her arm was created.

After letting the glass circle fall gently to the Oriental runner inside, she snaked her hand up and around, freed the brass-on-brass contraption that kept the window locked, and slid the sash up.

Warm air rushed to greet her, as if the house were happy to have her back.

Before going in, she looked down. Glanced toward the drive. Leaned outward to see what she could of the back gardens.

It felt like somebody was watching her…not so much when she’d been driving into town, but as soon as she’d parked her car and gotten on her skis. There was no one around, however – not that she’d been able to see, at any rate – and whereas awareness was mission critical in this line of work, paranoia was a dangerous waste of time.

So she needed to cut this shit.

Getting back in the game, she reached up with her gloved hands and pulled her ass and legs over and through the window. At the same time, she loosened the tension on the wire so there was slack to let her body transition into the house. She landed without a sound, thanks not only to the rug that ran down the long corridor, but to her soft-soled shoes.

Silence was another important criterion when it came to doing a job successfully.

She stopped where she was for a brief moment. No sounds in the house – but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. She was fairly certain that Benloise’s alarm was silent, and very clear that the signal didn’t go to the local or even state police: He liked to handle things privately. And God knew, with the kind of muscle he employed, there was plenty of force to go around.

Fortunately, however, she was good at her job, and Benloise and his goons wouldn’t be home until just before the sun came up – he lived the life of a vampire, after all.