"You keep females in your back pocket?"
"Mind if I use your phone again?"
"Suit yourself."
Blay got up and went into the bathroom, preferring a little privacy because he had no clue how this was going to go.
"You could use the one right here," Saxton called out as he shut the door.
Blay came back out ten minutes later.
"I didn't know eHarmony worked that quickly," Saxton murmured, his eyes remaining shut.
"I have connections."
"Yes, you do."
"We're going to be picked up here at nightfall."
That raised the blinds on those eyes. "By whom? And where are we off to?"
"We're going to take care of you."
Saxton drew in a breath and exhaled on a wheeze. "Coming to the rescue again, Blaylock?"
"Call it a compulsion." On that note, he went over to a chaise longue and lay on it. Pulling a luscious fur throw over his legs, he blew out the candle next to himself and got comfortable.
"Blaylock?"
God, that voice. So low and quiet in the dim light.
"Yes."
"You're turning me into a poor host." There was a slight hitch of breath. "That chaise is no place for you to sleep."
"I'll be fine."
There was a silence. "You won't be cheating on him if you join me in bed. I'm in no condition to take advantage of your virtue, and even if I were, I respect you enough not to put you in an awkward position. Besides, I could use the body heat--I can't seem to get warm enough."
Blay wished like hell he had a cigarette. "I wouldn't be cheating on him even if... something happened between you and me. There's nothing there. Friends, just friends."
Which was the reason this situation with Saxton was so damned weird. Blay was used to being in front of that closed door, the one that kept him out and away from what he wanted. Saxton, however, offered an archway, something he could walk through easily... and the room on the other side was gorgeous.
Blay held out for about a minute and a half. Then, feeling as if he were moving in slow motion, he shifted the white fur to the side and stood up.
As he crossed the room, Saxton made space for him, lifting up the sheets and duvet. Blay hesitated.
"I don't bite," Saxton whispered darkly. "Unless you ask."
Blay slipped in between all that satin... and got an immediate idea why silk bathrobes were the way to go. Smooth, so smooth.
Something more naked than naked.
Saxton turned on his side to face Blay, but then moaned... in pain. "Damn it."
As the male eased over onto his back again, Blay found himself following and putting his arm over Saxton's head. When the male leaned upward, Blay made a pillow of his biceps and Saxton took full advantage, nestling in.
The candles extinguished one by one except for the votive in the bathroom.
Saxton shivered and Blay moved closer, only to frown.
"God, you are cold." Drawing the male into his arms, he held Saxton and willed his body heat into the guy.
They lay together for the longest time... and Blay found himself stroking that thick, blond, perfect hair. It felt good... soft, springy at the ends.
Smelled like spices.
"That feels divine," Saxton murmured.
Blay closed his eyes and breathed deep. "I agree."
Chapter Fifty
"What the hell are you two doing here?" Xhex hissed as she lowered her dagger.
Trez's expression gave her a big-ass helping of well, duh. "Rehv called us."
Characteristically, iAm stayed quiet at his brother's side; he just nodded and crossed his arms over his chest, doing an excellent impression of an oak tree that was going nowhere. And as the twin Shadows stared down at her, they were shielding themselves, revealing their bodies and voices only to her.
For a moment, she regretted their discretion. Hard to knee the busy- bodies in the balls when they were in their ghosting form.
"No hugs?" Trez murmured while he searched her face. "Been a lifetime since we saw you."
Answering him back on a frequency the humans and any lessers wouldn't be able to hear, she muttered, "I'm not a hugger."
Except then she cursed and wrapped her arms around the two steak- heads anyway. The Shadows were notoriously private with their emotions and harder to infiltrate than humans or even vampires, but she could feel their pain over what she had been through.
As she went to pull back, Trez tightened his hold and shuddered. "I'm... Jesus Christ, Xhex... we didn't think we were ever going to see you again--"
She shook her head. "Stop. Please. There's never a good time for that and here is certainly not the place. I love you both, okay, and I'm tight. So let's drop it."
Well, sort of tight. As long as she didn't think about John stuck back at that mansion, no doubt going insane. Thanks to her.
Ah, how history repeated itself.
"I'll stop before we get morbid." Trez smiled, his fangs showing bright white against his ebony face. "We're just glad you're all right."
"Stipulated. Or I wouldn't be here."
"Not sure about that," he said under his breath as he and his brother looked through the window. "Wow. Someone had fun in there."
A stiff breeze whiffled through, bringing a fresh blast of baby powder from a new direction, and all three of their heads turned.
Out on the dirt lane in front of the house, a car rolled by that had no business anywhere near cornfields. The thing was all Fast & Furious, a Honda Civic that had been to the automotive plastic surgeon's and gotten a Play-boy makeover: With a whale tail and an air dam that left about a three- inch ground clearance as well as a paint job that was gray and pink and a retina-burning yellow, it was like a Midwestern girl who'd fallen into p**n .
And what do you know... the lesser behind the wheel had an expression that didn't match the juice he was driving. Unless someone had just pissed in his gas tank.
"I will bet my forties that's the new Fore-lesser," Xhex said. "No way Lash would allow a second in command that kind of ride. I spent four weeks with that f**ker and everything was all about him."
"Switch at the top." Trez nodded. "Happens a lot with them."
"You've got to follow that car," she said. "Quick, get on him--"
"Can't leave you. Orders from the boss."
"Are you f**king kidding me?" Xhex looked from the Civic to the crime scene, then back to the departing whale tail. "Go! We need to track him--"
"Nope. Unless you want to... and then we'll hit it with you, right, iAm."
As the other Shadow nodded once, Xhex felt like punching the aluminum siding she'd been leaning against. "This is f**king ridiculous."
"Hardly. You're waiting for Lash to show up here and I know you're not going to want to just talk to him. So no way we're leaving you--and don't bother hitting me with the you're- not-the-boss-of-me shit. I have selective deafness." iAm actually spoke up. "He really does."
Xhex locked eyes on the license plate of that ridiculous Honda, thinking, Oh, for f**k's sake... Then again, if the two Shadows weren't here, she would have stayed put; just taken the numbers down and stayed right where she was. She could always trace them later.
"Make yourself useful," she snapped. "And give me your cell phone."
"You calling in a pizza? I'm hungry." Trez flipped her his BlackBerry. "I like a lot of meat on mine. My brother prefers the cheese."
Xhex called Rehv out of contacts and hit him up because it was the fastest way to get to the Brothers. When voice mail kicked in, she left the specs and the tag on that car and asked for Vishous to track them.
Then she hung up and fired the phone back to Trez.
"No Domino's then?" he muttered. "They deliver, you know."
Swallowing a curse, she frowned and remembered that V had given her a phone. Shit... she was not as sharp as she should be in this situation--
"And another department is heard from..." iAm said.
Her eyes shot to the road as an unmarked came to a stop in front of the house. The homicide detective who got out was someone she knew. Jose de la Cruz.
At least the humans had sent in a good man. Then again, maybe that kind of competence wasn't great news. The less involvement of that other race in a situation like this, the better, and de la Cruz had the instincts and follow-through of a bloodhound.