tingled. "What are you talking about."
"The night the Honor Guard came for me, and I almost died - remember?"
Blay coughed a little, the memory as raw and vivid as something that had happened an hour ago. And yet Qhuinn's voice was even and calm, like he was referencing an evening out at a club or something. "Ah, yeah. I remember."
I gave you CPR at the side of the goddamn road, he thought.
"I went up to the Fade - " Qhuinn frowned. "Are you okay?"
Oh, sure, doing great. "Sorry. Keep going."
"I went up there. I mean, it was like...what you hear about. The white." Qhuinn scrubbed his face again. "So white. Everywhere. There was a door, and I went up to it - I knew if I turned the knob I was going in, and I was never coming out. I reached for the thing...and that's when I saw her. In the door."
"Layla," Blay interjected, feeling like his chest had been stabbed.
"My daughter."
Blay's breath caught. "Your..."
Qhuinn looked over. "She was...blond. Like Layla. But her eyes - " He touched next to his own. " - they were mine. I stopped reaching forward when I saw her - and then suddenly, I was back on the ground at the side of the road. Afterward, I had no clue what it was all about. But then, like, so much later, Layla goes into her needing and comes to me, and everything fell into place. I was like...this is supposed to happen. It felt like fate, you know. I never would have lain with Layla otherwise. I did it only because I knew we were going to have a little girl."
"Jesus."
"I was wrong, though." He rubbed his face a third time. "I was totally fucking wrong - and I really wish I hadn't gone down this path. Biggest regret of my life - well, second-biggest, actually."
Blay had to wonder what the hell could be worse than where the guy was at.
What can I do? Blay wondered to himself.
Qhuinn's eyes searched his face. "Do you really want me to answer that?"
Apparently he'd spoken out loud. "Yeah, I do."
Qhuinn's dagger hand reached out and cupped the side of Blay's jaw. "You sure?"
The vibe instantly shifted. The tragedy was still very much with them, but that powerful sexual undertow came back between one heartbeat and the next.
Qhuinn's stare started to burn, his lids dropping low. "I need...an anchor right now. I don't know how else to explain it."
Blay's body responded instantly, his blood spiking to the boiling point, his cock thickening, growing long.
"Let me kiss you." Qhuinn groaned as he leaned in. "I know I don't deserve it, but please...it's what you can do for me. Let me feel you...."
Qhuinn's mouth brushed his own. Came back for more. Lingered.
"I'll beg for it." More with the caress of those devastating lips. "If that's what it takes. I don't give a fuck, I'll beg...."
Somehow, that wasn't going to be necessary.
Blay allowed his head to get tilted so there was more room to maneuver, Qhuinn's hand on his face both gentle and in command. And then there was more of the mouth-on-mouth, slow, drugging, inexorable.
"Let me inside you again, Blay...."
Chapter Thirty-nine
Assail got home about half an hour before dawn. Parking his Range Rover in the garage, he had to wait until the door went down to get out.
He had always considered himself an intellectual - and not in the glymera sense of the word, where one sat tall with self-importance and pontificated about literature, philosophy, or spiritual matters. It was more that there was little in life he could not apply his reasoning to and understand in its totality.
What in the hell had that woman done at Benloise's?
Clearly, she was a professional, with both the proper equipment and know-how, and a practiced approach to infiltration. He also suspected she'd either gotten plans to the house or had been in there previously. So efficient. So decisive. And he was qualified to judge: He'd followed her the whole time she'd been inside, ghosting through the window she'd opened, sticking to the shadows.
Tracking her from behind.
But this he did not understand: What kind of thief went to the trouble of breaking into a secured house, finding a safe, burning it open, and discovering plenty of portable wealth to lift...but didn't take anything? Because he'd seen full well what she'd had access to; as soon as she'd left the study, he'd hung back, freed the shelving section as she had done, and used