a lamp, revealing the light beneath, her clothes acting as frail barriers to that which was streaming from her.
In the illumination, Payne's face was harsh, as if there were a great cost to her in transferring the wondrous healing to another. And Layla would have moved away, stopped this, if she could have - because the other female began to look positively haggard. There was no way to break the connection, however; she had no control of her limbs, no way of even speaking.
It seemed to last forever, the vital communion between them.
When Payne finally jerked back, breaking the link, she slumped off the bed, landing in a heap on the floor.
Layla opened her mouth to shout. Tried to reach for her savior. Strained against her body's still-glowing deadweight.
But there was naught she could do.
The last thing that registered before she lost consciousness was her concern for the other female. And then all went dark.
Chapter Forty-four
Qhuinn woke up with a hard-on.
He lay on his back, his hips moving on their own, the rolling motion stroking that erection against the weight of the duvet and the sheets. For a moment, as he lingered in that half-awake stage before true consciousness arrived, he imagined it was Blay creating the friction, the male's palms sliding up and down...in a preamble to some mouth action.
It was when he reached out to bury his fingers in that red hair that he realized he was alone: His hands found only sheets.
In a fit of hope-springs-eternal, he threw out an arm, patting the space next to him, ready to find that warm, male body.
Just more sheets. That were cold.
"Fuck," he breathed.
Opening his eyes, the reality of where he was hit hard and deflated his arousal. In spite of the hookups, those two amazing, pounding sessions, Blay was right now, at this very moment, waking up with Saxton.
Probably having sex with the guy.
Oh, God, he was going to throw the hell up.
The idea that Blay was touching another, riding another, licking and stroking another - his fucking cousin, as a matter of fact - was nearly as unbearable as the Layla shit. The fact of the matter was, courtesy of what had gone down, any attraction Qhuinn had for the guy had been magnified instead of diminished.
Great. Another round of good news.
It was with absolutely no enthusiasm whatsoever that Qhuinn dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom. He didn't want to turn the light on, had no interest in seeing that he looked like dog shit, but shaving with nothing save touch to go by was not the brightest idea.
As he flicked the switch, he blinked hard, a headache starting to pound right behind both his eyes. No doubt he needed to eat again, but for fuck's sake, his body's relentless demands were getting him down.
Starting the water in the sink, he picked up his Edge shaving gel and filled his palm with a little swirl. As he rubbed his hands together to puff the stuff up, he thought about his cousin. He had a feeling, although he didn't know it for certain, that Saxton would use an old-fashioned brush to suds his jaw and cheeks up. And no Gillette razors for him. Probably had a barber's thing with a mother-of-pearl handle.
Qhuinn's father had had one of those. And his brother had been given one with initials on it after his transition.
Along with that signet ring.
Well, good for them. Besides, given that those two were both dead, it wasn't like they were shaving anymore.
When his face was covered with white, just like the landscape outside, he picked up his regular, pedestrian Mach 3 with its disposable head....
For no apparent reason, he thought maybe he should put a new one on.
Yeah, like a fresh, super-sharp, clean one.
Qhuinn rolled his eyes at himself. Nothing like having your self-worth wrapped up in three little blades and a moisturizing strip. Real fucking logical, that one.
Self-administered ass slap aside, he started rummaging through the drawers under the counters, pulling them out, inventorying all manner of bath and beauty crap that he never used, never looked at.
Pulling out the last drawer, the one closest to the floor, he stopped. Frowned. Bent down.
There was a little black velvet box in there, the kind of thing you put jewelry in. Except he didn't own any, and certainly not from Reinhardt's, that highbrow place downtown. As no one else stayed in his room, he wondered if maybe it had been there since he'd moved